What Does "Practicing" Mean, As in "Practicing Catholic"?

The speaker was discussing his own book called “The Practicing Catholic” in a midtown New York City parish. He is an ex-priest, married, living a most comfortable life with the proceeds from his books and many well-written articles. Because of his stances, sometimes antithetical to and widely dissident from traditional Catholicism, he has been classified a “fallen away” Catholic. Yet he strongly insists that he loves the Church, cherishes rich emotional memories of his childhood and is practicing the Catholic Faith.
 
It leads one to wonder what is a “practicing Catholic”? How big is the Big Tent of this religion? One of the many strengths of Catholicism is its flexibility and breadth of embrace wherein one finds the simple but powerful influences of Mother Teresa, Mother Angelica and Padre Pio uplifting thousands of devout Catholics to meaningful, beautiful lives and at the same time one can find slightly cynical, semi-doubting, irreverent, hostile Catholics who would never “leave” the Church they criticize. Mysteriously, the latter group would be affronted should anyone dare to suggest that some more “modern and liberal” denominations might be more congenial to their views. However, such persons might have more direct Faith in basic Catholicism than they admit even to themselves. Perhaps, since many of this group have been educated beyond the level of their parents, we might be observing an interesting situation of non-resolution of an oedipal conflict. In fact, this speaker acknowledges that his personal relationship with his father (although a well educated brigadier general of the Vietnam era) was one of long term conflict. Could this be transferred unconsciously to a conflict with “Mother” church? Are dissident Catholics really fighting their Parents?

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