To Catholic or not to Catholic
Some of my more serious blogs have been in reference to The Da Vinci Code and the Catholic backlash and the backlash to the Catholic backlash. I admit I'm not particularly crazy about the Catholics, from their history of "death to the infidels," everyone not Catholic, to their insistance that their clergy remain virgins (at least from the point of ordainment) and the consequences of a whole bunch of them flunking virginity with children and being coddled and covered up for it.
I think thoughts like: If Peter was the first Pope, I wonder what his wife was. And if those in power wanted his wife written out of the script, why did they leave in the mom-in-law line?
He who bashes Catholics can't complain about others who bash Catholics. However, I was surprised when I found this in the Wikipedia. Half of Christians (established religion Christians anyway) are Catholic, which didn't suprise me. The surprise was the discussion as to if Catholics even are Christians. I linked and printed it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic
The Roman Catholic Church, or Catholic Church, is the largest Christian Church in the world. According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Church,[1] the Church's worldwide recorded membership at the end of 2003 was 1,085,557,000, over half of the estimate at that time of the total number of Christians. It is led by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, currently His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.
It has defined itself as "the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter" — i.e. the Pope — "and the bishops in communion with him."[2] It teaches that it is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ for the salvation of all people.
There are some non-Catholics, however, who take issue with defining the Catholic Church as "Christian" because of its inclusion of various practices that seem, to some Protestants, at odds with their understanding of Biblical teaching. These include the veneration of specific saints, including Mary, and the teaching of such ideas as purgatory and the salvation that comes through faith and works (as opposed to merely faith). The Catholic Church's understanding of the Bible as the written part of a larger "tradition" (here, "tradition" in the technical sense, of the "deposit of faith handed down from Christ," not in the usual use of the term as mere "custom" or "practice") is also at odds with Protestant theology which emphasizes the Bible alone as a standard for belief. Those Christians who characterize Catholicism as "non-Christian" charge that the teachings of the Church are cult-like and rooted in pagan traditions -- some go so far as to identify Catholicism with the "Great Whore of Babylon" of the Book of Revelation.
Wow. I would have thought an opening "encyclopedia" discussion would be a little more neutral, not 60% bashing. This to me is below the belt Catholic bashing, calling them heathen in a theoritical unbiased description, which encyclopedias used to be famous for. Or maybe they weren't. More like I was even more naive before than I am now. So, I decided to look for something positive to say about Catholics and did, again in Wikipedia:
Among the positive things mentioned that I also didn't know was a movement by the Catholics to fix themselves, called the Counter-Reformation.
The Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reformation was a movement within the Roman Catholic Church to reform itself in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Reformation was comprehensive and comprised five major elements:
Doctrine
Ecclesiastical or Structural Reconfiguration
Religious Orders
Spiritual Movements
Political Dimensions
Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life to returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focus on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality.
Don't know if this is correct, really happened or what. But, it did give me some promise. Anyone with a personal relationship with Christ is a Christian, to my simple mind anyway, including Catholics.
I think thoughts like: If Peter was the first Pope, I wonder what his wife was. And if those in power wanted his wife written out of the script, why did they leave in the mom-in-law line?
He who bashes Catholics can't complain about others who bash Catholics. However, I was surprised when I found this in the Wikipedia. Half of Christians (established religion Christians anyway) are Catholic, which didn't suprise me. The surprise was the discussion as to if Catholics even are Christians. I linked and printed it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic
The Roman Catholic Church, or Catholic Church, is the largest Christian Church in the world. According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Church,[1] the Church's worldwide recorded membership at the end of 2003 was 1,085,557,000, over half of the estimate at that time of the total number of Christians. It is led by the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, currently His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI.
It has defined itself as "the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter" — i.e. the Pope — "and the bishops in communion with him."[2] It teaches that it is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Jesus Christ for the salvation of all people.
There are some non-Catholics, however, who take issue with defining the Catholic Church as "Christian" because of its inclusion of various practices that seem, to some Protestants, at odds with their understanding of Biblical teaching. These include the veneration of specific saints, including Mary, and the teaching of such ideas as purgatory and the salvation that comes through faith and works (as opposed to merely faith). The Catholic Church's understanding of the Bible as the written part of a larger "tradition" (here, "tradition" in the technical sense, of the "deposit of faith handed down from Christ," not in the usual use of the term as mere "custom" or "practice") is also at odds with Protestant theology which emphasizes the Bible alone as a standard for belief. Those Christians who characterize Catholicism as "non-Christian" charge that the teachings of the Church are cult-like and rooted in pagan traditions -- some go so far as to identify Catholicism with the "Great Whore of Babylon" of the Book of Revelation.
Wow. I would have thought an opening "encyclopedia" discussion would be a little more neutral, not 60% bashing. This to me is below the belt Catholic bashing, calling them heathen in a theoritical unbiased description, which encyclopedias used to be famous for. Or maybe they weren't. More like I was even more naive before than I am now. So, I decided to look for something positive to say about Catholics and did, again in Wikipedia:
Among the positive things mentioned that I also didn't know was a movement by the Catholics to fix themselves, called the Counter-Reformation.
The Counter-Reformation or Catholic Reformation was a movement within the Roman Catholic Church to reform itself in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Reformation was comprehensive and comprised five major elements:
Doctrine
Ecclesiastical or Structural Reconfiguration
Religious Orders
Spiritual Movements
Political Dimensions
Such reforms included the foundation of seminaries for the proper training of priests in the spiritual life and the theological traditions of the Church, the reform of religious life to returning orders to their spiritual foundations, and new spiritual movements focus on the devotional life and a personal relationship with Christ, including the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality.
Don't know if this is correct, really happened or what. But, it did give me some promise. Anyone with a personal relationship with Christ is a Christian, to my simple mind anyway, including Catholics.
posted by John | 8:52 AM
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