'Anonymous' has left long comments on three posts so we thought it would save time to reply to the all at once.
Rolheiser may be 'much loved' by some but if he wants to deny systematically all Catholic thinking about suicide (and every other topic) it would be more appropriate for him to be published in a non-Catholic paper.
Pax Christi: the justification of war under certain conditions is a teaching of the Church (see the reference to the Catechism in the post) and if you don't like it you could always join the Quakers. Tertullian was ultimately a heretic. St Franz Jaegerstatter objected to fighting Hitler's unjust war, he was not a pacifist: this is admitted even by Bruce Kent in the excellent CTS booklet he wrote about him. St Francis of Assisi supported the Crusade. Etc. etc.. And why on earth shouldn't the Army recruit in schools?
And we never present personal political judgments as the teaching of the Church.
Church closures: Catholics have the duty to speak out against imprudent and unjust actions by the clergy: in doing this they are obeying Canon Law:
Can 212§3. According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.
So: you don't actually have anything coherent to say, do you? You don't accept the teaching of the Church or the obligations of being a Catholic, so you attack the people who do. Why? Why hang around in a Church you don't believe in? Why try to wreck for others something which no longer means anything real to you? Why dishonour the saints and doctors of the Church by twisting their words to attack the Church they loved? Why tell us that human respect for the bishops should put an end to the defence of the good of souls?
How shameful. How stupid. How futile.
Monday, September 01, 2008
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7 comments:
Nice work, You deserve a medal for services to Protestantism. Is this how you treat all challenges to your ideas? I hope your not in your local parish RCIA. Intersting that you ignore half my points and resort to calling me "stupid".
Unfortunately for you I will remain a Catholic because it is my Church and always will be. The same faith as John Dear, Dorothy Day and Philip Berrigan.
We preach love, reconciliation and forgiveness, I offer you all these gifts and urge you to search your soul as you know what I say to be the truth.
The peace of Christ be upon you
Good: he (she?) implicitly admits both that all three comments have the same author, and that this individual still has nothing to say to the citations of the Catechism or of Canon law.
Alas, whatever Anonymous may preach he does not have real love, reconciliation and forgiveness to give us: only Christ can give us these things, and does so through the Church.
We're glad you read the posts. Perhaps you are angry because they pricked your conscience. Instead of railing on this blog, why not spend some time reading about the teaching of the Church?
My Conscience is clear thanks, you too should also consider praying the Jesuit examination of Conscience?
Well if you want to keep this going then I am more than happy to...With regards to having nothing to say on Canon Law, well there are different levels of teaching within Canon Law, and they all have many different theological interpretations.
When the Church teaches with regard to faith and morals the teachings are binding on the conscience of the faithful. If a teaching is applied directly on to a more modern secular issue, such as politics and economics, they should be considered prayerfully. The faithful, however, are NOT bound to believe the teaching.
This is certainly the case with regards to Non-Violence. My concern is that you don't even think people should even be permitted to discusss it? You worship the law like the Presbyterian worships the Bible.
The result of this is that when Canon Law /Catechism are changed as a result of prayer and debate (as they very often are changed), then people like you are so entrenched into a position that it can lead to Schism.
What then do you make of the Vatican II changes? The abandoning of Limbo? The embracing of Evolution? and so on...
This is how the Church is and has always been, her teachings are not ALL fixed and never have been. You must trust in the holy spirit which guides her?
In addition to this, any decent Catholic theologian will tell you that our approach to the pacifist question should be similar to our atitude to celibacy...That is to say marriage is not sinful but celibacy is a higher calling in the same way that self defence is not wrong but non-resistance as taught by Our Lord is a higher calling.
I don't expect a reactionary group to take such a balanced position since your faith is clearly formed in a protestant cultural context where everything is either entirely good or entirely bad. Not to mention your loyalty to the state, the nation and the military system indicated by your comment on the Army in our Schools. This is idolitory and it is not a consistant life ethic. I know Iraqi and Palestinian Catholic families who have been forced to come here becuase of what we have done to their country? How can you possibly support this?
That is my main issue with your blog, people may think you speak for all Catholics but you don't, plus your general tone and agressiveness is profoundly un-catholic. It alienates more people rather than attracting them.
Once again I offer you the peace of Christ and I urge you to consider that our Church is a broad Church. Surely you cannot seriously critize Pax Christi and Rohlheiser so openly and not expect anyone to defend them?
Peace
You must surely know that many, if not most, web-sites will not publish comments by anonymouses. ( the spelling is intentional!)
I have to agree with your comments about this particular 'mouse.
JARay
Thanks, JARay, it's a possibility but we allow anonymous comments because sometimes people add interesting information to our reports and prefer to do so anonymously.
On the other hand all comments are moderated (ie we have to accept or reject them) so we can always simply not publish things. And we're stopping this corespondance here.
We'd just like to suggest to Anonymous that he or she should read up on tradition, the magisterium, and infallibility. Apparently we have a Protestant mentality because we think the constant teaching of the Church can't change! You'll find a good starting point in the Catechism; follow up the footnotes and you'll find the teachings set out binding on Catholics have always been taught by the Church, and always will be. (Limbo has not been abolished, by the way: it was never a doctrine of the Church, and the criticism recently made on it was not made by an organ of the magisterium.)
And on Pax Christi, since Anonymous admits that they are a political campaigning organisation and that what they say isn't the teaching of the Church, then it follows that they should not be collecting £80,000 each year at the back of parish churches on 'Peace Sunday', any more than the Conservative Party should be.
Look I could not care less if you know my name, address, N.I. number or shoe size? I don't actually see why it is important. Strangely, I can't find any information on who exactly is running this blog or who exactly the other commenters are?
And what once again with the personal slurs...what is all this "Mouse" stuff all about?
There are good devout Catholics within the Peace Movement, you are suggesting otherwise and it is wrong
Dominic
Edinburgh
(Blue eyes, Brown hair, Libra)
Look, Dominic, of course there are devout Catholics in the peace movement: as there are in all political parties etc. etc.. But when you get political you DO NOT COLLECT MONEY AT THE BACK OF CHURCHES. Do you go selectively blind when you see those words?
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