Author: “Catholic Church Is Not For Respectable People”

I saw this at The Telegraph Sunday night:

The Catholic Church “is not an institution for respectable people”, according to Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning author.

Mantel was raised a Roman Catholic and educated at convent school.

However, the 59-year-old writer said child abuse scandals involving Roman Catholic priests demonstrated the “cruelty” and “hypocrisy” of the church.

Asked if she would call for a priest on her deathbed, Mantel replied: “No. I might very well call for a Church of England vicar, but I would not call for a Catholic priest.

“I’m one of nature’s Protestants. I should never have been brought up as a Catholic. I think that nowadays the Catholic Church is not an institution for respectable people.”

She said of the paedophilia scandals: “The fact that it could happen, the extent of the denial, the cover-up, the hypocrisy, the cruelty… When I was a child I wondered why priests and nuns were not nicer people. I thought that they were amongst the worst people I knew.

“But in a cold-blooded way, as a writer I’ve had full value from Catholicism – I can say that.

“It’s a great training in doubleness – this looks like bread but it is actually a man’s body, this looks like wine but it’s actually blood. And that’s very much a writer’s way of thinking – she comes in and says good morning, but she means damn you to hell.”

When I first read it, I was a bit offended.  Then, after giving the article more thought, I came to a different conclusion.

She’s absolutely right.  I’m totally cool with her claim.

The Church is chock full of non-respectable types.  In fact, the only real respectable members are the saints in heaven, if you get right down to it.  Yes, the Church contains her fair share of abusers and users, at all levels cleric and laic.  She welcomes the weak, yet still provides for the powerful.  She is the paragon of paradox – because She dispenses grace with equal abandon to all those who seek it – earnestly or not.  She turns away none, and leaves the sorting out to her bridegroom.  It’s what mothers tend to do.  What mother stops loving even her most intractable child?  Such love comes at the steep price of a broken heart – but the love still remains.

The Church is a haven for hypocrites and a refuge for the recalcitrant.  Her doors are flung wide for the forlorn and forsaken, and She accepts the unacceptable.  She rejoices over the return of her prodigal children, ever seeking and waiting with patience and hope.  The Church looks after the diseased and the downtrodden, and seeks out the lost and the lonely.  Christ hung out with lepers, prostitutes and tax collectors – which the respectable folks in His day looked down upon – so what’s good for the bridegroom is also good for the bride.  What respectable person would lower themselves to do the things the Church does, to look after the lowest as She does?  Such things are below respectable people.  They’d rather claim the moral high ground, and not be associated with such “cruelty” and “hypocrisy”.

However, the Church would accept the respectable types – because it’s in her nature.  God desires that all men be saved, so the Church desires it as well.  Heck, She rarely throws out the malcontents and the malefactors, so having the respectable as part of the crowd would be nothing special.

If you’re part of the Catholic Church, then you’re not respectable.  I’m totally in the right place.  Which is why it’s okay for me to call this Hilary Mantel woman a complete and total bit—-ter person.  I’m not respectable – certainly not in the eyes of the world – because I’m Catholic.  The world has neither love nor respect for the Catholic Church.  But more than that, I’m not respectable because of the wide gulf between my fallen nature and God’s innate perfection and goodness.  He is perfection and goodness.  Why a transcendent being such as God the Father loves a miserable imperfect creature such as me, and has mercy on me despite my sinfulness…it’s beyond my ability to comprehend.  That’s the basis for our not being respectable – our sinfulness – and yet it’s why Christ came into the world.

It’s too bad some consider themselves too respectable to remain a member of the Church.  They stand at the foot of their own altar and proudly declare their gratitude for not being like “those people”.  If that what it means to be respectable, I’ll hang with the losers.  Jesus came to save everyone, but He really likes us losers.

A Tale Of Two Films

The start of the summer movie season is less than a month away – traditionally Memorial Day weekend – so it makes sense that now, in early May, to mention a thing or two about upcoming films.

(NB – this ain’t about The Avengers, which opens Friday 5/4.  I’m geeked.  And check out Steve Greydanus’ review to get his excited take on it.)

This year, there are two outwardly Catholic films coming to the theatres this year (there might be more than two, but there are at least these two).  One is called “For Greater Glory” (opens in June), the other is called “The Perfect Family” (opens 5/4).  Synopses and trailers follow:

For Greater Glory tells the story of the Mexican government’s attempt to stamp out the Catholic Church under President Calles in the mid 1920′s.  In the uprising that followed, a civil war erupted in which 90,000 people were killed.  Extreme anti-clerical provisions, that had been put in place back in 1917, were suddenly being enforced, to brutal and violent ends.  In response, the Catholic Church organized a boycott, which led the government to crack down even further, and war broke out as a result. The film is led by a rather impressive cast:  Andy Garcia, Peter O’Toole, Ruben Blades and Eva Longoria.

The other movie, The Perfect Family, is…well, let’s see how Paul Wilson at Newsbusters describes it:

The plot of “The Perfect Family” is predictable and formulaic. A “devout Catholic” woman, played by Kathleen Turner, is nominated for the “Catholic Woman of the Year” award by her parish. But her “non-traditional”family – a husband who is a recovering alcoholic, a lesbian daughter about to get married to another woman, and a son having an affair – hinders her from attaining that award, which she covets.

Throughout the movie, Turner’s character attempts to “clean up” her family in order to win that award and undercut a rival at the parish. At the end of the movie, she comes to “accept” her family for who they are.

The implication of the movie is obvious: Catholics who dare to follow the teachings of the Church are brainwashed fools who care nothing for the happiness of others.

Yep -typical unoriginal Hollywood movies, with the standard boilerplate insults against faithful Catholics, who are portrayed as petty and small-minded, while offering heart-warming sympathy towards those who flip off the Church.  As Wilson states, the movie has a predictable conclusion as well – that Turner’s character realizes how wrong she was in trying to change her family.  Which is a truism – we don’t have the power to change anyone.  But the apparent message is:  Catholics don’t love people for who they are; they only judge people on what they do.  Well, some individual Catholics do act that way, but it’s not what the Church teaches.  It’s not an either/or situation.  As Catholics, we are called to love everyone precisely because of who they are – made in the image and likeness of God – and we are called to, yes, judge actions as either being sinful or not.  That doesn’t give us license to act like jerks, or become self-righteous – because all of us are sinners.  I suspect Turner’s character will be portrayed as being perfect and without sin – after all, she’s been nominated as Catholic Of The Year! -  except by movie’s end, she’ll have an epiphany that her Big Sin was the sin of intolerance.

I have a a feeling this movie’s message is ‘If you don’t accept the way I live my life or the choices I’ve made, then you don’t love me and you’re a hater’.  But that’s not the message of the Catholic Church.  So not only does the movie miss the mark on portraying faithful Catholics accurately – sinners who struggle but keep getting back up and not caricatures of nosy busybodies who have to control everything and everybody (sad to say that there are some people like that – ever go into a Catholic blog combox at some places?) – but it purposely errs on Church teaching as well.  But then again, anyone going to a Hollywood movie for catechesis might not be all that interested in what the Church has to say anyway.

With all that being said, I don’t have to tell you which one I’ll be spending my hard earned money on.

And I predict quite confidently that For Greater Glory will do better at the box office.  Things tend to work out that way…

Sacrilegious Hyundai Ad Mocks Catholic Mass

Latest example of the Last Acceptable Prejudice -

Isn’t that nice? Making fun of three Catholics sacraments at once – Marriage, the Eucharist and the priesthood. Serving pizza at the communion rail? A (liturgical) dancing referee, boogieing down in the sanctuary? Wow, what will those edgy ground-breaking Madison Ave types think of next, mocking a Muslim hajj?

Somehow, I seriously doubt it.

And if some Argentinian soccer fans treat their sport as a “religion”, then why does it have to be the Catholic faith that gets mocked? Why not make something up instead? Perhaps that takes too much effort…

*UPDATE* – Fr. Z has the news that Hyundai has pulled the ad. Deo Gratias!

s/s to Pundit and Pundette – where she has links to Hyundai and ABC Sports if you desire to contact them.