Death to Beige Catholicism
There is a certain type of Catholicism that has existed for the last 75 years or so.
It was once the only acceptable form of Catholicism.
It is a politically correct Catholicism.
It is polite Catholicism.
It’s the kind of Catholicism that demands nothing of you. The kind that conforms to whatever the world considers popular and moral and right and just at the time.
It’s really no Catholicism at all.
Beige Catholicism
To call it a heresy is to understate its depravity. It would imply that it somehow derives its principles from Catholicism. This error does not derive any principle from Catholicism whatsoever.
Its first principle is non serviam — I will not serve. Its first principle is the self.
One would think that an evil this great would be scary. You’d think that an error this profound would be offensive, blasphemous. But it’s not. It’s beige. It’s boring. It’s dusty. It’s grandma’s basement with plastic-covered sofas that hasn’t been uncovered since the Nixon administration. It’s two-year-old shortbread cookies and chalky powdered lemonade in the parish hall. It’s felt banners and Gather Us In.
It’s disgusting.
Most of the culturally influential institutions of the Church had been captured by this beige Catholicism long ago. Catholic universities, hospitals, political groups, etc. They all decided decades ago to only preach the parts of Catholicism deemed socially acceptable: care for the poor and a vague love for neighbor.
But it’s starting to lose its foothold
Young people are rediscovering real Catholicism, one that demands conversion and repentance (and care for the poor btw.)
Oh No! Converts!
This kind of Catholicism is embodied perhaps best by men like Father Thomas Reese, SJ, the political commentator and former editor of America magazine.
Reese spends most of his time undermining Church teaching, advocating for women’s ordination, lay election of bishops, and that we surrender the gay marriage fight.
He posted an article over the weekend lamenting the number of converts coming into the Church at Easter. The article says these men and women are coming in for “the wrong reasons.” Namely because they listened to conservative podcasters and “trad wife” influencers who preach “traditionalist Catholicism at odds with Church teaching.”
Oh, how sad!
So many people are coming into the Church because they think it’s “based” or because they think it’s conservative. They watched podcasts posted by Catholics with whom he disagrees. They voted for political candidates that he doesn’t like. That must mean they’re converting for the wrong reasons. That must mean they are ”using the Church as a tool for their political ends!”
Get my book, Save Your Parish.
Using the Church as a Political Tool
Often, an accusation is a confession.
I believe we are in the presence of such a confession right now.
Men like Father Thomas Reese use the Church as a tool for their political ends.
They are not first and foremost Catholics. They are first and foremost liberals — secular humanists, vague, beige Catholics. As we saw above, his writing is in lock-step with left-wing politics. Reese is a lifelong apologist and campaigner for Democrat candidates. In 2009, he defended Barack Obama with a sycophancy Donald Trump could only dream of from his Catholic followers.
To him, Catholicism is secondary to political ends. It’s hollow, a mere vessel for whatever his party wants.
These men are Catholic insofar as it agrees with them. Anyone who disagrees is not allowed in. They would never espouse a Catholicism that demands they change or repent, only their opponents must do that. They would never espouse a Catholicism that demands one love their enemies. Only one that demands their enemies love them.
That is his real problem with the converts, not that they’re converting for the wrong reasons, but that they’re not converting for his reasons.
They are converting because they actually believe it.
And he is terrified.
And he should be.
The Church is Young and Faithful
Younger Catholics are more committed and more engaged. These Catholics willing to sell out the Church for political influence are getting older. By Reese’s own admission, this wave of converts is more “traditional” (translation: faithful to Church teaching).
Beige Catholicism is dying both literally and figuratively. God has numbered its days. It will be overtaken. It will die with its mostly geriatric disciples. And it will be forgotten.
We remember the names of heretics like Arius and Nestorius because their theological systems were intelligible within the Christian worldview. Their errors were serious enough to wrestle with, coherent enough to name.
Beige Catholicism will not be the same. We will not remember these men. This heresy will not be worth naming in any serious academic way. It will be a hiccup — a bad dream we wake up from, one that in the moment felt terrifying but that we later laugh at for its absurdity. The men who follow it won’t even be worth a footnote in the most obscure history textbook on Christianity.
It will be overtaken by Catholic men and women who actually believe this stuff.
The Church has plenty of room
Don’t mistake my meaning here.
This wave of converts is indeed politically right-wing like me. But my excitement here is not “the triumph of the right over the left.” I am fully aware, and I embrace the fact, that men and women are converting to Catholicism who do not agree with me politically.
They disagree with me on economics, on immigration, on foreign wars, on the death penalty, etc. I think they’re wrong. I’m glad they’re here.
That is the difference between beige Catholicism and real Catholicism.
Real Catholicism has room for Montagues and Capulets, for Guelphs and Ghibellines, for Pharisees and Sadducees. Real Catholicism has room for people who disagree with each other. We may doubt each other’s intelligence but never each other’s faith.
And that is what beige Catholics like Father Thomas Reese will never understand.
The Catholic Church is not a political tool. It is the outpost of the Kingdom of God on earth. It is the Body of Christ that can incorporate and transform every person into Him.
Get bulk copies of my new book, Save Your Parish, for $12/copy.
https://saveyourparish.com/bulk
Sometimes Catholic Pat says things with which I do not agree.
Today is not one of those days.