Posted on 02/23/2013 6:26:24 AM PST by Kaslin
The pope has renounced the papal throne. Long live the progressive pope! Such are the rallying cries from establishment voices wanting to see the Catholic Church loosen up now that Pope Benedict XVI has decided to step down. But maybe people should listen to the Church's actual views.
Mary Hasson from the Ethics and Public Policy Center has been doing some unique work looking into what Catholic women know and want from their Church. It's scandalous and yet not entirely surprising that she found only 13 percent of Catholic women who occasionally attend Mass accept Church teaching on contraception.
It's not a shock given that the average Catholic Mass goer is not exactly being taught the theology and even practicality of the Catholic teaching on sexual morality. Catholics all too often see Church teaching as a litany of "No"s when, in fact, it is all about "Yes." Yes to human dignity and happiness. Yes to the respect for one another that comes from truly believing you are made in the image and likeness of God.
"On the one hand, the number is small, no question," Hasson acknowledges. "That 13 percent includes not only weekly churchgoers but also women who attend less regularly, perhaps a few times a year. However, if we look only at women who attend Mass weekly, the percentage accepting the Church's teaching on contraception goes up, doubling (to 27 percent) among young women ages 18-34. That's a sign of hope -- in spite of decades of dissenting theologians, silence from the parish pulpit and distorted cultural messages about sex, these women have heard the Church's teaching and embraced it. These women form a solid core of faithful Catholics who can attest to the personal benefits of following the Church's teaching on sexuality and family planning."
And despite the current conversation about women, contraception and religious liberty that's overtaken the government's federal health-care push, the media coverage has been such that most Americans still don't quite know what all the fuss is about. Some Catholic women have a similar relationship to Church teachings on contraception: 37 percent, in Hasson's findings, were unsure about the specifics.
"The 37 percent seems to confirm the stories that abound of Catholic women who went to Mass every week for years and to confession regularly, but never heard that contraception is wrong. Similarly, how many Catholics have gone through (extensive marriage prep in the Church) by never heard word one about the Church's teaching on sexuality or family planning," she said. "Or perhaps (they) heard some general teachings, and then, with a wink, were told to follow their consciences, with no further guidance about forming their consciences."
A cover story in glossy New York magazine recently dared to question the good of the birth-control pill based on the damage it had wrought on women's lives and bodies. The one institution that proposes a radically different way might just have something to offer the world -- if it only taught it and lived it.
Pope Benedict has been a teacher, first and foremost, reintroducing a proposal that Christ himself offered. Men and women living in service for love of God are good to have around. Enough with the campaign for less Catholicism in the Catholic Church. How about a welcome mat for a good and faithful shepherd who, with confidence and humility, speaks with clarity about the teachings of the Catholic Church, "proposing the good news of Jesus Christ to a disenchanted world," as George Weigel puts it in his book "Evangelical Catholicism."
The disenchanted are everywhere, even in the pews. And they want to be fed, they want to be engaged, they want to be transformed. They don't want more of the same misery omnipresent in the secular world. The world doesn't need a Gospel of misery but of hope. The Church has it, and we should expect the next pope to teach on, infused with a generous and contagious spirit of engagement.
May I suggest that you read Why We Love The Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck?
There is only 1 Holy Father and that is The Lord Jesus Christ
I think that you mean that God the Father is the Holy Father. Jesus Christ is his only begotten Son.
I will say that he’s an old man and everyone dies eventually. As for the rot in the priesthood, here you go.
http://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Good-Men-Liberals-Corruption/dp/0895261448
http://www.culturewars.com/2002/may02_ggm.html
Revelation 18:4 "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
Revelation 18:4 "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
Amen, Brother/Sister!
Very good! Also a number of other Scriptures could also apply.
I know some Churches in Canada, walked away from real estate to stand for the truth, perhaps United Church, might have been Anglican, was over the whole homosexuality thing
In fact this poster claims ALL organized religions are wrong and that even venerating a simple Cross is pagan. Given that this is the point of view from which he views the world, why should anyone pay attention to his odd, often incomplete and often misread cut-n-pastes?
Some quotes and links as CB now tries to say he didn't say what he said:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2708561/posts?page=29#29
Let the pagans have it. God doesn’t smile down on people who celebrate Easter.
All of the Lent and Easter abomination is pagan and God clearly condemned it in scripture.
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-religion/2686288/replies?c=6
I could give you a number of Scriptures, many that show that Jesus is in fact God the Father, but not sure if it would be of any benefit to debate...Semantics even
John Chapter 1 from vs 1 for starters...In the beginning was the Word (Notice the caps on Word) and the Word was with God and the Word was God
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us...Jesus is the Word
Jesus said...those who have seen me have seen the Father, I and my father are one
In old and new Testament , Jesus is referred to as the prince of peace, the everlasting Father , King of Kings, The Great I Am etc etc
Yes I believe in John 3:16. For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life...basically the Gospel in the nutshell
When I posted...that there was only One Holy Father and that is The Lord Jesus Christ...I could have just as easily said there is only 1 Holy Father and that is The Lord God
But anyway was just doing my evening quiet time as I hit the bed, so I skipped to find the Scripture I was thinking of, I could have chosen one of many, but here is the main one I was thinking of
From Isaiah 9 vs 6 , He was speaking of Jesus
For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful,Counselor,Mighty God,Everlasting Father,Prince of Peace
Time for bed :)
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Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
Correct terminology is neither “renounced” or “resigned”, but abdicated.
If the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is "semantics," then I'm not sure what the core beliefs of Christian doctrine are, in your estimation. What you're describing here sounds a lot like Sabellianism, also called Modalism and Patripassianism--a heresy condemned by the vast majority of Christianity since it appeared in the second or third century.
If Jesus, the Son of God, is God the Father, then why does Paul so often greet his audience in the Pauline Epistles with "Grace and peace from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ"?
John Chapter 1 from vs 1 for starters...In the beginning was the Word (Notice the caps on Word) and the Word was with God and the Word was God
The capitalization of the word "Logos" is not present in the original Greek. You are correct though, that Jesus is the Word, and that the Word was with God, and the Word was God from the beginning. That does not mean that God the Son is God the Father.
As for Isaiah 9:6, Matthew Henry's Commentary on the passage makes the note that in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Tanakh), Jesus is the "Father of the world to come."
"He is the everlasting Father, or the Father of eternity; he is God, one with the Father, who is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the author of everlasting life and happiness to them, and so is the Father of a blessed eternity to them. He is the Father of the world to come (so the Septuagint reads it), the father of the gospel-state, which is put in subjection to him, not to the angels, Heb. 2:5 . He was, from eternity, Father of the great work of redemption: his heart was upon it; it was the product of his wisdom as the counsellor, of his love as the everlasting Father."
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