What I Love About the Catholic Church, 1

In the Catholic Church you get a duchess and a dustman kneeling together in prayer. All of this is a wonder, and echos to me that, "Here is reality. Here is the true Church."

GREENVILLE (Standing on My Head) - OK, Here goes a whimsical series about what I love about the Catholic Church. Some posts will be one liners. Others long winded. Some serious, others not so. They're in no particular order, either logically or of priority of importance. I hope you enjoy them. Why not tell others to tune in? I'm trying to boost my readership...

I love the Catholic Church because it is for brainy, sophisticated, cultured, artistic people and it is also for those who are not. It is a church for haute couture and hoi polloi. You can enjoy a Raphael Madonna or a plastic bottle of holy water shaped like the Blessed Virgin with a crown for a cap that unscrews. You can appreciate a picture of the Last Supper painted by Leonardo on the wall of a refectory in Florence or one painted by number on black velvet and hanging in a trailer.

You can study the philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas or be an imbecile and still be a good Catholic. Nobody's excluded, in fact to really stand everything on its head, a good Catholic has to consider the peasant, the holy fool, the child, the tasteless ignoramus and the devout ditz to actually perhaps and possibly being closer to heaven than the smart, the rich, the tasteful, the privileged, the powerful and the educated ones. Indeed, to enter the kingdom of heaven one has to become like a little child.

Is there any other expression of Christianity where both extremes are so valued? I think not.In most every society Protestantism divides along social lines, and each despises the other--some with snobbery, the others with reverse snobbery.

In the Catholic Church you get a duchess and a dustman kneeling together in prayer, and the same Mass that is celebrated in Chartres Cathedral is also said in a drab American church that looks like a huge ice cream cone that has fallen upside down. All of this is a wonder, and echos to me that, "Here is reality. Here is the true Church."

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Fr. Dwight Longenecker is Parish Priest of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina. A former Evangelical, he studied at Oxford and was ordained as an Anglican priest in England. He was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church in 1995 and ten years later, ordained a Roman Catholic Priest.He is a prolific writer, sought after speaker and dedicated blogger. Connect to his website and blog at dwightlongenecker.com