Katholischesselbsthaas

In a thread on TNLM, Michael Lawrence coins a word -- Katholischesselbsthaas

http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/2007/02/bonfire-of-vanities.html

Now, he is speaking to the resistance (from a tiny minority of his parishioners, I believe,) one priest has found to his re-introduction of a small amount of Latin in his Lenten Masses

But I think it is an apt description of the state of those Catholic political operatives who found no fault with John Edward's employ of a foul-mouthed anti-Catholic blogger who admit that had the target of their vitriol been another religion or an ethnic group, they would have been clamoring for the removal of the women in question.

Or a couple of frequent posters on another liturgical blog, all Catholic, whose prime directive in determining the propriety of any text, ritual, or theology is that it be utterly incapable of being taken exception to by those who do not share Catholic beliefs.

Nothing must be explicitly Catholic to make some Catholics happy. No adoration, no expression of belief in the Real Presence, no theology of sacrifice, no use of the title "priest" or "Father", no devotions (especially Marian,) no acknowledgment of sin and the need for repentance, no talk of purgatory.... in short, nothing that a Presbyterian, or better yet, a Unitarian would not be perfectly comfortable confessing.

All overt manifestations of specifically Catholic doctrine and culture is eschewed.

It is very, very sad.

Some are literally ashamed of their nominal Catholicism.
They may use the sex abuse cover-up scandals as their excuse for this self-loathing, but it is actually because they do not really believe that the fullness of Truth resides in the Catholic faith, and that any other belief system, to the degree in which it diverges from Catholicism is IN ERROR.

These poor, near-apostates suffer from Katholischesselbsthaas.

http://haloscan.com/tb/stribe/5680599710829926245