Cafeteria Catholics?

[Pigeon]

If the Church teaches it - it is correct.

So I guess the earth must really be flat?

Nuns are nuns. The male equivalent are monks. There is a mechanism for men who have a calling to that kind of life. There is no equivalent for women who feel called to be priests, because the old, mostly white men who control the power structure want to keep it for themselves.

Saying women should be content with the status quo because they can be nuns if they want to is like saying to women who want to be doctors that they should shut up and be happy to be nurses.

Jesus picked twelve middle eastern men to be his apostles. I guess then that Asian men, Caucasian men, South American men, etc., shouldn't be allowed to be priests because Jesus didn't specifically include them in the original 12 apostles. Surely he could have, being the son of God and all...

Jesus never said women could not be priests. And, he continues to send some women a call to the priesthood. It is the church that turns it's back on God-given vocations.

 

[JunieJay]

As far as the basilicas and all the artistic treasures, I used to believe as many do that the Church would have more credibility if they sold those things to further help the poor. However, I've come to feel differently over time. The architecture and the art are important to people, they help lift people's thoughts to a higher place. The people that created those buildings, paintings and statutes did it to glorify God and to lead others to do the same.

Oh I absolutely agree. As an artist, I am inspired by the fact the Vatican has maintained and protected its artistic history. Art has fed the mind and spirit of millions throughout history for centuries, and absolutely must continue to do so. To dismantle the Vatican art collections for money would be a bad idea. Art, and the fight against poverty, can co-exist.

 

[Fitswimmer]

If the Church teaches something about faith and morals and I want to be a member of the Church, then I feel that I must do my best to accept those teachings. I have to look at the reasons why those teachings are difficult for me to see that it is not simply pride or ego on my part keeping me from acceptance. There were many rules that my parents set for me that I wasn't really happy with as a teenager, but from the perspective of an adult, I know now that those rules were to keep me safe. I had trouble with many teachings of the Church, but when I did additional reading about them I understood them better. In the end, it's a choice. God has given us Free Will. If I had found that I could not in good conscience remain a Catholic and accept the teachings of the Church I would have left. I would not have stayed and demanded that the Church change to be the way I wanted it.

 

[ford family]

Art, and the fight against poverty, can co-exist.

Spoken by someone with a full stomach and a roof over their head.

ford family

 

[Marie17]

So I guess the earth must really be flat?

Googled:
http://www.stnews.org/Commentary-1069.htm

By Carolyn Moynihan
(July 12, 2005)


It is important to separate fact from fiction in the life of Galileo.
(Photo: NASA)
Related STNews articles • Debunking The Flat Earth Myth




What does recent scholarship tell us about the history of the church and science?

The idea that Christopher Columbus had to defy Catholic flat-earthers to embark on his voyage of discovery has had wide currency. But as historian Jeffrey Burton Russell has shown in his book Inventing the Flat Earth, the real error “is not the alleged medieval belief that the earth was flat, but rather the modern error that such a belief ever prevailed.” Virtually all educated Christians during the high Middle Ages knew that the earth was round. The ignorant medieval flat-earth Catholic is a modern myth, a product largely of Protestant and secular prejudice.------------------
Another - excerpt:

http://www.tfp.org/TFPForum/TFPRecommends/Books/inventing_flat_earth.htm

Flattening the Flat Error

A review of Jeffery Burton Russell’s book Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians by Michael Whitcraft

Sometimes conventional “knowledge” is fraught with error.

However, this outlook is false. The Church never taught the “flat error.” This falsity was invented in the nineteenth century by anti-Catholic rationalists intent on depicting the Church as the enemy of science. This would allow them to further Enlightenment ideas and clear the way for the aborning theory of evolution. Jeffery Burton Russell presents these facts in a concise and crystal clear manner in his 1991 book, Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians.

Another:
http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/russell/FlatEarth.html

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Many things over time can change - Doctrine is what we believe but doesn't change. Discipline is how we show it and can change. What the Church teaches regarding faith and morals is correct. Now that can truly rely on your teacher teaching the proper thing and not their own interpretation.

Discipline is how we practice the faith - an example is no meat on Fridays during Lent. It used to be no meat on Fridays throughout the year. Meat used to represent a celebration but over the years meat is no longer considered such a celebratory meal. No meat on Friday due to it being Good Friday on the day that Jesus was crucified. It is now common so the tradition has changed to only do no meat on Fridays during Lent. Married priests is a discipline - it can change. The eastern rites have married priests - the western rites do not unless special dispensations have been given. This too can change.

Flat earth was never part of Church Doctrine; or I just can't seem to find it in my Cathecism of the Catholic Church.

 

[magicmato]

Sorry, but not all scholars believed the earth was round.

The Early Church

From Late Antiquity, and thus from the beginnings of Christian theology, knowledge of the sphericity of the Earth had become widespread.[11] As in secular culture a small minority contended with the flatness of the Earth. There was also some debate concerning the possibility of the inhabitants of the antipodes: people imagined as separated by an impassable torrid clime were difficult to reconcile with the Christian view of a unified human race descended from one couple and redeemed by a single Christ.

Saint Augustine (354–430) argued against assuming people inhabited the antipodes:

But as to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other: hence they say that the part which is beneath must also be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled.[12]

Since these people would have to be descended from Adam, they would have had to travel to the other side of the Earth at some point; Augustine continues:

t is too absurd to say, that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first man.

Augustine does not deny the idea of a round Earth but explicitly describes the Earth as a globe in his writings.[13]

A few Christian authors directly opposed the round Earth:

* Lactantius (245–325) called it "folly" because people on a sphere would fall down.
* Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (315–386) saw Earth as a firmament floating on water (though the relevant quotation is found in the course of a sermon to the newly baptized, and it is unclear whether he was speaking poetically or in a physical sense);
* Saint John Chrysostom (344–408) saw a spherical Earth as contradictory to scripture;
* Diodorus of Tarsus (d. 394) also argued for a flat Earth based on scriptures; however, Diodorus' opinion on the matter is known to us only by a criticism of it by Photius.[14]
* Severian, Bishop of Gabala (d. 408), wrote: "The earth is flat and the sun does not pass under it in the night, but travels through the northern parts as if hidden by a wall".[15]
* The Egyptian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes (547) in his Topographia Christiana, where the Covenant Ark was meant to represent the whole universe, argued on theological grounds that the Earth was flat, a parallelogram enclosed by four oceans.

At least one early Christian writer, Basil of Caesarea (329–379), believed the matter to be theologically irrelevant.[16]

Different historians have maintained that these advocates of the flat Earth were either influential (a view typified by Andrew Dickson White) or relatively unimportant (typified by Jeffrey Russell) in the later Middle Ages. The scarcity of references to their beliefs in later medieval writings convinces most of today's historians that their influence was slight.

Yes, Russell is well known to state that the Church did not believe in a flat earth, and yet you *can* find texts of early Church scholars that decry the round earth theory as preposterous.

So you cannot say that it is "merely a myth made up by Anti-Catholic Protestants", etc.

 

[JennyMominRI]

The biggest proponent of the Flat Earth story was Washington Irving who popularized the idea that this was a common belief of people of the middle ages, in the 1800's

 

[Marie17]

Sorry, but not all scholars believed the earth was round.

I didn't say that some people did not believe that the earth was flat. It was noted by another poster that I must believe that the earth was flat because they had perceived that was a belief of the Church and they taught it as a tenet of our faith.

Scholars, people, priests, nuns can all have their own ideas of what something is - doesn't mean that is always the teachings of the Church. Flat Earth was never taught by the Church as part of its Doctrine.

This is one of the main problems that is faced by a Catholic. The Catholic Church and its teachings are not always portrayed accurately - you would not believe some of things I've been asked over my lifetime. I've even had someone ask who was from another faith - Catholic people celebrate Easter?

 

[mickeyfan2]

Spoken by someone with a full stomach and a roof over their head.

ford family

And it is so easy for a non-Catholic to state what the Catholic Church and all Catholics should do with their belongings.

Maybe getting rid of you home or vacation home could help with the poverty problem. You can alway buy another. Obviously I am being sarcastic.

 

[Fitswimmer]

The Catholic Church and its teachings are not always portrayed accurately - you would not believe some of things I've been asked over my lifetime.

I have had the same experience. The good thing about it is that it has forced me to read up on my faith and be ready to tell the truth when presented with a question. The best one is that Catholics don't read the Bible. Catholics can and do read the Bible, I have several translations in my house. We don't have the strong tradition of memorization that many Protestant denominations do, but we are encouraged to read it. Most parishes these days publish the readings for the week so that people can read at home. Each Mass has an Old Testament and New Testament reading, plus a Psalm covering the same general theme. There are also Bible study groups in many parishes. I've never heard a Priest say that only they can interpret scripture, that may have been the case long ago, but not in the last 20 years or so.

 

[JunieJay]

And it is so easy for a non-Catholic to state what the Catholic Church and all Catholics should do with their belongings.

Maybe getting rid of you home or vacation home could help with the poverty problem. You can alway buy another. Obviously I am being sarcastic.

Not to mention that the largest private network of social services in the US (and maybe the world) is Catholic Social Services, so it's not as if the Church complacently sits on bags of money, doing nothing for the poor.

And even if the Catholic Church were to disappear tomorrow, and all its wealth liquidated and given to the poor, it wouldn't make a dent in the poverty level.

 

[ford family]

And it is so easy for a non-Catholic to state what the Catholic Church and all Catholics should do with their belongings.

Maybe getting rid of you home or vacation home could help with the poverty problem. You can alway buy another. Obviously I am being sarcastic.

The quote I commented on referred to "Art" in general rather than "Art" specifically Catholic.
Maybe glasses could help with your reading problem. Obviously I am being sarcastic.

ford family

 

[mickeyfan2]

The quote I commented on referred to "Art" in general rather than "Art" specifically Catholic.
Maybe glasses could help with your reading problem. Obviously I am being sarcastic.

ford family

Since your response was to this post

"Oh I absolutely agree. As an artist, I am inspired by the fact the Vatican has maintained and protected its artistic history. Art has fed the mind and spirit of millions throughout history for centuries, and absolutely must continue to do so. To dismantle the Vatican art collections for money would be a bad idea. Art, and the fight against poverty, can co-exist."

The Vatican is the Catholic Church. It is where the pope lives.

Maybe you need the glasses (against sarcastically).

And this is a thread about Catholics then the art was Catholic art.

BTW Say I have a painting worth 1 million dollars. If I sell if for 1 million to another person how is that really doing anything for the poor. The buyer now has the painting and I have 1 million dollars. Either way the poor have the same assets. I could have just kept the painting and the buyer could have given away the money. This makes NO sense to say selling art will help the poor. The million dollars that is help by a person could but not the art work. BTW the Vatican commissioned many painting and paid the artist to do them. The appreciation is now in the eyes of the collectors, since the artist is now gone and the artist's work is highly desirable.

 

[JunieJay]

Thanks Mickeyfan2. I can never find my reading glasses, but I was pretty sure I made it clear I was discussing art belonging to the Vatican and which Catholicism has made available to of all the world.

(if I do find my reading glasses I'll send them to Ford Family..... )

 

[ford family]

Since your response was to this post

"Oh I absolutely agree. As an artist, I am inspired by the fact the Vatican has maintained and protected its artistic history. Art has fed the mind and spirit of millions throughout history for centuries, and absolutely must continue to do so. To dismantle the Vatican art collections for money would be a bad idea. Art, and the fight against poverty, can co-exist."

The Vatican is the Catholic Church. It is where the pope lives.

Maybe you need the glasses (against sarcastically).

And this is a thread about Catholics then the art was Catholic art.

BTW Say I have a painting worth 1 million dollars. If I sell if for 1 million to another person how is that really doing anything for the poor. The buyer now has the painting and I have 1 million dollars. Either way the poor have the same assets. I could have just kept the painting and the buyer could have given away the money. This makes NO sense to say selling art will help the poor. The million dollars that is help by a person could but not the art work. BTW the Vatican commissioned many painting and paid the artist to do them. The appreciation is now in the eyes of the collectors, since the artist is now gone and the artist's work is highly desirable.

Well, well, well. An offensive Catholic. Who would have believed it?

I responded to the line - "Art, and the fight against poverty, can co-exist." which is fatuous in the extreme when it comes from someone who is not in poverty. The "Art" in that sentence was not taken as Catholic specific any more than was the phrase "fight against poverty". There is plenty of "Art" not owned by the Catholic Church and there is an even greater portion of the fight against poverty being fought without the involvement of the Catholic Church who, historically, have created more poverty than they have relieved

I know what and where the Vatican is. I have been there several times.

As for your example, if the art work was sold to someone who had no intention of giving to the poor themselves then the money released and given to the poor by the seller would be a net gain for aid distribution.

As for the wise "investment" in artwork by the Vatican, many of which are not even on display to the general public, the value of these are insignificant compared to their property and other assets including cash. Remember Banco Ambrosiano and the $10 billion that the Vatican Bank was hoarding?

Reverting to the original post, why are women not allowed to be priests? Because the Roman Catholic Church is a business set up by a small group of men and run by another small group of men for their own benefit.

ford family

 

[nuke]

I would never want the church to sell off ALL of their art but if you've been to the Vatican the sheer volume of pieces is almost disgusting. There is room after room after room of statues. More than anyone can see in one visit and we were told there are vaults full off site.
There are beautiful pieces or art and I was overwhelmed with the beauty of St. Peter's. The history that is there is wonderful!

It's just the overabundance that I can't wrap my mind around. It's the same way I feel about people that live in giant house and own 6 cars. I just don't get it and it seems wasteful to me. Just my opinion and that isn't worth a penny.

 

[mickeyfan2]

(if I do find my reading glasses I'll send them to Ford Family..... )

Please do. He really seems to need them.

 

[Disney Doll]

ford family, you clearly have a history of difficulty with the Catholic Church. Any attempt at debate or discussion with you will be colored by that, unfortunately.

I would ask to whom should the Catholic Church sell this priceless art? How much fine art do you think Bill Gates needs? Donald Trump may buy one or two pieces, we could probably get Oprah to buy a couple. The Sultan of Brunei has a ton of money...last I knew he was the richest man in the world...but I am not sure how much Catholic art he's be interested in, since my guess is that he's not Catholic. A statue of Mary probably would hold a lot of appeal for him, or his relatives.

Again, I can separate God from man...many Catholics can.

 

[ford family]

ford family, you clearly have a history of difficulty with the Catholic Church. Any attempt at debate or discussion with you will be colored by that, unfortunately.

I would ask to whom should the Catholic Church sell this priceless art? How much fine art do you think Bill Gates needs? Donald Trump may buy one or two pieces, we could probably get Oprah to buy a couple. The Sultan of Brunei has a ton of money...last I knew he was the richest man in the world...but I am not sure how much Catholic art he's be interested in, since my guess is that he's not Catholic. A statue of Mary probably would hold a lot of appeal for him, or his relatives.

Again, I can separate God from man...many Catholics can.

Please don't patronise me, it adds no value to the discussion.

The point of contention here was the OP, an artist by admission, saying that collecting art and fighting poverty can be done by the church at the same time. I don't think that is correct. If the RC church brought all its wealth to bear on poverty it could make a huge difference....but it chooses not to. The art collection, most of it hidden away, is just the tip of the iceberg. Look at http://www.answers.com/topic/vatican-bank to see my reference.

ford family

 

[BelleMcNally]

Please take this advice for what it is worth. I hope you are not coaching your patients on NFP as you are pretty incorrect about what it really is.
I do a form of NFP (charting on Fertility Friend) and I am not so much a practicing Catholic anymore.
I would think, as a Nurse, that you would know it isn't just CM AT ALL.
It's CM, CP, BBT and other symptoms, but BBT is very telling. You should really look it up because you are VERY misinformed. It actually IS very accurate and helpful for those of us with irregular cycles. Mine are extremely irregular and I can still show you on a chart where I am ovulating...

Back to your originally-scheduled programming...

Tracy

Yes, I understand that CM is not all that's involved--I didn't realize I needed to go into the whole thing to make the simple point I was trying to make...I just wanted to post a specific example. Please don't judge the amount of information I have at my disposal from one sentence of one post I made.

Also, not all women's cycle are irregular"just because" there are some women, like myself, who have irregular cycles caused by other health problems. I have been counseled by more than one physician (one very Catholic) that it would be nearly impossible for my husband and I to use NFP correctly. I was disappointed as I was hoping we could eliminate the cost of my birth control pills, so believe me, I've looked into it extensively.

I actually don't coach anyone on NFP because it's not my job to be an NFP coach.

I have, however, delivered more than one baby to a couple who were convinced they were practicing NFP correctly to prevent pregnancy....