Replies

Thanks for your nice post. I don't remember your coming after me personally either.

As to "tone", this is a "hot" medium, I think, and "tone" is easy to mistake. What left one keyboard gently shows up on the monitor as rough. It's a mystery (Another Catholic thing.)

NO one is in a perfect or 'one true church.' We're all pilgrims on a journey to God and I, for one, as well as many of the Christian protestants here, want to see people of all religions 'make it' and not depend on their traditions.

Your first sentence is a theological - specifically ecclesiological - opinion, one held by many and disputed by some. Those of us (like me) who think there is one Church, visible, and manifest in varying degrees of "fullness" (or whatever weasel word you'd like) don't (for the most part) think so condescendingly. I'm not saying I'm "better" than you because I'm a calflick and you aren't. On the contrary, if anything, I'm in more of a pickle. And anyone with eyes and a couple of cerebral neurons (with half a wit?) (with two wits to rub together?) can tell that while we claim "perfection" for the Church, we can't spend TOO much time bragging, as though perfection were an accomplishment of ours -- not if we read the papers, or look into our hearts. If it is perfect, as we hold, it is so in spite of us, not because of us.

YES, it's a scandalous idea. I can see why some would be offended. But it is not a declaration of any intrinsic (and that's the key word, I think) excellence on that part of the individuals involved, with notable exceptions, such as the blessed J2P2, but as a happy declaration that God has not left us comfortless. The Church is what she is, we think, not because of Her, but because of what Christ gives her.

Now I KNOW that there is another entire train of thoughts about the church, which for shorthand I call "the invisible church" school. And I don't mean any disparagement by that term. It's a difference of opinion. Naturally I think the one i hold is better, or I wouldn't hold it. You think the one you hold is better or ditto.

But I do not hold my opinion as a "Neener Neener we're better'n you" thing.

As a global comment, because people come on these threads ready to do battle, we rarely take the time to savor the opinions of others and to see what is good in them and why a reasonable person of good will might hold those opinions. Some on both "sides" seem to think that they have a duty to show contempt for the opinions of others, and seem to think there is nothing wrong with painting those opinions in the worst possible light. I have read the most astonishing mischaracterizations of both Protestant and Catholic thought here, delivered in the most offensive ways.

Personally, I hate that. I don't see that there is a reasonable point to it. It seems intended ore to drive people away than either to communicate or to draw them close. It makes my tummy hurt.

Look, the majesty of Calvinism has as at least one part the ringing declaration of the sovereignty of God. Nothing is outside His will. Whatever we RCs may think, we should never abandon that perception. One aspect of what we think of Church is based on a sense of God's loving faithfulness, his "hesed"/loving-kindness/covenant-loyalty, and our eagerness to cast ourselves on His promised mercy. I think that's a good thing.

Yeah,we think the Calvinists err is where they go with the Sovereignty thing, they think we err in how we think God shows His mercy. At least that's how I see the disagreement. The chances for fellowship and agreement usually are out on the edges of the dogmas, and, I think, are only seen after much prayer and fellowship and patience.

And anybody who reads one of my long posts has shown that a lack of patience is not his or her problem.