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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:27
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quote:
How did your faith actually change over the past 3 years?
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Well, for starters, I no longer believe that Mary is the woman who rides the beast in St. John's apocalypse. 
Seriously though, this is a really good question. There are many things that haven't changed. What has changed are my views surrounding the tradition of the church.
When I first became a Christian, I didn't know very much about the history of the church, and as I had a chance to delve into the history, it became apparent that there are some significant differences between the Catholic church and the protestant churches.
First of all, if you believe that all Christians are called to be in unity with one another, the second question, is how can they be in unity. It doesn't make sense to me to answer this question other than to be in the Catholic church.
Secondly, there is the issue of authority. All protestants will say that scripture ought to be the primary authority, but the truth is even with this, you rely upon tradition to help you interpret scripture. What the Catholic church says is that tradition and scripture are to be authoritative, not one as opposed to the other. This is something that really changed for me.
Third, there is the teachings over communion. I had a hard time accepting what was true about communion, until I started looking at what I believed about certain passages, specifically where Christ talks about having to eat his bread and to drink his blood, and how this was a difficult teaching. It made much more sense to me to accept this as the literal truth, rather than to keep inserting the phrase, symbol into the sacrifice.
It also opened my heart because of how different the Catholic mass is from protestant services, communion is the central part, not the sermon. Christ centred, not pastor centred.
Other stuff too, apostolic succession and the communion of saints were ideas completely alien to me that now seem rather familiar.
Mary went from asking why she needed to be sinless, to what the very first answer I got to that question, by the grace of God. She was sinless, because Christ was to be her son, and Christ has always loved his mother, since before she was born.
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Zevico
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Melbourne
Apr 2002
time: 15:27
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What strikes me is that the Catholic church has done so many horrible things in its past, and may do more in the future. It ruled half of europe for a while, and many of its popes were terrible people-people who killed and tortured thousands, if not more. I would understand if you perhaps believed in the tenets of Catholicism, but to place trust in the Vatican as an institution seems to me completely naive. Especially considering the relative laxity with which church members have treated sex offenders among their ranks. If this isn't what you're doing, then I hope you find whatever it is you seek in your beliefs. If it is, I hope you know what you're in for (not in the Apocalyptic 'burn in hell' sense).
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Zevico
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Melbourne
Apr 2002
time: 15:27
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quote:
Non catholics tend to confuse the church as institution and catholicism as a lived experience. |
Err..that's what I'm trying to purposely distinguish between here.
quote:
What would you consider appropriate punishment for these priests? |
Here in Australia at least, there's been controversey over the fact that sex offending priests have been ignored and moved around by the church, without any pressing of charges, let alone kicking them out. I would suggest kicking them out and telling the police would be very appropriate punishments. That's the law. It is not what they did for quite a while, until there was a media uproar about it. That's why I think trusting an institution such as the church, simply because it is the church, is not something to be done. It has a terrible past and its present is not that clean either.
quote:
Why do you make a distinction between the tenets of the chruch, and trusting in the vatican? The mere statement that the magisterium has authority to interpret scripture implies a heirarchy that is one of the primary draws to Catholicism.
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I wouldn't mind if, at the very least, the all of the past popes were good people--I could 'forgive' it even if some cardinals or priests were terrible people. But, as has been stated, for too long the vatican had been a place where morals were preached of and utterly ignored. Thus the institution in my eyes has no moral standing. Perhaps the present pope, as a person, is good. Perhaps he is a good leader. That does not mean the next one will be, nor the one after that. Trusting an institution to interpret God's word when that institution has committed horrible deeds in the past seems unwise, at least to me.
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26-03-2005 14:50
I'm very proud of you! 
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