Yes, I've been very upset for a long time over this. I've gone over it backwards and forwards in my mind. Obviously we cannot put God in a box and tie his hands, but when the church makes liturgical and canonical rules, as is their authority to do so, and imposes them under penalty of sin, when they are not followed, I would suppose there would be heavenly penalties, not so much for the ignorant (they possibly are deprived of graces, etc.), but for those who willfully disobey.
I wouldn't care about any of this, within certain obvious concerns about going overboard, if there weren't rules. But there are rules and the church is thumbing her nose at her own rules until it comes to other matters such as women priests, power to the laity, etc.
The bottom line is that you can't turn your family loose in the church to partake of all that is offered (questionable retreats, extra-liturgical services, etc., etc.) without being eternally vigilant. For myself, I can will to stick just to the sacraments and do fairly well, but for my friends and loved ones, they are at severe spiritual and possibly physical (from wacky healing practices.
There is heavy peer pressure to participate in some of these questionable activities. Pressure is also being exerted by priests who want to shine and are willing to compromise to do so . . .
I am not talking about blind obedience here, but I am concerned about blindly following the disobedient factions. What is most tragic to me is that I have seen otherwise very orthodox catholics being taken in through their blind trust in the pastors and their woeful ignorance about rules governing clerical practices.
And all this on top of the horrendous sexual abuse scandals.
Where are the watchmen on the wall? They are slumbering.
FR "restored" a censored remark # 39 but it seems that the victims of the whacky new regime of censorship here have to put their own stuff back up, so here it is (why anybody would have censored this is a mystery only the new FR elves can answer, but here it is (it was #39) Posted by Admin Moderator to leilani
On News/Activism 11/16/2002 4:30 PM CST #80 of 88
Sorry I pulled your remarks. My mistake.
Restored:
To: duckln
Duckln, Conservative til I die: Dreher is a hard-core, deep-in-his-heart Roman Catholic. If I'm not mistaken, unlike some of us, he was a convert - which requires some real heavy-duty philosohical & emotional lifting on the part of the person switching sides.In other words, the guy has huevos. Dreher has been dead on the money about EVERYTHING when it comes to sexual predators hiding behind the roman collar.He wants these freaks OUT of his church & so do I. As an "orthodox" Roman Catholic, I thank GOD he is on our side.
39 posted on 08/24/2002 4:19 PM PDT by leilani
So, I didn't post anything horrible, obscene or objectionable. Nobody here has quite figured out why this post got pulled by the new FR Czars in the first place, but it should make everybody nervous.There's absolutely no excuse for this.