Early summer 2026 has been flattering to America because the world came to visit, and they like us. They really like us!
All those Japanese World Cup fans discovering Texas Roadhouse and the Germans discovering Buc-ee’s lifted our spirits. It was fun finding out that things we take for granted (Waffle House, ranch dressing, red firetrucks!) actually fascinate visitors. We might not have bullet trains, we might not have a parliament, but doggone it, we’ve got soda machines with seventy-one flavors, miles and miles of open road, and air conditioning!
Being American means everybody has an opinion about your country, and fair enough. We throw a lot of weight around. But it’s also fair for Americans to resent, a little, the stereotypes of our arrogance, our ignorance, and our penchant for violence when America is—in almost every neighborhood—peaceful, friendly, and generous.
As Catholics, it’s worth considering what our European guests might say if they came and met the American Church. Do we have our own Waffle House-like qualities they might be surprised to find they like?
Perhaps they would be surprised by how generous American Catholics are—not just institutionally, but personally, with parishes, schools, crisis pregnancy centers, food pantries, hospitals, and missions. They might also discover that the American parish can be an unexpectedly lively place: coffee and doughnuts, Knights of Columbus breakfasts, Bible studies, youth nights, fish fries, adoration chapels, parish festivals, and an army of volunteers keeping the place running.
They might be moved by the ethnic variety of the American Church: Vietnamese celebrations, Filipino devotions, Mexican processions, Nigerian choirs, Polish festivals, Korean communities, Latin Mass communities, charismatic communities, and ordinary suburban parishes where all of it somehow overlaps. They might find that the American Church has beautiful church buildings, but it also has lots of churches with more of a roadside-diner charm: not always objectively beautiful, but loveable in their goofy architecture.
They might notice that American Catholicism has a strong convert culture. Many of our most energetic Catholics chose the Church as adults, often after long searching, and that gives the Church here a certain seriousness and freshness. They might also see that, in many ways, America has embraced some of the real fruits of Vatican II, especially in our lively lay apostolates, of which Catholic Answers is just one example. They might be impressed at the worldwide evangelistic reach of the many American lay apostolates.
They might be impressed that, while maybe only a fifth of American Catholics go to weekly Mass, those who do are often filled with a sense that they have a mission in the world. They are not “cultural Catholics,” but committed. They might also be struck by the bold use of media to spread the Faith, from radio and television to podcasts, YouTube, social media, and online apologetics that reach far beyond parish walls. And they might be surprised by how openly many American Catholics talk about faith in public life—sometimes clumsily, sometimes beautifully, but often with a sincere desire to bring Christ into family, politics, media, business, education, and ordinary friendship.
And maybe they would leave thinking: America is not exactly what I imagined or saw in the news media. And neither are American Catholics.
We know our nation is not what it should be. We know the wounds: abortion, consumerism, loneliness, self-invention, and a growing self-centeredness that has a hard time finding room for neighbor, family, and even God. But American Catholicism gives us a community, a vocabulary, and a spirit for addressing those wounds.
And America, for all its problems, gives the Church room to breathe. Not through government financing or official endorsement, but through liberty: the freedom to worship, to preach, to build schools and hospitals, to argue in public, to serve the poor, to launch apostolates, to fill the airwaves, to gather in parish halls, and to invite our neighbors to Christ.
America’s libertine tendencies challenge us. But its liberty also allows the Church to flourish in ways that are rare, even for a 2,000-year-old, worldwide communion. And maybe that is one more thing our guests might discover here: an ancient Church still very much alive in the land of Buc-ee’s, Waffle House, red firetrucks, and seventy-one flavors of soda.