Posted on 09/17/2011 5:52:41 AM PDT by marshmallow
Are believers-by-birth less motivated witnesses?
Do converts to the faith make better evangelists than "cradle Catholics"? Pope Benedict XVI seems to think so. Christians since childhood should "ask forgiveness," the pope told a group of his former theological students recently, "because we bring so little of the light of [Christ's] face to others, and emanate so feebly the certainty that he is, he is present and he is the great and complete reality that we are all awaiting."
But are Catholics "by birth"—or any believers raised in a religious tradition—indeed less-convincing witnesses, or less motivated, than are converts? Do they have a greater responsibility to live up to the tenets of the faith since they have known Christ from their earliest years? And are they a bigger disappointment to the Mother Church—and the world—when they come up short?
Benedict himself would certainly qualify as a "cradle Catholic." Joseph Ratzinger was born at home, early on the morning of Holy Saturday in April 1927, into the all-encompassing Catholic culture of small-town Bavaria. Within a few hours of his birth, the infant's mother bundled him up and trudged through an early spring snow to have him baptized at the village parish—the first step on a long but in some ways commonplace life of faith, at least in that day and age.
"I am a perfectly ordinary Christian," he once said of himself, with characteristic modesty. Yet it's hard to argue that Joseph Ratzinger, now the pope, has been anything less than enthusiastic in preaching the gospel. He entered the seminary while still an adolescent and rose from priest to cardinal to pope.
But is that enough? Over the past 2,000 years, two narratives have competed in the Christian imagination: the ideal of the child raised in a Christian home, growing steadily in faith...........
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I don’t think any church would be according to what they saw as the church. The problems of Homosexual Priests would certainly be a red light to them in what is happening in all churches leaderships now....infidelity to one another and their mates also would be an affront...
If the founding Fathers came back they would go about clearing out the trash and all which is an affront to Christ...and his church body...and none would be exempt...and there certainly isn’t one they’d feel at home in...impossible.
Joining the Catholic Church is like joining the Masonic lodge; the "seeker" as to petition to enter.
Pretty much the way it's been since the beginning, that. High-pressure evangelism isn't part of our tradition.
Nice to know that all those stories about Paul and Francis Xavier is just mythology.
There is no religious organization in the world that is exempt or immune from homosexual clergy, not even yours.
All humans are sinners, even the Apostles sinned. Judas betrayed Jesus, Paul denied Him, Thomas doubted Him, and Paul persecuted Him and the purpose of the Church is to guide and assist all in our paths to Salvation.
I found something very interesting on the Internet last night: a very long (nineteen pages, I believe) detailed examination of the decay and rot in Catholicism during the past four hundred years by a conservative Catholic named Paula Haigh. You may read it (or at least skim it) here. The story she tells isn't pretty. It didn't start with Vatican II and it didn't end with Benedict XVI. She indicts Popes and "conservative Catholics" of the past century, some of them heroes to so-called "conservative Catholics." How anyone could write such a thing and still be loyal to this allegedly "unchanged and unchanging" religion is absolutely beyond me.
I don’t know what His Holiness wrote about Genesis,
Google In the Beginning by Cardinal Ratzinger, or perhaps by Pope Benedict XVI.
but back in 1917 my mother was taught by the Priests and Sisters that there is a good deal of allegory in Genesis, so that idea is nothing new.
I know it's nothing new. See Haigh's article which details how the Catholic Church has been going to hell in a handbasket for four hundred years.
Further, I believe that the Bible contains both historical truth and theological truth, the latter presented through allegory and parable.
Oh you do, do you? Let me ask you: exactly what do you think is parable? Do you regard the idea of a baby being born of a virgin as a parable (since such a thing can't possibly actually happen)? Or perhaps the angels announcing this baby's birth to shepherds? How about the multiplication of loaves and fishes? That certainly couldn't have actually happened, could it? I mean, something like that doesn't happen every day, does it? And isn't that what you're going by? Or perhaps it's the resurrection of the dead you're dismissing as a parable. Or transubstantiation? None of these things can happen within the laws of nature. So do you reject them as parables conveying only theological meaning?
Now let me take a great big guess here and posit that you in fact interpret each and every episode I have just mentioned literally. Let me further posit that the one and only thing in the entire Bible you dismiss as "theological parables" are the first eleven chapters of Genesis. Why? Because stuff like that doesn't happen every day???
Let me tell you why I dislike the Catholic Church so intensely. It's because the Catholic Church hypocritically accepts some miracles (which "just can't happen") while rejecting the first eleven chapters of Genesis which are not one bit more impossible than any "new testament miracle." So why are the first eleven chapters of Genesis singled out for "parable" by the Catholic Church? Because the first eleven chapters of Genesis are accepted literally by white trash and the Catholic Church has no use for white trash. Do you want me to tell you why I believe they refused to speak to my mother? Do I really have to tell you that???
This is your "universal church" that allegedly "has room for everybody." That's a lie! It's an illusion, just as the idea of Catholicism being "unchanged and unchangeable" is also an illusion. The Catholic Church is nothing but chaos and liberalism, and it destests people like me and my mother and everything we believe in. It even rejects parts of "its own" Bible because "the wrong kind of people" believe in them!
Read--or at least skim--the Paula Haigh article and get back with me.
I’m betting that His Holiness wrote something similar to that, and I have no problem with it.
Since you and the Pope don't believe in "original sin," why are you Catholics? Why don't you become Noachides? Or if the "unchanging church" no longer believes in original sin, what is its justification for existence???
Sounds familiar:
....the current Catholic population has a disproportionately low number of blacks, who make up one out of every seven Americans but only one out of every 25 Catholics, and high number of Hispanics, according to the Barna Group.
-- from the thread Survey: Catholics Adapt to Culture at Cost of Committed Faith
I think your overlooking the "high-pressure" qualifier in Campion's post.
My guess is that these demographics have more to do with the religion of slave holders and missionaries than with the truth of the faith.
Nope, no anti-Catholics in the Religion Forum........NOT!
Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, "It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o'clock on Sunday morning." He wasn't just talking about Mass down at St. Philomena's.
That is because the slave holding states, with the exception of Lousiana, were predominantly Protestant and the Klan was as active against "Papists" as they were freed slaves......Duh!!!!
Unlike most on this forum, I have never denied my anti-Catholicism.
As an evolutionist who believes in a magic baby, it would be nice if you would similarly stop denying your hypocrisy.
And you're overlooking the fact that the Catholic Church doesn't simply avoid "high pressure" proselytization--it doesn't proselytize at all. It keeps going because Irish, Italians, and Hispanics reproduce sexually.
It isn't "high pressure" to simply let someone know they would be welcome as a member. But not everyone is welcome in the Catholic Church.
I am neither Jewish nor . . . ::shudder!:: . . . "messianic." I am a Noachide. Look it up.
Some stereotypes are true, and this very much applies to the hypocrisy of Catholics who believe in magic babies but who laugh at "white trash" for believing the events in the first eleven chapters of Genesis actually happened.
Better not tell these guys: Missionaries of Divine Mercy
a missionary zeal for the New Evangelisation, especially among the muslims.
It keeps going because Irish, Italians, and Hispanics reproduce sexually.
I hate to break it to you, but that's not really the case anymore, especially with the first two groups.
Why don't you read the article by Paula Haigh I referenced earlier? You might enjoy it. I'm sure none of her extremely loud co-religionists on this forum will so much as look at it.
Oh, good grief, ZC. I'll say it again. I'm sorry what happened to you years ago, but you can't use your own personal experience and apply it to every one of the billion Catholics all over the world. Seek healing.
I will set aside my anti-idiot policy for the moment to point out your hypocrisy:
God could have created a fully grown Jesus had He chosen to, but He chose to create a blessed zygote within Mary and use the fetal development processes He created to bring forth Jesus in human form.
Similarly, God created life and all life related processes including theistic evolution and then used those processes that He created to bring forth man. No hypocrisy, no illogic, no heresy.
I do not hate those of you who have chosen a fringe sect to set yourself apart from the rest of the world out, but I do pity you.
That is an ignorant statement.
The original Ku-Klux Klan, the one that targeted freed slaves (along with the Union army and Republicans like my ancestors) was not in the least anti-Catholic (or anti-Jewish) and did not burn crosses. In fact, the original Klan had Catholic and Jewish members.
It was the twentieth century Klan that was anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish, not the original "terrorist wing of the Democrat party."
I've read that article and quite a number of her other writings as well. She is quite prolific. The difference between me reading it and you reading it is I did not approach it with a closed mind and an intent to find or fabricate fault.
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