Catholic-atheist meetings end with Pope Benedict appeal to youth [What is Pope Francis doing?]

[opus101]

@ Origen52:

 

[Henry_Garon]

Good OP, and the point is well stated. It would certainly bear looking into “Dostoyevsky, Fellini’s movie La Strada and Puccini’s opera Turandot.” As soon as I can find them on youtube.

But I question the wisdom of this approach. I feel that all of the popes since John XXIII have been neglectful of keeping the flock. Right now I have another thread open on this forum titled, “Poll: majority of Catholics who attend Mass weekly support same-sex marriage, women’s ordination”

If people are going to Mass every week, there is no logical reason that they should support the ABOMINATION of so-called “same-sex marriage”. If you went back in time 60 years and walked into any Catholic Church, most of the people would have known the Catechism of the Church. Now you could find maybe 10%. Most parishes don’t even teach the Catechism.

I go to mass nearly every day, and depending on where I am, it is not uncommon to hear the priest utter heresy from the altar. I have even heard a priest utter formal heresy, i.e. “the Church teaches X, but I say Y.”

And if the faithful are exposed to the heresies of those priests, is it any surprise that they should lose the faith? And if the priests see the Pope uttering a heresy, is it any surprise that the priest should lose his faith? For example, what if a Pope were to have a party in a holy city and invite pagans from around the world? And what if one of the pagan religions took a pagan statue and placed it on top of the altar in a Catholic Church? And what if the Pope covered up the crucifix in the Church so that the other religions were not offended by this Catholic symbol?

What would a priest think if he heard a pope say that one of the documents of Vatican II flatly contradicted a syllabus of errors published by an earlier pope? Wouldn’t this consistent disrespect of Tradition by the Pope lead many priests to disrespect the Church’s teachings? After all, isn’t Tradition the very essence of dogma? i.e. Doesn’t the Church teach that She has the fullness of the Teaching of Christ, which were handed down by Jesus Christ Himself? The dogmas of the Church are not some novelties or imaginings of the popes, but the clarifications of what Jesus told us in the Gospels.

Going back to Francis, we are all seeing this outreach program by the Vatican, with the seeming intent of capturing the hearts and minds of atheists world-wide. But meanwhile, back at the ranch, the priests and the people supposedly “in the Church” are going apostate. We are running out of priests, and parishes and schools are being closed.

So let’s say some atheist decides to see if God is for real, and he visits a Catholic Church. What will he find? What is he comes into the Church and hears the priest criticizing the Church on the altar? What if the atheist hears the priest teaching heresy? Could that atheist accept the Catholic religion if he never learns the Catechism? What if I went away to college for many years, and then I decided to “come home”, but upon arriving at my old address, I find that my house has been torn down?

 

[Origen52]

Henry I don’t know what to reply. I can tell you’re genuinely upset, but I hope you realise that his holiness preaches well within the confines of all catholic dogma. I would suggest you might read pope Benedict’s book “introduction to Christianity”, it taught me that a lot of what I was taught was church doctrin actually wasn’t. Another good source of information is the Vatican website where they have a collection of papal writing beginning with pope Leo XIII, I especially like the weekly audience homilies.
vatican.va/holy_father/index.htm