Cuban Liberal invited me here, and I have just one "question".

[MoonRiver]

What makes you guys tick? I know that's pretty complicated but honestly I just don't get it. Respectfully, how can you remain in a religion when you either: 1.) have to deny some of your deeply held beliefs, or 2.) defy the dictates of your Holy Father?

I'm not being critical by asking these questions. I have wondered about them for a long time. I had childhood friends who grew up Catholic and renounced the Church, but afterwards always defined themselves as Catholic when asked about their religion. I just don't get it!

HELP! Looking for philosophical answers to age old questions!

[Celeborn Skywalker]

1. OK...

First, it's a misconception that the pope, himself, is infallible in our church. We don't have to agree with every word he utters. An infallible pronouncement (ex cathedra) has been issued only twice in the past two centuries. And they were both theological pronouncements relating to the Virgin Mary, not morality or anything to do with politics.

For me personally, I do disagree with the church on abortion, women ordination, birth control, and gay rights. I do agree with them on a number of other issues including social justice, anti capital punishment, anti-war for profit, etc. I recognize that many people would point a finger at me and call me a "cafeteria" Catholic for only agreeing with the Church on half the issues, but I could care less. I attend church for solace, reflection, and meditation. The Catholic Church has fulfilled that spiritual part of my life and I don't plan to leave it merely because of one man who will be in power probably less than ten years.

I hope I answered your questions.

[MoonRiver]

2. Yes, it did help. I think we all live with contradictions.

We find what gives us peace and fulfillment, whether it be religion, profession, vocation, relationship(s,) or various combinations of the above. None of these are uncomplicated or perfect reflections of what we would like them to be.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

3. Well said, Jared!!

Thanks so much for that. It totally needed to be said. Might I suggest you posting that in GD or something?
Duckie

[etherealtruth]

4. Liken it to being a democrat..

Jaredh expressed the views of most of the Catholics I know. I personally have a definite agnostic bent, but have had such positive experiences with the Catholic community the entirety of my life and find such comfort in the ritual and peace in the prayer that I never fully leave.

I liken it to membership in the democratic party, the party captures the spirit of my beliefs (actually progressive philosophy does, but I digress); however, I don't agree with the party on every single issue, nor do I agree that every candidate that runs is always the best choice-----at the end of the day I vote for the democrat 100% of the time, though.

On the DU I end up stridently defending Catholicism because the attacks (not criticism , which the church is deserving of frequently)are so vicious and very frequently directed at "Catholics" in general.

[MoonRiver]

5. I can liken it to being a Democrat, in the same way I liken being a Dem

to herding cats. Seriously, many non-Catholics believe that Catholics are social and political rightwing extremists. Obviously that is not the case. O8)

[etherealtruth]

8. I thought your question was how WE reconciled our contradictions

The gist of what I stated did not liken Catholicism to being a democrat it likened reconciling NOT agreeing 100% with an entity yet continuing to belong and feel loyalty to that entity.

Perhaps you (a generic you) agree 100% with democratic party positions 100% of the time---then my simile would definitely be like herding cats. If you disagree strongly with some positions and some candidates in the democratic party yet still consider yourself a democrat then I stand behind my simile.

Think about this: the left "hates" the Catholics and the right "hates" the Catholics (ask Dobson and the folks at Bob Jones ... on and on) the right figured out that it needed to aggressively court Catholics and some of the left thinks they can win w/out the evil Catholics.

I hope I don't sound hostile----I hold the most liberal positions of anyone I know, I am active politically... yet I get to hear how i must be a right wing nut case... it gets frustrating!

[Princess Turandot]

9. It took coming to DU for me to 'learn'..

that 'most' liberals (or at least the ones posting on DU) think Catholics are right-wingers. As a liberal NYC Catholic, I'm still astonished by that.

[MoonRiver]

11. We don't necessarily think that. We just need to reconcile

our PERCEIVED dicotomy between Catholic doctrine and liberal thought. That's all. I appreciate the education DU Catholics have given me in this regard. I love all y'all!

[Princess Turandot]

12. error nt

[etherealtruth]

17. In metro Detroit ...

Catholics, labor union members and "minority groups" ARE the Democratic party. Take any group out of the recipe and Michigan is a Republican state---period.

[Dorian Gray]

21. Also a

liberal Catholic located in NYC. Most of the parish priests I know are liberal, vote democratic, and it really astonished me the first time I felt that a good number here thought that we were the enemy. I attended a Jesuit college, and about 90% of the student body (as well as the professors) were liberal. Boston, a very Catholic city in the USA, is also very liberal.

I always associated Catholicism with liberalism. My education (Jesuit and Dominican) pressed me to think for myself, question my faith (with the confidence that it would become stronger), and learn as much as I could about everything.

I even have Catholic friends who are Conservative religiously AND politically, but they refuse to listen to Sean Hannity primarily because, even though a Catholic, he caters to the Born Again Christians. He fights their anti-evolutionary fight.

Catholicism is a varied religion. There are some very Conservative aspects of the religion, but there are some very liberal elements, too. But, Catholicism exists outside the realm of politics for me.

[MoonRiver]

10. I'm certainly not assuming anybody is a rightwingnut case on DU.

I just appreciate the dialogue about religious belief and how that impacts political activism.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

6. Thank you for that...

I once again agree with you 100%.
Duckie

[kwassa]

7. I am not Catholic, but I am

because we are all "cafeteria Catholic" regardless of our Christian faith because our understanding of Christ cannot be anything but subjective, as our experience of God must be. Every one of us, even the most rigidly orthodox, can't escape our individual perception, even withing the narrow confines of rules handed down by others. We see and sense things that are important to us individually.

Every Catholic must view Christ and God differently, despite the best efforts of the church to control our perception.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. If you don't think that Catholics are right wingers,

you may be in a minority among the nonCatholics at DU!


The only ways to be a Catholic DUer and NOT be accused of being reactionary are:

1) never tell anyone you are Catholic, an option which many of us obviously refuse to follow.

OR

2) never defend any official teaching of our faith that doesn't fit the narrow "liberal" ideology accepted here.


Anyone who defends Catholic teachings will be labeled rightwing and all too often subjected to profanity and personal attacks.



Here's a list of some of the Catholic Church's worldwide efforts:

>tradition of helping the poor get food, housing, clothing, and medical care

>excellent record helping the sick, from lepers through the ages to
cancer and AIDS in more recent times

>long-established commitment to helping the intellectually handicapped, the
mentally ill and the physically disabled

>support of the dignity of the worker, of labor unions," living wages," etc.

>opposition to the death penalty and efforts to help the imprisoned

>support for civil rights (including rights for gays, who the Church teaches are loved
by God as are all other persons)

>help for immigrants, refugees, the homeless (providing shelters, food, language
instruction, etc.)

>contemporary opposition to most wars (only "just" wars are approved) and to
all nuclear weapons

>opposition to all forms of killing except in self-defense


ALL of the above afforts (and more!) happen because of Catholic teachings. But if we proactively mention these positives here, someone inevitably brings up

>pedophile priests
>the Inquisition
>how the Church "only figured out Galileo was right a few years ago" (i.e., "What
morons those Catholics are!")

These things are presented as "proof" that nothing else done in the name of Catholic Christianity really matters. Only sins are counted by our critics. Is that really "liberalism"? I say it is not.

[MoonRiver]

14. I'm sorry you have had to go through what appears to be discrimination,

if not persecution here. I do know about all the good the Church has done. I've worked in social services and education all my life. The most grass roots and active of all the agencies I've been associated with is Catholic Charities. I've never worked for them but have referred many, many people to them, usually with excellent results. They are always there for the most downtrodden and hopeless, especially children. Plus, they usually don't require people to fill out unwieldly amounts of paperwork before they open the doors.

[demosincebirth]

19. Your post is so true!

Many times on DU I have to hold my tongue in order not to get caught up in a verbal onslaught (from many of these so-called open-minded liberals on Du,) trying to defend my faith.

Like many Catholics, I don't agree with everything the church teaches, but as a retired union member and organizer, I know the support the Catholic Church has given workers trying to achieve justice and dignity in their work place and especially in the Central Valley of California, during the Farm workers strike against the grape growers, in the '60's and early '70's. Local Pastors of parishes were walking the picket lines side by side with the farmworkers. Bishop Mahoney (now Cardinal Mahoney) was a very out spoken supporter of farm workers, and even walked picket lines along side striking farmworkers.

The Church has always supported organized labor and the workers right to join a union. How many on DU really support Organized Labor? Check your garage and see if "it" has the "union label."

[meow2u3]

22. The entertainment media paint Catholics as right wing--A BIG LIE!

We're more liberal than liberals on economic and social justice issues. And I don't mean European-style liberalism, which is synonymous with libertarianism (that was the liberalism Pope Benedict was denouncing--the anything-goes mentality prevalent in the U.S and Europe).

Here's a list of some of the Catholic Church's worldwide efforts:

>tradition of helping the poor get food, housing, clothing, and medical care

>excellent record helping the sick, from lepers through the ages to
cancer and AIDS in more recent times

>long-established commitment to helping the intellectually handicapped, the
mentally ill and the physically disabled

>support of the dignity of the worker, of labor unions," living wages," etc.

>opposition to the death penalty and efforts to help the imprisoned

>support for civil rights (including rights for gays, who the Church teaches are loved
by God as are all other persons)

>help for immigrants, refugees, the homeless (providing shelters, food, language
instruction, etc.)

>contemporary opposition to most wars (only "just" wars are approved) and to
all nuclear weapons

>opposition to all forms of killing except in self-defense


ALL of the above afforts (and more!) happen because of Catholic teachings. But if we proactively mention these positives here, someone inevitably brings up

>pedophile priests
>the Inquisition
>how the Church "only figured out Galileo was right a few years ago" (i.e., "What
morons those Catholics are!")

These things are presented as "proof" that nothing else done in the name of Catholic Christianity really matters. Only sins are counted by our critics. Is that really "liberalism"? I say it is not.


The Church is both liberal and conservative: liberal on economic and social justice issues, and conservative on doctrinal and sexual behavior issues.

[Maeve]

15. How can you stay in a family with bad relatives?

You stay because you also have some truly great family members, people you can look with pride on, people you can look up to...and they out-number the creeps. And you stay because it's who you are; for weal or woe, you are part of the traditions, part of the same story.
Even some folks who call themselves "ex-Catholics", "recovering Catholics", whatever, feel the connection to the messy reality of 2000 years of uneven history that had some real inspirational moments (as well as a lot of mistakes to learn from). Maybe God should have put angels in charge instead of fallible humans, but :shrug:

[Matilda]

16. I think others have summed it up pretty well,

but I'd like to add one important thing, for myself that is. And
that is the Mass. Some churches do it better than others, and
some priests are better than others, but a well-run Mass is deeply
satisfying and uplifting.

But I would dearly love to see the Church drop its phobia about
human sexuality, which is what is at the heart of its opposition
to birth control, women's ordination, and married priests. They
really do have it terribly wrong, but as long as none of these
issues becomes the subject of an ex cathedra pronouncement, we can
still hope, so we stay.

[sandnsea]

18. For me

Who has a very turmultuous love/hate thing going on with Catholicism...

It came down to some serious Christian theologic study and coming to the conclusion that the Catholic Church has it right on salvation and Biblical interpretation. After 35 years of confusion, when I finally sat back down with Catholic teaching, the Bible made sense. The WHOLE Bible. So that's one thing.

On the other hand, I don't go to Mass for two reasons. One, I understand that marriage is a sacrament and divorce is a sin. So it is pretty difficult to be in the most holy communion with Christ when you are in a perpetual state of sin. So I don't go to mass because I can't take communion. Although I personally don't think I'm in sin, but understand the Church's view and respect the point. But I also don't go because I know me and I'd get too upset with the obsession with sin and sex. I've told off more than one non-Catholic minister, best not to go there again.

I also think with Catholics that religion is somehow more entrenched in family identity. For my family anyway, the whole family is Catholic and stays Catholic. There's no get together without school and nun stories, and some such. It's about as easy to throw off being Catholic as it is to throw off being American. In my family anyway.

And this is the love part of it, ha. The hate part, grrrrr...

[Stunster]

26. Divorce is not a sin

per se.

It's only a sin if you caused the divorce by sinning, and that can be forgiven in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Trouble may arise when you re-marry outside of the Church. But even that is not automatically sinful. It is only sinful if your first marriage was sacramentally valid, because if it was, and you're having a sexual relationship with someone other than your sacramental spouse, then that's adultery. But not every legal marriage is recognized as sacramentally valid.

There are various cases in which a prior legal marriage can be annulled by the church. But even without an annulment, it does not follow that a second marriage is sinful, because the prior marriage might BE sacramentally null, but it cannot be PROVEN to be so in a formal canonical trial.

Many pastors will admit such a person to Communion even without a formal declaration of nullity, if they are satisfied that the prior marriage was not a sacrament.

This indeed may become officially sanctioned by the new pope!

Vatican likely to end divorcee communion ban

April 23 2005 at 01:06PM

Rome - The Vatican, in response to growing expectations of many Roman Catholics, is likely to consider lifting the Church's ban on communion for divorcees, a senior cardinal was quoted Saturday as saying.

"It is a delicate issue which the Church will have to discuss, question and confront itself with," Spain's Cardinal Julian Herranz told Italy's La Repubblica daily.

The Church will take "into account the expectations, the many social, theological and human nuances linked to such an important issue," the cardinal said.

The paper reported that prior to his election Pope Benedict XVI himself had prepared a draft document on lifting the ban on divorcees receiving communion imposed by the Church, which does not recognize divorce.

As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, the then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger argued that Catholics who were abandoned by their spouses and thus "forced" into divorce were "guiltless" and should not be excluded from the holy sacraments, the newspaper said.

Catholic activists battling for a lifting of the ban hailed the reported document as a breakthrough.

"We have learned with huge satisfaction that the new pope will promote an epic change for... divorcees: their readmission to the sacraments," Giorgio Ceccarelli, head of the "Denied Children" group, told La Repubblica.

The pope, who was elected by his fellow cardinals Tuesday, has yet to name his successor at the Vatican's doctrinal office, who will inherit the controversial dossier and the draft document.

Before being named to succeed John Paul II, Ratzinger also proposed that the retirement age for prelates be raised from the current 75.

"One must consider that a bishop at that age (75), if he has no health problems, is at the peak of his pastoral mission and he has the benefit of experience," Herranz told La Repubblica. - Sapa-AFP

[sandnsea]

27. I get all that

Which takes me back to the stupid side of the Church, where I happen to think most annulments are baseless. Occasionally there are instances where a marriage didn't actually happen, but most times it did. So I refuse to go through the farce of an annulment, while also respecting the Church's position on the marriage sacrament. Either the Church forgives my "sin" of divorce and recognizes a second marriage, or not. That's just where I'm at with it.

[imenja]

20. I don't deny anything

Our religion teaches us that God gave us free will. I exercise that will, and in some matters my beliefs differ from what the Vatican pronounces. The core of the Catholic faith is the Nicene Creed. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11049a.htm The Vatican asserts it's dominion beyond that core belief, but I use my own conscience to determine what I believe is right. If that makes me heretical, so be it. Religion is a guide, not a straight jacket.

[DemBones DemBones]

23. Catholics are taught to use their informed consciences to

make decisions. Just wanted to add that! ;-)

[DemBones DemBones]

24. For example, when Poppy Bush started the first Iraq war,

our priest gave a homily reviewing St. Augustine's teaching on just wars and said that of course we must all use our own informed conscience to decide if that war was just or not.

[Stunster]

25. Short answer

I don't have to deny either.

I'm a left-liberal/democratic-socialist because I'm a Catholic.