Three cheers for "cafeteria" Catholics

[spunjalebi]

I agree with this post completely. My pet peeve is just as such, such as a girl I know who proudly claims she is a “pro choice” Catholic. There is no such thing I told her to which of course after proudly pronouncing her views she was deeply offended. Perhaps these people don’t consider I’m offended when they call themselves Catholic and then declare themselves pro choice.

Mary.

I think this goes to show if people really do feel they have an intellectual cognitive dissonance with the Church and their own opinions, to take the time and reflect on what they truly believe. I know there have been a couple posters here who’ve expressed those beliefs. I am not going to sit here and tell people to leave the Church, but as someone who has personally left a non-Christian religion to join Christianity, and then be part of the Catholic Church, I have been through that myself.

 

[catybug]

Christianity is a faith that was revealed to us, and it depended on man to spread it. I don’t think anyone here is saying to “shut up and have faith” at all. Trust me, I’ve had people sort of say that to me myself…

People have a tendency to order things in the way they understand, and that’s why we have the Church. The Magisterium has gone a lot to determine what is just something that was “made up” by man, and what is something that has been revealed through divine inspiration. I don’t think through the thousands of years of teaching and tradition that the theology was just created through a few edits. That is what I believe.

If you think about it, Christianity as a whole has come from man because it depended on man to communicate it to each other. We have Jesus for a reason because obviously we needed an intermediary being to communicate with God. We could say Christianity comes from man because we depended on a man (Jesus) to tell us He came to fulfill the Law, so we wouldn’t have to keep living by it as the Jews did.

If we’ve established Popes have been wrong, it means the Pope was wrong-- not God. Popes are not infallible in the sense if they woke up one day and said “all Catholics are required to skip breakfast every day” that we’d have to do it. Infallibility doesn’t work that way. People have followed the leadership of misguided Popes because they believed the Popes were right, but there were always people who believed the Popes were wrong.

There is nothing that says you are an apostate if you have issues with Church teaching. My husband would say the same thing as you have about allowing his conscience and intelligence guide his life in conjunction with the Church, but he’s no apostate. There are hoards of people in Europe who are very much Catholic in their culture and spirituality, but don’t agree with everything the Church teaches. Yet, their culture is so guided by Catholicism it would be difficult to separate the two. Their opinion on various teachings would be different, but it would be absurd to call them apostates. An apostate is someone who is a Christian and rejects Jesus, IMO. It’s not someone who has an issue with contraception or women veiling.

It also goes to note the Church has changed her mind regarding various cultural issues, but that is different than changing her mind on the manner of doctrine. I did some reading once on the history of hair and found out there was a time where the Church condemned men wearing beards, and there was a time where the Church condemned curly hair or the curling of hair for aesthetics. I know that sounds silly, but for the time the Church was making an attempt to teach her people on separating themselves from vanity and poor associations. However, does that mean the Church actually has a doctrine on beards and curly hair being evil things? No. What the Church teaches between the lowercase t and uppercase T are just as different as between cultural admonitions and doctrine.

Contraception ia not just a cultural thing though. It is a moral teaching and therefore infalliable. Someone can question or dislike it all they want but it doesnt change it.

 

[spunjalebi]

Contraception ia not just a cultural thing though. It is a moral teaching and therefore infalliable. Someone can question or dislike it all they want but it doesnt change it.

Where did I say contraception was a cultural thing?

 

[catybug]

Where did I say contraception was a cultural thing?

sorry, I think I just misunderstood/misread your post. Bog thread tiny pgone screen xD

 

[spunjalebi]

sorry, I think I just misunderstood/misread your post. Bog thread tiny pgone screen xD

Oh wait, I can see what you mean. I had a sentence with it at the end of a paragraph. I was trying to make the distinction between people who have issues with teaching and those who are apostates. Should have been more clear on that.

 

[St_Francis]

Hey, QuasiCatholic, this is hardly a new problem!

The history of the Church is one of rigourists demanding more rigor from the Church and harsher punishment (such as expulsion) of those who don’t meet up to their standards. The rigourists are usually laity and a minority of clergy.

It’s not up to the laity to say who belongs in the Church and who doesn’t, or to decide what the shades of “Catholic” are. That is the job of the Bishops, and you won’t find “Cafeteria Catholic” in any Church document. If they welcome the 70% (or whatever it is) then it’s not up to us to second-guess them. If they won’t label anyone a “Cafeteria Catholic” then neither should we. If they also accept the rigorous and harsh, then so should we.

This problem goes back to the New Testament! The response of the Church was then the same as it always has been - to insist that some of its teachings are non-negotiable, but also to not put burdens on peoples’ backs, and to not engage in large scale excommunications, etc. Some of Paul’s harshest words are for those who impose their scruples and legalism on others.

Don’t let anyone on the internet tell you that you don’t belong. I see from your previous thread that your parish priest is on the Catholic Right (my words). He’s not in charge of you either, and represents a minority of Catholic priests, who rarely engage in partisan politics - and never from the pulpit. Issues, yes - personalities, no.

Actually, priests *do *have authority over us–this is why they are able to actually bless us, unlike what we are able to do which is only hope that God will bless another (when we say God bless you, it is short for May God bless you). A priest is responsible for us to God and he must care for us; we in turn remain under his authority and protection insofar as we obey his in regard to the authority he has over us, which could be expressed as in faith and morals.

In my 30 years in the Church I have seen as much practical dissent from the right as from the left. Often it is over social teachings (eg. war, environmentalism), but often it is just a refusal to allow the bishops to lead the Church, and to decide who’s in communion with it.

The thing is, wrt environmental and social issues, there is a lot of room for disagreement about how to go about accomplishing the goal, whereas with things like borth control and abortion, there is not.

In the end, it’s between you and God. The Church is there to guide you, and her teachings and Magisterium are a sure path - but the Church itself will tell you when you have strayed too far.

Yes, it is between us individually and God. The Church is the way God teaches us to be with God instead of against Him. Why should He allow His enemies into His Presence?

I suggest that your read what the CCC says about Moral Conscience (which falls under The Dignity of the Person).

ps. You might want to avoid taking on the right, however … you’ll only upset yourself.

 

[phil19034]

Well here’s one account: washingtonpost.com/national/pope-francis-faces-church-divided-over-doctrine-global-poll-of-catholics-finds/2014/02/08/e90ecef4-8f89-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html

I’ve seen others. I mean obvious it’s hard to get a bead on a group as diverse and widespread as all Catholics worldwide. But 12,000 across 12 countries seems like a good start. Granted, I didn’t see much in the article about the methodology. But I haven’t seen anything to the effect of “Catholics are all on the same page! Yay!” anywhere lately. lol

Do you have a survey that shows less division?

The poll is pretty much meaningless because it doesn’t show the questions or who they asked. The media is biased against Catholics, so they I doubt they were standing out side Churches on Sunday and asking. I’m sure they were polling a lot of people who are ethnically Catholic, but not practicing. If you take Argentina for example, 76.5% of the people identify as Catholic. But that 76.5% are not practicing their Faith and of the ones not practicing, a high % of them are not properly catechized. A cultural or ethnic Catholic person who steps into a Church for Baptisms, Weddings or Funerals is not a Catholic. A person who only goes to Church on Easter and Christmas is not a practicing Catholic. Honestly, do you think if the Church declared tomorrow that devorcees can receive communion, gays can marry, Confession is no longer needed, birth control is cool and there’s nothing wrong with pro-choice; do you think they will start coming to Church every Sunday? No, they won’t. A few, maybe. But the majority, no. How do I know? Because the protestants who have no issues with that stuff still can’t get their progressives to Church either.

Changing the Church is exactly what the devil wants. We cannot and will not let him win.

 

[Usige]

See, I can’t go along with that. First of all, I minored in history (specifically European history) in college. It’s pretty hard for me to have faith in the Church at this point. You don’t have to be a liberal extremist to see that throughout the past two thousand years, the Church has made rather a lot of mistakes. I personally know people who have not only been sexually abused by priests but whose testimony was invalidated by the Church. How am I supposed to trust such a clearly flawed institution? Yes, great things have come from Catholicism but it is made up of human beings who are capable of great evil. So why should I trust it?

Most people forget or ignore that there were more sexual abuse in the NYC public schools in 1994 then all US Catholic churches in the past 20 years. Most of those received no punishment and principals did not report them to the police. Does that mean we shouldn’t trust public schools to teach kids? (well I don’t for various other reasons [cough… common core… cough], but …) Flawed people and institutions doesn’t mean they don’t proclaim the truth.

For me it’s simple. I am a convert and 10 years ago I was about as liberal as you could get. Contraception? Good for you, I already got snipped and clipped. Abortion? Not my business. Don’t support gay marriage? Bunch of Nazis. Christians? Lord save me from your followers.

One day my wife said she and my too oldest kids were going to become Catholic and I almost blew my lid. I fought her for the next 2 years. I loved her, but couldn’t find a way to see eye to eye. Then one night I really sat down and said why do I fight someone I love so much? For me it was pride. I had railed against Christianity for 16 years and if they were right then … gasp… I might be … wrong. Instead of insisting her Church was wrong, I said well what can we agree on. That opened doors left and right. I always say that after 16 years of ignoring the knocks at the door that the Holy Spirit blew the hinges off once I opened the door a crack.

So why does being a convert make a difference? When converts are received into the Church they have to make a profession of faith that says “I believe and profess all the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God.” I take making a profession in front of God very seriously. As such I set out to undo the wrongs I had committed. I started to help take care of the poor; had my vasectomy reversed (and He has rewarded us with 4 more kids ); began teaching NFP and doing marriage prep. In short I put my trust in Him and His church to guide me.

To go from raging liberal to where I am now required humility. I try to start every day saying, “God let your will, not mine be done.” I am basically a statistician so logic and numbers are at the core of my thoughts, but faith for me is putting my trust even when I don’t know where it will lead me. Since the fateful day 8 years ago when I said yes, rather than no, the Lord has not let me stumble.

So back to the original post. How do those who strongly disagree with the Church support and uphold Her? For me that is the key. If the majority of the funds to do charitable works or volunteers come form those that disagree then I would see it as a major impact, but ifthey are simply warming a pew while despising the Church I don’t know how they are the backbone of the Church and should be applauded.

 

[spunjalebi]

Most people forget or ignore that there were more sexual abuse in the NYC public schools in 1994 then all US Catholic churches in the past 20 years. Most of those received no punishment and principals did not report them to the police. Does that mean we shouldn’t trust public schools to teach kids? (well I don’t for various other reasons [cough… common core… cough], but …) Flawed people and institutions doesn’t mean they don’t proclaim the truth.

For me it’s simple. I am a convert and 10 years ago I was about as liberal as you could get. Contraception? Good for you, I already got snipped and clipped. Abortion? Not my business. Don’t support gay marriage? Bunch of Nazis. Christians? Lord save me from your followers.

One day my wife said she and my too oldest kids were going to become Catholic and I almost blew my lid. I fought her for the next 2 years. I loved her, but couldn’t find a way to see eye to eye. Then one night I really sat down and said why do I fight someone I love so much? For me it was pride. I had railed against Christianity for 16 years and if they were right then … gasp… I might be … wrong. Instead of insisting her Church was wrong, I said well what can we agree on. That opened doors left and right. I always say that after 16 years of ignoring the knocks at the door that the Holy Spirit blew the hinges off once I opened the door a crack.

So why does being a convert make a difference? When converts are received into the Church they have to make a profession of faith that says “I believe and profess all the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God.” I take making a profession in front of God very seriously. As such I set out to undo the wrongs I had committed. I started to help take care of the poor; had my vasectomy reversed (and He has rewarded us with 4 more kids ); began teaching NFP and doing marriage prep. In short I put my trust in Him and His church to guide me.

To go from raging liberal to where I am now required humility. I try to start every day saying, “God let your will, not mine be done.” I am basically a statistician so logic and numbers are at the core of my thoughts, but faith for me is putting my trust even when I don’t know where it will lead me. Since the fateful day 8 years ago when I said yes, rather than no, the Lord has not let me stumble.

So back to the original post. How do those who strongly disagree with the Church support and uphold Her? For me that is the key. If the majority of the funds to do charitable works or volunteers come form those that disagree then I would see it as a major impact, but ifthey are simply warming a pew while despising the Church I don’t know how they are the backbone of the Church and should be applauded.

I agree with you, and my own background follows a similar trajectory.

I think the problem with “cafeteria Catholics” and the like isn’t so much that they are cafeteria Catholics and disagree with some and agree with others. What I see as the divisive issue are the people who disagree, but agree with enough to be involved with the Church and support her; then there are the people who disagree to the point where they believe the Church should change in order to assuage their intellectual disagreements.

 

[hope19]

I think the Church is not near to cease existing.
For me, it is simple, The True Church is the Catholic Church and She is gui
ded by the Holy Spirit.

hope19

 

[Usige]

I agree with you, and my own background follows a similar trajectory.

I think the problem with “cafeteria Catholics” and the like isn’t so much that they are cafeteria Catholics and disagree with some and agree with others. What I see as the divisive issue are the people who disagree, but agree with enough to be involved with the Church and support her; then there are the people who disagree to the point where they believe the Church should change in order to assuage their intellectual disagreements.

Right. I know some people who privately disagree or at least have doubts, but they accept that they may be wrong and try to toe the line. They volunteer and try to walk on the right side of the line, even though they might veer over. I guess when I think “cafeteria Catholic” they come in two predominate flavors.

The first is the ones who openly and loudly proclaim that the Church is wrong, but that their 1, 2, 5 years of study trumps 1900 years of thought and the Church should change and follow them, 'cuz they have extensive study. They tend to reject Church teaching as old fashioned and out of touch. What’s true today is dependent on the media.

The second are the ones that just ignore the Church out of hand or from personal affront. They are the ones that say that the Church has no authority over them and their conscience is better than universal teaching. Those actually worry me more. Why? Because they have bought into relativism. They see the world as having multiple truths. In other words truth is subject to our own interpretation. They want the broadest interpretation with as many side paths as possible to fit their own version of truth. They seem to forget that St John the Baptist came to make straight the path and that the narrow door leads to heaven and the wide gate leads to destruction. Many times it seems like they have bought into protestant theology, but truly believe that they are being faithful Catholics.

 

[sw85]

Actually, no. The gay thing is up there on my long list of CATHOLIC GRIEVANCES (to be nailed to my local parish’s door any day now ) but it isn’t the only issue. Everything from sex abuse, to Eucharistic adoration, to veiling, to the role of women, to Papal infallibility, to the hot button issues you described.

The problem isn’t necessarily with the individual issues but that I can’t take “it’s what the Church teaches” as an acceptable reason to do anything.

It’s like when you’re a kid pestering your mother and she says “because I said so!” Except that I am a grown woman capable of rational thought given excuses at every turn.

OK, but no one believes “it’s what the Church teaches” is the reason you should believe X. X just either is or isn’t true and the Church’s say-so can’t change that fact. The Church’s role is purely custodial. That is, that the Church teaches X is a symptom of X’s being true, not a cause of it.

When people tell you that you should believe X because the Church says so, they aren’t saying you should mindlessly obey. The issue, your issue, isn’t primarily obedience, which isn’t to say it’s not about obedience at all. It’s about humility. The issue is thinking that your musings are even remotely comparable in worth to those of the men and women who built the Church’s theological traditions over the course of 2,000 years – to those of the men and women who consecrated their entire lives to contemplation and prayer. The issue is thinking that because you don’t understand X (and what steps have you actually taken to ameliorate your lack of understanding?), it must be the case that X must not make sense.

So maybe X has not been adequately explained to you. But so what? There has literally never been as much information at anyone’s fingertips in the entire history of the world as there is, for you, today. Tons and tons of Catholic classics are available for free download here: ccel.org/. Or do you think you are entitled to have someone else make the drudge work of theological study easy for you? If you can’t read even one of Aquinas’ 8 million words, you can surely find a short, sympathetic, accessible treatment of them, e.g., by Edward Feser.

I can’t help but notice, too, that all the topics on which your “rational thought” has led you to object to the Church’s teachings are pretty much the exact topics about which liberal modernity has a beef with the Church’s teachings. Are you really sure it’s even your thoughts you’re thinking?

 

[One_point]

I know a lot of people on CAF complain about so-called “cafeteria” Catholics who disagree with the Church on certain issues. In fact, when I was deciding whether to get baptized or not I was told point-blank by some members here that the church would be better off without me.

But I was thinking about it today, and here’s what I thought:

By a lot of accounts, something like 70% of Catholics disagree with doctrine on at least one of the major “social justice” issues. Now, yes, people are entitled to wishing that those 70% would become come more in-line with traditional views. But what if they went the other way?

Could the Catholic Church as an institution (at least as we know it today) survive if 70% of its members decided to, say, become Episcopalians instead? I can’t be the only “cafeteria” Catholic who’s a regular church-goers who supports their parishes both socially and financially. What would it look like if all of those people walked?

Maybe I’m just in a mood today, but I think we should be applauding people who hang on to this faith by their fingernails instead of complaining about them. There’s a saying that courage isn’t not being afraid, it’s being afraid and going ahead anyway. Something similar could probably be said in this case. It’s easy to do what the church wants if you agree with it. But three cheers for those who try to stay with and support the church despite personal differences that they can’t reconcile.

Just my two cents.

Are you counting western nations only or the whole catholic church? I know for certain outside the west, no catholics form advocacy or activist groups to attempt to force the church to change its teachings. the main problem area is use of contraceptives and premarital sex but these are done without being trumpeted as good or right. the church continues to teach they are wrong without lobbies of dissenters trying to tell them it is right. so it would be correct to say a big number is not perfectly in obedience to church teaching in day to day life but they are not challenging that teaching. many of them experience a deepening of faith at some point and come to do right. those who believe the church is the one wrong and not them will leave and go to protestant groups. at the same time many don’t actually know the teaching of the church to begin with. so it is wrong to think that the group of dissenters in the church in any way represent the majority. catholics may be sinners but they know it is not their job to teach the church what is right or true.

 

[One_point]

OK, but no one believes “it’s what the Church teaches” is the reason you should believe X. X just either is or isn’t true and the Church’s say-so can’t change that fact. The Church’s role is purely custodial. That is, that the Church teaches X is a symptom of X’s being true, not a cause of it.

When people tell you that you should believe X because the Church says so, they aren’t saying you should mindlessly obey. The issue, your issue, isn’t primarily obedience, which isn’t to say it’s not about obedience at all. It’s about humility. The issue is thinking that your musings are even remotely comparable in worth to those of the men and women who built the Church’s theological traditions over the course of 2,000 years – to those of the men and women who consecrated their entire lives to contemplation and prayer. The issue is thinking that because you don’t understand X (and what steps have you actually taken to ameliorate your lack of understanding?), it must be the case that X must not make sense.

So maybe X has not been adequately explained to you. But so what? There has literally never been as much information at anyone’s fingertips in the entire history of the world as there is, for you, today. Tons and tons of Catholic classics are available for free download here: ccel.org/. Or do you think you are entitled to have someone else make the drudge work of theological study easy for you? If you can’t read even one of Aquinas’ 8 million words, you can surely find a short, sympathetic, accessible treatment of them, e.g., by Edward Feser.

I can’t help but notice, too, that all the topics on which your “rational thought” has led you to object to the Church’s teachings are pretty much the exact topics about which liberal modernity has a beef with the Church’s teachings. Are you really sure it’s even your thoughts you’re thinking?

I agree and disagree. it is true he church only teaches what is true because it is true in the sense that the church can never change what is false into truth simply by proclaiming that it is true. and for anyone interested, the church ALWAYs gives very good coherent reasons for each teaching when controversies arise on the matter.

however the question naomily raises is no small matter and it goes to the very ground of our faith. it can be translated to “I can no longer accpt 'because JESUS says so” as a good answer". well, if you cant accept that as a good answer then the issue is far beyond the specific question then at issue whether it be gay, women, contraceptives or whatever. it is a question of faith simply put.

for naomily, the issues are two simple issues:

1. do you believe Jesus is God? His authority final?
2. do you believe the catholic church is the chuch of JJesus Christ on earth to who he gave his authority to teach and whose protection he guaranteed by his own divine authority?

If you believe in 1) but not 2) then you are a protestant in spirit if not in letter. you really then ought not to focus on the specific issues you disagrre with but on the whole question of the authority of the catholic church and the infallibility of its teaching offices. focus your investigations there.

you are a grown woman yes, but remember God asks us to be little like children and our wsdom is foolishness to God. the church always has very good reasing behind absolutely every controversial issue. I have not found a single controversy yet that the church has not an unassailable (in terms of its coherence, rationality and logical consistency) defense. Investigate these with an open mind and humility and without being attached to a position and I really believe you will agree. At the end of the day though and despite all this, our acceptance of what the church teaches is a very simple act of faith in Jesus Christ: He who hears you, hears me. for a catholic, rebelling against the church is really the same thing as rebelling against Jesus Christ. so I would suggest investigating the church’s claims to be the church of Jesus Christ and his continuing teaching voice from the Apostles to our age. focusing on the smaller issues when the main thing is the bigger one will mislead you.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

I know a lot of people on CAF complain about so-called “cafeteria” Catholics who disagree with the Church on certain issues. In fact, when I was deciding whether to get baptized or not I was told point-blank by some members here that the church would be better off without me.

But I was thinking about it today, and here’s what I thought:

By a lot of accounts, something like 70% of Catholics disagree with doctrine on at least one of the major “social justice” issues. Now, yes, people are entitled to wishing that those 70% would become come more in-line with traditional views. But what if they went the other way?

Could the Catholic Church as an institution (at least as we know it today) survive if 70% of its members decided to, say, become Episcopalians instead? I can’t be the only “cafeteria” Catholic who’s a regular church-goers who supports their parishes both socially and financially. What would it look like if all of those people walked?

Maybe I’m just in a mood today, but I think we should be applauding people who hang on to this faith by their fingernails instead of complaining about them. There’s a saying that courage isn’t not being afraid, it’s being afraid and going ahead anyway. Something similar could probably be said in this case. It’s easy to do what the church wants if you agree with it. But three cheers for those who try to stay with and support the church despite personal differences that they can’t reconcile.

Just my two cents.

I would never say that the Church would be better off without cafeteria Catholics - that’s not really the point anyway. The Church is not supposed to prune out people who aren’t perfect, it’s supposed to help people become perfect.

That said, I certainly do think cafeteria Catholics are contradicting themselves, and am more than happy to argue that point. And when a Catholic publicly misrepresents the faith (such as a politician saying it’s ok for a Catholic to support abortion) I think that demands a public response. I do have to say that I am occasionally confused by why a given person considers themselves Catholic if they don’t believe in Catholicism, but that isn’t the same as saying that they shouldn’t be Catholic. It just means that people should try to show them why Catholicism is what it is, in the hopes that they will accept Catholicism in whole rather than their own version of it.

But yeah. The solution to noticing that a Catholic is ignoring some of the truth within Catholicism isn’t to tell them that they should ignore more of it.

 

[One_point]

however, I remember pope benedict did say something like this; it is more honest for the dissenters to leave than to try to force their way in the church. he compared them to Judas. Judas at some point stopped believing in Jesus’ claims and instead of walking away like those who rejected the Eucharistic teaching, he stayed and pretended to follow Jesus knowing very well he did not accept his claims. he ended up far worse off than those who walked away, IMO. so I am not sure I would say it is better for them to stay. it is dishnest and they end up betraying and working against the church with her enemies. at least those who leave do so because they honestly do not believe. the dissenters are guilty of terrible pride. I don’t mean those who stay while not believing but those who stay while actively working to undermine th church. usurping an authority and role that is not theirs. power-grabbers. these ones really should go make up their own religion as they wish.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

however, I remember pope benedict did say something like this; it is more honest for the dissenters to leave than to try to force their way in the church. he compared them to Judas. Judas at some point stopped believing in Jesus’ claims and instead of walking away like those who rejected the Eucharistic teaching, he stayed and pretended to follow Jesus knowing very well he did not accept his claims. he ended up far worse off than those who walked away, IMO. so I am not sure I would say it is better for them to stay. it is dishnest and they end up betraying and working against the church with her enemies. at least those who leave do so because they honestly do not believe. the dissenters are guilty of terrible pride. I don’t mean those who stay while not believing but those who stay while actively working to undermine th church. usurping an authority and role that is not theirs. power-grabbers. these ones really should go make up their own religion as they wish.

True, but I think it depends on the dissenter. It depends on how far they have reasoned from their dissent - ideally once a person realizes they don’t accept all of Catholicism, they should follow this reasoning to the end. I think most Cafeteria Catholics don’t actually do that though, and many seem to think that there is no reason to, but just float around in a sort of limbo of “yeah, I’m Catholic, but Catholicism is wrong” without actually realizing what that means.

But yes - leaving aside everything except the presence of dissent, there are only two rational responses for the dissenter: to determine that while they may not understand it, the Church is guided by God and their own musings are not, and so to drop their dissent; or to decide that they are right and the Church is wrong, and hence Catholicism isn’t what it says it is and so that it would be wrong to be Catholic.

So yeah, it makes zero sense to call oneself Catholic while simultaneously saying that Catholicism is wrong. But we shouldn’t push Cafeteria people towards the incorrect second choice. Rather, we should help them see that a) one of those choices must be made, and b) that the first one is the correct one. I’m not saying that it makes sense from the perspective of the dissenter to stay as a dissenter. I’m just saying that insofar as we push one way or another, we should push for the dissenter to give up on the dissent rather than to give up on the staying.

 

[Tigg]

Personally I don’t understand someone that wants to belong to an organization where they don’t agree with what it stands for. Thirty years ago I began having doctrinal and other disagreements with Mormonism. I didn’t have any desire to stay around and support them when I was in conflict with their beliefs and I left. I believe you are in communion with the Church or you aren’t. It was cafeteria Catholics that gave us the most evil president this country has ever had. It breaks my heart to see what this country has become. I will pray for you, though.

I wish I could find the term in a book I have that describes the technique of the radical women feminists who stay in the Church. They are completely unhappy with a patriarchal institution and only stay to destroy it to re-make it according to their ideal. The term is actually known as a political maneuver.

If someone does not agree with teaching then they need to examine their faith and come to terms with God, but the real harm is done by dragging others down to the point where they, too begin to doubt.

 

[Tigg]

Your point is a good one. I know almost no one who is like the typical CAFer in real life. The vast majority are the 'cafeteria type" that tick off the posters here. They support the parish with time and treasure and without them, there is no doubt the doors would close.

Wow! You really think so? Despite the words of Christ who definitively said otherwise?

 

[QuasiCatholic]

Threads like these make me think maybe I’m not in the right religion.

I want to be Catholic, honestly. Believe me when I say I do. I was raised in this religion and would hopefully raise my own children in it. I have had personal experiences with God that have left me unable to doubt His presence in my life.

But I cannot and refuse to shut off my brain. If I have a moral objection to something in the Church that I have researched thoroughly and prayed about, I should not have to shrug and assume the Church is right and I’m wrong. With no room for debate or understanding, how is any institution supposed to flourish?

God gave us logic and critical thinking for a reason. I think oftentimes Catholics want me to use my logic but only if the end result is Catholicism. If my faculties point me to the slightest deviation from the Catechism, then I simply am not thinking about it hard enough or haven’t read enough (God forbid) Aquinas. And if in spite of all that I still don’t see “The Truth” then I ought to give up my will and assume the Church is right.

Maybe this is pride talking, or my ego desperate not to be given up, but these are genuine frustrations that the Church has to response to.

This The only authority I have to tell me that the church is 100% right on everything is the church. And how do I know they’re right when they say that? Because the church is 100% right on everything – yay circuitous logic! What are we supposed to do if – having gone into it with an open mind, and having prayed, and having read every argument we can find – we still think the church’s explanation for something doesn’t hold up? I feel like that’s how things like the crusades or the inquisition happened – well the church said it’s right, so I guess it’s right.