Why Be Catholic?: Understanding Our Experience & Tradition - Softcover

Rohr, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593982347 ISBN 13: 9780593982341

Verlag: Convergent, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

A bold and honest exploration of what it means to be Catholic in a changing world, from two of America''s beloved spiritual teachers

In this candid and wide-ranging work, Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos confront the tensions many Catholics feel about their faith, identity, and belonging. Written in the wake of Vatican II and amid growing cultural change, Why Be Catholic? wrestles honestly with both the brilliance and the shadow of the Catholic tradition.

Moving through the strengths of Catholicism—its sacramental imagination, universal vision, communal depth, and call to social transformation—while also naming its institutional failures and blind spots, the authors refuse both nostalgia and easy dismissal. Instead, they argue that Catholicism is not merely an institution to defend, but a living tradition to inhabit and reform from within.

At its heart, this book is an invitation: to rediscover the wisdom of the tradition, to claim personal responsibility for faith, and to embrace the demanding, transformative call to holiness that has shaped Catholic saints across the centuries.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Richard Rohr is a globally recognized Franciscan friar and ecumenical teacher whose work bears witness to the deep wisdom of Christian mysticism. He is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, an educational nonprofit dedicated to introducing seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation. Rohr is the author of numerous books, including the New York Times bestseller The Universal Christ. His work has been featured on The Oprah Podcast and On Being with Krista Tippett, and in The New Yorker and Harper’s Magazine.

Joseph Martos was a nationally recognized authority on the sacraments of the Catholic Church and a beloved writer. He passed in 2020.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Introduction

Why be Catholic?

That is a question Catholics never asked a generation ago. People who were thinking about joining the Catholic Church may have asked it, but not Catholics themselves. If you were born Catholic, you simply accepted the faith, its traditions and beliefs.

The Church gave those of us who were born and raised Catholics a strong sense of identity. Catholicism told us who and what we were as human beings, as Christians, even as individuals. We were nurtured and sustained by that great maternal institution known respectfully as Holy Mother Church.

Catholicism was a total worldview, a total system of thinking, feeling and behaving. You could just as easily stop being Catholic as you could stop being black—which is to say you really could not. You might formally leave the institution, but you could not change the way you had been taught to look at the world, God, religion or yourself.

Today the Catholic Church is much different from a generation ago. Pope John XXIII’s program of aggiornamento or “updating” succeeded far better than anyone imagined. American Catholicism, in particular, is very different from what it was prior to the 1960’s. The Second Vatican Council ushered in an era of ecumenism which broke down many barriers between the Catholic Church and other Christian denominations.

The greater openness of the Church is good, and the greater acceptance of others is good. But a Church without walls also has a harder time defining itself. Today it is not so easy to say what makes Roman Catholicism different from other forms of Christianity.

Young Catholics today—those who have grown up considering the changes of Vatican II “normal”—do not have nearly the sense of religious identity that their parents did.

They do not see much real difference between their church and the churches that their friends belong to. At some point in their life, usually in early adulthood, they have to face seriously the question, Why be Catholic?

Older Catholics today, too, sometimes find themselves wondering about the Church. For any number of reasons, they can feel themselves being tempted to leave and join some other church. In their case the question is more like, Why remain Catholic?

No matter which way the question is put, it requires an answer.

The answer to that question, however, cannot be simple. The Catholic Church is not a small institution. The Catholic faith is not an easily recited set of beliefs. The Catholic heritage is not a brief tradition.

To answer the question fairly and squarely, we have to treat the good and the bad. We have to develop an appreciation about what is good in Catholicism, but we also have to be honest about the Church’s shortcomings. Chapters One and Two address these two issues.

To answer the question for American Catholics, we have to look at what it means to be Catholic in the United States today. We have to come to a sense of how we can live with a mature faith in our society as it moves into the 21st century. Chapter Three deals with being Catholic in the United States.

Finally, to answer the question in a more personal way, we have to ask what kind of person we can expect to become if we take our Catholic faith seriously. We have to look carefully at the lives of those people who have found personal fulfillment by living their faith to the utmost. Chapter Four presents pictures of outstanding Catholics, especially those we call saints.

Even by getting at the answer to our question in four different ways, we will not have exhausted the topic. Being Catholic means more than what can be said in four short chapters. At least, however, we will have made a start at answering that question. From there we each need to add our own reasons for being, or remaining, Catholic.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Convergent
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2026
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593982347
• ISBN 13: 9780593982341
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 160
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar