What does it mean to be Catholic? There is an infinite amount of answers to that question. If you were to ask author Robert Barron, he would start speaking of Catholic doctrine. If you were to ask author Andrew Greeley, he would start speaking of culture, story and community. Lastly, if you were to ask Dorothy Day, she would start speaking of following Jesus and helping the poor. What it means to be Catholic is a mixture of all three of these individuals, Catholic doctrine, stories and community, and helping the poor as it relates to my life as a Catholic. In Robert Barron’s novel, Catholicism A Journey to the Heart of the Faith, he implies that being a Catholic means immersing yourself in the understanding and practice of Catholic doctrine.
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He claims that when the church stops being a house of stories, it stops being Catholic. “Catholic churches are strongholds of the analogical imagination, of stories of God’s presence in the human condition. They cannot help themselves. If they’re Catholic, they cannot be anything else (Greeley 39)”. By this he means that the Catholic churches hold stories that transform the ordinary to the extraordinary and a Catholic needs this analogical imagination to understand and feel Gods extraordinary presence in the ordinary world. To be Catholic, Greeley expresses the need to feel God’s presence everywhere. Also, he emphasizes God’s presence through stories. For Greeley, it isn’t about right worship and praying correctly, it is about the emotional feeling the individual gets when hearing stories of God. Continuing with the emphasis on stories, Greeley would suggest that a Catholic can be close to God through stories shared between Catholics not just stories told by priests in church. Sharing stories and having these feelings with other Catholics creates community. Greeley states that “the Catholic can never leave the neighborhood behind (Greeley 117).” The feelings a Catholic gets from sharing stories with other Catholics and feeling God’s presence everywhere stays with us forever and this is what Greeley would say makes an individual a
He claims that when the church stops being a house of stories, it stops being Catholic. “Catholic churches are strongholds of the analogical imagination, of stories of God’s presence in the human condition. They cannot help themselves. If they’re Catholic, they cannot be anything else (Greeley 39)”. By this he means that the Catholic churches hold stories that transform the ordinary to the extraordinary and a Catholic needs this analogical imagination to understand and feel Gods extraordinary presence in the ordinary world. To be Catholic, Greeley expresses the need to feel God’s presence everywhere. Also, he emphasizes God’s presence through stories. For Greeley, it isn’t about right worship and praying correctly, it is about the emotional feeling the individual gets when hearing stories of God. Continuing with the emphasis on stories, Greeley would suggest that a Catholic can be close to God through stories shared between Catholics not just stories told by priests in church. Sharing stories and having these feelings with other Catholics creates community. Greeley states that “the Catholic can never leave the neighborhood behind (Greeley 117).” The feelings a Catholic gets from sharing stories with other Catholics and feeling God’s presence everywhere stays with us forever and this is what Greeley would say makes an individual a