Re: holy smoke
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Wed, 14 Oct 1998 12:23:28 -0400
While attending university college Galway in 93/94, my
compatriot-sweetheart and I plodded twice a week to the city Cathedral
for services. So did my flatmates, who were natives. The draw for the
two of us--who are peculiarly uncompelled to attend your average rural
or suburban American Catholic service, especially in Athens,
Georgia--had much to do with the building and the Latin and the
aesthetic integrity of the experience, which somehow managed not to
obscure its earnestness. My flatmates, though, seemed to go out of a
palpable sense of why-not-ness. They weren't particularly pious or
especially guilty, nor were they openly resentful about whatever it was
that made them go. Habit, perhaps.
I say this by way of insisting that there is a marked difference in my
experience between American Catholic churchgoingness and its Irish
counterpart. Tim's episode points to the same, or a similar,
difference.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu