What's a "Shitty Catholic"?
Gather 'round, children.
One autumn about a thousand years ago, I walked across a college campus with a Franciscan nun1. It was gorgeous, crispy, and perfectly mid-Atlantic with the bright trees and all that shit. I was learning how to do Catholicism, and she was one of my teachers. She had a raspy guffaw that you could use to track her around campus; she was earthy, loved animals, and loved food - and I loved her.
The past few months of Catholic Bootcamp2 had given me the willies on several levels: questions generated more questions and I had more than 2000 years of data to sift through for my answers. Many of my cohort were infinitely more clean-cut and apple-cheeked than myself (polo shirts, promise rings, and what-have-you), and I felt like a moldy old shoe whenever we got together.
During the walk I felt the need to fess up, to tell her the truth: “Sister Clare, I don’t think I can ever be a good Catholic’”.
I was in Socially Awkward Hell. She guffawed and didn’t even notice my discomfort, which was nice. She told me: “Kristine, all of us are bad Catholics. Anyone who thinks differently is fooling themselves. That’s the whole point.” That was it; she had clearly shared this little nugget dozens of times before with other neurotic candidates. The conversation tumbled on rapidly to “are we close to the food court yet?”
It hit my sternum like an arrow. I can be a bad Catholic. I can do that really, really well. I can be a downright shitty Catholic. Yes! BEHOLD!
Rather than planting seeds of the famous “Catholic guilt”, this opened a door for me. Sister Clare with her cheeky 5-to-10 second retort spilled the beans: the ostentatiously pious, tidy old ladies were Bad Catholics. The country-club polo shirt guys, the clergy in their fancy hats, the Pope, the sniffy bitch giving me side-eye for my low-cut shirt, Sr. Clare, me: Bad Catholics.
We have a whole sky full of saints who understand: former disembowelers, Satanists, hookers, pedophiles, pipe-bomb throwers, rapists, thugs, heretics, gangsters, Methodists3. Catholics, all. No matter how hard the poster-Papists try, this place will never be a spotless museum. Like Pope Francis explained: It’s a stinking, filthy field hospital for the gravely wounded.
Even with God’s firehose of grace pointed right at us, even with the whitest of white-knuckle discipline, we will all fall short. We have Confession so that we can admit it as often as we need to, out loud to another person, and hear that it’s going to be okay. We’re full of shit, and every year we have Lent so we won’t forget it.
The perception of someone as a “Good Catholic” only lasts as long as it takes for you to really get to know them. Promise. I like to lead with “shitty” because it helps to manage expectations.
“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.
-1 Timothy 1:15 (italics mine).
This was written by a brilliant and passionate guy, former bounty hunter of Christians. He survived several shipwrecks, endured a few tortures, and pulled some hard prison time and somehow never lost his faith or hope. Along the way he wrote several of the letters included in today’s Bible and successfully evangelized half the planet.
If he, Paul, is really “the worst”? Saddle up, my shitty friends.
If you have access to a Franciscan, I highly recommend doing this. There’s nothing like it.
RCIA, “The Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults.” A 1-year whirlwind tour of Catholicism where you can ask your questions, learn how to do the Things, share doubts, connect with other inquiring types, and at the end either bail or dive in. Catholic bootcamp.
I tease. Methodists are lovely people.