Our Catholic identity - Part IV

In previous posts, I identified criteria for a Catholic identity, and described the crisis of identity we face in the Church today.  I left us in the last part with a question: How do we get our identity back?

If you think I have the answer, then I must apologize for misleading you.  Instead of an answer, all I have is a bunch of questions.

Should we do like the Hassidic Jews and cut ourselves of socially from the rest of the world?  Do we go to mandatory Catholic schooling and fish on Fridays?  Is repudiating the Novus Ordo and the alleged Protestant orientations contained therein the right thing to do, either as a good start or as sufficient to start identity reclamation?  (Here, I have to say that I am neither questioning the validity nor advocating instant repudiation of the Novus Ordo; I merely ask the question.)  Maybe it is simply getting rid of the “big-tent” approach to identity that seems to have descended upon us, perhaps by actually “culling” our membership of folks like Kennedy, Pelosi, Biden, and anyone who supports them.  I don’t know—that’s why I am asking you.  I would love hearing what you folks might think about this.

So, I’ll finish up this topic, finally, with a trenchant observation.  I find it a shame to have to even ask the question “What IS our Catholic identity?”—it seems that McDonald’s has a better idea of its identity than we as Catholics do.