Vatican calling for Boycott of Da Vinci Code

[windovervocalcords]

What a great post Sandra.

csds--you make a good point of how it is that a group may feel threatened. I did not intend to threaten anyone--merely to provoke thinking.

And I am trying to make a point about organized religion. They are systems, methods, ways to bring out positive qualities. They are systems, nonetheless. Valuable sometimes for training purposes and ultimately meant to be transcended.

"You can give the same recipe to ten cooks and some make it come alive and some make a flat souffle". A system doesn't guarantee anything.

Chuck Close, Artist

Tis, I forgot to tell you that I appreciate you are trying to be patient. I am not sitting around all day contemplating how I can personally tick you off. Really.

I asked the question on google: Who is a Catholic? My closest friend just explained to me why my link caused many of you to be upset. I was trying to use a responsible and sympathetic link. The link said "Christcentered...catholic" I read the lengthy article. I did not read the home page. It is not even a catholic group but another Christian group, likely with some ax to grind. I did not know that.

My friend just explained in a clear way why the link was problematic to Catholics.

And also said that there are only two kinds of Catholics in the Catholic view of things: Catholics and "fallen away Catholics". My friend says if you are baptized Catholic and do not practice you are "Fallen Away".

Seems pretty oppressive to me to always be identified with Catholics when you choose another way as soon as you are able to make an adult decision about your faith.

I was baptized a Catholic yet follow another path since 1982. All my blood relatives are Irish Catholic.

Perhaps this explains my interest.

 

[cappuccina]

...my step-grandfather, who was from a VERY prominent Boston Irish Catholic family converted to Judaism after he married my grandmother who was Jewish, and his entire family disowned him, cut him off, and his parents stopped helping him while he was in medical school. The two families did not meet again until his funeral, (40 years later) where two nuns and a priest - his three surviving siblings, walked into the synagogue visibly upset and said they wished they'd all made peace before he died...

He is buried in a Jewish cemetary in Queens, NY...All I can picture are people coming to visit, thinking..."Oy vay; how did HE get here?"

This whole story is a true life tragicomedy - it really is...


(When I was a kid, I would try not to laugh when he'd banter with my grandma in Yiddish and English with his JFK-like "pahk the cah in Hahvaid Yahd" accent...picture JFK telling someone to "get their Tuchas in the cah"...)

No wonder I'm nutz... :crazy:

 

[Maral]

And also said that there are only two kinds of Catholics in the Catholic view of things: Catholics and "fallen away Catholics". My friend says if you are baptized Catholic and do not practice you are "Fallen Away".

Seems pretty oppressive to me to always be identified with Catholics when you choose another way as soon as you are able to make an adult decision about your faith.

Hi Wind, your friend is correct about Catholics and "fallen away" Catholics. But I'd like to clarify that a "fallen away" Catholic, while not practicing his faith, has not renounced it. He is still considered a Catholic. One can cease to be a member of the Catholic Church by formally renouncing it. Catholic Sacred Tradition has held that those dissociating themselves from the Church voluntarily cease to be full members of the Church. So "Once a Catholic, Always a Catholic" is not necessarily true. However, nothing can remove a valid baptism.

 

[csds703]

Hi Wind, your friend is correct about Catholics and "fallen away" Catholics. But I'd like to clarify that a "fallen away" Catholic, while not practicing his faith, has not renounced it. He is still considered a Catholic. One can cease to be a member of the Catholic Church by formally renouncing it. Catholic Sacred Tradition has held that those dissociating themselves from the Church voluntarily cease to be full members of the Church. So "Once a Catholic, Always a Catholic" is not necessarily true. However, nothing can remove a valid baptism.

This is interesting to me. I know someone who was born jewish. When he got married he converted to catholicism, even became a deacon. Anyway, years later he divorced and decided to become jewish again, and according to jewish law his conversion was never recognized because they consider you to be whatever your mother is.

 

[csds703]

...my step-grandfather, who was from a VERY prominent Boston Irish Catholic family converted to Judaism after he married my grandmother who was Jewish, and his entire family disowned him, cut him off, and his parents stopped helping him while he was in medical school. The two families did not meet again until his funeral, (40 years later) where two nuns and a priest - his three surviving siblings, walked into the synagogue visibly upset and said they wished they'd all made peace before he died...

He is buried in a Jewish cemetary in Queens, NY...All I can picture are people coming to visit, thinking..."Oy vay; how did HE get here?"

This whole story is a true life tragicomedy - it really is...


(When I was a kid, I would try not to laugh when he'd banter with my grandma in Yiddish and English with his JFK-like "pahk the cah in Hahvaid Yahd" accent...picture JFK telling someone to "get their Tuchas in the cah"...)

No wonder I'm nutz... :crazy:

My husband and I have different religions and our kids (his and mine) have learned alot from each other about our different beliefs and customs. For us it is more important to teach our children tolerance, morals and traditions which bring the family closer together, rather than debating how to worship. We both respect each other's different beliefs after all there is only one g-d. We believe there is more than one way to get to heaven.

 

[windovervocalcords]

Hi Wind, your friend is correct about Catholics and "fallen away" Catholics. But I'd like to clarify that a "fallen away" Catholic, while not practicing his faith, has not renounced it. He is still considered a Catholic. One can cease to be a member of the Catholic Church by formally renouncing it. Catholic Sacred Tradition has held that those dissociating themselves from the Church voluntarily cease to be full members of the Church. So "Once a Catholic, Always a Catholic" is not necessarily true. However, nothing can remove a valid baptism.

How does one "formally renounce Catholic Sacred Tradition?"

What does not being able to remove a valid baptism mean? Does this mean you are still some "lesser member" of the Church? It's pretty confusing to me.

Obviously, this would not be something I would be asking a relative. We don't "go there".

I assume the baptism I received as an infant was valid....

capp--what a compelling story about your family. I think the RCC community may be growing wiser than they were once in the time of your step grandfather and my family.

Still these kinds of things go deep, don't they?

I want to add some other personal background that may give my posts some context. I am close friends with a number of women who wanted to be priests. Their pain at the RCC ruling against women ordination affects my feelings today about Church hierarchy.

I see what fine people they are. I see the Church short of good priests, and I see what suffering this policy causes them. And how stuck/lost they feel in so many ways.

They are still active Catholics, but they have to keep seeking elsewhere for satisfaction due to this policy.

The other irony is that in my current tradition there are many converts from different backgrounds. I feel pretty close with those who were Catholics, some kind of familial affinity, if you will.

Yet, my closest spiritual friends who have become practitioners in our community are Jews who practice in our tradition.

 

[ellen13]

Narla, having faith is not quite as simplistic as just believing everything our church tells us. Yes, we believe in the doctrines of our faith. But accepting this faith requires more than just believing. It requires a lifelong struggle to understand it, to live it, and to practice it

Edited to add: Sandra, I wrote this before I read your excellent post. You pretty much said what I just did, only more eloquently.

Having or accepting faith is a very personal thing and it's what it means to one as an individual. I have faith but no one needs to define it for me or tell me how to live my life-I don't need to have a lifelong struggle to understand it. I just have it-it's a simple as that. I don't need a church telling me how to understand it, live it, or practice it or who my god is. there is a higher spiritual being that i know is there and it's as simple as that. period. and, god might mean something else to everyone else. it's what we want it to be.
faith is an individual and very personal thing for the individual. there is no rule book unless you are a die-hard devout religious person who chooses to believe what a church tells you to believe. just because you don't go along with a churche's teachings, doesn't make one not have faith.

there is a lot of hypocrisy that goes on in organized religion and that's why some of us can have faith without the organized part of it.

 

[ellen13]

What a great post Sandra.

Perhaps if Narla's posts are getting tiresome to you both, then perhaps you should skip over them. No one says you have to read everyone's post on this thread. You are bashing her and that's getting tiresome.:banghead:

 

[JBean]

Perhaps if Narla's posts are getting tiresome to you both, then perhaps you should skip over them. No one says you have to read everyone's post on this thread. You are bashing her and that's getting tiresome.:banghead:

What in the world!?

 

[ellen13]

...my step-grandfather, who was from a VERY prominent Boston Irish Catholic family converted to Judaism after he married my grandmother who was Jewish, and his entire family disowned him, cut him off, and his parents stopped helping him while he was in medical school. The two families did not meet again until his funeral, (40 years later) where two nuns and a priest - his three surviving siblings, walked into the synagogue visibly upset and said they wished they'd all made peace before he died...

He is buried in a Jewish cemetary in Queens, NY...All I can picture are people coming to visit, thinking..."Oy vay; how did HE get here?"

This whole story is a true life tragicomedy - it really is...


(When I was a kid, I would try not to laugh when he'd banter with my grandma in Yiddish and English with his JFK-like "pahk the cah in Hahvaid Yahd" accent...picture JFK telling someone to "get their Tuchas in the cah"...)

No wonder I'm nutz... :crazy:

well, if he converted, he had every right to be buried in that Jewish cemetary.
I don't see what the problem is.

 

[ellen13]

What a great post Sandra.

Jbean-you said what in the world-I was referring to your post about
sandra being rude to narla and you said great post. I felt like the two
of you had no problem with ganging up on narla, so i'm stepping in
and speaking my mind like the two of you have done. narla is not out
to hurt anyone here and everyone is being hyper-sensitive.

 

[JBean]

Jbean-you said what in the world-I was referring to your post about
sandra being rude to narla and you said great post. I felt like the two
of you had no problem with ganging up on narla, so i'm stepping in
and speaking my mind like the two of you have done. narla is not out
to hurt anyone here and everyone is being hyper-sensitive.

I have no probelm with anyone speaking their mind. Never have said otherwise..
I can say with certainty that I am not hypersensitive.
Sandra made an articulate post.
If I have someting to say to Narla, I will say it to Narla.
You see, I have purposely only made a handful of posts on this thread. Because while I have enjoyed reading all the differnt points of views, my views are just that..mine. I have no interest in convincing anyone that my way is the right way or your way is the wrong way. makes no differnce to me.
So when you call me out on "bashing" or "ganging up" on Narla, it's almost comical.

 

[ellen13]

I have no probelm with anyone speaking their mind. Never have said otherwise..
I can say with certainty that I am not hypersensitive.
Sandra made an articulate post.
If I have someting to say to Narla, I will say it to Narla.
You see, I have purposely only made a handful of posts on this thread. Because while I have enjoyed reading all the differnt points of views, my views are just that..mine. I have no interest in convincing anyone that my way is the right way or your way is the wrong way. makes no differnce to me.
So when you call me out on "bashing" or "ganging up" on Narla, it's almost comical.

well, indirectly by validating sandra's post, your message to narla spoke loud and clear and since there are two of you communicating to her, then the two of us can communicate back, or I can do it on her behalf if she's not here to do it. Narla is being misunderstood on this thread and i feel she is being personally attacked by more than one person. that's not right.I know you're quite capable of communicating to Narla.

 

[ellen13]

Yet an albino monk would not be the best choice for an assassin as those suffering from albinism has poor eyesight and cannot drive as a result, as the Monk does all over Europe in the movie, let alone be able to see well enough to kill someone, lol. This is according to an article I read somewhere, anyways.

I've known albinos with good eyesight. but, since the story was fictitious, they could choose any character they wanted for that role.

 

[ellen13]

You know what narla? Sometimes I think you really want to understand, and sometimes I think you just want to throw out bait and inflame others over matter you know they feel strongly about. It's getting tiresome.

You throw out terms like "intelligence", implying that one either lacks or suspends their intelligence if they call themselves Catholic. As DK said, having all the answers would require no faith to believe. I agree with this. But you (and many other posters here) are trying to put logical, scientific limits on something which is very abstract and difficult to define. There are aspects to religious experience that are, for lack of a better word, supernatural, and as such, sometimes defy logic or science. You can't just get it or live it from reading a book, anymore than you could fall in love with your husband/wife by reading about them in a book. You have to live it and experience it.

I like to quote a certain Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr. In his book, Everything Belongs, he says "We do not think out way into new ways of living. We live our way into new ways of thinking."

I am living my way into new ways of thinking. Through my faith, I work on myself, daily, weekly. I don't know where you turn to become a better person, but I do it through my faith. Every week, I read and reread the gospel for the coming week, and seek a message particular to me in my place where I am at that week. Through reconciliation (or confession) I work through my own faults and shortcomings, working on my pride sometimes, my anger at other times, as examples. I meet with a home prayer group one morning per week, and I serve in a few ministries in my church. I am passionately in love, and consumed with my faith. In a good way. My Catholic faith is interwoven throughout my life, and that is why, when people either take shots at the Catholic Church, or write books/produce movies that mock my church, I feel personally offended.

I promise you this, narla. I don't just "believe everything the church tells me". I study it, I ask questions, I seek to understand. Most things have come clear to me, there are other aspects of my Catholic faith that I am still hoping to know. but I know enough and have experienced enough to trust, and to be hungry for more.

Emotionally vulnerable? No, I don't think so. Nor do I think I am the one with a hole that needs to be filled.....

imho

this is the post that you thought was so eloquent and articulate and it bashed Narla. are you proud of yourself?

 

[JBean]

well, indirectly by validating sandra's post, your message to narla spoke loud and clear and since there are two of you communicating to her, then the two of us can communicate back, or I can do it on her behalf if she's not here to do it. Narla is being misunderstood on this thread and i feel she is being personally attacked by more than one person. that's not right.I know you're quite capable of communicating to Narla.

. You and I are just on different wavelengths..no worries Ellen.

 

[ellen13]

. You and I are just on different wavelengths..no worries Ellen.

Okay, you know what I'm saying and i know what you're saying. we both said our piece. No worries.

 

[JBean]

this is the post that you thought was so eloquent and articulate and it bashed Narla. are you proud of yourself?

Hey Ellen, of all the people to pick on on this thread, it's is funny that you would choose me.

 

[ellen13]

Hey Ellen, of all the people to pick on on this thread, it's is funny that you would choose me.

and why is that?

 

[JBean]

and why is that?

getting back to topic would probably be good now. Sorry everyone.