Dissenters: Why do you call yourself a Catholic?

[SpiritMeadow]

Sorry it took a while to get back. I do not advocate a literal reading of the Bble, but I do advocate as a Christian that it is divinely inspired and that the Catholic Church assembled the Bible. IF it is divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit, then the teachings are in accord with Jesus’ teaching for the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are One.

Again, I ask you what does it matter to the text whether it was added earlier or later if it is divinely inspired?

Your desire to parse the Bible based on research fails to take into account that scripture itself is holy for the Holy Spirit inspired it. Is this not a denial of the Holy Spirit or the unity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit?

No need to apologize. Hopefully most of us have busy lives that don’t give us a lot of time to answer these.

I agree with the divinely inspired aspects insofar that I believe that the teachings of Jesus are such. The trick is in determining what are teaching and what is later church addition. If you examine the literally thousands of copies of the various books of the NT, you find a lot of interesting mistakes, some are purely missing a line in copying or writing a line twice. But often scribes added words or subtracted them in order to make clear what they thought the writer meant. The are then taken back out or added back in by later scribes. There are actual copies in which authors have written in the margins telling the scribe to transcribe faithfully and not to take or out add what he thinks. This was a well known problem in the early years and thrreats were actually made in the margins about it.

What the orginal writer wrote is in my believe divinely inspired. It matters greatly if someone at a later date added material. There is no assumption that that is also inspired.

As to the last part. I am not parsing scripture. That is what it means to not take it always literally. I am attempting to discern what in fact Jesus said and separate that from what the Gospel or other writer wished to contend by his writing. these documents were not merely tracts of information. They were written in a manner to convince. That means something important to the literary examiner. Those who have a purpose have a lens through which they are speaking. We uncover the lens and attempt to realize the reality of events, not their later conclusions. While I agree with many of the conclusions of the gospel writers, I still wish to remove the veneer from the writing to capture the essential facts. That’s why synoptic evaluation is so useful, There are so many events that were reported by all three but using different emphases. You can get at the root of the true facts a good deal better because of it.

 

[Aquinas74]

Spiritmeadow with charity , I submit the following Canon from Canon Law…

Can. 752 Although not an assent of faith, a religious submission of the intellect and will must be given to a doctrine which the Supreme Pontiff or the college of bishops declares concerning faith or morals when they exercise the authentic magisterium, even if they do not intend to proclaim it by definitive act; therefore, the Christian faithful are to take care to avoid those things which do not agree with it.

Please whatever you do, do not place yourself above the Magisterium or the Holy Father. That is exactly what Martin Luther and other various heretics did.

 

[MIZER]

Spirit meadow is right.

explain to me the christian charity of bad mouthing another poster whom you don’t agree with to chuckle about with those whom you do? I can understand doing so in private messaging, but why do you feel the need to be so rude publically? A number of reasons come to mind, of course, but it would be uncharitable to pursue them i suspect.

No charity there. It was just so funny. Would you buy it if I said the devil made me do it? Guess not. I should have PM’d that one.

Sorry.

 

[MichaelTDoyle]

I agree with the divinely inspired aspects insofar that I believe that the teachings of Jesus are such. The trick is in determining what are teaching and what is later church addition. it.

From the CCC:
138 The Church accepts and venerates as inspired the 46 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New.

The entire Bible is considered by the Church to be divinely inspired.

This is an important distinction when approaching the bible. Is its veracity whether poetic or literal, supernatural and holy? Or does each person have to be learned and root out motives that may be or may be not inspired? If it is not authoratative are we then left with what Shepherd? If the Church’s authority to declare it inspired does not satisfy and the text does not satisfy, how then is Christ the Good Shepherd? Men left to their own interpretations have floundered terribly with heresies and wars.

IOW, to deny the books as divinely inspired is also to deny the authority of the Church to declare it so. How then, given mankind’s concupiscence without an authoritative source, is Jesus a Good Shepherd for the Church militant?

The approach to scripture is profound in how we struggle to understand it. The more difficult passages, which I could have minimized as products of their own time, have given me pause to think quite a bit because my undelying tenet is that the Bible is divinely inspired, e.g. windweavingstories.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!B750936BDB72B026!500.entry

Anyway, I hope this helps. I’m trying to shed more light than heat these days in all areas of my life.

 

[reggieM]

Some undoubtedly think that the Church is as much theirs as yours, and some undoubtedly think that the church has strayed from truth, or has not managed quite yet to arrive at it. People have myriad reasons for remaining with a Church, and they are not all bad. You consider the Church yours, we consider it ours as well.

There are many things I agree with in your reply.

For the sake of improving understanding though, I’ll just point to one thing that I don’t agree with – namely, that dissenters think that “the Church is as much theirs as yours”.

If it was a question of accepting all of the teachings of the Church and striving to live by them, while at the same time proposing that there could be some improvements – that would be different.

But the dissenters I know have concluded, positively, that the “Church is wrong” about various matters. They reject the Church’s teaching and they do not live by the laws of the Church – believing that those laws are “wrong”.

So, I would say that it is not the same Church. I cannot consult any catechism or manual to discover what the “true teachings” of the Church supposedly are. Apparently, I am supposed to believe that gay marriage is ok, and women should be ordained as priests – those are fairly standard parts of this “true Church teaching”. But this is all conjecture – it’s not written anywhere by one of the “new Church” prophets (or whatever they are).

There are some theologians who give snippets of what we’re “truly” supposed to believe, but I cannot find this so-called “true Catholic Church” anywhere (although there are believers in it in every parish around here).

Perhaps it’s like the Protestant “invisible Church” where the “true believers” will be gathered together on the last day, but while we’re here on earth, we don’t know where they are and we can’t worship in unity with them.

So again, I don’t think dissenters make a claim to the Church which I belong to. They claim some other Church which accepts the doctrines they hold and preach.

No one makes such a big hullabaloo about all this in the real world thankfully. There are but one or two in every parish it seems who drive everyone wild with worry about whose being orthodox enough for them. It makes for interesint conversation but really aren’t there better things to occupy time with like helping the poor and needy in our world?

I fully agree that most Catholics don’t want to think about such things-- and this includes many priests and religious. In fact, they don’t want to think about much of anything, actually.

I don’t think all shallow-minded people are “quite nasty” as you stated in your reply. I think they’re fairly normal – they don’t want to take religion very seriously for various reasons. This is pretty much the classic dissenting mentality. Without real consideration of the historical, theological, philosophical or practical consequences – they just reject doctrines of the Church.

I’ve tried to discuss matters with such dissenters many times before and I’ve only rarely found any that wanted to take the time to actually study the question and provide a coherent reply.

I have met a few who were quite serious – all of them had personal reasons for their dissent (in fact, all were trying to defend their use of contraception or in one case, sterilization).

But there’s a blindness that I perceive (I’m not saying I am immune from that disorder myself) in them.

They cannot see how absurd it appears to see a person half-way embracing a Faith that makes serious demands on believers.

It’s like wanting to be a strict vegetarian but to also eat meat every day. “I like being considered a vegetarian but I disagree with some of their policies – like not eating meat”.

It is certainly callous and insensitive to not recognize the difficulties that potential converts to Catholicism endure before they can fully embrace the Catholic Faith.

It’s like having the RCIA class tell Protestants who are interested – “You don’t have to accept all of the Catholic doctrines to be a Catholic – especially the ones that you don’t like.”

That is also absurd and an insult to the people who many many difficult sacrifices to embrace the Catholic Faith, over a long period of time, working through their doubts and questions.

Yes, I am “absorbed” with this issue because I see how much damage it does to the Church and to individuals (and families and society).

 

[estesbob]

Spirit meadow is right.

No charity there. It was just so funny. Would you buy it if I said the devil made me do it? Guess not. I should have PM’d that one.

Sorry.

The other thing that is common among Liberals a complete lack of a sense of humor.

 

[vz71]

Nope, sorry, go back to the beginning. I said that it was my opinion and when pressed I gave the reasons why I believed so.

OK, Let’s go back and look:

You might try a bit of biblical exegesis and discover that the statement “upon this rock I will build my church” is not considered an original statement of Jesus but a later Church addition though, of course you don’t value anything I say, so I’m sure you will not bother that exercise. . I think you are a riot as well. Have a good one.

Nope. The bold indicates a positive statement…not an opinion.
Now after all this time evading you wish to claim that you misspoke, that is fine.

 

[Ender]

The faith of the faithful is evolving with the times in some ways that need not be feared or seen as evil, as with a moral failure like abortion. The times are changing, and yes, change merely for change’s sake should be avoided, but this doesn’t mean all change should be avoided

Morality does not change with the times. It can evolve only in the sense that it can become more fully developed but, even though the Church is careful to distinguish between what is infallible and what in fact may be changeable, a complete reversal from moral to immoral or vice versa must be seen as extraordinarily rare. To believe that something like extra-marital sex (including homosexual relations) will ever be considered moral is to completely misunderstand the nature of the Church and the origin of morality.

Other times, there will be members of the magisterium who will resist not only errors, but valid insights, and the church might have to wait for certain bishops and cardinals to die off before other minds and hearts are more open.

The magisterium is no more the creator of the moral law than is a scribe who copies the book of Luke the author of a gospel. The Church did not invent the law, she merely wrote it down. And she has no authority to change any of it.

The church is a lively dialectic, Mizer. And the spirit blows where it will.

The people who comprise the Church may blow in the wind but the Church herself is a compass, not a weather vane.

Ender

 

[iamrefreshed]

The fact that I do not agree with certain things in the CCC does not make me not Catholic. In fact, most Catholics in the US do not agree or follow all teachings of the Church. Under your personal definition, there are very few Catholics in the US.

Truth is not defined by majority vote. Most in the time of Jesus felt He was wrong.I thought you were informed enough to understand this fact.

You have absolutely no basis for making that statement that I don’t believe in Scripture. We are not protestants. We do not believe that scripture is necessarily to be taken literally. I have said more than once these are not my personal revelations as you so meanly put them. I have given the basis for my opinions which are shared by many professional biblical experts. If they don’t convince you, so be it. You have no right to call me names. You continue to cast these aspersions upon me. I am teaching nothing. I am STATING AN OPINION AND THE BASIS OF THAT OPINION. You can continue in this vein all you wish, but it does not change my words.

When you deny Peter as the rock you deny scripture. I’m really very sorry you cannot see that.

Shocking as it may be to you, some of these very discussions have been held with a priest and religious in bible study classes sponsored by my parish. You might want to rethink your assumptions.

And you might want to rethink your parish.

I think Jesus had something a bit different in mind when he told us to approach faith like a child. But no matter, If you feel good being obedient without question, I am certainly not going to tell you you are wrong, but I would suggest it does not give you license to preach to me what I should do. I’m past the age of contracepting.

Can you find any Christian charity in your heart so that you can discontinue this most uncharitable manner of addressing me?

Yes…I love you. Thus my words.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

. If I am convinced the Church is right, I assent, if I do not, i dissent. I trust the Holy Spirit corrects error over time.

Back to the topic of the thread, since you disagree on so many things, why aren’t you, for example, Episcopalian? What makes someone with Episcopalian beliefs choose to attend a Catholic church?

 

[MIZER]

Ptag asks me:

Is it your opinion that those with disagreements should leave? Just how does that lead them closer to the truth? I remember a saying that went something like “…its the sick who need the doctor, not the well…”.

No I don’t think those with disagreements should leave. I stated what I think they should do. If after they do that then they still can’t or they refuse to believe the truths of the church, the definitive doctrines, to the point that they are compelled to actively seek change in the church, then they would do better to go elsewhere. I don’t think catholics should be clamoring for the church to ordain women, for example. I don’t think people should be offering a prayer during open intercession at Mass, for the church to change it’s stand on contraception, for example.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

The entire Bible is considered by the Church to be divinely inspired.

This is an important distinction when approaching the bible. Is its veracity whether poetic or literal, supernatural and holy? Or does each person have to be learned and root out motives that may be or may be not inspired? If it is not authoratative are we then left with what Shepherd? If the Church’s authority to declare it inspired does not satisfy and the text does not satisfy, how then is Christ the Good Shepherd? Men left to their own interpretations have floundered terribly with heresies and wars.

IOW, to deny the books as divinely inspired is also to deny the authority of the Church to declare it so. How then, given mankind’s concupiscence without an authoritative source, is Jesus a Good Shepherd for the Church militant?

The approach to scripture is profound in how we struggle to understand it. The more difficult passages, which I could have minimized as products of their own time, have given me pause to think quite a bit because my undelying tenet is that the Bible is divinely inspired, e.g. windweavingstories.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!B750936BDB72B026!500.entry

Anyway, I hope this helps. I’m trying to shed more light than heat these days in all areas of my life.

The only problem I have with your analysis is that we have no originals of any of the books. I might agree that the originals were “inspired” but I suspect we disagree as to what that means. I view inspired to mean that as to issues involving faith and morals, God protected the writer from error. The problem as I said, is that we don’t have the orginal, we have copies of copies of copies of copies. Moreover from our literally thousands of said copies, there are changes and differences. does this mean God changed his mind and had the newer copies “corrected”?

We do not believe that Genesis is a correct statement of how the universe and our planet was constructed. Moreover, we are aware that it is one of two stories about the creation and various redactors ultimately included both stories. Were both equally inspired though different? We suspect at least 4 authors of Genesis itself. There is no “original Genesis” either.

That is the failure of your analysis in my opinion. The Church well recognizes this. JPII in his Theology of the body goes through the genesis stories specifically and alludes that they are not factually true as science. Yet under your analysis, they must be. Such is not the understanding of the church in my opinion.

 

[drpmjhess]

We do not believe that Genesis is a correct statement of how the universe and our planet was constructed. Moreover, we are aware that it is one of two stories about the creation and various redactors ultimately included both stories. Were both equally inspired though different? We suspect at least 4 authors of Genesis itself. There is no “original Genesis” either.

Right – there are also two flood stories, remnants of a second Sinai story, and various other passages where we see a weaving together of the “J” and “P” oral traditions.

Petrus

 

[Aquinas74]

The only problem I have with your analysis is that we have no originals of any of the books. I might agree that the originals were “inspired” but I suspect we disagree as to what that means. I view inspired to mean that as to issues involving faith and morals, God protected the writer from error. The problem as I said, is that we don’t have the orginal, we have copies of copies of copies of copies. Moreover from our literally thousands of said copies, there are changes and differences. does this mean God changed his mind and had the newer copies “corrected”?

We do not believe that Genesis is a correct statement of how the universe and our planet was constructed. Moreover, we are aware that it is one of two stories about the creation and various redactors ultimately included both stories. Were both equally inspired though different? We suspect at least 4 authors of Genesis itself. There is no “original Genesis” either.

That is the failure of your analysis in my opinion. The Church well recognizes this. JPII in his Theology of the body goes through the genesis stories specifically and alludes that they are not factually true as science. Yet under your analysis, they must be. Such is not the understanding of the church in my opinion.

SpiritMeadow, in the spirit of Charity I wish to ask you this. Why do you choose which doctrines you want to believe, and discard others that you disagree with? You do know that the Catholic Faith is the one true faith do you not? I am just trying to understand where you are coming from. You cannot simply just pick and choose. We Catholics are obliged to follow the Magisterium of Holy Mother Church.

 

[lizaanne]

Wow - I only read the OP and am not even going to bother with what weak justifications surely come after - I only wanted to applaud him for his post - he said what I’ve been wondering for ages!!

:clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping: :clapping:

~Liza

 

[SpiritMeadow]

If it was a question of accepting all of the teachings of the Church and striving to live by them, while at the same time proposing that there could be some improvements – that would be different.

Isn’t it a bit unfair to lump all “dissenters” into one group and say they are all proposing one thing?

But the dissenters I know have concluded, positively, that the “Church is wrong” about various matters. They reject the Church’s teaching and they do not live by the laws of the Church – believing that those laws are “wrong”.

The dissenters you know, and I suspect you may not know them all. There is definitely a range and I find it hard to conclude how you what they live by or don’t. It’s usually fairly hard to understand the heart of another person, particulary one you are not on intimate terms with.

. Apparently, I am supposed to believe that gay marriage is ok, and women should be ordained as priests – those are fairly standard parts of this “true Church teaching”. But this is all conjecture – it’s not written anywhere by one of the “new Church” prophets (or whatever they are).

The fact that someone things that gays should have the same right of civil marriage as believers and that women should be ordained is not disobedience in anything other than admitting the truth of one’s heart. That does not necessarily make the dissenter a part to any unlawful behavior vis a vis the Church. How do I violate church law by believing my Church MAY be wrong on the issue of homosexuality? Can I hide my true belief from God? Should I lie as a better alternative?

So again, I don’t think dissenters make a claim to the Church which I belong to. They claim some other Church which accepts the doctrines they hold and preach.

YOu would not be aware of this unless you made it your business to test other people for their “orthodoxy” vis a vis your personal understanding of what that is.

I fully agree that most Catholics don’t want to think about such things-- and this includes many priests and religious. In fact, they don’t want to think about much of anything, actually.

Why do I find that most orthodox (from their point of view) Catholics have a dim view of most priests and religious? they are uniformly castigated here for not knowing anything. Surely the CCC speaks differently than this regarding your obedience to priests? I find it most telling that orthodox here tend to align themselves with their interpretation of the Magisterium while almost universally claiming their own superiors are fools or worse.

con’t

 

[SpiritMeadow]

OK, Let’s go back and look:

Nope. The bold indicates a positive statement…not an opinion.
Now after all this time evading you wish to claim that you misspoke, that is fine.

My opinion is based on the facts as stated, biblical exegetes in tghe majority do believe that the text noted is not original but later additions by the Church. If you wish to study the matter further, please do so. Why are you obsessing about this? I clearly have stated I will NOT do the research for you.

 

[Aquinas74]

I

. How do I violate church law by believing my Church MAY be wrong on the issue of homosexuality? Can I hide my true belief from God? Should I lie as a better alternative?
.

t

Because you are being willfully disobedient to Church teachings and that can cause grave scandal. Espescially if a non-catholic asks you what the Church’s position is. The Church never has and never will be a democracy. When you disagree with the Church, you are in fact saying that God has not divinely revealed these things to Holy Mother Church. God’s opinion is what matters, and he through the Church has proclaimed Homosexual acts to be sinful and marriage to be between a man and a woman.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Truth is not defined by majority vote. Most in the time of Jesus felt He was wrong.I thought you were informed enough to understand this fact.

Truth is not the issue. The issue is your insistance that no one other than those who agree with you are entitled to call themselves Catholic. The “truth doesn’t require a majority vote” is a very old strawman on this forum. It would be well to try a better argument of facts rather than rhetoric

When you deny Peter as the rock you deny scripture. I’m really very sorry you cannot see that.

Mores the pity that you cannot understand that such a position does not deny scripture in any manner but seeks to actually determine what it is.

And you might want to rethink your parish.

Yes, when all else fails, cast aspersions on the clergy. They are wrong, and you are right.

Yes…I love you. Thus my words.

excellent, than you can stop the inuendo and uncharitible remarks and eyerolling I assume? I loving person certainly doesn’t express their love in that manner.

 

[SpiritMeadow]

Back to the topic of the thread, since you disagree on so many things, why aren’t you, for example, Episcopalian? What makes someone with Episcopalian beliefs choose to attend a Catholic church?

I have no clue what episcopalians believe. I have never talked to one knowingly or read anything about their theology. I assume since it is a high church that it is in many ways similar to Catholicism. Other than that I have no clue.

Why do you wish to drive people from the Church? Are you afraid she is not up to the task of answering her questioning parishoners?