Up Front: Are We There Yet?
777 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 … 20 21 22 23 24 … 32 Newer→ Last
-
The Swiss Guard are, I believe, the stripey-costumed ones of whom you post, Emma.
(Head full of trivia)
-
My first comment read as if I thought everybody should obey every law all the time no matter what.
Yes it did, but sorry I didn't realize your second comment was a clarification of what you actually meant. When I reread it now it's clear that's what you were doing. My mistake.
-
Damn I thought Gio was advocating GE to put their heads onto fish.
Pike on a pike.
-
Yes it did, but sorry I didn't realize your second comment was a clarification of what you actually meant. When I reread it now it's clear that's what you were doing. My mistake.
Yay. Genuinely very glad we could sort that out.
-
You’re saying to Tess that people of her religion need to obey the law, not their conscience. You wouldn’t have said that to gays prior to the 80s, nor apparently to Rastafarians who smoke marijuana today.
Tess isn't obeying her conscience. As she's plainly said, on the matter of gay rights she's abdicated that to the "teachings" of her church, which is the same thing as accepting papal authority. It's the old conflict between absolute authority and democracy. There are plenty of catholics who hold far more liberal views than Tess. When she claims to speak for the church as a whole she doesn't.
-
Have you ever seen a pike? They're bloody enormous, and attack predators to boot. They eat ducklings, man.
Tasty though.
-
In fact there was a time in my life when I was a great supporter of Catholicism in young women. The stricter the better.
SNAP.
I used to be able to pick the young Catholics women at Uni. Not sure how, I could just tell.
Got my come-uppance, one autumn day, meeting one such woman for about the third time for a coffee, I said something about 'I bet you're a Catholic' -and she was, ex-Baradine. Then she says 'I bet you're Presbyterian' - and said something like 'repressed, bit of a hang up about duty, workaholic...'
I can't recall my comeback: I don't think I had one, I suspect I sort of just toed the ground and said something disgrunted like 'I can be a bit unrepresed...'
-
Have you ever seen a pike? They're bloody enormous, and attack predators
So.... Gio can use them to deal with Catholics, then.
-
Would need to flood the Vatican first, and that's not desirable on account of all the artwork. The coliseum on the other hand used to be filled with water to stage mini naval battles... that might be an idea. Would have a certain symmetry with the punishment of early Christians. (Wiser times.)
-
Tess isn't obeying her conscience.
You don't have the right to tell me what's going on in my head. Just because I agree with Church teaching does not mean I have abdicated anything of my own free will.
I have never claimed to speak for every individual of the Church either. I have however explained some of the teaching of the Church which is found in various documents. Individual Catholics may or may not agree with that teaching, as I explained about Joy Cowely and IVF.
-
Just because I agree with Church teaching does not mean I have abdicated anything of my own free will.
Can you clarify, Tess? This is getting very confusing now. In many places in this thread, you've been at pains to stress that you individually accept the right on individuals to do whatever they like in their bedrooms (subject to the consenting adults criterion), but now you say you follow the church's teachings. And of course, the church does, loudly and conspicuously, condemn any sex other than consenting sex between a man and a woman who are married. To each other, for the pendants out there.
1. Did you mean to say, "Just because some of my views coincide with church teaching...."
(That's a problem of course, because it means that you are rejecting the church as a moral leader, and setting up yourself as the definer of morals, for yourself. NB, I'm saying "for yourself" because I realise that in this thread you have been at pains to say that you personally don't want to interfere with individuals' choices.)
2. Or did you mean to say that you consider all church teachings and then work out for yourself which ones you do and don't agree with (that's a version of 1. above, but it just reverses which one comes first, and it suffers from the same problem as 1. i.e. setting yourself up as the definer of morals for yourself).
3. Or do you mean that you follow all the church's teachings?
-
F**king Gondolas...
Would need to flood the Vatican first...
Solution: they have catholics in Venice, don't they?
One could forgo the piazza-area
and move to the pike-artyrs
Guido Brunetti
that'll be one Bloody and
two Hail Marys for table 5 -
You don't have the right to tell me what's going on in my head. Just because I agree with Church teaching does not mean I have abdicated anything of my own free will.t
I'm not, and even if I were so inclined, I couldn't be bothered. You've had plenty to say about your personal feelings about what you imagine gay sexual practices to be, as if that makes you some kind of independent thinker. Really, who cares? When it comes to the issue of marriage/civil unions, though, you always fall back to citing the "teachings" of the church.
When you say that the church "teaches" this or that, you're merely parroting the current Vatican dogma. Despite the impression you attempt to give, dissent is widespread within the church, particularly on the issue of gay rights. Just because we've had a series of repressive and intolerant Popes doesn't mean that dissenting elements have vanished. At least you've been good enough to acknowledge that dissent, instead of pretending that your own views are representative of all Catholics.
-
...current Vatican dogma.
...
a series of repressive and intolerant PopesAccording to Martin Pendergast in the Guardian, the Catholic church's position is very recent (in Vatican dogma terms), and kicked off by Ratzinger.
I did rather like that Ratzinger got the top job (or is that the 2IC job?) at least partly on the basis that the Vatican didn't want the next pope hanging around too long this time.
-
4IC, maybe, after the trinity?
-
4IC...bummer. It's horrible having too many managers. They've all got their own ideas on how the place should be run, and everyone ends up hating you for trying to implement their conflicting instructions.
-
Deborah:
To answer you means being quite open about myself and my own private thoughts, which isn't easy because I don't feel particularly happy at opening myself up to ridicule.
OTOH, if people want to ridicule me, well, so be it. Perhaps by being open about myself you might understand my position more clearly. Or maybe you will all just armchair psycho-analyse me. Either way, I can't control how you will take what I have to say about myself.
My family background is one of bitterness about religion. Specifically Catholic vs. Presbytarian. I was brought up with no religious education at all, yet I specifically sought out Christianity. As a teenager I was an atheist, at university I took religious studies and once again felt that pull towards the numinous. I began to practice wicca, first by myself and then with some of my friends.
I found wicca to be missing something and I lapsed. I got married, had children and I wanted them to have access to a spiritual life. I had had various tiny connections with the Catholic Church, and after some years of soul searching I began preparing for baptism.
The biggest issues I had to deal with were,
Is God a being external from Creation, or was God Creation as in the eastern understanding of the divine?
Was Jesus who he said he was? Jesus makes incredible claims and the Gospel's make incredible claims of his Resurrection. Was Jesus the Messiah, or was I going to end up being Jewish or Muslim?
In the end I decided that God was external, and that Jesus was the Christ. If so, where was the Church? Not a physical human organisation, but a mystical Body, members of the Body of Christ. A Body that was guided by the Holy Spirit from the very beginning. Jesus laid his hand on Peter and the apostles, who had they laid hands upon?
The Reformation had always struck me as a moving away from early Christianity, and much of it was shallow and anti-science, eg. evolution, young earth stuff. Had I been Greek or Russian, I dare say I would have been Orthodox. But these Churches relied on a national association that I didn't share. Likewise the Coptic or Syrian Churches.
This left Latin Rite Catholicism.
The axioms I was working from was that the Scriptures were telling me a great and eternal truth about my relationship to God. That Jesus _was_ the Christ and that the Church was his mystical Body on earth. Then I worked through the Catechism and other documents to see if I could agree with what she taught.
What started out a search for the numinous became a relationship with the numinous. My experiences created a spiritual journey, sometimes dry and painful, sometimes joyful and rewarding.
At the moment I have taken my First Promises with the Carmelite Order as a secular. In some years time, God willing, I will make my Definitive Promises and become a full member of the Order. Promises are the secular version of religious vows. To become a Carmelite takes the same amount of time, whether nun, monk or secular.
As a Secular Carmelite my life is dedicated firstly to my vocation as a wife and mother, but also to contemplative prayer as shown by St Teresa Of Avila and St John of the Cross.
So... - takes deep breath - I believe in God given human rights. For example, freedom of conscience, freedom of worship and the freedom to reject God. God reaches out to us in love, and not through coersion. We can choose to love him in return, and likewise to reject him.
The Church _is_ Christ, his mystical Body. He is our Bridegroom and the Church is his Bride. Christ transforms us if we allow him. Our bodies were created by God, they speak a language, a theology. Marriage was created by God, it is a divine institution, not one made by man. People can choose to do with it as they like, define it or change it how they will.
But in the end, marriage is two people, physically complementary, who enter into each other to become one flesh. Wrapped in one another, each giving the other what they do not possess alone, their union actually creates new life. Creating as God creates. A new and precious person. The two, who are one, become three. Just as the Trinity is Three who are One.
Love is not a feeling, but a creative act. Marriage is a blessing where we can share in the divine grace and purpose of God. We are fruitful.
Not every physical union can produce new life. But every union must be open to this new life, always living the theology of our bodies. We are finite, limited beings. But the form of becoming one flesh goes beyond our physical capabilities. By making love we are speaking the divine language of creation. Two people, in Adam-ness and Eve-ness who are one body. Separate, yet one, but always ready to be creative and to birth new life and love.
Sigh... So do what you will with that.
-
<quote>4IC...bummer. It's horrible having too many managers. They've all got their own ideas on how the place should be run, and everyone ends up hating you for trying to implement their conflicting instructions.</quote
But surely these pope chaps know deep down that neither the boss nor the other pretenders are ever going to actually show up and meddle in current affairs, so really, to a large extent, dogma is his baby to dress up in emperor nappies and pimp to the masses as he sees fit.
-
That's all fine, Tess. Whatever. But it doesn't clarify whether you follow all the church's teachings, or accept some and reject others.
-
Fine, Michael, the Pope's the boss then.
-
I'm sorry. I thought it was more obvious. I accept the Church's teachings.
-
According to Martin Pendergast in the Guardian, the Catholic church's position is very recent (in Vatican dogma terms), and kicked off by Ratzinger.
There's something wrong with your link there, Mrs Skin - the article is here. In another article also on the Guardian he had this to say:
The Catholic church, in both its eastern and western traditions, possesses a rich historical treasury of rituals celebrating diverse forms of human belonging. Religious communities, through communally expressed vows, enable men and women in same-sex communities to express a solidarity of human relationships. Although rare today, this also happened in medieval times in mixed-gender religious communities. Catholic historians such as the late John Boswell and Alan Bray have unearthed the blessing of same-sex couples, both in sworn-brotherhood rituals, as well as in other forms more closely approaching heterosexual betrothal and marriage rites.
Who knew? Where he claims that the current Vatican line regarding homosexuality is all Benedict's doing, I think that's very charitable, though. There is a pretty robust history of institutional homophobia on the part of the church, and one can certainly view their cozing up to Fascism and Nazism as a fairly good indications of their views much closer to the present day.
The Church has been apologising to the Jews for a number of years now (although Benedict re-admitted the anti-semitic Society of St. Pius X this year of course) but there's no sign they'll be extending the same courtesy to homosexuals as of yet. Quite the contrary.
I don't have the link, but when Rocco Buttiglione defended the right to discriminate homosexuals, he did invoke a number of theological opinions dating back much earlier than 1976.
-
Solution: they have catholics in Venice, don't they?
Actually, in my New World Order I'd save two dioceses: the Milanese one, because of their historical independence and the fact that St. Ambrose kicked some serious arse (plus he could read without moving his lips - am I right, QI viewers?); and the Venetian, where a number of persecuted groups found refuge in centuries past. The word ghetto comes from the Jewish quarter of Venice, naturally, but there is also a significant Armenian orthodox community, and most importantly a very strong Greek Orthodox one - the eastern and roman versions of Christianity blended there in fact to create some truly interesting architectural and theological/institutional blends. Obvious examples: the bishop of Venice is called a Patriarch and the basilica of Saint Mark is clearly an orthodox church.
-
Thanks for sorting the link Gio.
That's all rather interesting. And sort of straightforward when you think about it - or at least when I do. It can't, after all, be possible to run a large and complex organisation over a range of centuries and cultures without being inclusive at least some of the time. Adapt or die, sort of thing. Wait...that's evolution...that can't be right.
-
Back on topic and more seriously...
Marriage was created by God, it is a divine institution, not one made by man.
A big brave post, so kudos Tess for laying it all out but I can't help but acknowledge the huge reek of romanticism I get from your descriptions of the elements of your beliefs. Many of us spend years hankering for something to believe in (absolutely no patronising intended btw) and we all find, or not, what we need to varying degrees. But it shouldn't be mistaken for any kind of absolute truth or as a divine right to interpret/manipulate human interactions.
Anyway, if you were to vote on a referendum on gay marriage tomorrow, what truth would your conscience follow?
Post your response…
This topic is closed.