Posted on 12/07/2009 7:25:56 AM PST by NYer
A friend wrote me about a school principal, a religious sister, speaking to a parent and requesting school funds. The gentleman was described as an "ultra-Catholic." My friend asked me: "What is that, do you know?" Evidently, the "non-ultra" principal thought it all right to siphon needed cash from the "ultra" parent. No strings were attached. Once the funds were donated, the non-ultra establishment would go its non-ultra way. The ultra was good for his cash, if he still had any. His ideas were, well, ultra.
Clearly, I cannot resist taking a stab at defining what a modern ultra-Catholic is. Some temptations are difficult to resist. Briefly, in today's multi-descriptor world, an ultra-Catholic is one who is a believing Catholic, a fairly rare bird. The country is full of ex-, disagreeing, non-practicing, right-to-choose, leave-me-alone Catholics. They tell us that they are better than their hapless co-religionists who naively think Catholicism is credibly the most intelligent thing on the public or private scene. In the public area, the most often cited "authority" on what Catholics believe is the dissenter. Catholics are the one group about which no one has to speak accurately.
A be-knighted ultra-Catholic holds the Nicene Creed as true. He thinks divine authority exists in the Church. He knows that he, a sinner, needs forgiveness. But he does not make his sins into some social-justice crusade. He does odd things like go to Mass on Sundays, even in Latin. He thinks it is fine to have children. He prefers to work for a living. He also knows that the Church is under siege in the culture. He belongs to the real minority.
The word "ultra" is Latin, meaning "beyond." We have things like ultra viruses, ultrasounds, and ultraviolet rays. In the Middle Ages, a pope was called "ultramontane" if he came not from Italy but from over the mountains. In France in the modern era, the ultramontanists were those Catholics who kept alliance with Rome. Jesuits, perish the thought, were said to belong to this alien group in the Gallican regime. Ultramontanists did not think the French government was divine. This latter view was considered to be rather extreme. I know this negative view of French glory is difficult for the average contemporary to grasp. We find divine authority neither in Rome nor in Paris but only in ourselves.
An ultra-Catholic today, however, is one who strives to do what Aquinas did: He distinguished between those who willingly practice virtue, because they understand that it is the noble thing to do, and those who practice it just to observe the minimum of the law.
In what is hopefully a pioneer endeavor, we even have a bishop explaining to a Kennedy what it means to be a Catholic. Bishop Thomas Tobin in Providence read what Congressman Kennedy said in the Congressional Record about his being a Catholic but still not "agreeing" with everything the Church held -- a highly unoriginal position, to be sure. The bishop wondered just what it was that the congressman did not hold, and whether these "un-held" things were central positions in the Church -- which, of course, they were. From the beginning, when this selective view of Catholicism first appeared, local bishops did not similarly inquire of politicians who invoked this fuzzy doctrine of themselves deciding what is Catholic, as if the politician were actually himself the pope.
Now about this ultra-Catholic character: We have all laughed at people said to be "holier than the Church." This latter remark is not a compliment. Unlike the congressman from Rhode Island, some Catholics add things instead of subtracting them, as is the current fashion. Usually, the additions are not really wrong or bad. Most devotions, like the scapulars, are additions in this sense. Aquinas said that adding to the law was not the problem; taking things away from it was.
In the contemporary world, the real enemy of the liberal culture is the "fanatic." He holds something. We have now reached the point where the fanatic is pretty much identified with the ultra-Catholic. What is dangerous is not some heretical notion of Christianity; it is Christianity itself, especially in its Catholic form. When many Catholics themselves do not know what they are and hold, we distinguish the Christian who defines his own beliefs from the one who holds the self-evident and revealed truths of the Faith.
When the non-ultra-Catholics identify themselves with a disordered culture, the ultra-Catholic is left standing by himself. The popes address their documents to "men of good will." We read in the Gospel of John: "I have given them thy word; and the world has hated them." Evidently, not all men have good will.
Ah. Do you tthen come on to these threads to sound the alarm, in the hope that by misrepresenting our teaching you will entice us to renounce it, and, failing that, through misrepresentations of what we teach you hope to warn others away from believing what we do in fact teach?
Is this, in your view, sort of like a political debate, where neither party really engages the arguments of the other but rather, by glib phrases and sophistries they hope to garner supporters among the witnesses? It’s not a real conversation, it’s a matter of posing, of pretending to engage while rally playing to the audience?
Would that be an example of doing evil (by misrepresenting one’s opponent and oneself) that good might come?
"Thank GOD you're not describing the Catholic Church.
I was.
You might have been attempting to describe the Catholic Church, but you failed.
Then again, you also did not claim to be describing the Catholic Church, so your contrary claims ring hollow.
Any ordinary person reading this mush will begin to understand the problem with the Catholic Church. It is made up of theology akin to the remarks above. "Before I voted for it, I voted against it. Depending upon what 'is' is." Typical, but please continue. You make my case beautifully.
Congratulations on referring to the Catholic Church by her proper name. As I recall, that’s quite an accomplishment for you.
“Someday, perhaps Rome will let its sheeple learn how to read. Perhaps not.”
That’s the best you have? ROTFL!
That insult is slightly more vapid than “your mother wears combat boots.”
“... the very traditional names of “hillbillies” suggest a catholic heritage?...”
~Perhaps culturally Western, MD. The Hillbillies my husband is descended from are those from Scotland removed to Belfast and then banished to the colonies. As I noted, my husband’s family was originally Catholic but lost the faith somewhere between Belfast and their arrival in the mountains.
These are true Appalachian Hillbillies. The fortunate carried the cultural traditions with them.
I have yet to discover the onomastics of Verle (2 syllables), Dwarb, and Burlie or Maceral.
Isn’t it sad?
To help you with your question, let me point out that I believe most Orthodox Calvinists are trinitarians.
“Saying that Catholics cannot read IS personal.”
Funny that. Throwing insults is the last stand of a losing argument.
I gather we’ve won! (-;
“To help you with your question, let me point out that I believe most Orthodox Calvinists are trinitarians.”
Are you sure? I can’t find anything in Scripture about the Trinity. How can they be trinitarians? Sola and all that!
Oh, of course. The theology of the Trinity was already
developed by the Church Fathers. Around the year 181, Theophilus of Antioch expressly used the Greek word trias (trinitas in Latin, trinity in English): “the Trinity: God [the Father], his Word, and his Wisdom” [To Autolycus 2:15]. About twenty years later, Tertullian used the Latin trinitas: “The Unity is distributed in a Trinity. Placed in order, the three are Father, Son, and Spirit” [Against Praxes 2:4].
~about 140 years before the Council of Nicea. (-:
So glad the Calvinists agree with the Catholic Church.
It usually come just after the total fabrication of falsehoods and their utter disbelief that we fail to validate their falsehoods.
Some bigots have been known to completely fabricate quotes and attribute them to "thousands of Roman Catholic websites" only to later acknowledge that they just made it up. But NOTHING will ever match the attempt to pass off the personal homepage of a female Jewish psychic who lives in Brooklyn and communicates with an "entity" she calls "Z" as a "Roman Catholic website" (this same website is now used by other bigots as an authority on UFOs and their role in the Bible).
Dutchboy says he is not here to speak the truth or even to insult artfully or reasonably. He says
The purpose of speaking out about the rampant error of Rome is to inform the public that RCC theology is a man-made conglomeration of superstition and tradition.It's not important to give a good insult. It's not even important to know or to say what we actually teach. All that matters is to keep people from being taken in by us.
IF that is the motive AND IF it is legitimate to do evil that good may come, why then there is no need either to speak the truth about what we actually teach or to defend one's statements. When was the last time you heard an alarm bell engage in dialog?
Come to think of it, when was the last time you saw an alarm bell ABLE to think or to discern truth or even wanting to discern the truth?
For that matter, come to think of it, when was the last time you saw an anti-Catholic bigot ABLE to think or to discern truth or even wanting to discern the truth?
Seems as though the two of you must have attended the same RCC training class in "How to argue with the Truth".
Sorry, I’m not involved with radio-controlled car clubs.
As opposed, I presume, to the Catholic-hating bigots who argue without truth.
“It’s not important to give a good insult.”
It’s sheer laziness and, frankly, a lack of intelligence not to give a good zinger no matter what one’s inclination, especially if one is attempting to dismiss another’s beliefs.
I beg to differ! Giving an insult is an art form!
Look at the patriarchs and prophets, especially Elijah. Can you envision him standing around the firepits with crossed arms and a suppressed laugh on his lips watching the priests of Baal scream and chant to exhaustion?
Elijah: “ “At noon Elijah mocked them, saying, ‘Cry aloud! Surely he is a god; either he is meditating, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.’ “
What a fantastic insult! Then to tell them to pour water on his firepit is just the coup de grace.
I’m disappointed. What next? You mother sucks eggs?
I realize some don’t bother to argue since the staleness of the same arguments time after time and the predictably same results occur. You’d think they’d stay on threads to bash Mormons or that poor Rick Warren fellow or dispensationists or replacement theology or slurry providing aliens.
I was reading your posts and I saw little that had any discernible relationship to the truth, not even anything that was a clear enough proposition to justify either questions or proof.
The closest to such a thing was your comment about Scriptural justifications for the papacy. In response, I asked for Scriptural justifications for Sola Scriptura. You did not respond to that part of my post.
“Seems as though the two of you must have attended the same RCC training class in “How to argue with the Truth”.”
Yes, we do argue with the Truth. That’s why you are forever losing. We argue with the Truth.
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