I have often heard people who left the Church because they

[hedgehog]

can't accept teachings such as Virgin Birth, Resurrection, etc complain that newly built churches don't look like the ones built in 1920 and/or that the Masses have changed since Vatican II. "It's all nonsense of course", but it's wrong for us to worship in the vernacular, for the sisters to wear civilian clothes, for the laity to hand out Communion, etc. Comments?

[Matilda]

1. I have a good friend who left the Church many years ago,

mainly because of the physical bullying and abuse he'd received at the hands of priests who taught him. He went
to Mass at Christmas a few years ago to please his mother, whom he was visiting at the time, and was shocked to
see people receiving the Host in their hands. It horrified him that people weren't kneeling to receive Communion
from the priest.

But when a friend of his, himself a lapsed Catholic, was dying from cancer and unable to speak, my friend took him
through the Act of Contrition before he died, which was a beautiful thing to do.

As they say, once a Catholic ....


edit: typo

[hedgehog]

2. This is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Why was

he horrified to see people standing to take Communion in the hand? If he doesn't believe, why would he care? If he does believe, why did he leave?

Before Vatican II, I think we were headed away from the teachings of the Christ and into the realms of magic and superstition masquerading as faith. I also think the teachings of Christ remain as revolutionary and challenging as they ever were, and people will retreat onto the easier path of superstition rather than facing the challenge.

[Matilda]

4. He left because the brothers were so abusive.

I don't know whether the Catholic teachers in the US were as bad, but
in Australia, bullying and physical abuse were accepted as almost normal.
My friend felt they were total hypocrites and incapable of putting the
teachings of Christ into practice. I'm sure he'd never go to a different
church, but he still has a lot of anger about the way he was treated,
and hasn't forgiven them.

Which didn't stop him sending his son to a Catholic school, but things
have changed since his day; most of the teachers are lay, and there's
a far greater awareness of students' rights.

[hedgehog]

5. The Christian Brothers were notorious for being un-Christian!

I think a lot of people are leaving today not because of physical bullying but because of the other sort:

Think that government can't stop abortion, therefore find yourself to be pro-choice?

NO COMMUNION FOR YOU!

Re-marry after making a mistake when you were young and stupid?

NO COMMUNION FOR YOU!


Think that it's time to consider ordaining women and married men?

NO COMMUNION FOR YOU!

[Matilda]

7. Yes, they were the Christian Brothers.

They seemed to be the worst of all the teaching orders, and gained a dreadful reputation here. My friend was never
sexually abused, but there were cases that came out decades later. It seems they were generally on some kind of
power trip, and however they could make their power over others felt, they used it. I think many souls have been
lost to the Church because of them.

[Matilda]

8. My mistake - my friend was educated by the Marianists.

The Sisters of St. Joseph taught him in primary school - the only time in his life he ever stole anything, it was
Sr. Bernadette's strap. She used to walk around the classroom and belt every child one by one if anybody displeased
her. So one day, he stole the strap.

He was never sexually abused by any brothers at the Marianist school, and in fact there were two that he really
liked, who encouraged his interest in acting and film. But there were many "feelies" that never went further,
and the boys took to wearing swimming costumes in the shower because of the brothers who hung around in the change
room after sport and watched the boys shower.

"Brother Bernard" in his view was a psychopath - he used to regularly walk around the room hitting the boys on their
hands with a steel-edged ruler, and he once punched my friend in the face - for what, he never knew.

He told me he still considers himself a Catholic and couldn't be anything else. He prays by himself, but won't go
to Mass, and doesn't want to know about the dogma. It was his school experiences that turned him off - the sisters
and brothers who taught him were total hypocrites, and had no concept of what Christ's message really was. He
was born and spent his early boyhood in Italy, and he said it's a totally different experience there - it's the Irish
who got it so terribly wrong.

[rug]

6. Were those the Irish Christian Brothers? From Edmund Rice?

I had them in high school at Power Memorial in Manhattan.

[47of74]

3. As I understood the history

Originally it was a common practice for the laity to distribute communion in the early church, as the rituals became more formalized it shifted away from them over to ordained ministers to distribute communion. Also in the early church Mass was said in Greek, it later was said in Latin as that was the language of the Empire. I think a lot of the recent developments were done to bring the church back to its roots.