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
Nope, no anti-Catholics in the Religion Forum........NOT!
“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.”
Of course.
“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.”
That is most certainly not correct.
“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.”
I don’t say that God *could* not have created everything in six twenty-four hour days. I say that He *chose* to create the universe in a way that left the fossil record and everything that astrophysics has discovered.
“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?”
I deeply regret that you ran into people who acted like that, but they were *people,* not the church.
“just as the idea of Catholicism being “unchanged and unchangeable” is also an illusion.”
No matter what the Church’s enemies within may say, the core of Catholicism remains unchanged. St. Peter, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Joan—all would recognize it. Those Catholics who say it has changed are either fools or liars.
“it destests people like me and my mother and everything we believe in.”
I am a Catholic, and a redneck. I got sunstroke at 5 picking strawberries in the red Oklahoma dirt. I’ve killed more water moccasins than most people have had hot dinners. I’ve rebuilt my own car from the ground up, and worked as a mechanic. I’m still waiting for these “Dual Survivor” shows to tell me something I didn’t learn as a child. I listen to (good) country music (in addition to a number of other genres). I’ve done more skinny-dipping in farm ponds than I have swum in pools. I’ve been at four-generation dinners where the only thing on the table that was store-bought was coffee and tea.
I do not detest people like you and your mother, nor the things you believe in. I do not ridicule. I do not feel superior (except in red-neckitude). And there are a lot more people like me than there are like those you apparently ran into. We don’t sit around and talk about protestants and how messed up they are. You could go years without the subject even coming up.
“It even rejects parts of “its own” Bible because “the wrong kind of people” believe in them!”
Not true at all. We do not reject parts of the Bible; we read them differently from you. We do that not for the reason you give, but because (and somebody please jump on me if I misstate this) God is the ultimate Reality, the source of all Reality and Truth; therefore, it is impossible that the Bible could contradict the truth.
Saint Augustine held that if religious teachings are found to contradict certain direct observations about the natural world, then it is obligatory to re-evaluate either the interpretation of the scientific facts or the understanding of the scriptures. It is true that the universe is, by our standards, old. Does that contradict the Bible? No. Ergo, the word “days” in the account of creation is allegorical.
“Read—or at least skim—the Paula Haigh article and get back with me.”
Okay. May take me a while. I accomplish so little in a day now.
“Since you and the Pope don’t believe in “original sin,” why are you Catholics?”
I have not yet seen anything to make me think that His Holiness doesn’t believe in Original Sin aside from your assertions.
“Or if the “unchanging church” no longer believes in original sin, what is its justification for existence?”
The Church certainly believes in Original Sin, and needs no justification for its existence. It is the supernatural bride of Christ, established by Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself while He walked the Earth.
This thesis is one of the craziest that I have ever seen.
It ranks up there with when a liberal told me that America was opposed to communist Cuba, because we were jealous of its success and high standard of living.