Just my honest opinion & concern =)

[Chelsea952]

Hello - I am a cradle catholic - that has served the church for the past 24 years. I love Youth Ministry and feel like I have helped many families and teens throughout the years.

I do NOT agree with moving confirmation from HS/ JR high age to 3rd grade was a wise move for our diocese of phx. Being raised in the church - they did this in the 70’s dropping it to jr high from hs and we saw the SAME decline that we are experiencing now.

A decline - in not living out the faith. My own son is engaged to a girl from our own church and they are even looking out side the church for an ‘outdoor venue’, that ‘speaks’ to them. YES they are confirmed and raised in the church but at 27 & 24 they do not feel it is reavelant.

I do not feel we have the ability to dialogue and we are becoming backward to a moral decaying society that needs the Hope & Eternal Promise of Jesus Christ.

I am so sick & tired of the pompous - Phar-icitical Catholics that have infested our church with their piousness and blatant putdowns on the rest of the people that are hurting, experiencing tremendous loss, homes, marriages, deaths, careers all to be made feel inferior and lack of worth.

IF you are NOT ULTRA conservative you do NOT fit into the current Catholic Church - you are LESS THAN. And I have to admit - I have always worked for the ‘under dogs’ - there is a very special person named Jesus Christ who did too… and I really like who he is and what he stands for.

Because just as in the old testament - when the ‘cloud’ moved the Jewish people would follow it and re set up their tents - the Holy Spirit directed and led that church. Well faithful Catholics - the Holy Spirit is gone… the annointing is left and until we examine not just our consciences but our most recent practices on how we truly treat people - it is not coming back.

Shame on all of us - for allowing it to get to this point.

May God have mercy and love upon us all.
Jesus my Lord and Savior - save us.
Holy Spirit please lead us.
Mary just cries for all of us.

Just my truly honest thoughts and reflections.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

Hello - I am a cradle catholic - that has served the church for the past 24 years. I love Youth Ministry and feel like I have helped many families and teens throughout the years.

I do NOT agree with moving confirmation from HS/ JR high age to 3rd grade was a wise move for our diocese of phx. Being raised in the church - they did this in the 70’s dropping it to jr high from hs and we saw the SAME decline that we are experiencing now.

A decline - in not living out the faith. My own son is engaged to a girl from our own church and they are even looking out side the church for an ‘outdoor venue’, that ‘speaks’ to them. YES they are confirmed and raised in the church but at 27 & 24 they do not feel it is reavelant.

I do not feel we have the ability to dialogue and we are becoming backward to a moral decaying society that needs the Hope & Eternal Promise of Jesus Christ.

I am so sick & tired of the pompous - Phar-icitical Catholics that have infested our church with their piousness and blatant putdowns on the rest of the people that are hurting, experiencing tremendous loss, homes, marriages, deaths, careers all to be made feel inferior and lack of worth.

IF you are NOT ULTRA conservative you do NOT fit into the current Catholic Church - you are LESS THAN. And I have to admit - I have always worked for the ‘under dogs’ - there is a very special person named Jesus Christ who did too… and I really like who he is and what he stands for.

Because just as in the old testament - when the ‘cloud’ moved the Jewish people would follow it and re set up their tents - the Holy Spirit directed and led that church. Well faithful Catholics - the Holy Spirit is gone… the annointing is left and until we examine not just our consciences but our most recent practices on how we truly treat people - it is not coming back.

Shame on all of us - for allowing it to get to this point.

May God have mercy and love upon us all.
Jesus my Lord and Savior - save us.
Holy Spirit please lead us.
Mary just cries for all of us.

Just my truly honest thoughts and reflections.

Let me share my crazy thoughts.
What about doing your job and forgetting what goes laterally?
You would suffer less and the result on the others would be the same.
My thought gift to you and God Bless You:
http://thevinylshack.com/images/T/1153.png

 

[agnes_therese]

IF you are NOT ULTRA conservative you do NOT fit into the current Catholic Church - you are LESS THAN.

If that were true in my parish, I’d be looking for another. It’s certainly not true in the Catholic Church as a whole.

 

[Lutgardis]

Hi Chelsea,
Are you saying your diocese is now confirming Catholic youth in third grade? If that is the case, I definitely would not view that as a bad thing. There was a time in the Catholic Church that a baby was baptized and confirmed all at the same time. The Eastern Church still practices this (my husband was baptized and confirmed at one year of age in the Russian Orthodox Church). I’m not sure this issue is the cause of some of the problems our Church is facing today.

I have so often heard young people say they want something relevant, something that “speaks” to them. That is what all kids are looking for today–Catholic and Protestant. Some of that is because we live in a society that is anthropocentric–centered on man instead of centered on God; but much of what kids are feeling today is completely legitimate. Young people are hurting for so many reasons. There is so little stability in homes, for one thing. Even if there is no divorce, kids, from a very early age have been left to fend for themselves while their parents are out supposedly making a “better life” for them. The prominent and exalted among us in society spend much effort on making sure all of our heroes of the past–political, religious alike, are denigrated, that all of their weaknesses and flaws are exposed for everyone to see and mock. In short, young people have become at least somewhat disillusioned. They are hurting; they want answers. They want something, someone to believe in. In short, they want to be happy and fulfilled. And there’s nothing wrong with that! That’s the way we were made. I just read an interview with Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, in which he said, “Thomas Aquinas would remind us, the most basic drive, the most raw drive that all of us have in our lives, is to be happy.” He added poignantly, I thought, “We are born wanting to be happy. and we know through God’s revelation that the only way to be truly happy in this and the next is to do God’s will.”

The real question is how do we convince a culture like ours that God’s will is the only thing that will ever make any of us happy and fulfilled?! And more specifically, how does the Church reach young people with the message that God wants the very best for each of them, that He wants–more than they do, for them to find true, lasting fulfillment and happiness forever and ever? I think, first off, those of us who are older, must live in step with the Holy Spirit, discerning God’s will in our own lives and living it out, becoming perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect. Our personal, deep, inner joy in finding our place in God–whether we experience good times or times of great pain and trial, will be evident; it will be obvious. It will simply flood out of us because we will be filled with God’s life, His love, His purpose. Others will see it; and that will certainly “speak to them.”

I agree with you that there are some very self-righteous Catholics who think God isn’t pleased with anyone unless he walks in goosestep with what ultra-conservatives think on every given matter. I think they are a minority to be prayed for; for self-righteousness is itself a kind of bondage and a great source of frustration and unhappiness. ( Imagine, to think that just you and your little group are the only ones who have arrived–the only ones who really “get it”!)

Christ treated everyone whom He encountered with love and dignity, communicating to each and every person that God has a purpose for each of us, a unique place in God’s heart and in His plan of salvation.

I definitely do not feel that the Holy Spirit has left us! We have a wonderful pope, and wonderful teachers among us who are leading all of us to Jesus in a way that is very personal and dynamic. So many leaders, now more than ever, are encouraging friendship with Jesus–and even falling in love with Him! (I bet my grandparents were never told that in Mass or in what was current Church teaching in their day).

I understand your frustration; but don’t lose hope. God is working dynamically in the Church. Even our sins as a Church that have been a source of great financial loss and scandal–have been exposed and, I believe, are being cleansed from the Church. I believe we are becoming more like Christ now, not less like Him.

If your son is searching for something that “speaks to him”, don’t fret. If he is seeking the truth, he will find Jesus. And there is no safer place to be than in Him.

God Bless.

 

[Aginghippy]

By “ultra conservative” do you mean someone who actually believes what the church teaches and assents to it? I doubt if half the people I go to church with every Sunday would even fit into that category
I’m far from perfect myself but I love the church and what it teaches. If we want our children to stay in the church, then the younger we start teaching them the better.

 

[Jaypeeto4]

If by “ultra conservative” and Phari-citical (like the pharisees), you are referring
to Catholics who accept wholly the official doctrinal and moral teachings of the
Catholic church, then you are condemning the upright and obedient, and the LORD will not tolerate that.

If by “ultra conservative,” you mean those who think you have to goose-step in
line with all the economic and fiscal and tax policies advocated by the fiscal
Right-Wing of the Republican Party, then I’d have to agree with you somewhat.
People have confused being proLife, anti-Gay Marriage and pro-Orthodoxy
with accepting the entire Republican Platform hook, line, and sinker.
THAT is wrong. Many Republican economic policies, especially as advocated by
particular candidates, are clearly out of harmony with the teachings of Christ.
Christ and the apostles BLASTED people who wanted to spend their lives trying to
become super-rich materially, while many “conservative republicans” praise this focus
on getting super-rich as being “entrepreneurial.” Just like Liberals who call
abortion, murder, by the word, CHOICE; so some of these conservatives call being greedy by the expression being entrepreneurial. Both are using euphemisms.
Some of the fiscal conservatives condone companies, even very wealthy ones, paying people who do backbreaking, exhausting work just as little as the law will allow them to get away with paying. In the eyes of God, such behavior is detestable, but these folks, accepting Von Mises over Jesus and Adam Smith over Christ, talk about just pay being determined by “market forces” and stuff like that. Nonsense.
A just wage is a LIVING wage by which a breadwinner, regardless of educational level, who does a decent days work, can modestly support himself, his family, his home, food, clothing, church-support and other needs. It is not, not, not the poverty-level and below wage that is paid by many wealthy companies to those who work very hard but are not executives. And no matter what they tell themselves, those who advocate these things, and support those who do, will not get away with this. I myself have learned that the hard way (( I have never been wealthy, but I used to justify all the economic policies advocated by the ultra-conservatives. They aren’t ALL wrong, but those who try to justify poverty-level wages for hard workers are advocating a Sin that Cries to Heaven for Vengeance, no matter what sophistry they engage in to convince themselves otherwise. )).

 

[1ke]

I do NOT agree with moving confirmation from HS/ JR high age to 3rd grade was a wise move for our diocese of phx.

That is, I believe, a direct result of not understanding what Confirmation is or what it does.

Being raised in the church - they did this in the 70’s dropping it to jr high from hs and we saw the SAME decline that we are experiencing now.

The past 100 years are an exception to the universal norm and history of the Church. Confirmation for the rest of the Church’s history has been as your Bishop now restores it. So, do not blame the declines of the Church on something that has nothing to do with it. If there is any argument to be made, it is that the delay of Confirmation has impacted the decline because the decline happened only after Confirmation was moved. I am not making that argument, because I don’t really think they are related. BUT, if one were to make an argument, the facts are not in favor of yours.

Just my truly honest thoughts and reflections.

The entire rest of your post seems to be a rant unrelated to Confirmation or anything else. I am sorry that you are feeling hurt, disillusioned, and other emotions. Please get some spiritual counseling with your priest.

 

[manualman]

It’s funny, I’ve lived the exact opposite. I grew up in the 1970’s church: “Jesus loves me, Kumbaya” was very nearly the entirety of what I learned about God in almost 8 years. Nobody told me that sins were things that did REAL damage to my soul and that of others. I didn’t comprehend the way in which Grace was the only real way I could be healed and restored to true communion with God. I didn’t understand that my sins contributed to the nails being pounded in Christ’s hands as much as anybody else’s.

Then I came face to face with Jesus as Savior and finally understood that although my sins were serious, fatal, He was my redeemer. He could make it all new and right.

The “pharisaical” teachings of the catholic church are not chains, nor burdens. They are fences around the gullies, potholes and cliffs of this world that make it possible to joyfully explore this world with abandon without the need to fear the unknown: God has provided for us. They are there to help us avoid the grief, pain and misery that sin ALWAYS brings to both sinner and those he hurts. When you hurl yourself against those fences and yearn for the thrill of danger on the other side, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. I’ve been there, the misery of sin is hihgly over-rated. Choose Grace.

 

[in_servitude]

We cannot ever determine what is happening in the heads of people - their thoughts.

I think it is important to counter false teaching, however. For example, if the Church teaching is XYZ - and people actively speak out against XYZ, it is important to correct the error. The concept of being married away from the Eucharist is a problem that should be countered (with compassion).

People are not all that attracted to wishy-washy teaching. But, they are also turned off when people put anything above God. (Like was discussed in today’s Gospel reading.)

 

[Thomas_Casey]

MODERATOR NOTICE

This thread seems to have no focus, someone please suggest a name or I will close it.

Remember what I asked for.

1. Thread titles must specifically say what the thread is about.
2. Post only threads that have something to do with Catholic tradition.

Otherwise, find the appropriate forum.

That’s my honest opinion and concern.

 

[Mike30]

MODERATOR NOTICE

This thread seems to have no focus, someone please suggest a name or I will close it.

Remember what I asked for.

1. Thread titles must specifically say what the thread is about.
2. Post only threads that have something to do with Catholic tradition.

Otherwise, find the appropriate forum.

That’s my honest opinion and concern.

Great idea!!

It really needs to go.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

That is what I understood from the viewpoint of the OP.
If I am wrong, somebody corrects me.
It is often heard from people who are very enthusiastic that they find other elder people boring, monotonous, full of rituals, and not at all given to new ideas, thoughts, sentiment, feelings.
Is it a clash of generations?
Is it a clash of old with new traditions?
Is it a clash of leaders versus people who like it the way it has always been?
Is it a clash between new and traditional liturgy?
Is it a clash between people who like reason and people who like feelings?

As it is not in my country I do not know, but I know all these situation that have arisen in the Church.