Twice a week I help out in the college counseling office. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working with a student who’s applying to schools in the University of California system. Let’s talk about a pain in the ass application. But anyhow, one of the questions on the application asks: “Do you have a special connection with any particular cultural, ethnic, societal, or religious group? If so, please explain here.”
We both kind of scoffed at the question, joked about his attachment to his Greek heritage and then left it blank and moved on with the application. I wondered how many people actually answer that question. At age eighteen, how many people say they strongly identify with any one group of people? At age eighteen, how many of us have the first clue where we belong? Actually it’s probably not right to limit that question to any age. At eighteen, most of us probably don’t have a clue where we belong. But do we at age 25? At 30? At 50? Ever? I am not sure. I think we just think about the question more at age eighteen, because belonging is more important then. As we get older, groups become less distinct. We don’t divide ourselves up into the jocks, the cool kids, the nerds, etc. We know how to function within the many different groups that make up society. But that doesn’t mean we actually know where we belong.
But despite the fact that I think most of us aren’t completely sure where we belong, I think we have much stronger attachments than we wish to admit to the groups which we use to try to define ourselves. Wait until someone criticizes a group you associate yourself with and see how you react. I compare it to the way you react to people who criticize your brothers or sisters. You can say whatever you want about them, but as soon as someone else opens their mouth, you defend your siblings to the death.
Anyone who knows me knows that I have a lot of critical things to say about the United States. I hate the corporate culture that puts money above human interest. I hate the ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. I hate the ignorance most Americans have regarding the rest of the world. I hate the apathy we display when it comes time to vote or take a stand about something we believe in. I hate our kiss-my-ass attitude. But I also really, really hate it when someone who is not American says any of these things. Suddenly, I am America’s greatest defender. I justify. I make excuses. I attack them back. Who are they to criticize my country…and thus criticize me? Because I am American, because, despite my resistance, I am part of all of this which I hate, I have the right to comment, to criticize.
The same is true of people who make negative comments toward the Catholic Church. Lord knows, I have a long list of complaints. Confession, come on. Do you really think there is any need for a priest to act as a go-between between you and God? The Church’s stance on women and homosexuals. Don’t get me started. The pope’s infallibility. Celibate priests. Holy days of obligation. The bread and wine becoming flesh and blood. There are plenty of things about the Catholic Church that I scoff at, argue about, and can’t reconcile myself to. Regardless, I am Catholic, and I don’t want to hear your criticism unless you too are Catholic.
We are constantly defining and redefining ourselves. We become members of different groups in the effort to figure out who we are and where we belong. But there are some groups that we can’t escape. We are bound to them, for better or worse. Whether we admit it or not, we do have special connections with certain groups. And because of this connection we can criticize, and we can become overly sensitive and perhaps even unreasonable when someone else makes the same exact criticism. It’s not the criticism, but where it comes from that matters. I can criticize the U.S. I can criticize the Catholic Church. Because I belong to these groups. Because I am an insider. And because when this is the case, there is, behind all of the criticism, love.
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