Freedom, Corned Beef and Cabbage, and Me

I like being a Catholic. I also like being an American.

America, Love It and Improve It

I was born in America, and haven't always been thrilled about what the local, county, state, and federal governments have been up to: but like I've said before, there's a lot more to America than the government. And that's almost another topic.

I haven't heard the old "America: Love it or Leave it" slogan in quite a while. The attitude persists, though: and I think encourages another set of folks to assume that patriotism, like religion, is a psychiatric disorder. I think some of the trouble comes from confusing "chauvinist" and "patriot:"

• Chauvinist
  • "A person with a prejudiced belief in the superiority of his or her own kind"
  • "An extreme bellicose nationalist">An extreme bellicose nationalist"
    (Princeton's WordNet)
• Patriot
  • "One who loves and defends his or her country"
    (Princeton's Wordnet)

I've decided that I'm a patriot, but not a chauvinist, and posted about that in another blog:

• "Pentagon Equates (Violent) Protest to Terrorism: Leaves Out Critical Explanation"
  (June 18, 2009)
  Particularly
  • An American Patriot Who's Okay With Turbans, NASCAR, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum

I think America is a pretty good place to live: but I know that this country isn't perfect. Since I'm a practicing Catholic, I've got a mandate to make society better. We all do. (Catechism, 1928-1942) Which is part of why I write these posts. I've been over this sort of thing before:

• "Hope, Joy, and Working for a Better World"
  (September 13, 2011)

The Catholic Church in America

I've made this point before:

• "It's the Catholic Church in America; Not the American Catholic Church"
  (November 9, 2010)

I suspect that there's still an impression in some circles that the Catholic Church isn't American. In a way, they're right.

The Catholic Church has been around for a couple of millennia. The United States of America will have it's 300th birthday in a little over 64 years. The Catholic Church is literally universal, the United States doesn't even cover the north half of the western hemisphere of Earth.

Of the world's 7,000,000,000 or so living citizens, about 1,170,100,000 are Catholics. About 313,200,000 are Americans. Of the third-of-a-billion Americans, around 74,850,000 are Catholic. That's a little under one quarter of all Americans.¹

The Catholic Church is huge, it's ancient: and most Catholics are "foreigners." No wonder some of America's WASPish set got jittery when we started moving in.

'There Goes the Neighborhood?'

One reason I don't see immigration as a problem in America is that my ancestors are immigrants. I don't think we've hurt America by living here. We've even contributed a bit to America's culture.

I don't think America's going to suffer when folks who never heard of lefse or corned beef and cabbage before, settle down and start adding their ideas to America's 'potluck' culture. Actually, I'd be worried if folks with fresh ideas and enthusiasm stopped trying to get in.

Freedom

American culture and the Catholic Church were in the news late this week:

"Pope: Religious freedom most American of freedoms"
Vatican Radio, via NEWS.VA (January 19, 2012)

"The attempts of current cultural trends to curtail the right to religious freedom is a threat not only to 'Christian faith, but also to humanity itself', said Pope Benedict XVI Thursday....

"...The Holy Father's speech was given largely to reflections on what he described as the 'most American of freedoms, the freedom of religion' and how it must be defended and promoted in today's society. He said at the heart of every religion and culture is the need for moral good, but that today that moral good is being seriously eroded...."

There's a longer excerpt of the NEWS.VA article at the end of this post²

I'm a practicing Catholic, so I have to support religious freedom. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2104-2109) For everybody. (Catechism, 2106) I posted some of my reactions to the Pope's statements about religious freedom on Friday.

News, 'Fairness,' and Getting a Grip

I live in America, so I noticed that item about what the Pope said to some American bishops. It's sort of like seeing the name of your home town in a national magazine.

Maybe there's a disproportionate amount of news involving the United States on the Vatican's NEWS.VA English-language home page. But America is a fairly important part of the English-speaking world.

Being 'fair' by giving equal weight to news from Antigua and Barbuda, New Zealand, and the United States might make a few folks around Boggy Peak happy. (It's got a cooler name these days.)

But I think it would make about as much sense as insisting that devote equal coverage to news from Isanti, Minneapolis, and Sauk Centre, here in Minnesota. I love it here: but most of what happens in Sauk Centre doesn't have all that much effect on the rest of the state. What happens in Minneapolis often does, directly or indirectly.

Getting back to NEWS.VA, Here's a sample of what I found in Friday's English language news:

• Near the top of the page
  • "Pope meets delegation from Finnish Lutheran Church"
    Vatican Radio, via NEWS.VA (January 19, 2012)
• Farther down on the home page
  • "East Africa drought update"
    Vatican Radio, via NEWS.VA (January 19, 2012)
  • "ASIA/HONG KONG - Hong Kong's religious leaders hope for a better new year and invite the faithful to act to overcome the global financial crisis"
    Agenzia Fides, via NEWS.VA (January 20, 2012)

NEWS.VA's Spanish and Italian websites each have their own selection of featured stories. Which I think makes a lot of sense. Not everybody has the same interests: and I think it'd be a boring world if we did.

Related posts:

• Being Catholic
  • "South Sudan, the Táin Bó Cúalnge, and Working for a Better World"
    (January 6, 2012)
  • "Ancient Style and Today's Discussions at the 'Vatican Science Academy' "
    (October 2, 2011)
  • "Hope, Joy, and Working for a Better World"
    (September 13, 2011)
  • "We Won: Quite a While Ago"
    (January 13, 2011)
    Particularly
    • Wildly Improbable Survival
  • "'Potty Parity,' Conservative / Liberal Values, and a Universal Church"
    (May 12, 2010)
• Language
  • "CREDO! New Roman Missal Coming"
    (November 6, 2011)
  • "Flabbergasted: What's a Flabber, and How Does One Gast It?"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (October 21, 2011)
  • "Radio Vaticana: What? Only 38 Languages?!"
    (March 7, 2011)
  • "Friday, Rome, Language, and Boudicca of the Iceni"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (October 29, 2010)
  • "Why isn't there More Mandarin on the Web?"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (April 4, 2008)
• Citizenship
  • "Zambia, America, and Two Millennia of Weaseling"
    (September 26, 2011)
  • "America's Economy Isn't Doomed?!"
    (August 10, 2011)
  • "Citizenship, being Catholic, and the Rules of Polite Society"
    (March 22, 2011)
  • "Living in America and Living a Catholic Life"
    (April 29, 2010)
  • "Elections and Citizenship, Catholic Style"
    (September 24, 2008)
• SOPA
  • "SOPA, PIPA, and a Disapproving Rabbit"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (January 18, 2012)
  • "Lemming Tracks: SOPA, PIPA, and 'Rules are for the Little People?' "
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (January 17, 2012)
  • "Lemming Tracks: SOPA, Censorship, and 'Protection' "
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (January 13, 2012)
  • "Lemming Tracks: SOPA, Tech-Savvy Folks, Hollywood, and Congress"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (January 9, 2012)
  • "SOPA: 20 Reasons Why It's a Really Bad Idea"
    Apathetic Lemming of the North (December 30, 2011)

---

¹ United States population is from a July, 2011, estimate. Percent of living Catholics based on a 2009 estimate. World population estimate is from October, 2011:

• " World"
  CIA World FactBook (last updated on December 1, 2011)
• "United States"
  CIA World FactBook (last updated November 17, 2011)
• "7 Billionth Person Born (Or Maybe More. Or Less. Who Knows?)"
  FoxNews.com (October 31, 2011)

² Excerpt from Thursday's news:

"Pope: Religious freedom most American of freedoms"
Vatican Radio, via NEWS.VA (January 19, 2012)

"The attempts of current cultural trends to curtail the right to religious freedom is a threat not only to 'Christian faith, but also to humanity itself', said Pope Benedict XVI Thursday, in his address to US bishops from Region's IV-VI currently on their Ad Limina visit to Rome.

"The Holy Father's speech was given largely to reflections on what he described as the 'most American of freedoms, the freedom of religion' and how it must be defended and promoted in today's society. He said at the heart of every religion and culture is the need for moral good, but that today that moral good is being seriously eroded.

"Citing his predecessor, John Paul II, Pope Benedict noted : 'When a culture attempts to suppress the dimension of ultimate mystery, and to close the doors to transcendent truth, it inevitably becomes impoverished and falls prey… to reductionist and totalitarian readings of the human person and the nature of society'.

"He said the Church has her part to play in the public square and that while the separation of Church and State is legitimate 'it cannot be taken to mean that the Church must be silent on certain issues, nor that the State may choose not to engage, or be engaged by, the voices of committed believers in determining the values which will shape the future of the nation'...."