All Creation Waits

As our community, Emmaus ECC, becomes more visible to the public people ask questions about what it means to be Catholic.  I’d love to have some discussion about being Catholic, and what it means to us.  I’ve been a life long Catholic, and never gave it a thought until the last several years; I never asked myself what it means to be Catholic — I just knew.  I am a product of the Council of Vatican II, and would not have stayed in the RCC as long as I did except for that council.  The Council of Vatican II called us Catholics to return to our roots in Christ, and in returning to go forward into the kingdom of God.  Now the leaders of the RCC are taking us back to the days prior to Vatican II, and I cannot go back.  I feel betrayed.  As the Church I loved changed its vision and its course in order to go backwards, I realized I could not stay.  I no longer fit.  I am grateful I have found another way to be Catholic in the Ecumenical Catholic Communion.  Later I’ll share more about my own thoughts about what it means to be Catholic, but I’ll start by saying it means being inclusive — the big tent where we can say:  “here comes everybody.”  When any Church becomes exclusive, selecting its “true” members by narrow criteria, it becomes less Catholic.  When a Church uses threats of Interdict and Excommunication to keep its members in line, it becomes less Catholic.