The Catholicism Thread

<3

they're basically right, though, is the thing

yeah, criticism of the rc hierarchy is obv legit on many issues, it's more seeing the catholic churchgoers in some lumpen "they are just drones who obey the pope/bishop/parish priest on all issues including the ballot box" that irks, like if you actually knew a lot of catholics you'd know how conflicted/contradictory "the laity' is on pet left-wing issues

my layman's impression of actual catholics is that the hierarchy and the tradition and the myth and the obscurantism and the intricate endlessly revised self-contradictory rules give them this sense of irony that is often really attractive and mature without abandoning reverence. like whenever i have dinner with my girlfriend's large and reasonably devout catholic family they make a lot of rueful impenetrable jokes about their failure to obey this or that proscription, but in a way that reveals the proscription still matters to them, and it is really warm and human because it seems analogous to the whole christian god-became-a-mortal-for-a-while paradox. whereas if you hang out with devout protestants they seem to think they've worked everything out.

the only times i enjoyed mass was the days when the altar boys would have an attack of uncontrollable lolling and the priest would get really mad with them which would make them worse.

like you know that scene in annie hall where woody allen's jewish family and diane keaton's WASP one are split-screened and begin to talk to each other across the split-screen:

"what will you be doing over the holidays, mr. singer?"
"we fast."
"fast?"
"yeah, no food. to atone for our sins."
"what sins? i don't understand."
"tell you the truth, neither do we."

obv. this is a jewish joke but i'm always reminded of it anyway at dinner with the catholics.

jesus

yeah i mean this is something that gets me defensive--as someone who's interacted with my fair share of priests i don't need to hear hurtful blanket statements from outsiders who have no knowledge of how wise, caring, and kind priests can be.

i mean not only is it offensive to victims, but it also rejects a vocation that is extremely strange yet still calls some remarkable people.

well sure! I wasn't trying to be one of those ppl---just that I imagine that snarky "priests be rapin" comments might be more common in yr area, like

that "jesus" was a Zing artifact btw

The eucharist is a way of understanding the possibility of meaning, the synthesis of object and meaning

yeah this is a thing i always envied catholics growing up.

i envied the trinity; i think the trinity is more than pretty and might actually be accurate. i think "these things are all different, but they are also all the same, and together they form a larger thing, which is also the same" is like a super super useful concept to have hammered into your head.

(http://www.feandft.com/Mandelbrot-set-web.gif)

* The Holy Ghost is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity.
* Though really distinct, as a Person, from the Father and the Son, He is consubstantial with Them; being God like Them, He possesses with Them one and the same Divine Essence or Nature.
* He proceeds, not by way of generation, but by way of spiration, from the Father and the Son together, as from a single principle.

Such is the belief the Catholic faith demands.

well sure! I wasn't trying to be one of those ppl---just that I imagine that snarky "priests be rapin" comments might be more common in yr area, like

― FUN FUN FUN FUN (gbx), Thursday, March 17, 2011 12:20 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol ok! i wasn't suggesting that my exp. was unique or weird or unlikely--just agreeing that otherwise progressive folks fall into this trap with ease.

very accurate depiction of catholic mass ime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-S3K6wXYpg

when I worked at a house run by the Church that gave shelter, food, medication and skilled nursing care to patients in the terminal stages of AIDS-related complications, then-archbishop Mahoney visited, and was as compassionate a bedside visitor as I've seen in any hospital; it's wrong of the Church to oppose condom use, of course, but you couldn't prove any lack-of-compassion charges on my experiences there. Nobody at our house ever got told to reorient, blamed for anything, etc. We didn't call it a "hospice" but anyway it was a special place the Church ran that complicated my reflexive "shame on you" stance toward the Church's response to the AIDS crisis

Sort of xp to jaymc way up there:

If anyone has time to read it this is very interesting about the Church's current position on homosexuality. Pope Benny's pink Prada shoes an' all!

A coworker of mine just left our organization to go work for an organization called Cath0lics for Ch01ce. Good for her, I thought, but why even? Why not just become a Presbyterian or whatever?

it's funny, the other day i found an old diary of mine and i apparently thought of myself as catholic when i was 18? which i'd completely forgotten. I mean, when I got into the church it was an anglo-catholic/high church anglican one, and the fact of its being anglo-catholic mattered quite a lot (not least because that meant that in a way it was a link to my mother's catholic tradition from which she'd been long lapsed but this shit stays with you), but-- at 18, still? how strange.

a friend of mine once said "you know, i'm a christian, i believe in god and that i will go to heaven" and my immediate reaction was "listen sunshine you don't get to know if you're going to heaven ok" so basically i guess i am a catholic in that, except i disagree with ~the church~ on thousands of things starting with the existence of god.

Good for her, I thought, but why even? Why not just become a Presbyterian or whatever?

i was just having this conversation the other day, about gay priests in the anglican communion - one never-in-any-way-religious friend said 'i don't see why they don't just leave for a church that will treat them better' and the immediate reaction from myself and my still-practicing other friend was 'no but they can't'. a religion, to me, is an entire culture - it's not that one shouldn't switch, it's just that it takes an uprooting of your whole self to do so.

a friend of mine once said "you know, i'm a christian, i believe in god and that i will go to heaven" and my immediate reaction was "listen sunshine you don't get to know if you're going to heaven ok"

Wahhhat, for reals?? Now I'm really pole-axed -- if it doesn't do anything for your eternal fate, why does anyone even BOTHER? The illusion of control if you SUFFER ENOUGH and debase yourself for fake standards?

thats calvinism not catholicism

was gonna say.

and the answer is: same reason we act as if we have free will in a deterministic universe - no choice

I think "good works" only take time off your stint in Purgatory.

yeah i mean there's purgatory etc. (in school they told us about babies limbo too wtf?) but your good works count and jesus loves you and repent and you will be saved

Sorry, C# -- that just came out of left field in terms of my surprise and reflexive annoyance! Up til then I was rly enjoying diff lstn hr's post and mulling it over and thinking about unruly altar boys and where the laity is going with the American Catholic Church vs where the Church is going with itself, which is actually quite interesting to me.

xxxp oh, okay!

i think the Pope abolished Limbo a few years back?

whatever the Latin for "my bad" is

yeah i know but that didnt stop our teachers also i dont think the pope can just abolish limbo this is prolly like when obama shut down guantanamo, where are all the lost souls gonna be relocated for one thing

think he just said "lol not really they went to Heaven" or somethink. he totally can call it ex cathedra i think

but i mean literally this was 2 or 3 years ago so yr teachers wd still have been otm

i remember we were really young but we were still like uh what? this is also when we started being like "so what about like native people in indigenous tribes who have never even heard of jesus"

also did cuchulainn go to hell?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo#Modern_era

The Church says maybe there's Limbo, but you don't have to believe in it.

(btw our history book in primary school included several bible stories and a lot of irish mythology)

they can't cancel Purgatory cos all those peeps who paid for masses wd be asking for their money back

re undiscovered people who never heard about Christ in their lives

Yeah, I asked that question, too. The youth leader had to say he couldn't answer that in class, and ask me to stay after so he could talk to just me...mostly because no one else gave a shit and wished I would shut up so they could go play volleyball.

Cuchulainn went to Tir Na Nog yeah? don't think that was properly like heaven really

in tir na nog you prolly like smoke week and get laid all the time tho

Wasn't it Oisin who went to Tir na nÓg?

He came back though, homesick for the Ireland he left, and was told on no account to get off his horse, or he would turn into the old man he chronologically would have been....

Ireland had gone all Xian in the meanwhile, and Oisin was puzzled, and then his stirrup broke as he leaned down from the saddle to help an old man and oops! he fell and was instantly aged....but he embraced Christ and died happy.

there are a lot of addendums to irish myths where when they are old they find christ (cf children of lir)

"ooh look, there's christ"

its like if hercules was like "so yeah his dad was zeus and he was v strong and he cut medusas head off and then when he was old he found joy in the love of our only saviour jesus christ"

The story is told that when Saint Patrick was trying to convert king Lóegaire to Christianity, the ghost of Cú Chulainn appeared in his chariot, warning him of the torments of hell.

i sometimes think that one of the weirdest shifts b/w fenian mythology and christianity is the diff b/w the salmon of knowledge and fionn mccumhaill and his rise to head of the fianna and the tree of knowledge and adam and eve and the fall of man.

anyway its funny bc a lot of what people are talking about on this thread relates their catholic backgrounds to a kind of sense of difference, like community as set against mainstream values but like obviously i can't really vibe w/ that. I mean its not like that *is* the catholic experience (tho obviously it has been the catholic experience for a lot of people) and my own experience is really of like reflecting on it more over the last few years and how its shaped how i think about things in a more profound way than i would have expected. also when i lose things st anthony totally gets them back for me.

St. A was of no help w/ my lost argyle sweater, the bastard

you have to promise him
money

for the poor box

Who's the saint you're supposed to pray to when you have exams? I know there's one, or at least that's what my Mum always said...

Who is the one who you're supposed to buy a statue of and bury in the yard if you're trying to sell a house? My parents did that and I laughed at them and then felt bad about doing so but it's four years later though and the house is still not sold so WAY TO PULL THROUGH SAINT WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS.

lol...and Jude is lost causes, right?