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What it Is To Be A Catholic
Topic Started: Saturday, 23. June 2012, 09:08 (234 Views)
Mairtin
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Interesting article on the Association of Catholic Priests website where Maura Adshead adrresses this question.

Quote:
 
I forget Bertrand Russell’s reasoning, but my own was that surely if I lived as good and moral a life as I was able, I had no reason to worry about meeting a just God – and if s/he wasn’t just, I had no interest in serving a capricious one. (I mean, what kind of a God leaves millions to die in one part of the world and then answers a prayer to pass a driving test in another?).

After expending a good deal of logical and intellectual effort on where I stood in relation to my own religion, and after concluding that there was no god that especially needed my attention every Sunday, I have since acknowledged that for most practical social and political purposes, I am a Catholic. This is because always when faced with a strong and overwhelming experience, my first intuitive response – before I do all the logical and moral calculations of my own – typically relies on those learned ways of understanding emotions, ideas and issues that take their reference points from the Catholic faith that I was brought up with. It’s in the way that I react to ideas about community, or family; in the ideals that I hold about what is right and what is wrong; it’s how I behave when someone is ill, or when someone dies.


She goes on to explore how Catholic values still permeate every aspect of Irish life.
Edited by Mairtin, Saturday, 23. June 2012, 09:09.
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Eileenanne

Quote:
 
... there was no god that especially needed my attention every Sunday,


There is a God whose attention SHE needs every Sunday - at least.

Eileenanne
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Mairtin
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Eileenanne
Saturday, 23. June 2012, 09:50
There is a God whose attention SHE needs every Sunday - at least.
So how would you go about convincing her of that?
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Eileenanne

I don't think words / argument will do it. Prayer and - from those who know her - example are more likely to help. And not that I am wishing ill fortune on her, but maybe something will happen to her one day that makes her realise she needs God. I think that does happen to some people.

Eileenanne
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Penfold
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Eileenanne you raise an interesting point, are we Catholic because we need to care for God or because we need God to care for us?
The message of Christ is wonderful but while it may still linger in the folklore of Ireland and other places it needs better teachers to bring it back into the mainstream.
I am a Catholic because I was born into a Roman Catholic family and baptised as an infant, I remain a Roman Catholic because I recognised somewhere along the way that I need God in my life and that in the Scriptures and the Eucharist I find a spiritual refreshment that I can not find elsewhere. Yet my siblings had the same basic start in life and one is an atheist and the other though deeply spiritual has no time for organised religion. Of over 70 lads who shared a dorm with me less than a dozen regularly come to church, yet they were taught the same things I was taught. I did not like the methods used to teach by some of the priests and nuns I have known and I found many sermons boring as a youth. I rebelled against the institution by becoming a...Priest. Increasingly making the choice to come to mass is becoming more difficult for some because the support of their community is no longer what it was. It was easy to come to church when all your friends came but when you are the only one it takes a little more courage, in turn that places a greater burden on the priest for what he preaches in his sermon has to be of a higher quality than the old stories and tales in the Homiletics books of old. We can not force people back into church but the smell of Christianity has not yet dissipated, we need to ensure that the aroma remains strong and encourage people to sniff out its source. To be a Catholic is to smell of Christ and rejoice in His essence, if others spot us celebrating then maybe they will join in.
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Anne-Marie

May I set aside the detail of your opening post, Mairtin, to address the thread title?

A Catholic is, necessarily, a Christian. And to be a Christian you need necessarily to accept Jesus/God and practise what He taught.
Attending Mass each Sunday keeps one in contact with God in a direct and conscious way - and who knows how God may choose to use that. But attending Mass each Sunday is not, in iteslf, 'being a Catholic'. To attend Mass and not practise what Jesus taught is of no value whatever, as Jesus told us.

I know a Catholic (for whom I've asked prayers here before) who rarely attends Mass during the week (though always on Sundays), yet shows so much love excelling in teaching 'challenging' pupils that a leading university wants to use her to help train future teachers; who on top of an exhausting job, manages to meet the demanding care needs of a dying parent; and who, as if all that were not more than enough, spends the rest of the evenings decorating the homes of elderly pensioners for no reward (refusing to accept any offered).

Reverend Mother once told me "Saints are impossible to live with", and that lady is a massive inspiration to whom I could never live up. Yet without hesitation, I'd tell you that if you want to know what a Catholic is, you should practise what she does, and then you'd know what being a Catholic is. Definitions and theories are quite irrelevant. Being a Christian, trusting God totally to lead you where He will, has never made for an easy life....
Anne-Marie
FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI
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Anne-Marie

Penfold
Saturday, 23. June 2012, 15:24
Of over 70 lads who shared a dorm with me less than a dozen regularly come to church, yet they were taught the same things I was taught.
"You did not choose Me - No, I chose you."
Jesus bar Joseph
Anne-Marie
FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI
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Eileenanne

Anne-Marie
Saturday, 23. June 2012, 15:41
Penfold
Saturday, 23. June 2012, 15:24
Of over 70 lads who shared a dorm with me less than a dozen regularly come to church, yet they were taught the same things I was taught.
"You did not choose Me - No, I chose you."
Jesus bar Joseph
Yes, but people have to accept the call, and embrace what God has chosen them for. Looks as if all these lads were chosen, but only some responded positively.

Eileenanne
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Penfold
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Eileenanne
Saturday, 23. June 2012, 16:50
Anne-Marie
Saturday, 23. June 2012, 15:41
Penfold
Saturday, 23. June 2012, 15:24
Of over 70 lads who shared a dorm with me less than a dozen regularly come to church, yet they were taught the same things I was taught.
"You did not choose Me - No, I chose you."
Jesus bar Joseph
Yes, but people have to accept the call, and embrace what God has chosen them for. Looks as if all these lads were chosen, but only some responded positively.

Eileenanne
I should point out that it was a boarding school so I would not have expected a high number to become priests but I would have hoped that more would have remained practising their faith.
12 started at seminary in my year, 4 were ordained, I am the only one left ministering, one died and two have left the priesthood.
Edited by Penfold, Saturday, 23. June 2012, 16:56.
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Penfold
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There is a phrase that is often used to indicate that the answer to something is a statement of the Obvious, "Is the Pope a Catholic?"
In a mad moment I found my self wondering, "Well is he?"
The moment passed but it has left me aware that many of the old clichés and certainties of Roman Catholicism have gone. We live in a secular age and I take my hat off to all you parents who are struggling to bring your children up in the faith, in the good old bad old days our friends may not have gone to the same church as us but they at least went somewhere, if only occasionally with their granny, they knew the inside of a church. I chatted with a lass the other day, aged 21, we sat in the chapel and it was clear that she had never seen inside a church before, as we wandered around she said, "I'm a catholic at least I was baptised as a baby but we never go my granddad does and my mum will go with him when he visits but ..." I was reassured that somewhere in the folk memory she had sought out the Catholic Priest to discuss her problems, the dormant seed planted at her baptism is not rotted away, there is hope. it also convinced me that I will never lock the church and will ensure that my office remains with in it rather than the "Welfare Facility" they are proposing.
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Mairtin
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Penfold
Sunday, 24. June 2012, 07:40
We live in a secular age and I take my hat off to all you parents who are struggling to bring your children up in the faith
At the Dublin meeting of the laity organised some weeks ago by the Association of Catholic Priests, it seemed to me that the predominant issue for most people was their children walking away from the Church and that issue seems to have been recurring at other meetings of the laity. Bear in mind that the people expressing this problem are active Catholics, totally committed to the Church; if they are struggling to pass on the Faith to their own children, what are the realistic prospects of passing it on to children of non-practising parents?

Quote:
 
"I'm a catholic at least I was baptised as a baby but we never go my granddad does and my mum will go with him when he visits but ..."

That is the same thing that struck me about Maura Adshead, the author of the piece in my opening post, that people from a Catholic background who do not practise their Faith - at least not in any ritualistic way - still seem to have some innate sense of being Catholic; I think that is something well worth exploring in the context of the New Evangelising being talked about, I think it may well be based on some underlying longing to re find their Faith.

I'm also curious about whether than trend exists in other religions/denominations. For example, is there a Protestant equivalent of what is popularly described as "Catholic guilt"?
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Anne-Marie

Penfold
Sunday, 24. June 2012, 07:40
it also convinced me that I will never lock the church and will ensure that my office remains with in it rather than the "Welfare Facility" they are proposing.
Good for you, Penfold.
I recall the late Fr.Michael Hollings once telling me that he refused to lock his church in west London (Notting Hill) during the day; that people sometimes used the rear as a toilet ("So, we can always clean it!") and on one occaison someone even set fire to the solid oak front door ("We've got plenty of water to put it out with!").
The sort of priest I have always loved... added to which, back in the 70s when I was rushing about in the car , I loved stopping off between appointments to spend a few minutes praying in a church en route... but now they are almost all locked except for services:
God ain't got time or interest to bother with us any more. Just plain wrong. Period.
:clare:
Anne-Marie
FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI
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Gerard

Mairtin
Sunday, 24. June 2012, 09:16


I'm also curious about whether than trend exists in other religions/denominations. For example, is there a Protestant equivalent of what is popularly described as "Catholic guilt"?

Yes. It is alive and well in Scotland where it is called presbyterian guilt.

Gerry
"The institutional and charismatic aspects are quasi coessential to the Church's constitution" (Pope John Paul II, 1998).
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Derekap
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During my National Service in the army, and in civilian life since, I have come across people saying a grandparent was a Catholic. Usually it was in general discussion or in a busy office so I didn't have the chance to enquire further. One was a keen Mormon. (Some were well before V2)
Derekap
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Eileenanne

Quote:
 
For example, is there a Protestant equivalent of what is popularly described as "Catholic guilt"?

I have never been quite sure what people mean by that expression. I'd love to know.

I often hear people lament that it is no longer possible to keep churches open, but I am glad to say my parish church is open all day. Also, my friend and I have visited a fair number of towns and cities in the UK and Ireland over the last few years. We always try to pop into a local Catholic church if we can and I cannot remember finding one that was closed.

Eileenanne
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