The Growing Scourge Of Catholic Tribalism

[ClemensBruno]

NotreDame:

Yes, I more or less agree.  Earlier in the thread I noted that there have always been heretics and, not only that, but there have always been different spiritualities as well.

 

My post was just an quick outline of my thoughts upon reflection on one of your earlier post, specifically:

 

NotreDame:

I really like what mortify said and I'm not sure yet whether I'd think that this thing we are seeing, which you have called tribalism, is really that important, or even that new.

 

I'd have trouble discussing "tribalism" because I'm not really sure what it is supposed to mean.  We come from a tradition with many different spiritualities, many different communities, with many different charisms.  If I saw saw a group of trappists in the country eeking out a living by hand and then saw a group of dominicans, studying and preaching in a large city, while outside barefoot franciscans served the poor in the street... well, I think it would be fair to describe these as tribes, yet it's obvious that tribalism in this sense is a consequence of the fullness of the Church, not an impediment to it.

 

 

Regarding...

 

NotreDame:

I can't speak to what ClemensBruno was referring to, but many of the letters of the new testament were written to correct heresy.  Collossians is one.

 

I think the gist of what Clemens Bruno said is that the dissent and heresy today doesn't stand out when compared to previous periods, but rather that church history shows that heresy and dissent have been the unfortunate norm rather than the exception.  The epistles are an example of this.  The faithful, both lay and clerical, have always seemed to have had their hands full correcting heretics. 

 

Yes!  Thank you.  ...And thanks also for this particular bit of info as well as other things you've mentioned earlier of which I wasn't aware.  You--and many others in this phorum such as BarbaraTherese and mortify ii--have provided me with rich leads for my own follow-up.

 

To mortify ii and other interested parties: A web search on the agenda of the First Council of Nicaea will give you an good idea of the enormity of issues that the Nicene Council had to resolve.  By comparison, the "Catholic tribalism" being discussed here would seem like an annoying distraction.  Our early Church fathers had to contend with numerous gospels, epistles, etc., circulating throughout the early Church that supported stark differences in theology and authority, e.g., the Gnostic gospels. Until the last few decades, the only proof of the existence of most of these noncanonical texts came from a fragment or two of ancient manuscripts in which they are mentioned briefly as a source or in a list.  The Egyptian Coptic Christian Bible includes a sampling of noncanonical texts.

 

(Please know that I am being rather casual in discussing quite a hefty segment of biblical archaeology and scholarship.  Hence, I'm sure I've made some errors.  If interested, YOU should investigate further on your own and not take my word for it.  You have at your fingertips a vast, virtual library, while previous generations had to visit libraries and archives around the world just to get access to the same sources.  Caution: The printed word does not equal the truth.  Always verify, myself included.)

 

 

 

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

St paul preached to various churches, the book of revelations talks about various churches and each with a particular gift. Perhaps this is illuminate also on a smaller scale within a diocese, nation or even a parish, sub sections of the sections so to speak, but we are one holy catholic church through the holy sacraments, the holy word of God, the immaculate conception, the primacy of the pope and the magesterium. How we discern these truths or perhaps how we are revealed these truths can be personal, communal and sub communal, hence why we have different orders which are all catholic, including the layity which is a kind of order to some degree or another. Be at peace with one another, love in both justice and mercy but don't judge or condemn, forgive, and seek to love your God with all your mind,heart and strength. This is how you squash this supposed division, if that is true to what is meant by catholic tribalism. But some difference is what unites us and binds us together to seek for the common good i guess, sounds strange i know but think about it if there weren't difference we would not have to have that drive for unification, which as i have stated we are unified through those catholic precepts at the banquet table of the kingdom of heaven. Difference doesn't have to mean enemy, it can mean an oppurtunity to grow and to learn.

 

Onward christian souls.

 

Jesus is LORD.

Edited January 1, 2014 by Tab'le De'Bah-Rye

[BarbTherese]

The Church has always struggled and what is happening in our own times is a time of struggle and crisis in The Church and nothing new in our history.

The 'first' heresy occurs in Acts in the life of St Peter regarding circumcision (see "The Circumcisers" in "The Great Heresies" below) - if not indeed the first heresy is in the time of Jesus when Peter tried to get Jesus to abandon talk and belief in His Sufferings to come  (Peter obviously had a misunderstanding of the mission of Jesus as Messiah) and Jesus replies "Get thee behind me Satan".  Harsh statement by Jesus, but perhaps a dire warning for those who would speak against Truth upholding what is false and a lie.  Perhaps it is because of that statement by Jesus that The Church is so adamant where heresy is concerned, and so adamant and outspoken in Her challenge.  The source and provoker of heresy is Satan, the "father of liars".

 

 

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-great-heresies (The Great Heresies "Catholic Answers" tract) Excerpt:  "Heresies have been with us from the Church’s beginning. They even have been started by Church leaders, who were then corrected by councils and popes. Fortunately, we have Christ’s promise that heresies will never prevail against the Church, for he told Peter, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18). The Church is truly, in Paul’s words, "the pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim. 3:15). "

 

 

 

http://catholicbridge.com/catholic/list_of_heresies.php ("List of Heresies The Church Rejected" ..........and a quite comprehensive list it seemed to me)

 

[BarbTherese]

BarbaraTherese, on 31 Dec 2013 - 2:51 PM, said: It is not so much the differences that concern me most of the time, it is the decided lack of Charity towards those that might disagree.  Attributed to St Augustine "In essentials - unity, in non essentials - liberty ........ and in all things Love".  This is something that Pope Francis is bringing to the fore - "in all things Love".  This is something that was lacking pre VII.  I recall my childhood years when hatred for non Catholics (protestants they were then termed) was insisted upon and even by the nuns who taught me in primary school.

 

NotreDame: Well, if your argument is that problems were creeping into catholic schools prior to Vatican II... It's an issue that VII didn't fix, but instead accelerated.  I'd take your jingoistic orthodox nuns over the flaming heretics teaching in this archdiocese any day.

 

 

 

Thank you for the response, ND . :)

I think that pre V2 the problems were more than simply in Catholic schools - the problems had become standard in Catholic cultural consciousness. Moreover, VII, I think (and if applied correctly) can and did address that false Catholic cultural consciousness, which was being upheld in Catholic schools (or at least the ones I know about - and also in some religious life formation).  The problem post VII is that many of us grabbed the bull by the tail as it were and the pendulum swung too far, rather than hitting happy medium, understanding VII and applying it correctly.  This "too far" and misunderstandings has resulted in liberal type understandings and teachings and sometimes by religious and priests very sadly.

I am very grateful to much of my Catholic education certainly post VII by Dominican nuns who conveyed it seems to me as I reflect back a spot on understanding of spirituality correcting my Catholic primary education by nuns.  I too am truly appalled by some of the things being taught in our Catholic schools and even in RCIA programs nowadays post VII - or what I hear about them rather and therefore hearsay.
In other words, both pre VII and now post VII there were and now are very real problems needing urgent address.  Sadly, here in Australia, many of our priests and nuns do hold quite liberal understandings.  I am hoping and praying Pope Francis will go a very long way to starting a ball rolling that will just keep on rolling during and after his papacy addressing today's problems in The Church and upholding and proclaiming a correct understanding and application of VII.

 

Humanly, on the human level, I can get all tied up in knots about what is happening today in Australia in Catholic circles often, or so it seems to me - until I recall the words of Jesus untying those knots, words in which my Faith is invested "Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world...........and the gates of Hell shall not prevail".  And when I am tied up in human knots and anxious and emotional, I never make good decisions nor think in a calm and rational manner - and that is a proven in my particular case.

 

______________________

 

Happy New Year to you and to all - I hope 2014 will bring Peace and much Joy! .......Barb :)

[NotreDame]

On Vatican II:  BT - My personal opinion on Vatican II (which I haven't actually given yet) isn't as informed as I'd like it to be since I don't know much about the details of the council or the follow-up committees which gave us the NO.  However, I am very well read on 20th century history and social/political thought that was the background for that and I have some experience dealing with catholic hierarchy (bishops, cardinals, and their beauracracy.)  If I use the latter to inform the former, I can make a good guess at what happened.

 

John the 23rd had a nice, but naive idea to have a council (probably with the urging of some pathetic European bishops - the types that only put on clerical collars for trips to the vatican.)  The council didn't do anything bad, per se, but wasn't very precise.  It included a lot of ambiguity (some of these street clothes wearing cardinals/bishops probably wanted the ambiguity.)  After the council, things went to committees which took broad ambiguous directives and turned them into actionable things (like the Novus Ordo.)  With the onslaught of modernism that was wrecking through the whole 20th century, these committees didn't stand a chance.  

 

Even then, the implementation got taken over by the worst kinds.  The exceptions (obvious examples are communion in the hand, altar girls, eucharistic ministers) became the norm.  We went from teaching catholic doctrine in catholic schools to the worst kind of heresy.   And God bless all the good orthodox men that endured the new kinds of seminaries only to get booted out for being too "rigid." 

 

I didn't need business school to teach me that strategy is meaningless without execution (in fact, they didn't teach that much at my graduate business school anyway), but it should be obvious that the best strategy is only as good as it's implementation.  Vatican II, at best, laid out an milk-toast pastoral strategy (it did not tackle any doctrine, that has been made clear) and the subsequent committees took advantage of every ambiguity for their own end. 

 

One additional thing is clear:  The "new evangelization" didn't evangelize anybody, it just gave us a whole bunch of new people to evangelize.  So I get very annoyed when people talk about an "evangelization" that was more of an "exodus." It's delusional and disingenuous.

 

So, on vatican II I normally just tell people where they are wrong, I don't normally give my own opinion, because it's more an hypothesis than something I can defend, but at some point in the next couple years I'll start research on VII and that's what I expect to find happened.

[NotreDame]

On the "Tribes" thing.  I think I mentioned this at the beginning, but I'll repeat given that we are on the subject of heresy.  There have always been these heresies, but I do think this time is different, because many of the heresies are also reflected (even have their origin) in the broader non-catholic, even non-christian, non-theist culture.  This broader culture is also (at least in the USA) experiencing a degree of polarization it's not used to.  People feel it in the culture and catholics will pick up on it within the Church as well. 

 

Has there been another time when Catholics were the minority and the predominant heretics among the catholics were almost more sympathetic to the broader culture than to the Church?  Maybe there are some isolated examples here and there, but what we are experiencing is nearly global (with the exception, maybe of Africa.)  No?

 

[Socrates]

What?????   You guys are now calling the 20th century church prior to Vatican II a house of cards?  Ha ha!  That's just a little bit disrespectful to our church and forebears, don't you think?   Jeesh, what's it the water here lately.

 

The Church was pretty worthless in its 1,960-something years prior to Vatican II, when it finally received enlightenment.

 

We're all much better and holier now.

[Rosaries]

This is an honest question, but isn't the whole point of Jesus Christ being The Word and The Truth, etc. that there is an Absolute Truth which is God's will in the world?

 

One thing I have learned as a Catholic is that God's lessons are extremely simple, to the point where many scholars have a harder time understanding them than mere simple children/uneducated people do because the scholars overanalyze what is exceedingly simple.

 

This following statement is not at all aimed at any person in particular (in this thread or otherwise), it is just a general opinion of mine and if it were aimed at a person, it would be at myself.  I think that overanalysis is the mark of pride and man-is-his-own-god notions.  God makes things very simple and very straightforward for us.  I'm always so frustrated at how we overanalyze and overargue and overdissect things that are so very, very simple.

 

My question is this, then: if ecumenism is--by its very nature--accepting the idea of multiple truths, then doesn't it also--by its very nature--expose itself as not adhering to the Absolute Truth and thus absolutely wrong?

 

I'm all about agreeing to disagree, but if we all start agreeing, then we're definitely doing it wrong: "Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword." Matthew 10:34

[NotreDame]

My question is this, then: if ecumenism is--by its very nature--accepting the idea of multiple truths, then doesn't it also--by its very nature--expose itself as not adhering to the Absolute Truth and thus absolutely wrong?

 

You obviously haven't taken enough theology coursework.  :french: <--- Ironic french intellectual smiley
 

[BarbTherese]

ND - Re your post here http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/topic/132444-the-growing-scourge-of-catholic-tribalism/page-4#entry2645331   It has unfolded that quite obviously you are critical of VII while I appreciate the Council.  Perhaps I am guessing quite wrongly, but you probably have no intention of changing your assessment and I certainly have no intention of changing mine - unless factual evidence is presented not guesses and personal interpretations, opinion.  I am personally convinced that possibly much about the Council was wrongly interpreted and then implemented using a general umbrella of 'the spirit of the council' and no one really knew what exactly that meant other than to be quite liberal.  Back when it was all occurring initially, if one was 'in the spirit of the council' one tended to liberal views and I think this was exploited and manipulated and certainly by those with modernist philosophies.  This then is the fault of interpretation, opinion and implementation, personal agendas, and not the Council per se.

 

We seem to be on the opposite sides of a fence of opinion - it happens and no drama insofar as I am concerned.  I am sure that there is much about your assumptions that might be quite correct as there is, I hope, much about my own opinions.  The one thing that any kind of conflict and disagreement in opinions, concepts and understandings usually will tell me is that the actual truth of the matter is probably still struggling to be heard and to strive to be one who listens if possible.  When I was studying modern history, we spent almost a whole terms on "good researching" and interpreting our sources - to reflect on the verbs and adjectives used by our source as a guide to a possible agenda  ..........................Barb :)

 

_________________________

 

 "Modernism" is a very big word indeed and began long before VII. http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/what_you_need_to_know/index.cfm?id=78 (Quoting from links provided):

 "But the Modernists of a century ago aren't the only ones with counterparts now. The integralists who launched a witch hunt after the publication of Pascendi and Lamentabili have successors, too. These include people who believe — or at least strongly suspect — that the Church hasn't had a real pope since 1958, when Pius XII died (sedevacantists, they're called), who hold that Vatican II wasn't a valid council of the Church, and who at this very moment are very likely somewhere on the Internet trying to make the case that Benedict XVI is a Modernist. Just like Loisy and Tyrrell, Benigni also has spiritual heirs.

 

In summing up Modernism and its legacy, however, it's only fair to give the last word to Loisy: "The Catholicism of the pope being neither reformable nor acceptable," the excommunicated ex-priest and Modernist luminary wrote in 1931, "another Catholicism will have to come into being, a humane Catholicism, in no way conditioned by the pontifical institution or the traditional forms of Roman Catholicism." A century after Modernism was condemned, Loisy's successors are still working hard to bring that about."

 

 

[NotreDame]

Yes BT, it's just a hypothesis of mine, I wouldn't defend it until I researched it more... It's my best guess at what research would turn up.  I don't really think we disagree on much.  You yourself just pointed out how all sorts of things were implemented in "the spirit of the council" and that's basically what I called poor implementation. 

 

 

 

[tinytherese]

My question is this, then: if ecumenism is--by its very nature--accepting the idea of multiple truths, then doesn't it also--by its very nature--expose itself as not adhering to the Absolute Truth and thus absolutely wrong?

 

I'm all about agreeing to disagree, but if we all start agreeing, then we're definitely doing it wrong: "Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword." Matthew 10:34

 

Ecumenism isn't claiming that everything is true, but looking at what those of different religious beliefs hold that we also agree on. It is looking for common ground and try to understand each other.

 

Hopefully, through these relationships of mutual respect, we can pave the way for evangelizing them.

 

Those of different religious groups throughout history have mistreated and even persecuted each other. A great deal of healing is in order. Many people in the past as well as the present go about spreading the Gospel in a triumphalistic manner, meaning that people would be rude and smug about their beliefs. This approach really turned people off from Catholicism.

 

When evangelizing, one has to be humble and kind without watering down the fact that the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth.

[ClemensBruno]

Tab'le De'Bah-Rye said:
"St Paul preached...etc. ...Be at peace with one another, love in both justice and mercy but don't judge or condemn, forgive, and seek to love your God with all your mind,heart and strength....


Truly Excellent!! Love this; a state to which I continually aspire. Tab' is spot-on in describing what really matters. In the midst of an often vitriolic debate, with all sides claiming certainty, Pride and Anger can easily obscure what is truly important. No matter how vexing the issues might be, there is no excuse for eschewing Charity and accusing the other side of doing the devil's work.

However, Tab's call to act as Christians will likely have negligible effect on the tribal ideologues who doubtless claim that God is on their side. Some might even accuse Tab' of heresy!

NotreDame, I think there might be a historical parallel to today's tribalism ...in the 19th Century. Will elaborate tomorrow or so. (Must go to bed now or I'll miss Mass in the morning.)

[NotreDame]

NotreDame, I think there might be a historical parallel to today's tribalism ...in the 19th Century. Will elaborate tomorrow or so. (Must go to bed now or I'll miss Mass in the morning.)

 

Looking forward to it.

[mortify ii]

Regarding...

 

NotreDame:

I can't speak to what ClemensBruno was referring to, but many of the letters of the new testament were written to correct heresy.  Collossians is one.

 

I think the gist of what Clemens Bruno said is that the dissent and heresy today doesn't stand out when compared to previous periods, but rather that church history shows that heresy and dissent have been the unfortunate norm rather than the exception.  The epistles are an example of this.  The faithful, both lay and clerical, have always seemed to have had their hands full correcting heretics. 

 

Yes!  Thank you.  ...And thanks also for this particular bit of info as well as other things you've mentioned earlier of which I wasn't aware.  You--and many others in this phorum such as BarbaraTherese and mortify ii--have provided me with rich leads for my own follow-up.

 

To mortify ii and other interested parties: A web search on the agenda of the First Council of Nicaea will give you an good idea of the enormity of issues that the Nicene Council had to resolve.  By comparison, the "Catholic tribalism" being discussed here would seem like an annoying distraction.  Our early Church fathers had to contend with numerous gospels, epistles, etc., circulating throughout the early Church that supported stark differences in theology and authority, e.g., the Gnostic gospels. Until the last few decades, the only proof of the existence of most of these noncanonical texts came from a fragment or two of ancient manuscripts in which they are mentioned briefly as a source or in a list.  The Egyptian Coptic Christian Bible includes a sampling of noncanonical texts.

 

The Sts. Peter v. Paul debate was merely the first in a slew of unknown quantity in differences among the faithful in the early Church. There is a growing body of archeological evidence that paints an early Church with a wide variety of practices and doctrines--a picture that contradicts what has been long assumed.

 

 

Thank you for the response Clemens, what confused me was the way you used the word "Church" to include heretics whom I see as foreign elements. To me the Church is a spiritual society founded by Christ and headed by the Vicar He instituted. As time went on certain persons promoted ideas and practices that were contrary to the Deposit of faith our Lord had left, but these were rejected by the Church and constituted "non-organic" elements within the body. The Church herself never departed from the truth, and although there was some diversity in practice, there was also great unanimity. The Council of Nicea was not developing new doctrine but rather codifying in a language everyone agreed upon to be what the Church always already believed. Arius promoted a doctrine which made Christ into a lesser deity and would turn Christianity into a polytheistic religion. The key point is that Arius went against what was already taught, and fostered innovation which would corrupt the deposit of faith. Either way though, the Council of Nicea and the Gnostic texts are nothing new to the Church. Sure, the texts mostly disappeared from posterity and were recently discovered, but they were well known to the Church Fathers. Their discovery adds nothing to our understanding of the Church, only of our understanding of the Gnostics, which were truly a body of conflicting sects with mutually contradicting ideas. Just as an aside, when the Qur'an rejects the historicity of the Crucifixion of Christ and says that it was nothing more than an illusion that Christians themselves don't agree on what happened, the "Christians" the Quran refers to are the remnants of Gnosticism that dissipated into the Hijaaz. Since Gnostics were dualists that regarded the material body as evil, Christ was pure spirit without body and therefore he could not have literally suffered on the cross, it was an illusion and how that was so the Gnostics offered varying stories, to which influenced Muhammad's view of Christianity. So thank the Gnostics for the scourge that is Islam

[mortify ii]

My question is this, then: if ecumenism is--by its very nature--accepting the idea of multiple truths, then doesn't it also--by its very nature--expose itself as not adhering to the Absolute Truth and thus absolutely wrong?

 

    There is a true sense of ecumenism which is a movement to restore separated Christians (Orthodox, Protestants, etc) back into the unity that already exists within the Catholic Church, and among these groups we see that there is already much agreement, especially in the case of the Orthodox. The problem begins when we start to loosen the focus of ecumenism and begin to suggest that other religions are salvific, that a person need not become Catholic, and that there is no such thing as absolute truth, or if there was we have no way of knowing about it. It renders evangelization and Christ's directive to baptize the world meaningless and void, and all that remains is superficial dialogue and some unspecified sense of unity.

    There is an openness about the Church nowadays which is good but can also be very crippling. It's gotten to the point where the Church can't speak authentically and clearly because it may offend this or that separated community or religion. If one sincerely believes they have obtained the truth, then they are required to be real and authentically express it, the same should hold true for the Catholic faith. 

[Rosaries]

Hopefully, through these relationships of mutual respect, we can pave the way for evangelizing them.

 

Those of different religious groups throughout history have mistreated and even persecuted each other. A great deal of healing is in order. Many people in the past as well as the present go about spreading the Gospel in a triumphalistic manner, meaning that people would be rude and smug about their beliefs. This approach really turned people off from Catholicism.

 

When evangelizing, one has to be humble and kind without watering down the fact that the Catholic Church has the fullness of truth.

 

I agree with everything you say here, but what truly confuses me is how often Catholics seem to think that Catholicism is "just one option" since Vatican II and the embrace of ecumenism.  I am strongly in favor of looking at pragmatics, not at theoretics.  Children care about pragmatics, not theoretics, and we are all called to have childlike simplicity before God. 

 

Theoretically, Vatican II was meant to create respect and love while evangelizing.  Pragmatically, it seems to make many, many people wonder why they are bothering to be Catholic at all.  If Catholicism is harder to practice than other faiths, and Catholicism now teaches that just about anyone can go to Heaven if they treat their neighbors with love and respect, then why be Catholic?  On a pragmatic level, it does not make sense. 

 

But just for the sake of it, I will also bring it up on a scholarly, theoretical level:  When it's stated that just about anyone can go to Heaven so long as they are nice to each other, it appears to be the complete reverse of many specific teachings of Jesus Himself.  He was a sword to divide people.  He expressed that Heaven is so difficult to get into that we as humans should literally be seeing it as an impossibility without some kind of miracle.  How else would an elephant pass through the eye of a needle?  It is impossible as far as we are concerned.  Compare that to our personal views of getting into Heaven--if we don't feel like it's impossible on a human level, then we are probably not thinking of Heaven correctly.

 

This means that if we are not taking advantage of all the wonderful graces that God gives us, especially the amazing and powerful sacraments He has graced upon the Catholic Church, I cannot imagine that we will make it to Heaven.

 

Ecumenism is a theoretically beautiful thing, but it causes so many problems in faith that I have concluded while using my childlike simplicity that it is too academic and too theoretical to be from the Holy Spirit.  We are called to love our neighbors themselves unconditionally, not their incorrect beliefs.

[BarbTherese]

I agree with everything you say here, but what truly confuses me is how often Catholics seem to think that Catholicism is "just one option" since Vatican II and the embrace of ecumenism.  I am strongly in favor of looking at pragmatics, not at theoretics.  Children care about pragmatics, not theoretics, and we are all called to have childlike simplicity before God. 

Hi there, Rosaries.  Lovely username - I made my private vows on the feast of Our Lady of The Rosary some 30 odd years ago.

Again, having lived through pre and post V2 years and not really understanding what V2 was really all about until I was given this computer and could do cost free research myself, I think often dating a comment and problem in The Church as post V2 which is quite valid, some misinterpret such dating as meaning that V2 per se was somehow at fault and the cause of the existing problem.  It is not V2 itself that is the problem as I see things, it is people's understanding and misinterpretation of The Council.  It has become quite evident to me with the easy free research a computer does facilitate, that probably those that had modernist and millennialism philosophies did exploit and manipulate to their own agenda, and still continue to do so.

 

Theoretically, Vatican II was meant to create respect and love while evangelizing.  Pragmatically, it seems to make many, many people wonder why they are bothering to be Catholic at all.  If Catholicism is harder to practice than other faiths, and Catholicism now teaches that just about anyone can go to Heaven if they treat their neighbors with love and respect, then why be Catholic?  On a pragmatic level, it does not make sense. 

Again, this is a misunderstanding of what The Church teaches and our obligation to follow our conscience and an obligation before God.  If one arrives at a conviction that The Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Jesus, then one has an obligation to follow through on that conviction and before God.  If anyone has a simple understanding of things, I would be well in their ranks.

 

But just for the sake of it, I will also bring it up on a scholarly, theoretical level:  When it's stated that just about anyone can go to Heaven so long as they are nice to each other, it appears to be the complete reverse of many specific teachings of Jesus Himself.  He was a sword to divide people.  He expressed that Heaven is so difficult to get into that we as humans should literally be seeing it as an impossibility without some kind of miracle.  How else would an elephant pass through the eye of a needle?  It is impossible as far as we are concerned.  Compare that to our personal views of getting into Heaven--if we don't feel like it's impossible on a human level, then we are probably not thinking of Heaven correctly.

I think as Catholics, we need to get what The Church is stating into context.  Undoubtedly and because Our God is indeed All Loving and Merciful, He is not going to condemn to Hell a person who has lived a good life according to their conscience.  Such would be obviously unjust. The Gift of Faith is a free Gift of God not given to all.  This is not a change in what The Church has to state nor what Jesus taught - it is putting things into the overall context.  We claim to be the one true Church that Jesus founded and continues unbroken until today.  Putting things into some sort of context, it is difficult to be Catholic probably looking from the outside in; however, with Baptism into The Church and the faithful reception of The Sacraments, all the Graces necessary are more than abundant to meet all life challenges.

As Pope Benedict told us - the only thing we have to fear is unfaithfulness IN The Church "“The only danger the Church can and should fear is the sin of her members,”  http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2011/12/08/church-should-fear-sin-of-members-more-than-persecution-says-pope/     

Personally, I was happy when I read that statement as confirmation, since I had long wondered how much my own sinfulness contributes to the problems in our Church and world.  I too am a sinner. And Jesus has told us that His followers and disciples are "the salt of the earth and what happens if the salt looses its taste?" (if things are in a mess, then who is to blame?)  That statement of Jesus found a home with me and Pope Benedict eliminated the question mark.

 

This means that if we are not taking advantage of all the wonderful graces that God gives us, especially the amazing and powerful sacraments He has graced upon the Catholic Church, I cannot imagine that we will make it to Heaven.

I don't think that I can judge - I leave all that up to God at Judgement.  However, I would be warning that one could well be skating on salvation thin ice to not be faithful to our Faith - not a judgement but a fear. "Perfect Love casts out fear" tells me that I still have a very long long way to go!

 

Ecumenism is a theoretically beautiful thing, but it causes so many problems in faith that I have concluded while using my childlike simplicity that it is too academic and too theoretical to be from the Holy Spirit.  We are called to love our neighbors themselves unconditionally, not their incorrect beliefs.

This to me is not a problem with ecumenism per se - it is a very real and huge problem of Catholics misunderstanding their Faith and not always a culpable matter.  It is a problem of catechesis right through life, of continuing formation in The Faith.  Again, we need context : Jesus has told us that we should even love our enemies and do good to those who persecute and calumniate us - and this is from The Holy Spirit.  This can be a problem of discerning what indeed is "good" in a given situation and The Church takes this very real obligation, duty, responsibility and accountability very seriously and in Her Teaching Authority - and Her obligation, duty, responsibility and accountability.  To me personally, it all boils down to loyalty (for Love of God) to what Rome states and trustful confidence in Jesus to be with His Church "all days even to the consummation of the world" and not let us be led totally astray.  This is not mindless Faith, rather it is mindful Faith and Faith that seeks understanding.  However, if I have to toss up between what I understand and obedience to The Church.  I know that obedience is a powerful virtue and that which I would choose, while not necessarily ceasing to strive to understand, mindful of my own obligations and duties before God and with accountability too.

 

I can really be compassionately understanding to those Catholics who do at times either somewhat or quite seriously misunderstand our Faith and what The Church does teach.  I know beyond doubt that if I did not have this computer and the time to research as much as I do, my own understandings would be far more lacking than I hope and think that they are - while sighting that I just may not be as well informed as I think and hope.  Since I live alone under private vows and 68yrs of age sees me slowed down almost to a crawl with my two sons now adult and totally independent, I do have plenty of time to strive to understand and research.  In our fast moving world, I am very much aware that not all do indeed.  If I can see these factors, far more so can our Loving Lord.  And all too well aware am I that with the Gifts of God come responsibility and accountability before Him.

 

Happy 2014 all...............Barb :)
 

 

[BarbTherese]

Pope Benedict : "He told the crowds gathered for the event that Mary is "free from every stain of sin (and) the church is holy, but at the same time is marked by our sins."

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1104798.htm
 

[NotreDame]

 So thank the Gnostics for the scourge that is Islam

 

Hilaire Belloc had a good essay on this in his book about heresies.