Giovanni Paulo Santo!!!
"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires."
- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
I read this article and picked up on Cardinal Ratzinger's comments. I would tend to agree with that. I think that the protestant community wholesale rejects Catholic teachings rather blindly. There are innumerable examples of the most compassionate, learned, Christ-like individuals in history being members the Catholic Church. I like 'em and would like to learn more.
All of the fuss lately about the Pope and the Catholic Church has renewed my interest in Catholicism. I understand when people feel that the Catholic Church is stuffy or too filled with ritual. Some find disagreement with the idea of a single man leading the entire Church, or praying to Saints and all that. I, for one, really appreciate the (literally) thousands of years of Church history. It connects the present age with thousands of years of Christians. I do think that praying to Saints is kind of weird, but I don't think it is a salvation issue. Ultimately, they believe in Jesus the Christ and power that He displayed in his crucifixion and resurrection. That makes the rest of our differences merely cultural, even (especially) the ones that we get so upset with each other over.
posted by Daniel at 10:12 AM
4 Comments:
wow. I don't even know you but I admire your zeel for bringing it down a notch or two pennington ;-)
6:03 PM
Now, see! That's what makes this whole thing funny to me. I have always had pockets of friends in different places. This is the first time that there has been much opportunity to see what it is like to mix them up. It's worked well between Cornfed and I, why wouldn't it work otherwise.
7:27 PM
So our conversation at dinner intrigued me, especially what I was saying about not understanding the whole praying to/through saints...This is what I found on, believe it or not, Catholic Online. You may want to check it out. Lots of explanations and such. www.catholic.org.
"We pray with saints, not to them.
Have you ever asked anyone to pray for you when you were having a hard time? Why did you choose to ask that person? You may have chosen someone you could trust, or someone who understood your problem, or someone who was close to God. Those are all reasons we ask saints to pray for us in times of trouble. Since saints led holy lives and are close to God in heaven, we feel that their prayers are particularly effective. Often we ask particular saints to pray for us if we feel they have a particular interest in our problem."
7:09 PM
I agree with Mel. I think that in the c of c especially, we run from anything approaching ritual (except for worship order, the Lord's Supper, the invitation...but I digress). I understand that the rejection of those things comes from a desire not to be distracted or trapped by the physical while we perform a spiritual act. But that reasoning ignores the fact that we are physical beings, and that our spirituality is tied into that. Sometimes a physical ritual can bring us into a proper spiritual mind-set. I love that our ministers have been bringing more liturgical elements into our worship service.
12:18 PM
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