Recreational Catholicism? Let me explain.
It is an attribution identifying the current stage of collapse in the Roman Church. Its coinage is meant to convey the tangled knot of the therapeutic, political, theatrical, and ego-massaging trend besetting the Church, all of which produces a kind a zombie Catholic, who is daily fed on what Huxley called in Brave New World the “feelies”: engineered pleasures that maintain their victims in a state of floating euphoria.
Its principal vehicle is the liturgy, where Sunday “celebrations” are carefully planned by Liturgy Committees for maximum effusions of non-threatening messages of “welcoming.” While normal men gag on its oozing sentimentality, certain kinds of Catholics crave it. Sunday after Sunday. It is like a narcotic, you see.
Music is meticulously chosen to leave participants in swoons of gratified self-absorption. Toxic language, such as defined doctrine or the moral law, are proscribed. In fact, not a few bishops insist that the communion line (deliberate lower case for accuracy) be absolutely non-discriminatory. One and all come forward, the shepherds intone, because the sacrament is not a place of judgment but a place of warm fellowship.
All of this is topped by celebrant priests who see their roles as talk show hosts. Each is vested shabbily enough (a requirement) to telegraph a casualness consistent with sipping margaritas. Added to this are churches resembling airport lounges. Of course, the Recreational bureaucracy is always intent upon improvement. So now churches are equipped with jumbo screens guaranteeing the mood of a sports bar.
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