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Carol_Coombe
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It is so sad: you just don’t get the point. And it has been made so many times. It cannot be made any clearer for you.
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jmcrae
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jmcrae
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I feel sure he would have been horrified.
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Iowa_Mike
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Guan,
Of course we all have free will. However the context of the discussion we were having was not about free will (please see my comments to Carol about free will in Post #527). In an earlier post Carol asserted that:
God has granted man free will to believe and act as he wishes and He does not interfere when we exercise it whether for good or for evil. However the product of man’s choices are not God’s work, they are mans. Carol’s remarks above, intended or not, suggest that choices people make are OK with God because they are “Gods work”. Taken literally one would have to accept that if a woman believes abortion is OK and needs one, it must be OK with God because it is God’s work. Obviousy this is wrong.
In the following quote Carol states one can reject Catholic doctrine and still be saved. She is free to believe what she wants. Whether a person would be ultimately saved would be God’s decision but Carol can’t become a Roman Catholic while rejecting Church doctrine.
Iowa Mike
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guanophore
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I think you are misunderstanding her point. Can you see how “whoever is not against us is for us” fits in here? The Catholic church joins with a number of other agencies and institutions who are committed to works of Mercy. This is one of the things that drew Carol in the first place.
Apparently many do, Iowa. Jack Hawkins was recieved into the Church at Easter, and he has made it clear here that he does not agree with the Church’s teachings in a number of areas. To Carol’s credit, she withdrew from the election at the last minute because she has such integrity and conscience that she realized too many of her beliefs were divergent.
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Carol_Coombe
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Carol_Coombe
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Carol_Coombe
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So all this unreferenced material is belief and not knowledge? How can you presume to know what Galileo would have thought or not thought? Why do you do yourself this disservice?
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Carol_Coombe
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I raised the issue at RCIA tonight: how do we know what we are committing to, in terms of doctrine, when we are confirmed? What is the bottom line - in terms of the number of doctrines (7 sacraments?), and the bottom line in each one (assuming that becoming a more fully informed Catholic is a long-term learning curve)?
Can anyone answer that? Iowa Mike gave me a huge long list of things I was apparently to read and know about, which would have defeated the best Bishop. So that was not helpful. Anyone else?
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jmcrae
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There is one. I feel like I’m talking to a kindergartner who is asking over and over again, “What is two plus two?” I keep repeating “Four” and she keeps saying, “But that’s not the answer I want. Tell me that it can be anything I want it to be.”
It’s frustrating at this end, too.
I’m not sure what you’re after. It seems as though you want the Church to be something that doesn’t even exist - an invisible organization that somehow binds people together without having any authority over them.
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jmcrae
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I’m trying not to go on an anti-Nazi rant, but before the time of Nazi propagandist Margaret Sanger, such thoughts would have been impossible.
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jmcrae
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The minimum is that the candidates should have been exposed to the doctrines related to the 12 statements of the Apostles’ Creed, assent that “whatever the Church teaches me is true,” and be open to the gifts of Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Right Judgement, Piety, Courage, and Awe of the Lord. (They don’t have to have that list memorized, though.)
They should also know how to say the Hail Mary, the Our Father, the Glory Be, and the Act of Contrition, but this isn’t strictly required - they will learn them as time goes on if they didn’t pick them up in RCIA Catechism.
They should also be in the habit of regular attendance at Mass, at least on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, and they should know the duties of their state in life as they relate to the Precepts of the Church. (Catechism, 2041)
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Janet_S
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lak611
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Children in the 1700’s did not dress in unisex clothing once they were past 4 or 5 years of age. See this link. library.thinkquest.org/J002611F/clothing.htm. Also, see this link. schechter.org/sager/links/fifth/Colonies_Web_Page_04/Clothing/Colonial_Clothing.html. After about 4 or 5 years of age, boys dressed like their fathers, and girls dressed like their mothers.
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Janet_S
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You may not like this answer, but here goes. If you don’t trust the Church, you shouldn’t join it. Once you believe that the Church has divine authority–like she says she does–who wouldn’t want to join? The individual doctrines you can work through later.
How do you get to the point where you trust that the Church is right? First begin to examine those doctrines or teachings you are having the most trouble with. Prayerfully explore the the reasons behind a given doctrine. If you find she is right about one teaching, move on to another one. Who knows, if you discover that she is right about quite a few teachings, you may finally come to the conclusion that she is right about everything. If you get to that point, there’s only one choice–you must join!
So that’s my advice. Look at the big picture–the issue of authority.
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hosemonkey
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Carol,
I am sometimes contentious and arrogant. I recognize you as an honest seeker. Let me share with you, my story. I come to the Church by a long, hard road. I professed atheism for many years. My parents were early bohemians or what came to be known as “hippies” and they dabbled in every wierd “religion” that came down the pike and followed every “guru” that offered “a better way.” It engendered a contempt for religion as a whole, because every “better way” came with some sort of price tag. So, in order to confirm my thinking on this matter, I began to study “religion” with a view toward debunking the whole thing. Catholicism, Buddism, Islam,
Eastern religions, answers only brought more questions. Meanwhile, I spent three combat tours in Vietnam, doing and seeing things that no man should see and do. I nearly lost my faith in humanity. Returning home, racked by malaria and PTSD, I proceeded to isolate myself from all those who loved me. A good friend challenged me to further explore my study of Catholicism. I went to a good priest who enlightened me on several important points and calmed my fears. I then experienced what I can only describe as a Satori or flash of enlightenment, although I am convinced was the Holy Spirit. I went from complete disbelief to complete acceptance. No more fear, no more nightmares, resting in God’s arms. I know now that Our Lord and the Church that He founded, will never abandon me. He loved me so much that He was willing to die a horrible death for love of ME. What is my point? When I put away my scepticism and fear, the door was opened. What freedom. He had only to say the word, and I was healed. Try it. Peace
I am sometimes contentious and arrogant. I recognize you as an honest seeker. Let me share with you, my story. I come to the Church by a long, hard road. I professed atheism for many years. My parents were early bohemians or what came to be known as “hippies” and they dabbled in every wierd “religion” that came down the pike and followed every “guru” that offered “a better way.” It engendered a contempt for religion as a whole, because every “better way” came with some sort of price tag. So, in order to confirm my thinking on this matter, I began to study “religion” with a view toward debunking the whole thing. Catholicism, Buddism, Islam,
Eastern religions, answers only brought more questions. Meanwhile, I spent three combat tours in Vietnam, doing and seeing things that no man should see and do. I nearly lost my faith in humanity. Returning home, racked by malaria and PTSD, I proceeded to isolate myself from all those who loved me. A good friend challenged me to further explore my study of Catholicism. I went to a good priest who enlightened me on several important points and calmed my fears. I then experienced what I can only describe as a Satori or flash of enlightenment, although I am convinced was the Holy Spirit. I went from complete disbelief to complete acceptance. No more fear, no more nightmares, resting in God’s arms. I know now that Our Lord and the Church that He founded, will never abandon me. He loved me so much that He was willing to die a horrible death for love of ME. What is my point? When I put away my scepticism and fear, the door was opened. What freedom. He had only to say the word, and I was healed. Try it. Peace
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Contarini
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No detailed guidebook, sure. But that’s not to say that Scripture is entirely silent on the matter. And of course in the Catholic or Orthodox view we have an authoritative Church to guide us.
In the sense that He did not prevent schism, true. But that doesn’t mean that He has left us without means to resist and undo the disunity of Christians.
Exactly.
Certainly. But ultimately if the purpose of our actions is merely to relieve distress (not to denigrate the importance of that for a minute), life remains rather purposeless. In the traditional Christian view, the purpose of life is union with God, not merely absence of distress. So our attempts to serve others should be direct toward leading them to God. That does not mean that we only help their physical needs as a means of leading them to God. Alleviating people’s distress is good, period. But it’s part of a bigger picture. And I think a unified Church is necessary to that bigger picture. As I see it, the purpose of Christ’s coming to earth was to gather human beings into His Body. This will only be entirely fulfilled at the Eschaton (one of the reasons why I can resist the claims of Catholicism and Orthodoxy). But we should be working toward the Eschaton–that is to say, we should be moving ourselves and others toward greater wholeness of body and spirit, and that includes a unified earthly Church insofar as this is possible. It’s not an either/or.
More than that–if God’s will is for Christians to be unified, and if Catholicism is not the right way for this to happen, then we need to have an alternative. You seem to think that you have such an alternative. That is *your *choice. Frankly, I find your concept of the One Church unsatisfactory.
Certainly. Disagreement among sincere Christians is a consequence of living in a fallen world.
I find your language here to be confusing. You use the loaded term “infects,” but obviously this is only an “infection” if it is not God’s will. It does not seem to me that you have addressed the Catholic arguments for why it is God’s will. What kind of “moving ahead” requires what kind of “adjustment”? Obviously if Catholicism denies that the Catholic Faith is the fullness of the Faith, that will not help move ahead toward the kind of unity Catholics believe in. Is a unity that consists of a lowest-common-denominator compromise really desirable?
Admittedly, that is not what you have suggested–you have suggested that doctrinal diversity is desirable. You seem to think that diversity is simply a good thing, period. I don’t see how this can be the case. Obviously there are some views that are simply wrong and harmful–the view that only white people are the chosen of God, for instance. You wouldn’t surely allow for this as part of doctrinal diversity? Your insistence on diversity works from certain assumptions about what makes some views acceptable and others unacceptable. You aren’t really advocating that all views are acceptable.
In Christ,
Edwin
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skeffer
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Since the church is made up of human beings who are not perfect,it is expected that the church will be less than perfect. So people are scandalized by failures in the church and say that Christ never intended a Church with it’s leaders,rituals,laws and potential for scandal and sin. The Catholic church is not the only church to have it’s problems all we can do is pray for the church and it’s leaders. As we are all human and fall short of the glory of god the flesh is weak as the spirit strong.God Bless us all
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Contarini
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Aries. It’s one of those very influential theses that scholars in the field tend to find highly questionable but educated people outside the field accept without question. I don’t claim to be an expert on family history myself (though I can recommend one book on the subject that I read in grad school giving a more up-to-date picture than Aries: Beatrice Gottlieb, The Family in the Western World), but my impression, as a historian of sixteenth-century theology who did some coursework in social history, is that contemporary scholars would mostly agree that Aries was profoundly wrong. There was a conception of childhood as a distinct stage in human life from at least Roman times right through the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. I would argue that the practice of unisex clothing actually works against your argument–it shows that childhood was considered a very different stage in human life from adolescence or adulthood. In traditional European society it would have been considered shocking to dress adolescent or adult males in that kind of clothing.
There certainly was a certain sense that children were still “unformed” and the clothing probably reflected that. I’m not sure how common it was not to name children at all, though I do know the story of the peasant who had a son named Anselmo (or whatever) five years younger than the previous Anselmo, and responded to a query about it by saying “that Anselmo died, and I made another.” I don’t think that shows that children were not valued. Practices such as swaddling were motivated (however misguidedly) by a belief that children were fragile (the “unformed” idea again) and needed to be protected and literally “kept in shape.”
I’m not sure how important this is to the broader argument, but Aries is somewhat of a bugbear among early modern historians, because he wrote so persuasively and has shaped how modern people think about historical perceptions of childhood, even though most scholars in the field seem now to think that he was wrong.
Edwin
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guanophore
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Perhaps this is a point of growth for you? The submission to authority to which you are unused seems to be a persistent impediment.
Perhaps it is time to work on submission, rather than exploitation?
This sentence is an example of what I think folks consider that you are trying to convert others to your religion. You are telling eveyone what you think “we” need to do.
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