Posted on 05/30/2008 10:21:34 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007
Some of you will remember my recent decision to become a Catholic. I suppose I should be surprised it ended getting derailed into a 'Catholic vs. Protestant' thread, but after going further into the Religion forum, I suppose it's par for the course.
There seems to be a bit of big issue concerning Mary. I wanted to share an observation of sorts.
Now...although I was formerly going by 'Sola Scriptura', my father was born and raised Catholic, so I do have some knowledge of Catholic doctrine (not enough, at any rate...so consider all observations thusly).
Mary as a 'co-redeemer', Mary as someone to intercede for us with regards to our Lord Jesus.
Now...I can definitely see how this would raise some hairs. After all, Jesus Himself said that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that none come to the Father but through Him. I completely agree.
I do notice a bit of a fundamental difference in perception though. Call it a conflict of POV. Do Catholics worship Mary (as I've seen a number of Protestants proclaim), or do they rather respect and venerate her (as I've seen Catholics claim)? Note that it's one thing to regard someone with reverence; I revere President Bush as the noted leader of the free world. I revere my father. I revere Dr. O'Neil, a humorous and brilliant math teacher at my university. It's an act of respect.
But do I WORSHIP them?
No. Big difference between respecting/revering and worshiping. At least, that's how I view it.
I suppose it's also a foible to ask Mary to pray for us, on our behalf...but don't we tend to also ask other people to pray for us? Doesn't President Bush ask for people to pray for him? Don't we ask our family members to pray for us for protection while on a trip? I don't see quite a big disconnect between that and asking Mary to help pray for our wellbeing.
There is some question to the fact that she is physically dead. Though it stands to consider that she is still alive, in Heaven. Is it not common practice to not just regard our physical life, but to regard most of all our spirit, our soul? That which survives the flesh before ascending to Heaven or descending to Hell after God's judgment?
I don't think it's that big of a deal. I could change my mind after reading more in-depth, but I don't think that the Catholic Church has decreed via papal infallibility that Mary is to be placed on a higher pedestal than Jesus, or even to be His equal.
Do I think she is someone to be revered and respected? Certainly. She is the mother of Jesus, who knew Him for His entire life as a human on Earth. Given that He respected her (for He came to fulfill the old laws; including 'Honor Thy Father and Mother'), I don't think it's unnatural for other humans to do the same. I think it's somewhat presumptuous to regard it on the same level as idolatry or supplanting Jesus with another.
In a way, I guess the way Catholics treat Mary and the saints is similar to how the masses treated the Apostles following the Resurrection and Jesus's Ascension: people who are considered holy in that they have a deep connection with Jesus and His Word, His Teachings, His Message. As the Apostles spread the Good News and are remembered and revered to this day for their work, so to are the works of those sainted remembered and revered. Likewise with Mary. Are the Apostles worshiped? No. That's how it holds with Mary and the saints.
At least, that's how my initial thoughts on the subject are. I'll have to do more reading.
Do you give extra points to a poster who makes it his purpose to goad and insult, all the while staying technically within the guidelines and promptly pings the Religion Moderator when he provokes his hoped for response?
Millions of people worship Mary. Doesn’t make it true.
The extremely short answer.(gales of happy laughter, when was Mad Dawg ever brief?)
We just don't think that our tradition is "traditions of men". We have this treasure in extremely earthen vessels, some KIND of earthen, and we trust in God to keep us out of the soup.
Now for the long tedious verbose gloss:
As I have tried to convey in other posts hither and yon, I like this model: In Acts we have an example of the Church facing a controversy. The controversy percolates for a while with some hemming and hawing and less than gentle language. Then the Church leadership goes into a huddle and comes out with, "It seems good to us and to the Holy Spirit ....."
That's a precedent, for us. It's an indication of how the Church functions.
And the first thing is that it is largely reactive. "Sinless" Mary seems to be thought of as far back as the mid fourth century when, I am told, Ephrem the Syrian describes the tradition as coming from the Apostles.
It is discussed back and forth and up and down for 1,500 years! Finally the Pope asks all the bishops what they think. They tell him and most of them are for "immaculate conception". So finally, after maybe more than a millennium and a half, the Pope rears back and lets fly.
Similarly with closing the OT canon and with transubstantiation. The OT canon is defined at Trent only because a bunch o' guys say, It's THIS." So we have to say, "Well, it's THAT, actually." UP until then, we just kind of let it hang there.
And transubstantiation is discussed for a long time and for even longer there seems to be at least a strand of thought that IHS is strongly, even "really", connected to the Sacrament.
So, again, after extremely lengthy debate or an articulation of a strong opinion which the Catholic Church finds unacceptable, then the Church does its declaring and defining thing.
Now if the Scriptures said, absolutely unequivocally, "Ain't no way Mary was immaculately conceived," I think the conversation would not have gone on for long. So in answer to the question:
Regarding said scantiness of evidence: DOESN'T THAT BOTHER YOU?
I cheerfully say, Nope.
I'm relying on God to provide precisely that kind of guidance in more or less that manner.
Now I could be living in a fool's paradise, but I really think that all the vibe of "conclaves" and such provides space for a lot of unrealistic and slightly paranoid imagining about the way the Church works. (Do read my #4500 if you have the time. It may somehow be relevant.)
But we think that the Easter Evening and Pentecost gifts make a new and different pledge to the "Assembly of the Lord" and promise its preservation in dogma (and that's important) from the liabilities of the community of the old covenant. (The "in dogma" restriction is because we know that guys themselves or often jerks and bozos, uh, I mean to say, earthen vessels.
The corporate structure of the RCC would seem to be very rigid and hierarchical, and as with any corporate structure, it has a tendency to indemnify itself, to immunize itself against change.
We need a good historian, and I ain't one. I think the Church is decent at CYA maneuvers. I think, thought, that the structres do change. Look at what John XXIII and Paul VI were able to do.
But, well, as I tried to suggest in the lengthy #4500, the law of the Medes and the Persians don't back up too good, but it can't be capricious, as Darius discovered. If you have infallibility hanging over you, if you know that "Oops!" is not going to be an option, you watch what you say.
I don't know enough. I DO know that the Inquisition has a totally horrible reputation and that SOME of that is deserved, but some not. An historian told me some months back that in the Spanish Inquisition what is NOT reported was that some miscreants charged with secular offenses would say, "OH yeah, and the Pope's mother wears combat boots," in hopes that they'd come before the Inquisition which was more merciful, as a rule, and had better "processes" than the secular courts.
To judge the behavior of an age when "freedom of religion" was generally considered to be a totally bizarre concept that no sensible person would uphold, when persisting in heresy was considered to be like saying, "YES I gave the names of our agents to the KGB, and I'm glad, do you hear, GLAD! Bwah hah hah!" the excesses of the Inquisition are perhaps judged more appropriately. If you really believe in witches and really think that they are agents of the worst possible enemy, and if the usual secular punishment for high treason is so awful that I cannot bring myself to describe it here, then in its context, some of the atrocities are not forgivable, but at least understandable.
But I see that viewed from the outside, this seems like a self-justifying circular sort of thing. We're going to say, again and again, that we think that God will simply not allow heresy to enter. Period. Not because WE're good, the evidence that we are not is too great to contradict, but because HE is.
Look at it from my POV for a second. JP2, whom I really really liked a LOT, (he's certainly one of the phenoms that made converting easier for me) dies. The Cardinals meet. I KNOW that there are a few bozos among them, and I suppose there are some whom I do not know. I'm sitting there wondering if they're going to elect some, "Let it all hang out, break out the guitars, kumbaya," kind of guy. So my faith in what I take to be God's promise to the Church is challenged throughout the brief conclave. I have to re-examine my trust in God. And I do two things. I pray to God to be faithful to His promise and to give me the grace of further and deeper confidence in Him.
I can see how to some Catholicism seems to be all majesty and ceremony and impressing the masses. But I've seen a parade. I like 'em fine, but they don't change my mind one way or the other. I know the real deal is not the watered silk, but what the guys think about, and pray about, in their underwear. It's easier to believe in MY interpretation of Scripture, and I've studied it some, than to let God handle it. But for me to trust the Church IS to let God handle it, or feels like that. He's the one I pour my heart out to anyway ....
Blah blah blah.
Sorry your health is interfering with your participation. But the tempo is fine with me. I'll nag God about your health tonight.
Any besides these? Or are you thinking of the sedevacantists' views of the conciliar Popes?
“Sounds to me as if their teaching was binding — they just didn’t consider it binding on themselves!”
I don’t think Jesus considered their teaching binding (cf. Sabbath keeping, hygene, hospitality).
The easily offended, and mod-pingers are supposed to leave the open thread too. They are the disrupters, according to the new rules.
Not after Him — just until Him!
I guess I have to get specific then.
What you responded to: I don’t pretend to know the hearts of everyone who claims to be a Christian but yes, if they accept and believe what the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church teaches they are Christian.
What was conveniently ignored. if they accept and believe
So the church makes them Christian?
Who said that, the Catholic Church teaches the true and complete faith, it makes no-one become anything. There is no magic potion.
The church doesn’t have much to do with personal salvation.
Bias, anyone? Not unless you take into account that the Catholic Church has held the faith intact and hands it on in succession. And once again, it isn‘t all about personal salvation. It all is about doing the will of God, it is about being a part of the Body of Christ on Earth. It is all about what God wants not what I think He wants filtered through my own personal biases. And yet, I am no robot, I studied for years before becoming a Catholic. I thought I had all I needed in a Protestant church and belief and that there was no reason to rock the boat. That I might have all I needed didn't mean I had it ALL. I am a Catholic by spiritual, Scriptural, intellectual, historical, reasoned, knowledgable choice. God gave me a mind and the Spirit gives me guidance.
No, I don’t believe all protestants (or Catholics) are Christians.
I don’t believe we’re called to speculate, especially when some persist in misconceptions and sometimes outright lies to define any faith. I think that our vocation is to live our faith, actions speak much louder than words. The heart and the spirit matter to God and we can see neither.
When they put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and have a true relationship with Him, confess their sins to Him, live for Him, then they are Christian.
Nothing new here, it has been taught for 2 millennia by the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
No rites can save you.
I’m pretty sure that you have already been told numerous times that no Catholic believes that rites save but who would refuse a personal encounter with Jesus Christ our Savior in the Body and the Blood, in His Soul and Divinity? That same Jesus that you have a relationship with on paper and in spirit is present to Catholics in His Entirety.
Not I. Only YOU can make the decision to live for Christ and take Him as your Lord and Savior.
I and most active Catholics and the Catholic Church has definitely done that. The gates of hell have not and will not prevail against the Catholic Church. Jesus promised it, wise and holy men and women have historically and spiritually affirmed it and I believe Jesus, who’s words were remembered and preserved by the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
See if you can do this. Read John 6 and tell me why you think so many disciples left Jesus at that time.
I don’t think OLD REGGIE should have to leave the thread just for pinging a Religion Mod.
For the record I wasn’t referencing you.
***One of the difficulties in dealing with the plethora of Protestant denominations, congregations, bodies and what have you is attempting to keep each and all of them straight.
It’s much easier to throw mud at all Protestants isn’t it?***
Mostly variations on a theme.
***”The Church” is an all encompassing term. Individual members of “The Church” have been in heresy including a Pope of the “Catholic Church”.***
The Church is not. Her mission is to be all encompassing, but individual men, acting on whatever whim, lunacy, reason or other justification, may fall away.
Individual men do not make up the entirety of the Church. Individuals such as Augustine leave and come back. Individuals such as Tertullian do not. That is why a Church Council makes decisions on things such as heresy and not one man.
***There is one Church. It doesn’t have a copyrighted name.***
You may either head East or else swim the Tiber to get there, too.
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