I’m Still Not Going Back to the Catholic Church

  • Thread starter Thread starter Corki
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

Corki

Guest
I wasn’t sure where to put this. It’s an editorial/opinion piece but I think it has some really good points from the vantage of an outsider, who use to be an insider, looking in.

ideas.time.com/2013/09/29/im-still-not-going-back-to-the-catholic-church/
Flannery O’Connor, one of my Catholic heroes, famously said, “Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.” American Catholicism was not pushing back against the hostile age at all. Rather, it had become a pushover. God is love was not a proclamation that liberated us captives from our sin and despair but rather a bromide and a platitude that allowed us to believe that and to behave as if our lust, greed, malice and so forth — sins that I struggled with every day — weren’t to be despised and cast out but rather shellacked by a river of treacle.
Click to expand...
Though I agree with nearly everything the Pope said last week in his interview and cheer inwardly when he chastises rigorist knotheads who would deny the healing medicine of the church to anyone, I fear his merciful words will be received not as love but license. The “spirit of Pope Francis” will replace the “spirit of Vatican II” as the rationalization people will use to ignore the difficult teachings of the faith.
Click to expand...
 
It seems that Time’s circulation and profitability is down, so in desperation they hire an affordable hit man. I might even subscribe, just to get their last issue.
 
one of my favorite quotes by Flannery O’Connor
"Good Country People"
Click to expand...
As a result of Mrs. Hopewell’s failure to understand Hulga, Hulga withdraws; she decides not to attempt any meaningful relationship with her mother. We see this withdrawal particularly in a scene in which her mother has just uttered a series of her favorite, ever-ready platitudes, and O’Connor focuses on Hulga’s eyes.
Click to expand...


Hulga’s eyes, she says, are "icy blue, with the look of someone who has achieved blindness by an act of will and means to keep it."

​
Click to expand...


​

Pax Christi
 
If the aim of the article was to impress the view that the western church has failed to fight against the zeitgeist of the corrupt society we are so deeply a part of, then you have to give it full marks. To withdraw further from the fight by deserting your post is simple cowardice. That half of American catholics support a political party that actively supports abortion, tells me an outsider, all I need to know about the American church. But rather than having disgust for such a weak vessel, should we not be trying to reinforce its inherent good by stronger teaching and preaching? When was the last time you heard a sermon on anything that affected your daily lives; or even contraception; abortion; or the usury that supports our banking system? We should be demanding more of our church, not retreating from it. We should be demanding public penance of ourselves and our bishops for the pedophile scandal that has eaten away at the internals of our faith. We should give public support for every good and wise statement that comes from our Pope and bishops; thus encouraging them to stray away from cowardice. Where is the church militant in America? It died with Fulton Sheen?
 
The first official case of an ex-Catholic staying away from the Church because it isn’t harsh or negative enough. LOL.
 
Though he has valid points, I got the impression that the author is still trying to justify his “desertion.” He made it appear that the Church is an institutional failure despite Christ’s promises. It seems like an MO for ex-Catholics. I’ve known a former member of CAF who was like that. He had nothing but vile rhetoric and polemics against the Catholic Church.

I would take the author seriously if he has experienced a wider sampling of the Church, and still arrived at the same conclusion. But apparently, he has not.
 
Petaro said:
If the aim of the article was to impress the view that the western church has failed to fight against the zeitgeist of the corrupt society we are so deeply a part of, then you have to give it full marks. To withdraw further from the fight by deserting your post is simple cowardice. That half of American catholics support a political party that actively supports abortion, tells me an outsider, all I need to know about the American church. But rather than having disgust for such a weak vessel, should we not be trying to reinforce its inherent good by stronger teaching and preaching? When was the last time you heard a sermon on anything that affected your daily lives; or even contraception; abortion; or the usury that supports our banking system? We should be demanding more of our church, not retreating from it. We should be demanding public penance of ourselves and our bishops for the pedophile scandal that has eaten away at the internals of our faith. We should give public support for every good and wise statement that comes from our Pope and bishops; thus encouraging them to stray away from cowardice. Where is the church militant in America? It died with Fulton Sheen?
Click to expand...
I think that is exactly the author’s point. The press and many “progressive Catholics” are using Pope Francis’s remarks to justify a call for homilies that do not mention the tough moral issues. When most of us, in the US at least are experiencing very little of that already.
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
The first official case of an ex-Catholic staying away from the Church because it isn’t harsh or negative enough. LOL.
Click to expand...
Probably not. The author left Western Catholicism to join the Orthodox. We have seen some of that here on CAF as well.
 
Corki said:
Probably not. The author left Western Catholicism to join the Orthodox. We have seen some of that here on CAF as well.
Click to expand...
You are right, but I have also seen some on CAF leave and then come back as well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top