Posted on 08/27/2010 11:45:13 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
Quick comment on my way to a nap.
Am happy to redouble my efforts toward understanding and demonstrated understanding.
“All I read is outrage and abusive language”
“Rejection is clear, understanding not so much”
Yes
Thanks
May i ask the deciding reason for you becoming a catholic? What were you at the time??
I don’t see Protestants, or any other non-Catholics, treat the story as anything more than an allegory or poetry.
They haven’t treated it as fact, made statues to QE1, bowed down to her, prayed to her, attributed powers to heal to her, and treated that allegory as reality.
We’ve more sense than that.
I never looked at it that way, that Jesus was simply telling them what the two elements of the Passover meal actually represented.
It’s like He was telling them *Hello! “This is my body”- The bread represents my body. “This is my blood”-the cup represents my blood. This is what’s it’s always meant and now you can understand it. This is what you’ve been celebrating and what Passover has been pointing to for years without you knowing it fully. Now I’ve just explained it to you so you can understand. Now keep doing it so you can remember what I’ve DONE for you instead of what I’m GOING to do for you.*
Yep!
I think there's a danger of slipping into a contention: If enough people are poorly catechized, no one is poorly catechized. What's wrong with this proposition: If everybody has a bad education, then nobody has a bad education.
Lots of catholics make no effort to see that the fruit of their loins is catechized, or to edumicate themselves. Among those that do, sound teachers are mighty thin on the ground. This must be the ninety-eleventh time I mention that in another congregation I heard the deacon RCIA instructor teach an ethical principle specifically condemned in Veritatis Splendor without mentioning its controversiality.
It is more of a lament than an insult to say someone was poorly catechized. It's a reflection on the catechists, not the catechumens.
BUT, still, if someone says the thing that is not and claims to know it to be true because she was catechized (or should have been) it is argumentatively legit to question the quality of the catechesis. Metmom could have checked on the veracity of what she asserted. Instead She asserted it backed up the assertion with the assertion that she had been Catholic and that's what Sr. Mary Sadistica told her (or words to that effect.)
Under those circumstances I see no obligation whatsoever to refrain from questioning the quality of Sr. Mary Sadistica's instruction.
YOU, Alte Regius, questioned Aquinas's authority. Well, a lesser than Aquinas is here. Why not question?
The first quote is from Pange Lingua. The second is from Tantum Ergo, which is the last two verses of Pange Lingua Around the world Tantum Ergo is sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. I think I might get 1% on that. On the first quote maybe fewer.
But I never said that bad catechesis is unusual. If 98% of the people get the measles that doesn't mean it's not a disease. If fewer than 1% of Catholics can't get the second quote, they've been treated badly. I can see a parish singing the Pange Lingua only once a year, on Holy Thursday. But even in small Scottsville VA they have Benediction at least monthly. A couple of years of that and the people will know the Tantum Ergo. If they don't trouble to figure out what it means when it says, "Let faith stand in for the deficiency of the senses," then, well, they ought to keep silent about transubstantiation.
If somebody says that the Catholic Church does not allow married priests, my work is done if I show it has allowed one. And in fact, the frist time this came up I mentioned the uniate churches and the "pastoral provision." The recent outreach to disaffected Anglicans has been in the news, so I didn't think I had to mention that.
If somebody wants to exult in claims of knowledge, I tend to let them do their own research.
You talkinna ME?
That's a characterization rarely made of me.
Well I would have said, "begging the question" but in recent years the idiots in the media who wouldn't recognize a coherent argument if they found it in their soup have taken to using that phrase incorrectly. Petitio principii is the only breif way I know of to say, "You are ssuming what you seek to prove."
How can a language be
arrogant, condescending, obscuring, obsfucating, haughty, cheeky and elitist?
That is basically what I was saying..the passover was prophetic he was telling them that
You made several false assertions, and claimed your experience as a Catholic as authority for those statements. YOU brought up, in essence, your catechesis (or lack thereof) as authority.
The statements were false. The authority was "incompetent", by definition it seems, to establish them.
The poor catechesis is not a criticism of you personally; it is a criticism of the authority you claimed. That's all.
Um,
Hold a minute, I beg thee, friend. Dost thou say that our sweet Lord spake NOT in the English tongue?
Oy! Am I disaPOINTed!"
- You said the Catholic Church does not allow married priests. False.
- You said that Catholic Church does not offer the chalice. False
- You said that the failure of the appearance of the bread and wine to change indicated the falseness of the doctrine of transubstantiation when in fact if they DID change, that would contradict the doctrine. So that's false.
You claimed that you knew these things because you had been Catholic.
What would YOU propose as an appropriate way to address these incorrect statements and to deal with your claim of authority based on your having been Catholic?
It seems to me the issue here is that when Spenser uses extravagant language and calls Elizabeth a goddess it is excused. That’s all.
One of the alleged RF rules is not to make personal remarks. Talking about my capacity to understand something is a personal remark. The entire exchange was about my capacity.
Last I checked, affirming another FREEPER’S capacity or anything else in a positive, supportive, confirming way was, is and always has been quite allowed.
IIRC, Someone had questioned it or challenged it. I stood up for you and your capacities.
I suppose you could persuade me to stop doing so. However, I think you’d have a hard time doing so. I happen to like you and think a lot of you and of a number of things about you.
Absolutely indeed.
You post is a criticism of the doctrine and a "constructive" for a other point of view. It's a good presentation, but it's not what I'm doing, and to join here would distract me from the other task.
I used to think much as you do, but to run down that rabbit hole may interfere with conveying what we actually teach instead of all the misconceptions about it. My goal is not to make converts of all of you, but to present the doctrine so that I don't see any more absurd attacks against it. I'd much prefer to deal with the attacks that make me think.
How can a language be
arrogant, condescending, obscuring, obsfucating, haughty, cheeky and elitist?
imho, you are far tooo smart and far tooooo educated to needme to answer that question.
My opinion is when one experiences a “feeling” or sees their life ‘better” or ‘worse’ for that matter....that does not, and should not verify the nature of the reality they believe in....unfortunately to many it does...and when they are in error it is very difficult for them to see this as so....because of what they perceive in what they practice and the seemingly reality of it.
Speaking for myself, and likely for all former Catholics, if you're trying to explain the doctrine of transubstantiation so that we can understand it, save your keyboard.
I was not so *poorly catechized* that I do not understand what the Catholic teaching is about it. I understand completely what is taught about it because I remember what I believed about it and it wasn't different from what you're explaining.
My point is that it's wrong and the challenges are WHY I believe it to be wrong. There are too many contradictions and inconsistencies in the teaching. The justification and explanations that Cathlics have to put forth and believe in direct violation of any kind of reasoning is staggering. Catholics HAVE to claim that you just have to accept that it happens by faith, because there's no other way that that any reasoning mind can justify the belief. And honestly, God doesn't expect us to kiss our brains good-by when we become followers of His.
The interpretation of the Scripture surrounding the institution of communion and the teaching about the cup and bread being the body and blood of Christ as a symbolic ceremony is easily supportable by Scripture, while there is plenty of Scripture that disallows the meaning that the Catholic church has attached to it.
As far as the whole Mary worship thing, while you can, no doubt, point to various statements made by the Catholic church over the years to *prove* that the Catholic church does not endorse the worship of Mary, for all practical purposes, it does. For one thing, what happens in practice is that people treat Mary as deity. They relate to her as such by praying to her as they ought to pray to God the Father only. Everything they do in practice screams *worship*. The Catholic church has not discouraged publication of prayers to Mary that are idolatrous. They have given their official approval to the publication of material in books that is just out and out wrong. Lies, in reality.
If the Catholic church is going to have any credibility in its claims that Mary worship doesn't occur, then it needs to get the message out to its parishioners and much more strongly discourage the kind of behavior that is worship in practice.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.