sheltered Catholics

Steve Skojec has written an interesting post for Inside Catholic.com. He has a hair curling snarky quote from blogger and journalist, Hilary White about the traditional Catholics who :

have gone off into the woods to create a happy and comforting little Catholic world, well insulated from Outside. The kids are homeschooled, the women commonly wear the trademark shapeless plaid jumper/white t-shirt and sneakers combo, the men work at home, the books on the shelves are all from Ignatius or Angelus press, the jokes are clean and not very funny, conversation is always holy, the horrors of the squelching, seething pornographic world Outside are clucked at primly and the introduction of ironic humour is a wild and somewhat scandalous sensation.


Hilary, by her own admission doesn't like other women or domesticity much. I'll say it again, Hilary really dislikes other women. She finds us silly and irritating. She'd probably have no use for me at all. However, abrasive as she can be she has a bit of a point. Catholics are not called to hide out from the world. We are supposed to be counter coultural but we are not supposed to resemble the FDLS folks, squating feverishly in a compound.

Parents are supposed to shelter and preserve their children's innocence of course--- to do otherwise is to fail as a parent---but trying to raise them like Catholic Amish it doesn't do the Church a whole lot of good.