[RnMomof7]

interesting read

[miss marmelstein]

There's only Catholicism. There ain't Liberal Catholicism or Conservative Catholicism. Just as there is only right and wrong.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[Alberta's Child]

I believe that what the author of this article describes is a uniquely American phenomenon: the desire of many people to retain a nominal Catholic identity without caring much about it in their habits and practices.

I give Europeans credit for at least being more honest about it. People who would fit this description over there don't even pretend to be Catholic anymore.

[chajin]

My quick reaction to the article: it is not that the Catholics are "Protestant" per se, but that they are Americans. Part of what it means to be American, however, is the willingness to reason for oneself on the basis of evidence and logic, and if one aspect of acceptable evidence is what is found in the Bible, in that sense Americans think like Protestants, even when they believe like Catholics.

I would add that this is why so many of us on FR despair of the future of America, because what we see in the administration in particular, and progressivism in general, is an unwillingness to reason for oneself. Liberals today are like the Catholic Church was at the height of its post-medieval corruption and depravity--the corruption and depravity that led to the rise of prophetic utterance culminating in the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. OTOH, this should give us a sense of hope, since it was when the Church was at its worst that God raised up those who would prophetically speak to reform it, and it did reform: not only the Protestant denominations that came from the Reformation, but the cleaned-up Catholic church that then set about evangelizing the world.

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

Birth control reduces marital relations to mutual masturbation. Protestants apparently do this a lot, and now thousands of Catholics are following suit and likewise engaging in what amounts to mutual masturbation.

Yeah, that's definitely a win worth crowing about. Whoever said victory had to be glorious.

What the author cannot change is Church teaching, which remains constant regardless of whether people follow it. His insistence that popular opinion de facto amounts to the teachings of the Church is both laughable and erroneous.

"The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it, and error is error even if every everyone believes it." ~ Bishop Fulton Sheen.

[Salvation]

Opinion and generalization

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/backroom/3263766/posts?page=667#667

[hosepipe]

Ah.. so what happens at Notre Dame is right twice a day..
Probably accurate..

[GreyFriar]

As a 1969 graduate of St. Joseph’s College of Indiana, and a Protestant, I can see how Mr. Walls would write this, ten years after Vatican II. Vatican II created “a great disturbance in the force” of Roman Catholicism. That was just beginning when I was at St. Joe. Most of the Catholic students there would have fallen into his category 1 and perhaps some into his category 3, but they were faithful to their faith, although they had some “Protestant-like” reservations.

Category 2 liberals whom Mr. Walls saw, I did not see, of course the total “sea change” by both Vatican II and also the rise of liberation theology (communist inspired and planted into South America) was evident in 1978. The liberation theology was also evident in 1968 amongst the Maryknoll priests in South America.

Of course most of my friends were in the History and Education programs, the theater program and also many seminarians. I worked on campus during the summers to help pay my tuition, thus got to know the seminarians then. A good group of fellows, who were serious about their faith.

[ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton]

Isn’t here a scene from Monty Python where 20 crusaders are about to be wiped out by a horde of Muslims. A fight breaks on between a Dominican and a Franciscan monk.

“Free will” “No predestination” they yell as they roll on the ground choking each other.

As this fight breaks out the horde on the hill starts charging.

This reminds me of that.

[Campion]

Perhaps this is just another sign that the Reformation is–despite the pope's best efforts–finally taking hold within the Roman Church.

He seems to be saying that the theology of the reformation is all about picking and choosing, disobedience to the faith one professes (and continues to profess), and conforming to the spirit of the age and the spirit of the world.

If I were I Protestant, I would find this article ... rather insulting.

[jocon307]

Deadline 1978!

It’s time to stop worrying about stuff like this and start worrying about jihadists who want to chop your Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist head off.

[imardmd1]

The author of this article sees the same thing that Augustine saw: An imperfect, visible “church” for which he invented the presence of an invisible church permeating and percolating through the visible congregations. But despite the Hippocratical “church” approach, the visible “church” is still imperfect, Romanist or Reformed, and is hypocritical by all visible measures.

[Salvation]

The Reformation is indeed over and the Catholics are coming out on top with people coming back to the Church.

The article is misappropriated in its title.

Should be Catholics 1 (or more), Protestants 0 (or - numbers.)

I’m criticizing the author and the title, not any individuals.

[Salvation]

“Few Americans hate the Catholic Church, but millions hate what they think is the Catholic Church.” —Bishop Fulton Sheen

[Zionist Conspirator]

This raises, of course, the deeper issue here: to what extent can a member of the Roman Catholic Church disagree with the official teachings of his Church and still be a faithful Catholic? Can one reject the teaching of a papal encyclical while remaining a faithful Catholic? If so, can he also reject a doctrine which the pope has declared infallible?

In Catholicism today there appears to be one and only one hard and fast rule: it is taboo and "un-Catholic" to accept the literal facticity of the Biblical narratives; especially Genesis, Daniel, Jonah, and Esther. Acceptance of higher Biblical criticism is a de facto defining point in determining that one is truly Catholic.

The fact that higher criticism was invented by Protestants is utterly lost on Catholics and Orthodox today.