Reality Check: Are you an obedient Catholic, or an unfaithful heterodox?

[LSK]

Maybe people are not understanding the use of the words or some thing. To think that all areas are gray isn’t that like relativism. I an orthodox in the sense that I submit to the teachings of the church. If the church says that it is wrong I don’t do it in defiance. Like the issue of sexual behavior, if the church says homosexuality is wrong, I should not practice it. If I am attempting to obstain and I slip up that is not defiance. That is a mistake. What make someone unorthodox is when they know what the religion they claim to belong to teaches but they do the opposite anyway. Like rainbox sash folks, those who accept abortion, etc. Jesus is love and about love but not tolerance of any and all things just because we are struggling.
I used to practice contraception when I was an uninformed Catholic. Once I studied what my faith really was about I immediately stopped using contraception and explored NFP. I submitted to the teaching of my church. To say well I disagree and will keep using is not giving assent of my will to that of Christ through the church. To do other wise would have been heterodox. In essence, in matters of Faith and Morals submitting to the Church is submitting to Christ.
We should have faith seeking understanding. We assent to the teaching then go back and learn why the Church teaches what she does. I just find it hard to believe that some people believe that you can’t take a hard line on somethings. (abortion, gay marriage, etc.) I admit not with all things in life but sometimes wrong is wrong and right is right.
[/quote]

You don’t sound confused to ME…but then, see, I agree with you so I happen to think you are BRILLIANT:thumbsup: :dancing:

 

[Kyenta]

** I am an obedient Catholic and live my faith to the best of my ability. There are NO maybes, kind of or grey areas. I believe everything the Catholic Church teaches. If I didn’t, I would change denominations.

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
**

 

[AlanFromWichita]

** I am an obedient Catholic and live my faith to the best of my ability. There are
NO** maybes, kind of or grey areas. I believe everything the Catholic Church teaches. If I didn’t, I would change denominations.

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Wow! The second part of your post makes a wonderful compliment to the first part.

Alan

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Trelow:

Either you are obedient or you are not. Obedience is black and white. If you disagree with the Church on ONE thing, then that is not obedience.

Full submission of the will to the Father is required.

Does that mean that you do not stay from the path? No. It only means that you don’t back talk and try to tell Holy Mother Chruch were the path is.

Knowledge, is not obedience: let alone ability to obey; never mind perfect obedience on one occasion; let alone perfect obedience in all things one’s whole life long.​

It is not the Church that is of primary importance - the Church’s importance, like her life, and all the other graces she enjoys, depend, not on the Church in whole or in part, not on the members of the Church; but on Jesus Christ, Who is the Revelation of God. The primacy is Christ’s - not the Church’s.

You want “full submission” - possibly we understand things by the term. I understand by it the perfection of Christ’s charity - something rather more than even all the Saints could give: for the submission of Christ to His Father is total, universal, and unblemished by the slightest slackening of charity - never mind by commission of sin.

As for “full submission” from men ? That is the same as the perfection of Christian holiness. Since, as St. Philip Neri - a far wiser Christian and a far greater lover of Jesus Christ than most - himself said, “No one becomes a Saint in four days”, it is blindingly obvious that to claim to give full submission to Christ is the claim of a lunatic, a liar, or of someone ignorant of the meaning of words.

IOW, full submission is something we learn our whole lives - it involves the totality of the human person; therefore, it presupposes that the whole person is submissive to Christ in thought word, deed, and omission of sin. Full submission - if the words mean anything at all - is possible only to a perfected Saint. Not being a Saint, let alone a perfected one, I can’t oblige you: not that this matters, because Jesus Christ is our Master - not our task-master. BTW - wanting to submit fully to Christ, though a great grace, is not the same as doing so: any more than the acorn is the matured oak-tree. The wanting and the acorn both tend to completion - but are not actually complete.

Full obedience is not marked by sin - unless the rigorists on this thread can say, as before God, that they are wholly impeccable and impeccant, and always have been, they have no business to expect of others a degree of integrity they themselves lack. They lack perfect charity in one way - we who are less bothered about certain things than they are, lack perfect charity in another way. “In many things we all offend” - but all of us share in the undivided Life of Christ, which is the undivided Love of the Trinity; however notable our failings in each other’s eyes. We are not at liberty to demand of each other what Christ Himself does not; as the saying goes, “He is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.”

So, any lesser measure of obedience, is not full at all. To confess to sin at all, is to confess to having lived in anything but complete obedience and submission.

The Life of Christ in His members is not calibrated; it is not given as a reward for believing by means of the correct formulae; or as a reward for upright living: because it is not a reward at all - it is not even based on justice; it flows from the very nature of God Himself, and is given wholly gratuitously, not to reward Saints for their holiness, but to make sinners into Saints. It is no more a reward than the Blessed Sacrament could be.

Therefore, it is not measured by the defects of Christians, but is the cure for them. We receive grace despite what we deserve - “do not give us what we truly deserve”, as the Church prays in the Canon of the Mass - and because we do not deserve it. That is what love (and above all, God’s Love) is like: it is always eager to pour out goodness on others, and to create goodness where there is the absence of it that we know as evil. It is unconditional - and it won’t cease to be any less real because we ignore it. Did we deserve salvation ? Of course not.

If people are driven out of the Church because they do not come up to the standards of other (also faulty) people - then the Church is not a hospital for sinners after all. Only for some sinners. This implies that even an Almighty Redeemer cannot redeem those who know they are sinful and desire His help: and that is not even remotely orthodox - it is downright heresy. ##

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Dear Michael,

At this time I can add nothing to what you have said on the unity topic. Thank you for taking the time to write those ideas.

Your words have helped me greatly, “on both sides” in a way, as I do change beliefs from time to time and my “orthodoxy” does wax and wane a bit – kind of like a reed in the wind. Luckily the times I was really in need of help God has always managed to arrange things so that I got it. You see, since I do jump sides from time to time (last year I even registered as a Democrat for a few months), I tend to be critical of everyone because they all remind me of myself, and I know my own heart only too well sometimes.

Thank God for giving us peace from our turmoil through His son.

Alan

 

[jburgherr]

FiremanFrank:

No middle ground here. None.

.

Golly…

Your first category allows for a saints only club (and only a very few of them would have fit your qualifications during their earthly existance.)

I accept the teaching of the Church as the Magistarium instructs. If I have internal struggles understanding the churches’ stance on something, I assume that my faculties are suspect and not the Holy See’s.

I don’t always succeed in following all Christ’s teachings as unfortunately I am an imperfect human (“the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”). I long for the perfecting fire of purgatory to fashion me into what we are called to be…total, perfected human like our Blessed Mother!

If you are able to fit into the first category as you have defined, please pray for me to the Lord, our God! (Even if you don’t, pray for me any way!)

 

[st_felicity]

## How about…“a deviation, implied by the use of the word to be culpable, from believing rightly” ?

I think you’re asking for a social scientist to contribute ##

Wow…clear as mud…those darn social scientists ruin it for everybody…

Is the definition of heterodoxy limited to a conscious decision to deviate from the teaching of the Church?

In that conscious decision–(e.g. I know the Church teaches against this, and I know the Church teaches that their teaching authority is from Christ himself–but I’m not going to follow the teachings of men because (insert reason here)–doesn’t one ultimately say “my will, not Yours”?

As I said before–doesn’t it all come down to the individual worshipper’s INTENTION? If one intends to do their best with no EXCUSES or RATIONALIZATIONS, and does so with HUMILITY, even if that person fails in living up to the ideal, they are aiming at ORTHODOXY and can consider themself ORTHODOX.

Likewise–the “PERFECT” Catholic who follows Church teaching to the letter out of FEAR or PRIDE or for HUMAN RESPECT is actually a HETERODOX.

Only God and the individual know–and God knows better.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

st_felicity:

In that conscious decision–(e.g. I know the Church teaches against this, and I know the Church teaches that their teaching authority is from Christ himself–but I’m not going to follow the teachings of men because (insert reason here)–doesn’t one ultimately say “my will, not Yours”?

The problem comes when, as frequently is the case, it goes a little like this: I know the Church teaches against this, and I know the Church teaches that their teaching authority is from Christ himself, but I don’t believe that every statement they make on faith and morals is in fact an infallible message from God. Maybe it is like 99.9% of the time, but we are human beings and we all can make mistakes, and I don’t believe that in volumes of opinions per year for centuries, none of these were in error.

We see that the behavior of Church officials is not always in line with their teaching – and some bishops preach dissenting messages, so what does that mean about the product when the insiders don’t use it? As a lay person, which of these officials am I to submit my will to, when they disagree?

Truly I must discern what God’s will is and follow it, because I cannot follow man because collectively, man is schizophrenic – even those who teach Church teachings to me. If these experts lead me astray, they may have hell to pay but I’m still astray. That’s why I personally have to take responsibility for my own relationship with Christ.

Alan

 

[st_felicity]

So what do they make of Mattew 5:48? ** "So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect. "**

 

[st_felicity]

But to be perfect–we must be weak–weak to God and give in to Him…

**2 Corinthians
**Chapter 12
6 Although if I should wish to boast, I would not be foolish, for I would be telling the truth. But I refrain, so that no one may think more of me than what he sees in me or hears from me 7 because of the abundance of the revelations. Therefore, that I might not become too elated, 3 a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from being too elated. 8 Three times 4 I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me, 9 5 but he said to me, 6 “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.

 

[st_felicity]

AlanFromWichita:

We see that the behavior of Church officials is not always in line with their teaching – and some bishops preach dissenting messages, so what does that mean about the product when the insiders don’t use it? As a lay person, which of these officials am I to submit my will to, when they disagree?

The Church does not teach error. People in the Church have erred. Tell me a single thing that the Church teaches that has produced bad fruit. We do have a Catechism–look there. The “product” is not at fault when a person errs.

Truly I must discern what God’s will is and follow it, because I cannot follow man because collectively, man is schizophrenic – even those who teach Church teachings to me. If these experts lead me astray, they may have hell to pay but I’m still astray. That’s why I personally have to take responsibility for my own relationship with Christ.

I agree. Don’t be a fool to those in error. But you can rely on the mother Church. You must discern when someone is feeding you a line of schtick–and it really isn’t that hard to do–what is hard is looking at it with the eyes of God’s children rather than with an eye toward excusing oneself. God revealed to man all that he needs for salvation–we need to be wise and informed consumers of His good fruit.
Alan

 

[st_felicity]

AlanFromWichita:

Maybe it is like 99.9% of the time, but we are human beings and we all can make mistakes, and I don’t believe that in volumes of opinions per year for centuries, none of these were in error.

Alan

The Holy Spirit CAN’T make a mistake. And it is the Holy Spirit that protect the Church from error (not every individual in the Church, nor every individual teacher within the Church–The Church itself as a mystical body, is protected from error) --it says so in the Bible–“the gates of Hell shall not prevail…”

 

[aspergesme]

FiremanFrank,

Fully Obedient (Orthodox) Catholic
By “obedient”, I mean exactly that.
No if’s, and’s or but’s as it relates to Church Teachings.
With the fullest embrace of your love, you give no excuse for any of the Church’s Teachings or Traditions.
Period.

Disobedient / Unfaithful (Heterodox) “Catholic”
No middle ground here. None.
If you don’t belong to the first group, then you (unfortuneately) belong here.
(Please God, let them all be lovingly obedient Catholics!)

To what “Teachings” do you refer?

If your refer to Dogmatic Teachings that as Catholics we are bound to believe (eg. EENS, Immaculate conception, Papal infallibility, Purgatory, Male Priests) I’m with you.

If your refer to the latest novelty to come from Bishop X or Father Y, sorry.

Correct me if I’m wrong in my interpretation of your original post. I don’t believe you were refering to the sinful nature of man, simply as to what we believe as Catholics. One can be fully orthodox and yet remain a wretched sinner.

In other posts many have stated their beliefs leaning one way or the other. It is important to realize that as Catholics we are bound to belief in the Dogmas of the Church. We are not given choices, if the Church has defined a revealed Truth we are bound to believe, no questions. Contrary to these choices we are given consequences for failure to believe in said Dogmas. We separate ourselves from Holy Mother Church by our disbelief. This is the foundation of Protestanism. Non-adherence to Catholic Doctrine.

See the Creed here:

http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/trent/tindex.htm

+Jesus & Mary+

Ecce Lignum Crucis In Quo Salvs Mundi Pependit

 

[Trelow]

## Knowledge, is not obedience: let alone ability to obey; never mind perfect obedience on one occasion; let alone perfect obedience in all things one’s whole life long.

It is not the Church that is of primary importance - the Church’s importance, like her life, and all the other graces she enjoys, depend, not on the Church in whole or in part, not on the members of the Church; but on Jesus Christ, Who is the Revelation of God. The primacy is Christ’s - not the Church’s.

You want “full submission” - possibly we understand things by the term. I understand by it the perfection of Christ’s charity - something rather more than even all the Saints could give: for the submission of Christ to His Father is total, universal, and unblemished by the slightest slackening of charity - never mind by commission of sin.

As for “full submission” from men ? That is the same as the perfection of Christian holiness. Since, as St. Philip Neri - a far wiser Christian and a far greater lover of Jesus Christ than most - himself said, “No one becomes a Saint in four days”, it is blindingly obvious that to claim to give full submission to Christ is the claim of a lunatic, a liar, or of someone ignorant of the meaning of words.

IOW, full submission is something we learn our whole lives - it involves the totality of the human person; therefore, it presupposes that the whole person is submissive to Christ in thought word, deed, and omission of sin. Full submission - if the words mean anything at all - is possible only to a perfected Saint. Not being a Saint, let alone a perfected one, I can’t oblige you: not that this matters, because Jesus Christ is our Master - not our task-master. BTW - wanting to submit fully to Christ, though a great grace, is not the same as doing so: any more than the acorn is the matured oak-tree. The wanting and the acorn both tend to completion - but are not actually complete.

Full obedience is not marked by sin - unless the rigorists on this thread can say, as before God, that they are wholly impeccable and impeccant, and always have been, they have no business to expect of others a degree of integrity they themselves lack. They lack perfect charity in one way - we who are less bothered about certain things than they are, lack perfect charity in another way. “In many things we all offend” - but all of us share in the undivided Life of Christ, which is the undivided Love of the Trinity; however notable our failings in each other’s eyes. We are not at liberty to demand of each other what Christ Himself does not; as the saying goes, “He is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.”

So, any lesser measure of obedience, is not full at all. To confess to sin at all, is to confess to having lived in anything but complete obedience and submission.

The Life of Christ in His members is not calibrated; it is not given as a reward for believing by means of the correct formulae; or as a reward for upright living: because it is not a reward at all - it is not even based on justice; it flows from the very nature of God Himself, and is given wholly gratuitously, not to reward Saints for their holiness, but to make sinners into Saints. It is no more a reward than the Blessed Sacrament could be.

Therefore, it is not measured by the defects of Christians, but is the cure for them. We receive grace despite what we deserve - “do not give us what we truly deserve”, as the Church prays in the Canon of the Mass - and because we do not deserve it. That is what love (and above all, God’s Love) is like: it is always eager to pour out goodness on others, and to create goodness where there is the absence of it that we know as evil. It is unconditional - and it won’t cease to be any less real because we ignore it. Did we deserve salvation ? Of course not.

If people are driven out of the Church because they do not come up to the standards of other (also faulty) people - then the Church is not a hospital for sinners after all. Only for some sinners. This implies that even an Almighty Redeemer cannot redeem those who know they are sinful and desire His help: and that is not even remotely orthodox - it is downright heresy. ##

I do believe that you are confusing submission to the authority of the Church, and mastery of one’s sins.

 

[pnewton]

I, too, have problems with the way the question is asked. I think this reality check is not reality. Fireman Frank in asking us to agree with Church teaching, no ifs ands or buts, is more is asking more than mother church asks. Teaching is more than dogma. Dogma demands what FF is asking. However that CCC (#90) tells us that there is a “hieracrhy of truths”. Amarischuk pointed out several official church “buts” (posts #36).

The church allows us to obey our conscience and even mandates this as a right of all. (CCC#1782).

You may responed, with the Church that the conscience must be properly formed. Yes, and how long does that take? CCC # 1784 tells us that is is a lifelong task, meaning, unless you are posting from heaven, you have not yet arrived.

We do not need to be like the pharisees and lay burdens on our brothers more than they can bear. It is far better to say that dogma must be believed with the assent of faith. The doctrine and discipline of the church needs to be adhered to as much as you can in good conscience. Where you do a gap exists, then understand that the Church has authority and wisdom beyond any individual and strive to form the conscience in accordance to this wisdom, so that you can be more fully unified to her.

I see no need to label people as heterodox just because they haven’t “arrived.”

 

[Trelow]

pnewton:

I, too, have problems with the way the question is asked. I think this reality check is not reality. Fireman Frank in asking us to agree with Church teaching, no ifs ands or buts, is more is asking more than mother church asks. Teaching is more than dogma. Dogma demands what FF is asking. However that CCC (#90) tells us that there is a “hieracrhy of truths”. Amarischuk pointed out several official church “buts” (posts #36).

The church allows us to obey our conscience and even mandates this as a right of all. (CCC#1782).

You may responed, with the Church that the conscience must be properly formed. Yes, and how long does that take? CCC # 1784 tells us that is is a lifelong task, meaning, unless you are posting from heaven, you have not yet arrived.

We do not need to be like the pharisees and lay burdens on our brothers more than they can bear. It is far better to say that dogma must be believed with the assent of faith. The doctrine and discipline of the church needs to be adhered to as much as you can in good conscience. Where you do a gap exists, then understand that the Church has authority and wisdom beyond any individual and strive to form the conscience in accordance to this wisdom, so that you can be more fully unified to her.

I see no need to label people as heterodox just because they haven’t “arrived.”

The point is not wither or not you understand what the Church teaches, and why it teaches such. The point is do you accept Her teaching as the Truth and work to from your conscience to it, or do you insist on asserting your feelings on the matter.

If you conscience is telling you something contrary to Church teaching, then you accept that your conscience is wrong!

That is the line that is drawn. Accepting that the Church is right even when you don’t know, understand, or feel as such.

Personal example. CCC 841.
*

The Church’s relationship with the Muslims

*. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”
I don’t like it. Personaly I can’t stand Muslims. I’d just as soon nuke them all. But I accept the Church’s teaching on the subject. That is a hard thing for me to eat, but what else can I do? Moma Church teaches it, so therefore it’s true.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

1 Cor 13:2-3:

And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Here is what a heretic like me sees when being condescendingly lectured by someone who dares (against the teachings of the Church I might add) to claim I am not a Catholic and he is.

We see someone who just might know a lot of facts, but who makes me feel inferiority vibes by using loaded language, and by making it clear that they do not share in the particular sins of non-belief that I do. They may be speaking out of love, but the approach of, “buddy, listen to me. For your own good agree with me or God will send you to hell” really doesn’t convey a feeling of patience, love, and forgiveness. It rather makes me feel like I’m being marginalized by some unloving faithless jerk who presumes to be sufficiently without sin that they have nothing better to do than probe for specks in my eye. Why should I listen to somewhat like that, when there is no way I want to be like them? I’d rather be here with a bunch of fellow sinners than a bunch of pompous self-appointed saints.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Alan

P.S. Oh, by the way, no matter what I say or believe about the Church, I am a Catholic, says the Holy Catholic Church. If you say otherwise you are a divisive heretic, and will be judged by your own measure you use against me. I could follow you, but it would be the blind leading the blind.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Trelow:

I do believe that you are confusing submission to the authority of the Church, and mastery of one’s sins.

I don’t think so - at least, I hope not.​

The problem is that full submission is - full submission Not something less. Not something qualified or incomplete, but total, unreserved, and wholly all-embracing. And that, is a submission which is perfect in motive, in extent, and in all other ways imaginable; because what and how we believe, is an exercise of the whole of our nature and persons - just as it is the whole of us that is to be transformed by grace.

Believing is not confined to the intellect - it affects our our emotions and the rest of our being too. So what we are, in the entirety of our individual personalities, affects how we act, pray, think, our personal habits good or bad - and how and what we believe. Our personalities are not divided into hermetically sealed compartments - our behaviour, believing, and experience don’t have walls around them; so what affects one, affects all, just as a stone thrown in a pool sends out ripples - the ripples don’t stop where the stone hits the water. That, is why full submission of intellect, presupposes the full submission of the whole person; it presupposes, not only that one’s whole nature has been perfectly redeemed, but also that one is living in perfect charity. Until then, we are beginners - those who insist on more, are like novice-masters requiring those who wish to become monks to be perfect in their obedience to the Rule of St. Benedict before they can be admitted. No one does that - why do some people do something similar, to those who are already Catholics ?

Believing is an activity of the entire person, just as the Liturgy is an activity of the entire Church. The shortcomings of the individuals, whether in belief or morals or in other ways, don’t stop the liturgy being the activity of the entire Church, because the Source of this activity is not in us, but in Christ, Who indwells both the Church which is His Body, and each single member of His Body. That is how we are alive as Catholics - not because we are faultless in orthodoxy, or faultless in liturgical practice, or sinless or all-wise, or any other thing that we do or are: but because Christ has united us with Himself in the Life of grace. ##