home. We had left the feel-good theology of my mega-church for a Presbyterian setting with more rituals, traditions and probing sermons. Yet mainline Protestantism felt to me one step short of my final destination, the Catholic Church. In my decade as an evangelical Christian, I had studied the Bible, especially the New Testament, extensively—something most Catholics don’t. Yet that knowledge gave the rituals of the Catholic Church deep meaning and beauty. Attending a Mass, I felt like I was standing on the shoulders of 2,000 years of Catholics who went before me, an unbroken line that could be traced directly back to Christ and His apostles. This filled me with a sense of awe and humility—and a little pride.
I did have problems with parts of the Catholic theology, including its sexual teachings (for example, a ban on condoms, even if it meant millions dying in AIDS-plagued Africa). More fundamentally, I couldn’t accept transubstantiation, the climax of the Mass when, according to the church, bread and wine are literally turned into the body and blood of Christ. Of course, I wasn’t alone. Millions of Americans—whom some orthodox Catholics derisively call “Cafeteria Catholics”—don’t agree with many of these teachings (40 percent don’t even go to confession, a basic requirement of the church). If Catholics truly believed they were in the real presence of Jesus during the Eucharist, they would fawn over and worship the Blessed Sacrament, the unused but consecrated bread and wine that is placed, in most churches, in a golden tabernacle; the Blessed Sacrament usually sits off to the side of the altar, ignored by the faithful, except for a few true believers who can occasionally be found before it in prayer and adulation.
I didn’t only rely on the comfort of the crowd. Written into the Catechism of the Catholic Church—a reference book that outlines church teachings—is a wonderful loophole called “personal conscience.” If something, even church doctrine, goes against your conscience, you’re allowed to follow the moral voice inside your head. As the Catechism says, “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.”
My conscience allowed me to practice birth control without guilt or fear of eternal damnation. It allowed me to view the Eucharist as only a symbolic representation of the Last Supper. I planned on being a Cafeteria Catholic, picking which parts of church doctrine I would keep and which I would ignore. But my selection was based on conscience, not convenience.
To become a Catholic officially, I needed to go through a year-long process that consisted of some introductory courses and then months of classes. I signed up in the summer of 2001. Greer wanted a refresher course in her childhood faith, so she came along. We had a vague idea that after I was received into the church, we would have a proper church wedding and get rid of the Catholic stigma that we were adulterers not worthy to receive Communion.
On Tuesday evenings and Sunday mornings we arrived at Our Lady Queen of Angels in Newport Beach to learn about the church, its history and its doctrine. Father Vincent Gilmore led the program, which was called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). Father Vincent was part of the conservative Norbertine order, on loan to the Queen of Angels parish because of a priest shortage within the Diocese of Orange. In his late 30s, he rode mountain bikes and was a gifted teacher who believed squarely in the church’s teachings. He explained them passionately, simply and thoroughly. I was also assigned a sponsor. I was fortunate to get Bob Gannon, a lanky gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair whose decency and kindness knew no bounds. Though soft-spoken, he was a prosecutor in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, so I knew he could be tough. To me, he was a loving soul who patiently
I did have problems with parts of the Catholic theology, including its sexual teachings (for example, a ban on condoms, even if it meant millions dying in AIDS-plagued Africa). More fundamentally, I couldn’t accept transubstantiation, the climax of the Mass when, according to the church, bread and wine are literally turned into the body and blood of Christ. Of course, I wasn’t alone. Millions of Americans—whom some orthodox Catholics derisively call “Cafeteria Catholics”—don’t agree with many of these teachings (40 percent don’t even go to confession, a basic requirement of the church). If Catholics truly believed they were in the real presence of Jesus during the Eucharist, they would fawn over and worship the Blessed Sacrament, the unused but consecrated bread and wine that is placed, in most churches, in a golden tabernacle; the Blessed Sacrament usually sits off to the side of the altar, ignored by the faithful, except for a few true believers who can occasionally be found before it in prayer and adulation.
I didn’t only rely on the comfort of the crowd. Written into the Catechism of the Catholic Church—a reference book that outlines church teachings—is a wonderful loophole called “personal conscience.” If something, even church doctrine, goes against your conscience, you’re allowed to follow the moral voice inside your head. As the Catechism says, “A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.”
My conscience allowed me to practice birth control without guilt or fear of eternal damnation. It allowed me to view the Eucharist as only a symbolic representation of the Last Supper. I planned on being a Cafeteria Catholic, picking which parts of church doctrine I would keep and which I would ignore. But my selection was based on conscience, not convenience.
To become a Catholic officially, I needed to go through a year-long process that consisted of some introductory courses and then months of classes. I signed up in the summer of 2001. Greer wanted a refresher course in her childhood faith, so she came along. We had a vague idea that after I was received into the church, we would have a proper church wedding and get rid of the Catholic stigma that we were adulterers not worthy to receive Communion.
On Tuesday evenings and Sunday mornings we arrived at Our Lady Queen of Angels in Newport Beach to learn about the church, its history and its doctrine. Father Vincent Gilmore led the program, which was called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA). Father Vincent was part of the conservative Norbertine order, on loan to the Queen of Angels parish because of a priest shortage within the Diocese of Orange. In his late 30s, he rode mountain bikes and was a gifted teacher who believed squarely in the church’s teachings. He explained them passionately, simply and thoroughly. I was also assigned a sponsor. I was fortunate to get Bob Gannon, a lanky gentleman with salt-and-pepper hair whose decency and kindness knew no bounds. Though soft-spoken, he was a prosecutor in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, so I knew he could be tough. To me, he was a loving soul who patiently
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