Cherie,
I’m always impressed by the ability to mind read and fortune tell.
Nowhere in my post or elsewhere have I said that I am ‘against the Church’.
What I said was that it is dangerous to not use one’s own judgement. Perhaps I need to clarify this for you.
Using one’s own judgement does not mean using it all the time or in all circumstances. It means listening to what has been said and then using one’s God’s given intellect, education and faith to discern whether that is wise advice or not.
I appreciate the advice to have ‘sought another opinion’. Is that what the Church teaches? If you don’t like what one priest tells you, then find another who’ll tell you what you do. That’s an interesting piece of advice. Thank you. I think you made my point for me.
Do not be misled by my stated (very recently) religion of ‘unknown’. I am rethinking my faith and religion. It is what any intelligent person does periodically. Jesus himself spent time in the wilderness and in prayer asking God what was right. Have a look at some of my other posts before you leap in with your ‘impressive’ mind reading and judgements.
BTW, because I do care about truth and misrepresentation, I have remembered this morning that the priest was a monsignor, not a cardinal. Apologies - I was posting late at night and after a long day at work. I did not intend to misrepresent the case.
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I think your posts are authentically Catholic. It is just that you tend to juxtapose “thinking for yourself” against being a faithful Catholic. I would submit that anyone posting here is de facto “thinking about the issues” There is a passion here to defend Church teachings because as Catholics we recognize that the authentic Church teachings carry the weight of the promise of Christ, just as Confession carries the weight of another promise of Christ to his priesthood.
Catholicism recognizes the primacy of conscience. That conscience should be informed by prayer, Church teachings, charitable acts and humility, imho. As a Catholic, confession forces us to think and think very hard. Confession is, I dare say, the thinking man’s sacrament. You physically get on your knees after having examined your conscience and then listen to a human’s advice, albeit hopefully a faithful well trained human, and you through the promise of Christ get absolution and graces from heaven. Wonderful, but it doesn’t come without thought and effort on our part. We have the thinking man’s religion.
Given the primacy of conscience comes the responsibility of forming that conscience. Is a political figure who claims to be a Catholic, advised and taught by the Bishop that abortion is an intrinsic evil and cannot be supported yet still says he cannot “make that choice” --to murder babies in the womb-- for others culpable?
The Church has teaching
authority We are called to inform our conscience in light of that authority. So if the politician’s conscience is “clear”, ie their conscience is so deleteriously malformed that they can present themselves for Communion, then their course of action after being instructed by the Bishop is to do everything, everything in their power to reform their conscience, because the ontological reality is that they have been excommunicated and if they die and finally cling to their malformed conscience in defiance of Christ, they will be separated from Christ.
A thinking man’s religion? Our very souls depend on thinking, praying and humility. Christ was a real man and divine and that promise to Peter was authentic, then the Church’s authority is the most real authority in the world.
I rambled a bit, but I wanted to talk because you struck a real positive Catholic note, but it felt muddied in my reading of it.
Jesus have mercy on us.
Now the Church is really holding the line against the world. Post sexual revolution, she is the only voice out in the entire world of both reason and moral restraint rooted in human dignity (that I can see) This forum is a place to exercise our beliefs as laity, because out there it is an evil reception waiting for us if we try to spread the Truth.
