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GaryTaylor
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Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
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rturner76
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Hosemonkey, thank you for your thoughtful reply to my other question. I DO need to learn patience and I’m not going to push on that quick entry to the church subject.
I also must assume that if you want to claim to be Catholic, you must be able to answer questions a non-catholic might have so you need to know what you are talking about.
I have another beef,
Asking for Saints to intercede for you always seemed a bit polytheistic to me. I grew up believing only God could hear your prayers through Jesus only. Can somebody help me on this one?
I also must assume that if you want to claim to be Catholic, you must be able to answer questions a non-catholic might have so you need to know what you are talking about.
I have another beef,
Asking for Saints to intercede for you always seemed a bit polytheistic to me. I grew up believing only God could hear your prayers through Jesus only. Can somebody help me on this one?
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Tantum_ergo
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Sure. If a person is a saint, they are in heaven, correct?
If a person is in heaven, doesn’t Scripture tell us that they are united with Jesus?
So it’s not as though say St. Peter is wandering somewhere around in heaven all ‘separate’, and Jesus is a zillion miles away, and the two of them have no contact whatsoever.
Scripture also says the prayer of a righteous man ‘availeth much.’
Now, isn’t a person in heaven, united with Jesus, pretty darn righteous?
IOW, it is not (and never was) a question of utilizing a saint INSTEAD OF Jesus, but always IN ADDITION TO Jesus.
And think about it. Aren’t there two ‘great commandments’, one of which is to love one’s neighbor as oneself? Christ Himself never meant there to be only “me and Jesus” relationships, each of us in a tight little ‘cocoon’ with no thought for our fellow men and women. We are a ‘community’ of believers, and that community exists beyond death, otherwise we would be, as St. Paul said, the most pitiable of beings. . .that early Christians prayed to their fellow martyrs who had died is well known from catecomb prayers so this isn’t a ‘new’ teaching. Because, of course, it was always understand that we prayed with Jesus as our ULTIMATE ‘goal’ of prayer and that the saint(s) were joined with us.
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fred_conty
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When Catholics leave the church, I’ve noticed for the most part, the holy presence in the Eurcharist vanishes. And for others, once the holy presence in the Eurcharist is seen,
they have one spiritual foot in His Church. Congradulations! Now He asks for your love and patience while He gets your other foot in. Once that happens, the time waiting will seem well spent.
When you go to Church, thank Him over and over in you heart for the honor and the great previlege of just letting you be in His presence. It is such a honor for you to have been one of His chosen ones. Thank and praise Him again and again with out stopping for such a great grace and love He is holding out to you. You have been so blessed because many are not as lucky as you. He has looked upon you with such great love from his holy cross. He has smiled on you and said come. What an terribly great thing that it is to see Him and be called to His table! Now love Him with patience, study, and desire. Look forward to the day He will say, be one with Me as I have longed to be one with you. When that happens, yours will be tears of joy.
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rturner76
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Well said FredConty
When I am truly in my gratitude, is when time stands still. No worries about anything.
It’s when I feel closest to God. When I’m in real grattitude,
When I am truly in my gratitude, is when time stands still. No worries about anything.
It’s when I feel closest to God. When I’m in real grattitude,
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The_Sentry
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For me, sadly, it’s the so-called “spirit of Vatican II.” Almost none of the Catholics with whom I interact agree with or follow the Church’s teachings on morality, life, etc. I know one family that doesn’t pray because “it’s really just a holdover from the old days.” Others support use of birth control because “the Vatican just doesn’t understand pregnancy.” I fear that they get this from some pretty irresponsible priests & weak catechesis.
So, in my case, I entirely like the idea of being Catholic. I appreciate the fervor and depth that is found among so many Catholics on this forum.
My biggest problem is that too many parishes can teach and do absolutely bizarre things with few consequences. It feels like I might as well just stay put in my own tradition. 
(
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fred_conty
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Well, we have the angels who are much like saints. The angels ministered to Jesus in the desert and in the garden of Olives. He talked about angels looking after the little children. Mary talked to the archangel Gabriel and he to her. Angels spoke to the sheperds and wise men at Christmas. There were two huge bronze angels over the Ark of the Covenant. And so on and so forth. The saints are in heaven seeing God face to face just as the angels. Being face to face with God, they hear our prayers because they are in perfect union with God Who knows all and hears all. There are so many who pray to St. Jude(Thadeous) all over the world at the same time and moment. St. Jude knows immediately the requests of all those praying thru being in perfect union with the All Knowing, face to face.
Now I have noticed that some non-Catholic teachings of various churches can’t explain with any assuredness what happens to the soul of the person once they die. They are nebulous and hazzy about what actually transpires with this person. Do they go to another place awaiting the last day? Are they just out of the picture without really knowing the how or where or anything else? Some how this question is just sort of given the soft shoe or swept under the spriitual rug or maybe not answered because we weren’t told in the Bible, or maybe some other … I think it is because of this not knowing what to say on the existence of the soul after death that praying to saints would indeed be rather difficult to accept for them. Catholics know the whereabouts of these holy men and women who have gone before us and see God face to face. Therefore we are able to speak to them in God and make requests. Mary especially in the old testament is given the picture of smashing the head of the serpent. meaning that she above all others is the lead person to go to in time of spiritual warfare. The Mother of God, sees her Son face to face in heaven now, just like when she saw him face to face in her arms then at Christmas, and saw him face to face at Cana requesting Him to perform His very first miracle, She now, face to face in heaven,asks Her Son for more miracles. And she goes on asking because she identifies us as her very own other needy sons and daughters. THE saints really care because they see us as their brothers and sisters
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Roy5
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** My main ‘beef’ is that so many traditionalist Catholics (the majority, it appears, here on CAF) resemble Protestant fundamentalists.** By this I mean that they are positive they have the truth, they know precisely how to interpret the Bible, etc. Many of them have a ‘straight-jacket’ mentality. Think for ourselves? No. No. We have to follow precisely what the Church (Catholic fundamentalist) or the Bible (Protestant fundamentalist) says. After all, the Church or the Bible or our preacher or maybe Fr. Corapi tells it like it is!
** It is this mentality that troubles me. I enjoy theological dialogue when we are free to launch out on our own and think for ourselves.** I have doubts, many of them, but don’t fret about them. God is in charge, so why worry? But I do need to breathe the fresh air of freedom, and I find that most of my Catholic and Protestant friends do, too. This effort, whether by Catholics or Protestants (or Orthodox or Muslims or whomever), to limit freedom of thought troubles me. There is excitement in thinking for oneself, while maintaining a deep and abiding faith in the sure providence of God. I know this makes us wicked egotists or rebels or heretics or whatever, but so be it. God understands even if others don’t.
** God bless everybody, **whatever their creed, color, culture or country, and may religion become a bridge rather than a barrier. And a happy St. Valentine’s Day, too!
** It is this mentality that troubles me. I enjoy theological dialogue when we are free to launch out on our own and think for ourselves.** I have doubts, many of them, but don’t fret about them. God is in charge, so why worry? But I do need to breathe the fresh air of freedom, and I find that most of my Catholic and Protestant friends do, too. This effort, whether by Catholics or Protestants (or Orthodox or Muslims or whomever), to limit freedom of thought troubles me. There is excitement in thinking for oneself, while maintaining a deep and abiding faith in the sure providence of God. I know this makes us wicked egotists or rebels or heretics or whatever, but so be it. God understands even if others don’t.
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**Actually, I believe that none of us knows very much about this mammoth, marvelous, majestic, magnificent, and mysterious universe**. So, we have devised various systems of belief, often concocted during ancient times of great superstition and little knowledge - no microscope and not very good telescopes. And we insist on adhering to perceptions that are primitive in our modern world.
**Let me add that, in keeping with my general outlook, if people gain security and joy and peace from their faith, fine.** I know Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Muslims, Hindus and those of various other religions who cultivate courage and many other fine assets from these religions. I may not agree with them, but God bless them. I only become somewhat annoyed when they start insisting that unless I accept their view of the world I am wrong (and may go to hell). Now, that can irk me.
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rturner76
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I can dig that. My mom was raised Catholic and she said when we die we know everything. She wouldn’t get into detail about it but she always did say, “We are with God and he shows us everything.” In that way she explained to me as a child, I can understand this explination.
I hope I don’t drive them crazy when I start RCIA! I got alot of questions like that I call “dogma questions” I’m not trying to be a so called “cafeteria Catholic”
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Bob_Crowley
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As an ex-protestant turned Catholic, I have two beefs - Papal "infallibility’ and the ban on the contraceptive pill.
For one thing the Pope’s authority comes from Christ, “What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” The mere fact the Pope can “loose” something means he can change his mind, and that what was once binding is no longer so. This raises the question that if a teaching was once “binding” but is now “loosed”, then it can hardly have been “infallible” in the first place.
Secondly the way it was brought in was not very honest.
As far as the Contraceptive pill goes, as far as I’m concerned it was God’s gift, given at the very time that population pressures were becoming a real problem in some parts of the world, and still are. It was actually recommended for approval by a committee set up by the pope of the day himself that it be allowed for married couples. But the pope chickened out. He was so shocked and disillusioned by the result - priests resigning, laity revolting, that he never wrote another major document. As far as I’m concerned God was speaking through the committee he himself appointed, and he reaped the result of disobedience.
As far as using the Billings method etc. goes, there is not one iota of difference in intention - to avoid contraception. So I fail to see any ethical difference whatsoever.
They’re my two doctrinal squabbles and it would take a pretty convincing argument for me to change my mind.
On the local level, my main beef is that there’s not much power in the homilies. One priest I spoke to, an expert in Medieval church studies, agreed with me and commented, “The Church has struggled with that issue for a long time.” Some of the sermons I listened to in my first Protestant church were little short of brilliant. It was a big let down to listen to the rather weak material that’s been my experiences since I became Catholic.
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LilyM
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So if two people have exactly the same intention to obtain money, it’s equally fine for one person to rob a bank to do so while the other chooses the alternate path of working honestly? And there’s no ethical difference whatsoever between the robber and the honest worker? Surely you accept that there is a difference - and it’s based on the means used rather than the end result or even the intention.
See it’s not so much the ‘birth control’ (‘BC’) that is the problem, but the artificial (the ‘A’ in ‘ABC’). One cannot use a morally dubious means (ie robbery) to obtain even a morally good or neutral end (to obtain money). So one cannot use morally dubious means to achieve even the (many times) good or neutral aim of spacing out or avoiding the conception of children. For that matter, as the church consistently teaches, one cannot use morally dubious means such as IVF to achieve the good or neutral aim of GETTING pregnant when one does want children.
Using pills or surgeries to deliberately alter and impede a healthy body’s God-given physical makeup, or artificial devices that place a literal physical barrier of separation between the God-ordained procreative and unitive aspects of marital sex makes them, as Christ teaches through the Church, morally dubious.
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Bob_Crowley
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What’s wrong with artificial? We use artificial means to prolong life, eg. pacemakers, heart valvels, arterial sleeves. We use artificial means to aid healing - antibiotics and other drugs. We use artificial legs, arms, steel plates for skull repair. We use artificial means to mend bones - pins, staples, and screws. We use artificial means to keep people alive in just about every area of medicine.
We use artificial means to alter a person’s character eg. Prozac for depression, drugs for schizophrenia. We transplant blood from other people, having first stored it artificially.
But suddenly there’s a big difference between artificial and natural when it comes to conception? Sorry. I don’t see the big deal. It’s just one more use of “artificial” means as far as I’m concerned. And the intention is precisely the same. The ova that could have been fertilised but wasn’t by using the Billings method to avoid the likelihood of conception is just as unfertilised as one that was not fertilised by using the pill. And it was the parents’ decision in both cases.
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elvisman
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WRONG.
Using NFP is not the same because it must still be open to the possibility of life. Abstinence during a fertile period is not the same as making God jump over hurdles that you have placed before him. One is simply not using the gift for a time. The other is rejecting and altering that gift.
Artificial means tocure or treat an illness or disfigurement is not the same as placing artificial barriers before God.
**When we treat diabetes with manufactured insulin or cancer with chemotherapy - or even amputees with prosthetic limbs - we are not trying to alter God’s creative power. We are not rejecting his gifts. We are making life more bearable for those infirmed. **
As a Christian who uses artificial contraception, you are telling God that you accept the gift of sex for pleasure but reject its life-giving attributes. Children are gifts from God - they are not infirmities. To reject this gift is tantamount to slamming the door in God’s face.
Question: Why did you convert to the Catholic Church - only to make your own rules?
Artificial contraception is gravely sinful according to the Church. You’d have been better off in any one of the thousands of Protestant denominations that only teaches partial truth because that is what you are espousing.
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Rence
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Well, I’m Catholic, but there are a few stumbling blocks for me:
-it embarasses me when other Catholics insist that non-Catholics and those who don’t want to follow Catholic teachings must follow Church teachings as well, and that Catholic law is the only law. It’s true because as Catholics we believe our Church to be the only and best truth ever and forever. However, if one is not Catholic, they’re not going to recognize the authority of the Church, and will see another truth, and will follow another set of laws and rules.
-papal infallibility is hard for me to swallow. Not because I don’t believe the Holy Spirit can and does influence the human element of the Church, but because I don’t think there is anything special about the pope or bishops that makes them put their own humanity, biases, values and interpretations aside in order to properly receive and interpret an intervention from the Holy Spirit. In other words, I don’t trust the human element of the Church. They’re only human, and err like humans. They still retain free will. That doesn’t go away just because they are figures of authority in the Church.
- I also feel like a prisoner of the Church with all it’s rules and regulations regarding marriage. For example: birth control (artificial or natural or barrier), the depth in which they enforce the “unitive properties” to the extent of calling IVF immoral and forbidding the usage of it for couples who can’t have children, while at the same time requiring all married couples to be open to life. For the most part I understand why they are strict about the procreative properties, but I think they’re too strict. I don’t agree with how they come between a husband and wife and tell them what they can do in bed, and when and in what order, and how they have to end. It’s stifling and intrusive — and very inappropriate.
-I hate the way I feel that the Church regards women. But I’m grateful to be where I am at right now, in control of myself and my life and my body. I feel sorry for those before me who lacked the rights I have today, and I thank God every day for what I have.
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Rence
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Exactly. The use of artificial anything is okay sometimes and not other times. The contradictions are hard to swallow because they don’t make sense to a lot of people, despite making perfect sense to those who accept the rules.
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Adonia
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Sorry, but I have talked to other Catholics who have a “beef” with their Church. There are Roman Catholic nuns in this nation who believe in abortion and want women to be priests! People like them refuse to accept the teachings of the Church. I would therefore say they probably have a “beef” with the RCC.The person doing this blog should also write that many Catholics are perfectly satisfied with what the church teaches.
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TedDC
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Actually, none. In fact I think the Catholic Church has accomplished much good in this world, and I agree with many of the moral principles it espouses. I simply don’t believe many of the fundamental tenets of the faith.
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fred_conty
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Hi Bob, This whole thing is a hard saying indeed and very confusing. If you would permit me, I would like to explain it as I see it and see what you think. As for the letters ABC(artificial birth control), I believe this is badly misnamed. It shuld be named KHL for killing human life, for that is what it does, it kills birth. Now NBC (natural birth control), should be named NBP for natural birth planning, for that is what it does, it plans birth.
KHL pills work precisely this way. They detach the fetus from the mother, or they render the fetus unable to attach itself to the mother. Or they kill the women’s/man’s living contributions for making a fetus. All of this comes down to one thing: Kill KHL physical devices set up barriers so that the women’s/man’s living contributions are frustrated so that they too die. Again the word kill is appropriate. Now christians of various denominations come together from time to time to protest abortion clinics. When they are not demonstrating, they sometimes talk about the whys of abortion. A number of them have said that it is the outcome of birth control with the idea that the killing starts there and then comes into fruition.
Whenever I don’t understand why, over time I learned to say to my wonderful sweet Lord, “I don’t understand Lord, but I believe. And someday help me to see it your way.” Then I put it aside and go on. One idea that helps me is remembering the hundreds of bishops all over the world who are almost unanimous in their opinion. They are from all different nations and languages and usually intelligent men. And when I think of all of them agreeing and they are the modern day apostles of Jesus, I have to say that puts me at rest on any issue. And I think, could all of them be wrong who have had hands placed on them? To me that is really impressive. They have given up so much, our elder brothers, to help us stay close to Jesus. I am so happy the Lord selected them because it makes my life of faith so much easier and safer.
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uglygal
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lack of mercy
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Bob_Crowley
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Artificial contraception is gravely sinful according to the Church. You’d have been better off in any one of the thousands of Protestant denominations that only teaches partial truth because that is what you are espousing.
The Catholic Church used to burn people at the stake for disagreeing with it, but these days finds it hard to justify capital punishment for serial murderers… Pope John Paul II apologised for the Catholic Church’s treatment of Galileo. So burning people at the stake at one time had what might be called the “infallible” blessing of the church, and it’s treament of Galilieo likewise. Now it does an about face, in the second case by a Pope himself, and I’m told the church never makes mistakes.
Come off it.
My opinion is that the Catholic Church is “closest” to the truth. Our singular Australian saint, Saint Mary McKillop, was once ex-communicated at the behest of petty minded and jealous priests. So they were right were they, being Catholic? In that case, which Catholic am I supposed to believe was closer to God?
Sorry, but my Australian experience and former Protestantism means I take some Catholic teachings with a grain of salt. And the ban on artificial contracepition is one of them. Pope Paul VI set up a committee himself to investigate the issue, made up predmoniantly of good Catholics, and they recommended the contraceptive pill should be available to married couples. But he chickened out. I’ll say it again - I think God was speaking through the committee the pope appointed, but the pope wasn’t willing to believe it.
From American Experience - pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/peopleevents/e_humvit.html
"Change in the Air
Within the hierarchy of the Church, both bishops and priests around the world were boldly speaking out in favor of contraception and especially the Pill. **The Church had convened a papal commission to study the issue, and reports leaking out from the meeting suggested change was in the air. There was a general consensus that the commission would recommend liberalizing the Church’s policy. It was just a question of when.
**
Rock’s Argument for the Pill
In the mid-1960s, one of the Pill’s most prominent Catholic advocates, Dr. John Rock, insisted that the Pill should be acceptable to the Roman Catholic Church as a variant of the rhythm method. He was confident that the Vatican would eventually accept his argument that the Pill was a “natural” form of birth control and allow Catholic women to use it for contraception.
The Pope’s Encyclical
Pope Paul VI It was not to be. On the morning of July 25, 1968, the Vatican called a press conference to announce its decision on the Pill. In the papal encyclical entitled Humanae Vitae (“Of Human Life”), Pope Paul VI ended the speculation over oral contraceptives and birth control once and for all. He reaffirmed the Church’s traditional teachings and classified the Pill as an artificial method of birth control. To go on the Pill or use any other contraceptive device would constitute nothing less than a mortal sin.
Singling Out the Pill
In addition to condemning abortion and sterilization, the Pope singled out the Pill for its role in separating the act of sex from procreation. The Pill, Humanae Vitae declared, “opened up a wide and easy road… toward conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality. Man, growing used to contraceptive practices, may lose respect for the woman and come to the point of considering her as a mere instrument of selfish enjoyment, and no longer as his respected and beloved companion.”
Disappointment Among Catholics
John Rock had lobbied long and hard in favor of the Pill, and Humanae Vitae was a bitter disappointment. “The hierarchy has made another terrible mistake,” was all he could say publicly on the subject. Rock was not alone in his reaction. In the United States there was an immediate groundswell of resistance. At Catholic University in Washington, D.C., two thousand demonstrators, many of them priests and nuns, gathered to voice their dissent. A number of priests even resigned in response to the Vatican’s decision.
Ignoring the Vatican
Within just two years of Humanae Vitae, almost as many Catholic women used the Pill as non-Catholics. By 1970, two-thirds of all Catholic women and three-quarters of those under 30 were using the Pill and other birth control methods banned by the Church. In 2002, Humanae Vitae still defined the Church’s position on birth control, and many observers of the Church believed that it contributed to the erosion of the Vatican’s authority during the last decades of the twentieth century"
So he not only lost a lot of priests and nuns, but from that time on, a lot of Catholics no longer regarded the Vatican with the same regard as previously.
From “Saints and Sinners … A History of the Popes” by Eamon Duffy - "To his horror, instead of closing the question, Humanae Vitae provoked a storm of protest of protest, and many priests resigned or were forced out of their posts for their opposition to the pope’s teaching.
Paul never doubted that he had done what had to be done, but his confidence was shattered. He never wrote another encyclical, and the last ten years of his pontificate were marked by deepening gloom, as he agonised over the divisions within the church and his own unpopularity. **the mass exodus of priests and religious, **and the growing violence of the secular world…"
I think he made a big mistake, but the trouble with the church is that it’s trapped by it’s own propaganda about being “infallible” and now cannot rescind it.
That’s why I haven’t got much time for this "infallibility’ bit.
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