Do There Exist "enemies Of The Church"?

[Nihil Obstat]

:yawn:

[Maggyie]

I'm sorry I can't interpret smileys very well. Is that a yawn? If so I'm sorry I bored you.

[Perigrina]

I feel like I totally get when Franciscus talks about the self referential church. Maybe I need to take a break from phatmass and spend more time in my parish. I feel like people in parishes don't get their Christianity from documents as much. Which to be honest is how it always has been in the past - my immigrant grandparents certainly weren't pouring over documents from the 19th century and trying to shove them to make them fit together with new ones. I just can't take the feeling of spiritual deadness of all these "documents! Documents!" conversations. Plus the mental gymnastics and parsing and cognitive dissonance that apparently no one feels but me!

 

The Church is a body and everyone has his own role to play.   You are not a document sort of person and that's OK.  But I am.  I take a scholarly approach because that is who I am and that is the talent that I have to offer.  Even the humblest, least important part of the body is still part. 

[Nihil Obstat]

It is not about documents. It is about whether or not those documents accurately reflect the truth. Truth is truth no matter how inconvenient it is, and no matter how old it is.

[Maggyie]

I can't seem to find the head-to-the-desk smiley.

[Maggyie]

Also please don't confuse the ability to document dive with an intellectual or scholarly approach to Christianity. Scholars are aware of documents but do not focus their professional lives on regurgitating these writings. Rather they are used as jumping off points for larger insights.

Thinking more about it, it's our apologetics culture that did this to us.

[chrysostom]

Yeah yeah. But again doctrine develops. This is not really reflective of the Church's current emphasis and teaching. Is it.

The Church nowadays embraces and promotes freedom of religion, freedom of the press, primacy of conscience etc. that's THE Church, the one Christ founded and said the gates of hell would not prevail against. I mean I don't want to be too personal here but if you're going to be Catholic you're going to have to get over it. There's no going back.

 

Augh. This is what I'm talking about. Yes all the documents hang together. It takes A LOT of mental gymnastics but it's possible to make it all work. Especially since most of this stuff is not dogma.

But re-read what you wrote Perigina from the POV of someone unchurched like the majority of people in the western world. Who are these people obsessed with documents? Where does the word document appear in the gospel? If they overheard us chatting would it light a fire under someone to join Document Church? I'm not saying they aren't important but think of this from the outside view I guess. I'm just sick and tired I guess. There's so much navel gazing in the church and parsing. This isn't even a thread about that so I'm sorry.

I mean is this what the church is reduced to? Warming our hearts by listing our documents and our enemies. You'd almost think the Church would cease to exist without these 2 things.

Without a foe to condemn and without documents (and it's best if the documents actually list things to condemn, thereby combining the 2 things. that's the BEST. Syllabus of errors, YUMMY).

Then we have the fantasy where we pretend that clearly the bishops in communion with Peter in Leo's time would have the exact same theological opinions as the bishops of Paul VI's time. If we don't maintain this fantasy the whole edifice of the church will collapse for some people. That's not what the church really says about her doctrine but that's how many of the devout interpret it.

I feel like I totally get when Franciscus talks about the self referential church. Maybe I need to take a break from phatmass and spend more time in my parish. I feel like people in parishes don't get their Christianity from documents as much. Which to be honest is how it always has been in the past - my immigrant grandparents certainly weren't pouring over documents from the 19th century and trying to shove them to make them fit together with new ones. I just can't take the feeling of spiritual deadness of all these "documents! Documents!" conversations. Plus the mental gymnastics and parsing and cognitive dissonance that apparently no one feels but me!

 

Here's how I see it:

 

You're making a blanket assertion that if we wish to be Catholic nowadays, we should hold this particular position.  When we disagreed, you saw our disagreement/defense as symptomatic of a document-based, navel-gazing Church.  But I find that hard to reconcile with the first thing you said.  You're advocating a particular way to interpret the new and the old in this one particular facet of Church teaching - the new, for all intents and purposes, supersedes the old, you say - but honestly, I'd have to do a whole lot of mental gymnastics to get to that point. It's really simple for me:  what the Church has taught as true has and always will be true, and whatever it now teaches that may appear to some to be in conflict with past teaching is not truly in conflict, for it cannot be.  That's all.  I haven't read Leo XIII or St. Pius X but I have read the CCC and yes I believe it teaches truth.  I feel at this point that you're the one making it complicated by telling us to "get over" these stances because of the new development of doctrine.

 

I know you don't see it that way but I just wanted to give you feedback about my perspective on this slightly off-topic conversation. :) God be with you.

[Nihil Obstat]

It is a sad time when Catholics are accused by other Catholics of being stuck in the past and arrogant simply for believing what the Church has always and will always believe. Anything that was true in all the previous centuries of Church teaching remains true for us now, and I reject the mind games and mental gymnastics it takes to argue otherwise.

[Perigrina]

Also please don't confuse the ability to document dive with an intellectual or scholarly approach to Christianity. Scholars are aware of documents but do not focus their professional lives on regurgitating these writings. Rather they are used as jumping off points for larger insights.

Thinking more about it, it's our apologetics culture that did this to us.

 

It is the nature of an online discussion that people (who are able to) will quote from Church documents in order to show that their views are in line with Church teaching.  This does not mean that documents are the focus of our lives.  Rather than deal with the ideas in the documents, you are using denigrating words like "document dive" and "regurgitating" to put down the people who read and learn from  Church documents.  Do you really think being Catholic is about demeaning people who disagree with you?

 

I have long had a strong interest in the intellectual aspect of Catholicism.  As well as reading and studying on my own, I have taken graduate level theology courses part-time, enough that I eventually received a Master of Divinity degree.  Do not suggest that I do not have a genuine intellectual and scholarly approach to Christianity.  It is important to me to form my mind so that I will be able to think with the Church and I find Church documents helpful for that.
 

I am not saying that this makes me a better Catholic.  I am not saying that everyone has to do things the way that I do.  I am saying that my part in the body of Christ has value and I ought to be accepted and respected, not put down for being who I am.

 

And there is nothing wrong with apologetics either.

[LaPetiteSoeur]

Eh, I'm more inclined to say "No, not really," at least not in America and Western Europe. Christianity (not necessarily Catholicism) is the majority religion in many places and while there may be some fringe people who dislike Catholics/Christians, it is not as if Christians are routinely being attacked in the streets, their churches being bombed, and their schools being entered and their children killed (as in, say, Judaism, where there was recently an attack in Brussels, a shooting several years ago in Kansas, and a school attack in France). 

 

As far as those of other faiths thinking we worship statues or are Mary-worshippers, I don't think that is hating the Church--I think that is misunderstanding. Tbh, I think we've not done a great job of explaining our faith to others; we like to use a lot of really deep theology really fast and while that may be great for people already in the theological world it's not easy for regular joes and non-Catholics to get into. It's also incredibly intimidating to just ~Go~ to a Catholic Church for Mass. A lot of misunderstanding in America and Western Europe could be mitigated by welcoming people in and being more friendly, and also not going so fast into Augustinian explanations for theological questions. 

 

 

[Maggyie]

I'm not saying there's anything contradictory in these writings Chryso.

Here's a good example of what I mean.

"that it is right for individuals to form their own personal judgments about religion"

This refers to freedom of religion. Not religious indifferentism. Freedom of religion. That was the "error" Leo himself believed he was addressing.

Do you, Chryso, believe that it is right for individuals to form their own personal judgments about religion? Or should this be controlled for them by a Catholic government? Read what Leo wrote. Then realize there are people who don't think with the Church and don't put Leo in context.

There are people who think we should have a Catholic state and get rid of freedom of religion. Are you one of them? The pope and the bishops in communion with him, are not.

Nowadays we put it in a context of religious indifferentism, this is unacceptable but freedom of religion certainly is. Leo didn't have this context himself. It's facile to believe otherwise. And some people still insist on reading him devoid of modern context.

That's when we get dueling document quotes, because people don't accept the interpretation the Church currently has of Leo. They reject it in favor of the one from before. They try to use the Church's documents as well as her teaching about eternal truth against her, to undermine.

"Nothing can change in the church so if Leo was right then, he's right now" they say. Nope. He didn't write anything wrong. It's true that Truth doesn't change. But our understanding of it can change. It deepens. It develops. In ways Leo could not have imagined.

The correct interpretation, if we are thinking with the Church and not against her, is the current one. Period.

Peregrina, I don't mean to put you down. It's great you have research skills and can memorize what different documents say. My point is this has limited use in evangelizing the world, since the only people who care a lot about what a document says are already committed Catholics.

Lukewarm Catholics don't really care. Protestants certainly don't care. It can actually be off putting to the unbaptized outsiders. I mean it's great for these internal discussions but if we put all our energy into internal debates we won't have any left over for our actual mission, which is to evangelize.

Come to think of it I think there might still be a rule about Catholic vs Catholic debate on this website.

[mortify ii]

Organized Naturalism, Synagogue of Satan, Radical Feminists and Homosexuals, Schismatics, Heretics, to name a few...

[Perigrina]

Peregrina, I don't mean to put you down. It's great you have research skills and can memorize what different documents say. My point is this has limited use in evangelizing the world, since the only people who care a lot about what a document says are already committed Catholics.

Lukewarm Catholics don't really care. Protestants certainly don't care. It can actually be off putting to the unbaptized outsiders. I mean it's great for these internal discussions but if we put all our energy into internal debates we won't have any left over for our actual mission, which is to evangelize.

Come to think of it I think there might still be a rule about Catholic vs Catholic debate on this website.

 

When I quote Church documents here, presumably I am speaking to committed Catholics.  Do you have any reason to think that I use them for evangelizing the world?  Right now we are having an internal discussion and if it leads us to understanding Church teaching better, then this will help us to be better at evangelizing.

 

There is no rule against Catholic vs Catholic debate, just a rule about the content of such debate: 

 

A post or comment that results in doctrinal debates that might cause scandal among the faithful. Effective immediately, any negative criticism of religious or the current Magisterium will result in deletion, and a warning from the moderators. This includes but is not limited to criticism of the Novus Ordo mass and/or our Holy Father.

 

Nobody has been criticizing any of the things we are not allowed to criticize.  People are saying that, since the truth of Catholic teaching  does not change, a good way to make sure you correctly understand current teaching is to also read older documents.  I don't see how that is going to cause scandal.

 

If you want to talk about phorum rules, I think the one which applies to this thread is the one concerning personal attacks.  I really felt attacked by your comments implying that there is something wrong with people who quote Church documents.  You might not have meant to put me down but it was really hurtful.

[Maggyie]

Well I apologize if I hurt you P.

I don't think that it's a personal attack though to state we've got too much document quoting in the Church. I'm just speculating but I think some of the highest authorities would agree with me! The teaching authority of the Church is not founded on its documents but on the Second and Third persons of the Holy Trinity.

Also can one of the mods please do something about the post above P's. I'm trying not to draw attention to it, but please?

[Basilisa Marie]

A personal attack is "you're so ignorant." Maggie's talking about people being obsessed with documents in general, to the point where they forget that we're talking about people and their lives here, not just a scholarly exercise in consistency. Feeling offended doesn't always equal a personal attack. I've had to learn that the hard way a few times on here.

 

Quoting documents can be helpful in the right situation, but here it's not getting anywhere. I get how quoting a document can seem like (and often is) a slam-dunk for an argument from authority. But the reality is that shoving a document in someone's face is the least effective way to get them to agree with you, especially on the internet. If you want to up your apologetics game and get someone to agree with you, you've got to address their argument directly. Documents don't speak for themselves, even if it seems like they do to you.

I think there's something to be said for taking care to not make perfect intellectual consistency into some kind of idol. Our understanding of the Truth grows over time. We all know that. Part of that understanding means that things are going to look different, especially now that we live in an age where for the first time in history, the average lay person can look up a whole library of Church documents from every era. The Church in the year 314 looked different from the Church in the year 1054 and different from the Church in 1962. To say that nothing has ever changed is disingenuous.