The Church As Harlot--in Her Own Tradition

[Evangetholic]

I found this when looking for some things on Rahab, an ancestress of Our Lord, who was a reformed prostitute and a heroine of Israel.

 

"When Luther dares to equate the Roman Church with the whore of Babylon,
it strikes us as the height of blasphemy. But he was not the first to
coin the phrase. Similar things can be found in Wycliffe and Hus, and
their language was not a complete innovation but the violent
simplification and coarsening of a very old theologoumenon.
This in turn has its origins in the Old Testament, in the words of
judgment spoken by God, the betrayed Husband, against the archwhore
Jerusalem, and in the New Testament's application of these texts, which
are so fundamental to the old (p. 193)."--Hans Urs von Balthasar

 

http://www.wquercus.com/faith/casta_meretrix.htm

[Evangetholic]

Partially as someone who did my major theological learning as a Protestant this is comforting. Catholics are taught to view the Church as pristine, faithful, and infallible (which She is); but Protestantism views the Church/Christianity as deeply sinful, but remorseful, unfaithful, but loyal (this insofar as we are talking about us as "Church" is also true). You can get a little sense of how this the Church as forever faithful but forever in need of repenting thing works by looking at something like this statement by Servant of God Dorothy Day: She’s a Whore, but she’s my Mother. 

[Basilisa Marie]

I think there's something we can learn from Protestants in this respect.  I run into some Catholics that are so concerned with maintaining the image of the Church as the great steadfast fortress free from all error that they start ignoring our own Christian history, gloss over or even deny the nastier bits.  Or people who are shocked to learn that the sacraments as we know them today didn't exist in the earliest Church.  Maybe we could use some meditation on the image of the Church as a prostitute - we're sinful and unfaithful, but God is the faithful spouse constantly calling us back to repentance and conversion.  

[Evangetholic]

Yes. That's the way God talked to Old Israel and think it actually is the way he talks to the Church too if you accept and think about things that the apparitions have said, the way he deals with us as individuals, etc. But obviously we couldn't take the Protestant model, there ecclesiology is too different. We'd need to be able to hold all at once that idea of the Church as a reformed whore AND the idea that she is that Stainless Bride (not just as some future thing to be achieved but right now), but somehow or another still in need of not forgetting that she needs to keep her "garments clean." It's like the weird paradigm of how the sinful, fallen, mortal sin ridden Christian is actually still holy in a sense, still a saint, an "outcalled one" still belonging to God, still the object of His love and His unwaivering attention, but ever called to make the promise contained by the indelible Character the Sacraments give the soul real.

 

The Church itself seems something like that to me. Holy, Untouchable, "Seated in the Heavenly Places in Christ Jesus," "the Righteousness of God in Christ," "Pillar and foundation of truth," but still capable of hiding men that have sex with children for the sake of protecting her own good name. It's a curious thing this "Mystical Body of Christ" but even with that she's not just sanctifying herself. She is sanctified and outside of her? The torments of what I will forever believe is a well-populated Hell.

[Evangetholic]

*their

[KnightofChrist]

The children of Mother Church may fall and commit sin, murder, whoredom, etc, but she herself as the FAITHFUL bride of Christ is in fact divine because she is one with Christ, and Christ is one with her. So great is this union that when one attacks the Church they attack Christ, remember the conversion of Saul?

" Acts 9:3-5 3 And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew nigh to Damascus; and suddenly a light from from heaven shined round about him. 4 And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? 5 Who said: Who art thou, Lord? And he: I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad."

Calling the Church a whore is therefore blasphemy, because it would apply to Christ as well.

Edited February 22, 2013 by KnightofChrist

[Evangetholic]

The children of Mother Church may fall and commit sin, murder, whoredom, etc, but she herself as the FAITHFUL bride of Christ is in fact divine because she is one with Christ, and Christ is one with her. So great is this union that when one attacks the Church they attack Christ, remember the conversion of Saul?

" Acts 9:3-5 3 And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew nigh to Damascus; and suddenly a light from from heaven shined round about him. 4 And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? 5 Who said: Who art thou, Lord? And he: I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad."

Calling the Church a whore is therefore blasphemy, because it would apply to Christ as well.

 

That's very pious.

 

But calling the Church a whore is a Biblical and Patristic tradition that has a two millennium long history. I'll not keep company with the saints and be accused of basphemy. St. Isidore of Seville, "the one and only house of Rahab, the one and only Church, ... remains as a whore in Jericho".

[Socrates]

The children of Mother Church may fall and commit sin, murder, whoredom, etc, but she herself as the FAITHFUL bride of Christ is in fact divine because she is one with Christ, and Christ is one with her. So great is this union that when one attacks the Church they attack Christ, remember the conversion of Saul?

" Acts 9:3-5 3 And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew nigh to Damascus; and suddenly a light from from heaven shined round about him. 4 And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? 5 Who said: Who art thou, Lord? And he: I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the goad."

Calling the Church a whore is therefore blasphemy, because it would apply to Christ as well.

 

THIS.

 

 

I think there's something we can learn from Protestants in this respect.  I run into some Catholics that are so concerned with maintaining the image of the Church as the great steadfast fortress free from all error that they start ignoring our own Christian history, gloss over or even deny the nastier bits.  Or people who are shocked to learn that the sacraments as we know them today didn't exist in the earliest Church.  Maybe we could use some meditation on the image of the Church as a prostitute - we're sinful and unfaithful, but God is the faithful spouse constantly calling us back to repentance and conversion.  

 

Quite frankly, there is nothing Catholics can learn from the anti-Catholic rhetoric of those protestants who condemn the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church and Bride of Christ as the Whore of Babylon. The Whore of Babylon in Revelation (which is in league with the Anti-Christ) was never understood by Catholic theologians to refer to the Church.  Such rhetoric is rooted in ignorance and hatred of Christ's Church, not in Christian humility and charity.  (Even if the ignorance may oftentimes be sincere, it should still not be embraced as a good, but charitably corrected.)

 

While Catholics should be honest and trughtful about Church history, and not dishonestly gloss over the sins of members of the Church on earth, the anti-Catholic rhetoric is certainly no more honest - exclusively focusing on and grotesquely exaggerating the "nastier bits," and adding outright lies and fabrications.

Unfortunately, many Catholics are so ignorant of their history that they are unable to defend against anti-Catholic slanders.

 

There is no need for Catholics to wallow in shame over the history of the Church (pc and fashionable as it may currently be).

 

Reflection on and repentance for our own personal sins, as well as prayer for the conversion of sinners, is good, and time much better spent than excessive dwelling on the real and imagined sins of other members in the historical Church.

 

Those members of the Church (which includes all of us when we sin) who stray from practicing the Faith taught by the Bride of Christ are whorish, but the Church is not a whore, and it is pointless and blasphemous to "meditate" on her as such.

 

 

Regarding your claim concerning the sacraments, all seven sacraments (defined by the Church as "an outward sign, instituted by Christ to give grace") were in fact instituted by Christ, and can be found in Scripture.  (Though it is true that some of the externals surrounding the celebration of the sacraments, such as public confession and penance of sins vs. private, have changed and developed over the years.)

 

The claim that the sacraments were not instituted by Christ, but were later inventions, is, quite simply, not Catholic.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Socrates

[Evangetholic]

Are the Early Church Fathers Anti-Catholics? Was Hans Urs von Balthasar (favorite theologian of one pope and friend of the current pope) a blasphemer? Dorothy Day who many Catholics believe is a Saint in Glory? Avery Cardinal Dulles? Isidore of Seville? Augustine?

And Empress Marie attributed the origin of the Sacraments to no one other than Jesus himself. She merely pointed what I assumed was common knowledge, the theology of the Sacraments was subject to development like many other doctrines of the faith.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Evangetholic

[EmilyAnn]

That's very pious.

 

But calling the Church a whore is a Biblical and Patristic tradition that has a two millennium long history. I'll not keep company with the saints and be accused of basphemy. St. Isidore of Seville, "the one and only house of Rahab, the one and only Church, ... remains as a whore in Jericho".

I am interested in the source of this quote. I looked at the article you originally posted and found no source, just a page number, and any quote with "..." in the middle makes me wonder what the missing section is and how it might change the quote. Miss things out and you can make a quote say almost anything you want. 

[4588686]

Are the Early Church Fathers Anti-Catholics? Was Hans Urs von Balthasar (favorite theologian of one pope and friend of the current pope) a blasphemer? Dorothy Day who many Catholics believe is a Saint in Glory? Avery Cardinal Dulles? Isidore of Seville? Augustine?

Anyone who disagree with Socrates is a feckless, blessing heard liberal or a heretic. Probably both.

[GeorgiiMichael]

Regarding your claim concerning the sacraments, all seven sacraments (defined by the Church as "an outward sign, instituted by Christ to give grace") were in fact instituted by Christ, and can be found in Scripture.  (Though it is true that some of the externals surrounding the celebration of the sacraments, such as public confession and penance of sins vs. private, have changed and developed over the years.)

 

The claim that the sacraments were not instituted by Christ, but were later inventions, is, quite simply, not Catholic.

 

What she is saying isn't that the sacraments did not exist, but rather that they weren't celebrated as such. The sacrament of matrimony is a prime example. People got married and celebrated weddings, but the theology of the sacrament of matrimony (including it's inclusion as a sacrament) was not solidified until much later in the Church's history. Sacramental theology has evolved over the centuries and the idea that the Church has always celebrated the 7 sacraments as such is ludicrous.

[Evangetholic]

I am interested in the source of this quote. I looked at the article you originally posted and found no source, just a page number, and any quote with "..." in the middle makes me wonder what the missing section is and how it might change the quote. Miss things out and you can make a quote say almost anything you want. 

 

It's not misquoted, in context: http://books.google.com/books?id=vOxD7q6xmeoC&pg=PT319&lpg=PT319dq=%22the+one+and+only+house+of+Rahab,+the+one+and+only+Church%22&source=bl&ots=6xinE7YJITsig=zkmbDBYml5LNjqCYou09qnQgso4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gQIoUcHaD46m8gSxp4DIDw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ
 

[KnightofChrist]

That's very pious.

But calling the Church a whore is a Biblical and Patristic tradition that has a two millennium long history. I'll not keep company with the saints and be accused of basphemy. St. Isidore of Seville, "the one and only house of Rahab, the one and only Church, ... remains as a whore in Jericho".

A handful of saints who erred in calling our Mother a whore does not rise to the level of Tradition. I've read the Holy Bible many times, I've never read anything in it where it states the bride of Christ is a whore. But if you can offer a verse I'd like to see it.

[Evangetholic]

You won't find the Church herself called a whore. You'll find Old Israel called a whore. And at least Augustine read the Church Herself as being, in part, Babylon the Great from revelations.