Here’s an idea.
instead of infilling all sorts of assumptions on your part about a question I ask, how about not assuming any ‘‘deep prejudice’’ and simply take the question for what it is - nothing more than a question.
Here’s an idea:
(1) How about not using context and syntax in such a way as to impugn motives, feelings, and priorities to anonymous parents? (doctrine over understanding & compassion)
(2) How about reading Lochias’ reply, who had the same impression (obviously) of your assumptions that I did?
(3) How about
saying what you mean, if you did not mean to be offensive, which you were in result, if not in intent?
I think that would be a reasonable agreement. You come across as very hostile, even in the part of your reply which I just quoted above.
Granted, it might not have been framed in the best way,
Yeah. No kidding.
I’m simply exploring ideas here and asking questions. Nothing more. And yes I’m coming from a certain perspective, as we all are, but for you to state my questions betray a level of ‘‘deep prejudice’’ is something that I would find truely offensive, except it’s not worth the effort to be offended by it.
If you want answers from people whose beliefs you do not understand, Sarah, then the best way to communicate with them is not by
continuing (here) to be hostile, such as:
My posting history gives the lie to your accusations.
Nowhere in what I asked did it imply love replaced doctrine.
You more than implied it, by the nature of your hypothetical parental decisions/statements.
But my understanding was if you simply do not believe an infallably declared article of faith then you can not be a Catholic.
Again, first of all:
~we’re discussing the formation of children, and the formation of neophytes. No sane person of any background would expect sophisticated understanding from a child’s brain. (I can tell you are also definitely not in my field, which is education, or at least I pray you are not.) The cognition of a 7 year old and a 12 year old is not what it is in an adult. Do you seriously think that Catholic parents and Catholic priests do not understand this basic fact of human devleopment? What strikes me in the very nature of your questions is that you consider Catholicism to be a cult, such as the “programming” cults which especially grew up in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. (That also is offensive.)
~second, “being a Catholic” nominally, means being a member of a faith community, ***all striving together ***to believe and practice all the various tenets of their religion.
I understand a person might struggle with such a belief, might struggle with how it came about and so on, but they can still accept it while not fully understanding it.
Yes. They do their best not to engage deliberate opposition to the belief, interiorly and exteriorly, but they may harbor many doubts, as children, as young adults, as old adults. That includes priests and professed men and women. Pope Benedict may have doubts. Why don’t you ask him?
And even many believers who thoroughly (they say) assent to all the beliefs, most often do not fully understand all of them. Catholicism asserts rather plainly that the faith is composed mainly of Mystery. Certainly the difficulty of the human brain to conceive of how we know & describe God, how God acts in our lives, etc. The very differences in the two realms of humanity and divinity make that obvious.
To reject it, as I understand but correct me if I’m wrong, to reject an article of the faith, means you can not call yourself a Catholic, because you’re not.
Well, to harbor and nourish a stubborn resistance to a major article of faith (such as, the divinity of Jesus) would set one in opposition to the Church and make faithful life in the Church difficult. It would not de-Catholicize someone in itself. It could make one an apostate or heretic, depending on the doctrine/dogma involved and the level of opposition to that. The term would be “not in communion with Rome” or “with the magisterium.”
However, one is still technically Catholic by identity unless one declares oneself no longer so and informs the bishop through formal letter, cancels parish registration, etc. Often that also is simultaneous with open embrace of a contrary faith tradition.
It is better to differentiate an authentically Catholic position from a non-authentic position, rather than label people as “Catholic” or “not Catholic.” The Church would rather not exclude people from participation in the Church, because that denies them access to conversion and access to understanding.
One can also speak about believing/practicing Catholics vs. those who are believing something substantially (again, substantially) different.
As to further questions about age-appropriateness, those are fair questions. Instruction in sacraments (the ones you asked about) is shaped with pedagogy in mind. Thus, 7-year-olds receiving First Communion are given more concrete kinds of instruction (regarding what we look at and taste, versus what is beyond what we see & taste), instead of intellectually adult terms like ‘substance’ and ‘accidents.’ Analogies are brought into the child’s understanding, such as knowing someone loves us even though we can’t always “touch” or “see” that love with our senses. Etc. Catechists know what they’re doing; They’ve been doing this for -]years/-] -]decades/-] centuries. (Actually the age and full availability of sacraments has changed over time. but that’s a minor point. And that is not a matter of “doctrine” but merely practice.)
At Confirmation, naturally the child can be introduced to more intellectual concepts. (The ability to abstract kicks in in the human brain at approximately age 11, or Grade 6. That’s a quantum leap in the ability of the brain to contain and to compare thoughts.) However, obviously an 11 year old is not an adult, so language and capacity has to be considered. Confirmation is now beginning to be returned to its more appropriate age (11, 12, 13 max), having been pushed inappropriately and unnecessarily to later ages in the last generation.
Regarding leaving sacramental preparation and participation to adulthood:
The younger the person, the more receptive a person is (generally!). That will be, however, easily misunderstood as (forceful) “indoctrination” or manipulation or control, when really instead it’s about experience.
I present to you the case of Dr. Laura Schlesinger, raised in a secular Jewish household, bereft of her religious roots. She married, became a mother, and determined not to repeat for her son what happened to her. In her enthusiasm she embraced for the first time her Jewish heritage and began to really learn her faith, and practice Orthodox Judaism, along with her son. Son became Bar Mitvah’ed (actually in Israel, by his choice, which some Jewish boys do choose to do.) It was finally after the Bar Mitzvah that Laura, despite her pride in her son’s accomplishment, admitted on national TV (crying on the Larry King Show, I believe) that she had no personal relationship with God. To summarize & paraphrase: it was all a head-trip for her. She “knew” God intellectually, but not at all personally. She was unable to pray as her son was able, which broke her heart (and hence the public sobbing of this nevertheless tough woman). She realized, aloud, that it was childhood formation that was the key (in most cases) to faith. There are definitely plenty of documented cases of adult conversions – & many of these have been declared Saints, and many others exist on this discussion forum. But in general the openness of a child to the experience (not “comprehension”) of God cannot compare to that of an adult. Children are receptive to experience. That’s not indoctrination. It’s developmental reality.
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