Mary, rosaries and then Jesus.
Kids in Catholic schools are taught by example to kneel down in front of “Mary” in a worshipful way.
These are NOT photoshopped, I took the pictures at a Catholic high school
Posted on 02/14/2016 3:07:53 PM PST by NYer
Last year, in response to a Pew Research poll showing the American Catholic Church in decline, Elizabeth Scalia (now at the editorial helm of Aleteia) posted this challenge on her Patheos blog The Anchoress:
If you're Catholic and have access to a web-page, a radio program, a Facebook page, whatever, take a few minutes, and tell the world why you are remaining a Catholic in an era where doing so seems not only counter-cultural, but also counter-intuitive and even, perhaps, a bit risky?
Thoughtful and moving responses rolled in from all across the Internet, and continue to to do so today.
For my entry, I'm phrasing the question this way:
Why would I stay Catholic even if the whole world turned against the Church and labeled me a fool for remaining a believer?
The short answer: Because the whole world is wrong.
But it's a question that deserves a long answer, so here goes ....
First, I should define my terms. By "the world" I really mean the much narrower "worldly" subset of modern American and European Western Culture. By "wrong" I mean, well... WRONG. Dangerously wrong. Spinning out of control wrong. In the process of destroying itself wrong.
If the title of this article enticed you to click the link, chances are you already have a strong opinion about the Catholic faith. You either love it or you hate it. Either way, you are likely already aware of the "hot button" social issues on which the world and the Church disagree - abortion, contraception, so-called "gay marriage," euthanasia, fetal stem cell research, the "New Atheism," etc., etc., etc. And on every single one of those fronts, and many more besides (the "hot button" issues barely scratch the surface), wherever the world calls something "good" that the Church defines as "evil," I really do believe that the world is 100% wrong and the Church is 100% right.
I say this with confidence because those obvious "hot button" worldly issues are only visible symptoms of a deeper and more dangerous disease infecting the modern (and "post-modern") western psyche.
Western Culture has lost its mind.
In his book Theology and Sanity, the great Catholic apologist Frank Sheed put it this way:
... if we see things in existence and do not in the same act see that they are held in existence by God, then equally we are living in a fantastic world, not the real world. Seeing God everywhere and all things upheld by him is not a matter of sanctity, but of plain sanity, because God IS everywhere and all things ARE upheld by Him. What we do about it may be sanctity; but merely seeing it is sanity. To overlook God's presence is not simply to be irreligious; it is a kind of insanity, like overlooking anything else that is actually there...
We murder babies in the womb and play Frankenstein with their cells not because we are evil, but because we are mad. We treat sex like a toy and each other's bodies like objects not because we are devils, but because we have lost all self control. Men marry men and women marry women (or have their genders surgically "reassigned") not because we are wicked, but because we have lost all sense of what it means to be either a man or a woman. Blind to the reality of God everywhere and holding up all things, we fall prey to false gods, first and foremost our own vane and bloated egos. We become our own gods and spin ever further from any kind of moral center, any semblance of a solid ground of reality beneath our feet.
This madness afflicting Western Culture is by no means "modern." It entered the world with the Fall of Adam and Eve. It is the madness of original sin.
And for the sake of our cure from this ancient affliction, the very real God atheists tell us does not exist, the one who created man and woman and the sacrament of marriage, who knits every baby in the womb and counts all the hairs on the heads of old men, who is everywhere and upholds all things, became one of us in a real physical body, in the real person of Jesus Christ, at a real, measurable time in recorded history. He really established one Church (the Catholic Church, from which all other Christian denominations schismed over time), was really crucified, really died, and really rose from the dead to make it possible for you and me and everyone everywhere to defeat sin and death and regain our sanity.
That's reality. And only the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of truth regarding it.
Whatever in the world disagrees with that truth or contradicts it is delusion, plain and simple.
So, the real question is not, Will I remain Catholic or embrace worldly values?
The real question is, Will I remain sane or embrace madness?
I choose sanity. I choose the Catholic Church. Forever.
In response to my choice, the world is welcome to call me a fool. I don't mind. I don't expect rational behavior from madmen. Now that really would be foolish!
Was this a caucus thread? ... LOL Better get the ducks in a row.
Thank you georgia peach! Looks like the caucus aspect of this thread went out the window... lol! Apparently they just can’t help themselves, & I forgive them for that.
It was except that in the article the author made mention of other Christian faiths, so likely the label of caucus should never have been applied in the first place.
Then the RC’s broke the caucus and are now acting like it’s our fault.
RC’s broke the caucus.
Place the blame where it belongs.
Certain as the sunrise.
Well that's crazy...Your religion has much written about these churches albeit they call them heretics...But then your religion calls us heretics...
These are some of the known churches prior to the Reformation...
The Waldensians, Monanists, the Priscillianists, the Paulicians, the Bogomils, the Albigenses
What, she got some little Catholic elves???
Oh there’s a whole string of prayer receptors in the religion of catholiciism. All those saints and they answer to someone??? And remember, catholiciism teaches its adherents that their Mary is the Mother of GOD. With such a superior position, Shirley she has hugh pull with all of Heaven! /s
"MY" religion? Lol. Sorry, but it's the same FAITH that Jesus started 2000+ years ago. NOT "mine."
The Catholic Church of yore was stuffed full of politics, as it is today. That is part and parcel of the HUGE institution. It's part of ANY huge institution run on earth by human beings.
I have NEVER, ever heard ANY pope for the last MANY decades of my life call ANY non-Catholic Church Christians "heretics." We all know the story of defrocked FATHER MARTIN LUTHER and HE was called a heretic...but since him I haven't heard ANYONE called a "heretic." There WERE the Salem witch hunts, of course, and those poor women were, without doubt, called heretics. But they were called such by their fellow pilgrims, not by any pope.
AND, I don't always listen to people's screeds denouncing each other...whichever side. Who needs it?
I thought you might be interested in this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations
.
God bless you and yours.
Who is it that we are referring to? I forgot.
Short memory, I guess.
There's this series of PM's I have from you that tell a different story.
Mary, rosaries and then Jesus.
Kids in Catholic schools are taught by example to kneel down in front of “Mary” in a worshipful way.
Big deal. Plenty of your previous popes have done so and I don't see anyone retracting that.
Not to mention that some RC's on this very thread have called non-Catholic Christians *heretics.*
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.
a Celtic blessing
Those photos are copyrighted by WFA and cannot be reproduced.
They may only be used on Free Republic dot com except by permission.
You may NOT print them and put them up as part of your shrine to Mary and pray to them.
That aside, you are pleased that kids are being taught to pray to and worship the Catholic Mary?
It's a truth that is worthy of larger font
Big deal. Plenty of your previous popes have done so and I don't see anyone retracting that. Not to mention that some RC's on this very thread have called non-Catholic Christians *heretics.*
Metmom, how ironic that anyone a part of Catholicism would call anyone else heritical when they deny that the true body of Christ members are not Christians because only Catholics can be Christians.
God is not pleased.
http://www.catholic.org/ and ask ANY question you like about Mary, about ANYTHING involving Catholics, the Catholic Church or anything "catholic."
Btw, "catholic" simply means UNIVERSAL.
God bless you and yours.
You sent this to me, not to metmom.
How do YOU know that "God is not pleased"?? Did He tell you? Or can you read His mind? Did you consult a ouija board? You seem to be OUT OF SYNC with this one, Syncro.
I feel sorry for you if you think that Catholics think that only Catholics can be Christians. I never did say that, but perhaps you read a crystal ball or something.
That which we call a rose by any other name.
You can redefine the words all y'all want, but God forbids the making of graven images and bowing down to them.
Y'all can deny that it's worship but bowing down is bowing down and can be plainly seen.
Btw, "catholic" simply means UNIVERSAL.
The hypocrisy abounds because *Catholic* is hardly universal when it damns everyone outside of it to hell for not submitting to it.
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