Confession of a Catholic Worker: Our Moment of Christian Witness

by Larry Chapp

Everyone knows there is a "crisis" in the Catholic Church and in the world around us. Some say it is capitalism gone wild. Others say it is the decay of tradition, family, and objective truth. Still others say it is the rise of radical, reactionary conservatism. Though all may not agree on the nature of the crisis, who doesn't agree that there is one, and who isn't worried? For Larry Chapp, crisis is always the norm of Christian existence. In a cold, dying world choked by greed, the Gospel calls for radical love and radical living according to the Sermon on the Mount. Using the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar , Peter Maurin , and Dorothy Day , Chapp argues that the real remedy to the disease of sin is not niceness, not political liberation, not fancy liturgical dress, not technical rigor, but a free decision to live totally and joyfully in Jesus Christ, without compromise. Just as the martyrs chose God over life itself, so each Christian must, in the crucial hour, choose Jesus over all things. Everything hinges on the moment of Christian witness.

224 pages, Paperback

Published April 5, 2023

Reviews

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My rating is very subjective—this was, for me, a timely book that felt like finding a friend and mentor along my journey of faith. I will be revisiting this book again.

[Ben Kercheval · Rating 5 out of 5]

(4.5/5)

Reading this short, impassioned book was like having my stale soul reinvigorated by a bracing wind. I'd only read short articles by Chapp in the past, but have always enjoyed his acerbic critiques of the contemporary Catholic world. He's stood out to me in part because his views resist the easy polarization that can infect Catholic debate: he rightly senses and is repulsed by the banality and vanity of much of the modern world, yet is a full-throated defender of the need for and many of the doctrinal developments of Vatican II; he has embraced the example of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin's Catholic Worker movement in part by running a farm in this tradition, yet is a strenuous critic of the "progressive" conceptions of gender and sexuality which can sometimes take root in these milieus, which are often liable to attract leftist personalities (like myself - and I think maybe Chapp too: he admits at one point that he is "often far more at home with [his] pot-smoking liberal friends" than he is with the "hypertraditional" types he met in seminary).

A big idea in Confession is that a characteristic effect of modernity is the near-extirpation of "the religious sense" in humans and its replacement with "the bourgeois spirit," assigning ultimate value to material well-being. This bourgeois spirit doesn't just obscure the human urge to be guided by transcendent truth: it is a totalizing force that ultimately causes us to forget that we have such an urge or, when it does make itself known, to explain it away as a fascinating artifact of our more primitive evolutionary past which we have moved beyond the need for. In the face of this force of spiritual "nullification", the task of Christian evangelization, for Chapp, is to bring into focus that a) the "religious sense" indicates something real and essential to who we are and b) the full consummation of this sense is life, freely chosen, in Christ.

Chapp's prescription for modern ills follows naturally from this answer. Christians are called to embrace Vatican II's emphasis on "the universal call to holiness," the template for which is the God-Man himself, and in particular the necessity of his (our) crucifixion. At a time when the authority of the Catholic Church as a credible guide to meaning and morals has, in the West, all but evaporated, it is only in concrete lives of cruciform service to neighbor and God that the Christian can make a salient argument for the beauty and truth of his faith.

Like I said, this book was bracing for me, and Chapp's approach to Christianity resonates deeply with my own experience and intuitions. The existence of a thinker like Chapp (as well as his intellectual forebears in the ressourcement theological movement) indicates a winsome approach to the faith that is both orthodox and alive to the perennial "freshness" of the tradition. The theological sensibility that Chapp has sketched here I hope to understand more fully through further reading, especially of Henri de Lubac. More importantly, his call to sanctity has, I think, already helped me orient myself more wisely in how I practice my faith.

I docked a half star because this edition could use some further editing, both for spelling and fluency. Chapp (like myself) is prone to unnecessary verbiage, the reduction of which would make his message clearer and more compelling.

[Matthew Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

A painfully honest look at the church today and how she is in need of redirection back to the cross. At times it can drone on and repeat itself but an astute and prophetic look at the world today with the antidote for all her ailments.

[Carol Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book, but it was a very difficult read. Probably more geared towards a priest, religious sister, or someone with a degree in theology.

[Conor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bracing, challenging book.

[Chris DeCleene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This goes on my personal Mt. Rushmore of non-fiction. Incredible, must-read, unmatched insight speaking to the state of the Church today.

[Samantha Pechtl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for Catholics!

[Jack Geise · Rating 4 out of 5]

white hot with passion and incredible ideas, occasionally lost steam due to a rambling which makes you go "how does this have anything to do with anything?" but that's okay. highly recommend