St Francis (by the way, if everything you hear about him is true, he was a great guy),
Was?..
And I haven’t heard anything about him, so I don’t know. I can see now that the difficulties we had were due more to differing expectations and use of language.
I was glad to read your last post. I had decided to give up on this thread, because it seemed that it had gotten to the point of pure argumentation. But, now I am not sure about.
I don’t want to quote anything specific, but I am looking for a confirmation of your origin of thought, so can you tell me if this is what you are saying:
- Your reasoning is more than just “The Church says so.” Your own personal reasoning is more like, “I can follow the logic of the Church’s reasoning, even if I can’t explain it to you in non-Catholic terms”
- You can follow the Church’s reasoning, and it makes sense to you, because as a Catholic, you have the same world view as the Church does, in terms of respect between spouses, the need for self-control, and the general idea that it is not safe to blindly modify what God has made.
I would agree with the first statement, yes. The second one would include *more *than what you have written, but would also include what you have written, so generally, yes.
- Your general thought is that (for the most part) people who use ABC or defend the use of ABC do so because they resist the idea of self-control. That is, they simply want to feel good (now!!!), and that idea is foreign to Catholic thought.
I would not *exactly *agree with this statement. All too many people in this society just see the use of abc as the normal and responsible thing to do, and I accept that they are sincere in thinking that way, while acknowledging that it comes from a differing view of the world.
- Those who think that way, and then demand non-moral logic in the argument, are beginning from (that’s their bias) a secular point of view. Of course, they can’t understand how the Church thinks, and they can’t understand how a Catholic thinks.
I myself would not have brought up the idea of bias, because 1. it is a somewhat loaded term (at the same time, I do not fault PT for bringing it up–it’s not *that *loaded), and 2. it’s a relative term–it tends to apply to deviation from some particular way of thinking.
If all that is correct, I respect your points. It is not fair for anyone to try to take any of that away from you.
Then, there is one more point, which I don’t understand, and I maybe need another thread for it (however, it is so emotional I am not sure we would get very far). And, I am thinking about the idea that secular thought is “anti-Catholic.” Now, this is my question about that, and it is a deep question, one that requires self-examination.
The question is: What does “anti-Catholic” mean? As a way of explanation, I was raised in a Catholic family, and in a parochial elem school. I remember very well being left with the impression that every thing in our culture that goes against Catholic teaching was “anti-Catholic” by which was meant “intentionally put there to hinder, bother, disturb, or destroy the Church.” Please note the word ‘intentionally.’ I have come the point in life where I honestly feel that the culture doesn’t care what the Church thinks, doesn’t make determinations based on what will happen to the Church. That goes for faith in general as well. The culture doesn’t seem to care what any person of faith thinks. I believe that the culture does not ‘intentionally’ do anything to bother people of faith. Rather, I have come to the conclusion that the culture is simply people following the base instincts of human nature.
I can totally see what you are saying here. For *me, *I do not call some events or actions anti-Catholic because I agree with you that most things which happen which go against Catholic teaching are not done with the specific idea of going against the Church.
However, there is a lot of nuance to the term, so it can be very tricky. For example, because Catholics see the Church as the Body of Christ, and Catholic teaching as those very true Truths which God has revealed to us, the term is sometimes used more broadly than non-Catholics would use it. Another meaning is “contrary to Catholic thinking,” and this would not necessarily imply that the proposer of an idea contrary to Catholic thinking is himself either anti-Catholic or being anti-Catholic.
However, Catholics have a long history and memory as well, and they most certainly understand that there have been points when ideas or actions were proposed specifically to go against the Catholic Church. I do not go along with the ideas that some Catholics have about certain conspiracy theories (altho I do admit that there might be something to the whole Masonic thing but I have not seen sufficient evidence to come anywhere close to believing it). I think that, like Protestantism, there are those who have been raised with certain ideas and do not consider the Church as the original proponents of the ideas did.
So, again,
Does ‘anti-Catholic’ mean ‘intentionally set up to hinder the Church and its people.’
Or, does it mean ‘not intentionally, but along the way in opposition to the Church and its people, because faithful people are trying to walk a different way?’
Thank you for considering this.
And, thank you for this morning’s (name removed by moderator)ut into the thread.
I hope what I have written helps, and if you want to discuss it further, I would be happy to cooperate in starting a new thread, since this *is *a much different topic
What we could do would be to hit edit on our own posts and paste into the New Thread text (or reply) box(es), as needed.
