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Swimming with Scapulars
True Confessions of a Young Catholic
By Matthew Lickona
Loyola Press, 2005. 256 pages.
Reviewed by John Tintera
The jacket copy for Swimming with Scapulars states that Matthew Lickona is “emblematic of a new generation of believers.” For some time now, pastors, publishers, and pundits have been touting the entry onto the scene of this new generation. They have face piercings, listen to Pearl Jam, and drink Starbucks coffee, but they also pray the rosary and abstain from sex before marriage. In many ways, this generation of believers is testimony to the power of the Gospel. They’re also a witness to the excesses of the Baby Boomers, whose promise of redemption through free love and the Age of Aquarius broke down in an “alcoholic soft middle age.” Yet this new generation, too, has a dark side, which is painfully apparent in the pages of Matthew Lickona’s spiritual memoir.
The book opens with Lickona recounting memories of Sunday school and Catholic education classes. He tells us of his parents’ faith and of how his father was brought into deeper commitment after attending a Catholic charismatic revival. Not only was his father’s faith strengthened, he also became a pro-life activist, praying outside abortion clinics, lobbying local politicians, and writing op-ed pieces for the local papers. Lickona does not say much about his mother, except to let us know that she is a St. Monica type in his life—a deeply pious woman who is unafraid to admonish her son when his faith seems to waver. Besides giving their two sons worthy examples of faithfulness, Lickona’s parents also instilled a willingness to avoid premarital sex. According to his own account, Lickona never went past first base until four days after he was married. The Lickona’s sent Matthew’s older brother off to Notre Dame where he studied theology. Matthew attended St. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California.
What is striking about Lickona is that, unlike most members of the new generation of believers, he grew up in a fairly traditional household. Young believers seem to often come from families where mom attends levitation classes while dad is off finding himself in Tibet. Lickona’s wife, for example, appears to have been raised in one of these New Age households. Early on, we hear that his mother-in-law is a “pagan” and that her daughter offers up her childbirth pains to God for the redemption her soul. Later, we learn that she has a goddess altar in her home, in front of which she gathers with other worshipers on a regular basis.
One thing that Lickona has in common other members of his generation of believers is a strong taste for popular culture. While he seems to have avoided the lure of tattoos and piercings, he’s no stranger to alternative rock music or the hipster movie scene. What’s more, he’s a wine critic for a magazine in San Diego and clearly enjoys imbibing, at least from time to time. Even so, Lickona’s memoir evokes many aspects of religious fundamentalism, something that holds sway over many Christians of his generation. This is disappointing. Having once been in fundamentalism’s grip, I can easily relate to Lickona’s passion for clearly defined doctrine and his struggle to live a pure and exemplary life. As Martin Luther, and many after him have realized, that project becomes incredibly tedious after a while.
In several places, Lickona tells us that his friends think of him as a religious fanatic, a moniker he reluctantly accepts. I don’t have a problem with fanaticism. To me, fanatics are exemplars like Oscar Schindler, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr. They are the people Robert Ellsberg tells of in his masterful book All Saints. Throughout Swimming with Scapulars, however, Lickona both states outright and implies that there’s only one kind of orthodoxy—you’re either a Catholic all the way or not at all. For example, he and his wife have committed themselves to raising a large family. The best insights of the book come from the lessons that he imparts from his parenting journey. I have no doubt that this particular vocation is the right one for him. Lickona believes, however, that his calling is true and right for every married person. Ironically, he also tells us that he and his wife were tripped up by Natural Family Planning and started their family much sooner than they had originally wanted. (Apparently no one in their pre-Cana marriage preparation classes ever told the old joke, What do you call people who practice Natural Family Planning? Answer: Parents.)
Being a youngish postmodern believer myself, I take strong umbrage with Lickona’s exclusivist talk. For me, the essence of postmodernism is not what you wear or what kind of music you listen to, but how you’re able to live in and communicate with a world predicated on diversity. For Christians, the corollary to diversity and globalism is the need to articulate clearly, with sound reasoning, everything we believe. In the postmodern world, the orthodox can no longer simply appeal to the bible, tradition, or the magisterium. We must appeal to reason, and Lickona fails to do this.
Regrettably, Lickona’s interesting tales of family life end about two-thirds of the way through the book. In the last third, the reader must wade through a recounting of Lickona’s besetting sins. In one particularly painful moment, during a chapter called “Dredging My Soul for Sin,” he tells how he has trouble controlling his anger around his family. He writes, “Once, I said to Fin [his eldest son], “Spare me the attitude—brat.” More than just painful, I found this section of the book to be tragic. Lickona writes about his sins as if they were somehow unique or special. What’s more, he seems to be saying that we all should be examining our consciences minutely, just like he does. Yet, having been in the place where religion made me conscious of my sinfulness and unworthiness during every waking moment of the day, to the point at which I was projecting my own self hatred at those I love, these passages make me wonder if Lickona’s fundamentalism is not the source of his frustration and anger. He tells us that he’s since gotten over his anger, but there’s a joylessness at the heart of this book that speaks otherwise.
At its root, fundamentalism is one more method we use to build up our egos. It’s also one of the most powerful temptations one can fall victim to. This book was disappointing to me not only because of the author’s fundamentalism, but also because it fails in its promise to articulate faith in a way that might make sense to a postmodern audience. This new generation of believers has the guts to eschew the New Age values of their parents and speak out loud about the importance of human community and family—but does it have the conviction to go against the tide when it comes to outmoded precepts such as the ban on artificial birth control, or the calling of gay relationships “disordered,” or the refusal to call women to the altar? Clearly this generation has the ear of the people who hold the reigns of power in our churches. (Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George himself blurbed Lickona’s book!). It disturbs me, therefore, that a writer with Lickona’s platform has failed to at least acknowledge that there might be other pathways to truth than his own. He’s betraying his own generation, not exemplifying it, when he implies that by having four children himself, he’s proven the correctness of church’s teaching on birth control. In the parlance of postmodernism, refusing to use birth control is a type of spiritual practice. If Lickona had simply recognized that, it would have made his memoir stronger.
I have learned to cope with my own fundamentalist tendencies by judging religious assertions in the light of two sayings, one of which comes from Socrates, the other from William Blake. Socrates was a skeptic and said, “I do not know, teach me.” Blake was a believer and said, “Everything to be believed is an image of Truth.” I say this while at the same time calling myself a faithful Christian and wearing a cross and holy medal around my neck. I need Socrates and Blake, however, to moderate what would otherwise be a very rigid and intolerant adherence to Christianity. While I don’t claim to be an exemplar of the postmodern church, I would urge any of its exponents to be mindful of the diversity of truths present in our world, something with which I believe the Holy Spirit is calling us to grapple. Like Lickona, I believe the way of Christ to be the better way, and I’m even ready to die for my conviction, but I’m not ready to judge or condemn other ways that God may be ordaining for fellow wayfarers. The embrace of this paradox is to me the true emblem of postmodern Christianity.
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