WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT CAFETERIA CATHOLICS?

I describe myself as a cafeteria priest for cafeteria Catholics.  Every Catholic is a cafeteria Catholic – but only some of us admit to it.  It is the choices on other people’s trays that some take exception to, never looking at the choices on their own trays.

Historically the institutional Church has been the largest cafeteria in the world. It has to be because no one person or group could possibly choose all the things that are available for Catholics to feed their spiritual hunger.  Novenas, rosaries, all the prayers said to all the different saints, thirty-day Ignatian retreats, weekend retreats, days of recollection, forty hour devotions, benediction, exposition, liturgy of the hours, pilgrimages, fasting, abstinence, becoming a sister, brother, priest, deacon, becoming a religious priest or belonging to a religious community of which there are hundreds, lay associate, altar society, Holy Name society, Knights of Columbus, Paulist Associate, Third Order Franciscan, a Daughter of Mary and Joseph, charismatic Catholic, taking vows of silence, working for peace and justice or with the homeless, concern for the environment, Catholic Worker Movement, English speaking or Spanish, Russian, Slovak, Vietnamese, Korean, French or Portuguese speaking, Knights of Malta, this list could go on and on.  The point is that no one person, no one parish, no one group within the Church could possibly entertain or observe all the possibilities the Church has to offer; so we make choices to develop a prayer life that suits each of our diets. 

Even within the official liturgical parameters (how mass is celebrated) we make all kinds of choices; Eucharistic prayer 2 rather than 3, or 4 rather than 1, alternatives to the opening and closing prayers, forms of blessing at the end of mass, styles of music, how communion is received, languages used, bells or no bells, incense or no incense, enough devotional candles electric or real, to light up Times Square or no devotional candles at all, times of mass, places of worship from gymnasium to cathedral to sports arenas, obviously there are norms but much diversity within the norms.  Historically the Church has always recognized that one size does not fit all and it is our diversity that makes us truly Catholic, universal.  Diversity is a strength not a weakness.  This is as true in nature as it is in and among communities of faith – those who are able to adapt are the ones most fully alive and most likely have a future.

When I look out at our Sunday Eucharistic gathering it is very evident that one size does not fit all:  happily married, unhappily married, divorced, separated, gay and lesbian, single dads, single moms, large families and small ones, families financially ruined and prosperous families, death and birth, mentally, physically or spiritually challenged people, light-hearted and depressed people, happy, sad, hopeful and dower ones, cancer, fears and phobias, young and very old, citizens and aliens, housed and homeless, sated and hungry – no one homily, no one prayer style will fit the variety and diversity present in even a small community of faith.

The Church will become a community of faith rooted in Jesus only in so far as we can recognize our diversity, our strengths and weaknesses, our common brokenness; when, ultimately we recognize that we are all in this together – not bemoaning the choices on someone else’s tray, or bemoaning what is on our own.

Fr. Michael E. Evernden, CSP