Danger to Catholiscm

[Celtic_Maiden]

I don’t know that people who identify as Catholics but do not practice the faith are a danger to Catholicism. It is sad though. It certainly looks bad upon The Church to non-Catholics. I think it is terrible that some Catholics do not care to learn anything about the faith either. Not to get too preachy but this thread reminded me of the parable of the Wheat and tares. Incase anyone forgot, this is it from The NKJV

Matthew 13:24-30
24 Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ ** 29 **But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”’"

:

I heard a fairly famous Catholic call The Catholic Church a church of wheat and tares. Then another guy said “Well I am not always the wheat, sometimes I am a tare” And I can relate to that too. But it makes sense and I will probably think about this parable when I think about why there are so many people in The Church who do not act like Christians.

Also what did Our Lord do with the Fig tree, HE cut it down because it did not produce fruit that it advertised itself- being a fig tree.:signofcross

 

[Joy2day]

In my experience…for my husband and I…the most damage done to the Catholic Church is the Catholic in name only laymen.

They are the spokespeople of the Catholic faith. Nothing has prevented my husband from converting to Catholicism more then family members and friends who claim to be Catholic but don’t know who Jesus Christ is and, when pressed, aren’t sure if he actually did rise from dead.

I was one of those Catholics.

My husband saw the truth in the Catholic Church but couldn’t bring himself to convert because no one he talked to, who was Catholic, could express any interest in Jesus or the Church.

It is a problem with the clergy and the bishops, who clearly don’t take the faith seriously and don’t Catechize the lay people properly.

I suppose on some level we are all guilty of this to a certain extent. However, there are those people, including the lay people and the religious, who really should know better about some of their actions. It is hard to judge on the surface, but it does make you sick. I guess many of us have been damaged, and had our faith damaged, by impressions left from people we thought were catholic. I guess the answer, is to pray harder and increase our faith in the One who is faithful and strong.

 

[Joy2day]

I think the safety valve in those cases is in the fact that whilst they have a certain educational authority, they don’t have much real spiritual authority when they teach or demon strate beliefs contrary to Catholic teaching. There have always been and always will be false teachers. The wolves in sheeps clothing.

I think the bigger danger are Priests who try to teach or demonstrate things contrary to Church teaching.

Yep! :bighanky:

 

[manualman]

Not sure I’m following you, are you saying that many Newman Centers are problematic as well?

ANY church sponsored institution that claims to be catholic, but teaches heterodox ideas or “compromised Christianity” is more harm than good. What they do is inoculate people against Catholicism instead of evangelize them to it. This can be whole nominally catholic colleges (I’m in no position to judge ND in particular) or Newman Centers on secular campuses.

I, for example, went to a Big Ten university with a Newman Center. I won’t name the name since I hear they have since cleaned up enormously, but here are some things I observed there:

1. Iconoclast “wreckovation” of the building with virtually ZERO artistic or transcendent appeal. The stated purpose was to place the focus on the PEOPLE.
2. Crumbly loaves that clearly included honey for communion bread.
3. “Our Father, Our Mother God, who art in heaven…”
4. “In the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier…”
5. Female “pastoral associate” who vested, gave homilies, stood next to the priest and (unmiked) mouthed along with the words of consecration (identical in appearance to concelebration)
6. Instruction to pray the rosary as a “helpful mantra.”
7. Each communicant was Eucharistic minister for the person in line behind him.

You get the idea. Such places do not build the faith, they make a mockery of it.

I think the “Newman Guide” is a good resource to use to separate the wheat from the weeds in this regard.

 

[Cojuanco]

I feel that the biggest threat to the Catholic Faith is not atheist it is Catholics who say they are Catholic and yet cease to Practice it. Like our Universities Notre Dame, Seriously why does the Vatican allow them to be associated with them if they don’t practice?

We must be careful. You do not know if Fr. Jenkins repented of his rash decisions, which might be known only to the local bishop and the Vatican. It has happened in private before. Sometimes, when prodded from behind the scenes, they may end up making their repentance public, as has happened with a certain Jesuit university.

Furthermore, the problem with many Catholic universities is that according to the civil law, they as a corporate body are governed only by their lay board and the laws of the State. Now the clergy might have some seats, but nowhere near a majority. The lay board hires and fires professors and sets policy. The only thing the Church owns is the land and the buildings. They cannot even induce a dissident employee to resign. The only decision the Church in these cases could do is to bodily expel the entire university as a corporation from their property. In which case all they would have would be empty buildings and a chapel. That makes things tricky.

Finally, the greatest threat to the Church is the devil. Those you criticize are merely oppressed by him. Therefore we ought to pray for their conversion.

 

[lily22]

There’s an increasingly smaller chamber in which to practice Catholicism, and the church is corrupted too, so it makes it even harder.

Families are so out of sorts, and that is the foundation of society.

 

[lily22]

It is becoming so bad, that to practice our faith, you may have to break the law, or remove from the world a bit. But then, how do you serve the community? But serving gives risk, because everything is so polluted. It can lead you away from God. Life is tough!!!

 

[Lion_IRC]

www.churchmilitant.tv and a short program (usually about 5 minutes per day) called The Vortex. This is not exactly a PM but I’m not really sure how to do those:shrug:

Thanks.

I was going to give you a pointer how to use the PM but I see you have been here for ages and if you havent had the need to use it up til now,
then you must be doin’ OK… :ballspin: