More on What Defines Catholic Community

Hello:

I was reading back through old posts today and I realized how long my posts tend to be. I don't want to write less since I am trying to accomplish both work and personal aims, but I need to make what I write more accessible. We'll try "micro" posting for a while and see if that helps.

Yesterday, I discussed the Role of Community in Catholic Life (or rather I acknowledged that there was such a thing and said that we would talk about it later). Today, I would like to extend that just a little further. As a result of writing this BLOG, I've found that I need a deeper understanding of the Catholic Church and just what makes a Catholic. I've worked for Liguori Publications for the last 7 years and six months ago, I would have thought that I understood these issues pretty well. Now that I'm writing these posts, I find that my understanding is pretty superficial.

I don't think that I need to feel too bad. There is a wealth of material being published that seeks to explain Catholics to non-Catholics. Not just the structure and beliefs of the Church but what defines the actual people, the community of the Church. The book I am reading now is How to Survive Being Married to a Catholic: A Frank and Honest Guide to Catholic Attitudes, Beliefs, and Practices by Michael Henesy and Rosemary Gallagher. I'm finding this one extremely useful. It is written in a very straight forward and accessible style with cartoon illustrations. Despite its sometimes humorous presentation, it is an authoritative work with a dictionary of Catholic terms in the back and a very easy to follow table of contents (it doesn't have an index though). It also doesn't shy away from any topics and discusses sex with the same directness as devotion to Mary.

This title is available in Spanish under our Libros Liguori imprint as Cómo sobrevivir casado con un/a católico/aUna guía franca y honesta de las actitdudes, creencias y prácticas católicas and is also by Michael Henesy & Rosemary Gallagher. Despite the year and a half I've been studying Spanish, I'll stick to the English version for now.

Hmmm, I'm not certain that I managed to make this post any shorter than normal and I'm not certain if I've managed to advance the discussion of Catholic community any further than before. Let's chalk this up to an additional "setting of the stage" before we dig into this topic more.

Peace,

P. Del Ricci - Dark Glass