Lash, I don't know about others, but this is my point of view.
I was raised as a "soft" Catholic in a predominantly Catholic nation (87% of the population), in which the Catholic Church has had plenty of influence (mostly bad). I know my theology, but I don't believe most of it. So I don't go to church or receive any sacraments.
At the same time, I know perfectly well that, even as an outsider of the Church (notice the Capital C), I belong to a Catholic culture, saints and all. It's part of me. It's within me. Within my innermost values, and my innermost reactions.
I also know -and I don't need to have anything to do with Catholicism- that Catholicism is the biggest Christian religion on earth, that it is politically centralized and that the Vatican dictates policies that influence the rest of the world. I would always prefer a Pope nearer to my way of thinking (and my way of deserving a better world) than one who is very far from my line of thought/feelings.
I've read a little about comparative religion. I think I understand the reasons behind the Protestant Chism (sp?), and am probably nearest, phylosophically, to the Unitarian Universalists (and very very very far from Evangelical US religious associations).
But to consider myself a member of another religion? A religion of which I may share beliefs, but not the whole rich culture, the set on which my mind is wired? Sounds preposterous to me. Conversion? No, thanks. I'm either Catholic or nothing.
And doesn't it happen in other realms of life? You may disagree with the way your family is run, but it's not easy to join other family and consider yourself out of the original one. You may disagree with the way your political party is run, but it's not easy to create another one, or to defect go to another party. In both cases, you try to change things from within. IMHO, that's what some good willing Catholics are trying to do.
Thanks for the explanation. I have to admit I wouldn't have thought of it that way. I guess Protestantism is quite different.
I didn't find it difficult to change. I left the Southern Baptist Convention churches when they adopted what I considered to be harsh, unChristian behavior.
I guess Catholicism is more than a religion to some people.
Anyway, it was very nice of you to explain.
Techincally speaking, the Pope has only been infallible since 1876, and then only in matters of faith. Before that decree, i suppose one is to assume that Popes could, and therefore very likely did, make mistakes. I guess sometime around 1876, God said: "Oops, here, let me fix this--you are now infallible." By the time a Catholic (meaning universal, and therefore a false description) Church emerged from the chaos of primitive Christianity, there were already Syriac Christians (as directly derivative from the original Christians as it is possible to get, given that they have always ignored the dictates of conclaves of church fathers), Nestorian Christians who broke off before the resolution of the great Arian controversy and wandered east, eventually making it as far as China; Byzantine Catholics, who refused to recognize any authority of the Bishop of Rome, and considered the Emperor to be the head of the Church; and the Orthodox Christians, who are almost universally consistent within a group which is comprised of at least two major sects, the Greek Orthodox and the Russian Orthodox, and a host of small splinter groups which are still Orthodox, but have minor quibbles about ritual practice. Protestantism is a product of a schism in the Roman Catholic church--no such schism occurred in the Byzantine Church. The Nestorians more or less died out, but the Syriacs are still around, and are claimed by both the Orthodox and the Byzantines, and the Syriacs continue to stoutly ignore both churches. There was a major schism in the Russian Orthodox church c. 1670, when the Russian Patriarch Nikon introduced major reform after a conclave of Patriarchs and Metropolitans from the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches, including particularly the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Patriarch of Antioch. Many, perhaps most, Russian peasants believed of their own accord, or were convinced by disgruntled parish priests, that they would go straight to Hell if they practiced Nikon's reforms, such as using two fingers to cross oneself rather than three, and the more extreme among them fled to the Ukraine or into the northern forests and set up communities of Old Believers, oft times immolating themselves in their rude churches when the Tsar's soldiers showed up, a la the Branch Davidians and Koresh.
Protestantism has been the most fertile ground in Christianity for schism and fragmentation. Apart from the Lutherans and Anglicans, who largely simply tinkered with the church hierarchy, and left dogma and ritual little changed, it would take days to chronicle the rise of the Calvinists, from whence the Scots Kirch, from whence the Presbyterians; and also the Calvinists give rise to the Puritans, from whence the Anglican low church, the Independents and the Congregationalists; the Anabaptists, from whence the many modern Baptist sects, and this one will fracture your funny bone, who were originally condemned for living in communes and practicing free love--i guess one is to assume that they did not, however, dance.
Some schismatic groups arose from heretical groups or their survivors from the period before the Protestant Reformation, such as the Albigensians, who were hunted down and killed in a papal authorized crusade; the Waldensians, whose name derives from an itinerant ascetic preacher emulating Francis of Assisi, named Waldo (in Latin, Valdes, somehow resulting in Waldensians); the Hussites, named for their martyred leader, Jan Hus, and largely restricted to the Bohemians (Czechs). There are many more smaller churches, too numerous to mention here.
Authority in the churches has varied, wavered, challenged, fallen, triumphed--but it has always seemed to do with a priesthood or elders who will dictate dogma, ritual and community standards. I find that odd, laid against the essentially Essene teachings attributed to the Rabbi Yeshua, who has been polymorphed into the modern, rather Aryan-looking Jesus, that there are priests or elders at all. The message of the Essenes, even as it comes down to us warped by the New Testament, is that one is to find God, and Heaven, within. An activity for which no priesthood is necessary. Churches are not about spirituality, they are about structure, conformity and control.
Its "Schism", fbaezer.
Good post, Set - might Jesuitically ( :wink: ) quibble with a t-cross or an i-dot here or there, but your's strikes me as a reasonably accurate reduction.
Now some ramblin' of my own - The Roman Catholic Church never has been anything other than "All-or-Nothing". While apostacy no longer is rewarded by burnin' at the stake, The Church still does not offer cafeteria-style religion. You take what's there, all of it, or you're not within it. There's nothin' new about that - the concept is as old as The Church itself.
For one to profess Catholicism while consciously failin' to follow ALL Church doctrine is both intellectually and ethically dishonest. Now, within the view of The Church, there is a difference between doctrine and dogma, which I've tried to explain a couple times. Once more, as simply put as I can manage, dogma - in the view of The Church - is the express, direct, divinely revealed, immutable, word of God. Dogma may be neither created nor disputed by man; dogma must be accepted without question. No article of dogma ever has changed. Doctrine, however, proceeds from dogma. It is firmly bindin' on The Faithful while in force. Doctrine represents the best understandin' of The Church, and as such may be subject to revision or rescion. An illustration of this may be found in the case of The Church vs Gallileo.
Dogma goes to matters of the foundation of faith and morality. For example, that there is One God in the 3 Personages of The Trinity is dogma, that celibacy be bindin' on those who undertake Holy Orders is doctrine. That the role of sex is procreation within Matrimony is dogma, that women be excluded from the priesthood is doctrine.
Doctrine may not be imposed, adjusted, or rescinded to suit the fashion of the time or the whim of a particular Pontiff. The examination and development of doctrine is a complex, often multi-generational matter, involvin' much debate within The Congregations of The Curia, thorough vettin' by The Church's Doctors of Theology, the convocation of Councils, and the assent of The College of Cardinals. Once a Pope is fully satisfied, through The Blessin' of The Holy Spirit, in mind and conscience the matter of a doctrinal establishment, revision, or rescision is without error - wholly consistent with the teachin's of The Church as regard dogma, that Pope not only may but must pronounce the doctrine as bindin' on The Faithful. Of course, that's not to say the process hasn't been shortcutted or sidestepped in the past, but that's the process as it should ne - and most often has been.
Now, back to dogma. That The Holy Roman Catholic Church is the sole and perfect repository and font of divinely revealed truth, exclusively from which all true teachin' flows, and which must be obeyed in every particular by The Faithful is dogma. Bein' Catholic has a lot in common with bein' pregnant, or bein' dead; there just ain't no partial participation allowed, no "middle ground". You IS or you AIN'T - Period, finis, End of Discussion.
Now, please bear in mind the foregoin' is Church position - not timber's. Timber thinks a bit differently when it comes to matters theological.
I am not particularly educated as regards Catholocism. I noticed in the news this AM that the Pope spoke in several languages, but not Spanish. There are more Spanish speaking Catholics than not. What would you make of it?
I make of that the news source at mention is not particularly well informed. Spanish is among the languages in which Benedict XVI is conversant. He is fluent in English, Italian, French, Latin, and his native German.
timberlandko wrote: He is fluent in English, Italian, French, Latin, and his native German.
A small correction: he is fluent in German, Italian, French, Latin, English and Spanish, and has reading and writing knowledge in Classical Greek and Classical Hebrew. Besides, he speaks of course his native language, Bavarian. :wink:
I took this off the Bloomberg page, but saw it on two or three other sources this AM.
``One can say that thanks to your work, for several weeks the attention of the entire world was focused on the Basilica, on St. Peter's Square, and the Apostolic palace,'' Benedict said in fluent Italian, English, French and German, the first papal media address since his predecessor John Paul II took over in 1978.
I haven't googlechased it, so I dunno fer sure whether he's fluent in Spanish or not, but I know he is conversant in the language, at the very least.
POPE USES DIFFERENT LANGUAGES BUT NOT SPANISH TO SAY HELLO
(AGI) - Vatican city, Italy, Apr. 23 - Pope Benedict XVI used Italian, English, French and German in his message to T V and press journalists in Paul VI hall, but he did not use Spanish. Spanish journalists and TV operators who gathered in the hall noticed this and stressed that the majority of Catholics in the world speaks Spanish. "We did not understand why he did not use Spanish in his welcome speech. It would have taken only two minutes" a journalist said. Effectively normally the pope speaks Italian, English - the official world language-, French - the language of diplomacy - and his mother tongue but it seems strange that on this important occasion he omitted to use Spanish that is much spoken in the Catholic word.
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231741 APR 05
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