| We hope you enjoy your visit! You're currently viewing Catholic CyberForum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our online cyberparish, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! Messages posted to this board must be polite and free of abuse, personal attacks, blasphemy, racism, threats, harrassment, and crude or sexually-explicit language. If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Crossing the Threshold | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: Tuesday, 15. November 2011, 02:57 (1,274 Views) | |
| Rose of York | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 00:52 Post #16 |
![]()
Administrator
|
Are those who break the Sixth and Ninth Commandments the only ones who commit grevious sins? For good measure lets throw in all who break the other eight then there will be nobody in the church on Sundays or any other day for that matter. What was it Jesus did when a woman was caught in adultery? Get people back who knows whether the sight of a confessional will encourage them to return to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Their return to Mass might encourage them to do something about their state. Silly me I thought the Third Commandment applied to all of us sinners.
In answer to that I draw your attention to my comments above.
People who hate religion say of church goers (they are all hypocrites they think they are better than anybody else. If they did not think that they wouldn't go. My answer is they might be going because they want to be better than they are.
The more we sin and the more seriously we sin the more we need to attend Mass and turn to that man who died for us.
You sure are. Well you did ask. [/quote] |
|
Keep the Faith! | |
![]() |
|
| Rose of York | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 01:01 Post #17 |
![]()
Administrator
|
The lack of enthusiasm might be because they "don't know anybody suitable who is willing to do it." We have a problem in that many priests think of the people in the little coterie of leading parishioners who do everything claiming they have to because if it were not for them nothing would be done. May I suggest a priest invite applications for people willing to go out approaching the non attendees then interview the applicants and select people with the aptitude and sensitivity needed.
If efforts to bring people back antagonise the existing congregations TOUGH LUCK! Jerk them out of their cosy little cocoons. No parishioner has any right to moan about a parish priest obeying the first instruction Jesus gave to his disciples. Spread the word! |
|
Keep the Faith! | |
![]() |
|
| Rose of York | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 01:08 Post #18 |
![]()
Administrator
|
I seem to recall you agreeing when I said there is a large pool of unutilised talent. Have a word with the carers whose freedom to get out is restricted by their home responsibilities. You never know your luck you might find some have had experiences of which you are as yet unaware. It is not unusual for a carer to face the attitude "we never ask you to do anything, you have enough to do at home" yet that carer might have the time and be yearning for an identity of their own, some means of being something else in addition to being a carer. There are people who due to health problems cannot get to Mass if the only one available locally is too early for them, it is surprising how a person can seem like a druggie until the pills wear off late morning then they are able to study and communicate and go out for lunch or shopping. Some of them are quite clever and knowlegeable, prayerful too! You might find one person has the aptitude to run a group, but does not have much space in a small house, and another has neither the aptitude not inclination but has a large living room they will make available. The two could team up, one as group leader and the other as host. |
|
Keep the Faith! | |
![]() |
|
| Mairtin | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 12:25 Post #19 |
|
I think this initiative is doomed to failure because it is still based in the outdated hierarchical thinking that people have to come back to the Church when the reality is that the Church has to come back to the people. A couple of people have commented on contraception. I used to be well known on this forum for attacking Humanae Vitae. I've kept quiet about it this last while because I'm more and more becoming convinced that it was the best thing that ever happened to the Church. Vatican II was about bringing the Church back to the people but the Roman Curia decided that they weren't going to have any of this new fangled collegiality nonsense; they deliberately selected the collective decision by bishops and cardinals about contraception as their target to restamp their authority . In doing so, they thought they won a great battle but it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory - the encyclical became the Rubicon where the laity and ordinary priests in the Church decided en masse for the first time ever that the ruminations of the Vatican in general and the Curia in particular are not that terribly important to their everyday lives and can simply be ignored. It started with contraception, now we see it in many other areas such as divorce, cohabitation and homosexuality where attitudes and practices in the church at large are diametrically opposite to what is regarded as right and proper within the rarefied atmosphere of the Vatican. The Church as most of us here knew it growing up is disappearing like snow from a ditch. That does not fill me with despair, far from it, I see it as a tremendous opportunity to revitalise our mission to spread the Good News. I just wish our hierarchy would wake up to that and get onto developing new structures and new approaches instead of wasting their time trying to breathe life back into something that is well beyond recovery. The words of retired Bishop Edward Daly I have quoted on the Bishops - For What Qualities Are They Selected? thread about academics running our Church seem appropriate here. Edited by Mairtin, Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 12:26.
|
![]() |
|
| Penfold | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 12:45 Post #20 |
![]()
|
An interesting and sobering observation. I agree that in essence the Hierachy has grown apart from the people of the church and the church needs to reform around the nucleus of the people as Christ intended. The hierachy are also people within the family some need reminding of this. |
![]() |
|
| Deleted User | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 13:51 Post #21 |
|
Deleted User
|
Let's accept that all such initiatives are imperfect and are bound to struggle first with organisation and then with getting people across the threshold again. My suggestion is no different but I think it might be useful. How about each parish drawing up a circular letter and distributing it to as many "lapsed " Catholics in the parish as can be identified. Invite them to a meeting stressing that we want to hear what they have to say rather than tell them what they are missing. Invite written comments if people don't want to or can't attend the meeting. Maybe make the meeting lay-led with clergy absent to encourage frankness. Consider and summarise the findings ( a job for the Parish Council if there is one) then organise another meeting for existing ,practising parishioners to consider with the priest. If such a thing could be done, I am sure that as well as all the high-falutin' doctrinal issues we discuss here there will be a number of practical issues around carers and transport as Rose has said and other things like Mass times where it should be comparatively easy to make adjustments. When it comes to doctrinal matters it may be difficult for individual parishes to do anything but you never know especially when individual parish findings are shared with neighbouring parishes. At least we would know what our lapsed colleagues were really thinking. John |
|
|
| Mairtin | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 14:40 Post #22 |
|
John, I don't want to sound negative, far from it*, but there is no point in asking people questions unless you know for example that you can give answers that will inspire people out of their lack of Faith rather than push them deeper into it. What for example, do you say to the woman who replies that she has 5 children, has been told that further pregnancy would imperil her health and needs to use artificial contraception? What would you say to the divorced woman who has since remarried and isn't prepared to attend Mass without receiving Holy Communion because she feels it will mark her out like some scarlet woman? What do you tell the young couple who are deeply in love but haven't the wherewithal to get married so are living together? What do you tell the homosexual who has fallen deeply in love with somebody of their own gender and overwhelmingly wants to spend the rest of their life with that person? I know what the Church's answers are to those questions but I think those answers will only cause despair rather than giving hope. Unless you have clergy who are prepared to ignore what the Church syas; I know that many do but I don't think most of them want to say that too loudly or formally. I'm not taking away from the value of providing lifts to Mass and similar activities but I somehow don't think that those issues are the biggest factors keeping people away from Mass. (*You and Rose have actually triggered a project in my mind that I hope to look at over the Christmas holidays.) |
![]() |
|
| Mairtin | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 14:50 Post #23 |
|
I agree wholeheartedly but I think that "some" includes many of the hierarchy themselves; however much you would like to welcome somebody into family, you cannot force them in, they have to come voluntarily. This paragraph from the CCC has come up in a discussion I am involved in elsewhere: 2038 In the work of teaching and applying Christian morality, the Church needs the dedication of pastors, the knowledge of theologians, and the contribution of all Christians and men of good will. Faith and the practice of the Gospel provide each person with an experience of life "in Christ," who enlightens him and makes him able to evaluate the divine and human realities according to the Spirit of God.80 Thus the Holy Spirit can use the humblest to enlighten the learned and those in the highest positions. What scope is there within our Church for "the humblest to enlighten the learned and those in the highest positions"? Edited by Mairtin, Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 14:51.
|
![]() |
|
| Anne-Marie | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 16:14 Post #24 |
|
I have just caught up with this thread today, and find myself agreeing with Mairtin: The Church (as in The People) and the Church (as in the hierarchy) are essentially living in two very different worlds. We may disagree about which is 'right', but each of us is searching for God, however failingly - what some clergy now kindly refer to as our 'Faith journey', a rather apt description as we each stumble our way through the many challenges we find. The first essential, surely, is evangelising - which means getting out of our church 'comfort zones' and taking God to the People, whoever and wherever thay are. It's not for us to judge them as 'suitable' or otherwise - that is God's prerogative. Many of you are aware that my parish doubled its congregation by the tiresome expedient of leafletting all 18,000 homes each Christmas and Easter. Hard work for the deliverers, but clearly massively spiritually rewarding. Collections, incidentally, are up on average about fivefold, so the money is coming with those welcomed. For avrious reasons, the leaflets are not going out at present, but still around 100 shops put our posters in their windows each time, reminding folk that we haven't slunk away! The second essential, is actually troubling to welcome those who bother turning up to see if we have 'much to do with God'! If they aren't going to feel wanted when they show up, you're worse than wasting your time and effort - you'd be sending out a negative and self-destructive message. The third essential, of course, is helping those trying to make their Faith journey - not always helped if you have your own doubts about some of what the Church says and does. To that, I have no answer, other than that God loved us enough to die for us knowing full well how unworthy and ungrateful we are and will remain - but He still loved/loves us enough to bother all the same.... Getting folks into the church is our responsibility - it then has to be (at least in part) God's decision what to do with/to them. Bit like that story of God and the person failing the win the lottery: They really goota do their bit first, by buying a ticket! In the early Church, the People of God chose their leaders to help guide them - now their leaders make the decisions and expect the people to 'shut up and pay up'. Not quite sure sometimes where the Christianity bit comes into it.... Guess we're lucky if we have a priest who does his bit, and leaves the rest for God to work out! |
|
Anne-Marie FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI | |
![]() |
|
| Anne-Marie | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 16:18 Post #25 |
|
For what it's worth, by the way, I'd welcome all sinners - including the divorced/remarried, the co-habiting, the homosexual, the thieves... and all the rest of us. It shouldn't be for me (or even my priest) to decide whether we're welcome. I'm very happy to let God deal with those things - If he thought we were worth torture and death, then who the heck are we to further rubbish His decision and sacrifice by dismissing those He did it for... we sinners, not the righteous! |
|
Anne-Marie FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI | |
![]() |
|
| Penfold | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 16:36 Post #26 |
![]()
|
You think you do. If a person is medically required to use contraception to avoid the risk of pregnancy then there is no sin, there never was any sin involved, the church teaching on contraception is concerned with prevention of promiscuity not enslaving people. As I write these words I can hear my old Moral theology professor and Canon Law lecturer saying these very words to us when in seminary nearly 30 years ago. Sadly he has since died but I regularly conversed with him on this and other moral issues so I have no doubt what so ever that what I am say is correct. I know you hate HV but your understanding of it is flawed, and I accept that you may have been misadvised by lazy old priests but any who went through seminary since it was written should know two things, the primacy of conscience is always paramount and that HV is a teaching of the church that deals with contraception not a medical document that prohibits certain medical expediencies, even the pope has admitted as much in regards to the issuing of condoms for the prevention of aids. What is the cost of a wedding, a couple of witnesses, the priest and a promise made before God, a very small amount, all else is vanity and unnecessary. A young couple in love should be prudent and get their priorities right, alas all too often they have the child. They will spend a couple of hundred pounds/euros on a holiday but £100 on a marriage somehow seems to be to much for them. Don’t blame the priest and bishops for the commercialisation of weddings, as well you know in Ireland families have been laying on a spread and covering the cost of weddings for years without the need for "Wedding Planners" Hotels, fancy cars and film recorders. A woman who is divorced is not excommunicated, however if she remarries she breaks her vows and that will result in her excommunication, however as I said in my earlier post in some cases it is possible that she might be eligible to have her first union annulled all too often people don't ask for an annulment because they think they know what the church will say. Each case needs to be judged on its merits. However Marriage is a sacrament and if a person enters validly into marriage then the harsh reality is that they do not have a get out clause. But a debate on the sacrament and sanctity of marriage is for another thread. Homosexual relationships are not approved of by the church, now would you like the church to change its teaching. I am not free to but I am not in the habit of questioning my parishioners about their sexual habits. If they come to communion why should I make an exception in the case of a same sex couple. It is possible that they are living a chaste life together as a brother would with his sister, I have no right to assume otherwise and neither has anyone else. If they in conscience are unable to live a lie and so exclude themselves from the sacrament then I pray that God will respect their integrity and show them his mercy but unless they come to me in confession it is not my place to judge them. You think you know the churches answer and freely give that opinion to others who do not know and who, because they trust you, assume that the answer you have given comes from the church. You may have aquired some of this "Knowlege" by the same meathod, a friend or relative told you this or that. Such is the way that so many myths and legends grow, people think they know, they make assumptions and form judgments but they never actually check whether their home spun words of wisdom actually apply in a particular case. |
![]() |
|
| pete | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 17:05 Post #27 |
|
We are very privileged to have a priest on this forum and after your last post Penfold might I say
|
![]() |
|
| pat | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 17:48 Post #28 |
|
The Legion of Mary is already going out and knocking on doors in many parishes. They have many years experience of doing this. It's almost as if the hierarchy have never heard of the Legion, or are not aware of what they do. I and my fellow Legionaries would have been happy to give some input into this initiative. |
![]() |
|
| Mairtin | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 18:55 Post #29 |
|
I don't know where you are coming from with that response, Penfold, I may argue certain parts of Church teaching but I don't think I have ever presented teachings inaccurately, feel free to point out where I have. In the few areas of Church teaching where I do strongly disagree - contraception being a prime example - I have studied the subject in depth for precisely that reason, to make sure that my disagreement is not based on my own misunderstanding. By way, I agree that every one of the responses you have given above - except, to an extent, the one on contraception* - is a correct statement of Church teaching, my point is that I don't think those answers are going to give much inspiration to people in those positions. (* The reason I would quibble with your answer on contraception is that although I agree 100% with your interpertation and that of your professor in regard to the primacy of conscience, that interpretation is not accepted universally within the Church; many (most?)commentators, for example, would regard Veritatis Splendor as placing contraception on the list of intrinsic evils which cannot be justified in any circumstances.) |
![]() |
|
| Mairtin | Tuesday, 22. November 2011, 19:08 Post #30 |
|
I also applaud your stance that it is not your job to judge the worthiness of people presenting themselves for Holy Communion, it is no less than I expected from you, it is the stance adopted by the majority of priests I know and is the sort of thing I was referring to in my post. |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · General Catholic Discussion · Next Topic » |








3:43 PM Jul 11