Do There Exist "enemies Of The Church"?

[Maggyie]

With regards to secularism specifically, what about previous condemnations of the popes? They usually attack secularism in the harshest possible terms, as being directly against the social reign of Christ the King.

I think it depends on what is meant by secularism and the social reign of Christ. Previous popes thought freedom of religion was a huge threat but over time doctrine has developed to greatly favor it. To me there's a difference between a Catholic state and having Christ reign in society. In fact his reign may be more glorious in an officially secular state. Just my opinion.

[Nihil Obstat]

33. To wish the Church to be subject to the civil power in the exercise of her duty is a great folly and a sheer injustice. Whenever this is the case, order is disturbed, for things natural are put above things supernatural; the many benefits which the Church, if free to act, would confer on society are either prevented or at least lessened in number; and a way is prepared for enmities and contentions between the two powers, with how evil result to both the issue of events has taught us only too frequently.

34. Doctrines such as these, which cannot be approved by human reason, and most seriously affect the whole civil order, Our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs (well aware of what their apostolic office required of them) have never allowed to pass uncondemned. Thus, Gregory XVI in his encyclical letter Mirari Vos, dated August 15, 1832, inveighed with weighty words against the sophisms which even at his time were being publicly inculcated-namely, that no preference should be shown for any particular form of worship; that it is right for individuals to form their own personal judgments about religion; that each man's conscience is his sole and all-sufficing guide; and that it is lawful for every man to publish his own views, whatever they may be, and even to conspire against the State. On the question of the separation of Church and State the same Pontiff writes as follows: "Nor can We hope for happier results either for religion or for the civil government from the wishes of those who desire that the Church be separated from the State, and the concord between the secular and ecclesiastical authority be dissolved. It is clear that these men, who yearn for a shameless liberty, live in dread of an agreement which has always been fraught with good, and advantageous alike to sacred and civil interests." To the like effect, also, as occasion presented itself, did Pius IX brand publicly many false opinions which were gaining ground, and afterwards ordered them to be condensed in summary form in order that in this sea of error Catholics might have a light which they might safely follow.(22)

 

Immortale Dei, Leo XIII

[Maggyie]

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.

[chrysostom]

Doctrinal development does not and cannot contradict or be prejudiced against what came before - what was Catholic and true at one point will always remain Catholic and true.  If you're going to say that, let's get some quotes from the other "side" and we can hash it out.  :)

[Nihil Obstat]

"It is necessary, therefore, that understanding, knowledge and wisdom grow and advance strongly and mightily as much in individuals as in the group, as much in one man as in the whole Church, and this gradually according to age and the times; and this must take place precisely within its own kind, that is, in the same teaching, in the same meaning, and in the same opinion."

 

However doctrine develops, it can never contradict that which came before it. That would then not be development but change, and Catholic doctrine cannot change.

[chrysostom]

I'll have another go:

 

If a doctrine is not true now, it was never true.  But the Catholic Church cannot teach falsehood.  So whatever is taught now must be understood without prejudice to previous teachings.

[Maggyie]

Yes yes yes I know the whole thing about how doctrine can not change. Development is kind of a weasel word around that. But the distinction is important I agree.

Im not interested in providing quotes. One thing that really annoys me about the church is that we easily become a Church of Documents where we play dueling document quotes. It's no different than what Protestants do with parsing Scripture. The Lord didn't found a library he founded a church you know.

The quotes are easy to find though. Read the catechism. Read the Second Vatican Council. Sure there's a way to make it all hang together. But do you really have the energy? Smarter people than you or I have done it. I promise they (the bishops, the popes etc) did it at the time the developments happened. That's why things developed the way they did.

So yes "nothing has been changed" (slight eye roll) but the fact remains you can't just post that encyclical from Leo XIII and interpret it yourself. You haven't been gifted by the Holy Spirit in that manner. The valid interpretation of it is the one offered by the Church, which doesn't see it in contradiction to the current teaching emphasis that applauds freedom if conscience, religion, press, democracy etc.

Again if you're taking Leo at face value and you expect the Church to ever go back to a similar interpretation, don't kid yourself.

[Nihil Obstat]

All I expect, and all the Church has ever expected, is that doctrine is held unchangably for all times. Truth is truth.

[Perigrina]

Again if you're taking Leo at face value and you expect the Church to ever go back to a similar interpretation, don't kid yourself.

 

There are a lot of people around who interpret religious liberty in such a way that it supports religious indifferentism.  We know that is wrong.  When recent documents talk about religious liberty, it does not mean what many people think it means.  One way to make sure we are understanding recent documents correctly is to also read older ones.  Any correct understanding is one that is compatible with all the documents.  

[Maggyie]

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!

[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.