Katholizimus: Nationales vs Kulturelles

By Anthony Stevens-Arroyo
Catholicism has learned (?) to hate nationalism and embrace culture.
" If patriotism is putting your country first in your own life, nationalism is putting your country first in other people’s lives. While patriotism stirs up personal pride, nationalism stirs up wars, because the easiest way to have others recognize your country as #1 is to invade them. The Church has learned in the past that siding with nationalism bears a heavy price. Injecting Gospel values into cultural celebrations, on the other hand, brings the Church closer to people, strengthening their faith in each other and in God. But evangelizing culture requires a grass-roots awareness that is run contrary to top-down clerical authoritarianism. Hopefully the Catholic bishops, like the newly named Charles Chaput in Philadelphia, understand that grass-roots culture demands most of their pastoral attention.
The Church evangelized the culture of the ancient world so that the pagan Roman Empire was replaced by the Holy Roman Empire. That alignment with temporal power in the Middle Ages, however, brought about myriad conflicts between kings and popes. The most notable effort in the modern era at Catholic nationalism was probably in 19th century Italy, when Pope Pius IX tried to unify the country with himself as Italian monarch. He lost this battle as Italy became a kingdom (1861). Frustrated in Italy, Pio Nono blessed the troops that led an ill-fated attempt in 1864 to destroy the Mexican Republic of Benito Juarez and install an Austrian as Emperor of Mexico. In such cases, siding with nationalism made the Catholic Church an ally of imperialists and compromised the message of faith. "
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