Calling Oneself Catholic While Rejecting Church Teaching

[Nihil Obstat]

You're making a strawman of my position. Of course if I have direct access to your testimony then that is good evidence. But we don't have any sort of access to any sort of testimony of oral tradition about the Assumption of Mary. So there's NO evidence that it existed. It's not that the evidence is insufficient or not credible, it's that it doesn't exist.

You have direct access to the testimony of the Church... but this is not enough for you?

[Dr_Asik]

You have direct access to the testimony of the Church... but this is not enough for you?

Not of any early Church testimony, which is the question. Later belief in the Assumption of Mary is not evidence that this belief was held in any prior period of time, and certainly not up to the original Apostles, as you seem to assume.

[Nihil Obstat]

Not of any early Church testimony, which is the question. Later belief in the Assumption of Mary is not evidence that this belief was held in any prior period of time, and certainly not up to the original Apostles, as you seem to assume.

Is today's Church different from the Church of the Apostolic or Patristic ages? Does She believe differently? Does She offer the same witness to the world?

[Perigrina]

I have read through some of that article before. It is very poorly written and grasps at straws. And, are you kidding me with the second paragraph. The Church works quite well, even though people disagree with the Roman Curia on certain doctrinal points. I hate to break it to you, but so, so many Roman Catholic exercise their God-given reason and do not agree with everything the Roman Curia decrees. The Church has not collapsed. We still have 1.2 billion adherents are remain the world's largest denomination.

 

How about the Church tries pulling back on so many controversial doctrines, and leaves room for more diversity centered around the primary liturgical and sacramental aspects of the faith. So, for example, the Eucharist is central to Roman Catholicism. However, Holy Communion has been too enmeshed in Thomist philosophy. There is no reason the Church should try to define the Eucharist in strictly Aristotelian/Thomist concepts. St. Aquinas existed after an entire millennium of Christianity.

 

The Roman Curia is an administrative body, does not make doctrinal points, and is not infallible.  We were discussing the Magisterium.

 

There may be any number of people who call themselves Catholic, but I doubt that all of them actually fit the dictionary definition of  adherent -

"a person who follows or upholds a leader, cause, etc.; supporter; follower."  

 

You started out this thread saying that there were only two areas in which you disagreed with Church teaching.  As the thread goes on, you come up with more and more teachings that you reject.  How do you decide which teachings you will accept?  By exercising reason?  Do you really think we can determine the liturgical and sacramental aspects of the faith by reason?

[Credo in Deum]

You're making a strawman of my position. Of course if I have direct access to your testimony then that is good evidence. But we don't have any sort of access to any sort of testimony of oral tradition about the Assumption of Mary. So there's NO evidence that it existed. It's not that the evidence is insufficient or not credible, it's that it doesn't exist.

"And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican."--Matthew 18:17

Notice Christ doesn't say whip out your Scriptures or other forms of documentation. He says tell the Church. Saying "because the Church says so" is not only a correct answer but also a biblical one. Edited June 23, 2014 by Credo in Deum

[Maggyie]

I have a lot of issues with the Church and I don't talk about them here because that's not what the phorum is for.

Nevertheless I used to have this all-or-nothing attitude and I've dropped it. I think we are all better in the Church than out of it. A bad Catholic is better than an ex -Catholic or ex-Christian. Perhaps it's more intellectually consistent to leave but it's better for the soul if one doesn't.

The church is a hospital for sinners and one is more likely to get better in the hospital than out on the street.

[Dr_Asik]

Is today's Church different from the Church of the Apostolic or Patristic ages? Does She believe differently? Does She offer the same witness to the world?

Essentially, the belief is the same, but that doesn't exclude that some doctrines were developed at different times, and it would be somewhat ridiculous to think that the original Apostles held the vast set of precise theological ideas, many relying on philosophical ideas not even available to them, that constitute today's Catholic dogma.

 

[Nihil Obstat]

12. But those whom "the Holy Spirit has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God"(4) gave an almost unanimous affirmative response to both these questions. This "outstanding agreement of the Catholic prelates and the faithful,"(5) affirming that the bodily Assumption of God's Mother into heaven can be defined as a dogma of faith, since it shows us the concordant teaching of the Church's ordinary doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people which the same doctrinal authority sustains and directs, thus by itself and in an entirely certain and infallible way, manifests this privilege as a truth revealed by God and contained in that divine deposit which Christ has delivered to his Spouse to be guarded faithfully and to be taught infallibly.(6) Certainly this teaching authority of the Church, not by any merely human effort but under the protection of the Spirit of Truth,(7) and therefore absolutely without error, carries out the commission entrusted to it, that of preserving the revealed truths pure and entire throughout every age, in such a way that it presents them undefiled, adding nothing to them and taking nothing away from them. For, as the Vatican Council teaches, "the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter in such a way that, by his revelation, they might manifest new doctrine, but so that, by his assistance, they might guard as sacred and might faithfully propose the revelation delivered through the apostles, or the deposit of faith."(8) Thus, from the universal agreement of the Church's ordinary teaching authority we have a certain and firm proof, demonstrating that the Blessed Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven- which surely no faculty of the human mind could know by its own natural powers, as far as the heavenly glorification of the virginal body of the loving Mother of God is concerned-is a truth that has been revealed by God and consequently something that must be firmly and faithfully believed by all children of the Church. For, as the Vatican Council asserts, "all those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written Word of God or in Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church, either in solemn judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching office, as divinely revealed truths which must be believed."(9)

[Nihil Obstat]

Essentially, the belief is the same, but that doesn't exclude that some doctrines were developed at different times, and it would be somewhat ridiculous to think that the original Apostles held the vast set of precise theological ideas, many relying on philosophical ideas not even available to them, that constitute today's Catholic dogma.

But what they did have was the entirely of revelation, given to them directly by God.

Otherwise, to assert that a dogma arose in its entirely at a later date, one would deny that revelation ceased at the end of the Apostolic age.

[Credo in Deum]

I have a lot of issues with the Church and I don't talk about them here because that's not what the phorum is for.

Nevertheless I used to have this all-or-nothing attitude and I've dropped it. I think we are all better in the Church than out of it. A bad Catholic is better than an ex -Catholic or ex-Christian. Perhaps it's more intellectually consistent to leave but it's better for the soul if one doesn't.

The church is a hospital for sinners and one is more likely to get better in the hospital than out on the street.

A hospital is a place for those who want to be healed. It's not a place for those who want to stay sick and not listen to their dr. Plus the abuse of medicines can lead to a worse sickness and even death. Do you really think a Catholic who holds heretical beliefs and who participates in the sacraments is in a better standing than one that leaves and does not commit a grave sacrilege by abusing the sacraments? If so, then I must say that's an interesting outlook, Maggie. Edited June 23, 2014 by Credo in Deum

[CrossCuT]

I have a lot of issues with the Church and I don't talk about them here because that's not what the phorum is for.

Nevertheless I used to have this all-or-nothing attitude and I've dropped it. I think we are all better in the Church than out of it. A bad Catholic is better than an ex -Catholic or ex-Christian. Perhaps it's more intellectually consistent to leave but it's better for the soul if one doesn't.

The church is a hospital for sinners and one is more likely to get better in the hospital than out on the street.

 

Im in the same boat as you Maggie. Ill help you paddle.

[Perigrina]

I have a lot of issues with the Church and I don't talk about them here because that's not what the phorum is for.

Nevertheless I used to have this all-or-nothing attitude and I've dropped it. I think we are all better in the Church than out of it. A bad Catholic is better than an ex -Catholic or ex-Christian. Perhaps it's more intellectually consistent to leave but it's better for the soul if one doesn't.

The church is a hospital for sinners and one is more likely to get better in the hospital than out on the street.

 

This is a good point.  I don't think anyone should be telling another that he ought to leave the Church.  But challenging people to face their inconsistency might help them to understand that they need to change.

[CrossCuT]

 I don't think anyone should be telling another that he ought to leave the Church. 

 

Then dont make stupid threads such as this one.

[mortify ii]

Nope, I think I will take my 95% and keep the name "Roman Catholic," regardless of what you say. Whenever somebody asks me what I am, I will proudly declare that I am a Roman Catholic in communion with Rome. If you don't like that, you can go screw yourself.

 

A person can't reject dogma and still be Catholic, and any person that continues to do so is a pathetic fool. It tells me that this person doesn't have the gall to admit to themselves and to others what they really are. Now I'm not sure JohnRyan has actually rejected dogma, he may be referring to some non trivial matters on the periphery. 

[Credo in Deum]

Im in the same boat as you Maggie. Ill help you paddle.

I've always wondered, what is like going up Shitz Creek with a paddle?