Why Catholics aren't as Catholic as the Catholic Church thinks they are
Random, possibly unfounded theory: Catholics often have views on morality, society, and God that are unsupported by the Church itself because they are taught from a young age how the Church has taken liberties with the meaning of the scripture, so they feel they can do the same.
T/F?
6 comments:
Yeh, I'd agree with this.
Curiously, there's a tendency I've noticed for a given Catholic to be vehemently opposed to one teaching and to vehemently defend another... without actually bothering to look into the reasoning/history/tradition behind either teaching.
But that's based on a handful of families I know, and quite possibly just a generally human thing, rather than specifically Catholic.
Loving the blog, btw.
I think some Catholics have thoughts/beliefs that vary from Vatican teachings because life is more complicated than the Catechism might have you believe.
Yes, but it's more complicated than a lot of religions would have you believe, but people seem more inclined to just leave those other ones if they don't agree. Lots of people disagree with Catholicism and stay Catholic, though.
I know for me, there were things the Vatican espoused that I disagreed with from an early age. I remember in Catholic school being told women couldn't be priests "just because" way back when and then in almost the same breath being told it was some old Pope that decreed that. I think growing up in the church, we were taught about the "ideal" then taught this is how it happened and for many of us we saw the disconnect. Fish on Fridays during Lent because the Pope's cousin was a fisherman? Pass the pork chops please!
It's not to say we don't follow the church on these things; rather I think here in America, we are less attached to the idea of a strict Vatican-centric Catholic church. We are in a country where the Vatican (proper) is not the all-powerful force like it is in Mexico, Latin America or Italy. There has been almost no push to move to be more in-line with Rome since Vatican II.
So maybe the American Catholic church is more like a loose colony and hasn't been forcing strict doctrine lest the faithful migrate towards a protestant faith?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Catholic dogma is different from Protestant. If you believe in Transubstantiation you don't have a lot of options for which church to attend. So if I (for example) pick up and go to a different church I can't participate fully because I don't believe what they believe. That certainly ties me to the RCC.
I don't know why other people do what they do, but here's how it is in my house: Mr. says that church is something you do for an hour on Sunday, maybe a little longer if there's Sunday School, and then you're done for the week. As a Catholics, I was taught that we are the Church and we are supposed to live it everyday. So (based on a sample of 2) maybe it's easier for some people to leave their church because it's only something they do on Sunday. Or maybe he was just raised wrong.
I'd never thought about that, Hannah. I mean, I'm aware of the mystery of transubstantiation, but it was never, even at my most pious, an important part of my faith. It just hadn't occurred to me that it might be a reason to remain Catholic. That actually helps explain why the Reform Catholic Church exists when there are so many other liberal options in Christianity.
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