My family and I are 100% "in" on the Catholic faith. By extension, that means we are 100% in on the Catholic CHURCH, apart from which the Catholic faith cannot exist.
But to lead with "we are 100% "in" on the Catholic Church" does not feel accurate or even appropriate. I have experienced enough insider baseball, abuse, dysfunction, manipulation, maleficence, obscurification, and ineptitude to say that I do not trust the Church with every fiber of my being. I give Christ my faith. He gives us the Church. For better or worse...til death do we part. But were it up to me, apart from Him, I would want nothing to do with this organization. I really can't explain it other than grace and perhaps, a kind of benevolent pair of blinders I've been gifted with.
But that's Big 'C' Church. Our little 'c' church is a healthy, thriving community for us. Our immediate parish, but also our larger Catholic community and fellowship of other homeschoolers, trads and non-trads, and everything in between. The faith is what binds us, the common thread that cinches us together. Were that to unravel for us, or lead us to some kind of dramatic apostasy, we may find ourselves 'on the outs' with our local IRL tribe.
Maybe it is a spirit of self-preservation, but I tend to try to keep a healthy distance of investment in anything "too Catholic" the same way I don't engage too much with my immediate neighbors: we waive hi on the street, chit chat about this or that, watch out for one another, but there is a thick layer of insulating privacy there that keeps our relationship healthy. After all, we HAVE to live next to one another.
After hearing about the (what seemed to me to be) suffocating insularity of the lay Veritatis Splendor community and the unfortunate fall from grace in its leadership, I took it as a cautionary tale: I can say with pretty full confidence that I will never move my family to any kind of intentional/planned community, Catholic or otherwise. I've had some burns in the past, so maybe it is a degree of healthy skepticism/realism that it never seems to end well, and this unfortunate incident simply confirms that gut feeling.
That being said, it's an incredibly confusing time for many people, myself included. I wish we would all just admit to one another that we're all just trying to figure things out and that no body really knows what is going on with one hundred percent certainty. I think because of that insecurity, many of us traditionally-minded Catholics find solace in our respective "tribes" of belonging. Where we can share what we are really thinking and feeling and working out, be supported and confirmed, and not feel so scared, crazy, and alone. After all, the world seems to be increasingly hostile to people of faith.
For the most part, I have been a 'floater' the majority of my life. In high school, I was friends with the jocks, the theater kids, the drug dealers, the poets and artists, the math whizzes; I floated from group to group, never establishing residency, as I was more comfortable not pledging allegiance.
As I've gotten older, my "tribes" have changed, and are never set in stone. Though I will say I find great comfort and affinity with any brother or sister in Christ of good will who is a son or daughter of the Church, isn't a weirdo, and wants to do God's will. It is a healthy soil for potential friendships to take root.
Social media gave me a false sense of belonging; I subconsciously tailored things I posted and said publicly so as not to make myself anathema. There was also that sense of selective-reinforcement of being bothered by dissenting push-back for something I might post among my liberal friends...and so I would prune and cut them out. As a result, my 'tribe' got tighter and more insular. I always kept an open mind about most things, though, so I was never especially dogmatic about many of my beliefs either. I was invested in the macro-items, but could take or leave the micro, or adjust accordingly.
Then COVID happened, and I found myself straddling the aisle--not only trying to make sense of the world, the politics, and matters of personal and public health, but doing so in a compressed time period of instability where it was difficult to sift through all the facts and figures. I had to figure out who was full of crap, who had ulterior motives and agendas, who was playing favorites, who had vested interests. Sometimes, in trying to get straight and unbiased info, you find that some of the offenders may very well be members of your own tribe. "A man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Mt 10:36).
When the Dave Chappelle / trans thing blew up last month, Dave said something that stuck with me when was telling the story of his transgendered friend who stuck up for him even when s/he was getting raked over the coals on Twitter: "The hardest thing for a person to do," he said, "is go against their tribe." S/he eventually committed suicide in the wake of this public hazing (by her own "tribe"). How right he was.
I'm in a strange position as it relates to "the vax": I "got the jab" last year, not out of fear or even enthusiasm, but as a reasoned wager given our particular circumstances, using the best information I had at the time and knowing that I may or may not have made the best choice. (Truth be told, I'm close to sick of hearing about it, and wish this whole issue would just go to die).
The people I ended up trusting more were not always members of my "tribe." In fact, I felt quite a bit of shame and would keep quiet about my decision because I knew I was one of the only ones. I did consult with a trusted Christian MD/MPH who is also an epidemiologist and a man of integrity, as well as a level-headed Catholic buddy whom I had back-and-forths with over the phone. He, too, was getting confused and somewhat disgusted with the knee-jerk misinformation that seemed to be polluting our ability to make informed choices with solid data.
All that being said, I did not make any kind of admirable choice, or "did it for the sake of others, the loving option." I know full well I conceded, in a way, in what I felt was a roll of the dice. I experienced no side effects. I guess time will tell if I will "die within two years." My rationale, right or wrong, was to place myself on a kind of pseudo-trial, being asked the simple question: "Why did you decide to refuse the shot?" (which is what I initially wanted to do) and realized my reasons and testimony were not convincing, to me at least, and did not feel like they would hold up in court as I couldn't articulate in a convincing way why I would refuse it.
And yet, the large majority of my friends, and the men in my men's group, have come to a different conclusion, and as a matter of conscience, feel strongly that they do not want to take this vaccine for various reasons. Some are concerned about long term unknown effects, some feel it is too compromised morally as the cell lines were tested with abortion-tainted cells, others just stand on principal and don't feel that the threat of COVID warrants taking it. I can respect all that. That wasn't how things played out for me in my imperfect line of reasoning and decision making. But for them, they came to different conclusions.
“A man with a conviction is a hard man to change,” Festinger, Henry Riecken, and Stanley Schacter wrote in When Prophecy Fails, their 1957 book about this study. “Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point … Suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before.“You spread stories because you know that they’re likely to be a kind of litmus test, and the way people react will show whether they’re prepared to side with you or not,” Boyer says. “Having social support, from an evolutionary standpoint, is far more important than knowing the truth about some facts that do not directly impinge on your life.” The meditation and sense of belonging that Daniel Shaw got from Siddha Yoga, for example, was at one time more important to his life than the alleged misdeeds of the gurus who led the group.Shaw describes the motivated reasoning that happens in these groups: “You’re in a position of defending your choices no matter what information is presented,” he says, “because if you don’t, it means that you lose your membership in this group that’s become so important to you.” Though cults are an intense example, Shaw says people act the same way with regard to their families or other groups that are important to them.(The Atlantic, This Article Won't Change Your Mind, 13 Mar 2017)
I have no desire to change anyone's mind about anything except with regards to the moral imperative of Christ for those who do not know him. Even that, I try not to be heavy handed with, but present the 'evidence' of faith (and reason) that warrants belief. In the matters reserved for prudential judgment--whether you drive a F150 or a Prius, whether you are devoted to this or that apparition, whether you eat meat or don't, etc--I try to respect the freedom we have as children of God to "love, and do what you will" (St. Augustine).
But this vax thing is tough, tiring, and contentious. I know for a fact I don't have all the answers. I also know I love my friends. But I am not afraid to follow in a different way on matters of conscience, as long as it is not sin, because ultimately I do not have to give an account to them--I must give account to Christ.
I try to remember that Peter and Paul (both saints) almost came to blows over certain matters in the early Church. Yet they loved with a fraternal love each other, and loved Christ above all. I pray for their intercession in navigating these confusing times, when we all need our tribes...but not at the expense of being true to ourselves in conscience. We can sometimes do things to stay in other people's good graces, even when it goes against that still small voice inside of us that shouldn't be so swayed.
The need to belong, the desire to belong, is so strong, I think we underestimate it sometimes. Rejection packs a hell of a sting. But tribal belonging is not what we were made for; it's simply a nice byproduct. We were made to know God, to love Him, and to do His will...in this world, and the next.
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