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Swiss_Guy
Guest
So the bishops are liars?
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zab
Guest
Well, you have a choice. You can listen to our bishops and heed their call to prayer, fast and abstain for the intention of reigious liberty or you can ignore them. But I think it is rude to use this thread as a means to continue a rant against our bishops when they are making this special request of us.Yes, because these kinds of things (child abuse, commencement speakers, wacky religious orders, fighting about sex in public, etc) became so public, so aggravated, so hypocritical and so poorly managed, that it finally made us a target with the general population.
Nice job.
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iloveangels
Guest
No, we’ll just see how all this turns out. This should all roll out within the next year and maybe some things will finally come to a head and get cleaned up. I hope.I agree.
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miguel
Guest
My suggestion is not that Catholics don’t understand the positions of the parties. I don’t speak for all Catholics. I really don’t know why all Catholics support one party over another. What I objected to is lumping all Catholics who didn’t vote GOP into the pro-abortion camp. If some Catholics voted Democratic because they want to keep abortion going of course that’s evil. But I don’t believe every Catholic who votes Democratic does so because they agree with the Democrats on abortion. It is indeed possible that the flaws of the GOP (I listed a few) may have been a factor in their failure to gain the full support of all Catholics.
If by lukewarm, you mean defenseless babies will continue to be murdered whether the GOP is elected or not, and some people can actually figure that out, then I can see how people might rationally conclude their vote won’t change anything on abortion, so they vote for other reasons (e.g., to thwart the Bush foreign policy, or to thwart the GOPs anti-immigrant faction). If that is why they actually voted, not to keep abortion going, it’s not fair to characterize them all as pro-abortion.
One approach might be to hold the lip servers accountable by not voting for them. If they think prolifers are fine with lip service, that’s all we’ll get. That’s all we’ve been getting.
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iloveangels
Guest
Seriously, for the umpteenth time today, RELIGION does not equal POLITICS, and POLITICS does not equal RELIGION. They’re 2 different things.
I know that Catholics are confused about it, and the confusion is natural enough because it’s all some Catholics have heard basically forever. But it’s not the case that they’re the same thing.
The Church existed 1800 years before American politics was ever invented. The Church will exist after American politics is buried for the last time. They’re not the same thing.
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Swiss_Guy
Guest
No, we’ll just see how all this turns out. This should all roll out within the next year and maybe some things will finally come to a head and get cleaned up. I hope.
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irishpatrick
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We faithful Catholics have been clamoring for more involvement from the Bishops for many years, and now they are beginning to become much more involved. It all works in God’s time, not ours. Remember, the nation will receive what God wants it to receive, and that is often what we need, not what we want.
The truth is, the Bishops also had to pass through the turmoil we have also lived through and in, and that is often difficult (even for Bishops) to sort through. The last decade has been a brutal time for the Church (nothing new there), it takes time. Prayer is exactly what is needed.
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ringil
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The Church doesn’t tell people for whom they should vote.
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Ender
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If you’ve given up trying to do anything about abortion and believe it is useless to try then perhaps it makes sense to ignore the issue.
Your charge is inaccurate: I haven’t characterized anyone as pro-abortion. It is fair, however, to point out that regardless of their motivation the actions are the same between those who support abortion and those who say they don’t but enable it anyway.
Where is the logic in rejecting the better in favor of the worse? I can only wonder what prayers would be useful.
*Dear God - Our religious rights are under attack and our society sinks ever lower by its support of abortion, euthanasia, and gay marriage. We beseech you to resolve these problems for us.
P.S. Please ignore the fact that we continue to support the people who are doing this to us.*
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Ender
Guest
No one suggests that they should. The bishops, however, should be unequivocal in pointing out that certain positions are are evil and that anyone who supports those positions should, except in limited circumstances, be considered disqualified for public office. I cannot grasp the concept that we should pray for deliverance from problems we have intentionally caused and for which we have rejected the steps necessary to remedy ourselves. How in good conscience can we implore God to resolve problems that we have not only refused to address but that we deliberately worsen with the actions we have taken?
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R_C
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I am very surprised by remarks such as these:
Each and every problem is the result of human action, of human omission, and we have probably contributed to worsen it deliberately at one point or another. Each problem we bring to the attention of God is our fault. It would be rather prideful to say to God: “please, help us out, because we’ve done your will perfectly on this matter, so now it’s your turn to do something.”
We implore God because, despite what some may think (lacking, of course, knowledge of most of the things that our leaders know) we have actually been doing our best and this is not yet working - in fact, more trouble is coming, and great persecutions will come and strike the Church no matter what we do, because it is scriptural that it is bound to happen.
Can we do better? Perhaps. Can our shepherds do better? Perhaps. But now we are asked to pray and do penance to move our merciful Lord to shorten the time of trial we are undergoing, and that becomes our duty. Let’s be realistic: things will get much, much worse before they begin to get better.
Sure, maybe our leaders can do more. However:
They know what they are doing, they have their own advisors both in the clergy and in the laity, and if we want to help them, then we need to support them rather than oppose them:
In the secular world one may reply to this with a not very charitable “speak for yourself”, or a “who do you think you are to say this”, but in a Catholic context one can understand your arguments, as incorrect as they may be: you are looking at the Church as one body, thus the actions of few members impact the whole body. However, that does not affect our good conscience at all.
Each and every problem is the result of human action, of human omission, and we have probably contributed to worsen it deliberately at one point or another. Each problem we bring to the attention of God is our fault. It would be rather prideful to say to God: “please, help us out, because we’ve done your will perfectly on this matter, so now it’s your turn to do something.”
We implore God because, despite what some may think (lacking, of course, knowledge of most of the things that our leaders know) we have actually been doing our best and this is not yet working - in fact, more trouble is coming, and great persecutions will come and strike the Church no matter what we do, because it is scriptural that it is bound to happen.
Can we do better? Perhaps. Can our shepherds do better? Perhaps. But now we are asked to pray and do penance to move our merciful Lord to shorten the time of trial we are undergoing, and that becomes our duty. Let’s be realistic: things will get much, much worse before they begin to get better.
Sure, maybe our leaders can do more. However:
No matter what, we are **not **in a position to judge or even to advice bishops.
They know what they are doing, they have their own advisors both in the clergy and in the laity, and if we want to help them, then we need to support them rather than oppose them:
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miguel
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I haven’t given up. I don’t vote for Democrats. And I don’t vote for lip servers. Stopping the murdering of defenseless babies is my main concern in voting or not voting. And I think I can face God with that. He knows how much I hate abortion.
I apologize for reading too much into what you said. And I can tell you hate abortion too. Lip service is not better. I would argue it’s worse. It misleads those who wish to believe it into supporting/overlooking other serious flaws while making no progress on abortion. Our Lady of Guadalupe pray for us.
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iloveangels
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This is jumping from one extreme to another. You don’t have to have done a perfect job of something to ask God’s help, but it hardly makes sense to roll in sin and then deny your guilt, while asking for help from God. He’s not blind.
That doesn’t mean you go looking for it with a “KICK ME” sign on your backside.
NOT PERHAPS. The definite answer is YES, we could do better. I don’t think there’s any doubt of that.
We are in a position to use our brains, and it is wrong not to do so. There are many woefully ignorant Catholics, and it doesn’t help the Church to be ignorant, it hurts the Church.
I will agree with you on one thing: The USCCB deserves support when they are working hard and trying to do the Church’s will. When they’re goofing off, acting like royalty and covering their own hind ends, which they do often, they deserve less support.
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iloveangels
Guest
This is a gracious post. Yes, the bishops are getting involved more, because they have to. We have bigger problems than we used to have. It’s getting harder to be a bishop, I think, for a lot of reasons, some of them caused by all of us (Catholics + bishops) and some not caused by us.
I do believe that we have a part to play in what happens to us, though, and Scripture is very clear about this. I’m not defeatist. The Catholic faith is not defeatist. This matters and it’s worth thinking about, and it’s worth knowing something about.
The bishops have been through a lot, and so have we. A lot of this strife has been of our own making, unfortunately. There are some things going on in the Church that many lay people are not aware of, and the methods for handling these very real problems that the bishops chose, almost uniformly, didn’t work. The methods looked 10 or 15 years ago like they were working fine, but not now. Truth always wins. They should have just let it be, but they didn’t. And now they’re going to be paying for that, and us with them. I’m not talking about the child abuse scandal. I am talking about financing and management of apostolates but there are a lot of other things attached to this as well. It’s complicated and you have not been informed.
I’ve been saying for at least 10 years, over and over: You pay now, or you pay later. And it’s always more expensive when you pay later because you pay damages. And here we are. Are we going to straighten this out and pay up? Or are we going to kick the can down the road one more time and pay more later? Because we are refusing to manage the crises we are being dealt, will this be the crisis that brings us to our knees or will it be the next one, or the one after that? We’ll see pretty soon. This has natural limits of manageability at this point, and we can’t go on like this much longer.
And yes, we need prayer. But we also need to pay attention and work morally and decently. Catholics have to learn their faith and stop depending on someone else to do so many things for us. And Catholics have to stop and think whenever something doesn’t sound right, because it probably isn’t.
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irishpatrick
Guest
A very sound post. I will add that the faith is more than 2,000 years old and it has had non-stop challenges, and it is the most attacked faith on earth for a reason. We can take comfort knowing that the gates of hades will NOT prevail, yet that Promise made by Jesus implies that the gates of hades will strive to prevail (and it has strived to prevail over-and-over-and-over through history). We are living in tough times, so we need Saints from the clergy and from the laity, yet we also need help from the Lord because we need guidance as to how to move forward from here. So, the Bishop’s request is both reasonable and good because a people who prays more, will be a people that is in the process of sanctifying itself.
You might want to read the following piece, it expands on my points in far more depth:
thepenitentwitness.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/enemy-at-the-gates/
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beehumble
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What I find quite interesting is that the requests are in-line with what Our Lady has asked us to do. Especially at Fatima (and allegedly at a more recent alleged apparition), Blessed Mary asked us to pray the rosary daily. And at the alleged other apparition Our Lady asked us to fast on bread and water on Wednesdays and Fridays. The bishop’s fasting request is not that it be on bread and water (yet), and only encompasses Fridays (so far), but still there is quite a close alignment between Our Lady’s requests and the bishop’s.
Another point is the Year of Faith - this too aligns with alleged messages from the alleged apparition - which supposedly calls us to turn back to the faith, to evangelize, and to go to confession - all of which were discussed by the bishops and the Pope in the kickoff to the Year of Faith.
This only means, imho, that the crisis that prompted God to send His beloved Mother to us years ago in preparation, has indeed arrived. The apex of the crisis is at hand.
Since we did not heed this appeal of the Message, we see that it has been fulfilled, Russia has invaded the world with her errors. And if we have not yet seen the complete fulfilment of the final part of this prophecy, we are going towards it little by little with great strides. If we do not reject the path of sin, hatred, revenge, injustice, violations of the rights of the human person, immorality and violence, etc.
And let us not say that it is God who is punishing us in this way; on the contrary it is people themselves who are preparing their own punishment. In his kindness God warns us and calls us to the right path, while respecting the freedom he has given us; hence people are responsible”.
Sr Lucia of Fatima, 1982
We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.
Pope Benedict, May 2010
God bless you.
Another point is the Year of Faith - this too aligns with alleged messages from the alleged apparition - which supposedly calls us to turn back to the faith, to evangelize, and to go to confession - all of which were discussed by the bishops and the Pope in the kickoff to the Year of Faith.
This only means, imho, that the crisis that prompted God to send His beloved Mother to us years ago in preparation, has indeed arrived. The apex of the crisis is at hand.
Since we did not heed this appeal of the Message, we see that it has been fulfilled, Russia has invaded the world with her errors. And if we have not yet seen the complete fulfilment of the final part of this prophecy, we are going towards it little by little with great strides. If we do not reject the path of sin, hatred, revenge, injustice, violations of the rights of the human person, immorality and violence, etc.
And let us not say that it is God who is punishing us in this way; on the contrary it is people themselves who are preparing their own punishment. In his kindness God warns us and calls us to the right path, while respecting the freedom he has given us; hence people are responsible”.
Sr Lucia of Fatima, 1982
We would be mistaken to think that Fatima’s prophetic mission is complete.
Pope Benedict, May 2010
God bless you.
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iloveangels
Guest
Oh good gravy. I give up. Good night.
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JMJSHJ
Guest
Excellent Post!!
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beehumble
Guest
You do know that each bishop is a “prince” - a ruler unto himself over his diocese, I assume. For example, the USCCB cannot order the bishop in charge of Notre Dame’s diocese to un-invite Obama. And the title archbishop is given to a bishop of a region who can act as a fill-in bishop for one of the regional disoceses in the event that diocese’s bishops is absent due to death, illness etc. An archbishop has no power over any of the regional bishops.Yes. Agree.
And while we’re talking about universities who claim to be Catholic, this also ought to look familiar. EVERY SINGLE YEAR we go through this same turmoil about commencement speakers. Every year. And every year, the USCCB kicks the can down the road and refuses to deal with it for all kinds of reasons that most Catholics don’t know and they never bother to explain. Well here we are again. And it’s just getting worse, as all problems do if you refuse to solve them. Duh.
Bishops are appointed and removed by Rome, period. The USCCB has no power over US bishops.
God bless you.
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