Original Sin

[grannymh]

I have certainly “tampered with” the standard idea of original sin, and yet, I do not believe my conclusions have undermined the mystery of Christ at all. So, I am a happy counterexample. It would be different if I hadn’t followed the very teachings of Christ concerning forgiveness; for it was in doing so that I had to discount the standard teachings of original sin in order for it all to make sense.

Since the above was posted, it has been enlightening to watch both the reasoning and the results of
** “tampered with” the standard idea of original sin **
which are visible in some postings.

Consequently, I am very curious about the very teachings of Christ concerning forgiveness as mentioned in the quote above. Knowing the depth of God’s forgiveness for all kinds of sins, including the very first sin committed by the very first human, would be basic to our spirituality.

 

[BobCatholic]

Christ shares his Glorious Divine side with us in the Eucharist

But not all of it. Part of his Glorious side is the willingness to actually talk to me, and to touch me physically… So when I take the Eucharist, I cannot have a conversation with God, I can only have a monologue. Christ doesn’t touch me (or hug me) or give me any sort of consolations in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is a wonderful, beautiful gift…but it is missing the parts I need. I need to have a conversation with God. Or at least find a mystic who is able to do this and they can help me.

I can’t have a conversation with God, I can only have a monologue. He is pushing me away and doesn’t want me.

 

[simpleas]

In my humble observation, first, a substantial answer needs to be given to your previous question “If the creation story is a metaphor for man condemning himself, how do you know what way God wanted man to live his life?” But then there is a question as to what would a man be condemning himself to. I am getting the impression that man can neither reason nor choose because of blindness. But if man’s mind is blind, how would he know what condemning would mean?

By removing the truth of Original Sin, Adam is removed. By removing Adam, the necessity of a Divine Reconciler is removed. Eventually, our spirituality is lost in the brambles of a materialistic environment.

Thank heaven that the Catholic Church remains true to Divine Revelation. “The Church, which has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.” (CCC 389)

Yes, I wonder how we can have christ if there was no Adam.
I’m still confused (whats new) on how we blame Adam for the first sin when it was Eve who committed/was tempted first.
On one hand some say Adam wasn’t very clever, on the other Eve wasn’t very clever, so I still am not clear on this, I know Adam blamed his wife and she in turn blamed the serpent, so all three were to blame!
There is so much more to the story than meets the eye, so maybe going over and over the apple tree story keeps my mind contained and I can’t see any further.

 

[grannymh]

Yes, I wonder how we can have Christ if there was no Adam.
I’m still confused (whats new) on how we blame Adam for the first sin when it was Eve who committed/was tempted first.

Once one can accept the both…and approach to situations, Adam and Eve become so much easier to understand

On one hand some say Adam wasn’t very clever, on the other Eve wasn’t very clever, so I still am not clear on this, I know Adam blamed his wife and she in turn blamed the serpent, so all three were to blame!

Sorry, but I cannot help about who was less clever.
I vote for Adam.

There is so much more to the story than meets the eye, so maybe going over and over the apple tree story keeps my mind contained and I can’t see any further.

In reality, the Catholic doctrine of Original Sin is one among many versions of Original Sin, including the versions which are actually based on no original sin.
Yes, there is a lot of confusion, especially when one includes all the personal opinions. .

Once one can accept the both…and approach to the drama under the fruit tree, one recognizes both a personal sin *and *an original sin. (CCC 404) Personal actions would be subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom. (CCC 396) In addition, personal sins mean that the sin belongs to an individual person who is only herself or himself. With this in mind, we can understand that Adam and Eve committed a personal sin when they ate the forbidden fruit.

Here is where the valuable both…and approach comes in handy. Eve was the second living human and not the original human at the origin of human history. It is Adam who is the original founder. What makes Adam unique is that the whole human race is in the original Adam “as one body of man.” (CCC 404) Thus, it follows that Adam’s sin both belonged to him personally and at the same time, it affected the nature which he, with his spouse, would transmit to their descendants including you and me .

All the extensive opinions as to who was to blame are so much air because many, not all, people do not have a clear understanding of Catholic doctrines regarding the status of God as Creator and the status of Adam as the first human at the very dawn of human history. One of the parts of the problem is that the real meaning of humanity’s relationship with divinity has been muddled by humans viewing God’s actions as based on stories about human actions with each other.

This may sound odd, but once we get a firm grasp on who God is, we will understand the Divinity of Jesus Christ. Once we get a firm grasp on what human nature is** both** pre-Original Sin and post-Original Sin, many of the personal opinions which deviate from the truths of Catholicism will slide away.

I would love to copy the whole Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition on this thread. But I believe that would be a no-no.

Link to Catechism
scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

 

[grannymh]

But not all of it. Part of his Glorious side is the willingness to actually talk to me, and to touch me physically… So when I take the Eucharist, I cannot have a conversation with God, I can only have a monologue. Christ doesn’t touch me (or hug me) or give me any sort of consolations in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist is a wonderful, beautiful gift…but it is missing the parts I need. I need to have a conversation with God. Or at least find a mystic who is able to do this and they can help me.

I can’t have a conversation with God, I can only have a monologue. He is pushing me away and doesn’t want me.

I can understand what you are saying, but I am unsure how to respond.

I have a close friend whose expectations of family and friends can be unrealistic at times. This causes her unnecessary pain. In addition, there are times when she has unrealistic expectations of herself. I am not qualified to evaluate her expectations because I can only see the surface. I do know that there have been a few times when she felt hurt and isolated because it seemed to her that someone, not fulfilling expectations, was avoiding her. I am not qualified to even guess at that particular person’s intentions.

Maybe what I am trying to say is that there can be a few times in our lives when we need to look at more realistic expectations. Maybe, we can avoid misunderstandings when we give someone the benefit of the doubt or assume the better.

When I go to Eucharistic Adoration at 2:00 AM in the morning, I assume that Jesus is awake and listening to my prayers even though at times my eyelids close longer than a wink. Because Jesus hung bleeding on a cross, I assume that He really wants me in His kingdom. When I feel the consecrated bread on my tongue, I assume that Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist, is loving me quietly at close range.

 

[grannymh]

The issue of God’s forgiveness is an important element of Catholic spirituality.

With the acceptance of Original Sin as taught by the Catholic Church, there is the assurance that God does offer forgiveness to sinners. Genesis 3:9 and following. However, along with accepting the reality of Original Sin, one has to understand that the seriousness of Adam’s Original Sin was such that it left human nature in a weakened state. A pall of blindness and a conscience which reacts as if it were some thingamabob are inaccurate descriptions of human nature.

 

[OneSheep]

Since the above was posted, it has been enlightening to watch both the reasoning and the results of
** “tampered with” the standard idea of original sin **
which are visible in some postings.

Consequently, I am very curious about the very teachings of Christ concerning forgiveness as mentioned in the quote above. Knowing the depth of God’s forgiveness for all kinds of sins, including the very first sin committed by the very first human, would be basic to our spirituality.

Mark 11:25 NIV
New International Version
And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. "

This scripture concerns the same theme as the questions I have asked in post 190. When we hold anything against anyone, we are to forgive. Now, Adam’s sin may not be a big issue for some people. How about Hitler? Stalin? Judas? Do you, as I and all the rest of us with normal consciences and empathy, hold or have held something against them? If so, have we taken the steps to forgive? Have we forgiven ourselves for every sin we have ever committed, and forgiven every sin against us? This is the path I followed, and what I found was unconditional love and forgiveness. Have other readers found the same? Anything that contradicts unconditional love and forgiveness I try to examine and redefine so that it makes sense. St Augustine’s words and others help a lot.

I was hoping that you would address the questions I asked in post 190. Like I said, if you have not gone through this process, it is going to be very difficult to understand what I am talking about. The Church does not press the issue. But the Church should press the issue!

Can we forgive people who support war? Can we forgive people who have murdered many people? Can we forgive people who molest children, rape, commit genocide, abort children, and commit euthanasia? Can we forgive those who have opposing political or religious ideas? Can we forgive “terrorists” and all the rest of our enemies? Well, it is not easy, but it is our calling to do so. Have you done this, grannymh?

The media is not going to tell us to do this. Our government is not going to tell us to do this. But Jesus tells us to do this, and, from the cross, shows us how .

Remember though, forgiveness does not mean that we allow people to continue to hurt others unheeded. That is not what forgiveness is about.

 

[OneSheep]

Yes, I wonder how we can have christ if there was no Adam.

I suppose the question is, how could there be any human unless humanity had an ancestor? Of course there was an ancestor, but we still do not have to take the creation story literally.

I’m still confused (whats new) on how we blame Adam for the first sin when it was Eve who committed/was tempted first.
On one hand some say Adam wasn’t very clever, on the other Eve wasn’t very clever, so I still am not clear on this, I know Adam blamed his wife and she in turn blamed the serpent, so all three were to blame!
There is so much more to the story than meets the eye, so maybe going over and over the apple tree story keeps my mind contained and I can’t see any further.

To me, it doesn’t matter whether Adam or Eve sinned first. It was God who gave us the capacity to rebel, be blind and ignorant, to have the appetite for the fruit of the tree, and to want to be powerful like Him.

It was how God created us, satan does not create.

And when God made man, He saw that man was good. The question is, can we forgive God for giving us all these desires and capacities? Yes, we can. All of the appetites and capacities are there for a good reason, they all serve a purpose.

Remember, too, that when you are looking for who to blame, that is the action of the conscience. When we find someone to blame, our nature compels us to punish, and we automatically get negative thoughts about who we blame. Jesus calls us to forgive whenever this happens.

 

[simpleas]

I suppose the question is, how could there be any human unless humanity had an ancestor? Of course there was an ancestor, but we still do not have to take the creation story literally.

To me, it doesn’t matter whether Adam or Eve sinned first. It was God who gave us the capacity to rebel, be blind and ignorant, to have the appetite for the fruit of the tree, and to want to be powerful like Him.

It was how God created us, satan does not create.

And when God made man, He saw that man was good. The question is, can we forgive God for giving us all these desires and capacities? Yes, we can. All of the appetites and capacities are there for a good reason, they all serve a purpose.

Remember, too, that when you are looking for who to blame, that is the action of the conscience. When we find someone to blame, our nature compels us to punish, and we automatically get negative thoughts about who we blame. Jesus calls us to forgive whenever this happens.

Yes of course we have a human ancestor, what i meant was if we hadn’'t been told the story of one man sinning at the beginning of our creation then how could we come to believe/know christ. Christ became the new Adam, although in a more spiritual meaning that is difficult to fully understand for some people, because why did the o.s still have a hold on us in our physical bodies and our mind if Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for us.
We will not physically see in this life what this mystery means, we hold onto faith and believe in the life to come

I’m not looking for someone to blame, just a deeper understanding on o.s and personal sin.

 

[simpleas]

Once one can accept the both…and approach to situations, Adam and Eve become so much easier to understand

Sorry, but I cannot help about who was less clever.
I vote for Adam.

In reality, the Catholic doctrine of Original Sin is one among many versions of Original Sin, including the versions which are actually based on no original sin.
Yes, there is a lot of confusion, especially when one includes all the personal opinions. .

Once one can accept the both…and approach to the drama under the fruit tree, one recognizes both a personal sin *and *an original sin. (CCC 404) Personal actions would be subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom. (CCC 396) In addition, personal sins mean that the sin belongs to an individual person who is only herself or himself. With this in mind, we can understand that Adam and Eve committed a personal sin when they ate the forbidden fruit.

Here is where the valuable both…and approach comes in handy. Eve was the second living human and not the original human at the origin of human history. It is Adam who is the original founder. What makes Adam unique is that the whole human race is in the original Adam “as one body of man.” (CCC 404) Thus, it follows that Adam’s sin both belonged to him personally and at the same time, it affected the nature which he, with his spouse, would transmit to their descendants including you and me .

All the extensive opinions as to who was to blame are so much air because many, not all, people do not have a clear understanding of Catholic doctrines regarding the status of God as Creator and the status of Adam as the first human at the very dawn of human history. One of the parts of the problem is that the real meaning of humanity’s relationship with divinity has been muddled by humans viewing God’s actions as based on stories about human actions with each other.

This may sound odd, but once we get a firm grasp on who God is, we will understand the Divinity of Jesus Christ. Once we get a firm grasp on what human nature is** both** pre-Original Sin and post-Original Sin, many of the personal opinions which deviate from the truths of Catholicism will slide away.

I would love to copy the whole Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition on this thread. But I believe that would be a no-no.

Link to Catechism
scborromeo.org/ccc.htm

Would you say its a bad idea to have ones own personal opinion? If we look at other ways in which to interpret o.s, but still include just one man/woman we might get a better understanding of Gods plan for all of us.

 

[grannymh]

Would you say its a bad idea to have ones own personal opinion?

Depends on the subject matter of personal opinion.

The protocol involved in duly proclaimed Catholic Doctrines is huge.
The bottom line is that not every word of every verse in the first three chapters of Genesis automatically becomes a Catholic doctrine.

When it comes to the foundational doctrines, such as Original Sin, there can be no new corrective, improved current human revelations. (CCC 65-67)

 

[grannymh]

Mark 11:25 NIV
New International Version
And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. "

This scripture concerns the same theme as the questions I have asked in post 190. When we hold anything against anyone, we are to forgive.** Now, Adam’s sin may not be a big issue for some people**. How about Hitler? Stalin? Judas?

Emphasis in bold is mine.

When I study the Catholic Church, I do not find it to be a group of some people. It is the Mystical Body of Christ, Who is the head.
Big difference.

Adam’s sin was a big issue for God our Creator Who is a tad different from a group of some people.
Big difference.

Hitler, Stalin, and Judas lived centuries after Adam.
Big difference between the first human person and these historic personalities.

 

[OneSheep]

Yes of course we have a human ancestor, what i meant was if we hadn’'t been told the story of one man sinning at the beginning of our creation then how could we come to believe/know christ. Christ became the new Adam, although in a more spiritual meaning that is difficult to fully understand for some people,…

We can believe in Christ as a matter of our own salvation. The “salvation” does not have to refer to a hoop we have to jump through in order to achieve the afterlife. The “salvation” is here and now. The call for people to unconditionally love and forgive one another is one that, if followed, would save our species, would it not? The call to repentance does the same; repentance saves us from the slavery our appetites can cause.

The salvation that comes from Jesus does not depend on a story about one man sinning in the beginning of creation. This “dependence” starts with the premise that God blames us, or Adam, in some way. To clarify, we are certainly to “blame” in terms of taking responsibility for all of our behaviors. “Blame” indicates an additional negative attitude or unacceptance. God, however, forgives unconditionally.

because why did the o.s still have a hold on us in our physical bodies and our mind if Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for us.
We will not physically see in this life what this mystery means, we hold onto faith and believe in the life to come

I’m not looking for someone to blame, just a deeper understanding on o.s and personal sin.

There isn’t so much that has to remain mystery. Jesus did not make an “ultimate sacrifice” to appease a resentful god.

You weren’t looking for someone to blame? Why not? We all do. It is our nature to try to find cause and effect, and if the effect is a negative one, we look for someone or something to blame. If you aren’t looking for someone to blame, you are fighting your nature, your conscience. So I say, go ahead and look for someone to blame, and then go ahead and feel really resentful toward whatever it is we blame. Let’s be realistic! But then, after we have done enough blaming, it is time to forgive.

It is our conscience that guides us to find the culprit and punish it. It is a good conscience, vital to our species. Think of the joy we get when we watch a movie where the villain gets battered down in the end. It does no good to try to deny or fight our conscience. It is Jesus, the “new Adam”, that calls us to love the parts of creation that our conscience tells us to despise.

 

[grannymh]

We can believe in Christ as a matter of our own salvation. The “salvation” does not have to refer to a hoop we have to jump through in order to achieve the afterlife.

Pardon me,
it is not my intention to be rude or offending to any person. So please consider this my personal observation and free speech personal opinion.

If the Catholic Church can, in some kind of way, be considered,* according to free speech personal opinions*, as a “hoop”, then I love the Catholic Church more and more.

.

 

[vames]

Have we forgiven ourselves for every sin we have ever committed, and forgiven every sin against us? This is the path I followed, and what I found was unconditional love and forgiveness. Have other readers found the same?

Yes, I have found the same. Discovering your posts and threads made me intensely happy, because it’s such a rare thing to see someone talking so clearly and coherently about these things. Thanks a lot for being here!

Now there are some different nuances, based on some of my empirical observations; maybe I’m wrong about them? Sorry for this long post:

1. You said that conscience (the tendency to judge, blame and punish) is somehow instinctive, “a thing of the body”. How do you know that? I think conscience is learned, a cultural thing - a luxury, if you want. A child who grows up constantly fearing his immediate environment, for ex. a violent father, doesn’t naturally develop this kind of conscience; he doesn’t morally blame his father, he only senses threat (“bad”, but not in a moral sense) and has the natural reaction - fight or flight. Moreover, such a child is so overcomed by fear that he can’t even bring himself to dare to judge his aggressor; he is always busy seeking ways to escape, forget, defend himself if he can or, more often, to appease the person(s) who threaten(s) him.
2. To be able to forgive someone is to be in a position of superiority over the others, or at least in a rather comfortable position of independence. Forgiveness is something that one can do only after morally judging the “culprit” and concluding that there are good reasons to forgive or not to forgive. It’s not that a threatened child isn’t able to forgive because of some high moral standards; such a child simply doesn’t have the comfort and independence necessary for judging, blaming and/or forgiving. There are abused children who grow up and never understand others’ reflections about the difficulty of forgiveness, because they have never been able to overcome their fear and really internalize the teachings (from school, church, friends, society) about good and bad, blaming and forgiving as moral concepts and processes. Sometimes, they mistake their fear of judging (or their mere wish to forget) for authentic forgiveness. Sometimes, they only want to please and appease their aggressors and this is the way their relationship with the world develops. They want peace with all people not because of their evolved conscience or empathy, but because they don’t want to upset anyone, not even by secretly judging them.
3. If such children don’t even dare to judge their aggressors, what they can do instead is judging and punishing themselves. Either as a rationalization of the abuse they suffer or because, as they grow up, they can find the healthy courage to judge someone according to some learned moral standards (provided by society or religion) only when it comes to their own behavior. This is the only way they can really develop and own a moral conscience and this is the only gate, the only starting point from which they can eventually understand and internalize real forgiveness of themselves and others.
4. That doesn’t mean that forgiveness necessarily occurs this way. I dare to say that forgiving ourselves, when we reach the true desperation of “what have I done??”, is harder than forgiving others, because the reality of our own bad deeds is always more closer to us than the abstract thought about the past sins of Hitler or Stalin. Plus, it’s easier to assume forgiveness of others when this is good for our self-esteem (look at me, I am good enough to forgive that person, because that’s what I was taught as a Christian, but deep down I am generous and I feel consoled because I know that God will punish him in hell). Meanwhile, when we have to endure the consequences of our own bad deeds… it’s not so easy to forgive ourselves.

(continued on next post)

 

[vames]

Now is this situation of a threatened child an exception to the rule? IMO this situation has something in common with the primitive human understanding of nature and/or God as threatening forces that man should try to appease in order to preserve his life and his mental health. Storm, disease, draught, death, poverty, a foreign tribe that invades and kills, even the pains of childbirth are frightening and above the understanding of the primitive man. So, in order to explain what happens to him, he rationalizes everything by saying that he deserved all the suffering because of a certain Original Sin, by assuming that God was right to punish the whole human species.

And the only way to be able to hope that he can escape this suffering is to appease a punishing God by offering Him sacrifices. This way of thinking is still alive: we must mortify our bodies, we must make sacrifices in order to persuade God to free souls from Purgatory, we must inflict suffering on ourselves in order to be able to gain God’s forgiveness. This is Conscience for us.

(I should add that I totally understand way of thinking when it’s an authentic moral reaction; when you are maddened by something horrific that you’ve done and you can’t reverse it and make reparation, you think that there must be some way to punish yourself and alleviate your unbearable guilt. In this sense, the concept of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness can be radically alien to man; but when it dawns on man, it’s not only “liberating”, but truly life-changing.)

But where is Jesus in this picture? Well, too often it seems that in our eyes He’s on the cross and has to remain there. Our Orthodox brothers accuse us Catholics that we put more emphasis on Crucifixion than on Incarnation and Resurrection. I have slowly learned that focusing on Crucifixion, understood as a means to pay the price for our sins, as requested by an infinitely offended and angry God - the same God who cursed Adam and Eve and all of their descendants - ensures that we maintain our sense of (original and personal) guilt and our sense of duty to choose suffering as the main aspect of Jesus’ life that has to be immitated. And that what Paul says “I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions” has to be understood as a masochistic way to gain God’s mercy.

Back to my examples… there are such threatened children who were correctly catechized and simply ask God to defend them of their aggressors; when they grow up, they are the least ones to complain about God, to blame Him for anything, not because of their correct religious upbringing that teaches them about God’s mercy and forgiveness, but because they have never allowed themselves such thoughts, out of fear of not being punished further.

Do I make sense?

 

[grannymh]

Here is an interesting description of conscience.

Conscience is merely a function of the intellect apprehending the essence of some act in terms of its relationship to the true end of man. It is simply the intellectual act or trained ability to judge between right or wrong.

For a full explanation, these two links are helpful.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11249889&postcount=143

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11249989&postcount=147

 

[vames]

It is simply the intellectual act or trained ability to judge between right or wrong.

That’s right. Hence my difficulty to understand the story of Original Sin as a story of moral trespassing that had to be punished by God:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11065023&postcount=14
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11062865&postcount=8

 

[grannymh]

That’s right. Hence my difficulty to understand the story of Original Sin as a story of moral trespassing that had to be punished by God:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11065023&postcount=14
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11062865&postcount=8

First of all, according to Catholicism, the story is not about moral trespassing.

There was punishment, but it resulted from Adam’s action similar to a resulting burn when one puts one’s hand in a fire. If one wishes, one could possibly attribute the punishment to God, Whose own nature as a transcendent pure spirit required the submission of created humans with a material decomposing anatomy. However, one must keep firmly in mind that the goal God created for humans was to live in eternal happiness.

The fourth paragraph in your link to post 8 hits the nail on the head by starting with “One can say…” followed by "Another can say… Then there is St. Irenaeus and St. Augustine. The fifth paragraph begins with “Further, others can say…”

In my observation of the above speculations, the common sense way would be to start with Catholic doctrines and then deal with whatever looks figurative. Please note that not every word of every verse in the first three chapters of Genesis has automatically turned into a Catholic doctrine. In addition, some of the doctrines flowing from these three chapters have a fuller understanding in the writings of St, Paul and in the declarations of Major Church Councils.

Please correct me. From a brief scan of your two posts, it seems that the main difficulty is that Adam lacked real discernment and was certainly immature. In my old neighborhood, Adam would be a dummkopf.

Adam, and subsequently all humankind, was destined to share in God’s own life through knowledge and love on earth and eternally in heaven.

Knowing that Catholic doctrine, what characteristics would Adam need to have? Before Original Sin could be committed?

 

[OneSheep]

Emphasis in bold is mine.

When I study the Catholic Church, I do not find it to be a group of some people. It is the Mystical Body of Christ, Who is the head.
Big difference.

Adam’s sin was a big issue for God our Creator Who is a tad different from a group of some people.
Big difference.

Hitler, Stalin, and Judas lived centuries after Adam.
Big difference between the first human person and these historic personalities.

Of course Adam is different. I added Adam to the list because you said you hadn’t forgiven him. On the other hand, a person can resent Adam, and a person can resent any other number of characters. You asked for source of the call for forgiving everyone, and I gave it to you, yet you have still not responded. Have you forgiven everyone you hold something against? If not, do so, and then we can speak from the same experience. The Catholic Church calls us to forgive everyone. Jesus calls us to forgive everyone. Are you avoiding this call?

Pardon me,
it is not my intention to be rude or offending to any person. So please consider this my personal observation and free speech personal opinion.

If the Catholic Church can, in some kind of way, be considered,* according to free speech personal opinions*, as a “hoop”, then I love the Catholic Church more and more.

I join you in the love, but not as a means of punishing someone for saying the Church is a “hoop”? Did someone say this?