Do Plain Catholics exist?

[Josh]

I ran across this group known as what I would think are 'plain Catholics' and one of their congregations live only 30 minutes from me in Windsor, Ontario. They seem to me to be quite 'plain' in their ways. Details on them can be found here - https://madonnahouse.org/about/ and here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_House_Apostolate

They are found in various places in North America and elsewhere.

But they don’t call themselves “Plain Catholics”.

[Soloist]

Easy question would be for Max to say if this is or isn’t his group. It would give legitimacy to his claims and then it’s just quibbling over his pet name. Not that I believe it’s the case.

[Judas Maccabeus]

After careful consideration, I can find no evidence that they exist.

The only conclusion I can reach, being a former missionary, is that this is an effort at Contextualization. That being that, in order to reach a target culture, one must endeavor to be as like the target culture as you can. To an extent, we did this in the Middle East, we made sure we appeared in social gatherings, men dressed like Arab businessmen, women in local clothes. All neighborhood social gatherings we were in attendance whenever possible, and cooperated in the "village" as much as possible. We made sure there was no pork or alcohol in our home, and were ready to host a social visit at almost any time. This is what it looks like in a missions context. Neto, you are better trained than I, so feel free to correct or add.......

In the context of a board like this, if I were to do Contextualization, I would do exactly what our "plain Catholic" friend is doing. Exactly.

Therefor, my conclusion this is a ploy to win a hearing from Anabaptists. Nothing more, nothing less. In other words, win a hearing to convert people to Catholicism.

If I am wrong, please provide evidence of such a group. I am waiting to be proven wrong. No Catholic I have ever talked to, including Franciscans has ever heard of such a thing.

[Ken]

After careful consideration, I can find no evidence that they exist.

The only conclusion I can reach, being a former missionary, is that this is an effort at Contextualization. That being that, in order to reach a target culture, one must endeavor to be as like the target culture as you can. To an extent, we did this in the Middle East, we made sure we appeared in social gatherings, men dressed like Arab businessmen, women in local clothes. All neighborhood social gatherings we were in attendance whenever possible, and cooperated in the "village" as much as possible. We made sure there was no pork or alcohol in our home, and were ready to host a social visit at almost any time. This is what it looks like in a missions context. Neto, you are better trained than I, so feel free to correct or add.......

In the context of a board like this, if I were to do Contextualization, I would do exactly what our "plain Catholic" friend is doing. Exactly.

Therefor, my conclusion this is a ploy to win a hearing from Anabaptists. Nothing more, nothing less. In other words, win a hearing to convert people to Catholicism.

If I am wrong, please provide evidence of such a group. I am waiting to be proven wrong. No Catholic I have ever talked to, including Franciscans has ever heard of such a thing.

Religious curiosities draw attention from the media and academia. If not nationally then at least locally. Especially if they are defying existing institutions or mores. Look how much attention has been paid over the years to the fringe groups of fundamentalist Mormons for example. Books, movies, endless news articles along with academic articles parsing their beliefs. And look how much has been written about every small faction of Anabaptism.

If there were apostate congregations of plain Catholics out there there would no doubt at least be academics from Georgetown or Gonzaga or Notre Dame out there studying them and parsing their beliefs. And they'd be making their way into the local press from time to time, if only as curiosities. Out here in this part of the world we have a few Russian Old Believer congregations in the area and a few Old Apostolic Lutheran congregations which both have traditional practices and dress that make them stand out from the mainstream. They get curious coverage from local media from time to time and are no secret even if they aren't specifically promoting themselves. https://www.wweek.com/culture/2017/12/1 ... community/ or https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/ ... unity.html or https://www.columbian.com/news/2012/feb ... ation-put/

Here in the US there are over 200 different Catholic colleges and universities, all of them I suspect with religion and theology departments. And not Catholic academic has noticed plain Catholics in their midst and written about them and their beliefs? Not one local newspaper has ever noticed such a group in its backyard and profiled them as a human interest story?

[Neto]

After careful consideration, I can find no evidence that they exist.

The only conclusion I can reach, being a former missionary, is that this is an effort at Contextualization. That being that, in order to reach a target culture, one must endeavor to be as like the target culture as you can. To an extent, we did this in the Middle East, we made sure we appeared in social gatherings, men dressed like Arab businessmen, women in local clothes. All neighborhood social gatherings we were in attendance whenever possible, and cooperated in the "village" as much as possible. We made sure there was no pork or alcohol in our home, and were ready to host a social visit at almost any time. This is what it looks like in a missions context. Neto, you are better trained than I, so feel free to correct or add.......

In the context of a board like this, if I were to do Contextualization, I would do exactly what our "plain Catholic" friend is doing. Exactly.

Therefore, my conclusion this is a ploy to win a hearing from Anabaptists. Nothing more, nothing less. In other words, win a hearing to convert people to Catholicism.

If I am wrong, please provide evidence of such a group. I am waiting to be proven wrong. No Catholic I have ever talked to, including Franciscans has ever heard of such a thing.

In your setting, there were (from what I've read of those cultures) special reasons that made it more or less imperative for you to take that approach. I do not think of that as "tricking" anyone - I would guess that they all knew that you were different than they. I suspect they accepted it as a show of respect toward them, not offensive in any way. (Not that some individuals might have disliked it, because they may have attributed your success there to that one factor, or perhaps for other reasons.)

We didn't need to do much of that sort of thing. We DID continue to live in a house they had constructed for a previous WBT couple, for the two months after the 9 months it took to build the airstrip. We dressed in our own way, long pants and button shirt for me, skirt and blouse for my wife. (The Banawa men generally only wore shorts, and the women wore their own style of dress, or skirt and some type of top, except for a few very elderly women who often went topless.)

Our house was very simple by Brazilian standards, basically very much like what you would see in a 'favela', or 'slum'. (Not as nice as the skid buildings most people here put their lawnmowers in, although it DID have a hardwood floor, and a ceiling.) For quite a few years we bathed & washed clothes in the river, just as they did. We did also have an thatch wall outhouse, which was at first open on one side - until someone cleared the jungle behind our house and planted a field there. (I later dug a pit behind the house and covered it with quari-quara poles below ground level, then ran a 3" drain pipe into it and installed a toilet inside the house, but we always just carried water to flush it. We never had any running water in the house.)

As far as "Plain Catholics" go, I think that it is possible that there is a sincere desire to create a sub-group of Catholics who choose a simple and modest lifestyle. Being accepted as such by those they see as the most well-known example of this might assist them in gaining members from their own dioceses. I try to assume the best of everyone. Naive at times, yes. But it also does me no harm. In the back-water areas of Brazil, and also in the very small towns in the Brazilian "interior", there ARE Catholics who dress extremely different than the average Brazilian. I don't know how to characterize it, but their style of dress for women is probably almost unchanged since the 40's or 50's. As far as I am aware. they do not identify as any sort of sub-group of the Catholic church - that's just the way they choose to live.

[Judas Maccabeus]

After careful consideration, I can find no evidence that they exist.

The only conclusion I can reach, being a former missionary, is that this is an effort at Contextualization. That being that, in order to reach a target culture, one must endeavor to be as like the target culture as you can. To an extent, we did this in the Middle East, we made sure we appeared in social gatherings, men dressed like Arab businessmen, women in local clothes. All neighborhood social gatherings we were in attendance whenever possible, and cooperated in the "village" as much as possible. We made sure there was no pork or alcohol in our home, and were ready to host a social visit at almost any time. This is what it looks like in a missions context. Neto, you are better trained than I, so feel free to correct or add.......

In the context of a board like this, if I were to do Contextualization, I would do exactly what our "plain Catholic" friend is doing. Exactly.

Therefor, my conclusion this is a ploy to win a hearing from Anabaptists. Nothing more, nothing less. In other words, win a hearing to convert people to Catholicism.

If I am wrong, please provide evidence of such a group. I am waiting to be proven wrong. No Catholic I have ever talked to, including Franciscans has ever heard of such a thing.

Religious curiosities draw attention from the media and academia. If not nationally then at least locally. Especially if they are defying existing institutions or mores. Look how much attention has been paid over the years to the fringe groups of fundamentalist Mormons for example. Books, movies, endless news articles along with academic articles parsing their beliefs. And look how much has been written about every small faction of Anabaptism.

If there were apostate congregations of plain Catholics out there there would no doubt at least be academics from Georgetown or Gonzaga or Notre Dame out there studying them and parsing their beliefs. And they'd be making their way into the local press from time to time, if only as curiosities. Out here in this part of the world we have a few Russian Old Believer congregations in the area and a few Old Apostolic Lutheran congregations which both have traditional practices and dress that make them stand out from the mainstream. They get curious coverage from local media from time to time and are no secret even if they aren't specifically promoting themselves. https://www.wweek.com/culture/2017/12/1 ... community/ or https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/ ... unity.html or https://www.columbian.com/news/2012/feb ... ation-put/

Here in the US there are over 200 different Catholic colleges and universities, all of them I suspect with religion and theology departments. And not Catholic academic has noticed plain Catholics in their midst and written about them and their beliefs? Not one local newspaper has ever noticed such a group in its backyard and profiled them as a human interest story?

You actually have 2 groups here. You have Russian Orthodox "Old Believers" part of a group that rejected Patriarch Nikon's liturgical reform. They are an interesting group and can be confused with amish.

You also have one article about the "Old Apostolic Lutheran Church." This is part of a pietistic revival movement, that originated in Finland. It is part of a movement called Laestadianism. They are "one true church" but got on well with us conservative evangelicals. One of them was in the leadership of the Campus Crusade movement when I was in college. I enjoyed serving with him and appreciated his insight. They would typically dress in conservative clothes, women in dresses or skirts, but would not look "Amish."

[Ken]

After careful consideration, I can find no evidence that they exist.

The only conclusion I can reach, being a former missionary, is that this is an effort at Contextualization. That being that, in order to reach a target culture, one must endeavor to be as like the target culture as you can. To an extent, we did this in the Middle East, we made sure we appeared in social gatherings, men dressed like Arab businessmen, women in local clothes. All neighborhood social gatherings we were in attendance whenever possible, and cooperated in the "village" as much as possible. We made sure there was no pork or alcohol in our home, and were ready to host a social visit at almost any time. This is what it looks like in a missions context. Neto, you are better trained than I, so feel free to correct or add.......

In the context of a board like this, if I were to do Contextualization, I would do exactly what our "plain Catholic" friend is doing. Exactly.

Therefor, my conclusion this is a ploy to win a hearing from Anabaptists. Nothing more, nothing less. In other words, win a hearing to convert people to Catholicism.

If I am wrong, please provide evidence of such a group. I am waiting to be proven wrong. No Catholic I have ever talked to, including Franciscans has ever heard of such a thing.

Religious curiosities draw attention from the media and academia. If not nationally then at least locally. Especially if they are defying existing institutions or mores. Look how much attention has been paid over the years to the fringe groups of fundamentalist Mormons for example. Books, movies, endless news articles along with academic articles parsing their beliefs. And look how much has been written about every small faction of Anabaptism.

If there were apostate congregations of plain Catholics out there there would no doubt at least be academics from Georgetown or Gonzaga or Notre Dame out there studying them and parsing their beliefs. And they'd be making their way into the local press from time to time, if only as curiosities. Out here in this part of the world we have a few Russian Old Believer congregations in the area and a few Old Apostolic Lutheran congregations which both have traditional practices and dress that make them stand out from the mainstream. They get curious coverage from local media from time to time and are no secret even if they aren't specifically promoting themselves. https://www.wweek.com/culture/2017/12/1 ... community/ or https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/ ... unity.html or https://www.columbian.com/news/2012/feb ... ation-put/

Here in the US there are over 200 different Catholic colleges and universities, all of them I suspect with religion and theology departments. And not Catholic academic has noticed plain Catholics in their midst and written about them and their beliefs? Not one local newspaper has ever noticed such a group in its backyard and profiled them as a human interest story?

You actually have 2 groups here. You have Russian Orthodox "Old Believers" part of a group that rejected Patriarch Nikon's liturgical reform. They are an interesting group and can be confused with amish.

You also have one article about the "Old Apostolic Lutheran Church." This is part of a pietistic revival movement, that originated in Finland. It is part of a movement called Laestadianism. They are "one true church" but got on well with us conservative evangelicals. One of them was in the leadership of the Campus Crusade movement when I was in college. I enjoyed serving with him and appreciated his insight. They would typically dress in conservative clothes, women in dresses or skirts, but would not look "Amish."

Yes I realize they are different groups. My point is simply that religious groups that are out of the mainstream draw attention and curiosity. They get local coverage. People are curious about them, what they believe, what they represent, where they are from, and write about them. Those just happen to be two examples from this part of the world.

[MaxPC]

What about this - https://plaincatholic.wordpress.com/

PSA:
Here is an updated link for you to the permanent Plain Catholic blog. At least it is hopefully as permanent as the rest of the internet which upon reflection, I realise that too may be fleeting.

I was told some time ago that the word press blog was an old experiment that was done by the young man who created the website. That experimental word press blog was never meant to be a permanent feature so I contacted him and he removed it. He told me that there may be a few other experiments "out there" but he cannot remember all of them. He was experimenting to determine which platform provided ease of usage. If you happen to find anymore feel free to let me know.

The website no longer exists because the platform was discontinued. He is now putting the information from the website onto the permanent blog. He has since married so it will likely be sometime before all of the information is transferred. He added the history and identity of Plain Catholics last evening.
Carry on and God bless.

[Josh]

Are there any Plain Catholics who would be willing to make contact with other people (specifically, Catholics) who are interested in talking to or meeting them?

Specifically, I know a priest/monk who would be interested.

[Soloist]

I see he shares your connection to the UK. Also interesting his new picture choice

Just so people can see, note the pictures used last year.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230324220 ... gspot.com/