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One of the disappointing things about the Michael Voris confession was the reaction of some people – one on-line journal (to which I refuse to link) even taking it so far as to talk about an opponent of LGBTI people who was gay himself – as though there were some level of hypocrisy involved. I doubt it would have taken that view had it been about gambling or alcoholism – so why this particular sin? If you see the reaction of some gay people to this, you will get a better understanding. Just about all of us can see why alcoholism or a gambling addiction is bad for you – but even to seem to put sexual preference in the same bracket – especially for those who feel it is not a ‘preference’ but the way they are born – as something so obviously harmful as alcoholism – can seem offensive. You get something of this is the common counter-argument, which is “if I am doing this with another consenting adult whom I love and who loves me, and am harming no one, what is wrong with that?” To those outside Christianity, Judaism or Islam, the answer to that question is far from clear; and, of course, in some churches and mosques and synagogues there are those who would take the same view, with the Christians explaining away the prohibitions as either culturally conditioned, or as applying to cultic ceremonies. On this issue those who take that view are usually as closed to argument as those who take the traditional view – precisely because our society finds even talking about sin a problem. It is easy enough – and so common – to talk about things which damage your health or which cause harm to others, and to see – and say- why they are bad for people – most of our public health campaigns pivot around this widely shared assumption; but when it comes to our private lives, the modern consensus is that – reality TV stars apart – they are just that – private.
I may be wrong here (I often am) but it seems to me that there is a set of things here which either hang together or which fall apart. So, if one takes the view that sexual activity should be confined to marriage and is for the creation of new life (where possible), then it is easy enough to understand why adultery is wrong and divorce something to be avoided and, if it happens, something which is bound to cause problems if you want to marry again; it equally explains why abortion is wrong. All of those taken together provides a context in which to explain why homosexual activity is contrary to God’s will. So, for Roman Catholics, where the Church takes all of that seriously, at least rhetorically, there is at least a coherent – if unpopular position. But what happens when you play pick and mix?
When I was dating the man whom I married, I don’t recall anyone saying anything about fornication (and most of my friends thought my insistence on not doing it was just odd), neither do I ever remember a sermon mentioning the subject. When he committed adultery, the reaction of my close friends was to be sorry for me, but neither his friends nor our acquaintances thought there was anything too awful in it – yes, he had ‘cheated’ but there was an attitude of ‘it happens’ mixed with some scarcely veiled comments wondering what I had done to provoke him to ‘look elsewhere’. So, from my own experience, there seems to be a gap between what the church teaches and how even Christians react to it. The Anglican Church, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, takes a permissive line on things like contraception and divorcees remarrying, although from my own experience, most of my Roman Catholic friends act as though they were Anglicans.
It is very far from clear to me that the language we use and even the concept of sin is much understood by even many Christians, let alone the wider society. If we are not getting our message across we can blame everyone else and carry on talking to ourselves, or we can rethink how we communicate. Successful companies do the latter, unsuccessful ones blame their (former) customers. The whole language of what one might call theological anthropology seems to me to need to be updated to engage properly with gender studies and medical science in these areas. Are there Christian scholars doing this? It would be interesting to know. My own sense is that if there aren’t, and we don’t find ways of speaking to people that they can understand, and that if we insist they understand things in our way as we currently express them, then the chasm between theory and practice in areas of human sexuality will continue to grow.
NEO said:
Agree with all you say here, dearest friend. ๐ xx
One thing that enters into it, in my view, is that our entire society (including our churches) are far too interested in non-normal sex, almost to, if not past the point of obsession. One never hears much about fornication or even adultery, but let an LGBTI issue arise, and the noise level becomes deafening, both in religious and secular contexts. Why? I can’t say I know, but it’s unseemly at best, to single out a single class, where most others similar things are considered no big deal. I suspect it’s because many are not attracted to these things, so they feel safe in yelling about them. Makes it easy, too easy in fact, to talk about sin, without involving ourselves.
It would also help if we all, on all sides, of all these questions would quit yelling long enough to hear, and have a thoughtful, compassionate conversation.
I remember your divorce very clearly, not least because it was inversely parallel to my own. Your reaction was the same as mine, there was a breach of honor, and trust was seriously broken. Nor for either of us, could it be repaired. I suppose we are unusual in today’s society, but for thousands of years, our beliefs have been held and have worked quite well.
I note your comments about how language is used, and agree heartily, as David M-W is wont to say, what you say is not what counts, it’s what is heard. And our views are not being heard, or understood, because we speak in terms that the average person no longer has any concept of what we mean, and so they simply tune us out, as noise. We need to rethink how we present, our views may well be correct, but if no one understands them, does it matter? In my view, it does not. We could just as well be speaking Greek to much of the populace. In would be a good thing for some Christian scholars to undertake, indeed.
Thanks for a great article, that should lead to much thinking.
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JessicaHof said:
Thank you dearest friend ๐
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NEO said:
๐
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oharaann said:
There is much noise about homosexuality, gender swapping and all LGBT etc issues because those who don’t buy into this ideology are being put out of business and the courts are backing them up.
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NEO said:
There’s truth in that, but perhaps that is partially because they don’t understand what we believe, because we’re so busy yelling, that we don’t explain clearly in words they can understand.
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JessicaHof said:
And the orthodox Christian engagement with this and response to it is what? If we just dismiss it as ‘nonsense’ then we lost before we started. There is a difference between a business refusing to serve some customers and us being able to say what we think – it seems to me that the problem for us is that the quality of our Christian contribution to this discussion fails to get to first base. I am sorry to say that because I think there is a good Christian case to be made – but we are not, alas, for the most part making it.
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oharaann said:
Growing up, as well as having excellent parents, I had the advantage of hearing a Doctor of Divinity teach us each Sunday morning on the truths of our religion and a Holy Hour each Sunday evening where our devotion to Our Lord was deepened.
No man or woman is an island. All sin private or public tears at the fabric of society. It is the ultimate selfishness and totally avoidable if we stop and think about what we are about to do.
When the Self is allowed usurp the place intended and reserved for God alone, one finds what it is like to live with a despot.
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JessicaHof said:
I agree, but to those without the advantages you describe, I diubt this would make sense.
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Steve Brown said:
AIDS is offensive to God. No possibility of new life is offensive to God. But, HE gave us free will. All members of the Catholic Church know this and they either follow Christ, or not.
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JessicaHof said:
But as Neo points out, it is one sexual sin which seems to exercise people. The incidence of AIDS among non bisexual lesbians is lower than any other sector! Perhaps we need different indicators.
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Steve Brown said:
different indicators…how about Sodom & Gomorrah. non bisexual lesbians…that took a PhD to figure out. sin which seems to exercise people…it’s un-natural and very offensive to both man and God.
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JessicaHof said:
Did I miss the lesbians in Sodom and Gomorrah? Since most Christians, let alone non-Christians don’t understand what we mean by ‘natural’, and since modern science shows that some people have same-sex attraction ‘naturally’, such language and thinking does not get us to first base, surely?
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Servus Fidelis said:
All grave sin (even the small venial sins) has a Divine component and a human component to it. That people no longer believe in God is why the world accepts all these changes; and why they have made such ‘good’ arguments that poorly taught Christians have accepted and embraced such arguments rather than the teachings of the Church.
The use and acceptance of the alphabet soup business about genders is proof enough of how society itself is being drawn into this gender identity foolishness. That this is taught to our prepubescent children which has utterly confused them such that many kids getting out of high school these days do not even know what they are is astounding.
As to the other types of sin that are of a sexual variety; if we were Christian we might be a bit more careful in our permissiveness for our children’s actions when they begin dating. At one time we had the real fear of ‘getting pregnant’ and the stigma of child bearing before marriage; contraceptives and abortion has rendered this objection mute as has penicillin and other antibiotics ridded us of the fear of STD’s. AIDS, as Steve has said (as well as a host of bacteria borne diseases) is combatted primarily by new drugs and contraception. Sin on top of sin is why we are so lax in all the sins of the flesh. And the acceptance of allowing our children to be sexualized and confronted with every sexual aberration at a young age is to the point now that it is actually institutionalized. Becoming Victorian prudes once again will never work until people start fighting somewhere; abortion, gay sex, cohabitation, contraception etc. Pick which fight you want to enter. Others will say you say nothing of the others; so be it. We need warriors for every mortal sin that is committed and our Church needs to proclaim Christ to the world in a way that even atheists and agnostics might believe.
It really amounts to the fact, however pessimistic it might sound, that we have as a society grown too smart for our own good. And too dumbed-down about Christ.
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JessicaHof said:
Perhaps they accept these arguments because they are presented in accessible ways; are we sure the Church is even half as effective in making its case? That’s not to say the case isn’t a good one, it is asking questions about how effective we are in making it?
To dismiss new ways of thinking as ‘gender identity nonsense’ is an understandable reaction, but if the Church were to respond thus, it would mean we don’t even enter into a discussion, and just lose most young people of college age because we sound like bigots. I just can’t believe there is no work being done on theological anthropology.
We need to find a language to engage in these discussions, and whilst it is understandable that some might want to ignore these things, I wonder if that’s not part of the problem?
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Servus Fidelis said:
You are right in as much as the Church only has the Gospel message and the world has long ago rejected the message. I don’t think we can come up with a new speak version that will speak in the same language they now use. To do so seems to lose the battle before it is even begun; we give them their premise as a starting point and yet they dismiss ours. That has failure written all over it.
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JessicaHof said:
I can’t agree that for the first time in history Christianity can’t respond to challenges from society. We fiund ways of talking to Greek and Roman philosophers, even using language never used in the Gospels like hypostasis and Trinity; we were able to meet challenges from Islamic philosophy and from Enlightenment thinking; I simply can’t believe we can’t do this again. It would be like telling the Platonists that we were not interested in their nonsense. The Fathers did not reject the challenge – are we unequal to the challenge of our times?
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Servus Fidelis said:
I think to place the hedonistic, institutionalized new paganism in the same class as the Greek and Roman philosophers is a comparison of apples to oranges. Satan’s language (or the new language of evil as good) has not been adequately confronted by the Churches. And having the further specter of individual Christian Churches that accept first this sin and then that one does not make the case easier for the Faith or our fathers. The new evil is to use our own words in new and novel ways to elicit agreement with sin. Many have bought into it and sit next to us every Sunday. I don’t know how with such confusion that there is a relevancy to be had in any argument other than getting to the fundamentals of the faith once again. Negotiating with evil seems like a foolish enterprise and usually ends with incrementalism towards the goals of the world, the flesh and the devil.
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JessicaHof said:
I don’t agree. There were Christians back then who did not want to engage with institutionalised paganism, but we did it. Why can’t we now? We can refuse to engage and lose the battle for souls – as we are, but that sort of pessimism seems foreign to our history as a faith.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Yes we did and they did not have the tools of scientism on their side at the time, nor the philosophers or theologians. Today they are all abundantly in the camp of the neo-pagan world in which we live. No ‘smart’ person in this age would ever believe in God or in abstaining from personal desires of any sort unless it would land them in jail (only the pragmatism of their fear holds them in any kind of civility).
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JessicaHof said:
I’m pretty smart and I believe. But I was brought up a Christian. What is concerning is that so many don’t understand the language we use. Effective evangelisation can’t work if we haven’t the right language. We can’t simply dismiss gender studies as nonsense and expect anyone to take us seriously.
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Servus Fidelis said:
They did 50 years ago and for the 2 millenia before.
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JessicaHof said:
And they did so by adapting their language to new concepts. The Truth has nothing to fear.
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Servus Fidelis said:
When the Truth is steadfastly taught and not mitigated or mutated to fit what others want it to fit.
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JessicaHof said:
That’s working is it? No it isn’t, we both know that. That can only mean we are not putting across the Truth in a way people understand – that is our fault.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Obviously you do not see a corrupted and often confused message being taught by word and deed these past 50 years. That is why the Truth is not understandable. I couldn’t understand it had I not read the faith that was taught prior to the upheavals of the 60’s.
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JessicaHof said:
No, I don’t. I see some people insisting it is so because in their eyes it is. I’m reading my way through the Vatican II documents and finding them just amazing thoughtful and creative and interesting. I simply don’t see this hermeneutic of rupture you seem to think exists. But then that’s me and Pope Benedict only, perhaps? ๐
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Servus Fidelis said:
It was the beginning of a hermeneutic of ambiguity in many senses. Not just the documents, dear Jess . . . look at how they were implemented. Does that look like a hermeneutic of continuity that has been put into place? ๐
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JessicaHof said:
No, I just don’t get this view at all. It seems to me to stem from an overly narrow view of what the Church was and is.
It depends what you think continuity is? I see no rupture of faith and doctrine, I see changes in practice – but when were there not changes in practice? It seems as though some think Trent was definitive on everything for ever.
I am finding the V2 documents a great read and really getting into understanding what they are trying to do – fascinating stuff.
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Servus Fidelis said:
I taught those documents for a few years and knew how to make them rhyme . . . and so I did. But even as I did that there were those who, in the Spirit of VII, taught most of my class a new hermeneutic . . . that of ambiguity.
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JessicaHof said:
And that’s always been the case. If you can find one period in Church history where everyone who did theology has thought exactly the same and there have been no disputes, let me know ๐ xx
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Servus Fidelis said:
Nobody even said that. Show me one time where, as today, each individual was teaching his own version of what the Church teaches . . . then we would be speaking of the Christian communities that exist today. I wish I could give a better report card on what I see but if I did I would be lying to you. ๐ xx
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JessicaHof said:
I could equally ask you to demonstrate where everybody really believed exactly the same thing. I don’t see the chaos you seem to see. I see people believing in the Creed and disagreeing n inessentials. Jesus had nothing at all to say on which litugy he preferred, so why do some Catholics seem obsessed with it?
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Servus Fidelis said:
I have listed the dogmas here before which are about 250 some odd. There are those who believe each of these. In fact, I am one. So its not so odd to believe the same things. The word ‘exactly’ takes into account the speculative that reigns in each individual along with the objective. So, of course, no 2 persons are ever alike.
I told you about the liturgy in another reply.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, but I wonder how many people even know them? St Paul says believe and be saved – we can have the dogma then.
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Servus Fidelis said:
That would make one capable of accepting them, yes. ๐
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JessicaHof said:
Indeed
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Philip Augustine said:
It’s interesting that we talked about Thomas Merton a few weeks ago. I picked up The Seven Storey Mountain from book shelf to peruse the pages. I think he actually gives an example of the most clear idea when discussing the divine commands of God with modernists. Often times they throw up objections like “love is love, etc.” However, as Merton indicates, our response must be clear, concise, and faithful to God, and we should should respond to their objections and reasoning by saying, “Mais c’est impossible,” and leave it at that comment.
Merton indicates that the trouble occurs and the clarity is lost when we engage in debate and arguments, our refusal to engage can do more than our insistence.
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Servus Fidelis said:
I agree. ‘Non possimus’ is a clear retort and similar to what we see in James 5:12
“. . . let your โYesโ be yes and your โNoโ be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.”
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JessicaHof said:
And if we speak in a language no one not already with us can understand, I suspect we fall under the condemnation of the lazy steward. I have huge optimism about our power when the Spirit is with us – and the real division seems not between liberals and conservatives, but between pessimists and optimists ๐ I am most decidedly the latter! I just wish I had the intellect to engage as I’d like.
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Servus Fidelis said:
You have the intellect just fine. It is only that you and I have a different path in mind to fix the problem and a different understanding of what the problem really is. If the indians of Mexico understood the words of the faith then anyone can understand the faith as it was always taught,
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, but that’s my point precisely. We found ways of talking to them in ways they understood, which actually meant translating the Gospel and explaining it in ways they understood. I’ve been reading about the amazing work done by the Jesuits in China in the seventeenth century – what an example of immersing yourself in their culture and then understanding it so well you knew how to get the message across ๐ I wish I could do that – just such amazing men!
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Servus Fidelis said:
Of course they were and those were extraordinary men. But it is now our own ‘former’ Christian culture that doesn’t understand. How can that be? These are the sons and daughters of Christianity that were lost either by commission of some horrid teaching or by omission of the proper teaching. It has to be one or the other.
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JessicaHof said:
Because, and here’s the hard stuff, we failed, we utterly failed. We talked about churchy things among ourselves and got obsessed with it – and in the meantime, having fed the sheep stones, they cleared off to easier pastures.
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Servus Fidelis said:
I’m not sure who talked about churchy things . . . I saw folks talking about worldly things. Some of us did get hot for the faith, there are always some. Many do not and most are cold or walk away.
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JessicaHof said:
I am. Everyone who bangs on about the style of liturgy as though it mattered more than feeding refugees did that, everyone who argued about the true meaning of Vatican 2 when people were starving.
It isn’t those who got cold, it’s those who never bothered because it looked like a bunch of clergymen arguing over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Maybe those who banged on about the new liturgy were worried that the ‘end’ for which the liturgy was created had been hijacked; specifically the propitiatory and expiatory end of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. If that is not central to the faith then our sacraments lose their meaning and the Church becomes a secular humanist enterprise for feeding the poor and for social good. That is why it is important to bang on about this, my friend. G. K. Chesterton once complained of would-be reformers that they โdo not know what they are doing because they do not know what they are undoing.โ
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JessicaHof said:
Which rather supports my point about churchy people banging on about things which aren’t essential to the saving of souls ๐
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Servus Fidelis said:
If the ‘end’ for which the liturgy is aimed is lost then it is essential to the saving of souls. ๐
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JessicaHof said:
Soyls were saved long before there was a liturgy, and long before Trent.
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Servus Fidelis said:
The liturgy in its essence was there from the beginning – both as a propitiatory and expiatory sacrificial offering. That is our tradition and it can be seen somewhat in I Cor. and more so in the Didache.
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JessicaHof said:
I agree, but not that we should argue as though ine were better than the other.
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Servus Fidelis said:
If you thought that the two ends of the Mass were lost in the new Mass would you not even put up an argument or a fight? There is no hermeneutic of continuity between the two Masses since more than 70% of the old was lost and perhaps more if the Priest uses one of the new Canon’s. It is a full makeover and novelty like this was never seen before . . . especially since there were no complaints and no battle royale going on in the Church to change the Mass. Updating would have been fine. A total reconstruction project out of the blue was devastating.
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JessicaHof said:
No, I would accept the verdict of the Magisterium and not the views of a minority obsessed with this subject.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Well when the rock bands moved in my in-laws left . . . and so did a record number of faithful.
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JessicaHof said:
That seems a very poor reason to leave the Church ๐ฆ
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Servus Fidelis said:
After growing up in that Church, marrying in that Church, Baptising and Confirming their children in that Church it was transformed from a Holy Sanctuary to a profane meeting place where God could not be found. If that wouldn’t send you packing then you have no heart as to the devastation this caused to the faithful.
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JessicaHof said:
If Christ was to be found there, I wouldn’t leave.
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Servus Fidelis said:
That’s the point . . . and if Christ was no longer to be found there?
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JessicaHof said:
If it was a Catholic Church with a priest and the Mass how could he not be there?
This is one of the things that worries me – is this an attachment to a version of the church which suits one’s own tastes. If there is a Mass and a priest, Christ is there.
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Servus Fidelis said:
When a solemn sacrifice – one that is an acceptable offering to God and and one that, when properly applied, expiates sin from the sinner – is hidden in a new and novel ‘service’ that is centered around a meal from a ‘table,’ rather than an altar, then the essence of the ‘source and summit’ of our faith has been lost. Holy Communion becomes more about ‘us’ being able to share a meal together than the spiritual realm that unites us to Christ and His eternal Sacrifice. It becomes a human enterprise – separated from the Cross at Calvary – a sharing with one another like any other sharing; like being at the same rock concert as everyone else. This is why we had the largest exodus from our Churches that was ever seen since the reformation. And, in my opinion, why fallen away Catholics are the 2nd largest and 2nd fastest growing group of Christians in the U.S.
That a Mass and a priest is present can very well mean that Christ is there: provided that the rubrics are followed, the priest is intending to do what the Church intends etc. But the fact still remains that the minds and hearts of the faithful are far aways from where they were in the former Mass: a movement from the sacred to the prophane is a sad thing for a Catholic to witness and was unthinkable at the time.
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JessicaHof said:
I can’t see how that works from a Catholic point of view. It is not you, or I, or anyone else who decides what constitutes a valid Mass. If the Church says it is a valid Mass which fulfils your obligation, I don’t understand how complaints about ‘well, it’s not the ay it used to be and I don’t like it’ can mean it isn’t. I can see it means you don’t like it.
Since every other church also saw a fall away during this period, it seems odd that in the RCC it was down to this one cause rather than to the wider societal causes which operated across all Western churches.
It is this sort of attitude which puts s many of us off the version of the RCC you prefer. None of us can find the part in Scripture where Christ insisted on valid rubrics and exactly following all the rules for a ceremony – though we can find plenty of places where it seemed Christ was not that way.
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Servus Fidelis said:
I didn’t say that it wasn’t valid nor did I say that it can be said in a reverential way. What I am saying is that simply fulfilling one’s obligation is not the only reason people were attached to their worship; for 60 or more minutes they were living on a spiritual plane and taken spritually from this world if they were truly attuned to the old Rite. That the stripping down of the rubrics and prayers at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a good part of that profanation has in my experience been a large part of that process. This is not about nostalgia (as the left likes to portray it) it is about the proper worship that is owed to God. That hootenanny ‘services’ appeared in all our churches at the time and pandered to the folk generation who eventually became the drugged out hippie generation is an interesting phenomenon. Yes they thought that they were utilizing the language of the youth to keep them there . . . but they all left because those who might have found a refuge and a retreat from this new age of free love etc. found it hypocritical and quit coming. It would be an interesting study, had anyone actually done it, to find out how many of the youths of the 60’s in the SSPX for instance remained good, Church going Catholics compared with the the new folk Masses that popped up.
Why do you always fall back to some primitive idea of what Christ insisted on concerning rubrics? I find that so silly. As I stated yesterday the basic solemn and spiritual ends of the Mass were there from the beginning. That the Church codified the movements of the Breaking of the Bread into a Liturgical Action with rules for the celebrating priest seems to be a positive movement in the Church. Where do you find Christ no caring about prayer and sacrifice to God? Did Christ not modify the rubrics of the Pasch to give us the basic the formulation for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Did we not grow in reverential awe at this gift of Himself as our Paschal Lamb? Now we act as though the Mass is about us . . . and indeed in most Novus Ordo parishes I have visited that is precisely what we see. It is all I can do to try to use my meditative techniques to turn off all that is happening and concentrate on the Sacrifice of our Lord. That I must do internal violence to myself in order to distract myself from the profanation of the Holy Mass should convey something to my mind about what has changed. I have been to 12 Traditional Masses in my lifetime. It is sad that this is all I could find to date. I remember each and everyone of them with fondness and the feeling that one had when leaving Mass. I could say with Christ on the Cross, “It is finished.” Today I’m lucky if I can say that it even has begun much lest been finished. It is very unsatisfying to leave the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in such a mental state.
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JessicaHof said:
I fall back on it because to so many of us what matters is the person at the centre of the Mass and of our faith – Christ,. And absoluely nothing he said would justify anyone taking themselves off away from his church because they did not approve of the form of worship, or because they were being rabbinical about rubrics. If you don’t develop that personal relationship, and if it isn’t strong enough to get you to church despiate the priest, the form of Mass and the music, then is it Christ you are after or is it the Church – because surely you just made a distinction between the two? Where do you find Christ saying ‘unless all the rubrics are followed don’t come to my church?’
I simply don’t understand why you need a meditative technique or elevated music to think you are fit to meet Christ or in the right frame of mind. All these I happen to like, and actually prefer, but as long as I receive my Lord’s body and blood and renew him in me and him in me as often as I can, that’s really all that matters. Everything else is simply optional and a matter of opinion.
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Servus Fidelis said:
I guess you are never distracted by the hubbub and disrespect in the presence of Christ the King then? Most of the time it is so great that I cannot but notice . . . and at other times (the good days) I can pray meditatively and shut out the distractions. That never happened to me in the older form of Mass. I don’t go to Mass for the meal . . . I go for the Sacrifice and to have it applied to my soul.
I don’t deal with matters of opinion. I deal with the response of my soul to what is supposed to be the most beautiful thing this side of heaven. And if my soul finds it repugnant to see His Lord profaned then I listen.
BTW it was my wife and I that arranged for her parents to visit our now deceased older priest and come back to the Church. But at their old age they tried for awhile to go back to their home parish. It was so horrid they spent the remainder of their lives watching Mass on EWTN on Sundays. How a Mass is said is as important as ‘tone’ is to a conversation. It can be off-putting or it can be engaging.
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JessicaHof said:
I can sympathise – but not to the extent of thinking it’s OK to walk away from a church and from the Mass – unless you’ve a better offer elsewhere, of course.
I have to confess that I really don’t mind as long as I can encounter the Lord at the Mass – everything else matters nothing compared to receiving him – he is my joy and salvation and though I’ve never (thank God) encountered a clown mass, if that was all there was, then I’d go just to be with the Lord Jesus.
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Servus Fidelis said:
You don’t mind particiapating in the scourging of Christ?
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JessicaHof said:
I really don’t see it that way. If the Church says this is a Mass and we receive the Lord, who I am to say it is scourging him – I couldn’t even think that about a priest and my fellow Christians.
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Servus Fidelis said:
But you attend a rather devout celebration do you not? How do you know what my in-laws suffered through and how you may have responded? A clown Mass really? You haven’t the fortitude to confront the priest to his face and tell him that what he is doing is disgraceful to you and to Christ? I would be happy to yell it aloud before making my exit. I guess that is the difference between us. I think we each need to take responsibility for injustices being perpetrated on the Faithful.
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JessicaHof said:
I used to. Where I am now it is quite different, so I have some idea, and my response is that I meet Jesus in the bread and wine, and as for the music and the language, what matters that when I am in his presence – having had a period when I couldn’t get to Mass, it’s like finding an oasis in the desert.
I would think that telling a priest celebrating a valid Mass that he’s a disgrace would be shameful – who am I to call out one consecrated to the Lord as though my view trumps that of the local bishop and priest. Perhaps obedience really means obeying the stuff you like and are comfy with?
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JessicaHof said:
If I don’t respond it’s because I need to go out for a while ๐ xx I appreciate the dialogue hugely ๐ xx
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Servus Fidelis said:
I know. We really can ‘bang’ on, can’t we? I’ve enjoyed it too. ๐ xx
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JessicaHof said:
It’s fun – and I hope everyone else enjoys it as much as we do ๐Xxx
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Servus Fidelis said:
I doubt it really. ๐
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JessicaHof said:
Well, we do ๐๐๐ป
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Servus Fidelis said:
Indeed so, we do. ๐
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JessicaHof said:
๐ xx
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, yes, and yes again. The other thing that causes problems is when we insist on using language we understand they don’t but insist they are the one who must make the effort. When did we get lazy and refuse to make any effort needed to spread the good news?
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Philip Augustine said:
I believe when Merton speaks of the event he was on the receiving end at the age of 14. He was staying with a French Family of simple means. He said some like that their simple answer set a foundational understanding of God grace. All he desired was the argument, but to them there was no need.
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Grandpa Zeke said:
Bosco, I watched the Voris video yesterday, and in it he estimates that half of the priests and bishops are homosexual, not all priests as you have asserted many times on this blog. (Just a little FYI for anyone who might not go to the video and watch it.) I’m sorry to be a stickler for little details like that.
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NEO said:
Neither Jessica nor I are saying our message is wrong. What we are saying is that many people don’t understand what we are saying, the words we use are simply not in their vocabulary, and so the will often dismiss what we say simply as errant, arrogant nonsense.
We must be understood to make a difference, and we are not being.
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Servus Fidelis said:
In my opinion it is the lack of clarity in action and in deed. It is the hypocrisy of religion that is being rejected. A return to the rigor of the Faith is needed. But that is my opinion. Obviously, others think they can somehow navigate these treacherous waters of the scientific agnostics and atheists. Seems to me we are getting caught up in the rocks, the jettys and the whirlpools when we should be far from the shores where we are presently sailing.
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NEO said:
That’s likely true, and there is a lot of hypocrisy to overcome, and not all of it on the liberal/modernist wings of our churches. We all have our share of blind spots, and we all far too often say, “Do as I say, not as I do”.
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Servus Fidelis said:
There should be no wings to the Church; though as long as we are seen to be open to negotiate with the world we have those who want to conform and those who want to resist. Uncompromising orthodoxy and adherence to the Faith should be our helmsman. To put it to a vote is to open up divisions that turn into schism. Its a hard line to keep and an even harder one to return to after embarking upon the soft approach to the world which has taken place these last 50 years. It is truly going to be straightened out by the individuals who live a sainted life and stay true to the faith. The other ‘remedies’ will only deliver more of the same; utter confusion.
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JessicaHof said:
Uncompromising orthodoxy and adherence to the faith need to be expressed in ways the uncatechised or badly-catechised actually understand. That’s not compromise, it’s surely the essence of effective evangelisation?
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Servus Fidelis said:
It’s to find the uncatechised and badly-catechized understand that they are what they are. At this point they think everybody else is. Now that is a huge problem as they should be on the outside looking in and desirous of the gifts that Christ offers. But now they presume the gifts and the membership in a Church so broad that some are contradictory to another in the very teachings themselves. So it is pick and choose without recourse to actual learning of the faith. If that is allowed, and we know it is, then things are not going to change by our negotiations with them. The faith isn’t negotiable in my mind and never was. Now it is . . . at least seemingly.
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JessicaHof said:
I’m not aware of saying anything thatvsays the faith is negotiable. At the moment it is incomprehensible to many because we aren’t meeting them where they are. Good and effective evangelisation in this era of increased choice has to begin there. It’s like opening a coffee shop and insistng your customers have it black or white, and when they say they’s like a two-shot skinny latte, saying ‘I am not putting up with such nonsense. When I was young we had black or white, and that shoukd be good enough for you.’ How long would your coffee shop last?
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Servus Fidelis said:
The Church is not a coffee shop. We are not selling anything. We are giving away the mercy of Christ and applying His grace to souls. If they want this gift then they have to believe. Part of believing is not to hearer’s only. This culture is being babied to the point that we treat them as though we need offer them more than the teachings of Christ. We have always met people where they are (I just love the ‘new speak’) with the simplicity of an alternative to what they presently believe, are doing with their lives and so forth. It is they who must make the first move and it is for us to show them a way of life and a belief that stands in strong contradiction to the ways of the world. Otherwise, what goal is their to aim at? Right now, this meeting them where they are has turned into a Church that is whatever each individual wants to make of it. At least this is my assessment.
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JessicaHof said:
No, but we are offering something in a language many, if not most, do not understand. It isn’t enough to say ‘they must believe’ – if it were our churches would not be emptying at the rate they are. Since when did Jesus say we have to make the first move? We are not saved through any action of ourselves – that is Pelagianism, or at least semi (:) ). People do not live as they used to, there isn’t an Irish-Catholic community any more outside of Ireland, and inside Ireland the actions of the some priests and bishops have rotted that Catholic identity to near extinction. If we are giving the impression of being everything to every man there seems a quite good precedent to that – St Paul. We need to relearn the lessons he and all good evangelists taught. Paul did not say to the Athenians ‘you are a pagan shower, believe in God’ – he said that their ‘unknown God’ was the real God – we need to rediscover that brilliance and that optimism. It seems to me too many are sunk in pessimism and have given up.
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Servus Fidelis said:
What Church is unequivocal about what they must believe? When we were unequivocal about that did we have the emptying we are now seeing? We did not need to make up a language before. Why now?
The Church places the first movement by the Holy Spirit in the heart of those who are being called. It is up to the owner of that blessed soul to respond to the call. That is the first response to faith. So I do not understand the confusion you seem to bear at what I have said. I am not arguing with you though it seems you think I am. I am offering my opinion of why the Church is in such a mess and the world is degenerating faster than it normally does. It seems to me that the 2 views are this: we need to keep begging and pleading with people and offering them more than we have in the past and those who say that what we offer is the same as was always offered and if we live it they will come. There is a quest for holiness in every soul that is touched by the Holy Spirit.
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JessicaHof said:
It isn’t about being equivocal, and I don’t know where you get that from at all. It is about being understood.
We did need to talk to the Greeks in a language they understood, we did need to speak to the Slavs and the English in languages they understood. There’s no point where we were successful by saying to people ‘believe because we say so’ – there were times lots of people converted for that reason, but the depth of their conversion might well be doubted.
I disagree that the Church places anything in the hearts of people – the Church doesn’t get close to most people. What the Church, and what we as its agents can do, it to witness to God’s love and mercy, and we can learn how to talk to people in a way they can understand, rather than in a language we think they ought to because we do.
I don’t see the dichotomy you see – except as a counsel of despair. I don’t know what church is begging and pleading with people? Can you offer me some examples of this church doing that?
It isn’t about offering them something else – it is about doing what we did in the past, which is finding a way of being comprehensible to them. You don’t seem, to me, to be addressing this issue, you seem to think I’m arguing we should change the message – I’m not, I’m saying we need to find ways of talking to all those who the Pew surveys call the ‘nones’.
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Servus Fidelis said:
How can I understand if everyone is preaching a different Christ and a different Church? So what is the language we need to have to speak to this age? The same one we all used to have: non-contradiction, objective truth, consistency.
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JessicaHof said:
But are they, or is that you speaking on their behalf? I don’t see this at all. I see a faith that is global, that can be seen by Christians in different ways.
What is this language? Well, if we approach the whole subject of gender studies with the view it is ‘nonsense’ then we just alienated a lot of young people and confirmed their prejudice we are a bunch of bigots with nothing interesting to say.
St JP2’s theology of the body is fascinating, but when was the last time you or I saw anyone attempt to use it in debates about gender studies – or update it so they could? When the Pope talks about stewardship theology in Laudato Si lots of you were up in arms about his being some kind of commie pinko. Lots of young people who care about these things did engage – but being met with dismissive responses about global warming being some kind of conspiracy again simply put them off.
Of course, if that’s what we’re trying to do, we’re winning ๐
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Servus Fidelis said:
That isn’t true about using the arguments of JPII . . . it was done for years and to no effect. The problem with Laudato Si had nothing to do with our belief in stewardship; most parishes have sterwardship appeals and homilies about our responsibilies all the time. In fact it is the most spoken part of the faith for many years now . . . as opposed to actual personal virtues and the commandments, morality, sacraments etc. So that is not what bothered us in LS. It was that he was taking a position on unsettled science as if it were fact: man-made global warming. It is nothing that he has any expertise on and it is simply an opinion piece . . . outside of the stewardship aspect that everyone understands and knows already . . . outside of major businesses who might ravage the environment. He won’t save the planet from the Chinese companies any more than will president Obama. It will take something that hurts them: like sanctions on their goods until they meet some standard.
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JessicaHof said:
I am very happy with JPII on theology of the body, but it needs adapting to speak to things that have happened since. We need to renew our evangelisation in every generation. Properly understood the theology of stewardship pervades Laudato Si – but how many of us even know there is a theology of stewardship? And if it is the most spoken part of the faith, it is also the most ignored in practice I think (well, no, Humanae Vitae probably takes that crown).
You, and a few others, say the science is not settled. Well no sicience is ever ‘settled’, but I used to work in a place where some of the most expert scientists in the world worked, whose work is rated the best in the world, and not one of them denied that manmade climate change existed. They argued over what its causes were and how to obviate the damage. But by all means, insist that a few mavericks are right – that’s just the way to convince everyone we’re taking it seriously. His opinion is one shared by an overwhelming scientific consensus. So yes, insist on something no one ever claimed – which is that there ought to be unanimity – but that’s like the Sedes insisting they are right because a few people think like they do.
That, at least, is what it looks like to those who don’t share the minority view.
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Servus Fidelis said:
” . . .how many of us even know there is a theology of stewardship?” Answer: most of us. I say to you I have heard stewardship preached far more than any other topic except perhaps social justice since I became a Catholic. It is in everything we do anymore. A person could come in off the street and think that we were celebrating earth day during some of these homilies.
As to the ‘overwhelming’ majority of scientists . . . I think it is a myth. It is created mostly by the punishment of those who disagree and the political correctness of the advocacy for such. You can watch vidoes and read research papers that show the non-linear or non-causal realationship of CO2 and warming. They do not seem to even come close to demonstrating a correlation of the two. All we know is that the earth’s temperature is changing as it has from the time the earth came into being. It will always change . . . sometimes warmer and sometimes colder. We don’t know all the reasons for it though the sun and the tilt of the earth along with the blooms of sea algae and their disappearance has great effect seemingly as do volcanoes and meteor strikes. So believe as you like . . . I still hold that God holds this world in His hands and that we haven’t even the ability to destroy it. Neither do we understand it or can we predict it as so many are now trying to tell us. It is just their puffed up self pride at work. That is not to say that we should just go about polluting but then that is not their full agenda. What they want us to do is to incorporate a worldwide carbon tax where the international community will become the most powerful group on the planet with trillions of dollars in annual revenue. So believe as you will; and I will look at human nature acting like it always does: creating a panic and then monetizing the fear.
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JessicaHof said:
I have never heard a sermon on it – ever. I’m not a scientist and can’t argue it – but I know many scientists and I am sure they would despatch your arguments.
You seem attached to conspiracy theories. What if they are right – what should we be doing about carbon?
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Servus Fidelis said:
Have you not heard of those scientists who are not allowed to speak or to present their research that disputes this now “common” belief? When I first moved to SC it was all nuclear winter that was taking over. We would soon be living in the arctic if we didn’t stop polluting. Now it is warming, yet that data too is slowing to a crawl. I find them unreliable and I won’t set my watch by their cries of ‘the sky is falling’.
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JessicaHof said:
Here, no, I haven’t. As I say I am not qualified to say, but I inoe, or used to, many who were.
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Servus Fidelis said:
There is no pity party as that seems to be rather a cliche that denotes that we are celebrating our particular viewpoint. But each side has that which it considers to be a pity. For it is a pity that we have so many rules or that women can’t be priests etc. Or it is pity that we have caved to the world on a host of issues. That is, of course, deplorable.
As to winning the digital age, I don’t even know what that means or what it looks like. We can live in a digital age and still hold tight to our Faith.
Or then, maybe an EMP will render the digital age totally impotent. When the seeds of the martyrs start taking root, is when the Church will see a resurgence. At least in my mind I think we have fallen to that low point where little else will have much effect.
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NEO said:
And if we don’t evangelize clearly and understandably, our faith has about two more generations. Jess is right, you do sound rather defeatist, and that is not a winning attitude. It’s surely not as bad as it was in say 300 AD, let alone on Easter Saturday, and our faith came through both of those.
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Servus Fidelis said:
In some ways its worse. We do not have the saints that had in their day to lead us from the darkness. As to evangelizing clearly and understandably . . . you don’t do it by living like the world and not setting yourself apart from the world as an alternative to their erroneous beliefs. We have tried this for 50 years and we still think if we only do more like we have been doing everything will be right in the world. I think it is time to reevaluate and simply say that we were wrong in our approach. Things got worse, not better. Return to the principles that set us appart and people will seek out holiness on their own (as the Holy Spirit calls who He will to desire such). The more we look like the world the more ephemeral we appear; tansient, ever-changing . . . in short, tolererant to a fault.
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JessicaHof said:
The question here then is why we don’t have the saints? This, on my understanding of what Neo is saying, is what he means by ‘pity party’ – it is a pessimistic attitude ‘ no ‘heroic faith’, ‘no saints’, no one admiring priests and nuns – all true, but frankly the real question is where we went wrong – unless we want to join the fashionable trend of being a helpless victim?
At what point in its history did the church refuse to engage with serious alternative thought and go hide in acave and say ‘we’re pure, join us?’
There seems very little historical evidence that what you suggest will work. If the Church that produced Aquinas and Ratzinger can only say ‘we don’t like the world, we’re going to hide away from it’ then we just lost. I am not that pessimistic. Tolerant to a fault – in whose eyes? I can only tell you that I meet no one who is not a Christian who thinks we are tolerant on most sexual issues. That’s back to my central diagnosis – we speak to ourselves and have little idea of how we look to those we are trying to reach. If you really think anyone outside parts of the RCC thinks we are too tolerant, I can only think you are talking only to those who think as you and I do. Talking, as I now do, to dozens of people coming to church to see what we’re about, the biggest challenge I face is trying to get them to understand what we are saying. I have not once, on the last month, heard anyone say ‘your problem is you are too tolerant’ – I would need both hands and feet to count the number of those who have said the opposite.
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Servus Fidelis said:
What i pessimistic about acknowledging a way forward? A return to the faith and an end to the confusion of the last 50 years? Seems to me that once we have identified the lack of fruit one can take steps to fertilize and return the tree to the health it had before the fruit went bad or bore none.
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JessicaHof said:
You can’t walk forward by looking back – when did the Church ever do that? We carry all the best of the past and we find ways of explaining it anew. There’s not a single example in recorded history of going back to a past way of doing things and it working – unless you think the Amish are what we should be aiming to be ๐
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Servus Fidelis said:
We always have walked forward by looking back. That is what tradition does for a Church . . . it roots it in the foundational movement of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church which has been present from the beginning. So you do not think that the fundemental objective which I stated, that of our individual quest for holiness, is something that should be strived for. That our present situation of living a message of ‘we are OK where we are’ is fine or should move to something else even newer but not to return to a the quest for virtue and holiness in our lives and to teach the people what it takes to reach such a state?
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JessicaHof said:
I disagree. We carry the past with us because it is a living tradition, not somewhere in the past. Some ways of presenting what we believe are in the past, and can left there. No one is now going to suggest that the laity are fit only for hunting and giving in the collection plate, as Mgt George Talbot, the Pope’s chaplain, did to Manning, nor is any fool going to suggest women should just shut up and do what they are told. There’s lots of incidentals we can and have dumped.
Our individual quest for holiness can only begin when we reach out for God.
I don’t know who is saying ‘we are OK where we are’ but it isn’t me or your Pope. We’re saying the same thing, find people where they are and talk to them – so they come to see they aren’t OK where they are. That’s quite different.
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Servus Fidelis said:
So what has changed? We have always had orphanages, soup kitchens, aid to for the poor, hospitals, social workers and the like. Some are converted by the good of those who are helping them. We no longer are even given religious freedom to express what we believe to people we help: our orphanages closed because we would have to let gays adopt. Hospitals have closed because they were made to offer abortions and dispense contraception.Food must now be examined by the state to make sure it is fit for human consumption etc. So what is your proposal to work within the framework of the states without neglecting the teaching of your faith? The secular world absolutely stole what was the domain of religious apostolates in the past so that they could control them without moral or ethical consideration and gain political favor at the same time.
So instead of saying yes or no we now say, sorta, kinda, sometimes, under extraordinary circumstances etc. Our yes does not mean yes and or no does not mean no. Non possimus has become old fashioned. We are under fire and yet many are swayed to ‘play ball’ with this new secular social order when we should be saying that it is not possible for us. At least people will know where we stand and why it is better not only for us and those we help but for society itself to re-embrace the ethics and morals that they have now rejected.
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JessicaHof said:
Let’s unpack that. Here it was not the Government which closed our agencies for adoption, it was us because we said we would not let gay people adopt. That was discrimination against the law of the land – did anyone think that the law of the land would be changed to accommodate our beliefs? We took the decision, no one else.
I can’t speak to the US, but no hospital in the UK or Europe has closed for the reasons you offer.
The first laws in the UK about food purity came in in 1874, so that amounts to a tradition ๐ Left to themselves many food companies would feed us rubbish, so I’m not sure what the problem there is.
Here, the State stole nothing, it stepped into provide for all for free what used to be provided for the few at great expense which only the few could afford; that seems pretty Christian to me.
If we are under fire, good, but but let’s make sure instead of whining about it and playing the victim we have some robust intellectual responses. It’s that last I’m missing. Our response to the who gender issue seems to be ‘it’s baloney’ – sure makes us sound smart ๐
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Servus Fidelis said:
Because we allowed the lawmakers into office that no longer upheld Christian values.
They provide nothing that is free. We provided it for free from the Churches in the past and now we are paying if we pay taxes.
And it sounds smart for folks to be walking around and calling themselves a woman when they are men? I’m wondering what kind of upside down world this turning into . . . where you can choose the bathroom of your choice because today you feel like a certain sex. The acceptance of that really makes us ‘sound smart’ now doesn’t it? ๐
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JessicaHof said:
And we aren’t going to get rid of them, are we? The churches here did not provide universal health care, and I’d be surprised if they did anywhere. They certainly could not afford the current costs.
On the bathroom thing, is it really such a big deal?
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Servus Fidelis said:
Why not? If you have a way to win back the culture to Christianity you should be able to vote them out and return our cultures into a Christian based culture.
I don’t know. Would you like to be sharing a bathroom with Caitlin? If you’re good with it then fine. It will effect more women than men I suspect.
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JessicaHof said:
We’re nit going to be able to do that furst though. I’ve no problem sharing the restroom with a transgendered person.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Very tolerant of you dear friend. I shall rethink my sex in that case. ๐
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JessicaHof said:
It’s gender ๐
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Servus Fidelis said:
O yes, pardon me. I will rethink my gender then. I have to get my vocabulary in order to pull this off (no pun intended). ๐ xx
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JessicaHof said:
Just opt for genderfluid xx
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Servus Fidelis said:
That’s the key, I suppose; a certain fluidity and plasticity of our uncertainty regarding our gender. ๐ xx
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JessicaHof said:
๐ xx
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JessicaHof said:
Where is the faith in the Spirit leading us? What does a return to ‘rigor’ actually mean? If it means meeting the challenges of a digital age with analogue tools we just lost. I don’t believe we are intellectually unable to meet the challenges – or I hope not.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Well when I start seeing a true call to holiness emerge as the message of Christianity and the desire of children to become saints rather than bankers, lawyers, politicians then maybe we can win the digital age . . . but never without the analog ways of the past; the actual practice of virtue for love of God. The written word has only been multiplied into an ever widening array of possibilities. The old analog days had a more digital understanding of the faith; you believed or you didn’t.
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JessicaHof said:
That seems very defeatist. At what point did we give up thinking that lawyers, bankers and politicians were beyond the reach of Grace; do we really think that secular work is amenable only to a secularist mind-set? I don’t know we ever had a simple position in which many did not have doubts. We may have had times when it was not safe to express doubts, but I doubt there was ever a time when for many it was as simple as you believed or you didn’t. It is about how we explain the eternal verities – not abandoning them.
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Servus Fidelis said:
We never gave up thinking that lawyers, bankers and politicians were beyond the reach of grace. What I am stating is that children no longer revere priests, nuns, religious or saints. Where once they were the knights and damsels that children dreamt of emmulating.
Of course there has always been those who ‘radically’ believed and those who were rather cultural in their belief and everything in between. But it didn’t stop the whole of the Church fashioning itself upon the radical Christian ideals rather than the lowest common denominator.
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JessicaHof said:
I agree, but then we need to understand why these vications have become so unattractive – as well as how to make them more so.
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Servus Fidelis said:
It doesn’t seem hard for me to answer. There seems to be few of these who are of an heroic virtue and who exercise an heroic faith. Most of them seem to have different faiths altogether from one to another. At times the differences are so different it looks like they belong to different faiths altogether. Usually it takes martyrs for us to wake up, sadly. They surely are starting and they will increase I fear. But I suppose they will be God’s seeds for any true regeneration of Christianity in society.
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JessicaHof said:
But surely it has always been the case that most people have not had heroic virtue or heroic faith – so what’s new there? again, if you read something like Duffy’s book on the English Church on the eve of the Reformation, it’s clear there was a wide variety of ways of being a Catholic. To think we have to wait for people to be killed before we can engage intellectually with society seems a category error. Perhaps, for too long, the Church took its intellectual monopoly for granted. When I read what Benedict XVI wrote I am lifted up with hope – he engages with modern thought in a way even someone like Habermas found amazing – the same is true with Rowan Williams and Dawkins. We can do this – I may not have the brains for it – and I don’t, but I admire enormously those who do.
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Servus Fidelis said:
What’s new is that nobody believes that heroic virtue or faith even exist to be aimed at. I think I was clear. I said that Christians exist along a wide spectrum. It is only that the heart and mind of the Church was to point to and to aim the souls in the Church toward the highest goals and not to glorify the lowest denomination. That changed along the way somehow except among a smaller minority.
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JessicaHof said:
So why is that? Are we poor likkle victimes that no one believes us and it’s all their fault? No, we’re Christians and if we’re failing to get the message across we are well capable of upping our game. Whoever talked about glorifying the lowest common denominator? Can you offer me an example of your church or mine doing this – or is this pessimism again?
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Servus Fidelis said:
Acceptance of homosexual clergy, women priestesses, contraception, et al.
Its easy to call someone a pessimist. It is harder to admit that I am calling for a return to what has worked for over 2000 years. I call that optimistic . . . because it will never happen in my lifetime.
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JessicaHof said:
Sorry, which of our churches is accepting homosexual clergy?
You can call them priestesses because, presumably, you want to make some sort of identification with paganism. We call them priests, and politeness might suggest calling people by the names they call themselves – but hey, if you want to make a point no one but those who already agree with you will accept, but which will offend large numbers of others, go ahead – not sure what good it does though ๐ฆ
You are calling for a return to the 1950s, it isn’t going to happen. I’m calling for us to do what we’ve always done, find a language in which to evangelise effectively. That isn’t the language of the 1950s. So yes, go about it that way and it is not going to happen in my lifetime either ๐ฆ
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Servus Fidelis said:
No, priest is a macusline word and priestess has always been the feminine of priest as you know well. That you and they want to call them by their masculine equivalent is astounding to me.
It isn’t a return to the 50’s but a return to the constant teachings of the faith and to practices that actually clarify rather than confuse the teaching to which it is attached.
I think the you give holiness and virtue too little credit. ๐
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JessicaHof said:
Come on, you can’t be that out of touch. Very few organisations now use the word actress, and most of those who use the word priestess do so to quite deliberately denigrate women priests – if you don’t know it’s seen as a sign of disrespect, fair enough – but I want to know which rock you’re living under so I can come visit and be cosy with you ๐ xx
Evangelism is about being able to communicate with people in their terms – not ours, so by all means insist on using language younger people will regard as sexist – and then go wonder why they are not listening.
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Servus Fidelis said:
So Hollywood is now doing what the world does: confusing genders. Why am I not surprised? King Elizabeth, I presume? A princess is a prince then? You can be whatever you think you are. And if someone calls you by the actual name then you are being disrespectful. Long live the gender neutral translation of scripture that we now have. You’re welcome under my rock anytime you’d like dear lady. ๐ xx
So to evangelize means warping our language and using hip new words that young folk use. I thought it might be a rather novel idea to actual teach them to learn how to read the kings english like it was written: like Shakespeare for instance. Would they all be lost to hear the Douay Rheims or the King James version? For a while . . . but I learned it by simply sitting in the pews as a child and it was not difficult to read Shakespeare when I became old enough. Why are people so stupid today that they are thought incapable of understanding anything other than slang?
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JessicaHof said:
Again, how does guying what others are saying help anyone? No one is saying a prince is a princess. They are saying some people exist on a spectrum with regard to their sexuality and sexual preferences. That’s a simple statement of how some people feel. How does the Church react, and how should it? That’s where we need some fresh thinking. Yes, if our education system was better they could read the DR, but as it isn’t shall we just say if they can’t ‘tough’? No, we don’t say that – do we?
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Servus Fidelis said:
And I am saying that they can read it if we simply expose them to it. They are not dumber than I was. They do not need to be coddled so much.
The Church should be saying yes to what is acceptable and no to what is not. A spectrum of sexuality is a rather novel understanding of sexuality is it not?
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JessicaHof said:
It isn’t about being dumber – it’s about how they have been taught. It may be, but it also corresponds to what people are feeling. So yes, just say ‘you’re wrong’ and they can ignore them.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Or they may think on it and readjust their thinking. All because someone denied their logic completely and dismissed it out of hand.
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JessicaHof said:
When, as now happens here, you teach them in modular form, it is not helpful to expect them to read as though we’d taught them otherwise – alas.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Nobody is ready until the Holy Spirit prepares them to be. God will use an instrument that is right for each individual. You may be right for some and I may be right for others. I do not expect to successful but am always pleased when I successfully bring people into the Church and they exhibit great enthusiasm for the Church; knowing, that it was not me who brought them to Christ but Christ Himself.
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Philip Augustine said:
My troubled student yesterday knows about the untimely death of my father. I’ve told him attempting to use a personal connection to help him in his own struggles. He knows I’m a Christian, so he said, “we’ll someday you’ll see your Father again.” My reply, ” I don’t know if I will or not.” The student looked at me puzzled, “was he a bad dude?”
“Oh no,” I replied, “my Dad was a very kind man. However, I don’t know the state in which he died. The Catholic faith teaches that there are two types of sins: one that disconnects you from God and a lesser offense to God. I have no idea what my Dad’s sins were at the time is his death. So I don’t know if he’s in Heaven, it’s not for me to say.”
He was very unnerved from that fact that I didn’t believe my Father automatically went to heaven. The student’s reply, “%%*$ Catholics.”
The student’s reaction was one because the view was so foreign to him in the world. Why would a Christian not believe his Dad went to heaven or not? Unnerving.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Yes and why the Catholic funeral is not supposed to have any eulogies; though sadly I have seen them enter in to our funeral Masses. It comes from faulty theology but most folk want to pretend that everyone is in heaven.
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JessicaHof said:
That’s a telling example of how little we are understood ๐ฆ
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Philip Augustine said:
I think he understood me very well. He just didn’t want to accept it as a possibility. I suspect it may or may not have a telling effect on him later in life like in Merton’s
Life or in with the fictional Charles Ryder.
It’s not for me to say.
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JessicaHof said:
It isn’t – we can only bear whatever witness Grace allows to bear ๐ xx
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NEO said:
Well, Servus, if we don’t win the digital age, we lose, period, full stop, done.
So you, and we, better start thinking about how to win, rather than having a pity party longing for the old days, which actually were very much like these days.
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Bosco the Great said:
Sorry, which of our churches is accepting homosexual clergy?
‘The notion that many Catholic priests are quietly gay is not new. In the 2000 book “The Changing Face of the Priesthood,” Rev. Donald B. Cozzens suggested that the priesthood was increasingly becoming a gay profession. Cozzens estimated that as much as 58 percent of priests were gay, and that percentages were even higher for younger priests. ”
Gay and straight priests alike are cheering Pope Francis’s comments about homosexuality in the priesthood, saying gay priests make up a significant segment of the Catholic clergy and deserve papal recognition.
On a plane from Brazil Monday, Francis told reporters that, “if someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/07/29/catholic-priests-its-empirical-fact-that-many-clergy-are-gay
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JessicaHof said:
But this is about accepting them as openly gay – and that is not done to my knowledge.
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Bosco the Great said:
Priests and even bishops were dying from AIDS at an alarming rate. In 1995, New York auxiliary bishop Emerson Moore died of AIDS in a Minnesota hospice. Across the country, estimates from assorted experts put the number of Catholic priests dying from the disease at as high as 1,000 in roughly a 10โ15 year span. Numbers were showing that priests were becoming infected and dying at a rate of as high as 10 times the national average.
All this strongly suggested that the number of homosexual men in the Catholic priesthood was much higher than even the most suspicious had guessed. It wasn’t long before the truth started coming out, tied as it was to the AIDS death news.
http://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/half-of-priests-and-bishops-are-gay
Good brother Vorhis shows us his insider information.
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Grandpa Zeke said:
Jessica, I can only offer a most simple response to your thought-provoking post. The reason we moderns no longer have a sense of sin is because we have no longer have a sense of God. Many people nowadays have abandoned their Christian and Catholic faith and either profess to having no faith at all or they believe in some nebulous spirituality that makes no demands on their consciences and just makes them want to hug a tree or something. I’ve been there, done that in my teenage years, yes, I actually hugged a tree and imagined we (the tree and I) had just formed a lifelong friendship. While I still remember that tree, I have serious doubts as to whether the tree remembers me! But I learned, over time, that the Bible teaches that God has not forgotten me, that he will never leave me or forsake me. I learned over time (having no religious education as a child) that God is love is that “we love because He loved us first.”
So the question for me always is how can I help someone learn to love God. If they do not love him, they certainly will not have a desire to learn about him or follow his law. Love comes first. How to do that, well, I don’t know. What I do within my own family is focus on the very first line of Scripture, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” When I can, I steer the conversation to just this one statement, if they can get to a place where they acknowledge the truth of this, then they can take the next step to wondering who is the great God who created the universe. Just his one thought can bring a person to his knees in awe. I stick with that when I talk to my family and friends.
In short, a person won’t recognize sin until they recognize God and come to know and love him. Sometimes it can work the other way around, someone can recognize the depravity of their condition because of the pain they are enduring, and through that pain they come to God and then learn of his great love for them. This happens because all things are possible with God and we should try not to lose hope (says I the eternal pessimist).
I hope these meager thoughts are helpful in keeping the discussion going.
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JessicaHof said:
These are really good thoughts, Grandpa. You are so right – we begin with love. If we don’t, we don’t begin at all. Who in their right mind wants to listen to someone speaking in terms they don’t understand? Who has time for that?
If we witness with love and through love, that can, and does, intrigue people – and once they begin to ask, they will find ๐
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Bosco the Great said:
Good sister Jess is the closest. She wants to deal with one person at a time, and come at them with love, which is the law and the prophets.
That’s all we can do….is talk to one person at a time, unless you buy a megaphone and preach on a street corner.
Anyway, the situation on earth is going to get worse everyday until the coming of the Lord. Anyone who thinks things should or can get better is lying to themselves.
Hold on to your hats…..after the rapturos , those supposed heaven bound religious people, who are left behind, will have a rude awakening. The earth will be turned over to their lusts and the lusts of their new Master. Well, he isn’t their New Master, but now, their Master will be Master of the earth and things can go more smoothly for him and his followers. Stupid wrangling over homosexuality will be a thing of the past. Followers of Christ will be the new public enemy number One. They brought this great disappearance on and caused all this trouble.
By the way…..the man of Sin has been identified. I might do a post on it if I can find the energy.
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JessicaHof said:
I’d be fascinared Bosco. Yes, you get my point. We come to people where they are and with love and compassion – as jesus did to us.
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Bosco the Great said:
That’s it. That’s all there is.
Gold and silver have I none, but arise and walk in Jesus name.
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JessicaHof said:
We are poor but very rich in His name Bosco – in him alone do I rejoice ๐ xx
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Bosco the Great said:
Good for you good sister. Gods speed to you.
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JessicaHof said:
Thank you dear Bosco ๐ xx
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Grandpa Zeke said:
Thank you Jessica. I am not sure that I am a very good witness in the sense that you mean, I am still far too imperfect (besides being a severe introspective introvert, making it hard for me to mingle with others, laughing and throwing flowers and kisses in my wake). I am a poor miserable sinner and boy do I know it. But I do try to convince others to at least acknowledge the possibility of God’s existence as a benevolent creator who actually DOES count the hairs on each of our heads! What a thought!
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NEO said:
I’m much the same, in truth, and boy howdy do I have some sins. But you know, most people would be unnerved if we were perfect, and I know few people who are all that charismatic either, and most of them are not all that good.
We do what we can, with God’s help. And that we almost have to believe, is enough.
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JessicaHof said:
You start where we all should – in the humility that we are not the sort of witness we’d like to be ๐ But if we have faith, then He can do wonderful things through us ๐ xx
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Grandpa Zeke said:
Do you mean I don’t have to strew flowers or throw kisses? That’s a relief! ๐
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JessicaHof said:
Me too ๐
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NEO said:
Me three ๐
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Bosco the Great said:
“So you, and we, better start thinking about how to win,”
Win what….end all evil on earth? (;-D
Jesus doesn’t say that people are going to change the world for the better, or that religions and religious people are going to make things better. Its nice of you to try.
But haven’t you scholars heard…befor the Lord come again, things will be as in the days of Noah?
So sit back and enjoy the ride….oh, and if you haven’t yet, ask Jesus to come sup with you.
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JessicaHof said:
Win souls Bosco – you remember that stuff Jesus talked about when commissioning the disciples to go convert the world – that stuff ๐ xx
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Bosco the Great said:
Those who know the Lord witness of him. Those who don’t, if they use Jesus words, may even work good works because His words don’t come back void. The only thing to tell people is that Jesus is standing at their door knocking. Enviting them to join cults not helping. Im not suggesting you, good sister, invite people to join a cult, I know better. But there are those who do. They mean well, but both shall fall into the ditch.
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JessicaHof said:
We can get too obsessed with what a friend calls ‘churchy stuff’ – I doubt the Lord cares how we receive him – but I guess he really wants to do so.
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Bosco the Great said:
Come as you are. You are who you are.
Funny, theres a cult that claims to be Jesus own cult. Yet you cant come as you are. One has to study and pass a test befor Jesus will take you in.
The end of mans probation is at and end. The evil will do evil and the filthy will remain filthy.
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Bosco the Great said:
So, good sister Jess, youre saying that The CC should accept people as openly gay? This wont happen to the rank and file. They dismiss people from positions for being gay all the time, while their holyen are almost all gay. Its called hypocrisy. But not hypocrisy for hypocrisy’s sake. Its because thet teach against homosexuality, so, therefor(I hate that word) they have to appear to the world as being against gay people, when the whole organization is gay. It keeps doubt in the publics mind. The weak and infirm of mind falls for those old tricks. Like good brother Goebbels was fond of saying….If you lie to them enough, they will eventually believe it.
We can love the person and hate the sin. Most of my close friends had sisters, and I had two sisters and they all had some hanger on guy who ran with them who was one of the girls. We all welcomed them into our house and lives, but I made fun of then once in awhile. They are people too. They have a chance to get saved, just like all of us. But be prepaired….most people are going to fall short.
Look around you….just about everyone you see is going to hell. Ass you walk down the street, just about all you pass and can see will wind up doomed. That’s just how it is.
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JessicaHof said:
I pray that all may come to Jesus
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Bosco the Great said:
The Father also wishes all men come to repentance.
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JessicaHof said:
And we must help if called.
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Grandpa Zeke said:
Sorry, my comment to Bosco ended up in the wrong place. I thought I clicked on the right place but I must have goofed.
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Bosco the Great said:
Happens to me all the time.
Say, I just now found out that the Vatican has controlling interests or in several weapons manufactoring companies. Maybe you could look into it for me.
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Grandpa Zeke said:
Nice try at diversion, but let’s go back to the topic you brought up, Voris’s video. He bases his estimate of 50 percent of clergy as homosexual on a study or maybe it was two studies. This gives his estimate some credibility. I don’t recall you ever offering any studies that back up your assertion that 100% of Catholic clergy are gay. It is obviously an absurd statement. You say Catholics here get angry because you bring up things we don’t like; the truth, if you are interested, is that you make exaggerated statements based on semi-truths or distortions of the truth.
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Bosco the Great said:
Ok, that’s a fair statement. Im all over the place. Ill say “all of em” once in awhile when im being general of just disgusted. But everyone should know that All of them aren’t homosexual. My guess is what the experts say…clergy and clergy watchers….. 65%. That’s my guess. Now the other 35% are a mix of actually celibate:5%….womanizers; 20% and honest guys who have a serious relation with a female; 10%.
Nice religion you got there. It wouldn’t be so bad if priests were allowed to have normal lifes. Claiming their holymen and women are all celibate is a lie….and who is the Father of lies. There are many other claims it makes that aren’t true.
Why don’t you try inviting Jesus into your life? He wont lie to you and he is True and Faithful.
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Grandpa Zeke said:
I’m not sure anyone claims that all priests are celibate. They are “called to celibacy” but obviously many fail because this is the human condition. Last time I looked, my priest was fully human just like you and me.
If you have a relationship to Jesus is True and Faithful, I would think that being true and faithful yourself would be of supreme importance to you. This way you would be better than the priests you condemn because you would be following your master’s voice and not failing in being his disciple. I don’t recall Jesus fudging his facts just to make a point.
If God can work through you or through girls in parking lots, he can work through priests, both the good priests and the bad.
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Bosco the Great said:
Excellent point. God can use anybody. Ive been listening to Immaculate Heart Radio. They sound good until they get to the Mary Worship Hour. The DJs say pretty much the same as lets say, the Calvary station. They mimick them. In doing do, someone might get saved. But ive never heard someone say that the catholic church led them to Jesus. Ive heard many testimonies, daily, how people got out and said they were never told many things. I live with a catholic, and hes never ever once cracked open a bible. he did once, when I told him to start with the book of Rev. He later told me that he stopped reading it because all that stuff his kids were going to have to go thru, if it was true, botherd him. he never picked it up again. He went to private catholic scholl his whole life and never once did he have to open a bible. He said they had their own booklets and what not. The priests know full well that when people get into gods word that they start asking questions. And then they leave the CC. That’s why the CC tells its flock that they cant understand it. Only the costumes can understand it…in hopes to discourage anyone from opening one.
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JessicaHof said:
It only takes so many comments on one comment and then starts a new chain – why, I have no idea.
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Bosco the Great said:
Well, good brother Zek, it seems that I didn’t watch the video, I just read the write up. In the vid, good brother Vorhis said that many of the priests in new York dioses has their loverboy toys actually living with them in the rectories. Good brother Vorhis said, and I quote…” If you don’t clear them (the boy toys) out, we will”.
OOUUuuuuuuwwwweeee. Thems fightin woids. God brother Dolan knows all about. He prolly has his own boy toy. …whopeeeee….Lase le Bontemps roulette (;-D
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Bosco the Great said:
Never mind good brother Zek, I found it. Im the last to know these things. I know the big shots like good brother Chalcedon and Servus already knew, but they would never say so. They only say how wonderful everything is.
Perhaps few people know that Pietro Beretta arms factory Ltd. (the largest arms industry in the world) and is controlled by the Holding SpA Beretta and the majority shareholder of the Beretta Holding SpA after Gussalli Ugo Beretta, is the IOR (Institute for Works of Religion [commonly known as the Vatican Bank]) private institution founded in 1942 by Pope Pius XII and headquartered in Vatican City
https://usahitman.com/vbmsipb/
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Grandpa Zeke said:
Chalcedon and Servus “only say how wonderful everything is”??? I suggest you go back and read through their posts and comments a little more carefully. I know you like to skim so maybe you miss things.
No one here is in denial of deep troubles within the Church. I think you might be confused about when Chalcedon and Servus write about their love for Christ who is all perfection and beauty and truth.
Yes, at those times Chalcedon and Servus surely proclaim how wonderful everything about HIM is.
You should try it, Bosco – sing praises to the Lord!
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.
Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.
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Bosco the Great said:
Good advice, thanks. And yes, they lament how sorry things are in their religion. I know, and I do skim read. Once in a great while I read it all.
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Servus Fidelis said:
Bosco – read and get real disappointed. The story is a hoax. This article was written by a Lutheran . . . not a Catholic . . . and totally debunks the article which, by the way, reads like it was written by a student in 6th grade.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/06/the-vatican-and-arms-dealers
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Bosco the Great said:
Indeed, back in 2012 the Catholic News Service reported the IOR director’s saying that the bank eschews investments in โactivities deemed unethical by the Catholic Church,โ including โarms manufacturing.โ
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/06/the-vatican-and-arms-dealers
Meanwhile, the pope at the time refused to publicly denounce anything the Third Reich was doing, even though the Vatican was one of the most informed institutions on the mass killings, long before the Allies discovered anything.
The Vatican Bank was the perfect place to hide billions in stolen wartime loot. The church also aided and saved many Nazi war criminals after the war.
In 1973, the U.S Justice Department began looking into a potential role the Vatican Bank played in a counterfeit and stolen securities operation.
According to an 18-month FBI investigation, New York mobsters were planning to sell counterfeit corporate bonds and stock certificates to the Vatican, a $900 million payment in five installments over several months.
A Vatican cardinal planned to use the faked securities as collateral in order to obtain financing. The counterfeit bonds would be undetectable unless the Vatican Bank lost money on its investments and was unable to pay back the loans, at which point the Vatican could claim ignorance of an outside scam.
“It was not much of a secret that for decades Italy’s elite had used the IOR to hide their money,”
In the 1970s, the bank bought a stake in the Italian bank Ambrosiano, which was led by the banker Calvi. For two years, the Vatican Bank moved money around Ambrosiano’s accounts, to allow banks and companies to pass financial inspection. Then they’d withdraw the money right after inspection, and keep a cut of the sum.
http://www.businessinsider.com/gods-bankers-financial-scandals-at-the-vatican-2015-2
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Bosco the Great said:
Bank accounts of two former Vatican Bank managers and an attorney representing them were frozen by a Vatican prosecutor, who suspects the three men were embezzling. The three are accused of stealing money while selling Vatican-owned real estate in the 2000s
Milano accused the bankโs ex-president, Angelo Caloia, and former director general, Lelio Scaletti, of consistently lying about the sale prices of Vatican-owned real estate on the bankโs official books and then pocketing the difference between the recorded amount and the true sale price. Their legal consultant, Gabriele Liuzzo, allegedly received some of the money as well. A whopping โฌ57 million were apparently swiped between 2001 and 2008, when the bank sold 29 buildings, according to the order obtained by Reuters.
http://www.ibtimes.com/vatican-bank-scandal-prosecutor-freezes-accounts-former-execs-embezzlement-reuters-1738114
Yes, Catholic News Agency say the director of the bank would never do anything wrong. What are catholic news agencies for?
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JessicaHof said:
Bosco – am I right in thinking you don’t like being called a ‘Christian’?
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Bosco the Great said:
I don’t care if you call me a Christian. Just don’t call me late for dinner.
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JessicaHof said:
Good one my friend. I’d got hold of the notion that you didn’t like being called a Christian and didn’t like the word religion. Was that wrong?
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Bosco the Great said:
The word religion is just a word. Some people call me religious, but that word is misused. But I know what they mean. Unsaved call people who believe in Jesus as to being religious. I tell them that I don’t belong to any religion. They have a hard time understanding that.Some understand pretty quick, and then some figure I must belong to some group. Even some supposed smart people in here have a hard time believing I don’t belong to some organized religion of some sorts. That’s because they are so conditioned to think that Jesus is a religion. Well, its no crime being unsaved. We are all born unsaved.
When one doesn’t know Jesus, they substitute religion for a personal relation. At least it shows they are looking.
The word Christian was given to people who believe in this fellow Jesus. We on earth are bound to use words to convey ideas. Amongst the born again, to designate another born again, the word Christian is used. For example; when asking about someones devout church going grandmother, a born again will say…” Grandma is doing fine, but shes not a Christian.” Its just a matter of who is using the word. But the unsaved religious people take offense if they find out some people do not consider them Christian.
This is just a peep into the world of the saved.
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Jock McSporran said:
Jessica – if you deal with too many issues at the same time, then the ‘punchline’ may be obscured.
Firstly – with your marriage – there’s a good case to me made (and one that I agree with) that if your spouse commits adultery, then the marriage is ended, because God has ended it. That is how I understand the exception that Jesus makes. One may forgive the adulterous spouse as much as one likes, but that is irrelevant; the marriage no longer exists.
I don’t like hearing sermons that go on about fornication either, basically because when I go to church, I like to assume that I am among people who do not do that sort of thing, it would never occur to them, and the sort of sermon where the preacher makes us feel superior to those heathens out there, with their detestable practises, is not the sort of sermon I want to hear.
In summary – if your husband committed adultery, then he was not a Christian; he was not in the number of the Saviour’s family, no matter what he may have professed.
Homosexuality is something quite different. For the record – I do think it is a disorder. I do think that people who have this disorder miss out on so much that is good in this life. A stable marriage and having children together is all part of the creation ordinance. I just don’t think that it necessarily follows that it is sin. If you get measles, I don’t think anybody would think that this is sin.
My views on this changed through reading Stephen Hough’s blog on The Telegraph when it existed. Except for his orientation, he seemed to be a great advocate for Catholicism. Some of his religious pieces were very good – and everything he wrote, religious or otherwise (except perhaps for the technical pieces about piano playing) seemed to be written with a great deal of humanity.
It’s a totally different world from the one I live in and I’m not prepared to condemn it.
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JessicaHof said:
There is a huge amount to be said for this view Jock, and in a way it was the point I was making – if we don’t (and we don’t) preach about things like fornication, be we do condemn homosexuals, then we are effectively discriminating.
As to whether it is a disorder, I don’t know – we are a fallen people and that takes many forms in us.
Of course, the classic thing here it to text proof from what St Paul says about homosexuality, by many of us feel this is proof-texting rather than reading it in the context of God being love – but that’s a whole other discussion and would, no doubt, bring coals of wrath down on my head ๐ xx
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Bosco the Great said:
“if your spouse commits adultery, then the marriage is ended, because God has ended it.”
That’s far from the truth. Jesus said that the spouse can leave the marriage if they want…… and are free. If the spouse wants to forgive, then all is forgiven. Jesus is all about forgiveness.
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Jock McSporran said:
It has nothing to do with forgiveness. You can forgive someone who commits adultery against you as much as you like, it doesn’t matter. The marriage is still over (‘annulled’ to use the Catholic term) because God has decreed it so.
Isaiah 50v1: This is what the LORD says: “Where is your mother’s certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? Because of your sins you were sold; because of your transgressions your mother was sent away.
Throughout the OT, Israel’s behaviour is considered ‘adultery’ (in the prophets). That is the transgression. The ‘certificate of divorce’ (Deuteronomy 24v1) is not needed in such a situation – and why not? Because the marriage is already annulled – whether the innocent party likes it or not.
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Bosco the Great said:
Good brother Jock< uh, I hate to tell you this, but that passage is talking about how Israel has been involved in idolatry and has turned its back on their Maker. Because of their idolatry they are sold …sent into captivity. Then the chapter goes on to talk about their Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel.
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Jock McSporran said:
Bosco – absolutely. But the ‘certificate of divorce’ is a reference to Deuteronomy and it does tell us how to understand the Deuteronomy passage. The Deuteronomy passage said that if you divorce, you have to give a certificate of divorce. This clarifies that it referred to divorce when you simply don’t like your wife any more, even if she hasn’t done anything wrong; it clarifies that in the case of adultery the certificate of divorce is unnecessary.
There is a close connection in the OT between personal adultery and fornication on the one hand, and ‘whoring after other gods’ (idolatry) on the other. These are closely linked; during periods when Judah was faithful to God, there was also personal godliness; when they went a-whoring after other gods, the personal godliness also went out of the window at the same time.
This, at any rate, is what I get from the prophets.
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Bosco the Great said:
This is difficult. Usually only the unsaved get divorced.
As concerning a-whoring, modern day is the erecting of statues of men and bowing befor them and calling it a good thing to do, even though they aren’t jewish, god still hates it.
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