On bitching about church

"The traditionalists," he said, "I never was one of them, but they sure did call a lot of things right a long time ago."

Which is why I am grateful for the presence of the SSPX. They may be schismatic in the eyes of Rome but they've preserved the Mass and the sacraments and are a continual witness against the liturgical errorss that the Catholic Church still needs to correct.

You're correct.

I was a cradle Catholic who converted to Orthodoxy for largely doctrinal and dogmatic reasons, not because of the abuse scandal. I'm also in an OCA parish--I keep up with the scandal and try NOT take it to heart. Unfortunately the history of the Church is full of scandal and abuse and sinful men and women in positions of power.

Now, I'm not complacent about it--sometimes I sputter with anger when yet another bit of hierarchical rottenness is exposed--but I concern myself primarily with the health of my parish. It's important that the Church function and maintain its integrity on a local level. I do wish that our diocese would put our OCA assessments into escrow as did the Diocese of the Midwest, but it probably won't do so. Luckily, the truth of Christ and His Church is not in the hands of hierarchs and adminstrators.

As you've said before, Rod, "stagger onward, rejoicing."

Yeah, it's frustrating, but my cardinal rule is this:

Not all battles are mine to fight.

It took a while to realize this, but it's an important truth. Yes, we are all one Body, but it's not my job to obsess against things in the Church that I don't have the power to change. Down that path lay bitterness. What I can do is be a good husband and father, take my family to Mass, teach my children, be a good employee in my workplace and try to make my solid-if-not-spectacular parish a better place by leading a bible study.

[OK, and occasionally go ballistic at my blog. Fine.]

Ultimately, it's not quietism--it's remembering my pay grade.

The US Catholic Church is dying. Today only one-quarter of US Catholics say they attend Mass each week -- a self-reported figure that many suspect is actually overstated. And remember, it's a mortal sin not to meet the weekly obligation. There is every reason to believe this decline will continue.

There are, no doubt, many reasons for this: an increasingly secular society, bad cathechisis, a culture of disbelief, you name it. At the top of my list, and here comes the bitching, is the hypocrisy and corruption of the clergy, particularly the bishops. Far too many of them -- from the pastor who has his meals cooked in the rectory by a long-suffering housekeeper (do these guys ever go to the grocery store?) to the bishop/cardinal with expensive merlot stored in his temperature-controlled wine celler -- live lives far removed from the daily concerns of those who still make the effort to go to church on Sunday. They are truly "a people set apart."

I am a "liberal Catholic" -- pro-woman's ordination and a married clergy for example -- but I don't believe this is purely or even largely an ideological/theological issue. The hubris knows no politics -- the scandals surrounding such "progressives" as Archbishops Weakland and Cardinal Mahony are no less disheartening than those involving such "hardliners" as Cardinals Law and Fr. Maciel. Their church is a plaything, a machine that feeds ego and avarice; they are the victors, and they get the spoils.

Bottom line: Their bureacracy is accountable to no one, save God and Rome. The latter encourages the behavior, and, as to the former, perhaps the decline in adherents is a message.

Still, I don't know how any responsible churchman balances his (or her) duty to be a good steward of the church while maintaining enough detachment from whatever crisis is facing his church so as not to be destroyed by it.

This is indeed the issue. I'll add a little to Dale Price's point. As I have progressed myself, I have found that those who consider themselves 'orthodox' and 'traditionalist' in contradiction to their bishop are often not what they claim. You yourself describe a conservative and orthodox friend commiting schism. There's nothing orthodox about schism. You know this; I know this. I think this says something about the scorecard being used.

Let's assume the worst for the moment about the Orthodox money scandal. What does it prove? At most it proves that some people, possibly high ranking people, conducted their affairs contemptuously. The secular authorities and the Orthodox will take care of it, and the guilty who don't receive their punishments in this life will receive them in the next. Evil has existed from the beginning, and there is no break from it this side of the eschaton. Our final hope, celebrating with the saints in the Church of Heaven, does not have evil. The battle has been won. Ensuring one is amongst the saints is a far greater concern than having opinion about the affairs of the bishops of earth. And let's not be mistaken, in most cases doing something is about nothing more than stating one's opinion. For whatever reason it is never seen as a call to silence, prayer, and contemplation.

>"Still, I don't know how any responsible churchman balances his (or her) duty to be a good steward of the church while maintaining enough detachment from whatever crisis is facing his church so as not to be destroyed by it. Quietism is cowardly, but its opposite is foolishly self-destructive."

My approach has been to alternate tours of duty with time away from the front, seeking cues in prayer. I have a duty to fight some battles, but I have not felt called to fight all of them. I hope I say this out of humility rather than sloth, but I'm not indispensible. And when I'm burned out, I'm not much good as a steward.

I can feel that a period of relative rest may be drawing to a close. I'm not looking forward to being back in the middle of the arguments and tension that I can see ahead, but I do feel like I again have the capacity to engage.

Think of it this way---if one were to start a petition, and you get 1,000 people to sign it, it may achieve something, and everyone does a small part to help. If one person just signs their name 1,000 times, though, not only are you not going to accomplish much, you're hand is going to hurt. One person, quite frankly, can't make much of a difference to a group if everyone is against them or unwilling to contribute; they can only take care of themselves. It takes a group to fix a group problem.

I realize you're just making an analogy, but the real problem here is when you start thinking petitions, complaints, and political-style agitation is what Church is about. When that happens, it doesn't matter whether you get 1,000 signatures or 1: you've already lost eveything that matters.

Oh what rubbish Susan, you know full well the influence that the lay left has on the politics of American bishops and the USCCB. Granted, you haven't gotten everything you want, but spare me the pity party--much of the American clergy has been infested with liberalism for the past half century.

Erin, I'm moved by your post.

Good for you, Erin. Hold fast to your opinion. And your faith. And your identification of the RCC with Jesus himself. You go girl. I mean it.

Be careful not to dig too deep, or to find out too much, but probably, from where you're sitting, that's not too likely. Ignore everything I say; delete all my posts. You don't need to hear this stuff.

"And your identification of the RCC with Jesus himself. You go girl. I mean it.

Be careful not to dig too deep, or to find out too much, but probably, from where you're sitting, that's not too likely. Ignore everything I say; delete all my posts. You don't need to hear this stuff."

Yeah, because who wouldn't want to listen to someone who calls them an institution-worshipping close-minded drone afraid to seek the truth?

God knows I couldn't get enough of that.

YMMV.

That's right, at least if we're making reference to the Catholics. If only because if you could get 100% of Catholic laypeople to sign a petition it couldn't matter less, since the opinion of non-priests in that communion is a non-issue.

This is close to self-parody, Susan. My point was that Church (any church, for that matter) isn't fundamentally about mobilizing other people to do anything, fighting against power structures, getting others to agree with one's positions, etc. That's nothing more than politics.

In Genesis, the error of Satan (or, at least, the lie with which he tempts Eve) is that God's most important attribute is power. He just wants you not to eat that fruit because if you do you'll have as much power as he does. All that matters is Who/Whom, as the old Marxist thugs used to say. There aren't many of you "progressive folks" left in the RC Church, but it's really amazing how many of you seem to view the Church in exactly that way.

Hm, Simon, I'm hard put to make much of your post.

First you say that my statement that no lay Catholic person has the vote is "close to self-parody." I don't know what that means. It would be interesting if you (a) showed me some instance in which lay Catholics have a meaningful input (aside, of course, from the collection box), or (2) explained why, even though my statement is true, I'm parodying myself. (??)

Then you dismiss "politics" (by which I think you mean the opinion of the people involved) as a legitimate source of input. Again, it would be interesting to hear where, then, you consider inputs legitimate. The priests? And that would be why?

In your next paragraph we're suddenly off in Genesis, and then, just as suddenly, with the "Marxist thugs." Then I am identified with someone (the serpent? the Marxist thugs? hard to unravel) as a "progressive folk."

I admit that I am quite unable to make anything rational out of all this. You might try making sense for a change?

Susan, I'm puzzled.

What makes you think that I'm ignorant about the Church here in America in the twenty-first century?

What makes you think I'm so fragile that a few ugly details about priests or bishops will shatter my illusions and turn me anti-Catholic?

I'm not uninformed regarding the Scandal, you know. It's just that I consider the Scandal to be irrelevant and immaterial to the questions I posed above: did Jesus found a particular Church, and if so, which one?

Now, if you've decided that Jesus was this terrific guy who didn't deserve what happened to Him, but hey, he said lots of nice things about how we should all get along so we should try to incorporate those ideas into our modern day reality--but of course He didn't start a Church, He was anti-institutional and kind of a rebel: well, then, fine, do whatever you want and call it Christianity.

But if you believe that He is the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and that His "sayings" were really commands, and that He did indeed mean to start a Church, then it becomes a matter of some urgency to figure out which one.

Reading the Gospels gives you some evidence to be applied to any particular Church's claim to be the True Church: unity, universality, apostolicity, holiness (not of particular members but of the life of grace), in addition to the presence of the Eucharist as instituted by Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Many Churches will have some of these things, but few will have a legitimate claim to all of them; I'd tend to agree with Rod's view that only two Churches really can make a strong claim here, Catholic and Orthodox.

I could point to those Scripture passages which to me make the Catholic Church's claim the significantly stronger of the two, or I could go through my evaluation of Orthodoxy's claim and the, to me, overwhelmingly compelling reasons to reject it, but that would be way beyond this thread's scope or the acceptable length of a comment.

But you really don't need to worry about protecting my sensitivities, as faith is quite compatible with reason in my view of things, and no amount of emotionalism over the Scandal, bitterness or anger toward particular malefactors, or misplaced desire to see the Church's hierarchy replaced with Jeffersonian-style democracy will cause me to reconsider the arguments I've already dealt with to my own rational satisfaction.

Go for what, exactly?

would be interesting if you (a) showed me some instance in which lay Catholics have a meaningful input (aside, of course, from the collection box),

Why "aside from"? The collection box is a pretty powerful source of input, I think, and perhaps we need to use it more than we do -- and make sure our leaders know exactly why we are giving, or not, and to whom. Just as in the secular corporate world, the only thing some of these guys understand is money.

Thanks for talking for me Victor, since I'm obviously unable to speak for myself.

If all these men understand is money, David, the battle is lost. As I have already argued.

Hey gang, can we get back to a more civil exchange here? Really, let's try.

Go for it, Erin. (Hey, Rod, this isn't civil??).

I'm not much in conflict of spirit any more, to tell you the truth, though of course I'm still angry at my family of birth for being such screw-ups...maybe you never really get over that kind of thing, huh.

I'm not Rod. I'm not an adult convert. This is my family of origin I'm talking about. I need not go into detail here about that.

I was never abused personally as a child. The Church was never other than what she should have been as Mother to me. Sort of. Except that, without meaning to, she got in the way... was it really without meaning to???- between me and God, the True Bridegroom.

Your response is valid, Erin, that's what I'm trying to say. Of course!! What we've all learned doesn't bother you? Go for it, that's what I say. I wish I could be with you. Please don't take what I say as criticism.

I know too much. I've seen too much, and too much of it has been first-hand. My closest friend outside my family is a Roman Catholic priest my own age. Now I'm sitting again with him watching his eyes narrow as he tries to figure out how to get out. Now I'm listening to the priest on the phone, another guy, making exuses for inexcusable behavior, his own, the creep. Now I'm working my way through the files of my clients, the RC dioceses. Now I'm listening on the phone to a REAL CRIMINAL, making excuses for how he's not going to get caught. (GACK!) Now I'm reviewing diocesian files. Now I'm talking on the phone to a man, a priest, who really BELIEVES he's The Anounted of God, and I know he's in reality a rapist. Now I'm seeing valid lay organizations destroyed by these ego-freaks who think they're the New Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Now I'm talking to the Carmelite Provincial, a dear friend, who is scared out of his wits at the idea that the experiences recounted by John of the Cross might possibly be valid.

Don't listen, don't hear what I say. What you've seen is valid if it works for you. Go for it, I wish I could be there with you.

Dear Ms. Foley:

The problem I am having with your argument is that you have determined that your horrible experiences with clerical corruption are normative. Actually, beyond normative: they trump any other evidence, any other experiences of the Church and indeed, define Catholicism, right down to the most recently-baptized infant.

In other words (I see I'd best avoid abbreviations), you have created an irrebutable presumption against which you dash every other view. Despite your protestations to the contrary ("valid for you"), it is evident that you regard Catholics who don't agree with you as willful pietistic dupes at best, and more likely as accessories after the fact to the irredeemable criminal conspiracy that you have determined Catholicism to be.

What do you hope to achieve with your comments on this thread?

Susan,
Did you just say that your friend, Scott, might be literally murdered? Killed by someone in the Catholic church if he chooses to leave or talk?

Cleveland: Seems to me, Rod, he only likes the conservative trappings, e.g., Gregorian chant. The term "conservative" has no other meaning (to me, at least) with regard to one's faith. He certainly is not an orthodox Catholic because, then, he would have to consider himself an apostate--a very dicey thing with respect to salvation.

That's neither a fair nor accurate description of this guy, Cleveland. He is certainly not now an orthodox Catholic, but he was for a long time. You might even know him -- he was active in orthodox Catholic circles here. He no longer believes in the Catholic Church's claims, but that does not retroactively make his previous beliefs superficial. If you lost your Catholic faith tomorrow and became a Buddhist, could it accurately and fairly be said of you that you only liked the conservative trappings of the Catholic faith?

"I really don't know what the right answer is here."

Seriously, what is the question?

The question is: how does a churchman honor his responsibilities to fight corruption in his church without allowing himself to be overcome by anger, such that he loses his ability to believe in, or at least care for, the institution he wants to see reformed?

Anyway, can we return to the original purpose of this thread, which I'd hoped would be to elicit thoughts on the question I identified in the previous post. This is not just a Catholic question, and I'm sure many of us struggle with it from time to time in our own churches. I spoke to Protestant friends the other day who are upset with the way a certain matter of church governance is playing out in their church. They believe that a lot of underhanded business is going on, things that are enormously significant for the future of that particular congregation (none involving criminality, I hasted to add). They're struggling with whether or not they should just grit their teeth and bear it, or leave. If they decide to stay, how do they process their anger over the crookedness?

There is a lot of jumping around between serious Christians in these times. Evangelicals of a conservative bent and some Episcopalians becoming Catholic because they percieve their church is leaving its historical roots, Catholics becoming Eastern Orthodox because they seek a sacramental church less legalistic or because they want out of the line of fire of the media and the culture wars, or whatever.

The divisions between Christians today are less denominational and more about basic attitudes.

Often this hopping does not bring peace if the problems are within us.

I think we should try to bloom where we are (planted), if at all possible.

Often this hopping does not bring peace if the problems are within us.

I think we should try to bloom where we are (planted), if at all possible.

Goodguy - I'm struggling with a variation of this now. Now that the Pope has issued his motu proprio "freeing" the Latin Mass, I am considering returning to my home parish and petitioning the pastor there for the mass. As I told a friend recently, I tire of the division and the distinction of being a "Latin Mass traditionalist" (or whatever) and I long for the normalcy of just being a plain ol' Catholic. The hothouse experience of the indult Latin Mass parish is wearing very thin on me, some tens years into it.

And yet the thought of returning to happy clappy guitar masses and Eucharist monsters and altar girls and all the rest of the "normal" abuses of the liturgy, fills me with fear and loathing. I don't know what to do.

You have to reclaim love to save a marriage. And to find that strength to reclaim love is to know God who is love. Keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. Drink deep and you will be able to set aside your attachments to your personal outrage and hurts and allow his love to enter deeply into your soul. You will be able to do as he did -- love the sinners but always speak the truth about the sin. Mother Teresa would meet with anyone. She loved them enough to witness to the truth about Love. She did not affirm their sin. You can only both love the person and refrain from accepting the sin if you love with a love that is not your own. If you have come to the point of knowing the truth about your own sinfulness and how it too has hurt others. But most of all if you know that Christ died on the cross providing the Love that alone can but forgive the sinner and heal the wounds of the sinner's sin. If the woman and that husband would only look to Christ, be humble and realize the damage that their mutual sins are doing to them, they would start to live in love. They would start to finally love each and start to allow Christ to heal their wounds. But if they want to stay attached to the hurts, if they want to stay attached to the hate, to the anger, then there can be no joy and no love. Only sadness, anger, and ultimately despair. Jesus has the living waters that quench our thrist for love when we are in the desert of despair.

The same applies to the church and relationships between churches. We must look to Him and his love to learn to have patience with each other as we each struggle to grow in holiness. Everyone struggles with some part of their life. If we do not remain one in Him as he prayed in his last and most fervent prayer, we are lost. We are without the fulness of his love. One can only pray that all Christians can have patience with those they believe wrong about X or Y and remain one in Christ's love first and foremost. We have to remember that Dismas was saved and he didn't know an iota of what we know about the faith. He knew one thing: Jesus was capable of saving him. We have to have faith that he is capable of saving His church. It is our job to cooperate by being faithful to what is given to us to do and trust in Him for what is not given to us to do. He is love. He has loved those who are sinners and those who are victims of sinners before they were formed in the womb. He will act in our best interests if we cooperate and trust in Him and His Mercy.

Rod mentions the Big Financial Scandal in The OCA !! What about the growing scandal in Alaska involving The OCA ?? There are a Number of scandals in The OCA---but there are only So Many Scandals that a small Denomination (1,000,000) million members can create !! Let's be Fair !!

Rod,

At some point don't you have to distinguish between faith in your God and your relationship with the church? No disrespect is intended - perhaps this question reflects my Unitarian upbringing which never included belief in an institution founded by God. But there is a sense in this discussion of something approaching idolatry of the institution itself, along the lines that some protestants approach idolatry in their reverence of scripture.

Frederica referred earlier to the Orthodox "way" - practices which alter the very essence of a person so the divine love fills the heart (if I understood her correctly). That seems very different than a checklist of standards and aesthetic considerations against which to measure the worth of what you yourself believe exists on earth - the true Church, authored by Jesus.

Perhaps a question should be tossed back to you. How do you reconcile belief in a divinely instituted Church with the endlessly evident human problems in all of them? Why the need for perfection on this earth? Meant in all sincerity.

This continues to be a fascinating discussion.

Rod, I know you don't want to rehash your decision to become Orthodox here, and I respect that. But when you say that you did believe the Church was what she said she was, and that you later stopped believing this, owing not to an intellectual reversal but to the tangible encounter with evil as you found it within the Church itself, I think you're touching on something that affects the way you answer the question you posed in your post, about how to address the deficiencies of a Church without becoming poisoned by this process.

You used the metaphor of marriage to talk about a person's relationship with the Church, and it's a good one. Some people enter a marriage truly believing that things will work out and intending to be married forever; yet they divorce. What makes them different from the people who don't?

For the sake of argument and in order not to offend anyone, suppose we're talking about two Catholic couples who both believe in the permanence of marriage. One couple weathers every storm--and there will be storms--and stays married for more than fifty years, while the other remains married only ten years. By the eighth year of marriage, the husband is complaining about his wife to anyone who will listen, including her; even if she tells him she'll try harder to avoid the things that bother him, he won't listen to her, because he's already lost all his trust in her and doesn't believe it's possible for her to change. By the ninth year of marriage, he begins spending time with other women; eventually, he admits this to his wife, and moves out. His divorce to his wife is finalized just after their tenth anniversary, and he begins to plan his marriage to the woman he's already living with.

What makes the first couple different from the second? What makes someone who stays with the church (if they ever believed it to be the true church) different from someone who leaves?

What binds us to a Church isn't mere intellectualism, though it's important in order to defend one's faith that one believe that one's faith is rational, and this includes being able to make a case in favor of your particular Church. What binds us to a Church isn't merely an act of the will, either, though like in a marriage the will is far, far more important than mere feelings, however powerful or good those are. What binds us to the Church are the supernatural gifts of faith, hope and love (caritas) granted to us at baptism. But we can lose these gifts, just as a husband who constantly approaches his wife in a spirit of self-centered criticism can lose his love for her, his will to be with her, and ultimately his marriage itself.

So should we never criticize our Church at all? Should we never be angry or irritated or upset by things which clearly contradict Christ's will for His Church?

The answer is found in 1 Corinthians 13, especially verses 4-8:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails..."

When bishops and priests have been guilty of causing grave harm to the innocent, it is natural, just, and right for Catholics of good will to want to expose that harm and create an environment where such things will not be tolerated, ever again. It is good for Catholics, lay and clergy, to stand against such things, even if it means taking on those who have more power than they do. These offenses cried out to God for remedy, and we will be judged on how we sought the remedy, and how we implemented it. We should continue to be vigilant, to pray for the removal of those who were involved in these things, and to ask God to give us strong new bishops who will take their obligations seriously.

Yet we are still commanded to love. We are still commanded to approach others with sincere charity--yes, even bishops, particularly those of whom we no nothing evil. We are commanded not to allow a dark seeping anger to fill us with hatred that won't be satiated as long as our "enemies" fail to receive the penalties we think they should be subjected to. We are commanded to show pity and mercy not only to those to whom it's easy to give such things, but even to those we'd rather see at the point of a spear. We are commanded to trust in God's word, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay," and not to shake our fists at Heaven that God allows the suffering of the innocent, or like the Sons of Thunder try to call down Heaven's scouring fire on those we have deemed unworthy of continued existence.

And more than anything, when we, as Christians, pray "Forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US..." we'd better mean it. Because He will forgive us as we forgive others, no question about it, and that includes the others in our own Church who have offended us.

Finally (and yes, this is too long again!) I appreciate your warning. I have never said my faith was so strong nothing could touch it--I know quite well that if my faith were the size of a mustard seed I could order mulberry trees to transplant themselves in the sea and they'd obey me (a fascinating thought, isn't it?) so I'm left with the sobering reality that my faith must be considerably smaller than that tiny seed. Without Him, I'd fail miserably, and even with Him I fail often enough to realize how utterly necessary the Church and her sacraments are for my salvation. As for working for reform of the Church without falling into despair--I can only echo St. Paul, and say that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me--because on my own I can do nothing at all.

Really beautiful, Erin. Such grace.

Erin, if someone converts from, say, Methodist to Catholic, is the Catholic church in that case "the other woman"?

Cleveland: As Erin pointed out above (and I am putting words in her mouth because she is not as blunt as I), a true orthodox Catholic does not simply lose the gift of faith in the RC Church because of entrenched homosexual activity and cover up. An orthodox Catholic does not involuntarily lose the gift of faith; he/she chooses to stay and fight, ignore the problem or something in between depending on the person's make up.

In short, Don, I do not disagree with you. But I am stating clearly my firm belief that if you have a strong gift of faith in the RC Church to begin with, no amount of evil experiences can take it from you. To lose such faith would require a consent of the will. Thus my belief that Rod's friend's faith, when he left the RC Church, was conservative but not orthodox from a RC's point of view.

This might sound like quibbling, but I really do take issue with this. It's circular reasoning: if you leave the Catholic faith, all that shows is that you were never a true-blue Catholic to begin with. It's like the Baptists who adhere to the doctrine of "once saved, always saved": if you lose your faith, they say, well that just goes to show that you never really were saved in the first place.

I must say that even as a Catholic, I couldn't reconcile myself to the annullment process, in which a divorced Catholic seeking to marry again in the Church had to testify and accept that the failed marriage was never really a marriage at all. I have a Catholic friend whose marriage ended over his wife's alcoholism. He later married a second time, but refused to submit to the indignity of testifying, and accepting the judgment, that he and his wife -- the mother of his children -- had been living a lie. Similarly in this case, why is it so hard to accept that I, and my friend, were once true believers, but lost our Catholic faith? Why is it so important to assert that we must not ever have been real Catholics in the first place? I understand perfectly well that what's happened to us strikes you as a tragedy, and that's fine, but to posit that we were living a lie all those years of faithful practice and service to the Church really is wrong.

Rod, I'm puzzling over what you wrote and trying to find a way to answer it.

First, the annulment process isn't really as you describe it. A Catholic who never wants to remarry at all might seek an annulment if he discovers that his marriage was definitively invalid--for instance, if he married someone who lied about never having been married before, or if he married someone without knowing that he and his wife were actually related too closely by blood to marry each other. The annulment is a statement that a valid, sacramental marriage never occurred, despite the appearance of such a marriage--but the annulment doesn't "create" the reality of the non-marriage; it merely discovers it. The fact that the annulment process can be and is abused is scandalous, but annulments aren't "Catholic divorce" and are not intended to be. If your friend's first marriage was valid, no annulment would ever be possible.

And second, having read what Cleveland said above, it doesn't seem to me that he's saying, well, if you left, that just proves you weren't "really" Catholic. In fact, he seems to be saying something rather like what you are saying: that if you have a strong gift of faith as a Catholic, you won't lose that gift merely by *encountering* evil--an act of the will MUST be involved. In other words, no one loses their faith by accident. It is a free choice, entered into with knowledge and consent, not imposed on someone by circumstances beyond his control.

As you said in one of your replies to me, my faith isn't retained because I have an intellectual appreciation of what the Catholic Church teaches--an act of the will is involved here, too. I choose to remain a Catholic, no matter what. I might not always like everything I encounter in the Church, but believing it to be the Church Christ founded I choose to remain united to it, for my own salvation's sake. I think what Cleveland is saying is that you made a different choice, but in order to make that choice you had to come to a place where it was first possible, then desirable, then essential that you might cease to be a Catholic; in your original analogy, this is not unlike the man who first entertains the possibility of leaving his wife, then desires this, then finds continued existence with her so intolerable that he takes action and leaves her.

Some Catholics will never entertain even the possibility of leaving the Church. Others will struggle back and forth with the temptation to walk away from their faith, but will persevere to the end of their lives. Is it fair to say of the ones that do leave that they were never really Catholic? Actually, in Church teaching they don't cease to be Catholic just because they leave, but that's a topic for another time. Suffice it to say that we can't judge their hearts, only their actions; and in doing so the demands of charity are far more important than any other consideration.

What is the object of this faith being spoken? Does one lose their faith in a collegiate education when one learns that members of the football team may be - big gasp! - receiving money on the side? This can only come from a worldview that views most people as basically sinless (except in the generic but insubstancial sense).

I think you're half way there to figuring it out. What did you accomplish in all your work on the abuse scandal? Nothing. For all the talk of having to do something, you accomplished nothing. What's worse is that you alienated yourself from the Church and her leaders in the process. All of that for nothing. But you did something. You eased your conscience or whatever psychobabble it is called now-a-days. That other men's sins should give you conscience problems is a different issue. Personally, I just try to keep my agonizing to my own sins.

You are in a very dangerous profession. You are paid to have opinions on things. As for you insistence that you were a good conservative Catholic. You were not. I think you know this, otherwise you wouldn't be taking steps to prevent yourself from becoming an alienated Orthodox. I sincerely hope you prevail in becoming you become an orthodox Orthodox, embracing the ecclesiology you failed to as a Catholic.

Priests and bishops of the Church aren't the equivalent of members of the football team of a university.

It seems to me that many Catholics put much of their faith in the Church because they believe the claims that the Church makes about Herself. I can see how priests molesting children and bishops covering that up might make one question those claims.

Every organization has the ability to part from what the original founder intended. Who's to say that Protestantism wasn't part of the plan?

watzy writes

"That's so arrogant of you to say that, M.Z. You don't know who Rod helped. He might have helped one family or one child who's story didn't make the headlines. Sheesh!"

He probably did do some individual good, but I doubt he or hardly anyone else in the media reporting on this is doing any good rehashing the stuff.

The good to be done today is to make sure all the right adults are in chargeand contact with the young in all situations. Now many Catholics suggest the Church is being overly singled out for criticism and there may be some truth in that. But if you are going to clean up things you start with the noble parts that should be cleanest and shiney, then you get around to the more base things.

So FIRST clean things like the Catholic priesthood, the Jewish rabbis, Orthodox priest, Evangelican ministers

Then medical professionals and workers

Then principals, school teachers, police etc.

Everybody has to make a living, including people who have sexual attractions for the underage. But they should be doing something where their problems can surface.

What exactly do you think a person should do, if they are confronted with sexual abuse among a clergy (any clergy)--let's say even directly? Should they expose it? Shut up about it?

Report it to the authorities and be done with it. While not polite, shut up is not always the worst alternative. I have survived remarkably well without doing anything about Paris Hilton's driving without a license. I am disappointed that she has consulted me about her behavior though. Her fans have asked me what to do in the wake of this. Both seem quite content without me doing anything.

Per Rod: "This might sound like quibbling, but I really do take issue with this. It's circular reasoning: if you leave the Catholic faith, all that shows is that you were never a true-blue Catholic to begin with."

I suspected that would be your reply. Consider this: A farmer picks 100 apples, putting them directly into a sack which he takes directly to town to sell to a store. When the apples are counted and recounted by both the farmer and store owner, there are only 98 apples. Is it circular reasoning to conclude that the farmer never picked 100 apples to begin with? Simplistic, I know, but that's how I see it. Please feel free to think my faith is simplistic.

In short, Rod, you and your "conservative" friend never had an unshakeable faith, BEYOND ANY DOUBT, that the RC Church was the one, true Church founded by Christ, and, according to His plan, peopled by bastards as well as saints. You wanted very much to believe it, and you thought you believed it sufficiently to embrace it, I have no doubt. God will bless you for that much. But you did not know the faith completely (as, for example, Erin, as usual, beat me to the punch in explaining about annulment). Nor did you have the depth of faith which God, for reasons known only to Him, gave me and Erin when we asked Him for it, time and time again. In fact, we are still asking Him for it. So is Don. That does not make me a smarter or better Christian than you. I do not look down on you in any way whatsoever!! In fact, I hold you in high regard even though you are unable to see clearly the exceedingly good man we have in the President.

Why are you beating yourself up? You are a good man. If you will follow where you think God is leading you, how can you go wrong?
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Per Don: "I think some of your reaction...smacks of puritanism and a sort of "siege mentality" to try to devise this perfect, clean and cut world where any 'real Catholic' is never going to be scandalized and risk losing their faith."

Don, you misread my comments. Please recall that I said even Mother Teresa was subject to a dark night of the soul. Like you, she never willed to give up the faith.

Of course I know some Catholics lose their faith. Your point escapes me. Do you think I never heard of the Parable of the Sower?

And for the umpteenth time and umpteenth thread, Rod and Don, I am not trying to convince people to stay in the RC Church. That really is starting to get old. There must be thousands of Catholics I would not regret see leaving the Church rather than stay and continue to eat away at Her timbers like the infestation of termites they are. I have been saying as much since the late sixties, and it does not include anyone on this board. But then I recall the Parable of the Weeds and just leave it in His hands.

P.S. That was a generic/rhetorical "you" in my last post. I wasn't calling anyone here "punk."

I think it is coherent Jim. My attitude and my actions are quite often not in line with Christ's and the Church's teaching. Some days are more challenging than others in bringing my thoughts and actions in line. Not having an opinion is an advantage in this area; it leaves fewer things to bring in line. Regardless, the Church is for helping make saints, and if the desire is there, you are most certainly welcome, even on those days when you're not sure the desire is there.

There is one thing I ask though. Are you open to following the Church's teaching on homosexuality? I'm not claiming that you have to understand the teaching, the second level of assent. I'm asking for the first level of assent, the willingness to amend one's views. Don't feel the need to answer me. Find a good spiritual advisor. I'm thinking there may not be as much distance as you think there is. A good spiritual advisor can help you close that distance and hopefully put your conscience at peace.

It seems to me that many Catholics put much of their faith in the Church because they believe the claims that the Church makes about Herself. I can see how priests molesting children and bishops covering that up might make one question those claims.

No -- it's because Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail. He never promised that either clergy or laity would never sin.

I remain a Catholic because I believe that it is the church Jesus founded.

Period.

I was sexually abused as a child by a very close family member. Given this talk about the RCC as "family", maybe that's what made it easier for me to leave the RCC. If I could turn my back on my blood family, which I've mostly done, it wasn't a large step to turn my back on my spiritual family.

I understand a lot of the talk about forgiveness and charity, but honestly, I just don't have it in me. To those who can forgive and start again, God bless you. But I hope that no one bedgrudges me having found a new home, both in terms of family and in terms of religion, elsewhere.

[i]I understand a lot of the talk about forgiveness and charity, but honestly, [b]I just don't have it in me.[/i][/b]

You don't. None of us do. That's the point of Christianity.

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Rod,

Whatever drove you from the Catholic Church, it wasn't God.

Rod, both the demands of charity and my desire to be courteous to you dictate that I respect your decision to drop out of this conversation (though I think it's clear to your Catholic readers that your understanding of what an annulment actually is doesn't seem to line up with Church teaching). But though I understand what you're saying about your experience of loss of faith, I also know that there were moments along the way when instead of being carried away with the stream, you had the choice to row against that current, and there were hands outstretched to you from the shore that was receding in the distance. Those hands are now employed in daily prayer for the peace of your soul.

You were kind enough earlier in this thread to offer a warning to me, and in that same spirit I feel compelled to offer one to you. You said that your Catholicism was primarily intellectual and thus did not stand the test. Similarly, no Church, however true it might be, can remain forever a spiritual haven from the evils of the world. If you are Orthodox, BE Orthodox, and serve God in this way with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength--because nothing less, no matter how well-intentioned, will ever suffice. Our common enemy will not leave you, or me, or anyone else at peace for long in this world, and the God who loves us chooses to allow us to be tested.

"I have been reading this thread with much amazement at the level of the discussion and gratitude to have found a place where people are discussing matters of faith and spirituality with so much grace and so little animus (well, compared to many other places.)" Jim

Back atcha, man, in spades! Your openness and honesty, even though we are on opposite poles as Catholics, are a breath of fresh air.
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George, I wish you success. You are one courageous dude. Please don't get angry at me (some do), but have you investigated the support group Courage? I hear some very good things about them.
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" 'When the Son of Man comes, will He find (the) faith upon the earth?' I don't know that ANYONE can claim that he/she has unshakeable faith beyond any doubt. And if anyone claims to have such faith, then I ask them to prove it by telling this mountain to be moved...". Eric W.

Well, Dirty Harry, I tried my less than mustard seed-size faith on a tree when I was young, but the tree didn't move. Nor do I know that I could bring myself to burn my only son to death on a brush pile if God told me to. So I only think and pray that I have unshakable faith, but only God knows how much faith He gave me. In later years, I came to believe that my faith is sufficient for whatever tests God will continue to give me, and that I had better not fool around with testing His word, like telling trees to uproot themselves and move to another spot. Remember that when Christ was tested by the Devil He said, "It is written that you shall not test the Lord your God."

My 2 cents:

"And the gates of hades shall not katischusousin κατισχυσουσιν it" can be interpreted two ways:
1) Nothing can destroy Christ's church, not man, not demons, not hell nor hades nor death. It can withstand all assaults.
2) Nothing can withstand or hold out against the eventual victory Christ's church - i.e., it will eventually overcome even the gates of hades (i.e., death - "the last enemy to be destroyed is death"), and all Christ's enemies will be put under His feet.
The definitions and examples in BDAG (Bauer Danker Arndt Gingrich 2000) seem to favor 2).

The word "prevail" is katischuô κατισχυω (to have power, to overpower, to prevail against) in the future tense. It's an intensified form of ischuô ισχυω (to be strong, to be powerful, to prevail).

You can read Origen's comments on Matthew 16:18 in Book XII of his Second Book of the Commentary on the Gospel According to Matthew, Chapters 11-13. Origen points out an ambiguity in the Greek - i.e., both petra and ekklêsia are feminine, so the "it" that the gates of hades won't prevail against might refer to the petra and not the ekklêsia. Here is Chapter 11 - click on "Next" to read Chapters 12 and 13.

Cleveland:

I don't think sigaliris's question is about Peter and the Keys but about what it means that the gates of hades will not prevail against the Church (or possibly against the rock, per Origen's comments), as well as what "the gates of hades" means.

Thanks, Eric W. That's just the kind of thing I was hoping for. You too, Jim. And you, Cleveland--though in this case, I regret to say that you've given me too much credit. I really was asking from a personal desire to understand more about what other people mean when they say these things. It would have been quite clever to use this as an opportunity for some good "let's you and him fight" incitement between Catholic and Orthodox. I almost wish I'd thought of that! But I didn't. : (