Being Catholic

I read with great interest both Greg Sisk’s and Tom Berg’s response to the NPR piece referred to in an earlier posting by Michael Perry.  It brought back to me the frustration I felt in the period leading up to the election in November and, in general, with much of the political discourse between the left and the right.  I remember observing one day to my spiritual director that it was increasingly the case that, although I have been a registered Democrat since I was first old enough to vote, I had reached a point where I wasn’t sure I was really comfortable calling myself either a Democrat or a Republican.  His simple response: You are not a Democrat or a Republican; you are a Catholic.

I think Tom’s statement is absolutely correct – the media does not deal well with nuance.  And being “always Catholic,” in Greg’s words, defies easy categorization, making mischaracterization a likely occurrence.