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Post by Tim Collins on Mar 25, 2009 14:53:09 GMT -7
Now if your belief was a private one, you would have to ask yourself...why participate in something I don't beleive in? If you don't beleive that Jesus is the Son of God, if you don't beleive the basics of the faith...(not the religous/political)...then why participate? Now, if you are NOT SURE of Jesus being the Son of God...that is a different matter altogether... That my friend is the heart of my question. Why do people claim to belong to any organization with stated beliefs and requirements and yet find the requirements optional. We have wandered into discussing Catholicism, I introduced it only because it is the faith I know best, but my main point was If you do not accept the requirements (beliefs, rituals, restrictions etc) of a group - are you not better off leaving that group?
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rosa
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Post by rosa on Mar 25, 2009 15:26:22 GMT -7
isn't it natural for people of faith to find enough common ground, such that they want to unite under a banner?
not every person will see every aspect of doctrine or scripture in the same light. I just read an article which referenced the bible as a living book, i.e. it's living because it can still speak to us (I question some of that, given said article's repeated references to Levit, but that's for another time)
that article was an excellent illustration of this whole discussion, though the central topic addressed something entirely different
different people can have different ways of comprehending the same "rules"
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Post by rosa on Mar 25, 2009 15:26:47 GMT -7
oh, and Hi, Badly
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Post by rosa on Mar 25, 2009 15:35:10 GMT -7
Yep...the thing about the Church is that one of the things we are called to do is question...so in questioning, are you really 100% in agreement? Also, I think the way the questioning is brought up...us Americans, even those who call themselves "liberal"...have a healthy lack of humility...meaning that it's our way or the highway. I bring our liberal freinds up because the only difference is their target of attack, not their methods...they can be as strident as the most extreme conservative. Basically, if the Church does not agree with us, then our attitude is that we can't belong... that's not true...when you were a member of your family, did you always agree with your parents? And if you didn't, when did you emancipate yourself? In much the same way, Catholics consider themselves a family, even regarding those who are "lapsed" as still part of the family. Even regarding Protestants as "seperated brethern"...family...not the perfect family, but family... If you want an interesting read...take a look at the Q'uran...and see the words about Mary, her "specialness" to God, Jesus, and "the people of the Book"... "if our church does not agree with us, then we can't belong" what if one cannot "agree" because it doesn't "fit"? It's not about "agreement" so much as it just doesn't make sense? Either it's illogical, imprudent or it just doesn't fit? I don't think it's at all lacking in humility to question or disagree with the hard right's position...whether it comes from Catholicism or elsewhere...on issues such as birth control, for example for some of us, it's not about the "attack" as much as it is about describing life and faith in terms of a different reality
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Post by rosa on Mar 25, 2009 17:11:03 GMT -7
the following kind of illustrates my point-not asking anyone to agree with me, just pointing to what makes sense to me. This is from the LA Times, Opinion section
BLOWBACK Why a liberal Catholic is embarrassed Pray for better style and substance from the Roman Church. By Robert E. Doud November 15, 2007
In his recent L.A. Times article, "None So Blind," Jason Berry describes Chicago's Cardinal Francis George, who is about to assume leadership of the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, as arrogant and callous. But George's character and attitudes are not unusual in the current church hierarchy. A short time ago, some Catholics were embarrassed to have Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger become Pope Benedict XVI. Throughout his long career as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith *, Ratzinger suppressed thought, opinion and open discussion.
My own Catholic values are clustered around the open window of aggiornamento and around the style of Pope John XXIII, who convened the Second Vatican Council. In my view, style communicates substance, and substance is the foundation of style. Jesus had a certain style of living, loving and thinking. Despite the learned and sincere obfuscations of many popes, prophets, saints and theologians over the centuries, the style of Jesus comes through the New Testament Scriptures beautifully. To me, there is an obvious connection between the open style of good Pope John and the documents of Vatican II, and the style of Jesus and the New Testament; all the other documents and decretals of Catholicism and Christianity must be read with a view to the horizon of Pope John XXIII and Vatican II.
Enter Pope John Paul II, who became pontiff 13 years after the Second Vatican Council had closed. Immediate chagrin, abiding embarrassment — these describe my somewhat learned, basically but not totally liberal and abidingly loyal Catholic response. For me and others like me, Pope Benedict XVI puts the seal of relativity upon Catholicism. To my mind, the Vatican is less credible, not more credible, when it condemns theologians. Bad style relativizes good substance. The same Holy Spirit that guided Jesus guides all Christians, the Christian churches and the Catholic Church preeminently. The rock star style of Pope John Paul II never impressed me. He wrote voluminously and even brilliantly at times, but he was a dictatorial pope who refused to allow competing ideas in the Catholic Church during his reign. Intellectually, his was a reign of terror for thinking Catholics. Great Catholic thinkers living and dead — Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Kung, Charles Curran, Edward Schillebeeckx, Leonardo Boff, Anthony de Mello, Roger Haight, Thomas Reese — were censured in one way or another. Cardinal Ratzinger was the enforcer.
So I spent the entire reign of John Paul in a state of religious embarrassment. I was embarrassed to be a Catholic long before the news of the pedophilia scandals began to break. I was not embarrassed about the Vatican's probing and judging the ideas of the Catholic thinkers and theologians but about the way the Vatican carries on its necessary work. The Vatican's probing, questioning and testing of theological work are important and necessary. But even before that, the theologians must probe and ponder the Gospels and other writing for ever deeper meanings and ever broader applications. The style of the Vatican's response need not be anathemas and condemnation.
There are various ways and degrees of censure that are used by the Vatican in reviewing theological work. When a theological work is published, official Vatican theologians or the Holy Office should offer a preface or appendix that criticizes the work from an official point of view. Catholics should be regarded as intelligent enough to compare the work and its criticism and to make their own conclusions. Teachers of theology in the colleges could then refer to the Vatican response as well as to the new ideas, as they are found under the same cover. It is a question of style that very soon becomes a question of substance. The church's guidance will be more accessible, more effective and more respected. It will at last show charity and respect toward theologians and other thinkers.
A few years back, the distinguished but censured theologian Charles Curran came as a visiting professor to the University of Southern California. I was very proud as Cardinal Roger Mahony debated Father Curran in an open format of mutual respect. I realized then that I could have a cardinal for a hero and could applaud one of my theological heroes, both at the same time. The heroism of both men that day was demonstrated in the respect that they showed for one another. Their common ground and style was one that communicated respect for truth in the Catholic tradition, the communication of truth and the development of truth.[/b] I am Catholic because I believe we need the teaching authority of the church, but I am embarrassed by the lack of Christian style in the way the Vatican treats our theologians.
This type of open exchange stands in marked contrast to the Vatican's treatment of our theologians. It must be possible for a Catholic to oppose abortion on the grounds of the church's moral teaching and still be in favor of choice in the public sector. A public official who happens to be Catholic represents many people, not only Catholics. Each of those constituents has a conscience, and many do not hold that abortion is the taking of a full human life. A Catholic public official must support the liberty of conscience of each constituent, even above his or her personal moral convictions. In the opinion of many, the question of abortion is so intimate to the woman involved that her conscience must be the ultimate court of appeal in the matter. Her conscience may not be properly informed, or may even be malicious, but it is a matter of her conscience in the final appeal. To deny a woman access to proper medical care as a matter of public policy runs counter to the spirit of democracy, as well as the traditional Catholic view on the freedom of conscience.
Yet Benedict XVI would make private conscience a matter of public censure, to the point of suggesting that Catholic politicians be denied Holy Communion. The church should not behave as a pressure group or political lobby. Nor should our political life become the means for imposing our views on others. Neither should we start rehearsing the rhetoric of punishment, penalties and excommunication for Catholics who hold different opinions on these matters. Separation of church and state is a political and a moral principle for each American, and each of us should deepen that conviction in our own hearts.
The bishops have done their job when they articulate the church's moral teaching on abortion and urge us to vote accordingly. They go too far if they try to eliminate the pro-choice option from the conscience of every Catholic public official. The Catholic Church does not require that its moral teaching be imposed on others without regard for individual conscience. It's embarrassing when our church leaders or vocal Catholic groups disrespect this American principle.
There is no mechanism in Catholic theology by which dogma and moral teaching can be revised or brought up to date. There is no mechanism in our church by which truth may be spoken to power. We love so much about our church, but our church is also human, fallible and sinful. Catholicism has never found a way of acknowledging its own faults. To all non-Catholics, I apologize for my church. Please pray for us Catholics that we can get through a period of very poor leadership, and indeed make revisions and reforms that were anticipated in the Second Vatican Council.
Robert E. Doud is a retired professor of philosophy and religious studies at Pasadena City College. He has also been a member of the Catholic Theology Society of America for more than 30 years.
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Post by rosa on Mar 25, 2009 18:33:24 GMT -7
I feel the need to clarify something....as a "recovering" Catholic, I have to remind you all that I can only speak to what I know, and to what is true for me.
I enjoy lively debate and dialogue, but I'm not here to "represent" for anyone but myself, and I hope that I don't offend anyone. You all are great teachers and I hope that we can continue to discuss and examine our differences as well as our commonalities in good spirit.
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Post by Tim Collins on Mar 25, 2009 18:34:54 GMT -7
Rosa If you are a "recovering" catholic you are one or more up on me - I am a forever lost catholic and barely Christian any longer
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Post by rosa on Mar 25, 2009 18:40:18 GMT -7
to be honest, there are good and bad days...perhaps "recovering" is a bad word choice, as I was being a little silly
usually, I won't even presume to call myself a Christian; I didn't "lose" the Catholic, I left it
while some might see my choice as having come from hubris, I feel it was the right thing to do because I wanted to keep what remained of my faith in the God I have come to know
the Catholic church provided a foundation for me, but the manners in which its "truths" are held, taught--often didn't make sense to me
had this discussion with my father today-he worries, and as though to soothe his concern, feels that my "Christian values" are enough for me to hold to--"for now", he says
he disagrees with a good deal of what comes from Rome and right wing theology, but his perspective is starkly different, and I respect it: "They will not force me out of my church!"
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Post by badlygiven on Mar 25, 2009 19:49:56 GMT -7
It is interesting that my reason for leaving over 20 years ago was a priest telling me from the pulpit that I was a "bad Catholic" if I did not support EPISO or the IAF...those left wing clergy!
But I realized tha the Church was much more than that priest, much more than any single man, save for one...Jesus Christ...
The Pope, like all the others will die at some point....and then we will get somone else...
I am going to remain a Catholic because I can't give up the Church that I love to extremists from either side...
Remember snill...that the example that you should follow is Jesus in the way you discern Him in the silence of your heart. Not someone else'sdescription of Him, or someone else's rules on who He is...you will know the true Jesus, because you will recognize the Holy Spirit whispering in your heart...
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Post by rosa on Mar 26, 2009 5:34:53 GMT -7
my self-grown theory on EPISO was that they were just as twisted as the guys on the other end, and that because of that, they ought to get along better here's a question, asked in context with snil's original premise: what happens when the Christianity you were born into/belong to/converted to doesn't make sense? when it isn't an issue of "disobedience" but more a sense of alienation? What you have been taught and are asked--no, required--to accept doesn't make sense in your heart? Badly says the Church is much more than the priest, and actually I can see that and not simply from the Catholic end of things---Jesus' word is much more than what priests, preachers, pastors, monks, nuns....Buddhist monks too....it's much more than what they all speak to the universality of "catholic"? I can see it, and not coming solely from the Catholic church
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Post by badlygiven on Mar 26, 2009 8:36:34 GMT -7
btw...que paso rosa!
Really...does it all ever make sense? Faith, religion, the tenets of the faith...all at times confusing, and then we get so many perspectives that at times we go..."what?"
Look at Mother Teresa...heck if she was unsure, who am I to go..."it's this way or the highway!"
But there, in the difficulty of the of maintaining yourself sane and right...you get to experience faith...a faith that God, in His infinite wisdome, doesn't forget us...no matter el padresito, da bish, or Il Papa...that Our Lord considers us his children no matter what "hat" we wear...
DO we wish that the Church payed more attention to some of what we believe? Oh, heck yes! I wish that we had had a great youth group much earlier than my junior year of high school...I wish that the stupid chaplain in San Diego had found a better way to express himself than to tell me "you are a sinner!" when I told him I wanted to marry the woman I was living with...I wish that priest hadn't been so damned left wing...I wish that the danged woman who complained about my beautiful Nstr. Sra. de Guadalupe stole not being apporpriate for a Marian celebration wasn't so damned right wing...so many things that tick me off!!!!....and yet...
there is the wonderful carpenter from Nazareth...telling me I should love God with all my heart, mind and soul, and I should love my neighbor as He has loved me...
I get to take Him into myself at the celebration, the sacrifice of the Mass, take Him into me, where I am Him and He is me, and go out and do His will...as best as my human frailty lets me...
I get to honor His mother...I get to ask her to pray for me, because I know that any son would listen to His mom...I get to speak with my older brother Francis, who never met a being, plant, animal or mineral that he didn't like...I get to visit my cranky brother Jerome...who loved language, and the ability to help others understand the words of Scripture...I get to visit my sister Diane, all of 4 when she died, but alive in Jesus and His promise of ressurection...I get to pray for our departed brothers and sisters, because my Catholic faith lets me, knowing that they have eternal life, no matter the state of their physical bodies...they get to pray for me, in that great community...and I know that, in faith...I am home...everything else, all the arguments...are pendejadas...
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Post by rosa on Mar 26, 2009 9:58:33 GMT -7
que paso con que?
I hate people who make me think! Here it is: it's not just about harboring grievances or disagreements, and I guess I didn't make that clear enough, so I'll try it another way
we are taught as Christians to love one another as we love Christ.....when we seek to express this as we teach one another, what forms should this take?
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Post by badlygiven on Mar 26, 2009 10:11:01 GMT -7
I meant "que paso" as more "what's happening!"
As to ways to express yourself in the light and love of Christ...be yourself...there are going to be people that test your patience, just as there were people to test Christ's (the Pharisees and Saducees, the Sanhedrin, the money changers in the temple)...you don't have to kiss their butts, per se, but remember, that though they can rub you the wrong way, they are as much children of God as you are...but always remember that you aren't their doormat either...
Give till it hurts...okay, if your parish and diocese are doing a good job of helping the less fortunate, give...that pobrecito in the street corner, begging for money...dale...if he misspends it, it's not your fault...you treated him or her as Jesus would have treated them...
Help with the youth programs...they are the future of the Church and the church...be a catechist, a youth minister, heck, over here, we have a core group of ladies that cook for our high school RE every Wednesday...something...
Always keep in mind the woman with the 2 coins....she gave so much more of herself than the loudmouth with a lot of money did...be a lector, serve the people of God...
there are so many more...keep in mind that Jesus was not a hermit...that he lived among His children.
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Post by rosa on Mar 27, 2009 3:48:40 GMT -7
all of these things can be done, are done in other kinds of communities, right? Secular, non-denominational Chrisitan, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, etc....in and out of religion itself?
with respect to being a youth "minister", there are any number of ways to become actively involved in guiding youth, young adults........counseling, mentor programs, school-related programs, sports programs, etc.
these types of activities follow Christ's example in one form or even more in some cases......most group related activities are bound together by codes of conduct, rules....even those that are secular in nature have "doctrines" that are followed by members
am I kind of on the same page here?
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Post by badlygiven on Mar 27, 2009 8:05:48 GMT -7
pretty much...I think many of us follow the same "map" of caring if you will...and there are many that are truly "Christian" without having known about Christ...
What however, makes being "Catholic" special? I guess, to me, it's that, though it takes a long time for the discernment to happen...we learn from our mistakes. Pope JP II apologized for the Inquisition, and, through Vatican II, there have been a lot of chages from the "old" way of doing things. Does that mean that we have gotten there, and are now perfect? Nope...there is still a lot of discernment left to be able to understand God and His will and plan for us. I guess I like being Catholic, because I can go anywhere, sit in the pew, and know what is going on, that the Mass is constant in it's movements and it's intent, no matter the words or language spoken, and no matter what is inside the heart of the celebrant, or the parishoners.
Seriously, if there is anything Catholics need to do, is that we need to work with the youth that have graduated from high school...
It's like, baptize, give 1st Communion, confirm, fall off the face of the earth, come back to the Church, marry (or get ordained), baptize your new one, recieve extreme unction...and all along the way, practice the sacrament of reconciliaiton...
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