My dark night. (Help me out apologists.)

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MysteriumFidei

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Hello,

Let me preface this by saying that I believe everything the Church teaches, including that it is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church spoken of by the Nicene Fathers. But I am tempted to doubt when I see that that Council teaches that the Church is visibly Holy.

I see a lot of racists in the Church. I see misogynists and hypocrites. I know, it’s not for me to judge, and maybe I’m not assessing the situation accurately. (That’s quite possible, knowing me). But I clearly do not see visible Holiness.

What does it mean that the Church is visibly Holy? And what do you do when you are discriminated against by Catholics?

Thanks, God bless. I pray that noone be scandalized by this.

MysteriumFidei
 
I have always looked at the visible institution as Holy, while the members are sinful.
 
Keep in mind, the gate is very narrow, my friend. You are right to seek to be perfect as God is perfect. But you ought not count it against our Church that so few achieve holiness.

Give them a chance to work out their salvation in fear and trembling.
 
The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, Jesus present on earth, through the Paschal Mystery perpetuated in Holy Eucharist. Therefore the Church is holy because its head, Christ, is holy. Individual members of the Church are at times unholy because of sin, and therefore separated wholly or completely from Christ, from His body, the Church, and can be reconciled to Him and to His Church only through the power of His presence in the sacraments. Once again united with the Church, they become holy, due only to His merits, not to their own.
 
Keep in mind that part of the reason that Holy is one of the marks of the Church is because the Church possesses all of the means of sanctification. The Church is holy in that God gave it all that was necessary to make its members holy (the Word of God, the Sacraments, etc.). In addition, the Church is visibly holy in its saints–canonized and otherwise.

So, the Church is holy because it proclaims the Word of God and offers the sacraments–primary among them being the Eucharist. That is why I know where to go even when some Church members seem to flaunt scandal (heck, it is a scandal that I continue to sin despite these great aids the Church provides–but still, I am sharp enough to recognize the work of God’s grace in my life).

Keep also in mind all of those quaint sayings about the Church–that it is a hotel for sinners (who are striving to be saints), etc.
 
One of the great mysteries of the Church is that she is holy, in spite of the antics of some of her members in the Church Militant.

Even when we sin, the Church continues to proclaim the truth, the truth that draws us to repent, seek reconciliation, and continue to become what our Master would have us become.

Even in its darker hours, say, when bereft by the Arian heresy, the Church emerged faithful. We have the Lord’s guarantee she will always do so.

Evelyn Waugh, the British author, was once told he was a pretty wretched fellow, as evidence that the Church was not a good thing. He replied that but for the faith, he would be quite insufferable! And C.S. Lewis echoed the same message: The test is not how bad some people in the Church are, but how bad they would be but for the Church.

Crusades and inquisitions have worked havoc in the name of the Lord, in numbers of tens to hundreds of thousands. But when God is denied, Nazis and Communists have worked havoc in the tens to hundreds of MILLIONS.

And Christ did say that the sick need a physician, not the well.

Blessings,

Gerry
 
Think of the Sacraments as visible signs of holiness, think of all the great saints of the Church even up to our very day. Mother Teresa lived the Catholic faith almost perfectly, she is an example of the Church’s visible holiness. The lack of holiness is the result of Catholic not living the faith, those that live the faith are indeed very holy. I am surrounded by holy people.
 
Hi 🙂

I’m no apologist but I’d say the Church is holy because Christ is the head, not because of us. If the Church’s holiness depended on us we would have been in trouble a long time ago!

My :twocents:
 
Oscar Wilde said that the Catholic Church is a church of saints and sinners. For the merely proper, Anglicanism will do.
 
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sullivansoul:
I have always looked at the visible institution as Holy, while the members are sinful.
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Bingo, hit the nail on the head. :yup:
 
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