N~j FAITH IN REAL LIFE 0 DECEMBER 2019 $5.00 S t Holy night How the Christmas story calls Catholics to action In ISSUe NEW BOOKS FROM U.S. CATHOLIC • Vol. 84, No. 12 • December 2019 AVE MARIA PRESS cover story 33 Sounding Board Dreaming of a green Christmas by Susan Salaz Is your Christmas shopping hurting ATHOLIC Catholic Hipster: THE The Flowing Grace the planet? IIIPSrER: of Now c?’4&/ The Next Level FLOWING How Some Awesomely Encountering Wisdom Hw5*~ Obscure Stuff Helps Us Live GRACE through the Weeks 4 In Person Nun for all by Rosie McCarty 0 -. Ob.0*050M Our Faith with Passion of the Year / Hdp.U.L... ONO Sister Ann Durst works to bring justice for TOMMY TIGHE MACRINA WIEDERKEHR, O.S.B. ESCOUN EEING WISO ‘~ ~ immigrants facing crisis at the border. 224 pages, $15.95 SHE VaLES OFT U 256 pages, $16.95 MACRINA WIFDE°~’E~- P “Belongs on the shelf of any Catholic.” “Beauti I lessons of the heart.” 24 —Claire Swinarski —Joyce Rupp Author of Girl, Arise! Author of Anchors for the Soul Feature Holy families •.. departments Creator of The Catholic Feminist podcast by Amanda Hendler-Voss The Holy Family’s flight from Egypt parallels the 4 Editors’ Note journey of modern-day migrants. joc bramic,S.J. 5 You May Be Right B EC 0 M INC WOMEN 8 Catholic Tastes hurch oney Feature Awaken Adven )~t~’~ by Father John 9 Signs of the Times 0*70 AN WKR~0 1 Christman, S.S.S. 40 Reviews ~Eij’~ CH~’It Here are four art meditations 50 Eye of the Beholder for the Advent season. ChurchMoney Abide in the Heart Becoming Women Exalted 12 MICHAEL WHITE of Christ of the Word SONJACOPBITI columns AND TOM CORCORAN JOE LARAMIE, Si. SARAH CHRISTMYER 192 pages, $16.95 224 pages, $16.95 160 pages, $14.95 160 pages, $15.95 10 The Examined Life Poem Spheres 1 Father Bryan Massin gale RECLAIMING CAThOLIC by Fred Dings THE REAL CHRISTMAS STORY HISTORY SERIES UPDATED EDITIONS EDITED BY MIKE AQUILINA BY LISA M. HENDEY 38 Culture in Context Expert Witness Mix and match 1 Pamela Hill Nettleton BLESSEDLY SEEN P~IE ~ an interview with Samira Mehta t~An HURCH A BflOX Interfaith families celebrate the holidays in unique 42 Margin Notes - ~OMAN SAINTS HANDBOOK and meaningful ways. Kevin Clarke -~ MPIRE eat (‘atholi A SCHISM PRISM ~ ~ ‘moms - illoni~ 4~~’ Qen 43 At Home with our Faith 60~ Essay Upstairs, downstairs church 29 ~‘ Kr~THRYN Annemarie Scobey-Polacheck WHIJAXER by Sister Rhonda Miska, O.P. HO, HO ... HOLY During the holidays, community blossoms Virgin, The Church and Live Big, A Book of Saints outside the sanctuary. 47 Testaments Mother, Queen the Roman Empire Love Bigger for Catholic Moms Alice Camille (301-490) ROBERT L FASTIGGI KATHRYN 352 pages, $18.95 ‘TIS THE SEASON and MICHAEL O’NEILL 192 pages, $17.95 WHITAKER The Handbook Essay A great gift 31 49 Glad You Asked 192 pages, $17.95 The Early Church 160 pages, $15.95 for Catholic Moms (33-313) by Jessie Bazan Emily Sanna 256 pages, $17.95 Let your words be made flesh. 160 pages, $16.95 WHO WAS REALLY AT THE NATIVITY? cover: Henry Ossawa Tanner Flight into Egypt (1923), Look for these titles wherever books and eBooks are sold. C A~ F. Wikimedia commons. Visit avemariapress.com for more information. expert ess Samira Mehta I- •• • Samira Mehta Mix and match Assistant professor of women and gender studies and Interfaith families are shaping their holiday celebrations Jewish studies, University of in new and meaningful ways. Colorado Boulder Author, Beyond Chrismukkah: ~~1~ The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States How common are interfaith families ~ (The University of North Carolina families, she says, because of lunch with a friend. Her in the United States? Press, 2018) S amiraclassmate,MehtaanstartedEpiscopalstudyingseminarian,contemporaryhad recentlyinterfaithmet a That is a complicated question. Studies -.. estimate, for example, that approximately teenage boy preparing for both his bar mitzvah and confir -, mation, and her friend expressed frustration with the lack of 50 percent of American Jews marry peo resources available to interfaith families in similar situations. ple who are not Jewish. But this number Mehta, now an assistant professor of varies, because it’s hard to get sociologists Jewish studies and women and gender to agree on who counts as a Jew. studies at the University of Colorado In the book American Grace: How Boulder, started researching “what Religion Unites and Divides Us (Simon happens when people have religious & Schuster), Robert Putnam and David needs and desires that don’t match what Campbell estimate that one third of their institutional authorities want them American marriages are interfaith. to do.” She became fascinated by how Pew did its own study and found that 4 in 10 marriages in the past decade are interfaith families reinterpret religious Courtesy ot Samira Mehta rituals. The result was her new book, interfaith. These numbers are changing Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish dramatically: The number of interfaith Interfaith Family in the United States marriages in the 1960s is significantly lower than interfaith marriages in 2010. These studies are also tailored for Why write about him one on one. At their first meeting, (The University of North Carolina Press). But these kinds of study define inter an American demographic that’s more interfaith families? the kid asked, “Is this going to be as much In her book, Mehta describes how faith marriages in a very particular way: interested in nuances among Christian- During graduate school I became inter- work as preparing for my bar mitzvah? interfaith couples in previous generations marriages between mainline Protes ity. They count marriages between Prot- ested in the question of what happens Because that was a real pain in the neck, were often asked to choose one religion. tants, evangelical Protestants, Catholics, estants and Catholics as interfaith but when people have religious needs and but at least there was a huge party. But if A Catholic and a Jew, for example, had Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and not marriages between a Reform Jew and beliefs that don’t match up with what there’s no huge party for my confirma to raise their child as either Catholic or sometimes religious “nones.” So, for an Orthodox Jew—religious traditions the institutional authority says to do. tion, I don’t want to do as much work.” Jewish: There was no middle ground. example, if someone who is a member of with just as many, if not arguably more, When does the institution bend? When My friend thought to himself, “Oh However, Mehta says, although this the Presbyterian Church (USA), which differences. Not to mention the fact that do people? When do they go along with no, now what do I do?” He realized that might have been the dominant teaching is a mainline Protestant denomination, Hinduism and Islam are not monoliths what they’re being told to do? When do he knows the rabbi who performed this of both Christian and Jewish religious marries someone who is a member of the but are treated as such in this context, they go rogue and make their own deci- bar mitzvah, so there were questions communities, in reality families were Presbyterian Church of America, an evan In addition, a marriage between sions in other ways? about what confirming this kid would combining religious traditions and rais gelical denomination, that counts as an someone who attends Mass daily and a A friend of mine who’s an Episcopal do to the relationship between the ing their children in a way that drew from interfaith marriage. But if a Presbyterian lapsed Catholic won’t show up as inter- seminarian told me about a kid who church and the synagogue in question. both traditions to form a unique religious Church (USA) member marries someone faith in these studies. But these marriages came to him for confirmation classes. Also, what was going on for this family? identity. Nowhere, Mehta says, is this who belongs to the United Church of might well have just as many differences His family had never attended church What did they think a bar mitzvah was? negotiation more visible than during the Christ, those are both mainline denomi as one between a lapsed Catholic and a regularly, but they wanted their son to be What did they think confirmation was? December holidays. nations and are not counted as interfaith. secular Jew. confirmed. My friend agreed to meet with Why did they want to do both? 18 U.S. CATHOLIC DECEMBER 2019 DECEMBER 2019 USCATHOLIC.ORG 19 expert about how he always loved celebrating Christmas with his wife, but then he looks at his daughter and says, “What does it mean that she grows up to love Christmas too? Does that mean she Families can hold different isn’t Jewish? Now I think about getting a tree and I see my grandfather rising theologies and rituals in tension. up from his grave and having another heart attack.” This scene depicts a real fear in Judaism. It’s such a small religion, and it’s always the minority. So if Jews celebrate other religions’ traditions, will that cause them to assimilate and When my friend tried to find often care a lot about the holiday tradi die out? resources to help, the only ones that tions that happen in the home. Even if As interfaith marriage began to rise existed were trying to talk people someone doesn’t believe that the only in the 1980s, Reform Judaism reached a historically low point.