What is the relationship between faith and culture? If one takes one’s bearings from conventional expressions, one could get the impression that these stand in tension, if not outright opposition, with each other: to refer to a person as a “cultural Christian” or “cultural Catholic” is meant to convey the sense of a faith that is now dead, if it ever had been alive to begin with. One means that the person has grown up with the “outward trappings” of a Christian existence—perhaps he was baptized and had a church wedding; perhaps he attended Mass with his family growing up because “that’s just what one does on Sundays”; perhaps he went to a Catholic school as a child and has a medal of St. Benedict, the patron saint of protection, on his key chain—but never internalized any of these things, affirming them as his own, making them existentially relevant to the actual shape of his life, so to speak. When large populations, such as the majority of modern European nations, evince a merely “cultural Catholicism” in this negative sense, the great cathedrals in these lands become little more than impressive museums, and if the people of these nations

__________________

To read this article in its entirety, please download the free PDF available above or buy this issue.