Posted on 09/29/2016 12:17:14 PM PDT by ebb tide
Actually, Carlin was anti-God, rather than anti-Christ or anti-Catholic, which is why I had a grudging respect for him: he didn't indict Catholicism per se for things that he held against God. In addition, Carlin always wrote with affection about his Catholic grade school and high schools. Generally, he didn't take cheap shots. His jokes about Catholicism were just jokes and his sharpest jabs about religion were at God Himself. That, folks, is something, given that it's much easier (politically, socially, culturally) to take aim at the Church than at God Himself.
Spare a prayer for George Carlin. At least Carlin was honest enough not pretend he was supporting the Catholic Church, even as he undermined it; I could name a few prelates about whom I couldn't say the same.
Now, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Francis has huge orange shoes and a different nose he wears around the Vatican, but there's no reason to imply that a particular photo means more than it probably does.
Personally, I knew the world was at or very near the end back when the son of a friend of mine was in that mess they made Black Hawk Down about and a week later got an Article 15 for saying it was a Mongolian Charter Flight (not the original phrase) in front of a reporter.
Actually, Christ is God so why the quibble ?
When I read the things Pope Francis says today about church-going Catholics, I appreciate the guts George Carlin showed in never (as an adult) justifying his anti-religious screeds by calling himself a Catholic, and in never throwing stones at Catholics who merely minded their own business and went to church on Sunday. Meanwhile, in 2016, it's the Pope who is mocking people who say the Rosary.
I am getting this right from the spiritual treatises of the saints. So it’s their theology you have a problem with, not mine.
http://www.cfalive.com/articles/the-horror-of-sin/
St. Ignatius of Loyola said:
“I would not for the sake of all creation, or for the purpose of saving my life, consider committing a single venial sin.”
St. Catherine of Genoa wrote:
When I had the vision in which I saw how much the shadow of the smallest act against God matters, I do not know why I did not die. I do not wonder that hell is so horrible, seeing that it is made for sin. But, horrible as it is... I think ... that even there God shows mercy, so terrible does even the shadow of a venial sin seem to me.
St. Francis of Assisi said:
Had I committed but one little sin I would have ample reason to repent of it for the rest of my life.
St. Teresa of Avila put it:
Follow the advice [to please God] until you find you have such a fixed determination not to offend the Lord that you would rather lose a thousand lives, and be persecuted by the whole world, than commit one venial sin.
Cardinal Newman wrote:
The Church holds it better for sun and moon to drop from Heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in the most extreme agony... than that one soul... should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth or should steal one poor farthing...
Missing a Mass is a mortal sin?
That’s sorta harsh
Won’t do any good. Once you’re dead, your eternal fate is sealed
Nine out of ten ex-Catholics I know make a point of saying that they still believe in Jesus and God, that their grudges are against “the Church”. Are they being fair and rational? I don’t think so. However, people often aren’t fair and rational.
Nine out of ten ex-Catholics I know make a point of saying that they still believe in Jesus and God, that their grudges are against “the Church”. Are they being fair and rational? I don’t think so. However, people often aren’t fair and rational.
I have no problem with their theology. Their theology was, first and foremost, loving God. That was their teaching and example. From that practice, and its resulting acceptance by God, they developed their views of sin, because sin was the opposite of their practice of loving God. And so to them, anything that got in the way of their communion was anathema - even what people call venial sins. But that came only as a result of loving God.
Love God, love God, love God. From that love comes divine living guidance and total real time protection.
All else is trivial.
That is my understanding.
When are retailers going to quit this stuff? People just want to pay and get the hell out.
Well, yes, it all flows from love of God as a first principle. But that doesn’t make sin any less black or horrible, is my point.
When people’s consciences are dulled by sin they cannot adequately visualize or comprehend the Love of God.
It often takes the jolt of realizing how horrible sin is, to get one on the road to repentance. It took Oscar Wilde being thrown in jail for him to realize what a life he was leading.
Priests or even we layfolk who minimize the horror of sin are denying people the rebuke (in charity of course) that justice demands. We cause scandal, and you remember what Christ said about that.
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