Catholic Block

[vovat]

We watched two episodes of Bullshit! tonight, one on stress and the other on the Vatican. The stress episode didn't really have too much to say that hasn't been said before, but it DID make fun of aromatherapy. Basically, the main idea was that stress can be useful sometimes, and trying to eliminate it makes no sense. In my college health class, the professor talked about eustress and distress, which, loosely speaking, are "good" and "bad" kinds of stress. I was thinking that Penn and Teller might bring this up, but they didn't.

The Vatican episode brought up several points, but they focused a good deal on an Italian comedian who was threatened with jail time for claiming that the Pope would be going to Hell. The case was thrown out, but the Vatican had to make a show of power. Really, living in a country where Catholicism has pretty much always been a minority religion, with a common belief throughout our history being that Catholics are traitors to the country because they're more loyal to the Pope, I'm somewhat inclined to go easy on the papists. But when I hear about something like the ban on condoms, the resistance to the decriminalization of homosexuality in some countries, or the cover-up of sexual abuse by priests, I remember that there's still a fair amount of nastiness in the Vatican's practices. I'm not too surprised to hear that the current Pope is regressive in his thoughts and policies. I mean, this is a guy whose first speech after being appointed Head Pontiff espoused absolute morality, and who later attacked the Harry Potter books. And people think this guy is infallible? Well, when you get right down to it, they probably really don't. Not only did the idea of papal infallibility not become official church policy until 1870, but if Benedict were to suddenly have an epiphany and say, "Hey, I don't think condoms and gay marriage are that bad after all!", do you really think the powers behind the throne would accept this? That's one reason why I don't believe in infallibility. Anyone can make mistakes, especially if they're relying more on dogma than on evidence. Of course, like all religious denominations, Catholicism has its pros and cons. They're rather behind on homosexuality and birth control, but they're more willing to accept evolution than the fundamentalists, and that's at least a step in the right direction. As usual, the important thing is to examine each issue separately, and not accept anything wholesale, even if it DOES come from a man of God.

Comments

[auronsgirl.livejournal.com]

And people think this guy is infallible?

No, we don't. He is only infallible when he speaks from the throne of Peter, i.e. a papal bull. Otherwise, he's usually a doddering old Prince of the Church who hasn't the vaguest idea what his congregation's getting up to. There have been exceptions to this, and a few truly good popes, but they're the exception, not the rule.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

So it's actually the throne that's infallible? I don't think Peter himself was infallible, at least not according to Jesus.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

Heh, I was just sitting in church last week thinking about writing a "Why I'm a bad Catholic" post (but, the number of posts I actually DO manage to write, that one is somewhere way down the list). It's not because I support gay marriage, although I do-- it's more this accept-it-wholesale notion. Seems like the new parochial vicar we've got is a more conservative type (I guess to balance our rather liberal pastor), and last week was like the second week in a row he went of on "cafeteria Catholicism" (ie picking and choosing what you want to believe). Now, I grant that you need SOME guidelines-- if everybody just followed only the rules they want to follow, what's the point? But he was going on about If you say yes to the Eucharist, you're saying yes to EVERYTHING not only Jesus says but the Church says, and if you're not then you're not doing it right, and I kept thinking NUH-UH! That's so not what being One Body in Christ is about! Would I really have needed to wait until the Church figured out Galileo was right about astronomy to be a Christian? I love the Church, I believe in the Eucharist, and I am totally not cut out to be a Protestant, and I'm not going to leave just because I question some of the details. So don't go telling me I don't BELONG because I question the details, because that's totally not helping the cause!

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Now, I grant that you need SOME guidelines-- if everybody just followed only the rules they want to follow, what's the point? But he was going on about If you say yes to the Eucharist, you're saying yes to EVERYTHING not only Jesus says but the Church says, and if you're not then you're not doing it right, and I kept thinking NUH-UH!

Yeah, if you don't accept a fair amount of Catholic doctrine, there's no point in identifying as a Catholic at all. But I'm not sure it's even possible to accept EVERYTHING. As much as fundamentalists talk about a literal interpretation of the Bible (and the Catholic Church DOESN'T hold to such an interpretation), every denomination takes some parts as literal and some as figurative, and pretty much ignores others. How can you accept anything wholesale when it isn't always consistent with itself? You're going to have to do SOME picking and choosing, but when someone takes all the teachings of the Bible and the Church and thinks that the two most important are not to be gay and not to use condoms, I have to suspect they have some screws loose.

[brostron.livejournal.com]

My understanding is that the doctrine of papal infallibility has only been invoked once since 1870, that being with regard to the assumption of Mary in 1950.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Is that the idea that Mary ascended bodily into Heaven, leaving no earthly remains?

[brostron.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the only other thing that the Catholic Church has "dogmatically and infallibly" declared is the immaculate conception of Mary, which Pius IX declared in 1854.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Because if Mary had been born and died like any normal person, that would have been terrible!

Funny how they're still making calls about things that happened almost 2000 years previously.