Which Is Better?

[Brother Adam]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' timestamp='1292770397' post='2193455']
ty
[/quote]

To answer the question, it would be better to be Orthodox. The Catholic Church considers the Orthodox and the Catholic Church the left and right lungs of the body of Christ. In the Second Vatican Council the Orthodox take a special place among the Christian churches. There is no sense of urgency to convert the Orthodox to the Catholic faith, however much we long to be united with our brothers and sisters in Christ. There is little that separates us, and the Orthodox celebrate valid Sacraments. A Catholic on the other hand who openly rejects Catholic teaching places his soul in danger, assuming he is not ignorant of the truth.

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='Brother Adam' timestamp='1293501488' post='2194701']
It is certainly possible to be a heretic, apostate, schismatic, and otherwise reject the faith while ontologically remaining a child of God. I can imagine those graces and indelible marks on our soul will make hell even more painful as our soul knows its true place with the Father if they die in mortal sin. It is a false sense of compassion and an erroneous understanding of love to suggest that sin (contraception or its companion, abortion) will fix poverty. That same sense of "compassion" lead a religious sister in Texas to start escorting women into abortuaries to murder their own children. Humanae Vitae was of course, prophetically on target. Any Catholic who does not understand an infallible teaching of the Church has both the right to ask for help in understanding, and a duty to fully accept the faith until such an understanding is found. If a Catholic finds that they openly reject Catholic teaching they should refrain from receiving Communion.

True love would pick the child up out of the gutter and teach families true chastity, not recommend the destruction of the family. Contraception destroys the image of the Trinity in the family, objectifies men and women, makes children unwanted, closes the family off from life, leads to promiscuity, disease, abortion, and has ushered in a culture of death by which the ruler of the world and prince of darkness laughs at us. As Mother Teresa said, that is true poverty. That is also why the Catholic Church is the single most charitable organization in the world. Yes, it is more difficult to help both families and the poor, but who ever said that the Way was going to be easy or convenient?
[/quote]

I don't disagree with the reasons that you have given for the Church rules. What I was saying is that it is only natural for a person having observed things first hand to have some degree of doubt about that. And I do accept them even though I do not understand or cannot see the reasoning behind them as really being valid. But in spite of that I considered that my position was to 'pick up out of the gutter' what children I could, it's the ones that I couldn't because of numbers that haunt my dreams. but I would never consider it my position to advise people to defy Church teaching.
[quote]the Catholic Church is the single most charitable organization in the world.[/quote]
I'm very proud of that!

[dairygirl4u2c]

 from a catholic perspective, it seems like thessalonian made a pretty
compelling argument with the considerations he gave. eg, a catholic who
knows the ins and outs but doesn't practice as a 'true' catholic, is
hard to say is better than an orthodox who knows no better.



but,,, it'd seem from a catholic perspective, that one could say in the
right situation that the catholic who dissents is better off. eg the
orthodox guy, and the catholic. both dissent on infallibility. both know
the ins and outs of both the catholic and orthodox church. the catholic
is more catholic than the orthodox guy though in their beliefs and
practices. given the catholic is closer to full truth, wouldnt he be
better off than the orthodox guy? a person might say it hurts true unity
given he won't assent fully... but the other side is that one is closer
to full truth in belief and practice. it seems at worst it's debatable,
but i'd argue whoever is closer to full truth is the one who's better
off.