If it incorrect to bow to RC factors, is it ok to bow to Protestant?

[Sixtus]

If it is wrong to bow to RC factors, is it ok to bow to Protestant?
When I am performing my employers business, I am required to go into court.

If a hearing is in session, it is protocol to bow to the Bench as a mark of respect for their authority. ‘The Bench’ is merely symbolic of the authority enshrined in English Law and Parliament.

I am not worshipping the bench, I am bowing as a servant of the law and a citizen to whom it represents.

That is EXACTLY THE SAME CRITERIA that I use when I bow to the Cross and the Tabernacle. I am not bowing to a cross, I am bowing to the authority of Christ as co-heir, servant of God and citizen of the Kingdom and authority

Should I tell my employers that I can no longer show my respect to the Judiciary and Law of England as the Protestants say it is idolatory?

If I do that, they will say 'so if the Protestants object, why do they also bow to the Bench when they walk into court when they are in session?

I would have to reply something in the veign of 'well I suppose because the Bench and English Law which they represent, are not exclusively Catholic.

So does it mean that by definition and logic, it is not the fact of the artefact which is bowed to, but the fact it is Roman Catholic?

Therefore, can I conclude that objections are based purely on bigotry and discrimination of my right to be different?

This is getting awefully complicated. Can someone help me out please.

 

[DaveBj]

No complication. Bowing is a mark of respect, not worship. If you were to fall down flat on your face, that would be worship. But bowing is just bowing. Don’t worry about it.

When we were living in Japan, I bowed to everyone. No problems. When we were living in Britain, if I had met royalty (which I didn’t), I would have bowed to them. Here in the States, I bow at the appropriate parts and times within a Catholic context, and I bow to the Japanese officials of the company where I work, but other than that we don’t bow. Within the contexts where you work, bow where you normally would and don’t worry about it.

DaveBj

 

[water]

If you happen to live in Korea, you see people bowing each other all the time they are not worshiping one another.

 

[thistle]

If it is wrong to bow to RC factors, is it ok to bow to Protestant?
When I am performing my employers business, I am required to go into court.

If a hearing is in session, it is protocol to bow to the Bench as a mark of respect for their authority. ‘The Bench’ is merely symbolic of the authority enshrined in English Law and Parliament.

I am not worshipping the bench, I am bowing as a servant of the law and a citizen to whom it represents.

That is EXACTLY THE SAME CRITERIA that I use when I bow to the Cross and the Tabernacle. I am not bowing to a cross, I am bowing to the authority of Christ as co-heir, servant of God and citizen of the Kingdom and authority

Should I tell my employers that I can no longer show my respect to the Judiciary and Law of England as the Protestants say it is idolatory?

If I do that, they will say 'so if the Protestants object, why do they also bow to the Bench when they walk into court when they are in session?

I would have to reply something in the veign of 'well I suppose because the Bench and English Law which they represent, are not exclusively Catholic.

So does it mean that by definition and logic, it is not the fact of the artefact which is bowed to, but the fact it is Roman Catholic?

Therefore, can I conclude that objections are based purely on bigotry and discrimination of my right to be different?

This is getting awefully complicated. Can someone help me out please.

Bowing in court is obviously not a problem. Nobody could possibly think you were worshipping anyone. Bowing to a Japanese, for example, in greeting is also obviously not a problem.

What would be a problem for a Catholic, for example, is bowing to the tabarnacle in a Lutheran church. That is not a mark of respect to Christ. Lutherans belief in the Eucharist is of consubstantiation which is a heretical doctrine which Catholics cannot have anything to do with.

 

[Texan_in_DC]

No.

Now if the court demanded that you bow to them and not God or Jesus Christ then yes you would have an issue.

Just like the ones in the past that were forced to make a decison do I not bow down and worship them as I would my Lord God in Heaven or do I get thrown into the Lions pit and well die?

The good news is your not in this position.

Go to the websters dcictionary and look up worship.

By definition when you bow in court you are using defintion #1 which is basically showing your respect to the justice of the court.

When we worship God this is definition # 2 which is to a supreme above all things divine being.

When we attend Mass well this is worship definition # 3.

And when someone says we worship Mary or Saints if we use defintion # 4 well we would agree but if they are using defintion # 2 well then we would object that we are not making her or any Saint an Idol which would be replacing our Lord God in Heaven.

 

[Harland]

Bowing in court is obviously not a problem. Nobody could possibly think you were worshipping anyone. Bowing to a Japanese, for example, in greeting is also obviously not a problem.

What would be a problem for a Catholic, for example, is bowing to the tabarnacle in a Lutheran church. That is not a mark of respect to Christ. Lutherans belief in the Eucharist is of consubstantiation which is a heretical doctrine which Catholics cannot have anything to do with.

Do the Lutherans have a tabarnacle?

 

[thistle]

Do the Lutherans have a tabarnacle?

According to Sixtus (in another thread), yes!
I’ve never been in a Lutheran church.

 

[happygal]

Not a complication at all, bowing is a respect.

 

[Cat]

I know Protestants who will not bow or curtsey to anyone or anything. They also do not applaud, even at a sports event or a play or concert. They believe that such gestures are idolatrous.

They have told me that if they were in a play, they would not bow at the end during the curtain call.

And they say Catholics are legalistic!

 

[Bishopite]

If it is wrong to bow to RC factors, is it ok to bow to Protestant?
When I am performing my employers business, I am required to go into court.

If a hearing is in session, it is protocol to bow to the Bench as a mark of respect for their authority. ‘The Bench’ is merely symbolic of the authority enshrined in English Law and Parliament.

I am not worshipping the bench, I am bowing as a servant of the law and a citizen to whom it represents.

That is EXACTLY THE SAME CRITERIA that I use when I bow to the Cross and the Tabernacle. I am not bowing to a cross, I am bowing to the authority of Christ as co-heir, servant of God and citizen of the Kingdom and authority

Should I tell my employers that I can no longer show my respect to the Judiciary and Law of England as the Protestants say it is idolatory?

If I do that, they will say 'so if the Protestants object, why do they also bow to the Bench when they walk into court when they are in session?

I would have to reply something in the veign of 'well I suppose because the Bench and English Law which they represent, are not exclusively Catholic.

So does it mean that by definition and logic, it is not the fact of the artefact which is bowed to, but the fact it is Roman Catholic?

Therefore, can I conclude that objections are based purely on bigotry and discrimination of my right to be different?

This is getting awefully complicated. Can someone help me out please.

Obvously you aren’t worshiping anything other that God, so bowing in and of itself isn’t a sign of worship or why would Ruth have bowed down to Boaz in Ruth 2:10? Or Christians who put stickers on their back windows depicting a person “bowing” at the foot of a cross, is that person “worshiping” a cross? No, of course not and neither do Catholics who bow down to a statue, it is simply used as imagery.

"Sometimes anti-Catholics cite Deuteronomy 5:9, where God said concerning idols, “You shall not bow down to them.” Since many Catholics sometimes bow or kneel in front of statues of Jesus and the saints, anti-Catholics confuse the legitimate veneration of a sacred image with the sin of idolatry.

Though bowing can be used as a posture in worship, not all bowing is worship. In Japan, people show respect by bowing in greeting (the equivalent of the Western handshake). Similarly, a person can kneel before a king without worshipping him as a god. In the same way, a Catholic who may kneel in front of a statue while praying isn’t worshipping the statue or even praying to it, any more than the Protestant who kneels with a Bible in his hands when praying is worshipping the Bible or praying to it."

catholic.com/library/Do_Catholics_Worship_Statues.asp

So, bowing can be a sign of worship or respect or both. Catholicism condemns worshipping anything other than God and worshipping a statue IS idolatry…

The Second Council of Nicaea (787), which dealt largely with the question of the religious use of images and icons, said, “[T]he one who redeemed us from the darkness of idolatrous insanity, Christ our God, when he took for his bride his holy Catholic Church . . . promised he would guard her and assured his holy disciples saying, ‘I am with you every day until the consummation of this age.’ . . . To this gracious offer some people paid no attention; being hoodwinked by the treacherous foe they abandoned the true line of reasoning . . . and they failed to distinguish the holy from the profane, asserting that the icons of our Lord and of his saints were no different from the wooden images of satanic idols.”

The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) taught that idolatry is committed “by worshipping idols and images as God, or believing that they possess any divinity or virtue entitling them to our worship, by praying to, or reposing confidence in them” (374).

“Idolatry is a perversion of man’s innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who ‘transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God’” (CCC 2114).

catholic.com/library/Do_Catholics_Worship_Statues.asp

When we bow before the blessed sacrament (who is Jesus) we do both, worship and respect for the Son of God.

 

[Sixtus]

Now if the court demanded that you bow to them and not God or Jesus Christ then yes you would have an issue.

Just like the ones in the past that were forced to make a decison do I not bow down and worship them as I would my Lord God in Heaven or do I get thrown into the Lions pit and well die?

The good news is your not in this position.

Go to the websters dcictionary and look up worship.

By definition when you bow in court you are using defintion #1 which is basically showing your respect to the justice of the court.

When we worship God this is definition # 2 which is to a supreme above all things divine being.

When we attend Mass well this is worship definition # 3.

Texas DC I here what you say, but criticisms I have received of Catholics paying respect to Priests by bowing, ditto tabernacle is very very wrong and punishable by rotting in hell for all eternity accoding to some, but it is ok to bow to a magristrate for the very same reasons.

That is my point

 

[Texan_in_DC]

Texas DC I here what you say, but criticisms I have received of Catholics paying respect to Priests by bowing, ditto tabernacle is very very wrong and punishable by rotting in hell for all eternity accoding to some, but it is ok to bow to a magristrate for the very same reasons.

That is my point

The Church does not get their documents of faith from any protestant that does not understand our faith.

Nor should any Catholic worry about what an outsider has to say in regarding our faith.

Bottom line is that Jesus set up His Church which we call the Catholic Church, and He also promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Please go back and look up the word worship and undestand the 4 definitions and perhaps the next time you are condemed by someone for bowing or worshiping then you can define it.

 

[Seth]

I’m Protestant and I haven’t got any problem with bowing, in fact I’ve done it myself many times to show the same respect for authority that you’ve all described. Not an issue. Worship itself is an internal and/or vocal act rather than an outward physical act. And as many pointed out earlier, bowing varies from culture to culture in its meaning, whereas worshiping something is a universally similar act.

By the way, shouldn’t you be concerned by what outsiders have to say about your faith as long as it is constructive? I think so.

Also, I think Protestant’s main problems with the idea of worship in regards to Mary or the Saints stems less from the exact definition of worship and more from the idea that veneration, exaltation, and glorifying praise belong only to God and should not be directed to anyone other than the Lord.

One more issue brought up: I think it is important to recognize that “the gates of hell will not prevail against it” is term that can only be loosely used in that it provokes many various interpretations. These interpretations stem from what I think are two main issues. First, is this talking about the church as in the Body of Christ (in the original greek the word used for church means literally ‘assembly’ and is translated as church in most modern translations) or is it talking about the Church as specific institution that Christ has founded? And 2. this phrase also does not specify its meaning. It does not necessarily mean that the church it is refering to won’t ever get something wrong or make mistakes or sin just as everyone else, only that it won’t be lost to Hell. Also, the footnote for this passage (Matthew 16:18) in the NIV remarks that an alternative translation for “and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”
could be “and the gates of Hades will not not prove stronger than it”.

Anyway, just some thoughts.
Seth

 

[Sixtus]

Protestant’s main problems with the idea of worship in regards to Mary or the Saints stems from the idea that veneration, exaltation, and glorifying praise belong only to God and should not be directed to anyone other than the Lord.

So, it is a good job Catholics do not venerate, exaltate or glorify the Mother of God and the Saints.

But I have witnessed Protestants worshipping the Pulpit. I have seen it done. It is made only of wood, it is a graven image as it is used in worship. I have seen Protestant Ministers ordained and lay, bow to the pulpit. So if us doing that is ‘worship’ then so it is for Protestants

 

[Sixtus]

Texas DC I think you are right. Whatever we do, will always be wrong to someone. There are after all 33,000 different Protestant groups. We cannot please them all. Whatever we do, we are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.

I think we should stop all this apologizing for our existence. I am fed up to the back teeth for apologising for being a Catholic. If others do not like it then they can take a run and jump!