Done with Diversity

I've had it with "diversity." I insert the quotation marks around the word because, in truth, I am a big fan of genuine diversity, but I am absolutely fed up, "change the channel now!" disgusted with the phony, ram it down your throat and to hell with you if you don't like it brand of diversity that so dominates the contemporary agora. It is this kind of intolerant, condescending diversity that sees the rise of "equality ministers" and "equality laws" cropping up like weeds in the vineyard of European politics and society. Fortunately, we have avoided the worst of this subtle, backdoor route to social re-engineering in the United States, but we are hardly immune to the disease.

It's one thing to observe this stuff unfold in the halls of Congress and at East Room White House cocktail parties, but it's all the more insufferable to watch it take hold in the Catholic Church. While still a student in Virginia and Rome, I used to write opinion and news pieces for The Arlington Catholic Herald. Several years later, I still receive the paper on a regular basis, and I like to page through its contents to keep somewhat abreast of what's going on in the DC-Catholic milieu. The most recent cover story featured a large picture taken from a Mass at Holy Family Church, described "to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their parish's Black History and Heritage Outreach Ministry..." Deep breath.

Now, I know many people won't have a problem with this. But I do. For starters, do Catholics need to be reminded of this during Mass? I am pretty open about symposiums, conferences, get-togethers after Mass, etc. to discuss any range of issues (that are in agreement with Church teaching, of course). But why do we have to have these incursions in the Mass itself. Why is it so controversial to insist that the Catholic Mass be the Catholic Mass. It certainly doesn't need to be laden down with silly, ostentatious overtures to this or that group of people based on race and ethnicity. In my opinion, these pandering gestures only distract people from the focus of what liturgy should be about, i.e., Christ in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which, statistics sadly demonstrate, most Catholics don't believe in anymore. What about our Catholic History and Heritage? Shouldn't a prime opportunity for that kind of education be the liturgy? Why dilute the Mass, the pinnacle expression of Catholic universality and unity, with the sort of political correctness that you would expect to find at a mind-numbing diversity training seminar at work? Thanks, but I don't need a contrived, Hallmark card reminder from a liturgical planning committee, comprised of holdovers from the 1960's and 70's, that I am not a racist or prejudiced, or a friendly reminder that I love people of all colors. Am I alone in thinking that this is a little bit patronizing?

I rarely get personal on this blog, mostly out of a belief that blogs tend towards the narcissistic and petty, but in this case I will make an exception. Culturally, I come from a Puerto Rican background on my mother's side. I have been to Puerto Rico many times to stay with family, I speak the language, cook the food and all that jazz. If I had to go to a Mass that purported to be a celebration of Puerto Rican history and heritage, my first reaction would be, "What for? I get that at home." That is not why I go to Mass. I attend Mass for another far more important reason, that is to say, I go for my Catholic heritage, which predates and trumps ethnic or racial ties. Isn't that kind of the point of the Church's universal mark? I certainly don't need a reminder from a third party, i.e., a lecturing liturgical planning committee, about what it means to be Puerto Rican. Tell me instead about what it means to be a Catholic. Novelty! (Just don't let it come from the Church's version of a diversity training seminar on The Office, because then we're back to square one.)

To be clear, I'm not saying that there is no place at all to discuss issues like outreach to black Catholics in the United States. I read Clarence Thomas's excellent memoir, My Grandfather's Son, and he discusses this subject in-depth and it is fascinating. But leave it for outside the liturgy. If anything, in the wake of the catechetical lacuna of the past 40 years, we need to be educated about and reintroduced to our Catholic heritage, and there's no better place for that than the liturgy properly offered, as in the old form of the Mass.