My grandson is preparing for his First Communion, enrolled in a CCD class.  As a 7-year-old he is slowly being introduced to life’s requirements – homework, bedtime, and internet limits.  To many kids nowadays religion is an option and morality a multiple choice.

I can’t say I have pleasant memories of a Roman Catholic upbringing.  Weekly mass was hard on the knees and a fear of fainting on an empty stomach (remember the fasting?) shadowed receiving Communion. It was a time of ultra-strict priests and no-nonsense nuns.  Stories of knuckle-rapping at Catholic schools were common.  While my Sunday school nuns were gentle, Sister Mary Jane once scared the bejesus out of me recounting how a doubting prankster removed the Communion wafer from his mouth, took it home and preceded to cut it with a kitchen knife to see if it bled. Indeed, she assured us it did, and a priest had to be called to reverse the transubstantiation. It gave new meaning to ‘Don’t try this at home!’  Today’s kids generally have lay people conducting their religious education with hopefully fewer horrific tales. 

Recently, my grandson learned the details of the crucifixion and Pontius Pilate.  The Roman perfect’s role in Jesus’s execution disturbed his young mind to the point that he later asked his priest if Pilate went to Heaven.  His reasoning was that Jesus was destined to be crucified anyway, and He forgave his executioners, did Pilate’s pardon include the Grand Prize?  The priest was stumped.  (Do I have a budding messiah in the family?)

It is easy to dismiss Catholicism in a hundred different ways – the pedophilia, the restrictions on women, the exorbitant wealth, the rigid dogma, et. al.  But of all the religions in history that I have studied, and those that I see functioning around the world today, I am content to be a Roman Catholic, even cafeteria style.  I’ve received all the sacraments (except the last one!).  But the key to my membership is in that adjective ‘Roman.”  The Church may have a Middle Eastern origin but by the grace of God it was completely Romanized two millennia ago.

Few Catholics know of the makeover Rome performed.  How it required Roman power and organization to codify Christian dogma, standardize the rituals, and unify the chaotic sects that made Judeo-Christianity a 3-ring circus.  That is what Roman emperors Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian did for Christianity.  (Persecution varied by emperor, but most historians agree that more Christians were killed by competing Christians than by the Roman state.)  In short, Christianity didn’t conquer Rome, it became Rome.

Along with Rome’s wealth and power came the legacy of minor gods (saints), Vestal Virgins (nuns), priestly vestments, canon law, architecture, and even holy water.  The graven images that are banned in Judaism, Islam, and Christian Orthodoxy (no statuary) are essential to Catholicism. The arts flourished under Catholicism as they did in pagan times.  Even science crept its way back in fits and starts under Italic popes.

Over the centuries Catholic alliances saved Western Civilization from Muslim invaders at least four times: in France (Battle of Tours AD 732), in Spain (1492), at sea (Battle of Lepanto 1571), and at Vienna (1683).  It was a devout Columbus, sponsored by Catholic Spain and Italian merchants, who unlocked the Atlantic and unified the globe giving Christianity control of two new continents.

Judaism and Islam may claim enlightenment today, but both were awakened to it by first pagan then Christian Europe.  Had humanity depended on their original orthodoxies the world would be devoid of technology and social progress.

Whether you are Roman Catholic by faith, tradition, or intellect you must sustain it.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  Immigration and intermarriage can erode it.  But for the Italic people Catholicism is the direct link to our foundational classical past.   Latin remains its official language.  -JLM

“Rome died in giving birth to the Church; the Church matured by inheriting and accepting the responsibilities of Rome.”  [Caesar and Christ by Will Durant,]