And where did you get that nonsense? God does not send anyone to hell for not understanding or never having been exposed to certain Church teachings. That’s the most uncharitable thing I have ever heard.
Lucky St. Augustine. He didn’t become a heretic like me even though he thought for himself and questioned everything. But don’t you see that once an infant is baptized as a Catholic right then and there every question about the faith one can never understand fully is heresy. Honestly, I was never a member of the Catholic Church until I made the decision to become a member. And that was many years after I had been baptized, made my First Holy Communion and my first Confession, was Confirmed, and had gone through the Sacrament of Matrimony. I had even received the Sacrament of the Sick. But I never understood. Yet when I left the Church I was a heretic and would have gone to hell if I had died then. That really hurts me and scares me.
You are not going to be damned for not understanding what was never presented to you. Period. God does not expect the impossible of us. If people are damned, it is because they recognized the truth and then willflully rejected it. You cannot walk up to a person who has never heard of Jesus and say “Jesus is Lord” and then say “I’ve given them the truth, now if they reject it, they are going to hell, because they are no longer ignorant.” That person would not have a clue as to what you are talking about and would remain ignorant, despite the fact that you told him the truth. We don’t always immediately recognize the truth when we see or hear it. It often takes reflection and study, and sometimes suffering and pain before we internalize it. No two people are the same and the process of discovering the truth is not the same for everyone. God takes us where we are and works with us from there. He knows us better than anybody on these message boards. And we must always keep in mind that it is the Holy Spirit who converts us, we don’t convert ourselves, and we don’t convert others. We are merely His instruments in the conversion process. We can’t take the credit for anything.
I want to apologize to you. I don’t know what happened. It has never happened to me before, but for some reason, in this thread I just became overwhelmed with despair. I have been thinking about it all day and it confuses me that I would be so upset over something like this. I debate on the abortion threads and in other threads and I have no problems (well, sometimes I do get a bit angry) but never in my life have I felt the despair that I did when participating in this thread.
Br. JR, OSF
Dear Carolyn,
This part of the post is indicative of the personal relationship we have with people, God, and with creation. A purely intellectual “faith” based on reason alone cannot unite us spiritually in our souls, through our souls, with people, God, or creation. This is what doctrine, teachings, and ritual points to and is missing in this forum because of the lack of personal spiritual contact between the poster and the reader. A personal contact with a person is much better than a post on a forum and a personal contact with the Spirit of God through the Church’s teachings, liturgy, and rituals is at the heart of our union with God.
It’s weird in a way because (in another forum) I had ad hominem attacks thrown at me that would make some people’s hair curl and it never bothered me but this wasn’t even an attack although I perceived it as one. I don’t think I will go down the path of despair again - it’s about the worst place one can be because when a person is as desperate as I was I didn’t believe that God was with me and that is hell (except, of course, God was with me; I was just blind to that.I’m very happy to hear that you have been helped by your conversation with you friend and that you feel better now. Now for a little reality spiritual direction.
DON’T EVER LET THE NONSENSE THAT SOME PEOPLE SAY ON THESE THREADS BE YOUR GUIDE.
Good grief. I can’t tell you how many people on these thread have told me that I have no faith or that I’m going to burn. However, my confessor and spiritual director disagree. My brothers love me, my children love me, my students respect me, and my prayers are more powerful than my sinfulness.
Remember what St. Pio said, “Pray and don’t worry.”
Have a blessed New Year’s Day.
Br. JR, OSF
I’ve noticed that when people “speak” to each other on computers they have lost body language and inflections that are such an integral part of our communication. Using emoticons can help a tiny bit, but are inadequate for real, comprehensive communication.
This is what led me back to the Catholic Church.
The free will plays a part in belief, so it is not correct to say people have no control over what they believe. When a proposition is made known to the intellect (God became man), the will can either choose to accept this proposition, or reject it. If you took a class on DNA, you could either choose to accept that DNA exists, or you cane refuse to beleive until the teaching proved it to you.
You know, I do believe you are absolutely correct. When I was on the phone to my friend I read Carolyn’s post and when I got to the part where she said (paraphrasing) that these sort of thoughts come from the evil one, I just stopped and said “Holy…” uh, I can’t write the next word but I’m sure you can fill in the blank. Right then the despair stopped.
Would you please expand on this a little bit? I kind of understand that canonizations would be infallible because I know the Church goes through a complicated process in order to determine if one should be canonized. Do you have a good link which would explain this process? I remember a long time ago when the story went around that the Church had “de-canonized” St. Christopher and that Catholics must then believe that he went to hell. But then I also remember hearing that Catholics were going to hell because we started to eat meat on Fridays (except during Lent, of course).Peary has most of it. Canonizations are also infallible statements and anything that is rooted in Sacred Tradition or scripture.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Actually, no. The process does not make it infallible. People have been canonized without the process. Three of our most prominent Franciscans were canonized without the process: Francis, Clare and Anthony of Padua. They were never investigated or beatified. The pope caonized them based on his faith that they are in heaven. That’s all it takes, the faith of Peter. “Upon this rock [faith] I will build my Church.”
Yes I do. Here you go.
That is the kind of information that you classify under N, for nonsense. The Church cannot de-canonize anyone. What happened with St. Christopher and some others is that there was a doubt as to whether they actually existed or were legends. This has never been established. These saints were taken off the calendar. But there were many saints taken off the calendar, because the calendar was reorganized. You only have 365 days in one year. There are many holy days and saints, more than 365 days if you put it all together.
It’s infallible, because scripture cannot lie. For example, when you say that abortioin is a grave sin, it’s an infallible statement. Why? The Commandments say, “Thou shalt not kill.” You don’t need an ex-cathedra statement for this.
Ex-Cathedra is Latin meaning “From the Chair”. It’s an ancient monarchial image. Kings have always made offficially binding decrees from their thrones. Popes did the same, once upon a time. Today they use computers But Ex-Cathedra is a decree that comes directly from the man who is sitting in the Chair of Peter. However, it is a decree that he says with the intention of binding all the faithful to follow it and to accept it without questions. The two to which you are referring are the Assumption of Mary and the Immaculate Conception.
I think the explanation of Sacred Tradition above should clear this up. It refers to what has been handed down from the Apostles. It does not refer to traditions such as Latin mass, communion on the tongue, Gregorian chant. Those are traditions, but they were not handed down from the Apostles. The Church can change them, bring them to an end, dispense with them through indults, etc. These may be mistakes to do, but the Church has this authority. Ordaining women, is part of Sacred Tradition. It was handed down to us from the Apostles that clerics were to be males. They reported that they received it from Christ.
It helps a lot!! Thank you so much! I thought what happened with St. Christopher didn’t make any sense but I was just a little kid and I remember being told that the Catholic Church sent him to hell and I just said no, it didn’t. Even at that young age I knew it was absolutely untrue. The same people told me that Catholics weren’t allowed to dance. Go figure.Conclusion
I think the explanation of Sacred Tradition above should clear this up. It refers to what has been handed down from the Apostles. It does not refer to traditions such as Latin mass, communion on the tongue, Gregorian chant. Those are traditions, but they were not handed down from the Apostles. The Church can change them, bring them to an end, dispense with them through indults, etc. These may be mistakes to do, but the Church has this authority. Ordaining women, is part of Sacred Tradition. It was handed down to us from the Apostles that clerics were to be males. They reported that they received it from Christ.
As to mistakes in translations of scripture, these have been made. Yet these mistakes have never affected our faith. They were mistakes in single word, verb tense, gender, number and case, that kind of thing.
There are other things that the popes say that are not infallible, meaning that they do not form part of the teachings of the Church. These are called ordinary athoritative statements or ordinary teachings. They have to be observed, because they come from authority. It’s like an executive order. I’ll give you a simple example. Saints Francis, Basil, Benedict, Albert and Augustine wrote rules for religious life. Those rules received what is called a papal bull. That is a seal from the pope. The orders that follow those rules cannot change them, because the pope at the time put his seal of approval ont hem. Even though they are not dogmas and doctrines they are binding on the Church. All Catholics must accept the Rule of St. Benedict as it is. It is what it is. You may not like it and if you don’t like it, don’t become a Benedictine. But you cannot criticize it or demand that the Benedictines live differently. Until another pope comes around and says that the Rule of St. Benedict has to be changed, edited or ammended, it stays the way that Benedict wrote it and we all have to respect it as it is. This is what we call ordinary authority. The pope is exercising his authority as the Head of the Church and making an “executive decision” that can be changed by any other pope.
I hope this helps.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
