07/28/04
SUNDAY
OBSERVANCE AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
An article entitled “Our busy
lives make Sunday just another day “ that was run by the Associated Press (see http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/news/109014451689730.xml
) provides useful insights into the effect
that the Roman Catholic Church had upon the Protestant Christian Sabbath
observance. Here are excerpts from that
article:
Sunday,
July 18, 2004
Ted Anthony
Associated
Press
Once, within
living memory, it was a day apart in many places: a 24-hour stretch of family
time when liquor was unavailable, church was the rule, shopping was impossible
and - in some towns - weekend staples like tending the lawn and playing in the
park met with disapproval. But America changed, and it dragged Sunday along
with it.
Though Sunday
still means worship and family time for millions of Americans, today it also
means things it once didn't - 12-packs of Bud, the NFL on TV, catching up with
the week's accumulated errands, picking up some CDs at Best Buy, moving through
a 24/7 culture.
"Today, for a
lot of Americans, Sunday's just another day you have to go to work at
Wal-Mart," says John Hinshaw, a labor historian at Lebanon Valley College
in Annville, Pa. …
In a land where
the pursuit of happiness is part of the national charter, Sunday's evolution
attests to both Americans' harried lives and their determination to wring every
drop of fun out of every day of the week.
The Protestant
notion of Sunday began to change in the 1800s with immigrant laborers, many
Roman Catholic, who saw things differently. Many were devoted to "a Sunday
that took a very different shape - church in the morning and leisure in the
afternoon," says Alexis McCrossen, author of "Holy Day, Holiday: The
American Sunday."
…Across the
nation, laws governing Sunday conduct - some dating to the 17th century - have
fallen. In some places, like South Carolina, the changes created a crazy-quilt
patchwork that allows some stores to open at some hours while others can't. …
These days, it's
unimaginable to many Americans, particularly younger ones: A mall closed on
Sunday? The supermarket unavailable? Even laws governing Sunday alcohol, though
they remain on some states' books, are falling away… Today, 31 states permit
Sunday sales of liquor, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the
United States. In the past two years, nine states initiated Sunday sales -
including Massachusetts, where some of the earliest moral-conduct laws were
passed. New Jersey-based Commerce Bank - a bank! - has focused an entire
promotional campaign around doing business on Sundays…
"We've erased
a lot of the distinctions between night and day, between weekday and
weekend," says Susan Orlean, author of "Saturday Night in
America," a 1990 book. "Our notions of time and space are
collapsing."