Posted on 07/23/2008 2:47:21 PM PDT by Pyro7480
Well, well, well. I’m glad I can do it with stunning facility. I learned it from you.
Hey, I’m not the one who keeps bringing it up...
Some Catholic also wrote a similar book, “In Imitation of Mary.”
Gooey happens...
Seems to me a study of naming of facilities - and titles given to persons living in the flesh or not - distributed over time, tabbed by doctrinal statements - could be interesting.
In other words, I wonder if there is a cause/effect relationship between doctrine and naming/titling. For instance, were there more facilities named after Mary and more titles given to her after Vatican I?
Thanks for affirming
the validity of my sense that I can be more at ease about your priorities and soul’s condition.
LUB
There is a real temptation to enjoy people's loyalty and expressions of gratefulness just a little TOO much, and any lust for power over them must be checked as soon as it is sensed.
Asians have, innate in their culture, a clan mentality. Even a church can become not much more than a “clan,” and an unscrupulous shepherd can allow himself to become the “clan boss.” A clan boss makes a pathetic pastor.
Now, sometimes, if the pastor (or missionary) is respected for his spiritual gifts, but shows his distaste for the clan mentality among the people, another strong individual emerges in the church as the clan boss, and the pastor is only one who fills the pulpit during services. It's an interesting thing. All of this is accentuated in the Philippine Islands beyond what is observable on the Asian Mainland. It exists in China, but is much more subtle, and a woman might actually emerge as the de facto clan boss in China. Although Philippines culture is matriarchal, the clan bosses are rarely women.
Let me add here that the Philippines being a matriarchal culture, Catholics there go F A R B E Y O N D what American Catholics go, in whatever it is Catholics say they do toward Mary. It doesn't even appear to be in the same ball park. And I'm not saying this to fight, but it is one of the reasons that I make the statement: Catholicism is, in practice, not as Catholic as American Catholics think it is.
The Baptist pastors I mentioned in my earlier post, building their little dominions, use the clan mentality of the Filipinos, and set themselves up as clan bosses. Filipinos were taught over 500 years that priests are just a little bit super-human. The Baptist pastors to who I referred know all of this, and use it to control people — I mean REALLY control them and their resources. I can tell you real horror stories.
Once one of these Baptist pastors succeeds in building somewhat of a small empire for himself, young men aspiring to the ministry will flock around him. The pastor then places these young men (many with wives and babies)in bondage system, in debt to the senior pastor. They teach these men that they must NOT work to support their families, but to totally rely on him for EVERYTHING — food, shelter, medical care, everything (it's actually something like a vow of poverty). The Senior will then use these men and their wives virtually as slaves to him to further build his little kingdom.
How is this financed? The pastor (”clan boss”) gets a visa and travels to the USA and speaks to Baptist congregations, crying and telling sob stories, and gets the Americans to reach for their wallets. In the process, the Filipino pastor has circulated photos of his underlings who are his “poster children.” He calls the younger Filipino men “missionaries” and uses the methods of C.A.R.E. and UNICEF to raise big bucks.
Americans are very generous. American local churches will pick one of the photos and says, “We'll send monthly support for that young missionary.” But most of the designated money never reaches the younger families. The larger percentage goes either in the pockets of the Senior, or toward building his edifice(s) in the Philippines. Of course, swimming pools, tennis courts, and Jaguar automobiles ordered from England are a necessary expenditure.
By the way, this is not done without American 501c3 organizations being involved as clearing houses for the funds! Sometimes the heads of those organizations are just hoodwinked. Sometimes they are in cahoots. The Senior pastor who raises the money can not cease exercising tyranny over the younger men, nor ever cut them loose, because they are a part of his money-raising, kingdom-building scheme. The Americans who shell out $$Millions every year actually believe that they are paying for genuine Christian missionary work.
There are few of us who ever dare expose this, because Americans accuse the whistle-blowers of being merely “jealous,” or “trouble-makers” or much worse.
Finally. So far so good.
This was one that my folks helped found when I was in Jr High. Last time I went there several years ago, the Pastor offered me the left boot of fellowship saying
“I don’t have the capacity to pastor you.”
and then had to leave himself for refusing to let go as he’d promised of an extra-marital relationship.
Anyway—I love any Biblical place where God’s Presence routinely manifests.
God have mercy.
That would be a very interesting study, indeed.
I suspect you are correct in such musings.
OFF to pottery . . . vs as some assert . . . merely being off.
I strongly and wholesale agree.
Yet only those with eyes to see and ears to hear will realize such truths.
While I understand your hypothesis, I think it is fundamentally flawed.
Most European churches were built prior to Vatican I; however, most American churches have been built since then.
Nevertheless, I think you will find that more often than not it is cathedrals and not ordinary Churches that are named for the Blessed Mother. For instance Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is one of the most famous cathedrals in the world and it is named for her and it predates Vatican I by several centuries.
As far as the notion that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was "invented" in the 19th Century, it is worth noting that the full name of the flagship on which Christopher Columbus discovered America was "Santa Maria de la Imaculada Concepcion." And for the idea that she isn't really the Mother of God, I suggest you look at Thesis #75 of Luther's "95 Theses."
Good post. Thank you for your candid observation.
For instance, the oldest cathedral in the U.S. (as far as I know) is San Fernando Cathedral in my hometown of San Antonio, Texas. It dates back to the early 1700's and was evidently named after a king. I'm suspecting the naming reflected the doctrine of theocratic governance back in those days. Spain was a Catholic theocracy.
Joining Old World and New World saints, the congregation chose Our Lady of Candlemas and Nuestra Señora de Guadalupeqv as patrons in addition to the town's official patron, San Fernando, or King Fernando III of Spain, who was canonized in 1671.
The name of the mission, which appears in Spanish records also as La Bahía del Espíritu Santo de Zúñiga, was a reference to its location on La Bahía del Espíritu Santo (the Bay of the Holy Spirit, now called Matagorda Bay and Lavaca Bay) and also honored Báltasar de Zúñiga, viceroy of New Spain.
Conversely, Mission San Jose dating to the late 1700's was named after Mary's husband. So naturally I wonder what was going on in the Catholic church around that time that it would be named for a Saint instead of a patron!
Fast forward nearly a century and we see St. Mary's University in San Antonio, established in 1852 by Marianists and not surprisingly named after Mary.
And a few decades later, the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, 1881, was established by and evidently named in honor of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word.
So evidently the naming of these newer facilities were tied to their founders, but notably not to theocratic patrons. Was there a change in doctrine relative to affiliations with nation/states - or perhaps to the means of planning, naming and financing new facilities?
And as I recall the many new Catholic facilities built in the San Antonio area since Vatican I (approx. 1870) were mostly named after Saints, a few named after Mary and a few named by location or doctrine, e.g. "Central Catholic" "Holy Cross" "Holy Spirit" "Blessed Sacrament".
Does this reflect a centralization of planning, naming and financing by the Vatican between Vatican I and Vatican II? Did entities such as "Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word" previously operate on their own to plan, name, finance and build facilities?
In my view, Vatican I had much to do with Church governance and doctrines related to it, preeminently Papal infallibility.
Is this reflected in the naming of facilities? More named after Mary than before, i.e. more named after Mary than after patrons or founders?
So what if any titles have been formalized since Vatican I? Since Vatican II? Any new titles for the Pope, for Mary, for the Church, for God?
Do we see these new titles being used on facilities?
What is the convention (if any) for planning, financing and naming facilities these days? Does the congregation have any say in it?
Excellent questions.
Perhaps some folks with more time than I will ferret out some historically accurate answers.
Thanks much.
You ratified it again in a second post. That’s all I was referring to. At that point, I think my interest in this thread has evaporated.
What about non-Catholic churches that are named St. Whatever? Or the first or second designation?
Please tell us . . .
how many fingers does it take to count
the Evangelical Christian churches named after Mary?
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