Catholics & Catholicism

Question:

I’m skipping over some things, not because they aren’t important, but because I can’t handle too much data at a time: No – I mean not pushing themselves. They voted for Clinton with remarks that suggested they weren’t primarily voting with their heads, as it were.

They say it was Catholics who put him in office.  I wish I could remember where I read this and had something better to back it up, but it was the Catholic vote that swung the election in his favor. I don’t disagree with you that some women vote capriciously, more like picking their favorite movie star, but I don’t think it would be just to take the right to vote away from women just because some are stupid. No I don’t like your opinion about suffrage.  I don’t want to believe it is true.  Much of what women fight for is valid and long-overdue.  I suppose you would take our driver’s licenses away from us, too?  The way you answered is not real clear, but I will give you this:  in a sense I do see how we have been/are being betrayed by women now as well as the men.  In the final analysis, you may be right, but I hope not.  In the final analysis, my opinion is that neither man nor women are fit to pick their leaders, but I prefer it over any other system.  It is too difficult to genearalize here. I guess it is, when it’s Catholicism, and not Protestantism, and people just do what needs to be done – not that Protestants can’t do good for others (or that masons or even atheists can’t, for that matter). Perhaps it’s complicated when one discusses doctrinal issues or differences, and is tempted to just throw up one’s hands and ecumenically surrender – cause it seems easier (but ultimately, it’s not, cause you can’t build a genuine community on lies, and there IS no salvation outside The Church).

You are right about the lies part.  My view of ecumenism was just within Christian groups, but apparently I misunderstood, as I so often do, that ecumenism in the church encompasses all religious groups on the planet.  If I’ve read other messages correctly, your view of salvation/church is that you must be a practicing Roman Catholic in order to be saved.  According to the official catechism (this has been argued on another thread), there are exceptions and anyone can be saved, known to God, etc., etc., but no one implies universal salvation.  Now I’m stuck.  Let’s not discuss this because I know what you think and I think I am bound to accept the current church’s take on it. Our Blessed Mother?

Good point, except it probably never occurred during her lifetime that we know.  I’m sure she was shown deference after the resurrection but the gospels are silent on that and so is the church because we don’t really know. But, if we’re talking real priests . . .

OK, because of all the awful controversies, I am in error not to respect the office of the priesthood.  I see your point about that.  Respecting the office of the priesthood is somehow linked in my mind to having men telling us what to do.  When you are used to running your own life most of your life, it is extremely difficult to defer to an ‘office’ of anything.  Here is where I get into trouble about seeing men who would never give me the time of day in the real world going around in a showy manner accepting the adulation of the masses, dressed in finery, blah blah blah.  I don’t know if I’ll ever come to terms with it.  It’s the protestant in me.  The rebel. I’m saying it’s far more than any mere, presider.

I think we are supposed to see post Vat II priests as more than mere presiders.  Presider is just a modern way of viewing the priesthood which is still the priesthood if they are validly ordained by post Vat II orders, which I am bound to believe until I can be convinced differently.  Nowhere to my knowledge does it say that priests are ONLY presiders.  Maybe this is unfair but you remind me of a smarter version of me.  You don’t like where things have gone and your feelings are influencing your intellect and you are finding in some ways, rationale to defend your feelings.  I don’t blame you one bit for your frustration but I cannot blindly follow people like you because it might be necessary to drag myself, kicking and screaming maybe, but to the feet of the apostles in the form of the present church.  I do not want to find myself in the wrong camp. I mentioned those books from TAN, Spiritual Combat, and the Four Last Things. They go just to this, exactly.

Skipped saint stuff.  I just need to pick some new favorite saints.  The old ones let me down . Not really, of course.  Spiritual combat might be excellent for me, but forget the four last things.  I know what they are.  Death.  Judgment.  Heaven.  Hell.  For me there is only one last thing.  Last rites and hope to God I don’t forget any major sin and that I am truly repentent.  The rest will have to take care of itself. Or they were abused by their fellow sisters. We read of this quite often in the lives of various Saints – even in the visions of the ’seers’ of Our Blessed Mother, herself, as a girl at Temple.

Please don’t bring in any private revelation.  I threw them all out.  Not because they may not be valid but I just can’t believe in them any more and I am not bound to.  Sister Mary Agreda’s book was even forbidden for awhile.  I believe in the bible and I believe in the church, hard as it is, and the other things get too contradictory. Of course. Hell will not prevail against The Church, the visible Church. But don’t think hell can’t prevail against Protestantism.

Ultimately, perhaps.  Protestants in America have been extremely blessed and it is hard to overlook that.  Besides I was a Protestant and am having a difficult time shaking some of it.  We didn’t have so many rules.  It seemed simpler.  In a way it was for the average person although according to Catholic teaching, most average Protestants have comitted a mortal sexual sin in one form or another, but they don’t know it, of course. That’s true. But there’s a balance in anecdote. For every careerist, of whatever century, there’s the canonized Saint, his contemporary. Abuse of the office doesn’t demand that the office be seen as an abuse.

Forget about Luther.  I forgot he wanted to destroy the papacy and I think he may have been boorish, but my point was that if it weren’t for Luther, the church very likely wouldn’t have called the Council of Trent which finally got rid of a lot of the abuses and clarified doctrine at the same time.  One more council to argue over. You may be right. But I wonder if anyone would argue it still retains the Faith, at least at the level of its leaders, its gubment, and so on?

Last I knew, Malta was the lone holdout against abortion.  I don’t know what the criteria was and is for defining a country as Catholic?  I guess my simple interpretation would be what was left of the church in that country and whether that church’s governing body, not the civil government, was faithful to true Catholic teaching, a la Rome. If you criticize the priesthood, and good and holy men who were priests, in order to justly criticize those who contemned the just and sullied the office themselves, then you join with the unholy and the careerist, noted above, against a just and holy office, and just and holy men who are among God’s elect.

You just did that with women electing Clinton.  Throwing out the barrel because of some rotten apples.  Well, it’s not a fair analogy I suppose.  It is wrong of me as a Catholic Christian, not to wholeheartedly respect the OFFICE of the priesthood.  Why?  I don’t know what the church says exactly, but in the bible Jesus is the high priest and all Christians respect that office of the priesthood.  So I am wrong to write disparaging of the office of the priesthood and I had better be careful not to overly criticize any clergymen, high or low. That heresy is worse than murder. I believe that, yes. That doesn’t imply that murder is now somehow right, or that I ignore the Decalogue, in some way. But if it’s a comparison between two horrible offenses against God, and Man, then heresy is worse.

God did the judging for unfaithful Jews, and the judgment was exile.  That can be a horrible fate, but burning is certainly worse in my view.  In all of scripture, I can’t think of anyone burning alive, although St. Paul mentioned it.  There may have been one case in the OT where a whole group of people were for [something - can't remember what]. That’s not heresy. Heresy is denying de fide Catholic dogma, after one has been told, maybe repeatedly, that it is such, and that you don’t do that.

Doing and thinking are not the same.  If your definition is official I’ll have to adopt that.  It seems to me that you can be a heretic inwardly but outwardly conform.  You might have to lie to the church authorities, but how would they know you were lying? It has to be wilful. Someone may begin with a mistake in their understanding, and carry it forward into some sort of creed against The Church, ultimatel

Am I willful heretic if I say I will never accept that is is right to burn people for being heretics, or inflict any other death penalty on them?  If their heresy results in their comitting another sin, that is different. Jesus didn’t come for final Judgment. His mission was that of Suffering Messiah, who the Jews (most of them, at least) didn’t approve or expect.

Since when is the church the final judge?   I thought Jesus will be final judge when he comes in His glory.  It’s in the Nicene creed, "He will come again to judge the living and the dead."  Isn’t the church only to judge in the form of giving a penance and telling a person whether they are right or wrong?  A priest can tell a murderer to turn himself over to the civil authorities but he cannot force anyone … read more »

Response:

No reason to question a just and holy ’system’, and every reason to question one which is a fraud. Knowing you are down on the post-Vat II church,

Well . . . churchmen. The Church is still there – just persecuted by the churchmen, in essence. Used to be a local thing, and Rome would object, or armies would set off. But now it’s coming from Rome, and some of the opposition to it, as well, is coming from Rome. How can one determine for one’s self if a system is just and holy without questioning the system?

If it’s just, then you _have_ questioned ‘the system’ and found it was just. By that standard, other pretenders will be judged. I think for this reason, alone, any talk of ecumenism cuts against any genuine Catholic understanding of things. We _do_ judge, by the standard of The Magisterium. Our Lord judged by that standard he gave us. Women develop crushes on anyone with a suggestion of power – look at the libral swoons who took the clannish defense of Clinton to an exaggerated extreme. I think, as you won’t like my saying this, but that suffrage ought to be reconsidered – given what we’ve seen of ’soccer Momz’ and the like. Chesterton was right, after all (his views on suffrage were one of the few things I disagreed with a few years ago, before the Clinton years). What’s wrong with soccer Momz?  If you mean pushing your kids,

No – I mean not pushing themselves. They voted for Clinton with remarks that suggested they weren’t primarily voting with their heads, as it were. There were articles from his loyalist female supporters recommending every woman perform fellatio on him, and so on – print articles. It’s literally this kind of irresponsible voting behavior that was almost the cliched objection of people opposed to suffrage, back when. Surely, on balance, in the main, they were wrong? I no longer believe so. As trite as their objections must have seemd, by the time we get to the late 20th century, I think ultimately they were proved right. problem.  If only the whole system could be simplified.  We’re like the Jews arguing over the Talmud.  Why can’t Catholic Christianity be more simple?

I guess it is, when it’s Catholicism, and not Protestantism, and people just do what needs to be done – not that Protestants can’t do good for others (or that masons or even atheists can’t, for that matter). Perhaps it’s complicated when one discusses doctrinal issues or differences, and is tempted to just throw up one’s hands and ecumenically surrender – cause it seems easier (but ultimately, it’s not, cause you can’t build a genuine community on lies, and there IS no salvation outside The Church). Don’t see why not – in so many ways? How many great women religious are now canonized Saints, after all – whose lives are told in TAN reprints, and who command the esteem and affection of men living today? I should have been more explicit.  In my wildest imagination I cannot envision that scenario I described as being repeated with the priest on his hands and knees kissing every step the woman I was speaking of trod.  Name me one male saint that even came close.

Our Blessed Mother? Personally I think the office of the priesthood is overblown It could never be – not the Catholic priesthood, at any rate. Granted it should be special, but I tend to see it as a good ole boys club.

It prob. is, by men who succumb to routine, or pride, in their fallen natures. But it says nothing about the office they hold, only about their failure to appreciate it, every day. Again, as you know, I suspect the majority of men wearing the collar in the trendy parishes cannot even fairly be called priests, and likely would themselves prefer to be called, presider, or overseers, or something of the sort. But, if we’re talking real priests . . . They very much are. But . . . there’s a crucial difference between a Catholic priest, and an ill-formed Reformed Catholic ‘presider’. The latter is ignorant, arrogant (cause of his ignorance), problematically ordained, and hardly Catholic save for his self-representations and the collar he wears. The Catholic priesthood is worthy of great esteem. Protestant substitutes are not. Do you mean the office is more important or the personhood of the priest is more important than the ‘commoner’.

I’m saying it’s far more than any mere, presider. It’s an exalted office. But they aren’t gods. Padre Pio wasn’t a god – save in the specific sense of Scripture and The Church referring to any of the elect, priest or no. I can’t relate to Padre Pio.  I wish I could but I just can’t.  At first I was gaga over stigmatists, but now I don’t know what to think.  Far be it from me to criticize him, but he is an example of a person who tried to be so holy that only the strongest could hope to imitate his type of holiness.

Not for priests. They don’t have the stigmata, as you say. But his example is still the same, and his love for The Mass – which he was allowed to continue saying even as the early forms of ‘new order’ were forced on Catholics in the pews in the mid-60s. When those of us who are weaker even attempt to attain that type of sanctity, we become exhausted and discouraged.

I agree with you. We all seem the hypocrite. We all say we shouldn’t do this or that, or think this way or that, or fail to do something we should, and we don’t follow our own advice, have to confess that sin, and pray by God’s grace to amend our lives. But as Catholics, if not nec. Catholic Reformed, we _have_ the Sacraments, and the grace, and The Church, to keep us going – and those who reject The Church, ultimately, I believe end up with nothing, and nothing but a feeling of overwhelming emptiness. I mentioned those books from TAN, Spiritual Combat, and the Four Last Things. They go just to this, exactly. isn’t for everyone and, furthermore, lay people are just as holy in my eyes as priests and nuns.  Nuns were crabby and abused children; I’ve heard tale after tale. Their love, if they had any, was too tough.

Or they were abused by their fellow sisters. We read of this quite often in the lives of various Saints – even in the visions of the ’seers’ of Our Blessed Mother, herself, as a girl at Temple. Some of my protestant teachers in school were much more loving than a lot of nuns.  I think their jobs were so demanding and thankless that many of them became embittered.

If you mean late 60s, I can understand that. The institutional church itself, the bishops, the edicts and documents, abandoned the faithful nuns, as well as the priests. It was the first blush of the neo-Prot ‘reform’, in all its spiritual violence. Now that ‘reform’ has taken a somewhat more ‘conservative’ turn – but they won’t abandon the Protestantism, itself, no more than those who followed Cranmer did. (I just wish Michael Davies would see this – just btw.) What comes through from your posts is that the traditional church could do no wrong and the newchurch is bad.

Of course. Hell will not prevail against The Church, the visible Church. But don’t think hell can’t prevail against Protestantism. Why did it take a person like Luther to finally call the church to task?

But he didn’t. He called the papacy a fraud. If the church had policed itself in the first place . . .

Easy to say. Following the plague, there just weren’t the men available, and apparently formation suffered (not for ideology, as in the present day, not for purposes of rebellion, but due to that emergency of deadly epidemic disease). Ultimately, it’s generally argued that the abuse wasn’t in something like indulgences, but in old forms of taxation which had supported The Church, being callously and foolishly applied, and upsetting people in the process. And then there were those who just coveted Church land and other property – no doubt about it. Well, the priesthood is really something to be admired and esteemed, I would just say. It has become more like a career.  People abused it in the past as well.  They became priests for the honor of the profession and to gain worldly advantages.

That’s true. But there’s a balance in anecdote. For every careerist, of whatever century, there’s the canonized Saint, his contemporary. Abuse of the office doesn’t demand that the office be seen as an abuse. There are no Catholic countries in the world – none that I’m aware of. Ireland has lost the Faith (though Northern Ireland might still hold fast, I don’t know). Portugal has gone away. Spain – long ago. Italy – I don’t think so. I thought Fatima foretold that Portugal would never lose the faith.

You may be right. But I wonder if anyone would argue it still retains the Faith, at least at the level of its leaders, its gubment, and so on? I don’t agree, necessarily, with churchmen and their book bannings, and censorship, in defense of the faith. But I suspect that there would have been some complaint about someone criticizing not just priests, but the priesthood. True enough probably.  Doesn’t mean I’m doing a terrible thing necessarily.

If you criticize the priesthood, and good and holy men who were priests, in order to justly criticize those who contemned the just and sullied the office themselves, then you join with the unholy and the careerist, noted above, against a just and holy office, and just and holy men who are among God’s elect. Burned for heresy? It was the punishment, at the time, because heresy was considered worse than murder, I believe. You couldn’t merely just hang the heretic. The heretic merited worse than a contemporaneous axe murderer or serial killer, as I understand it. This was the old church you so admire.  Do you agree it was just?

That heresy is worse than murder. I believe that, yes. That doesn’t imply that murder is now somehow right, or that I … read more »

Response:

Not as in a fictitious name corporation, with shares and such. I mean corporate as in – The Church, with the safeguards and balances, with God, The Holy Spirit to guide – where individuals, even scholars, orthodox theologians, Church fathers and Popes can individually err.

Give you this one for now. For a reason, and so more than you suggest.

Could you elaborate? No reason to question a just and holy ’system’, and every reason to question one which is a fraud.

Knowing you are down on the post-Vat II church, I have to consider that.  There are some who don’t consider it a fraud.  How can one determine for one’s self if a system is just and holy without questioning the system? I was just suggesting that generalizing from bad examples is typical of a sort of activism, just as sometimes pointing out only the successes can be, as well. I think it should be a more balanced take on things.

Well, I’m not an activist.  Just trying to learn to live with things that cannot be changed. Women develop crushes on anyone with a suggestion of power – look at the libral swoons who took the clannish defense of Clinton to an exaggerated extreme. I think, as you won’t like my saying this, but that suffrage ought to be reconsidered – given what we’ve seen of ’soccer Momz’ and the like. Chesterton was right, after all (his views on suffrage were one of the few things I disagreed with a few years ago, before the Clinton years).

What’s wrong with soccer Momz?  If you mean pushing your kids, no I don’t like that but taking an interest in their sports activities is healthy for both.    Haven’t read Chesterton.  I shy away from men and their writings.  I also shy away from a lot of women and their writings.  Too much has been written.  That’s part of the problem.  If only the whole system could be simplified.  We’re like the Jews arguing over the Talmud.  Why can’t Catholic Christianity be more simple? We certainly can esteem both the man and the office. If it becomes a cult of personality, as we see suggested from some on these ngs regarding His Holiness, then it _can_ be very unhealthy and a path to idolatry – which pits personality against The Magisterium.

I do agree with you here. Don’t see why not – in so many ways? How many great women religious are now canonized Saints, after all – whose lives are told in TAN reprints, and who command the esteem and affection of men living today?

I should have been more explicit.  In my wildest imagination I cannot envision that scenario I described as being repeated with the priest on his hands and knees kissing every step the woman I was speaking of trod.  Name me one male saint that even came close. Personally I think the office of the priesthood is overblown It could never be – not the Catholic priesthood, at any rate.

Granted it should be special, but I tend to see it as a good ole boys club. They very much are. But . . . there’s a crucial difference between a Catholic priest, and an ill-formed Reformed Catholic ‘presider’. The latter is ignorant, arrogant (cause of his ignorance), problematically ordained, and hardly Catholic save for his self-representations and the collar he wears. The Catholic priesthood is worthy of great esteem. Protestant substitutes are not.

Do you mean the office is more important or the personhood of the priest is more important than the ‘commoner’. It’s an exalted office. But they aren’t gods. Padre Pio wasn’t a god – save in the specific sense of Scripture and The Church referring to any of the elect, priest or no.

I can’t relate to Padre Pio.  I wish I could but I just can’t.  At first I was gaga over stigmatists, but now I don’t know what to think.  Far be it from me to criticize him, but he is an example of a person who tried to be so holy that only the strongest could hope to imitate his type of holiness.  When those of us who are weaker even attempt to attain that type of sanctity, we become exhausted and discouraged.  It isn’t for everyone and, furthermore, lay people are just as holy in my eyes as priests and nuns.  Nuns were crabby and abused children; I’ve heard tale after tale. Their love, if they had any, was too tough. Some of my protestant teachers in school were much more loving than a lot of nuns.  I think their jobs were so demanding and thankless that many of them became embittered. Cradle Catholics followed Cranmer, centuries ago, step by step, reform by reform, into a militant Protestantism that very quickly started passing laws against Catholics and The Church. It can happen.

Only those who left the church, which were a lot.  Only one bishop stayed faithful. What comes through from your posts is that the traditional church could do no wrong and the newchurch is bad.  Why did it take a person like Luther to finally call the church to task?  If the church had policed itself in the first place . . . Well, the priesthood is really something to be admired and esteemed, I would just say.

It has become more like a career.  People abused it in the past as well.  They became priests for the honor of the profession and to gain worldly advantages. There are no Catholic countries in the world – none that I’m aware of. Ireland has lost the Faith (though Northern Ireland might still hold fast, I don’t know). Portugal has gone away. Spain – long ago. Italy – I don’t think so.

I thought Fatima foretold that Portugal would never lose the faith. I don’t agree, necessarily, with churchmen and their book bannings, and censorship, in defense of the faith. But I suspect that there would have been some complaint about someone criticizing not just priests, but the priesthood.

True enough probably.  Doesn’t mean I’m doing a terrible thing necessarily. Burned for heresy? It was the punishment, at the time, because heresy was considered worse than murder, I believe. You couldn’t merely just hang the heretic. The heretic merited worse than a contemporaneous axe murderer or serial killer, as I understand it.

This was the old church you so admire.  Do you agree it was just?  We are all heretics to one degree or another.  Heresy is not having a full understanding of the truth.  I certainly can see how they can be disruptive in society, but to burn them was atrocious.  Peter once wanted to call down fire from heaven on a town who rejected Jesus.  Jesus restrained him.  We were told to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.  How could the church and Catholic countries ever justify such an atrocity? You imagine the papal states were the epitomy of injustice, in all things?

I don’t know much about history, but my overall impression is that the ordinary people were Catholics in name only and were superstitious, not very truthful, opportunists, quick to gain any advantage, and I don’t want to call them ignorant, but they lacked understanding.  They operated more on instincts instilled in them by their environment.  There were probably pockets of justice as there have always been enlightened among us.  Some didn’t last very long. You _knew_ what I meant above, didn’t you? (I’m confused)

I don’t know what you meant above.  I try to read between your lines, but you lose me.  I am not unsympathetic to a lot of what you believe.  I part company with you in that the pope, whatever his mistakes, has tried to be a peacemaker and set an example.  I’m frustrated that so much is going on in the church and I can’t even get a solid answer anywhere.  The charismatic movement is a good example.  I witnessed what I considered worse abuses than any you have complained about on your website, and I can’t even find a straight answer on the church’s position on these things.  I do agree with you about your ‘word’, and it is important, but I don’t want to be part of a verbal war over it. There are times when you just have to overlook things, even if your personal integrity demands different.  I’m purposely not using the word ‘conscience’.  There are a lot of good things about newchurch.  People are much more open and tolerant of those who don’t share their views.  So many of them are so loving and try their best to be understanding.  Love covers a multitude of sins. I would like to see the beauty of the traditional church preserved, but never for a minute would I like to go back in time to when things were perfect, because they never were. But if it’s unjust and unreasonable to feel that way . . . right? I mean, your general complaint applies to heathen who complain of the Church, the Decalogue, and so on.

No, to a large extent I am bitter and I only hurt myself.  If I hadn’t started questioning things and just going along, I would be much better off, personally speaking.  It’s like I have painted myself into a corner.  The way out is to forget the disputes and put on the blinders and ask God to take away my negativity. Or read the lives of the Saints, yet again. Their examples are extraordinarily – ordinary, and instructive. Cochem’s The Four Last Things, from TAN, or The Spiritual Combat, from TAN, are also excellent paperbacks that might help when things get confusing.

I’m sorry.  I can’t right now.  They were fine for their time and place but there is nothing about their lives I would like to emulate except a degree of healthy discipline and a modest prayer life.  I’m not even sure I believe a lot of what was written by/about them.  There were many exaggerations.  A good example is St. Alphonse Ligouri.  A lady gave me two books by him and I got the feeling that he passed off ‘urban legends’ as truths – possibly.  I didn’t think so at first.  When I was so enamored about the saints I used to study their statues.  I would look into the eyes of the statues and St. Alphonse just seemed to have a steely glare.  Tough as … read more »

Response:

It’s more a corporate decision, I think, based on Revelation – not on one-man one-church opinion. This is not like you, Mark.  The church isn’t run by a ceo.

Not as in a fictitious name corporation, with shares and such. I mean corporate as in – The Church, with the safeguards and balances, with God, The Holy Spirit to guide – where individuals, even scholars, orthodox theologians, Church fathers and Popes can individually err. based on a combination of things, tradition, the fact that Christ only commissioned males as apostles,

For a reason, and so more than you suggest. Revelation – hadn’t considered that – it’s worded so tactfully about men not "being defiled with women" – as if women can’t be defiled by men – I know we are probably not supposed to take it that way, but some of it hurts – a lot.  My generation grew up taking all this for granted, never openly questioning the system.

No reason to question a just and holy ’system’, and every reason to question one which is a fraud. I never realized just how deeply women are crippled by the fear of men, even in a society where we are relatively safe . . .

I don’t know if you can generalize and then ignore the flip side – men who fear women (tonight on Ricki, or something). Anyway, I still don’t particularly want women to be priests but I am so sick of the sicko priests Beware of the activist trap – finding only the negative to support your position is as bad as the defenders finding only the positive. Welfare is great, and there are only minor abuses – say the defenders. Guns are bad because nuts shoot up fast food restaurants say those who want a complete ban, and registration on top of it. I call it as I see it, trap or no.

I was just suggesting that generalizing from bad examples is typical of a sort of activism, just as sometimes pointing out only the successes can be, as well. I think it should be a more balanced take on things. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – TAN publishing and if and when I find which one it was, I will give the exact source.  A priest was climbing the stairs and a young novice or wannabe holy Catholic woman went up the stairs on her hands and knees after him and kissed where he had walked.  Something died in me when I read that and I’ll never be the same.  I wouldn’t have had the courage to say that I thought it was wrong, but I will say so now.  Not only was it wrong, the whole social system that taught such distorted values about the comparative worth of priests was sick, and the poor women who had no other way to give vent to their passions were the sickest. I’m sure she’d disagree. I suspect it was her esteem for the priesthood, and/or the priest himself, that made her do this by way of symbolic action. Maybe he was a holy man. Maybe she understood the true nature of the priesthood, and wished to somehow show that understanding and honor it at the same time. I don’t know. I suspect she had a crush on the priest.

Or it may have been as I suggested. Neither of us knows. Do you have any idea how many women develop crushes on priests, even though it never goes any further?

Women develop crushes on anyone with a suggestion of power – look at the libral swoons who took the clannish defense of Clinton to an exaggerated extreme. I think, as you won’t like my saying this, but that suffrage ought to be reconsidered – given what we’ve seen of ’soccer Momz’ and the like. Chesterton was right, after all (his views on suffrage were one of the few things I disagreed with a few years ago, before the Clinton years). We have to be very careful who or what we are worshipping, and it should never be the person of the priest, nor the office of the priest.

We certainly can esteem both the man and the office. If it becomes a cult of personality, as we see suggested from some on these ngs regarding His Holiness, then it _can_ be very unhealthy and a path to idolatry – which pits personality against The Magisterium. we cannot know for certain what her motives were, but I cannot picture in my wildest imagination a priest walking in the footsteps of a nun.  Maybe they ought to.  Figuratively and literally.

Don’t see why not – in so many ways? How many great women religious are now canonized Saints, after all – whose lives are told in TAN reprints, and who command the esteem and affection of men living today? Personally I think the office of the priesthood is overblown

It could never be – not the Catholic priesthood, at any rate. and the feeling I get is that the image is perpetuated to make priests feel special and more important than others.

They very much are. But . . . there’s a crucial difference between a Catholic priest, and an ill-formed Reformed Catholic ‘presider’. The latter is ignorant, arrogant (cause of his ignorance), problematically ordained, and hardly Catholic save for his self-representations and the collar he wears. The Catholic priesthood is worthy of great esteem. Protestant substitutes are not. Maybe it’s something I just can’t understand the reasoning behind it.  The necessity of the priesthood I wouldn’t contradict, but I just can’t come to grips with the attitude of mostly the "woman in the pew" that priests are almost gods themselves.

It’s an exalted office. But they aren’t gods. Padre Pio wasn’t a god – save in the specific sense of Scripture and The Church referring to any of the elect, priest or no. The priesthood is not some bureaucratic office, to be filled by affirmative action (and, yes, I realize this is on the wane, these days). It is, rather – the Catholic priesthood. Yes, that is what it has become.  In the old books there seemed to be a true discernment as to the suitability of a candidate for the priesthood, but today, they call themselves to the priesthood.  God may be behind some of it, but they don’t seem to be tested in a way that would weed out the unsuitable.  Again, this is the convert, the perplexed trying to understand what cradle Catholics take as a given.

Cradle Catholics followed Cranmer, centuries ago, step by step, reform by reform, into a militant Protestantism that very quickly started passing laws against Catholics and The Church. It can happen. I wish I knew what God is going to judge as worthy *before* that day?  For all I know, he’ll stomp on me and shove me roughly to his left side for my impertinence on speaking out.

Well, the priesthood is really something to be admired and esteemed, I would just say. Thank God I live in a non Catholic country where I can speak out.

There are no Catholic countries in the world – none that I’m aware of. Ireland has lost the Faith (though Northern Ireland might still hold fast, I don’t know). Portugal has gone away. Spain – long ago. Italy – I don’t think so. In a medieval Catholic country, what would have become of me for speaking my mind?

I don’t agree, necessarily, with churchmen and their book bannings, and censorship, in defense of the faith. But I suspect that there would have been some complaint about someone criticizing not just priests, but the priesthood. Well, if I had been witness to one atrocity of someone being burned alive, no matter what side they were on, I would have trembled in my clogs to say anything about anything.

Burned for heresy? It was the punishment, at the time, because heresy was considered worse than murder, I believe. You couldn’t merely just hang the heretic. The heretic merited worse than a contemporaneous axe murderer or serial killer, as I understand it. Thank God I live in America!  There is much wrong here.  Even when the church was supposedly so good I would have hated to live under the pope’s temporal rule and it bothers me.

You imagine the papal states were the epitomy of injustice, in all things? I want to be a fully participating member in the corporate body of the church,

You _knew_ what I meant above, didn’t you? (I’m confused) but with sentiments like these, I have relegated myself to the scrap heap because I am not *supposed* to feel this way.

But if it’s unjust and unreasonable to feel that way . . . right? I mean, your general complaint applies to heathen who complain of the Church, the Decalogue, and so on. I don’t mean to be so negative all the time but I had too many bitter pills to swallow all at once and it has skewed my outlook.  When you are an idealist and lose your bearings you must drift awhile.

Or read the lives of the Saints, yet again. Their examples are extraordinarily – ordinary, and instructive. Cochem’s The Four Last Things, from TAN, or The Spiritual Combat, from TAN, are also excellent paperbacks that might help when things get confusing. I’ve spent hours trying to imagine what kind of world it would be if Christ truly reigned,

Pgs 180ff in Cochem, above, and quoting from Teresa’s Life. I don’t know how things could be made fair here on earth.

Principalities and powers appeal to man’s fallen nature, and so the chaff seems to overwhelm the wheat, particularly after the fall of Christendom, and the ‘voluntary exile’ of the visible Church, is all. But the parable and metaphor requires a harvest, ultimately. There are still many fine priests out there.  I suppose if it were me I would be humbled soon enough by having to be nice to old women who accosted me after mass every day, although some of them are endearing.  Many are not afraid to speak their minds.  Some complain about the most trivial things, maybe like me, huh? The ones who stay honorable through it all deserve their honors.

If it’s a small thing, the priest would explain why. If it’s a neo-Prot ‘presider’ you speak to, you might, instead, be greeted with scorn for suggesting the vestments or ceremonials … read more »

Response:

I didn’t think I wanted women in the priesthood. It’s more a corporate decision, I think, based on Revelation – not on one-man one-church opinion.

This is not like you, Mark.  The church isn’t run by a ceo.  It is probably based on a combination of things, tradition, the fact that Christ only commissioned males as apostles, Revelation – hadn’t considered that – it’s worded so tactfully about men not "being defiled with women" – as if women can’t be defiled by men – I know we are probably not supposed to take it that way, but some of it hurts – a lot.  My generation grew up taking all this for granted, never openly questioning the system. So there are things in the bible that are offensive to various groups and I can understand why – the comment about the Cretans which is still used in our culture today, calling stupid people cretans, "for fear of the Jews" – if I were a Jew I would probably be offended – but no way would I want the bible altered so as to meet today’s standards for politically correctness. However, ignorance is bliss and I now understand why some women feel the way they do.  It’s odd it hit me so late in life. So I’m not disagreeing with you, but I’ll tell you what’s eating away at me today.  Unbeknownst to me, I now am a subscriber to "People" magazine – if I pay the bill – school sales, you know.  There is an American who raped and murdered an 11-year-old girl near Kosovo, expecting to get away with it.  I have gone over some of the horrors women have done, and there are some, but unless a women was totally in the grips of the most reality-altering mental illness, I cannot imagine any woman of any culture committing such an act, even knowing she may never be caught.  I’m not ignorant of the fact that our American soldiers have always transgressed, but it makes me ashamed and so sad.  This is the sort of atrocities we went over there to stop. The point is that many, many men will commit horrible acts if they think they can cover them up and never be caught.  Women and sneaky and devious and all the rest, but . . . I never realized just how deeply women are crippled by the fear of men, even in a society where we are relatively safe . . . Anyway, I still don’t particularly want women to be priests but I am so sick of the sicko priests Beware of the activist trap – finding only the negative to support your position is as bad as the defenders finding only the positive. Welfare is great, and there are only minor abuses – say the defenders. Guns are bad because nuts shoot up fast food restaurants say those who want a complete ban, and registration on top of it.

I call it as I see it, trap or no.  The gun thing.  Don’t want to go there this time round, but I could.  There are too many of them out there and they keep multiplying.  They got over on us with car registration, etc..  I don’t remember many, if any, complaining.  What’s the difference?  Both are lethal weapons, not in and of themselves, but in the hands of the incompetent. Distant Mirror" (Barbara Bradford IIRC) that during the plague, some priests were so scared to go give the last sacraments and some had died themselves, that women were commissioned by bishops to administer the last sacraments. I don’t know if that’s true. But it could have been so, for the essential form, just as lay people in emergencies can baptize, if they remember the water, and the basic form. But it’s not the norm.

It was Barbara Tuchman.  Thought of it after I posted.  It is very far from the norm and probably occurred, I believe, somewhere in northwestern Europe, and only for a very short time. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – TAN publishing and if and when I find which one it was, I will give the exact source.  A priest was climbing the stairs and a young novice or wannabe holy Catholic woman went up the stairs on her hands and knees after him and kissed where he had walked.  Something died in me when I read that and I’ll never be the same.  I wouldn’t have had the courage to say that I thought it was wrong, but I will say so now.  Not only was it wrong, the whole social system that taught such distorted values about the comparative worth of priests was sick, and the poor women who had no other way to give vent to their passions were the sickest. I’m sure she’d disagree. I suspect it was her esteem for the priesthood, and/or the priest himself, that made her do this by way of symbolic action. Maybe he was a holy man. Maybe she understood the true nature of the priesthood, and wished to somehow show that understanding and honor it at the same time. I don’t know.

I suspect she had a crush on the priest.  Do you have any idea how many women develop crushes on priests, even though it never goes any further?  We have to be very careful who or what we are worshipping, and it should never be the person of the priest, nor the office of the priest.  A very fine line here.  No, we cannot know for certain what her motives were, but I cannot picture in my wildest imagination a priest walking in the footsteps of a nun.  Maybe they ought to.  Figuratively and literally. Personally I think the office of the priesthood is overblown and the feeling I get is that the image is perpetuated to make priests feel special and more important than others.  Maybe it’s something I just can’t understand the reasoning behind it.  The necessity of the priesthood I wouldn’t contradict, but I just can’t come to grips with the attitude of mostly the "woman in the pew" that priests are almost gods themselves.  It’s not healthy for priests either, to be looked upon in such a manner.  They deserve to be treated with respect and gratitude.  This is just a facet of human nature that will never change so why belabor the point? The priesthood is not some bureaucratic office, to be filled by affirmative action (and, yes, I realize this is on the wane, these days). It is, rather – the Catholic priesthood.

Yes, that is what it has become.  In the old books there seemed to be a true discernment as to the suitability of a candidate for the priesthood, but today, they call themselves to the priesthood.  God may be behind some of it, but they don’t seem to be tested in a way that would weed out the unsuitable.  Again, this is the convert, the perplexed trying to understand what cradle Catholics take as a given. Will it never end?  Intrinsically, I am worth as much as any priest including the pope if it is only to myself and so is the least of the least of the least!!! You are the equal of any man, and certainly holy enough for Heaven – is it? There is nothing a man can do that you cannot, and God ought to recognize that intrinsic worthiness when comes the Judgment Day?

I wish I knew what God is going to judge as worthy *before* that day?  For all I know, he’ll stomp on me and shove me roughly to his left side for my impertinence on speaking out.  Thank God I live in a non Catholic country where I can speak out.  In a medieval Catholic country, what would have become of me for speaking my mind?  Well, if I had been witness to one atrocity of someone being burned alive, no matter what side they were on, I would have trembled in my clogs to say anything about anything. Thank God I live in America!  There is much wrong here.  Even when the church was supposedly so good I would have hated to live under the pope’s temporal rule and it bothers me.  I want to be a fully participating member in the corporate body of the church, but with sentiments like these, I have relegated myself to the scrap heap because I am not *supposed* to feel this way.  I don’t mean to be so negative all the time but I had too many bitter pills to swallow all at once and it has skewed my outlook.  When you are an idealist and lose your bearings you must drift awhile.  I’ve spent hours trying to imagine what kind of world it would be if Christ truly reigned, and I must confess I cannot imagine such a place!!!  I don’t know how things could be made fair here on earth.  Even if everything were made nice for people, still animals would have to suffer and that would make me suffer, too.  So it’s best I don’t think about these things any more. A priest must be humble, and fit for his office. I know that the ’spirit of’ has made a mockery of priestly formation, that there are ‘gay undergrounds’ protecting pederasts, and so on. But the practice does not negate the rule. There is no sense that a priesthood restricted to men somehow denigrates women, unless some women are looking for an excuse to feel denigrated. It’s as simple as that, and feminism is not complicated.

There are still many fine priests out there.  I suppose if it were me I would be humbled soon enough by having to be nice to old women who accosted me after mass every day, although some of them are endearing.  Many are not afraid to speak their minds.  Some complain about the most trivial things, maybe like me, huh? The ones who stay honorable through it all deserve their honors. The system or process or whatever it is must weed out the unfit.  They are answerable to God for it all.  If it means we have to do with less, so be it.  I can no more conceive of any of the apostles molesting a child than I don’t know what. Yes, priests must be humble and so must I.  Humble but not degraded.  It’s hard to know where one stops and the other begins.  I don’t know what it means to be healthily humble in today’s world.  Humility has been forced on me.  Life has made me humble.  It doesn’t come naturally, that’s for sure. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Peace. Nations wandered blindly, and unceasingly proclaimed that their aimless circlings and uneasy spiralings meant progress, while materially and morally they meant

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Response:

Again courtesy of Dejanews or my sent file, take your pick: I didn’t think I wanted women in the priesthood.  After reading your post and having read similar over and over, I wonder, since he didn’t say it ex cathedra, if it just  isn’t a way of shutting us up by saying the church has no authority. Who draws the line on what authority it has or doesn’t have?  Scripture says Jesus gave the keys  to Peter and WHATSOEVER, in the context of forgiving sins.  This sounds to me like a copout and a way of evading the issue.  I still don’t particularly want women priests but after reading what people say about why women  cannot be priests, it just can’t be said without the implication that women are in some way inferior because they don’t have the right body parts and have the wrong  chromosome combo.  Anyway, I still don’t particularly want women to be priests but I am so sick of the sicko priests that it would be a relief to have decent women as priests.  I read in "A  Distant Mirror" (Barbara Bradford IIRC) that during the plague, some priests were so scared to go give the last sacraments and some had died themselves, that women  were commissioned by bishops to administer the last sacraments.  So you are right, the issue will never go away because the answers make us feel worse than before the matter came up.  I read in one of my books from TAN  publishing and if and when I find which one it was, I will give the exact source.  A priest was climbing the stairs and a young novice or wannabe holy Catholic woman  went up the stairs on her hands and knees after him and kissed where he had walked.  Something died in me when I read that and I’ll never be the same.  I wouldn’t  have had the courage to say that I thought it was wrong, but I will say so now.  Not only was it wrong, the whole social system that taught such distorted values about  the comparative worth of priests was sick, and the poor women who had no other way to give vent to their passions were the sickest.  Will it never end?  Intrinsically, I am worth as much as any priest including the pope if it is only to myself and so is the least of the least of the least!!!

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