Posted on 01/17/2014 5:04:10 AM PST by markomalley
Church is a Social Club
I want it to be more like Me
So It will be worthy of my greatness
It's ALL about my way, not God's Way
PRIDE
Great post. Thanks for sharing it.
This is absolutely the truth. As the author says, not "the Church" in a greater sense, but the Church in the person of the local bishops, religious and lay teachers, writers and preachers.
Homilies are nothing but the priest giggling about how cute it is that he watched some trashy TV program and "learned" something from it, or mindless leftwing ramblings about "social justice." Catholic schools ceased to teach doctrine long ago, and RCIA programs are nothing but teaching people that it's nice to be nice.
A thought in response to the author’s sentence: “If liberal Catholics dont believe what the Church proclaims, why do they still identify themselves as Catholics?”
Perhaps it is that they are becoming/morphing into considering Catholicism as a racial/ethnic group similar to those Jewish people who consider themselves “Jewish by heritage/genetics” but do not practice the Jewish faith.
Sort of like those whites who are have a Spanish surname or speak Spanish are now classified as “Hispanic.”
...i.e. the "CINOs", "cafeteria Catholics", "not 'real' Catholics" etc, is IMO that the Catholic church still counts and reports them as being Catholic.
...let me once again share the four-pronged typology that a veteran priest here in Washington, D.C., gave me a few years ago. There are, he said, four kinds of Catholics in this country and, thus, four Catholic votes on almost any issue. Any news report that lumps these groups together isnt worth very much.* Ex-Catholics. Solid for the Democrats. Cultural conservatives have no chance.
* Cultural Catholics who may go to church a few times a year. This may be one of those all-important undecided voters depending on whats happening with the economy, foreign policy, etc. Leans to Democrats.
* Sunday-morning American Catholics. This voter is a regular in the pew and may even play some leadership role in the parish. This is the Catholic voter that is really up for grabs, the true swing voter that the candidates are after.
* The sweats the details Roman Catholic who goes to confession. Is active in the full sacramental life of the parish and almost always backs the Vatican, when it comes to matters of faith and practice. This is a very small slice of the American Catholic pie.
-- from the thread Bare Minimum Catholicism
They may call themselves Catholics, and they may even go to Mass, but when it comes to life choices they are virtually indistinguishable from everyone else in America. They dont live radical Christianity out in any real sort of way. Their lives look just like the lives of their worldly neighbors. They dont give any more than the average joe. They seem just as likely to divorce their spouses, have only 2.5 children as their non Catholic neighbors and they seem just as materialistic as everyone else. They attend church if they feel like it, but if theres a weekend football game or the call of the beach house theyre just as likely to respond to that demand. When it comes to voting, theyll vote as they wish according to wherever they get their opinions fromTV, the newspaper, the mass mediajust like their neighbors. The one source they wont consider when informing their vote is their priests and bishops.Related threads:
from the thread Catholic Vote?Are Catholics now so successfully assimilated into American political life that they are without political impactthat there really is no such thing as a Catholic vote? Unfortunately enough, Catholics are largely indistinguishable from non-Catholics and, despite a few pundits, no, there really is no Catholic vote. This obvious conclusionclear enough from the fact that the vote for the winning candidates in the last national election was approximately the same for Catholics and non-Catholicshas serious current implications....
....Compare two lists: According to the USCCB, the five most Catholic states, in population, are: Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. According to the American Life League, the states with the most pro-life legislation (i.e., inhibiting abortion in various ways) are: Oklahoma, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Texas. This is a shocker. In short, there is no Catholic political impact in support of life in those states reportedly having the most Catholics. As Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia put it, after the 2008 election, [w]e need to stop overcounting our numbers, our influence, our institutions, and our resources, because they are not real.
from the thread The Mythical Catholic Vote: The Harmful Consequences of Political Assimilation
For the past fifty years, indifference to Church teaching has been actively encouraged by bishops, priests, and catechists. Official episcopal announcements, books from Catholic presses, winking homilies, and a culture of silence on moral matters not only gave room for dissent but made assent actively difficult. Catholics in the pews simply followed the cues.
&&&
Spot on!
Catholic schools ceased to teach doctrine long ago, and RCIA programs are nothing but teaching people that it’s nice to be nice.
&&&
You are so right.
Admitting non-Catholic students to Catholic schools did not help, either, as teachers often take pains to water down the Catholicism so as not to offend them.
Wow! Our Pastoral Council broached this subject just last night.
**As the author says, not “the Church” in a greater sense, but the Church in the person of the local bishops, religious and lay teachers, writers and preachers. **
BTTT!
You don't say? But I thought that Catholics considered such an attitude "extreme" and one of the "errors" of Fundamentalist Protestantism?
Don't tell me the unchanging church has changed???
Thta's true. There is no such thing as the 'Catholic vote'.
You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet."
-- Matthew 5:13
Very true. Once upon a time, when non-Catholics did for some reason or another attend a Catholic school, they were actually required to go to mass (which used to be daily in many schools) even though they couldn't go to Communion, etc. The schools stopped requiring even this much because, believe it or not, the non-Catholic parents whose kids were getting a good private education objected to this minimal demand.
In fact in some areas, I think you'd find that the majority of students in the supposed Catholic school aren't Catholic and many of the teachers are not Catholic either. And we won't even get into things like the Canadian Catholic school that has a lot of Muslim students and is permitting Muslim religious classes in the school...
What did your parish council decide?
Unfortunately, Protestant churches are undergoing the same kind of indifference to doctrine.
We put forth the topics of contraception, sanctity of marriage, abortion, euthanasia, miracles, etc. along with many others that weren’t so controversial.
Which Protestant church, yours, some other, one we read about? Just as the Catholic denomination is a denomination, so are the various Protestant denominations, a blanket statement like yours might as well just say Christianity.
Well, I seem to notice it some in mine, the Southern Baptists. However, I was mainly referring to the mainline denominations, which have been drifing for decades, and also, the non-denominational mega-churches.
But, yeah, I was indicting Christianity in general, as it crosses a lot of denominations, moreso in some than in others. At least, that is the way I read the tea leaves.
If only we could get Christians to vote like Southern Baptists, our second largest denomination.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.