My Catholic Crisis of Faith

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Faith_of_Sarah

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Under the best of circumstances it’s hard to be a Catholic, balancing a secular life with the strictures of Catholicism. With the Church’s reaction to the growing child sex abuse crisis, being Catholic just got a whole lot harder. They don’t follow the rules of the Church. Why should we? After all, as much as lay Catholics sin, most won’t come anywhere close to the heinous acts we hear about on the news.

newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/04/my_catholic_crisis_of_faith.html
 
the things we hear about on the news is done by roughly 1% of priests!!

sexual abuse happens more in other churches, schools, etc, but the media focuses on the Catholic Church.

why should we follow the rules of the Church? well most importantly for our salvation 🙂 if those priests will go to hell (though I hope not, I hope they’ll repent!) - the worst we can do is follow their example… why not follow the example of good priests, and Saints? rules of the Church aren’t just “rules”…everything is based on Christ’s teachings. We need to overcome sin and follow God’s commandments, and live holy and repentant lives. Think of eternity…there are only two possibilities. This is the one chance we have to choose God! Why choose wrongly because of the actions of some people?

God bless
 
"They don’t follow the rules of the Church. Why should we? "

What difference should it make in my spiritual quest for sainthood if someone else doesn’t follow the rules of the Church? That is poor logic. Are you there for the clergy or are you there for Christ?

Also, you seem to be judging the pope rather harshly considering there is still no hard evidence of his being an accomplice to abuse cover-up.

Have a blessed Easter.
 
Under the best of circumstances it’s hard to be a Catholic, balancing a secular life with the strictures of Catholicism. With the Church’s reaction to the growing child sex abuse crisis, being Catholic just got a whole lot harder. They don’t follow the rules of the Church. Why should we? After all, as much as lay Catholics sin, most won’t come anywhere close to the heinous acts we hear about on the news.
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Christ endured so much suffering and death for us on the Cross; you should be willing to suffer for His sake and for His Church as well.
 
Sarah,
I wonder what you think of the priests at the church that you attend. I know the 2 fathers at my church well, and they are wonderful. I like to pray every night for their faith to grow and for them to become ever more devout. The majority of our priests are good and honest men and it is important for us all to pray for them.
If you are feeling doubts and your faith is struggling, I would recommend Eucharistic Adoration. It helps keep my focus on what being a Catholic is all about. I will keep you in my prayers.
 
Faith_of_Sarah said:
Under the best of circumstances it’s hard to be a Catholic, balancing a secular life with the strictures of Catholicism. With the Church’s reaction to the growing child sex abuse crisis, being Catholic just got a whole lot harder. They don’t follow the rules of the Church. Why should we? After all, as much as lay Catholics sin, most won’t come anywhere close to the heinous acts we hear about on the news.

newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/04/my_catholic_crisis_of_faith.html
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Our enemies are the world (that includes the media), the flesh and the devil. They often cooperate to try to lead you away from salvation through Jesus Christ. Don’t let them beat you.
 
Clergy are not, per se, holier than laity.

The Church has never denied this plain and simple fact, has always throughout history insisted on the truth of it; that some clergy in recent history have tried to hide their unholiness in order to avoid scandal is, ironically, the cause of this present scandal.

All the rest of it is blatant anti-Catholic propaganda.

We need not despair. The Gospel is still the Gospel; the Church herself is still Holy, and Christ is still risen from the dead! Happy Easter.
 
As Jesus said " Without Me, you can do nothing", John 15:5, we cannot even have faith without God’s Grace. Our intellect can, though, discern the truth of the effects stemming from the cause, thus we can discern the need for a Creator stemming from the effect of a creation and the need of faith to believe in this Creator. This stimulates in the humble a search for this Creator through the loftiest part of our human nature, the intellect, “Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find”, Matt 7:7. Prayer, the lifting up of the mind to God, communicates the needs of our soul to God.

The problem of the arrogance of secular society is the central problem for the individual. Society teaches grabbing at what life offers and if you don’t, someone else will, thus you will lose out. This opposes the humble trusting in God who has numbered the very hairs of your head, Matt 10:30. Our arrogance blocks the Grace of God which is the only thing we are capable of doing on our own. Our acceptance of this condition of blocking God’s Grace leads us further into sin, just what those who molested the young did. We are hindered in this faith by the Evil One and those who accept this negation of the Good are not to be derided since we ourselves are only an acceptance of temptation away from the same condition or worse, “But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you”, Matt 5:44: .

A lack of fortitude by those in charge of these molesters is all that is necessary to allow it to continue. We can easily see the failings of not following the Magisterial teachings and the example of the saints, we can easily find the solution to this in the Church’s teaching, and we can resolve to ask God for the faith we need to change. As for others, the message of Fatima has revealed that prayer and sacrifice of the faithful is the means to converting the world. Relying on oneself for faith is contrary to Divine Revelation: It is written (Ephesians 2:8-9): “By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves . . . that no man may glory . . . for it is the gift of God”, and St. Thomas Aquinas, II, II, q. 6 a. 1, The Cause of Faith:
The Pelagians held that this cause was nothing else than man’s free-will: and consequently they said that the beginning of faith is from ourselves, inasmuch as, to wit, it is in our power to be ready to assent to things which are of faith, but that the consummation of faith is from God, Who proposes to us the things we have to believe. But this is false, for, since man, by assenting to matters of faith, is raised above his nature, this must needs accrue to him from some supernatural principle moving him inwardly; and this is God. Therefore faith, as regards the assent which is the chief act of faith, is from God moving man inwardly by grace.
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Neithan said:
Clergy are not, per se, holier than laity.

The Church has never denied this plain and simple fact, has always throughout history insisted on the truth of it; that some clergy in recent history have tried to hide their unholiness in order to avoid scandal is, ironically, the cause of this present scandal.

All the rest of it is blatant anti-Catholic propaganda
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The problem at issue and which seems to escape many on this forum is the fact that in a very depraved society and culture which exists in many countries throughout the world and is just not only regarded a US phenomena, this sort of action is expected. It’s the norm and it should be higher in secular organizations. But, that’s NOT the issue. It is ad hominem argument to point the finger elsewhere by saying look over there, they do the same thing so why pick on us. Because the Magisterium of the Catholic Church operates under different moral codes, values and authority then secular society. When those codes are violated under grave sin, it doesn’t justify the church’s actions by pointing to secular society and quoting ad nauseum statistics concerning these institutions since are behaving in their expected depraved way but not the church. Too much is given, Our Lord, warned, much will be expected to be accounted for. We need to take the eyes off the world and focus internally on how to protect the innocent and to laicized all those who have committed and committed such actions. Ask yourself, what would Paul do, What would Jesus do in such a situation?

Catholic Catechism
VII. The Effects of the Sacrament of Holy Orders
The indelible character
1581 This sacrament configures the recipient to Christ by a special grace of the Holy Spirit, so that he may serve as Christ’s instrument for his Church. By ordination one is enabled to act as a representative of Christ, Head of the Church, in his triple office of priest, prophet, and king.

When the secular world sees priests sanctified and set apart for holiness commit these vile acts, in their rational mind they think he is a representative of Christ? This is where the disconnect comes from people within the Church and those outside.

guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/apr/03/archbishop-canterbury-ireland-catholic-credibility

Archbishop of Canterbury: Irish Catholic church has lost all credibility. Rowan Williams’s comments on Vatican handling of sex abuse scandal likely to further cloud pope’s upcoming UK trip. he said the country’s Catholic church has lost “all credibility” because of its poor handling of the scandal of paedophile priests.

Dr Rowan Williams said the child sex abuse scandal that has engulfed the Catholic church had been a “colossal trauma” for Ireland in particular.And an institution so deeply bound into the life of a society suddenly losing all credibility – that’s not just a problem for the church, it is a problem for everybody in Ireland."
 
Faith_of_Sarah said:
Under the best of circumstances it’s hard to be a Catholic, balancing a secular life with the strictures of Catholicism. With the Church’s reaction to the growing child sex abuse crisis, being Catholic just got a whole lot harder. They don’t follow the rules of the Church. Why should we? After all, as much as lay Catholics sin, most won’t come anywhere close to the heinous acts we hear about on the news.

newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/04/my_catholic_crisis_of_faith.html
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can we say we are better then they are?
remember we must endure and suffer with the Church. remember that Martin luther tought that he was better than the other Catholics because they commited sins. look now, what happened to the plans of ML? what have they acomplished so far? what they did was create a hate for the CC in the whole world. it drove them to want to destroy the CC.

hang in there and be faithfull to God. Jesus i trust in you. remember the prayer of the republican and the pharisee. the republican man recognizes his own sins.
 
wisdomseeker said:
destroy the CC.

hang in there and be faithfull to God. Jesus i trust in you. remember the prayer of the republican and the pharisee. the** republican** man recognizes his own sins.
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Shouldn’t that be publican?
 
Jesus never promised us a rose garden. He told us directly it would be difficult. He told us that if the world hated Him (and boy did it ever!) the world will also hate us. He told us we were not of the world. He had taken us out of the world. The “world” belongs to Satan, and yeah boy, Satan HATES US!! His Church is truth, and truth is always the object of hate in the world. (always will be) Pray, Pray, Pray!!! Spend time (as one poster recommended- great recommendation!) with the Blessed Sacrament. Sit with Jesus for a while and tell him your struggles and insecurities. HE WILL HELP YOU, trust me He will.
 
wisdomseeker said:
can we say we are better then they are?
remember we must endure and suffer with the Church. remember that Martin Luther tought that he was better than the other Catholics because they committed sins. look now, what happened to the plans of ML? what have they accomplished so far? what they did was create a hate for the CC in the whole world. it drove them to want to destroy the CC.

hang in there and be faithful to God. Jesus i trust in you. remember the prayer of the republican and the pharisee. the republican man recognizes his own sins.
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This is the “Well, we have all sinned.” argument.

I don’t think that most of the posters on CAF, including Sarah, have committed felonies.

As an aside, re references to sex abuse among Anglican priests, I am guessing that many of this acts, terrible as they were, were committed as individual acts, with consensual adults or teenagers-(-the latter, tho’ illegal and felonious). They were probably not committed on an industrial scale, as in Ireland, against severely disadvantaged, warehoused indigent children, who had been taken away from their parents and who had NO ONE to protect them. These young people were also* beaten* as well as sodomized. The boys fondled and molested by Murphy were deaf, also disadvantaged and victimized. Apparently there are cases in Italy which also involved deaf boys.
 
Faith_of_Sarah said:
being Catholic just got a whole lot harder. They don’t follow the rules of the Church. Why should we? After all, as much as lay Catholics sin, most won’t come anywhere close to the heinous acts we hear about on the news.
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That’s the way I feel about all the Catholic politicians who support and promote immoral policies like abortion, birth control, and same-sex marriage and who are hostile towards religious people in general. It’s very disheartening, and does lead one to think “what’s the point?” when the most high profile, influential Catholics are actually enemies of their own Church.
 
Faith_of_Sarah said:
Under the best of circumstances it’s hard to be a Catholic, balancing a secular life with the strictures of Catholicism. With the Church’s reaction to the growing child sex abuse crisis, being Catholic just got a whole lot harder. They don’t follow the rules of the Church. Why should we? After all, as much as lay Catholics sin, most won’t come anywhere close to the heinous acts we hear about on the news.
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Do you remember Jesus telling us that, when we pray, we pray in ‘secret’ and our Father, Who sees us, will reward us thusly? Or when we fast, we don’t put on ashcloth and bring sorrow to our faces but fast joyfully?

What is so difficult in balancing our secular life with what the Church teaches? Did you ever hear of DISCIPLESHIP? It takes guts to be Catholic. If you want a Christian religion that does not demand anything of you, find a unitarian church or a liberal protestant one. And why should you worry who follows the rules or not? Who will be accountable to God on this fact? Will you be accountable because some other person decides not to follow the Faith? Why not just worry about YOUR relationship with God? Everything else will follow. And, Christ only gave ONE commandment in His life: *love others as I have loved you. *Period.

And no other pope has put as much into practice in the past ten years directives in dealing with alleged sexual abuse by priests as Benedict XVI has. Remember, it was John Paul II that put Ratzinger in the position to begin cleaning out the stable of this filth.

The laity are just as guilty because what they demand of their priests is what they get. If you don’t demand more, you will inevitably get less. And the laity needs to be re-born with regard to their Faith. How many make an hour devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in your parish? How many attend Adoration? How many go to Confession? This can go on and on and on. The strength of a parish rests in its devotions to the Eucharist and to the Church, and what it expects from the priests who serve it.
 
This is the extent of your faith?

Oh what would happen when tribulation comes.
 
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