I Like Being Catholic: Treasured Traditions, Rituals, and Stories

I Like Being Catholic is sure to rank among the top-10 first Communion gifts in coming years. It's a collection of personal essays, prayers, quotations, and other short writings by everyone from Cokie Roberts to Martin Scorsese to William F. Buckley about the pleasures of practicing Catholicism. As editors Michael Leach and Therese J. Borchard write in their introduction to the volume, the anthology's contributors "may not always agree with the Church's rules but they wouldn't think of being anything else. Catholicism is in their bones." I Like Being Catholic is not concerned with theology; it's out to show the ways that Catholicism enables faithful folk to see the true and beautiful. This approach occasionally lapses into kitsch ("Fifty Things Catholics Like Best About Being Catholic," compiled by Fr. William A. Burke from parishioners in Homewood, Illinois: e.g., "22. Ashes smudged on your forehead."). It also creates some occasions for readers to enjoy the divine presence in unexpected places (as suggested by Doris Kearns Goodwin's "The Brooklyn Dodgers and The Catholic Church").