Current living conditions are incompatible with holiness

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Holiness isn’t something we achieve through our style of living, but rather, a transformation of our entire being, through the grace God gives us. It is He who transforms us, not anything we do on our own.

If you separate yourself from men, to get away from those you have no desire to be with, you’ll end up living with a tribe of devils.

The purpose of living a simple life-style, separate from the world., is so that you can learn to love better.

Jim
 
I don’t know if you are agreeing with me or not. If you have read any of the statments I have posted, they have all talked about growing in love and prayer. That is the whole point of community.

Does Ratzinger say this just to amuse himself?

"The communities would be an attraction as a new, different way of life and could show people that here we have the future, a different future. Here is the way of life for tomorrow.”
 
I’m not going to lie and say that I’ve read The Compendium of the Social Doctrine. After reading this thread I now know that I need to read this document. I do know, however, that collectivism and unrestricted laissez-faire economics are both discouraged. The most important part I think would be promoting social justice, meaning living a bucolic life cut off from everyone else would not be in a position to spread social justice.

I’m sorry if I sound harsh on your community, but I hold the belief that these communities are not good for mankind, and this is based off of World History 101. I think my great great great grandparents from Lithuania would slap me across the head for fantasizing about their “community life.”

“Once in an industrial society, we cannot get out of it without starving half the world’s population.”

Russell Kirk
 
Lava, I would hope that Ratzinger and the like would use more than World History 101 to come up with their conclusions. All I am espousing is the opinions of the church…
 
JimR-OCDS said:
Holiness isn’t something we achieve through our style of living, but rather, a transformation of our entire being, through the grace God gives us. It is He who transforms us, not anything we do on our own.
Jim
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1 – “Faith takes form in culture and a culture is also the result of faith…Inculturation, then, is not simply adaptation but a dynamic encounter between the culture of a certain place and the culture which comes from the Gospel.” From Instrumentum Laboris for the Synod on the Eucharist# 79
 
stogs said:
Lava, I would hope that Ratzinger and the like would use more than World History 101 to come up with their conclusions. All I am espousing is the opinions of the church…
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Stogs -
I believe the problem is all you are posting are bits and pieces of something else through various quotes. It is so easy to misquote or mis represent an idea by only posting bits and pieces of it. Besides any half way intelligent person can use those same quotes against you or to support a radically different idea so you see it does nothing for me anyway.

As with all Catholic doctrine we are suppose to seek the spiritual advise, interpretation and discernment of a priest or other member of the church before assumign that we totally understand what they are asking us to do. I would be more open to your ideas if I heard the Pope give you an official blessing on your community. Until that happens I see it more of your own personal interpretation of what the pope said and personal interpretation is always open to error.

Your ideas, although they could be valid, are similar to those ideas of David Karesh and other insane persons who thought they were creating a better life for everyone in their cult. His ideas were also valid at one point.

I think that if you truly have such a great thing there should be no problem getting it officially blessed and promoted by teh Pope himself. Why haven’t you pursued such a thing?
 
stogs said:
So, then the opinions of the popes are “out there.” Read the above quotes…
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No, you are misreading what Lava is trying to get accross to you. Reread the post. Lava is saying that your interpretation of the quotes and resultant actions are “out there” meaning very odd and different. I tend to agree with Lava for if your interpretation were normal, in any sense of the word and on any level, more people would be doing exactly what you are doing.

I believe you rely to heavily on quotes to support your idea and as I said in my previous post quotes can be used to support both sides of an argument in the hands of any fairly intelligent person.

You seem to really believe that what you are doing is what they church is asking us to do. Am I correct? Then why don’t you simply get the churches support?

Truely you could quote the church, the Pope, the President and God himself until the cows come home but that doesn’t mean you have their support.
 
Have you read the Social Encyclicals? This is straight from the Magisterium of the Church.

The comparison to David Karesh is so absurd it isn’t worth debating.

Please tell me exactly how I misinterpreted John XXIII or Ratzinger…

Anyone read All is Common or Small is Beautiful? These are the model communities we would like to copy…

Why get approval? You need approval from the pope to live a simple Catholic life on a farm?
 
Coreopisis said:
No, you are misreading what Lava is trying to get accross to you. Reread the post. Lava is saying that your interpretation of the quotes and resultant actions are “out there” meaning very odd and different.
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Where in the post that lava is referring to did I interpret anything? I just posted what the John XXIII said…
 
stogs said:
Have you read the Social Encyclicals? This is straight from the Magisterium of the Church.

The comparison to David Karesh is so absurd it isn’t worth debating.

Please tell me exactly how I misinterpreted John XXIII or Ratzinger…

Anyone read All is Common or Small is Beautiful? These are the model communities we would like to copy…

Why get approval? You need approval from the pope to live a simple Catholic life on a farm?
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Stogs,
I find it really interesting that you continue to quote the Pope over and over again as if you had or deserved his or the churches approval. ** Obviously church approval is extremely important to you or you wouldn’t use the quotes in the first place.**

With that being said you can understand why it is so odd that you wouldn’t take the ultimate step to get approval or even a blessing for that matter. Could it be that you might not get approval??

There are actual comparisons to what you are doing to various cults that i have studied. Often times they claim to have the church backing or Jesus or God or whatever, but never ever officially. Then they go nuts. I am not saying you are one of them but because you don’t have anything official backing you up it makes it similar. You’re right, you probably wouldn’t want to debate this. But back to my first paragraph it is fascinating. I know I myself, would be very interested in what the Pope would say to your idea. Much more interested than in a bunch of quotes jumbled together. Because as I said before quotes can be misused and instead of trying to sort out what they mean or were INTENDED to mean it would be really nice to simply get his approval.

Again if you don’t want/need his approval why would you use the quotes?
 
stogs said:
Where in the post that lava is referring to did I interpret anything? I just posted what the John XXIII said…
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This makes no sense please ellaborate with respect to what was posted. Thanks!🙂
 
If it is successful we probably would ask for the pope’s approval. When you start a small business, the first thing you do isn’t to incorporate, join the the Better Business Bureau and hire yourself a team of lawyers and accountants. You see if the business is successful, than you do those things later on.

The first thing Jean Vanier did was not to ask Rome’s approval of L’Arche. He bought a house and took care of a few men with developmental disabilities. Was he wrong in doing that

I don’t understand why this is so controversial. We want to be holy (Church teaches that), we want to live simple lives (Church teaches that), we want to help the physically and mentally disabled (the Church teaches that). So by living in the way people have lived for thousands and thousands of years, makes me enter cult status? Were all the Communities of Work in France and elsewhere in Europe in the 20th Century just a bunch of cults?

Again have you read the Social Encyclicals?

Where have I misinterpreted or even interpreted any of the statements made by popes, prominent philosophers or the Catholic Church itself?
 
stogs said:
If it is successful we probably would ask for the pope’s approval. When you start a small business, the first thing you do isn’t to incorporate, join the the Better Business Bureau and hire yourself a team of lawyers and accountants. You see if the business is successful, than you do those things later on.

The first thing Jean Vanier did was not to ask Rome’s approval of L’Arche. He bought a house and took care of a few men with developmental disabilities.

I don’t understand why this is so controversial. We want to be holy (Church teaches that), we want to live simple lives (Church teaches that), we want to help the physically and mentally disabled (the Church teaches that). So by living in the way people have lived for thousands and thousands of years, makes me enter cult status?

Again have you read the Social Encyclicals?

Where have I misinterpreted or even interpreted any of the statements made by popes, prominent philosophers or the Catholic Church itself?
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A small business is no comparison to a spiritual endeavor such as this. You are talking about peoples souls, this is very different than money. How would you know it was successful? By how many souls get to heaven? How would you know? Or would it be by how many people you can involve? I wonder did Jean Varner defend the creation of this house with Papal quotes and did Jean create the house under the assumption that they were acting under the church? Because you are…

I am trying to help you understand why this is controversial as other posters have as well. Many cults and other bad societies start out this way. They start out with one charismatic leader who comes up with an idea for a society set appart from everyone else. It is usually based on worship of God or another idol and ideas and then they begin recruiting. Now the Catholic church is not a cult because it doesn’t call it’s members to live apart from other members of society. Granted there are other parts to a cult that you haven’t shown but they all start out this way.

I, as well as some others who have posted, disagree with you that current living conditions are incompatible with holiness. I think each of us is responsible for our own holiness and holiness comes from within. We can control what goes on inside our own homes and who we get involved with. We don’t require a special society to allow us to be holy. This brings into question how you would control the holiness within your society. What if a member brings in sin? How do you plan to control them? You don’t have to answer that question but your methods of controlling your members and keepign them separate from society would be yet another step in the formation of a cult.

As for misinterpreting what the vatican says, that was not what I am referring to. I was referring to your misinterpretation of what Lava said. As for what the vatican said I would have to study and talk to a Priest and hopefully the Pope before I would pretend to be an expert. But I surely wont take your word for it nor any other lay person for the very salvation of my soul is at stake here.

I follow the Church directly. I don’t think that it is wise to allow any person to intercede for me. I go to church and I talk to priests. The idea of entrusting my soul to anyone and then allowing myself live in a society that they created via their understanding and definitions of the church terrifies me.

Do you understand why it is controversial now?
 
It is impossible for me to reply this reproach because I can’t post entire books on this thread. Read Small is Beautiful, All Things Common, Jean Vanier & L’Arche. Your questions are all answered in those books.

You might want to start to see what the Church teaches by reading its wealth of encyclicals; the Social Encyclicals is a good one to start with.
 
stogs said:
It is impossible for me to reply this reproach because I can’t post entire books on this thread. Read Small is Beautiful, All Things Common, Jean Vanier & L’Arche. Your questions are all answered in those books.

You might want to start to see what the Church teaches by reading its wealth of encyclicals; the Social Encyclicals is a good one to start with.
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It shouldn’t be impossible to reply as you have read so much. Surely you see other questions in my post that you can answer without referring to books. I would assume that having read all these things you must have a really good educated idea of how you are going to pursue this and how it will work.

What say you?

I will itemize to help you out.
  1. How will you measure the success of your society?
  2. Once you are ‘successful’ why wouldn’t you seek out church guidance and Papal approval as others have obtained? (You only mention that you might.)
  3. Do you seriously consider it a business?
  4. How do you plan to keep your society holy?
  5. What will happen if someone murders in your society. Do you kick them out, punish them?
  6. Will you have rules and how will you enforce them?
  7. How is it not a cult?
  8. Do you now understand why people might be careful about what you are proposing?
  9. Do you understand why it might be controversial?
 
First, I would just like to say that this is just the short of it. Some of these ideas are still being developed.

We would follow the ten commandments, be under local and federal law, the rules would be enforced by a leader and committees unanimously selected by the people just like the Communities of Work in France.

Success would probably be measured by mere survival in the beginning. Can we “comfortably” survive by living off the earth. We should easily be able to do this if we have enough people.

We would keep it holy by giving the whole community up to God. We would grow in love for each other by taking care of the physically and mentally disabled as well as working the earth.

People who join have to agree to respect each other’s religious beliefs. Participants must believe that at least an intermediary goal is that the “mission of man is to improve, transform and perfect nature and to draw the best out of it for the good of all men and of himself” (from All Things Common). Obviously, the primary goal of Christians is to glorify God and Christians will be given the opportunity to achieve that goal. We don’t force anyone to join Catholicism or even Christianity. We want to give people the opportunity to pursue truth.

The business idea was an analogy. We do think work plays a very large role in the whole scheme of things.
 
Also, how do you know that I misinterpreted lava’s post. He/she never mentioned that I did in replies. If I did, than I apologize, but let lava say so…
 
stogs said:
Also, how do you know that I misinterpreted lava’s post. He/she never mentioned that I did in replies. If I did, than I apologize, but let lava say so…
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This is how I feel about the quotes of the Church. If they agree with you let them say so because obviously things that are said can be misinterpreted. (perfect example is lavas post. One of us is wrong.) And it is entirely possible that you could’ve taken things out of context.
 
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