Catholic Misbehavior?

  • Thread starter Thread starter GoodTony
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
G

GoodTony

Guest
Lancaster County, PA is known for its Amish and Mennonite heritages. However, the fastest growing churches, at this time, are the independent bible churches,. Some of these churches have several thousand members each.

Sight and Sound is a nationally recognized non-Catholic Christian theatre presenting live bible-based plays. At the end of one of the plays, Jesus is seated in heaven and the saints of that particular play come to Jesus, bend a knee and then stand on one side of Jesus. The Blessed Virgin Mary went forward, in line with the other saints, bent her knee and then stood alongside Jesus with the other saints.

As soon as Mary did this, about a dozen Catholic senior citizens stood up and stormed out of the theatre.

Does this constitute Catholic misbehavior during a non-Catholic Christian event?
 
  1. I’m not sure what “Catholic misbehavior” is exactly, but people are well within their rights to walk out on a performance if they don’t like it.
  2. That being said, I don’t see why Catholics would find this objectionable, given the details you’ve given here.
-ACEGC
 
Well, since Christ was given the throne of His ancestor David (Luke 1:32); since there is a seat beside it for Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon (1 Kings 2:19); since Christ is sitting beside the father, and since Mary is greater than Bathsheba, it is apparent to a thinking Christian that Mary is sitting beside Jesus in heaven. Naturally, this non-Catholic play reflects a very shallow theology, as does all such bible based activity, and it is not reflective of Catholic belief.

In a larger sense, it is the demon who attacks Mary, but being afraid to do so directly, dupes ignorant men into disrespect of the mother that our Lord chose, and created, for Himself. This is why it is best to avoid all such non-Catholic productions.
 
GoodTony said:
The Blessed Virgin Mary went forward, in line with the other saints, bent her knee and then stood alongside Jesus with the other saints.

As soon as Mary did this, about a dozen Catholic senior citizens stood up and stormed out of the theatre.

Does this constitute Catholic misbehavior during a non-Catholic Christian event?
Click to expand...
The problem is that it places the Blessed Mother on the same level as other Saints, when in fact she is the Queen of Heaven and earth. My guess is that the Catholic senior citizens had enough *sensus catholicus *to pick up on this subtle error, which is why they left.

That being said, I suspect there may have been another reason the Catholics walked out. Since I was not there, I can only wonder if the play also portrayed the Blessed Mother as a sinner? If so, that would have been a further cause for the Catholics to flee.
 
It seems as if the non-Catholic theater portrayed the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven and Earth as just another Saint.

And the Pope is just another Catholic standing in line to receive Holy Communion

And the President is just another citizen standing line waiting to go through security at the airport.

Whether the portrayal was intentional demeaning or unintentional lack of understanding, it was offensive to Catholics who understand Mary’s role in Salvation.

A walk out was appropriate. Silence is acquiescence.
 
Why would a Catholic attend a non-Catholic Bible-based performance and expect compliance with Catholic dogma, belief, protocol, or any other thing Catholic? Someone once said “If you don’t like drunks don’t go to bars.”
 
:shrug:Maybe the play was just awful and that is why they walked out.🤷

I would like to know what “Catholic Misbehavior” is though.
 
Bob_Aliano said:
Why would a Catholic attend a non-Catholic Bible-based performance and expect compliance with Catholic dogma, belief, protocol, or any other thing Catholic? Someone once said “If you don’t like drunks don’t go to bars.”
Click to expand...
Good point and good analogy. If you don’t like heresy, stay away from heretics.
 
Bob_Aliano said:
Why would a Catholic attend a non-Catholic Bible-based performance and expect compliance with Catholic dogma, belief, protocol, or any other thing Catholic? Someone once said “If you don’t like drunks don’t go to bars.”
Click to expand...
👍 I actually agree with this. You can’t expect someone who does not believe the same to portray the same.

I don’t consider it catholic misbehavior that they walked out. They can do as they please. If they didn’t like it enough, they don’t have to be chained to their chairs. Same with any other theater. If it’s a junky show/movie, I’ll leave. They don’t have to sit there, but it isn’t really terrible if they do, either.

It didn’t really insult Mary, did it? They just don’t understand that she is saint numero uno. That’s all. It’s a lack of faith and understanding, rather than an intentional “slap in the face” to catholics or a disregard for Mary. She wasn’t portrayed in a disgusting, evil way, rather, at least she was shown with the saints. Hey, they even portrayed the Pope, which is kind of good, too, since many protestant groups think less than positively of the Pope.
 
On the one hand, Mary is considerably more than just saint número uno. She is the Queen of Heaven and Earth, the immaculately conceived ever-virgin Mother of God who had the high honour of being assumed body and soul into heaven.

On the other hand I wouldn’t expect a play written by non-Catholics to treat her as being all or any of the above, any more than a play written by Muslims would.
 
To be honest, I’m surprised they portrayed the Blessed Virgin at all, much less in what is an admittedly more favorable, albeit incorrect, light.

Reminds me, in some ways, of the debates between Rabbi Shmueley Boteach and Dr. Michael Brown. Rabbi Boteach, internationally known, has been forced to recognize Jesus outside of the perimeters the Talmud places him in. But Rabbi Boteach still refuses to admit key elements which totally purge his doctrine from the appearance of truth, and into the Truth itself.

Protestants, it seems, are slowly coming around to the truth of Mary. It’s gonna take concise, strong doctrine to really get em understanding. Patting them on the head and saying nice things is going to actually ruin the momentum.

When that happens though, I expect they will be coming to the Catholic church.

They have zeal, they have belief, they have faith- now they just need correct doctrine to make those things worth a hoot.
 
GoodTony said:
Lancaster County, PA is known for its Amish and Mennonite heritages. However, the fastest growing churches, at this time, are the independent bible churches,. Some of these churches have several thousand members each.

Sight and Sound is a nationally recognized non-Catholic Christian theatre presenting live bible-based plays. At the end of one of the plays, Jesus is seated in heaven and the saints of that particular play come to Jesus, bend a knee and then stand on one side of Jesus. The Blessed Virgin Mary went forward, in line with the other saints, bent her knee and then stood alongside Jesus with the other saints.

As soon as Mary did this, about a dozen Catholic senior citizens stood up and stormed out of the theatre.

Does this constitute Catholic misbehavior during a non-Catholic Christian event?
Click to expand...
I am proud of those Catholics who walked out. I hope that I would do the same if met with such a situation.
 
LilyM said:
On the one hand, Mary is considerably more than just saint número uno. She is the Queen of Heaven and Earth, the immaculately conceived ever-virgin Mother of God who had the high honour of being assumed body and soul into heaven.
Click to expand...
You don’t have to explain that to me. I’m not taking away from her due honor.

It’s just that they don’t realize why, nor do they, for that matter, expound much at all about saints, period.

For that matter, there always seems to be someone who picks up any sort of remark on Mary and turns it around into something where someone is insulting her.

Just because she’s numbered with the saints, doesn’t mean anything bad. It’s a play, for heaven’s sake.
 
passer_by said:
I am proud of those Catholics who walked out. I hope that I would do the same if met with such a situation.
Click to expand...
Why? That to me sounds quite rude. It is like accepting an invitation to a steakhouse for a Friday dinner and then walking because they do not serve anything but meat.

BTW the BVM is the Handmaid of the Lord and I do not think that she would fret too much in waiting to get the honor that is due to her.
 
Cristiano said:
Why? That to me sounds quite rude. It is like accepting an invitation to a steakhouse for a Friday dinner and then walking because they do not serve anything but meat.

BTW the BVM is the Handmaid of the Lord and I do not think that she would fret too much in waiting to get the honor that is due to her.
Click to expand...
Well lets put it this way, if your went to a play showing your family, and then they showed your mother depicted as a regular member of the family when she had done so much for the family unlike any other member, what would you do?

Or ask yourself this, if Jesus was merely portrayed as a prophet or saint in the play, would you still be so kind?
 
LilyM said:
On the one hand, Mary is considerably more than just saint número uno. She is the Queen of Heaven and Earth, the immaculately conceived ever-virgin Mother of God who had the high honour of being assumed body and soul into heaven.

On the other hand I wouldn’t expect a play written by non-Catholics to treat her as being all or any of the above, any more than a play written by Muslims would.
Click to expand...
Since Mary is one of only two persons in all of Islam that was not touched by the devil at their birth, and since she has a chapter in the Qur’an in her name, and since she is mentioned more times in the Qur’an than in the Christian Bible, I would suspect that an Islamic play would be quite respectful of her.
 
I don’t see that this is offensive at all. There’s a Renaissance painting of the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin where she’s very clearly kneeling before her Son as He places the crown on her head. As far as I can tell, neither one is offensive. Mary might be the Queen of Heaven, but she’s not a complete equal to her Son: she’s not a goddess. She might be immaculate, but she’s still a human being and therefore her Son’s creation, meaning she’s still more or less His subject.
 
I think I’ve been to one of those plays when I was a teen. There was one on Noah and there were hundreds of animals on the stage.

Here are some scenes.

They are especially great for kids and are mostly based on bible stories, so there shouldn’t be anything for a Catholic to object to when it comes to the Bible stories themselves…

But knowing ahead of time that this is a fundamentalist production, is it reasonable to expect see Mary crowned as Queen of Heaven?

Come on people.
 
TrueLight said:
I think I’ve been to one of those plays when I was a teen. There was one on Noah and there were hundreds of animals on the stage.

Here are some scenes.

They are especially great for kids and are mostly based on bible stories, so there shouldn’t be anything for a Catholic to object to when it comes to the Bible stories themselves…

But knowing ahead of time that this is an fundamentalist production, is it reasonable to see Mary crowned as Queen of Heaven?

Come on people.
Click to expand...
There’s an Evangelical church in my area that does something similar: they stage a couple plays a year as part of their ministry. They write all their own material. and while their writing can be a bit wonky and derivative (they did a play about Christian members of the Wampanoag Native American tribe and the trouble they had to endure from both Europeans and other Native Americans, and the lead female character’s songs were eeriely similar to the songs from the Disney version of “Pocahontas”), but they clearly put a lot of work and a lot of joy into their performances. I’ve a had a few issues with some of their content (one reference to “Popery” in a play based on John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”), but overall, most of their offenses have been artistic rather than theological.
 
passer_by said:
Well lets put it this way, if your went to a play showing your family, and then they showed your mother depicted as a regular member of the family when she had done so much for the family unlike any other member, what would you do?

Or ask yourself this, if Jesus was merely portrayed as a prophet or saint in the play, would you still be so kind?
Click to expand...
If a Catholic goes to one of these events all bets are off. It isn’t right for us to take pot-shots at these other Christians because they don’t share all our beliefs, if they did they would be “us” not “them”. You cannot expect every other religion to share our beliefs or respect for Our Lady or, depending on the other religion, any other aspect of our faith for that matter. Don’t go to these performances if you think you might be put off, it’s that simple.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top