Posted on 03/29/2013 8:31:16 PM PDT by OKRA2012
I like your comment, here. I go to a traditional church that practises the Novus Ordo as well as the Tidentine Latin form and I regularly go to the Latin Mass. Having the Latin Mass is wonderful and comforting, but going to the Latin Mass doesn’t make us “more Catholic” than any other Catholic person or Catholic parish. I love my parish. We have very holy Priests, but some parishioners have said to me “we don’t want to be welcoming”. Yes, we don’t welcome gay marriage, but we should welcome the stranger and the troubled.
Thanks, St. Thomas!!
Most of the "objects" "owned" by the Vatican are not available for sale. They are a common cultural patrimony, and to sell them off would remove them from the faithful, the "public" to whom they belong, and put them in the hands of private investors. It would be a kind of embezzlement embezzlement, a violation of fiduciary trust.
Besides, to whom would one sell, say, Michelangelo’s Pieta? George Soros? So he could put it in his private collection? To whom could one sell the Sistine Chapel? The Saudis? So they could carve it to pieces and put the fragments on the world market? Or blow it up like the Bamiyan Buddhas? (Link)
Second, the great art functions not as a financial resource, but as a net drain on the Vatican's budget, as they can hardly afford even now to maintain and preserve them. You might have noticed that thirty years ago, the Sistine repair/restoration work was put in the hands of the Nippon Television Network Corporation(here's the story on the NTNC deal (Link) because the Vatican itself could not afford the sophisticated and painstaking technical process. Nippon TV undertook the restoration in exchange for exclusive photography and videotaping rights.
The story covered here on a Free Republic thread
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2694740/posts
about how a huge library of rare manuscripts and books from ancient Eastern/Oriental Christianity is in imminent danger of falling into ruin because the Vatican can't afford to store them in the kind of temperature-and-humidity controlled, environmentally exacting conditions necessary for their preservation.
The whole thing is very briefly put in perspective here: Would Selling the Vatican End World Hunger?"
It's kind of like saying the U.S. could end world hunger by selling the Lincoln Memorial, Mount Rushmore, the Capitol and the Smokey Mountains National Park to the Chinese. OK, other than the interesting prospect of having Mao Tse-Tung's visage added to Rushmore, do you think this would do any temporary (let alone lasting) good for the poor and hungry, or the cultural or natural heritage of the world?
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
The liturgical law is clear that in the Holy Thursday Mass, this optional foot-washing is to be done to twelve viri (males).
There is a theological reason for this...the Holy Thursday Mandatum is connected to the institution of the priesthood. Even if he does not intend it, he is signaling to dissenters that there is some possibility of ordaining women to the priesthood, which is obviously impossible.
This causes confusion and scandal, even if the intention is initially noble.
The other things are less important, but not unimportant. There is a reason Benedict brought back some of those things; he was teaching an important truth: that there cannot be a break between the past and the present. What is once true is always true. There was not, and could not be, a "rupture" in the 1960s that changed the fundamental nature of the Church and her teaching.
FWIW, I think you’re mistaken also about Pope John Paul II. He was not revered by traditionalists. He was the hero of “conservatives,” but certainly not traditionalists, who welcomed (some cautiously) the much more tradition-friendly Benedict.
Have a wonderful Easter.
Resurrexit!
Resurrexit sicut dixit!
Yes, we should be humble, and help the poor in their need, but even the poor should have a beautiful church. There should be some beauty, some ceremony, in the lives of the poor. The Church provides this. What could be more beautiful than the Body of Christ? The Church could sell everything it has and give it to the poor, and there will still be profound poverty in the world. We will always have the poor.
Exactly right.
Maybe we could substitute Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, etc?
I am an active, devout Catholic. I attend mass regularly, volunteer for many Catholic organizations and have been elected to my parish council. My faith is very important to me. I do not think Ann Barnhardt is a “certifiable nut”. I do not always agree with her but I respect her opinions.
I believe Ann Barnhardt is a devout Catholic.
“The ability to follow the “rules” is how this subset of churchgoers understand what “being a good Catholic” means.”
C.K. Chesterton said morality like art begins with drawing a line somewhere.
What you refer to as “rules” I would describe as a moral code, the principles by which life should be lived.
Jesus specifically spoke of following “the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law.”
Being a Catholic means you live your life by moral principles and try to follow the spirit rather than the letter of the law.
I have been a Catholic all my life and have never heard sincere Catholics “shout at each other” over matters of faith.
I have heard people insult and ridicule Christians. I have never heard fellow Christians shout at each other over faith.
Perhaps there was alcohol involved. Lots of alcohol.
This was before Benedict and the papal recognition of the Latin mass. People were getting pretty incensed over it. But in general you are right—true Christians don’t get angry over religion.
There’s a line at the end of a Philip Roth story: Never hit anybody about God, or something like that.
But, the headline is rather sensational.
Some perv is praying to divide and conquer the church... The lefties are hoping to bring queers and abortion out of the closet via this pope.
“What was once true is always true”
Yes.
But the American Church has done a very poor job of teaching Catholics about the difference between things that the Church teaches because they are everywhere and always true, and the things that the Church proposes because they are the most useful means of spreading the gospel, which things can and do change from time to time.
No, no, I actually AGREE with you, the beauty and art of the church inspires the best in us, a sense of awe conducive to worshipfulness.
I'm not advocating that the Church bankrupt itself by liquidating its assets. Doing so would merely wound the Church and inhibits its own influence as a force for good in the wider world. I certainly don't want that.
I'm merely noting the interesting situation posited by the movie, Shoes of the Fisherman. It's thought-provoking.
I'm in agreement with you and your logic. I just like to consider that "what if?" other side of it all. It sometimes causes me some trouble. ;)
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