Catholic Friends vs. Friends Who are Catholic

by Fr. John Parks  |  07/14/2024  |  Weekly Reflection

The Christian life is not meant to be lived alone. Jesus sent out his disciples 2 by 2. We are made in the image and likeness of a God who is in Himself an eternal exchange of love. Thus, we are made for communion and love. We are made for relationships, and among the various loves we need as human persons, friendship is key.

We all need Catholic friendship to continue the narrow path our Lord has set out for us. This begs the question, “What is a Catholic friendship? For instance, if I have a friend who is Catholic i.e. baptized in the faith—does that make being in a relationship with them a de facto Catholic one? Or is something more required?

We get an insight to these questions by considering what C.S. Lewis relates in his book, “The Four Loves.” In this short book, Lewis outlines four different Greek words for the various kinds of love. In his chapter on friendship (which is the Greek word adelphoi), he remarks that lovers stand “face to face” looking at each other while friends stand “side by side” looking at the same thing. He says the question one intuitively asks another when they are gauging whether they will be friends is, “Do you see the truth I see?” Friends stand shoulder to shoulder because they delight in beholding the same truth. That truth is the foundation of their relationship.

We now have the key to answering our questions. What distinguishes a “Catholic friendship” from being friends with someone who “we just happen to be Catholic”, is the foundation of the relationship. For my relationship with another to be a Catholic one, as we stand side by side we both see God (even though no two people have the same relationship with God) as He is revealed fully by Jesus and His Church. That “seeing together” is the foundation of our relationship, and what constitutes making it a Catholic one. We delight in the same thing, and that thing is nothing other than God Himself. To be clear, friends can see many things in a similar way, see several of “the same truths”, but if one of them is not the Catholic faith, then it cannot be considered a Catholic one, i.e. that it is oriented to helping me live as a disciple of Jesus.

This certainly does not mean that non-Catholic friendships are not worth having, or that you cannot have a beautiful Christian friendship with a Protestant Christian (which I have experienced myself), or that a “just happen to be Catholic” friendship cannot become a “Catholic friendship”. To do that, one person in the relationship’s faith may “catch up with the other” and then they begin to see the same thing together. Friends are necessary for a truly human life. And the best friendships are the ones that help us to attain eternal life, i.e. Catholic ones.