February 09, 2010
 
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| Funny and Effective |
| by Susie Lloyd |
| 2/23/08 |
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Text by John Zmirak, recipes by Denise Matychowiak
Crossroads Publishing; 240 pages; $14.95
A funny thing happened on my way to read a serious apologetics book to my teens: I couldn't find it. After turning the house upside-down, ranting and raving a bit, and offering a cash reward, somebody remembered that Dad had loaned it to a non-Catholic friend.
Great. Just great. It had been on my syllabus for weeks. Even in high school, the girls have already faced harsh criticism against the Church; there would be more as they ventured further into the world. Now there sat my number-one resource -- collecting dust, I suspected -- in the home of a guy who was just married by a priestess to a staunch Lutheran.
(Hold on, the funny part is coming.)
So later that night as I was cackling in bed over The Bad Catholic's Guide to Wine, Whiskey and Song, it came to me: "I'm reading this to the girls!" I told my husband, jarring him awake.
In the late 19th century, scholarly skeptics such as Sir James Frazer attempted to explain away the uniqueness of Christianity by finding precedents for its practices among the pagan cults. Unsurprisingly, they looked to the cannibalistic custom of the Baccantes as the origin of the Eucharist. We must admit the close resemblance: whenever we attend a bloodless offering of bread and wine conducted by a celibate Irishman, our thoughts turn to gangs of naked Greek women, roaring drunk, gouging flesh out of passersby with their fingernails. It's positively distracting, some Sundays.
It struck us both as the kind of apologetics Chesterton used -- a blend of logic and ridicule, producing orthodoxy. A funny looking sort of baby, but undeniably effective.
If you've seen its older brother, The Bad Catholic's Guide to Good Living, you may be wondering how I, a homeschooling mom of many years, many children, and many jean skirts, could ever think of reading such stuff to impressionable children.
Perhaps you agree with the manager of one Catholic shop who refused to carry it because it was "tasteless." Even though the same shop does hawk plastic glow-in-the-dark Madonnas made in China, I, as a mom, do understand his reservations. Kids and certain conservatives are not the target audience of that book; Generation X Catholics are. Both Bad Catholic titles stand a better chance of finding their way into the bathrooms of, well, bad Catholics, than a book that overtly glorifies Catholicism -- unless used as toilet paper.
While I liked its older brother, I am much more partial to John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak's second child. (That's just how it is in some families.) It's fatter and funnier and, yes, more kid-friendly. It shares the same merry features and is animated by the same spirit of obedience to the Church's Papa, who is pictured on the cover holding a Malteser Weissbier. Those in our household who have sampled such fine German brews are not scandalized.
Inside is a list of similar brews and their often monastic origins. There are also wines and liqueurs dating from the period most ex-Catholics call the Dark Ages. We who have tasted German beer and Italian wine like to think of the period in more favorable terms -- when Catholics were busy building culture and giving people a reason to live, founding hospitals, schools, and institutions to protect the worker and his family. No wonder modern folks don't get it. They're drinking synthetic substitutes, like "Zima and Other Culinary Inventions from the Devil."
What would happen if instead they tried one of the many "healthy, natural, mostly organic-based dishes that celebrate the intrinsic perfection of God's creation," like "Dom Perignon: Champagne and Caritas are Always Appropriate," "Easter Beer: Miracles and Yeast" or "Cider: O Happy Fall!"
At first they might smack their lips in wonderment and think it a freak accident that stodgy, narrow-minded Catholics actually produced this glory. A few more sips, and who knows? They might well sample some doctrine: "Original Sin -- We've fallen and we can't get up." A belly laugh makes history hard to resist: "Henry VIII -- A Gouty Man is Hard to Refine." After "Crashing with the Benedictines," they might find Catholics more broadminded than their high school social studies teacher led them to believe.
If their newfound faith -- or at least respect -- puts them in the mood to sing, they've got their pick of drinking songs. There's one to fit every mood. My favorite? Le Marseillaise, with alternate lyrics penned by the Catholics of the Vendée who valiantly rose up against the forces of the French Revolution. The ditty is now available in English and -- you guessed it -- nowhere else.
Our predecessors in faith sure enjoyed a good parody. It seems like they enjoyed a lot of things, so perhaps we can safely follow their example in this, too.
Susie Lloyd is the author of the award-winning humor book Please Don't Drink the Holy Water! Look for the sequel from Sophia Institute Press, available 2008. Readers have left 5 comments. Susie, I loved your article. We Catholics know creation is a good thing. Sometimes, I think we may have become a little protestantized (esp. here in the US!)and forgotten the joys our ancestors discovered. There is nothing this Catholic enjoys more than a good glass of pinot noir and admiring a beautiful woman! Written by Miguel Miramon I am looking forward to reading this book! One of the things that I was surprised by when I converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism was that Catholics were just more fun!! They were not afraid to laugh at themselves while still taking their faith very seriously. And then there is the wine---At a Lutheran smorgasbord, you get coffee; at a Catholic Spaghetti dinner you get wine - served out of a jug by a little old lady with an wonderfully unspellable Italian last name who says 'Just call me Rose.' At the school auction, the tickets are spendy but the wine is 'free.' It sure makes you want to hold up that number one more time! Someone once said that God made alcohol to show us that he wants us to be happy (and to keep the Irish from taking over the world.) Our faith is serious but that doesn't mean we always need to be serious. Let us enjoy the beautiful world that God has given us; the food, the wine, the people! Jesus did, and He is a great example to follow. Written by Margaret Crump Susie, thank for your unapologetic and humorous review of a evidently very funny book which I look forward to reading. Laughter is often missing from those who morally and religiously earnest, sometimes, I think, it is a sign that grace is missing. Here are some lines from one of my favorite plays, "The Lady's Not for Burning," by Christopher Fry: Thomas: For God's sake shall we laugh? Jennet: For what reason? Thomas: For the reason of laughter, since laughter is surely The surest touch of genius in all creation. Would you have ever thought of it, I ask you If you had been making man, stuffing him full Of such hopping greeds and passions that he has To blow himself to pieces as often as he Conveniently can manage it -- would it also Have occurred to you to make him burst himself With such a phenomenon as cachinnation? That same laughter, madam, is an irrelevancy Which amounts to revelation. Written by Deal Hudson A serious apologetics book for my teens? John Zmirak has good company. Charlie Rice, longtime law professor at Notre Dame, and his daughter Theresa Rice Farnan, mother of seven who teaches philosophy at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary, have an excellent book that I buy a dozen at a time. "Where did I come from, Where am I going, How do I get there," is full of "Straight answers for young Catholics" -- its subtitle. The prose is crystal clear, the result of 50 years of teaching about natural law. I've even given it to parents of my non-Catholic students so they know what's going on over here in the competition. St. Augustine's Press (staugustine.net). Cheaper by the dozen. Written by Christopher Manion Hello Christopher, Thanks for the tip. I'll look. Actually, the book was since returned - Halleluiah! It is Tom Woods' "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization." It is just terrific. So happy to have it back! Both books are by former editors of mine btw and are like fraternal twins. Susie Written by Susie Lloyd |
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