Well excuse us oh great and mighty one who can make sweeping comments without impunity
Not all who question are doing so with anti-catholic bias. This poster is telling you a problem to coming to faith and you bully the poster.
Riiiight…I bullied him? You need to more carefully read the posts he made and the tone and topics that they cover. I was very informative as well as patient.
It is the standard of most n-C/a-C posts. What is best known as “the scattergun” approach, in which they pop on several different points as if their points are proof of their case.
What happens at the local parish is the catholic church to the local parishioner.
I think not. The fact is that there are some places where they are unfaithful to doctrine is not a sign that we need “reform”. This poster made a case for general change that is not needed. Every country has cultural issues and to infer that the Church is not aware of and dealing with them is factually inaccurate as RT so well pointed out. Perhaps the OP didn’t know that.
You speak of grand truths from Rome rightly so but it is what happens locally that defines the church to both inside or outside.
This may be your personal opinion, but it is those “grand truths” that the Church conveys locally. The inference was made that the church turns a blind eye, or condones synctretic practices which dead wrong. To allow that to pass unchallenged would be as errant as his assertion itself.
Not all doctrine is taught locally or other abuses are hidden because of ignorance, laziness and fear.
Rash generalizations anyone? That’s all this is…and baseless in that you allege reasons for which you can provide no evidence at all.
One I have knowledge of is a practice that in order to sell a house one can bury a statue of St. Joseph upside in your backyard. They even sell kits for it in catholic publications. This happens in North America.
I’ve never seen such in any Catholic publication and had never heard of that silliness until I saw it in posts here at CAF. Knowledgeable Catholics know that it’s superstition and an improper use of a sacramental image. Can you prove it by linking us to such a publication’s website? If so…why have you not written to their editor and or their bishop? Either of which would likely get it withdrawn.
One problem encountered here is the denial or over-looking of abuses today and during the medieval church.
And yet the opposite side of that coin is the one that you have taken, alleging more widespread problems than actually exist.
You have over-demonized Martin Luther because you choose to believe those sources but other just as credible sources relay a different account.
Very little of Luther’s material (and where I can I have read his actual documents) has impressed me or ever given any impression that he was all that much of an orthodox believer. I have heard, but put little stock in, discussions of his mental state.
The doctrines he based his religion on were errors and they have indeed cascaded down to his modern step children and in many cases been abandoned or watered down until Luther himself might not recognize them if he appeared today. That’s no my fault, but compared to modern post-reformation n-Cs, the Catholic Church is in better shape doctrinally.
When abuses are brought up a common reply is “what would you have us do?” How about a council to deal with the Latin American abuses who are evident to everyone who has been there and reported what they have found for years.
As RT pointed out, the respective bishops are dealing with the issues, so why would the Church need a council?
While we’re on the subject, would you also like a council on the gross materialism so rampant in Western culture? Or do we need one, when the homilies I hear are quite clear about the difference between the world and the Kingdom of God.
Councils dealt with heresy which is what these spiritism abuses are. Why not make certain local priests have distanced themselves and are preaching against these abuses?
Why presume that we know how best the clergy should deal with something like that? I believe it’s wrong to assume or allege that our clergy are not already working in these areas. They must be doing something right because those same countries are now helping to evangelize the U.S. by sending their priests to serve in our parishes.
To me your knowledge has made you arrogant at times.
That’s your opinion and you are certainly welcome to hold to it, but that’s not the message that I have gotten from the folks who have come home into our most holy faith because of their interactions with me.
The fact is that on my worst days I am more charitable and gentle than the majority of n-C/a-C opponents with whom I have had to deal. I deal in facts…not propaganda and allegation. I explain…I defend…that’s what apologetics is.
There are many red herrings on the way to faith but your demeanor does not get rid of them even if the truth is there. Faith, Hope, and Charity. The greatest of these is charity.
My demeanor is just fine thanks anyway. IMO however, yours is so warm and fuzzy that it probably disintegrates under challenge.
I never bully…but I also don’t give silly and rash generalizations any mercy that they don’t deserve in order to make the other guy feel like it’s okay to hold to doctrines and opinions that are not accurate.
People in error, whether it’s the result of well meaning errant teaching, mistakes in personal thinking, or just lack of facts deserve to be counseled and corrected. Anything less isn’t Christian charity.
npatrol:
