What are the reasons I should (or shouldn't) become Catholic?

[Janet_S]

Keikiolu, I avoid bringing this painful subject up if I can help it, but is it really true to say “the Church failed to protect children from abusive priests”? In that phrase, is “the Church” a divine rather than a human thing?

This is my problem–not that I don’t know that Protestant ecclesiastical bodies also contain grave evils and corruption, but that Protestant ecclesiastical bodies do not make the same claim on my trust.

The distinction is not invented by me–it’s right there staring me in the faith. When you say “the Church teaches that women cannot be ordained” you are supposedly speaking of a divine entity. But when those same mouthpieces of the Church on whom we depend for authoritative teaching act in a flawed or even evil way, we are supposedly no longer talking about “the Church” but simply a bunch of flawed human beings.

This is not a distinction I have come up with! I don’t have a problem with the proposition “God protects the Church from making doctrinal errors but not from moral corruption.” Well, I have some problems with it, but I can accept it. What I have trouble with is the proposition that “the Church” is the entity engaging in authoritative teaching but is somehow untouched by moral corruption, even when the people and institutional structures involved are exactly the same in each case.

I can trust the Church not to apostasize. That would be enough if I were already a Catholic. But it’s not enough for conversion, as your post indicates.

In Christ,

Edwin

If we can’t trust the Church, then where do we go?

If my doctor makes a mistake diagnosing me, do I then dismiss him and seek treatment from the local shaman? Or medically treat myself?

I find issues to criticize the Church about, but what’s the alternative?

 

[AgnosTheist]

If we can’t trust the Church, then where do we go?

If my doctor makes a mistake diagnosing me, do I then dismiss him and seek treatment from the local shaman? Or medically treat myself?

I find issues to criticize the Church about, but what’s the alternative?

If your doctor sucks, you go to another doctor. Its really that simple. There are many doctors out there, as there are many belief systems out there. But you love your doctor, so what if he almost killed you?

 

[Janet_S]

If your doctor sucks, you go to another doctor. Its really that simple. There are many doctors out there, as there are many belief systems out there. But you love your doctor, so what if he almost killed you?

My analogy is meant to reflect Edwin’s concerns as to why he had problems becoming a Catholic. To continue with my analogy:

If I go to another doctor (who is licensed by the state), he is making a similar claim (as my previous doctor) to some type of authority. I have a problem with doctors who are licensed because they are making a claim on my trust. I’ve heard that doctors make mistakes, so I prefer not to have one that claims in any way that he is an expert.

That’s why I’m staying with the shaman. At least he doesn’t claim to be an expert.

 

[Keikiolu]

Works fine with me.

You are just not used to the concept & practice of having faith without religion.

It’s difficult to get used to an impossibility presented as a “practice”.

I was very devoted in the past but once a person reaches my stage, it is very difficult believing in any religion without some proof.

Which “stage” is that?

Do you realize how “gnostic” you actually are? You “know” the truth, without the necessary acknowledgement of the mystery. Your “secret knowledge” is profound,… and utter vacuous. Interesting as a “philosophy”, and completely hollow as a praxis.

By the way, “mystery” is not simply saying, “There’s no way to KNOW a thing”. Mystery is understanding that an apparent contradiction isn’t one in the mind of God, and that the resolution of the mystery is to be left to be “taught” to us by God’s revelation, and not by our own “seeking”.

Mahalo ke Akua…!
E pili mau na pomaikai ia oe. Aloha nui.

 

[BrewMax]

I’m curious as to what are the reasons that I should or shouldn’t become Catholic in your opinions.

Don’t know if I would recommend it myself. I have been going to a different church myself a few times. If you want to become Catholic, that is really up to you and if you don’t, there are many other choices out there too. Don’t know what else to tell you.

 

[qui_est_ce]

It’s difficult to get used to an impossibility presented as a “practice”.

Which “stage” is that?

Do you realize how “gnostic” you actually are? You “know” the truth, without the necessary acknowledgement of the mystery. Your “secret knowledge” is profound,… and utter vacuous. Interesting as a “philosophy”, and completely hollow as a praxis.

Mahalo ke Akua…!
E pili mau na pomaikai ia oe. Aloha nui.

Agnus, you’re really losing it here. :crying:

 

[qui_est_ce]

Don’t know if I would recommend it myself. I have been going to a different church myself a few times. If you want to become Catholic, that is really up to you and if you don’t, there are many other choices out there too. Don’t know what else to tell you.

Actually, if you are seeking Truth, then you must come into the CC. The other choices only contain a Kerygma of Truth. Read St. Augustine, Irenaeus, etc. Or just read early Church history. But that would be dangerous. You would would have to become Catholic or risk Hell, because now you know the truth and aren’t following it.

 

[AgnosTheist]

It’s difficult to get used to an impossibility presented as a “practice”.

how can it be an impossibility when i am the living proof that a person could find spiritual fulfillment in just believing in god without believing in religion?

for bigots, its really impossible to understand other points of view.

Which “stage” is that?

the stage of realizing that all religions are ALL EQUALLY baseless human opinions & promises on what the divine should be.

Do you realize how “gnostic” you actually are? You “know” the truth, without the necessary acknowledgement of the mystery. Your “secret knowledge” is profound,… and utter vacuous. Interesting as a “philosophy”, and completely hollow as a praxis.

you are assuming too much. may i ask, what spiritual truths did you see me preaching beside the acknowledgement of the divine?

 

[AgnosTheist]

Agnus

Hey I like the sounds of that. But is there peson by this name that I should know about?

 

[BrewMax]

Actually, if you are seeking Truth, then you must come into the CC. The other choices only contain a Kerygma of Truth. Read St. Augustine, Irenaeus, etc. Or just read early Church history. But that would be dangerous. You would would have to become Catholic or risk Hell, because now you know the truth and aren’t following it.

Don’t know if I would threaten people with hell if they didn’t go to my church. Just a thought.

 

[jmcrae]

Keikiolu, I avoid bringing this painful subject up if I can help it, but is it really true to say “the Church failed to protect children from abusive priests”? In that phrase, is “the Church” a divine rather than a human thing?

What the Church never did, was it never began to teach that “man-boy love” is a good thing. It never began to promote adult-child sexual relationships in the public square, or attempt to have them legalized, or recognized as a form of “marriage.”

Yes, it was awful that priests, of all people, were doing such things.

But, they knew they were wrong. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that they were wrong. Nobody ever tried to justify them, or to rewrite the moral code of our religion in response to their activities - nobody ever said, “The Holy Spirit is calling us now in our day to acknowledge the beauty of man-boy love.”

*Ever. *

And yes, the Bishops did things that they now regret, in response to the situation - things that most people, in their place, would probably also have done, I suspect - moved them out of pastoral work and into other areas of ministry instead of firing them; telling them that they could no longer work in that Diocese; believing secular psychologists who pronounced them “cured” and so on.

These are human things. But the Church remained steadfast in its teaching that such behaviour is wrong, in the Mortal Sin sense of the word.

 

[Janet_S]

the stage of realizing that all religions are ALL EQUALLY baseless human opinions & promises on what the divine should be.

you are assuming too much. may i ask, what spiritual truths did you see me preaching beside the acknowledgement of the divine?

What we need right now is another Chesterton quote:

From Heretics:
pagebypagebooks.com/Gilbe…doxy_ p1.html

Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. **Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded. **

 

[Keikiolu]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Keikiolu forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_cad/viewpost.gif
*You draw a distinction where none exists, then complain about the distinction.

Edwin,… Dude,… THE Church is THE FREAKIN’ CHURCH…!!

I’m not putting my trust in ANY non-divine/human thing when I trust completely in the Church.*

Keikiolu, I avoid bringing this painful subject up if I can help it, but is it really true to say “the Church failed to protect children from abusive priests”? In that phrase, is “the Church” a divine rather than a human thing?

The PEOPLE who are/were members of the Church failed to protect the children. People sin.

The Church never coerces. “Protection” is a coercive function. Protection, like all coercive functions, is in the realm of the temporal, which is where PEOPLE act.

So, the Church in the phrase you mentioned is not an accurate description of the actor that needed to do the “protection”, and it’s being “either divine or human” is irrelevent.

The Church, though, is, like man himself, both fully divine and fully human.

To condemn the Church for the actions of it’s people’s sinful acts is to impute sin to more than sin is rightly imputable. You can certainly “punish” the people of the Church for their behavior, but you can’t “punish” the “fully divine” part of the church for what it didn’t do.

This is my problem–not that I don’t know that Protestant ecclesiastical bodies also contain grave evils and corruption, but that Protestant ecclesiastical bodies do not make the same claim on my trust.

If they (ecclesial bodies) DON’T claim that they have the right to speak authoritatively about God’s law (how to behave), then what ARE the members of those bodies following as authority?

If that “authority” is self-chosen, then what’s the difference being a “self-choosing” Catholic as opposed to a “self-choosing” protestant?

I think you’ll need to clarify to me what “claim on my trust” means to you in this,… as I may not be clear as to what you mean.

The distinction is not invented by me–it’s right there staring me in the faith. When you say “the Church teaches that women cannot be ordained” you are supposedly speaking of a divine entity.

The fully divine part of the Church says, “No women priests”.
Some of the fully human parts of the church say, “That’s unfair to women.”
You are free to choose which you believe. The fully human, or the fully divine.

But when those same mouthpieces of the Church on whom we depend for authoritative teaching act in a flawed or even evil way, we are supposedly no longer talking about “the Church” but simply a bunch of flawed human beings.

If you choose not to accept the fact that the Church is both fully human AND fully divine, then why do you accept that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine?

My guess is that Jesus doesn’t show His “lips moving” anymore.

The mystery of the Church is to be held as a fact, which is the “solution” to the difficulty that you’re having with it. Just like all matters of faith, you must believe BEFORE you have a reason (proof) to do so.

This is not a distinction I have come up with!

You may have “discovered” your “distinction” from other people, but you own it now, and you continually reinforce it, which makes you it’s continual “inventor”.

I don’t have a problem with the proposition “God protects the Church from making doctrinal errors but not from moral corruption.” Well, I have some problems with it, but I can accept it.

What I have trouble with is the proposition that “the Church” is the entity engaging in authoritative teaching but is somehow untouched by moral corruption, even when the people and institutional structures involved are exactly the same in each case.

The solution to your confusion (as you are “fusing” two things into one thing) is that the Church is “like” (!) Jesus,… fully man and fully God.

Jesus bled. Bleeding is a “failing” of mankind. Does that take away any divinity of Jesus?

I can trust the Church not to apostasize. That would be enough if I were already a Catholic. But it’s not enough for conversion, as your post indicates.

In Christ,

Edwin

What would you “need for conversion”? I don’t understand how believing in the truth, and being WITH the truth, is affected by any “present membership” such that that membership would keep you away from the truth?

Are we not told to “give up all”, to “hate even our ‘family’”, to be with the truth?

Mahalo ke Akua…!
E pili mau na pomaikai ia oe. Aloha nui.

 

[AgnosTheist]

What we need right now is another Chesterton quote:

From Heretics:
pagebypagebooks.com/Gilbe…doxy_ p1.html

Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas.

Children make no dogmas. This little fact is enough to refute that entire nonsense.

 

[jmcrae]

Children make no dogmas. This little fact is enough to refute that entire nonsense.

You don’t hang around much with children, do you?

 

[po18guy]

Keikiolu, I avoid bringing this painful subject up if I can help it, but is it really true to say “the Church failed to protect children from abusive priests”? In that phrase, is “the Church” a divine rather than a human thing?

This is my problem–not that I don’t know that Protestant ecclesiastical bodies also contain grave evils and corruption, but that Protestant ecclesiastical bodies do not make the same claim on my trust.

The distinction is not invented by me–it’s right there staring me in the faith. When you say “the Church teaches that women cannot be ordained” you are supposedly speaking of a divine entity. But when those same mouthpieces of the Church on whom we depend for authoritative teaching act in a flawed or even evil way, we are supposedly no longer talking about “the Church” but simply a bunch of flawed human beings.

This is not a distinction I have come up with! I don’t have a problem with the proposition “God protects the Church from making doctrinal errors but not from moral corruption.” Well, I have some problems with it, but I can accept it. What I have trouble with is the proposition that “the Church” is the entity engaging in authoritative teaching but is somehow untouched by moral corruption, even when the people and institutional structures involved are exactly the same in each case.

I can trust the Church not to apostasize. That would be enough if I were already a Catholic. But it’s not enough for conversion, as your post indicates.

In Christ,

Edwin

In retrospect, the entire living history of Christianity is heavily flawed. Christ was constantly upbraiding the disciples for their lack of faith-those who had seen the miracles and touched His human nature. He chastized Peter as “Satan” before the twelve. He chose the twelve, yet knew that “one of you is a devil”, who later sold Him out before committing suicide. There is no physical contact I am aware of between St. Paul and Christ. Yet, Paul continually felt wreched, and how do our lives compare with the devotion shown by his? Scrupulosity is all too easy to fall into, and tends to destroy confidence in self and others-both individuals and organizations.

From the Webster’s New Universal Unabridged:

scrupulous, v, [L. scrupulosus, scrupulous]
1.having or showing scruples; characterized by careful attention to what is right or proper; conscientiously honest and upright.
2. (a) careful of details; precise, accurate and correct; exact; (b) demanding, or characterized by, precision, care, and exactness.
3. given to making objections; captious (Obs.)
4. doubtful (Obs.)

I have found myself in these waters, having been a perfectionist for much of my life. The Lord, in His mercy, has revealed to me that perfection is His, faith and trust mine.

Let go your objections, Edwin. You and I, Christine and all of whom you enjoy conversing with are the church. Pity the leaders.

 

[AgnosTheist]

You don’t hang around much with children, do you?

You think 3 to 8 years olds would make a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds?

 

[qui_est_ce]

I have found myself in these waters, having been a perfectionist for much of my life. The Lord, in His mercy, has revealed to me that perfection is His, faith and trust mine.

Let go your objections, Edwin. You and I, Christine and all of whom you enjoy conversing with are the church.

YES :yup:

But you, Contarini, would probably do best by going to a priest for RCIA, because you are better versed in Catholicism than many who are in RCIA to come into the Church.

 

[jmcrae]

You think 3 to 8 years olds would make a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds?

Why would it have to be “without adequate grounds?” Do you think that the Church just makes stuff up out of nowhere?

Yes, 3-8 year olds are always discovering true things, and proclaiming them as “dogma” (a thing that is indisputably true). Even about God.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Hey I like the sounds of that. But is there peson by this name that I should know about?

Yes, the Lamb in Latin