I posted
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not a “traditionalist” 2/22/2004 11:48 PM
I was going to post this in reply to Coleen’s post in “Mel Gibson” asking if everyone here was a “traditionalist,” but my post has nothing to do with Mel Gibson, so I figured I’d better make it a new thread =)
I love being a Catholic. I love the Catholic faith. But I disagree with “official doctrine” on many counts–on gay marriage, on contraception (especially in aids-ridden countries), on women in the church…
I was talking about this to a not-religious friend and she asked me why I didn’t consider leaving/changing denominations of the Christian faith or something. Well–the Church is a living human institution, and it’s flawed, like all human institutions, and it was wrong, after all, about the earth being the center of the solar system, and it’s only through people that it will change.
I don’t believe that Mass should only be held in Latin, I don’t believe that homosexuality is a sin, I don’t believe that being a Roman Catholic is the only way to salvation, I don’t believe that the US government should be able to ban things like genetic research and abortion (or make war, for that matter)… but I do believe God is Love.
The internet is fascinating–here we are, from all across the spectrum, as Dave put it in the Mel thread. I get pretty worked up about these things, living in the US where our lawmakers are actually proposing to outlaw gay marriage in the constitution. It boggles my mind.
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in the orkut catholics community. I feel kind of weird/silly/dumb posting to a group message board, I admit to wanting people to respond and tell me that they agree or don’t, I think the internet is weird, there are a lot of people out there who are drastically different from me, the internet makes it feel almost not real but more real than the limited encounters I have in “real life,” I just had a conversation with Connie about how we don’t understand conservative people and how angry we are that people protest to the people standing in lines in SF or say things on national television (crossroads on cnn, in fact) like Jesus died for your sins, all the homosexuals and adulterers and sinners in the world need Jesus to be healed, or that the government wants to ban abortions, that there are nuclear weapons, that we’re at war, that Taiwan wants to leave China and China doesn’t want Taiwan to leave and the US has no official position and where did I hear that the US is gearing up for China to be an enemy sometime in the far future (I asked my mom what she thought about the Taiwan thing. She held her hands facing the sky and said, “We don’t care. We went to Taiwan to flee the Communists. I lived in Taiwan for 26 years, and I’ve lived in the US for almost 26 years now too,” and trailed off), where can we go if the US is plummeting downhill, are people in Europe “racist” because they just haven’t had a lot of exposure to not-white people, how, how, how, how, why why why can people care so much and be so prejuidiced as to want to amend the constitution with a ban on gay marriage, ……………………………………………………………………………………..
I don’t understand, I don’t understand, I don’t understand, I don’t understand, the world is so messy, there is a group that tables out on Sproul called students for a soveriegn Taiwan, there are groups in the world with “family” in the name wanting to “preserve” the “sacred” idea of “family,” what about the starving people in Africa who have aids, what about the starving people around here, what about global waming, what about running out of oil, what about, oh, I don’t know, the melting of the polar ice caps (or are they, I don’t really know, does anybody really know?), what about deforestation, what about the cleanliness of our meat slaughterhouses, what about any number of things? What about the media, what about that article that freaked me out that I read in the New Yorker about organized crime in jails that kill and kill other inmates and can’t be stopped and the guy trying to prosecute them who will go for the death penalty and is it so wrong of me so wrong so wrong to reconsider my stance against the death penalty for people who are held in jail and yet kill brutally,what about big corporations with unjust practices, what about the “leaders of our country” lying to us, what about Democrats worrying about Nader “spoiling” the race, what about China censoring the internet, what about stem cell research, what about the homeless, what can I do, what can I do, what can I do?
Awesome. And I really understand the frustration. Sometimes, although never when I’m at Newman, I forget that non-traditional (or whatever we’re called) Catholics make up alot of the church. And I think that’s really important what you said – it is a living institution – and there is enough in the community (i.e. people like you guys) to make me believe in the future of the church and still feel like a part of the community. But so many of us feel alone, and think about leaving because we think everyone buys the official docrine. What do we do about them? How do we make other young Catholics know that doctrine isn’t what makes up the Church (contrary to what some people still say), but the people in it? Are non-traditional Catholics just too silent? What does the rest of the church think of us?
In our marriage prep class someone (Laura?) told me that the church has to evolve with the larger society, and larger society evolves with the church, and while it may be that the church is behind in some aspects, that doesn’t mean it won’t change, and soon.
The polar ice caps are definitely melting. There is no question of that. All you have to do is compare a picture of Glacier National Park taken 20 years ago with a picture taken today. The only uncertainty is what the underlying cause of this melting is. While the majority of scientists believe it is due to global warming, a vocal minority have other theories which makes it “controversial.” So…global warming in a nutshell for you.
unfortunately, if there was a voting in the catholic church, the traditionalists would outweigh us! in africa and other third world areas, the converts are primarily super-conservative. there have been reports of catholic witch burnings in africa. europe and the U.S. probably have the most liberal catholics around!
what does orkut mean?
Catholic witch burnings?