guanophore:
This is one of those non-Catholic assertions, Carol, that draws so much heat for you here on these fora.
Yes, one of many that Carol has put forward with an odd sense of entitlement concerning instructing Catholics on why we are wrong for not agreeing with her private interpretation of things.
Carol says she is in RCIA. Surely the RCIA group leaders have noticed this same sense of entitlement and have brought it up with her in her interviews.
We can feel entitled to certain things in the Church, provided we go to Confession. But Carol’s sense of entitlement is over the wrong things. Moreover she does not seem to be overly disposed to repentance for her errors. And therefore not overly disposed to being corrected. Correction is one of the seven works of mercy.
Yet she persists in demonstrating a sense of entitlement to correct the Church and to convert us to whatever it is her religion is. This sense of entitlement can only interfere with her ability to learn what the Church actually does teach and therefore give her a clear run to entering the Church with a clean conscience. If RCIA have not brought it up her, perhaps Carol can bring it up herself and ask for guidance from them.
guanophore:
It sounds like a Deist perspective (God is an absentee landlord) where God created, then left us to figure out how to make it work.
Sheesh. Miracles happen all the time. Think only of the Church approved ones at Lourdes, Fatima, and all the Saints.
If miracles were not possible then all Catholics should stop praying right now! (Oh! I see… another endrun around what we believe and what the Church teaches us to believe.)
Why such vehement rebellion against Church teaching? Particularly from someone claiming to be in RCIA? I’m doing the math and it really doesn’t add up to me. Are we supposed to be silent about that? Like we’re supposed to be silent about error and find another word when addressing what the Church herself has deemed to be “heresies” which occurred at certain times in history?
guanophore:
This is so contrary to the incarnational principles of Catholicism, it is no wonder people are asking you why you want to join the church.
I assisted at RCIA and noticed many different things going on among the candidates and catechumens. Folks who gained easy access to influence in the world or in the churches to which they belonged before, find it very confronting to suddenly have to be a little person in RCIA and do some hard study on Church history and doctrine.
This kind of study takes up a lot of their time which, by looking at their annoyance, they would obviously rather be using to lecture the RCIA instructors, the RCIA priest, the RCIA assistants, the bishop, the archbishop, the Pope, and so on about why the Church is wrong and why She has been wrong for two millenia. Notwithstanding that we’re still standing.
Joining the Church is a very humbling experience. Many folks do not realize that they will be little people unless called by God and unless that calling is discerned by the Church. This period of discernment means that the bishop will test them. This testing is a very disconcerting experience. It also often takes a long time. Another disconcerting experience.
So Carol is not unique in her desire to skip all the little-people stuff and barge on through to being someone really important among Catholics so that she can instruct us on Church teaching even though, as an RCIA candidate or catechumen, she obviously does not have the strongest grasp on what that teaching is.
She’s not unique. And we are not unique for picking up on this tendency and calling folks on it. Folks, RCIA can be an incredibly enriching experience. As can Catholic Answers. But they are not platforms for converting us to your religions.
We would cease to exist.