American Catholicism will have to become more Catholic and less American. Today the country's most prestigious institutions — corporations, the U.S. Supreme Court, the universities — view anyone who espouses Catholic views on sex as hostis humani generis, an enemy of the human race. In such a context, it is inevitable that the aspiration toward assimilation give way to a more basic recognition of difference. JFK was able to build a career by being more WASP-y than the WASPs, but the next generation of Catholics will need to do otherwise.
What will that mean? It will mean first of all being willing to press back on those points where the world presses against us. Condemnations of "culture warring" that suggest Christian belief on sex is innately uncivil; tone policing by concern trolls who decline to reject church teaching outright but deem any expression of it (except — perhaps? — the Catechism's) homophobic; and the usual and universal cowardice are all more real and pressing threats than outright denial. We've faced this temptation before. After the release of Humanae Vitae, the Canadian bishops issued the Winnipeg Statement, a document that didn't deny church teaching out right but instead gave Canadians permission to ignore it. Such cynicism is more blamable than honest dissent.
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