Feeling really upset about AL

[Tis_Bearself]

This is what I don’t understand about people who blindly follow these rules determined by their church. Where does personal accountability come into play when it comes to making decisions for oneself and one’s family? The Church’s teachings on all of this has been so harmful to the individual spirit and soul as well as the soul of the family. It seems there is absolutely no regard for human well being.

With all due respect, do you come onto this forum with the sole agenda of undermining the Church?
It seems like every time I see a post by you, it’s basically Church-bashing.

Telling this person that she “chose to suffer” because she wanted to continue being part of her religion is, in my opinion, insensitive and nasty. You know that this is a Catholic forum and that the Church and the sacraments mean a lot to many of us who post. For you to respond to this lady by undermining her church sounds like you are just trying to sway people to your point of view, which is emerging over a lot of your posts as being pretty clearly anti-Church.

Practicing Catholicism is not always a walk in the park. We do not always get to do something that is easy for us. Part of the teachings of the Church are that life also includes suffering.

This woman is disappointed that her Church didn’t support her more. That doesn’t mean she wants to throw away her faith, or agree with you that the Church is harmful and bad.

Your response is inappropriate, and that to me is putting it kindly.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I think that we have lost something along the way; maybe it’s due to the fragmentation of families and disintegration of communities which increased so much after the Second World War. Now we are all individuals coming to the parish church to worship God and we are not otherwise connected as we used to be. And the Church as a whole is just not set up to deal with that.

I can totally see this and I agree with you. I think a lot has to do with the mobility of society, as well as the creation of much larger and more impersonal parishes due to the shortage of priests. It is much more difficult to actually know the people who attend your church nowadays, except for the small handful of folks who grew up and lived their whole lives in the same area and the same parish and never left (and also never had their parish moved or consolidated because of church closings). Many people are transient. I have had the experience of attending church in a parish for years, but personally knowing maybe less than 5 people there, including the pastor.

Vehicles like this internet forum are just people seeking new ways of connection that they would have gotten in a previous era by face-to-face means.

 

[PetraG]

I totally disagree with the Pope on this! The church secretaries I have known have always been extremely helpful and very hard-working, sometimes under very difficult circumstances.

Well, he has been a bishop, and the bishop always heads up the complaint department. People don’t have great experiences with wonderful parish secretaries and run to the bishop about it. Besides, a bishop cannot afford to be complacent and say, “well, most secretaries aren’t like that, so those who run into the few who are will just have to lump it.” No, a bishop wants the faithful to be dealt with rightly in every case, obviously.

 

[PetraG]

I can totally see this and I agree with you. I think a lot has to do with the mobility of society, as well as the creation of much larger and more impersonal parishes due to the shortage of priests. It is much more difficult to actually know the people who attend your church nowadays, except for the small handful of folks who grew up and lived their whole lives in the same area and the same parish and never left (and also never had their parish moved or consolidated because of church closings). Many people are transient. I have had the experience of attending church in a parish for years, but personally knowing maybe less than 5 people there, including the pastor.

Vehicles like this internet forum are just people seeking new ways of connection that they would have gotten in a previous era by face-to-face means.

I think the bishops (in the US, at least) started moving priests around every 7-10 years instead of leaving them in one place for 30 years because they had a lot of problems with entrenched parish priests sometimes becoming too much like monarchs instead of pastors.

The pattern I see is a parish where many people know a lot of people, but only people who regularly attend Mass at the same time every weekend as they do. I know a priest who quipped that he had a “5:30 parish,” an “8:30 parish” and a “10:30 parish”!

I’ve also lived in a small parish where everyone really did know everyone else, where their neighbors, and knew everything they were doing. It has its upsides and its downsides. That parish was at its best when it reached out and did work outside of those people they knew. Still, you do want that community of fellow believers that you know and make connections with, celebrate with and grieve with, an extended parish family.

If you don’t have time to volunteer a lot of time at your parish or with one of your parish outreach programs, that can be hard to find. People are so busy, tired, and feeling behind. They often leave Mass as soon as it is over, so they can get a bit of Sunday rest in at home. Our tendency to over-schedule ourselves with “doing” instead of with “being together” may also be a reason we have fewer interpersonal relationships.

 

[Axsenex]

I don’t care about the politics of marriage in the Catholic Church.

My generation is waiting longer & longer to get married but many aging Christians attacked us for not caring enough about family values.

Family values?

I accidentally witnessed a RCIA couple signing the documents to re-valid their marriage then I had to watch them get married in correct fashion. Personally I thought it was stupid but the Church hate secular wedding so they had to do it again.

The Church is very painfully obsessed about the perfection of marriage.

 

[deMontfort]

I think it has something to do with the fact that marriage is a sacrament

 

[PetraG]

I think it has something to do with the fact that marriage is a sacrament

Exactly. If a Catholic becomes Mormon or a Mormon becomes Catholic, they are baptized again. If a Baptist becomes Catholic, they are not baptized again. Why? Because the Church recognizes as the Baptist understanding of baptism and method of performing baptism is every bit as valid as a Catholic bapitsm. A denomination that believes that a baptism is only valid if there is complete immersion, however, would re-baptise a convernt who was baptized by sprinkling. There isn’t any “hatred” involved. It just has to do with having a definite idea of what is and is not a valid way to perform a sacrament.

 

[PetraG]

I don’t care about the politics of marriage in the Catholic Church.

My generation is waiting longer & longer to get married but many aging Christians attacked us for not caring enough about family values.

Family values?

…

The Church is very painfully obsessed about the perfection of marriage.

It would be fine if your generation were waiting longer and longer to get married if it weren’t for the fact that they are jumping very quickly into living as man and wife. Of course it seems that your contemporaries have no regard for marriage as a sacrament. You yourself speak as if you do not.

I find it a bit ironic how many people who complain about how obsessed the Church is with perfection are plenty obsessed with putting their hand in when it comes to perfecting the Church.

 

[simonjosiah1]

I feel let down by the church too, this was all predicted in the third secret of fatima, that the church will lose its faith.

I’ve gone back to tradition, I travel on a train every sunday to a latin mass and find the priest a lot more traditional, with really good sermons.

I tend to ignore everyone else, if the vatican employ Fr James Martin - I’m out.

Just stick to traditional catholic teachings, keep the commandments,confession, do as our lady says, rosary & first five holy saturdays, all will be well and let God take care of the rest.

 

[Axsenex]

I do have one “blessed” rosary with some dirt in Nazareth as a gift from KoC. I have no interest in joining fried fish insurance group. What about my rosary? Nothing it’s just collecting dust at the moment.

 

[HeDa]

What I find is disturbing, is that it takes so long before adults are “adults” in todays society. Finishing upper secondary education, 3-4 years of college or university studies and then maybe a masters which is another couple of years. Then finding a job and somewhere to live and then it is finally possible to start having a family and raising children. This means that women are closer to 27-30 years when they give birth to their first child compared to around 21-24 during the 1970s.

During this time, there are so many things happening in the young adults lives. The Church has gatherings for children and teens up to confirmation age, hopefully students if the parish is in an area where there are lots of students, and then maybe something for families with very young children. Those retired from working might have something for them as well. One of the problem area that I see, is that we receive catechises until Confirmation and then nothing until marriage. There are very few who learn the faith with “adult eyes and adult questions”.

The catechism teachers in my parish have discovered that the material used is not suitable for 14-year-olds but more 16-year-olds as the 14-year-olds are not mature enough to be able to discuss why the Catholic Church says no to abortion, IVF, same sex relationships etc etc etc. We have to teach about these topics as nobody else in the society teaches what the Catholic Church believes. When there are immigrants from more traditional Catholic countries, where the laws are in harmony with the church´s teaching, coming to another country which doesn’t have that they automatically believe that IVF etc are OK because it is OK with the law.

 

[Axsenex]

Ok anything else?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I do have one “blessed” rosary with some dirt in Nazareth as a gift from KoC. I have no interest in joining fried fish insurance group. What about my rosary? Nothing it’s just collecting dust at the moment.

If this is your attitude, then why would we care what you think about the Church, when you don’t seem to really want to bother being a part of the things that many Catholics find important? It’s like somebody who thinks baseball is a boring, stupid game showing up at the baseball stadium and making a speech about how much they dislike baseball and think it’s all a boring waste of time. Those who enjoy baseball and are interested in attending the game could not care less and would wonder why you even bothered to show up.

We can pray for you that you develop a better understanding and maybe a kinder approach to expressing yourself…but that’s about all we can do.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

This means that women are closer to 27-30 years when they give birth to their first child compared to around 21-24 during the 1970s.

The flip side is that a huge number of those young marrieds/ young parents in the 1970s ended up divorced. It is fine to get married young and have kids young if both parties are committed to the marriage, the way they used to be when people got married in their late teens and a whole lot of people were deceased by their 50s.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’m sorry about that. I know some church secretaries who probably fit the Pope’s statement, but there are many other kind, good people involved with churches. Like everything else, we rarely hear about the ones who are doing an awesome job - we hear about the ones who are the problem.
Hugs.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Thanks

I mentioned it to show that Pope Francis seems to often speak without fulling weighing his words, like most of us mortals. We should not take every thing he says as some sort of gospel, he has not once spoken ex cathedra.

 

[Axsenex]

Wow I took my best friend to his first Atlanta Braves game for his birthday & few months later he died… I sacrificed my time & money to ensure that he was given proper burial due to poverty. You don’t know me & you insulted my best friend’s death with baseball joke.

Luckily for you… I forgive you for your stupid baseball analogy.

It’s not required

Case closed.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

You’re now being weird and oversensitive because I happened to use an analogy out of the blue, with no intent to insult your friend’s memory.

Chill out and understand what is actually being said rather than looking for reasons to take offense and miss the point.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Someone looking for support, especially years after the fact, does not need a lecture on how she is “personally accountable” for her choices.

She even stated in her very first post, “I’m not blaming the Church for my specific problems, just saying that there were problems and the priests didn’t have time for that” (which is a legitimate complaint).

Your response sounded a whole lot like, “suck it up, buttercup, and the Church is a pain in the neck anyway.”

Jarring.

 

[TheOldColonel]

I suppose I don’t understand why you would begrudge others the spiritual helps you feel you were denied. Would it not make more sense, having suffered so, to wish others to avoid your bad experience. Or, is it true what they say? Misery loves company?