Calling Oneself Catholic While Rejecting Church Teaching

[stevil]

Going back to your company analogy, what if someone claimed to be employed by a company, yet was not on their payroll or anywhere in their records? Or what if he did contracting work while claiming to be a full employee, while the company maintained that he was merely a contractor? What if he got demoted but continued to claim his previous job title and authority? Who gets the final say in these cases?

Yes, so it comes down to whom it is that is the authority on such matters and what criteria they have laid out.

It seems to me that some people in this thread are making exclusion claims without tieing these back to the authority and the "official" set of must haves in regards to whether a person IS a Catholic or NOT.

[Fidei Defensor]

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION OF
POPE PIUS XII

MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS
DEFINING THE DOGMA OF THE ASSUMPTION
 

45. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.

Edited June 25, 2014 by tardis ad astra

[Perigrina]

Is this correct OR could it be worded as follows

Church teaching includes definitions and explanations of how a Catholic should act, should believe.

 

Some teaching is framed in terms of what a Catholic is and other is in terms of what a Catholic is obliged to do.

[Nihil Obstat]

Yes, so it comes down to whom it is that is the authority on such matters and what criteria they have laid out.

It seems to me that some people in this thread are making exclusion claims without tieing these back to the authority and the "official" set of must haves in regards to whether a person IS a Catholic or NOT.

The Church explicitly claims that authority, and has always done so. And it has been pretty well defined how that authority is used.

[Socrates]

Not everybody views the world in black or white, all or nothing terms. I call myself a Marxist even though I do not agree with everything Karl Marx has ever written. Likewise, I call myself a Roman Catholic because it represents the greatest expression of my theological beliefs. . . .

 

That would make perfect sense if Christ's One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church were nothing more than a purely human organization.  (Just as one can rationally identify with a political party without agreeing with every single plank on the party platform.)

 

The problem is that the Church seriously and clearly asserts that its Magisterium was given the charism of infallibility by Christ on its teachings on faith and morals.

 

 

Let's make this simple.  (And, as I haven't read the entire 22 pages, my apologies if this was covered by others.)

There are four basic options regarding the Church and its claim of infallibility in teaching on Faith and morals.

 

A.  The Church is correct that it  teaches infallibly on matters of faith and morals.  In that case, we'd best submit to these teachings for the sake of our own salvation, whether we personally understand all of them or not.

 

B.  The Church falsely claims God-given infallibility in its teachings on faith and morals.  In that case, the Church is a fraud, and its claim to infallibility in these teachings is a lie, not to mention supremely arrogant and blasphemous.  Or at best (if Church leaders are sincere but wrong about this belief), this belief in its infallibility is delusional.

No good, rational person should wish to follow or identify with a fraudulent or delusional Church.  Why call oneself "Catholic"?

 

C.  God does in fact guide the Church's teachings on faith and morals, but He is not infallible, and gets things wrong at least some of the time, and needs to learn from the latest in secular human opinion.  Then God is dumber than us, and not much of a God.

 

D.  God does infallibly guide the Church's Magisterium and preserves it from error in its teachings on faith and morals, but only some of the time.  Thus it's really any one's guess which teachings on faith and morals are infallible, and which are bogus.  

If that's the case, it defeats the entire purpose of the charism of infallibility, as it's impossible to know which teachings are real and which are false.

Then we wind up with Protestantism, with its thousands of different conflicting teachings.

Edited June 26, 2014 by Socrates

[Socrates]

I have terrible health problems that can be inherited if I ever have a child, so I intend to adopt if I am ever married. I would get a vasectomy if I were ever in the position to have a sexual relationship with a significant other.

 

Do you believe it was wrong for your parents to have conceived you?  (Or that it would be wrong if they knew the risk of you having chronic health problems?)

[Socrates]

I believe the Church has authority, simply not absolute authority.

 

If the Church is only authoritative when it happens to agree with your own personal opinions, it really doesn't have much authority at all.

 

 

Why should John Ryan be the ultimate arbitrator of moral truth?

[stevil]

B.  The Church falsely claims God-given infallibility in its teachings on faith and morals.  In that case, the Church is a fraud, and its claim to infallibility in these teachings is a lie, not to mention supremely arrogant and blasphemous.  Or at best (if Church leaders are sincere but wrong about this belief), this belief in its infallibility is delusional.

I suspect this is the most likely case

No good, rational person should wish to follow or identify with a fraudulent or delusional Church.  Why call oneself "Catholic"?

I think the people whom follow the Catholic church but don't believe in its infallibility are following and associating with the Church because they mostly agree with its values and message. Similar to how other people follow non Catholic churches which don't make arrogant, fraudulent or delusional claims to be infallibly instructed by god. Because it is a best fit for them at that point in their life.

[John Ryan]

So you love her but not enough to have a child with her, eh? Suddenly your post is reduced to what it really is, a pretentious paragraph that only ends up promoting the corruption of sex to experience a physical pleasure you've been trying to avoid. Did it ever dawn on you that at the moment of climax hundreds of millions of procreative cells are released? Does this not point to the fact that the procreative aspect is not only integral but primary, and that you thwarting the course of nature is a corruption of the act? Wake up John, you think the way you do because our minds have been blasted with sexual stimuli from a young age and we're mastered by our unbridled passions and pride. It takes a lot of balls to caricature our ancient and universal moral teaching as "vatican ideology" and then go on to reject it. Maybe some temperance and mortification would allow a little more blood to flow to the brain and you'd realize why this stuff is not silly but actually valid ;)

 

You know, if you never told me, I would never have known that millions of procreative cells are released upon male ejaculation! I have only been a male for 25 years and never realized what that was for!

 

(i.) Your notion that taking procreation out of the equation reduces sexuality to a base form of physical pleasure is blatantly nonsense. Emotional bonding is in no way, a base form of pleasure;

(ii.) The problem with your natural law argument is that there is no logical reason to jump from the fact that millions of procreative cells are released to that being sex's primary purpose. Sexuality is deeply tied to deep emotions, which is evidenced by the fact that homosexual couples are bonded through sex. The fact that sterile couples can still have meaningful relationships is proof that sexuality serves a fundamental purpose different from that of procreation. You are right that mere procreation is not meaningful, but you are wrong in that the unitive function is intrinsically good by-and-in-itself. It produces virtue in those who take it meaningfully, and the Vatican's vilification of the unitive essence is misguided.

(iii.) I am offended by your insinuation that I am non-temperate. I am actually celibate. 

 

No it doesn't! Who is Love? God is Love. What does God do? He creates, He unites, and He sanctifys. When is sex an expression of love? When it is open to Him who is Love itself and allows Him to work through it. When is sex not an expression of love? When it imposes limitations on Love's (God's) participation. Were you aware that sex -if done correctly- can be a means of obtaining graces from God?! If you didn't realize this then I invite you to think and pray about it. Maybe you will realize why the Church defends sex the way she does.

I would recommend reading: "Three To Get Married" by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. Here is a link so you can read it for free, however, I still recommend buying a copy.

https://www.ewtn.com/library/MARRIAGE/3GETMARR.TXT

 

I will check it out when I get the time. Can I recommend that you read, In Praise of Love by Alain Badiou?

 

The Church teaches thus: The sexual act has two inherent qualities: Procreative, and unitive. If either of these is not present, it is sinful. That means if you are having sex for pleasure and are using contraceptives, that is sinful, as it is taking a necessary component (Procreative) out of the act. However, if you are having sex like robots simply to have babies, and it isn't unitive, that is also a sin.

 

Therefore your entire argument is moot. Yay theology.

 

Except that nothing of what you said can be construed as an argument. You cannot merely parrot back the Vatican's theology, when I am contesting the logic of that theology. I know the Vatican's theology on sex. I do not need it explained to me.

 

I am going to try an analogy here.  Hang on tight.

 

If you wanted to cut off your arms for no good reason, the Church would tell you you not to do it and that it would be wrong.  This does not mean that the Church teaches that bodies without arms are evil.  There would be no problem with a person born without arms or a person who had good medical cause for amputation.  The Church is teaching that mutilation is wrong.  It is the nature of the human body to have arms and we must respect its wholeness.  This is not an anti-body position.

 

This is very much like the teaching about sex.  It is the nature of sex to have two aspects, the unitive and procreative.  Cutting these off is mutilating sex, destroying its wholeness.  It is the destruction of wholeness that is wrong, not that sex itself is evil.

 

Your position is like a person who believes that cutting off the right arm is wrong, but cutting off the left arm is OK.  It goes beyond that.  You object to protecting the left arm because somehow that takes away from the value of the right arm. 

 

As far as Church teaching goes, the unitive aspect of sex, In itself, is a very good and meaningful thing.  But so is the procreative aspect.  Removing either is wrong because it is a mutilation of the wholeness of sex.  When we say that removing the unitive aspect is wrong, that does not mean the procreative, in itself, is an abomination.  When we say that removing the procreative aspect is wrong, that does not mean that the unitive, in itself, is an abomination.  

 

Is this analogy for real? The difference is that nothing in non-procreative sex is being destroyed. No part of the human wholeness is destroyed. There is no reason to believe that anal, oral or manual sex are unnatural, merely because those acts do not result in the possibility of procreation. Anal, oral and manual sex are merely expressions of the difference present in the natural law inscribed on our sexual bodies. 

 

The only way I can see your argument working is as an analogy against a male getting a vasectomy. However, I would argue that congenital conditions such as mine would (under that logic) allow for a vasectomy.

 

If I was speaking from my own point-of-view, I would say that comparing a vasectomy to the amputation of a perfectly healthy arm is incommensurate based on the fact that there are compelling reasons not to have kids while there are no compelling reasons to have your arm removed.

Edited June 26, 2014 by John Ryan

[AccountDeleted]

You have recently done several posts on the importance of kindness and "soft words".  Do you really think that suggesting a person is "more Catholic than the Pope" is not inflammatory?  Do you think the condescending tone of your post is kind?

 
 
Peregrina - I like the idea of 'soft words' because 'a soft answer turneth away wrath' but we all write in our own style and so if the concept of 'soft words'  (Did I use that expression? I don't remember it but anyway, ok) is too 'touchy feely' for you, then perhaps you need to redefine 'soft words' into a phrase that is more acceptable to you. Your profile says that you try to keep from losing your temper and that you are striving for "orthodoxy, charity and humility" in your posts, and you ask us to let you know when you are messing up. So I haven't been trying to be inflammatory or offensive, but perhaps to suggest that there are ways --- and then there are other ways --- to express the same thing (or something similar) perhaps without causing quite as much pain.

 

If you are particularly searching for examples of unkindness in my posts however, to prove some kind of point, I am sure you will find many accidental ones -- but this statement, "More Catholic than the Pope." was not meant as a slur or in jest but as a question of fact to Credo (he and I had been having a back and forth personal conversation that was actually amusing (hence the emoticons)  but since his posts seemed to be insisting that there was no way to proclaim the Truth without it causing pain to the person, I thought about some of the speeches that the recent Popes have made about this, and it brought out my very valid comment about being more Catholic than the Pope.
 
I didn't have time before to look up any examples, but here are just a few from Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict about ways to spread the gospel that I found after a quick search. The emphasis in each case is mine to make a point. Of course, if life were fair, I would have found even more perfect examples that completely support my point of view, but dang it, I'll just have to make do with these. :)
 

With Christ as their model, priests must lead their people by showing them the way ahead, they must walk with their flock by showing mercy and friendship, and walk behind their people to help those who are struggling to keep up or who have lost their way, he said.

...

He said it pains him terribly "when I see people who don't go to confession anymore because they had been clobbered, yelled at. They felt that the doors of the church had been closed in their face. Please, don't do this."


http://ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-tells-priests-show-mercy-tells-faithful-pester-your-priests

And then
 

Paterno Esmaquel II
Published 12:08 AM, Jul 28, 2013
Updated 1:31 PM, Apr 16, 2014
MANILA, Philippines – Tired of priests who impose “our truths” on the public? Well, Pope Francis also is.

In his homily on Saturday, July 27, Francis urged priests, seminarians, and the religious to show openness as “servants of communion and of the culture of encounter.”
“Permit me to say that we must be almost obsessive in this matter. We do not want to be presumptuous, imposing ‘our truths.’ What must guide us is the humble yet joyful certainty of those who have been found, touched, and transformed by the Truth who is Christ, ever to be proclaimed,” the Pope said in his Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Sebastian in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during World Youth Day.
http://rhbillresourcepage.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/dont-be-imposing-pope-francis-tells-priests/

Francis said during his homily in St. Peter's Basilica Sunday that he feels very pained when people don't go to confession anymore because they were figuratively "caned, scolded" by their confessors. He said these faithful feel as if "the church doors were closed in their face."
"Please don't do this," the pope told 13 new priests he ordained in the basilica. He urged them to follow the example of Jesus in never tiring of being merciful. Francis said priests should remember that Jesus "didn't come to condemn but to forgive."
https://news.yahoo.com/pope-priests-forgive-dont-shut-sinners-112656976.html

But for those who think Pope Francis is too 'soft', then there is always this comparison between Pope Emeritus Benedict and Pope Francis - where they sound remarkably similar:
 

Benedict:  

 

We should not allow our faith to be drained by too many discussions of multiple, minor details, but rather, should always keep our eyes in the first place on the greatness of Christianity.

I remember, when I used go to Germany in the 1980s and '90s, that I was asked to give interviews and I always knew the questions in advance. They concerned the ordination of women, contraception, abortion and other such constantly recurring problems.

If we let ourselves be drawn into these discussions, the Church is then identified with certain commandments or prohibitions; we give the impression that we are moralists with a few somewhat antiquated convictions, and not even a hint of the true greatness of the faith appears. I therefore consider it essential always to highlight the greatness of our faith - a commitment from which we must not allow such situations to divert us.

In this perspective I would now like to continue by completing last Tuesday's reflections and to stress once again: what matters above all is to tend one's personal relationship with God, with that God who revealed himself to us in Christ.
 

That was part of an address given Pope Benedict XVI in November 2006 to the bishops of Switzerland. It bears a rather remarkable similarity to this remark by Pope Francis:

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/2586/if_pope_francis_had_said_this_what_would_you_think.aspx

I know that there are those on phatmass who feel that we are not being tough enough on the 'softies' of the Church, but our very own Popes have asked us not to focus on the legalistic side of our faith as much as on the merciful side. So my comment was not entirely out of line. No, it is not right to advocate things that go against the direct teachings of the Church, such as divorce, abortion, etc, but neither do we need to obsess (Francis' words) about these issues all the time and to judge each other because of them. Before Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to 'go and sin no more', he first asked her if anyone had judged her. When she said no, He then told that her neither would He judge her. THEN He told her to go and sin no more. So her first impressions of Him were of a non judgmental nature. She knew she had done wrong, but the fact that He showed her mercy and compassion before giving her advice - well, who knows whether she did go and sin again, but my bet is that she would have been much more likely to have wanted to please Him after He was kind to her than if He had stood over her and told her the 'painful Truth' that she was a sinner. His way was just a little more subtle. At least, that's the message I get from that story.

I am sorry that to some it seems as if things aren't as 'orthodox' on phatmass as they used to be, but we aren't here to focus on the legalistic aspects of our faith and use them to judge each other (and our visitors), but to support and love and encourage each other, and to provide an example of our faith. I am not saying the rules don't matter (Popes Francis and Benedict have both said they do matter) but only that we need not focus on them to the detriment of charity and mercy.  

 

Jesus said to us "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35 

 

 

[John Ryan]

If the Church is only authoritative when it happens to agree with your own personal opinions, it really doesn't have much authority at all.

 

 

Why should John Ryan be the ultimate arbitrator of moral truth?

 

(i.) The Church has actually been a great influence upon my morality. Before I returned home to Rome, I was a sex-positive proponent, I was ambiguous on capital punishment, I was very pro-choice, etc., etc. So please do not spout that venom off your tongue as if you know a thing about me.

(ii.) I feel like you people are hard of hearing. I have never claimed to be the ultimate arbitrator of moral truth, which is why I commonly refrain from imposing my moral beliefs upon others. Upon whom have I imposed my own ethics? I have never once said that my brothers and sisters cannot follow NFP and union of procreative/unitive in their own lives. 

[Fidei Defensor]

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION OF
POPE PIUS XII

MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS
DEFINING THE DOGMA OF THE ASSUMPTION
 

45. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.

Quoted for visibility. I found it interesting because the Assumption of Mary was given as a specific example. How do you feel about the proclamation that rejection of the dogma is equal to falling away "completely" from the Catholic faith?

[Perigrina]

Is this analogy for real? The difference is that nothing in non-procreative sex is being destroyed. No part of the human wholeness is destroyed. There is no reason to believe that anal, oral or manual sex are unnatural, merely because those acts do not result in the possibility of procreation. Anal, oral and manual sex are merely expressions of the difference present in the natural law inscribed on our sexual bodies. 

 

The only way I can see your argument working is as an analogy against a male getting a vasectomy. However, I would argue that congenital conditions such as mine would (under that logic) allow for a vasectomy.

 

If I was speaking from my own point-of-view, I would say that comparing a vasectomy to the amputation of a perfectly healthy arm is incommensurate based on the fact that there are compelling reasons not to have kids while there are no compelling reasons to have your arm removed.

 

Alas, it is so difficult to make analogies work.  I was saying that the unitive and procreative aspects of sex are just as much parts of its nature as one's arm's are part of one's body.  I was comparing something abstract to something physical.  I was not claiming that something physical is destroyed in non-procreative sex.  

 

The sex act is not merely something physical.  It has a nature.  It has meaning.  It has ends.  I was using an analogy to something physical to explain these things.

[Dr_Asik]

Quoted for visibility. I found it interesting because the Assumption of Mary was given as a specific example. How do you feel about the proclamation that rejection of the dogma is equal to falling away "completely" from the Catholic faith?

Do you really believe that? Can you really read the Gospels and think that Jesus would send someone to eternal damnation for not assenting to a minor point of theology, which most people don't even understand or know about, because it happened to have been defined as "dogma" at some point in History?

 

Personally, I think the above quote has just as much value as the claims it makes about Scriptural and Early Church Tradition foundation for that dogma.

 

Edited June 26, 2014 by Dr_Asik

[Benedictus]

It just generally seemed apt.  ''You'll gain more with an affectionate word than you ever would from three hours of quarreling. Control your temper." - St Josemaria Escriva

Edited June 26, 2014 by Benedictus