Is the catholic church stuck in the middle ages?

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philipl

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The more I think about it I think it is true. The church wants to go back to a time when 95% of the population lived a subsistence lifestyle and the other 5% were Aristocracy, warriors(knights), and clergy. The focus of the 95% was the church and trying to survive.
 
You can believe what you choose. The onus though is on you to ‘prove your claim’, not on the rest of us to try to refute it. So go ahead, start making your case. 🍿
 
Let’s give him some time. He hasn’t quite gotten the “Middle Ages’ part right, but it is a rather broad area. I mean, if one considers the Middle Ages going from 500 to 1500 (the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of the Ottoman Empire), there is quite a difference between say 8th century Saxon England, 11th century semi-Christian Scandinavia, 13th century England, and 15th Century Spain. . .and one isn’t even considering the Eastern Church in Constantinople until the 12th century, the Italian 'city stages”, Germany from the barbarians to the Hanseatic League, the Balkan areas, Eastern Europe, Portugal, Benelux, Bohemia, Russia, Greece, etc.
 
It Seems like a vague jab at the Church over a yet to be named gripe…
 
The Church is conservative (hesitant to change) by nature, as are almost all large institutions, but the Catholic Church is continuously in a time renewal. It has not always been this way, and it will not be this way in a century either.

With that being said, the Church is still coming out of its more medieval theology adopted at and before the Council of Trent and will likely not fully implement the more progressive teachings found in the vision of Vatican II for another half-century or so.

I think there is an ideal/dream that traditionalism will return the Church to Christendom or to a more pious Church. So, if I am understanding your question, then the answer is “kind of” or “sometimes.” However, I do not think it has anything to do with wanting an aristocracy.
 
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philipl said:
The church wants to go back to a time when 95% of the population lived a subsistence lifestyle
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…Why?

That is–

A) why would the Church want this, and
B) what is the reason that leads you to think this?
 
Resisting the Modernist Heresy is “stuck in the Middle Ages”? Oh yeah, all those Medieval ideas like a belief in God instead of a New Age “Cosmic Intelligence” that the Modernist heretics are trying to foist off on the church. That’s just SO Middle Ages.

Please.
 
philipl said:
The church wants to go back to a time when 95% of the population lived a subsistence lifestyle and the other 5% were Aristocracy, warriors(knights), and clergy.
Click to expand...
You have some actual evidence to support your assertion?
 
Are there some facts you can share to support your claim, or is this just a bomb throwing thread?
 
I’m wondering if somebody is trolling philip. Looking back at his posts historically, he’s on the tough side but he’s never accused bishops, the Pope, etc. of trying to ‘drag people back to the Middle Ages.’ And he hasn’t responded, either, which again is a little strange.
 
I am not writting some white paper that needs peer review. This is nothing more than a discussion group. Not even that it kinda like after dinner chats.

But as I read post and remember many homilies I believe the church as abandoned the middle class. I remember years ago a priest was upset that so many new cars were out in the parking lot. Forget the fact that he and the other priest drove new cars provided by a car dealership. He complained about too many new houses being built while there were homeless in the streets. Yet the very house he lived in was provide through the estate of a parishioner. That house was close to a $400,000 home. I have been told several times by Catholics that I should just trust in the lord instead of being worried about my retirement. That when the church supported the aca and my health care went from $250 to $900 a month and my deductible more than doubled that “charity cost”. I read over an over that we should seek a more simple lifestyle. Yet at the same time how unfair the income gap is to the poor. The leaders of the church are constantly telling everyone about the poor and how the rich(read everyone else) just doesnt care. I went to mass today and the priest went on a tirade about how bad the USA treats the migrants at the same time going on and on about consumerism. He wants as many as can be to be equal and the only way to do that is to end the middle class. I remember when I was 14 and I told my CCD teacher that you can make everyone equally miserable but you cant make everyone equally happy.
 
What part of the country do you live? You sound like you have a latte liberal problem in your area.

The Church does not teach that you can’t have nice things.
 
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I’m pretty sure your priest just means everyone deserves to have their basic needs satisfied and that everyone deserves to be treated with human dignity. We, the privileged, ought to sacrifice our privilege until everyone’s basic needs are met. That does not mean that everyone must have the same amount of wealth. It just means that we ought not have an abundance while others cannot afford to eat.

You can have nice things, but you really cannot have nice things and ignore or take advantage of the poor.
 
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To be honest, the Middle Ages weren’t as bad as they are made out to be. Thomas Aquinas came from that period. If we could be stuck in the Middle Ages and have another Thomas Aquinas, I would go back in a heartbeat.
 
Ah, OK. You’re making the error, I think, of extrapolating an annoying homily (you should hear my priest, who is to the far left of Hilary Clinton, about ‘the rich’, but he sweetens it by calling everybody who’s in the church right there saints and holy and wonderful and blessed. It’s ‘everybody else’ who’s the problem), and picking up a few earlier examples, and then spinning that into "The whole entire Catholic Church is talking the talk but ALL its priests aren’t walking the walk’.

I’ve known too many priests in my life who lived modestly, were constantly using their own money, if diocese priests, to buy groceries for the poor, driving people around and running errands in their fancy cars (which were donations, and which often served for 20 years!), who were the first to give prayers AND tangible helps to get people OUT of poverty.

And you have to take the long view. I know that some people were THRILLED when Pope Francis ‘decided to live humbly’ and ditch the papal apartments and the driver etc. Of course, that meant that the driver lost HIS income and there were fewer people needed at the papal apartments so a couple of cleaners lost THEIR jobs, etc. IOW, ‘large’ lifestyles help pay the salaries of quite a few people. And what, pray tell, is the Bishop of Suburberville, whose flock erected a mansion back in say 1890, which mansion over the years has required all sorts of new wiring, plumbing, restoration etc but which also for much of the time was also the home of many priests, workers, etc., supposed to DO with the big old palace? Setting aside the many people whose jobs depend on it, who is going to BUY the place anyway and what will it be used for? Who has the RIGHT to sell it even? These things are white elephants. Easy to criticize Bishop X for 'living like a king" but often bishop X would LOVE to be able to ‘downsize’ but can’t find anybody foolish enough to take on the aging structure.

I donate to one of the orders of sisters to help fund their retirement. In fact, I’m soon facing retirement. You know, you don’t get all that much from Social Security OR from the Church pension. You don’t have children who will help take care of you, either.

And again, exactly what time and place in the Middle Ages is “The Church” aiming for (Please don’t tell me the Avignon Papacy, that cuts a little close to home)?

I know it’s frustrating when we have huge bills to pay and it seems like our priests are out there telling us how ‘greedy’ we are while they themselves after Mass head out to the gym to play tennis in order to combat their size 54 waists before sitting down for the filet mignon, but the truth is much closer to them trying to get everybody thinking less of material goods, themselves included. We all tend to ‘talk’ more than we do, but I think their hearts are in the right place.
 
Ending the middle class in this country will make it like the Central American countries these migrants fled from. In fact a nonexistent middle class is the chief characteristic of a third world country.

I wonder if your priest realizes this.
 
I am not saying the church is trying to drag us back to the middle ages. I am saying the church is more comfortable dealing to the poor. Where is the church growing the most? Africa is where. And there you will see a poverty level that is more in line with the 1400’s than the 2000’s in the USA. It just doesnt seem to understand the progress made over the past 600 years and why the middle class is so important. You can take all the wealth of the richest 500 people in the world and I would surprised if its more than 2 trillion dollars. But I wonder how much the middle class is worth?
 
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