AmericanPapist Comments
What's there to bring? Crappy pop tunes and banal Liturgies? American Catholics may be wealthy financially, but we're not culturally wealthy, that's for sure.
Think about it, name one traditional American religious custom that has not come from immigrants. I can think of French, Spanish, Latin, German, and Polish customs but no truly American. American culture is a pseudo-culture. Thus much of Catholic religious culture is pretty much non-existent in America.
Right Andrew S. Given the sad state of the Church in this country, Marlboro's and Coca~cola are the best we have to offer. We are waiting for more than a handful of bishops to get serious about the Gospel and the call to holiness and conversion of heart.
Funny guy that papal nucio. I would imagine finding some humor in his anecdote if I were present when he said it.
So let me get this straight. Sambi in the middle of nowhere and needs a clean drink and a smoke. America supplies his needs. So instead of breaking out with, "God bless the USA!" He whines about it to our bishops?
God bless the US for giving Sambi smokes?
inhocsig, where are you seeing the whining?
He's saying "I think the US has more to offer the world..." He's praising us - the American accomplishment in the world, the spread of Democracy for one thing, the shining city on the hill that we are. He's saying that, for many in the world, all they see of the US is marlboros and coke, when there is clearly so much more.
We may not have a lot of indigenous religious traditions - owing in part to the youth of this country (what indigenous religious traditions did the French have in the 5th century, or the Irish in the 6th?) and in part to the fact that we have, as a melting pot, so many wonderful traditions from other countries brought here to chose from. In many ways we have an integration of traditions - I recall going to the great Filippino fiesta on the feast of St. Patrick at St. Patrick's Church in San Francisco, the Belgian priest bringing ponchki into the office on Shrove Tuesday, the great procession in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Scandanavian parishes in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Give us time and we'll have more indigenous traditions than just "Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini, get off your cloud and fix my machini" or Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha powwows...
I think the nuncio is telling us we're off to a good start, and encouraging us to go even further, not whining at us.
We don't necessarily deserve it, but the USA is blessed with overwhelmingly more wealth, natural resources, political stability, infrastructure, and entrepreneurial spirit than any other nation in human history.
So, yeah, a cold Coke and some smokes are nice, but we (and only we) can do lots more.
I read it as though he was challanging the Bishops to offer more to the world than a Coke & a smoke.
We pray for our bishops almost every night, can you imagine 250 Bishops singing off the same sheet of music and in tune with the Holy Mother Church?
I suspect it would not have taken 4+ years and who knows home may debates to do a proper translation of the Liturgy.
Of course we can do more! But many American Catholics are too American, and not Catholic enough. They give in to materialism, or they just go to Mass to "go through the motions".
Thomas (American Papist), maybe the question can be summed up as follows:
Are we to be more American or more Papist? (I'm sure most here know the answer) ;)
Mother Cabrini, Mother Cabrini, get off your cloud and fix my machini?
I have never heard that one before, but I will add it to my litany of novenas. The servers that run my husband's webstore go down every now and then. ;)
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