Observations

[Bruce S]

Really? So you are converting? I mean if one really does study Caholicism enough they end up being a Catholic...

Argh.

Come on now. 2/3'rds of the American Christians are NOT Catholic, and there are hundreds of thousands of those that have looked at the Catholic Church with open eyes, rejected it and don't agree.

That includes hundreds of thousands of Catholics that have left for other pastures.

What a biased remark!

This leads to mass confusion and mis-communication. In our minds it is perfectly reasonable to go to a denomination's web-site and pull from their statement of faith or whatever and expect members of said denomination to agree and follow said documents.

Why? Are we reqired to buy into a totality system? That is a massive difference. Just about any Protestant can attend a service from another denomination, feel at home, and just blend in.

To us, locksteeping to some tune written in Latin isn't the gameplan.

Sorry.

You know that, too, so don't make generalizations that lump Protestants into one mold. Doesn't work that way, and you know those statements are incendiary, and others would disagree.

Edited January 12, 2004 by Bruce S

[Bruce S]

However, very few people had any working knowledge of these documents. When discussing issues in the church I would often refer to these documents only to be told that "we don't really follow those".

Catholics (devout, practicing ones) almost always go first to the official documents of the Church.

Ah, so you are comparing uneducated Protestants, those who are not steeped in the doctrines, with those Catholic Church who are militant knowlege types?

Apples to apples.

There ARE many Protestants who know exactly what they believe, and know exactly what Catholics SAY they believe, and so often don't do, and that includes the clergy by the way.

Play fair here.

[cmotherofpirl]

Bull.

You have almost as much divergency as anyone else. You have NUNS who are advocating Sophia, you have Priests who are in open rebellion with Vatican II, I know the score. Don't play the "we are united" game, if you troll the nets, go look at CATHOLIC sites and compare them with official positions.

It is a "we SAY we do" them.

But many many don't. I know that, you know that. So, don't be coy.

Yes but as you know none of that is Church doctrine ,is it?

[Bruce S]

Yes but as you know none of that is Church doctrine ,is it?

Nope. Certainly isn't.

But why is it GAME fair here to note that Protestants have oddities, and not yours too?

If they ARE CATHOLIC clergy, and in rebellion to the Catholic Church, and are not tossed out for it, they are still INSIDE of the Catholic Church, and the rebellion is part of the Catholic Church, not external because some document somewhere disavows what is really happening all too often.

There was a thread here recently, harshly critical of certain Pentecostal individual movements, they were part of a larger body, they were out of synch with the teachings, WRITTEN teachings of that body.

Yet, the Catholics here harped on them, trying to tie the over the top stuff to the entire OFFICIAL body.

You do it all the time here, so don't pretend that doesn't happen.

OK?