Why Accept Joseph Smith?

[RebeccaJ]

My friends in Communion and Liberation wrote something that has calmed my sadness, irritation and anger, somewhat. I’m still very short on patience, more like, I would like to throw something. A lot of somethings.

"Clearly there is a wound, a very serious one, one of the kind that provoked Christ (and his vicars, too) to use fiery words (‘Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.’).

"There is filth in the Church. Joseph Ratzinger himself said so during the Way of the Cross at the Coliseum five years ago, shortly before being elected Pope and, realistically, he has never stopped recalling the fact since. Sin is there, grave sin. Evil is there, along with the abyss of pain that evil carries with it, and everything possible has to be done, and with firmness, to stem the evil and to make amends for that pain. The Pope is already doing this, and his letter reiterates it strongly when it asks the guilty to ‘answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals.’

"This is precisely why the true heart of the question, the forgotten focus, lies elsewhere. Alongside all the limitations and within the Church’s wounded humanity, is there or is there not something greater than sin, something radically greater than sin? Is there something that can shatter the inexorable weight of our evil? Something that, as the Pope writes, ‘has the power to forgive even the greatest of sins, and to bring forth good even from the most terrible evil’?

"‘This is the point: God was moved by our nothingness,’ Fr. Giussani said in the phrase quoted on the CL Easter Poster. ‘Not only that. God was moved by our betrayal, by our crude, forgetful, and treacherous poverty, by our pettiness… It’s compassion, pity, passion. He had pity on me.’ This is what the Church brings to the world, and certainly not because of its members’ merit, goodness, or even less because of their coherence: God’s compassion for our pettiness, something greater than our limitations, the only thing infinitely greater than our limitations. If we don’t start from here, we cannot understand at all; everything goes mad, literally.

"We, too, have had moments when we have dodged that compassion, and run away from it. At times, it is in the Church itself that faith is reduced to ethics and morality is reduced to an impossible lonely recourse to laws, as if the need of that embrace were something to be ashamed of. But if we forget Christ, if we do away with the wholly different measure that He introduces into the world now, through the Church, then we no longer have the terms on which to judge the Church.

"Then it becomes easy to mistake attention for the victims and regard for their history for a conniving silence, and prudence toward the guilty parties, true or presumed – perhaps accused on the basis of rumors emerging after decades – for the will to ‘cover up’ (sadly it has sometimes been the case). Then it is almost inevitable to keep arguing about celibacy without even touching on the real value of virginity. And it becomes impossible to understand why the Church can be hard and motherly at the same time with the priests who go wrong. It can punish them severely and ask them to serve their sentence and make amends for the evil (it has already done so in the past, and will always do so), but without snapping, if possible, that thread that binds them, because it is the only thing that can redeem them. It can ask its children to ‘be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect,’ not so as to demand of them an impossible irreprehensibilty, but so as to remind them of a tension to live the same mercy with which God embraces us (‘be merciful as your heavenly father is merciful’).

"This is why the Church can educate, which, in the end, is the real question being challenged by those who are accusing it (‘See, even the priests do wrong, and badly wrong. How can we trust our children?’) as if the Church’s being teacher all depended on the behavior of her children, and not on Christ, on that presence which – amidst all the errors and horrors committed –makes possible in the world an embrace like that of Chagall’s Prodigal Son which appears on the Easter Poster. There, alongside Fr.Giussani’s phrase, there is another, by Benedict XVI: ‘Conversion to Christ ultimately means this: to exit the illusion of self-sufficiency in order to discover and accept one’s own need– the need of His forgiveness and His friendship.’

“This is the embrace of Christ, in our wounded and needy humanity, far greater than the evil we can do. If the Church, with all its limitations, had not this to offer to the world, even to the victims of those barbarities, then we would be lost. Because the evil would still be there, but it would be impossible to overcome it.”

 

[lax16]

You hit the problem on the head when it comes to bickering.

For some catholics on these mormon threads, they just can’t seem to leave their hatred at the door. It colors their posts. It then becomes a place for bickering.

Your friend chose the lds faith because it it their place at this morment in their lives. She finds comfort in mormonism. It is not a bad religion and it can be a place where one can live a good life with a foundation in christian lifestyle. But if you listen to some of the catholic posters on the mormon threads, she is now a member of satan’s elect.

No mormon will take lightly attacks on Joseph Smith that are inflaming. Now, if catholic posters will tone down the rhetoric and hatred for everything mormon, a good discussion can take place.

Questions about Joseph Smith are not attacks. I have asked several direct questions and was told I had problems with all kinds of “stuff.” (rather inflaming and insulting if you ask me)

You say that you feel some posters are on the attack. But some of us just have questions. Even if you feel attacked by some, I don’t think that should prevent you from answering the questions asked by others. DO YOU?

We can talk about this all day. Frankly I think it’s time to get back to our discussion.

btw - claiming that some Catholics would say that “she is a member of satan’s elect” may not be the way to start a good discussion and may be considered by some as inflammatory, unless of course, you are quoting someone.

 

[dianaiad]

sprinkle sprinkle sprinkle little fairy.

I can say whatever I like to why me. Oh thou miss freedom of speech hypocrite.

Yes, you can.

And I can take my own advice regarding your posts, as well.

diana

 

[AtticusFinch]

Yes, you can.

And I can take my own advice regarding your posts, as well.

diana

After that, I believe Diana has no room anymore to complain about Catholic posters…

 

[why_me]

The problem is, so many of you are are rude. And whenever someone says anything about Joe, you go into a frenzy and claim it HAS to be hatred. How can anyone talk about JS in a negative light unless there is hatred? I have sensed no hatred on this board from Catholics. There are just a few of us who will continue to post the truth when y’all post the whitewashed version of him and the LDS Church.

Yes, you are absolutely right. The mormons have been so rude to the catholics on this board. In every post they have mocked the pope, mocked the catholic faith, mocked the history of the catholic church. Yep, you are so right. And the catholics such as yourself have been so polite.

The hatred that I speak of is not something that is negative about Joseph Smith but the tone of the posts. The tone is hate. I think that it is perfectly okay to debate and discuss Joseph Smith. However, the hateful posts toward the mormons should stop. We should watch our use of words.

 

[why_me]

why me, you are past comatose. Your relativism is past being a drug but has become your religion.

Please don’t ever speak to me again. As I am done speaking to you.

I have no relativism in my posts. I just defend the lds faith when it needs defending. Nothing more.

 

[why_me]

From my years of sharing on these boards, I would be hard pressed to think of another poster that causes me to enter “mind-bending” mode as much as he does.

I, for one, always seem to look forward to his contributions in a bizarre kind of way.

Peace,
Ceeboo

I kinda like you also in a bizarre kinda way too. I am interested in the direction that you will take toward the lds church now that you are hanging out in shady acres.

 

[lax16]

Yes, you are absolutely right. The mormons have been so rude to the catholics on this board. In every post they have mocked the pope, mocked the catholic faith, mocked the history of the catholic church. Yep, you are so right. And the catholics such as yourself have been so polite.

The hatred that I speak of is not something that is negative about Joseph Smith but the tone of the posts. The tone is hate. I think that it is perfectly okay to debate and discuss Joseph Smith. However, the hateful posts toward the mormons should stop. We should watch our use of words.

Okay whyme, I agree.
Can we move on now and get back to the discussions?

 

[AtticusFinch]

I have no relativism in my posts. I just defend the lds faith when it needs defending. Nothing more.

Actually, you do not defend, you whitewash. That is relativism

 

[AtticusFinch]

Yes, you are absolutely right.

I know

The mormons have been so rude to the catholics on this board. In every post they have mocked the pope,

No need to. We do not whitewash the Pope’s background. When we start doing that, feel free to correct us like we do you about JS

mocked the catholic faith

Maybe not you personally, but most of us are aware that McKonkie called the Catholic Church the Great and Abominable Church and that a Catholic Priest was used to represent an agent of the devil in the old temple ceremonies.

, mocked the history of the catholic church

Once we start whitwashing Catholic Church History and cry that we are victims every 5 minutes, feel free to correct us.

.

That explains why you can;t read very well, your eyes are rolling

Yep, you are so right.

I know

And the catholics such as yourself have been so polite.

I forgot, coreecting your errors is, to the perpetual victim, a sign of hatred.



Darn, that pesky eye problem again that prevents you from seeing the truth…

The hatred that I speak of is not something that is negative about Joseph Smith but the tone of the posts.

Correcting your errors is never fun.

The tone is hate.

To the perpetual victim, you might be right. To honest people, you are incorrect

I think that it is perfectly okay to debate and discuss Joseph Smith.

I agree

However, the hateful posts toward the mormons should stop.

There is no hate, so nothing to stop. However, what SHOULD stop is your whitewashed version of the truth. If you would be honest about the past, and embrace it, there wold be less debate.

If I were LDS, I would say, “Yes, Joseph has a lot of warts as does BY and early Church history is not pretty, but we believe Joseph, despite all his problems, WAS called by God. BY MAY have had something to do with MMM and taught strange teachings like Adam-God, but so what? If God calkled Joseph, then what BY did does not change that”

As a Catholic, I say," I know early Church history is spotty. True, the way things were done in the early centuries are a lot different than now, but I disagree with the Inquisition, I disagree with the corruption of early Bishops and leaders, and I very much disagree with the sex scandals. But people are not perfect and you can;t find a perfect Church. God created the Church, he knew there would be problems because people are not perfect, but He never gave up on the Children of Israel, even with all their vast mistakes."

Stop whitewashing. Embrace the mistakes. Stop being a victim. IF God called Joseph and started His Church, it does not matter what Joseph did after that, that calling would not change.

 

[Michael_Francis]

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