The Catholicism Thread

x-post - I don't remember those. Then again, it's been a long time.

be not afraid, ave maria, like a shepherd, sing hosanna

Would prob still get a well-sung cd of these

anyway i suppose i should say right now that i'm still waiting for 'secular catholic' to pass into the vernacular (like 'secular jew'), and that i try to slip into conversation whenever possible.

dunno. always had the impression that quite a lot of catholics don't ~actually~ believe in the literalness of the christian myth (the church doesn't: hence the its eventual embrace of astronomy and evolution), nor in much of its doctrine, but since they like some of it they stick around because mass can be kind of comforting and priests can be nice to talk to. its nice to have someone to talk to.

whereas my (skewed) view of protestantism has always been "either you're in or you're out." ain't no such thing as half-way baptists.

i like hymns, too!

gbx otm

wish ireland would embrace 'catholicism as a way of life' method of teaching as opposed to 'here is a list of fairytale impossibilities believe or go to hell' at five yr olds

lol otm

I always think of a funny bit from this chick-lit book that I think really surpassed chick-lit, at least for someone else from the same crazy religious background as the author/narrator, about how you can have been NOT-Catholic for all the years of your adult life but still be considered by yourself and everyone else to be essentially "Catholic."

tho dunno where gbx is at with prods, they're p much the same as us except for being totally evil in the north obv.

O those northern proddies

oh yuck, bad memories of old church singers hamming it up on GLOOORY TO GOD IN THE HIIIIGHEEEEEST

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh stooooooooooooooop

there was always the one old guy in my vicinity who sang REALLY loudly and like a half-step off

I feel like there is ALWAYS that guy.

he gets around!

i did like, when i finally learned how to read music, actually being able to follow along in the hymnals

I'm also a fan of "Be Not Afraid"

oh man I cry like a child at "Be Not Afraid"

Be not afraid;
I go before you always.
Come, follow me,
and I will give you rest.

literally teared up typing it

feel like i've met plenty of ppl that, if asked their religion, would say "catholic, i guess....but i don't really believe in any of it." i know loads of jews that say that, too, but i've yet to meet a protestant that would say that. most of the ones that left their faith are like "i WAS ____, but i quit." except for lutherans, i guess. but i think that's just because all the lutherans i know are MNan and probably don't want to cause a fuss by going to the trouble of rejecting their faith

xp to laurel

my Episcopalian/Anglican relatives are very very similar to my Catholic family (more so than my Russian Orthodox relatives). makes sense, since Anglicans are only Protestant b/c Henry the Eighth couldn't keep it in his pants and wanted a divorce.

tho dunno where gbx is at with prods, they're p much the same as us except for being totally evil in the north obv.

O those northern proddies

― the '' key on my keybord is not working (darraghmac), Wednesday, March 16, 2011 3:09 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah see but they're anglicans and my mum was always like 'o those anglicans they're basically just catholics who can divorce and who stole all the good churches' >:[

xp basically

the english have an unsatisfying half-assed solution to everything.

I enjoy and wallow in my Irish Catholic guilt, btw, seems much more user-friendly than Jewish guilt.

every hates the episcopalians but its just cause we have all the money *counts his money*

Catholic Lite

more presbyterians than anglicans in ulster iirc

you can't quit catholic, real catholics just look smug when you mention being atheist or w/e the same way thirtysomethings look amused at 16 yr old goths

o man what the heck is a russian orthodox anyhow

always seemed like it had the potential to be the most fun kind of christianity if only because they had better hats and weirder rituals and insane beards.

xp

you can't quit catholic, real catholics just look smug when you mention being atheist or w/e the same way thirtysomethings look amused at 16 yr old goths

― the '' key on my keybord is not working (darraghmac), Wednesday, March 16, 2011 3:14 PM (9 seconds ago) Bookmark

this is what i mean!!!!!!

hahaha

I flat out tell people I'm Atheist but I do think what GBX said is true of a lot of ppl.

o man what the heck is a russian orthodox anyhow

always seemed like it had the potential to be the most fun kind of christianity if only because they had better hats and weirder rituals and insane beards.

yeah, Orthodoxy is all that ... plus all the crazy icons and the occasional liturgy in a weird dead language (Old Church Slavonic) that no-one even pretends to understand. they also have some crazy mystical traditions (see the Old Believers, who are even MORE Orthodox than the regular Russian Orthodox). and the main holiday for them is Easter (which always made the most sense to me, since the entire POINT of Christianity is that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead ... NOT merely that He was born (the emphasis of Christmas)).

downsides: LONG liturgies entirely on yer feet (Orthodox churches don't have pews), sketchy views regarding church-state separation (at least in Russia) and lingering anti-Semitism.

I always think of a funny bit from this chick-lit book that I think really surpassed chick-lit, at least for someone else from the same crazy religious background as the author/narrator, about how you can have been NOT-Catholic for all the years of your adult life but still be considered by yourself and everyone else to be essentially "Catholic."

― go peddle your bullshit somewhere else sister (Laurel), Wednesday, March 16, 2011 4:08 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

what book

iirc they have a pretty cool idea about how doctrine is decided. protestants are concerned with conscience and it's primacy, catholics are more concerned with the authority of the magisterium. the orthodox basically has a community standard, the church decides what's what in conversation with itself through history.

xp

no wonder they all went commie

Ha, Ned - my parents were married in this tiny Anglican church, but from there on out both of them were anti the whole thing because of tithing isues.

Back in the backety-back of my Huguenot ancestors is a guy who was the son of a general serving Louis XVI, and THE LEGEND SAYS three priests crossed his path one evening somewhere near La Rochelle, he threw shade at the fathers by greeting them as 'gentlemen' not 'fathers' and they drew swords on him for his impertinence. Miiiiiiiistake. One priest killed, one injured and the last one basically made like a preacher and got the Hell out of there. Huguenots were always explained to me as people who wanted to get that pesky middleman out of their relationship w/God so it was kind of lulz when my dad proved to have inherited the tight Puritan wallet aspect of this.

Hi I am lapsed Anglican! All the fun of Catholicism without the messy guilt. And yes, cool churches. Except my Mum insisted on going to the 'casual' church that looked like someone's house with a hippy priest who had a beard and I did not like it at all. I liked big white frocks and choirs and stained glass.

My mother in law is Catholic, I go to Catholic mass with her at Christmas and she's always amazed at how I know most of the call and response. Catholic-lite, baby!

(haven't been struck by lightning walking into a catholic church..yet)

Found it!

...there is no real halfway with evangelical Christianity. ... It is possible, for example, to be raised as a Catholic and then to grow up and stop obeying the rules and stop going to church and generally have nothing in your life that would remotely indicate to any reasonable human being that you are a Catholic, and yet still be considered, by yourself and everyone else, a Catholic. Not so with evangelicalism. You're either in or you're out. You're either with them or against them. And so, before we go any further here, I would like to make the point that I am currently out. Another point I'd like to make is that this is just the sort of thing I found really irritating about evangelicalism in the first place.

lapsed Anglican! All the fun of Catholicism without the messy totally hott guilt

fixed

The Big Love by Sarah Dunn

There is a huge Greek Orthodox parade through Astoria for their Easter--it looks quite medieval.

I don't know about hott. All I know is that I've dated three Catholics from three different ethic/national heritages and it seems like a bad scene.

when i was a kid i thought the greek orthodox church in my hometown was a planetarium

there was a greek orthodox church in my suburb, you could see the dome from our backyard. but no greek orthodox churchgoers in the neighborhood to speak of. they must've commuted.

they had the best festival in the summer - gyros

haw laurel that quote is like exactly what i was getting at

thanks laurel

I don't know about hott. All I know is that I've dated three Catholics from three different ethic/national heritages and it seems like a bad scene.

I can't speak for str8 catholic boys & should hold my tongue about the rest probably

actually that quote is why Catholicism seems more hardcore - it is forever! hooks in once, stain in always. Go ahead and leave. Doesn't matter. You're marked.

Isn't this true in America as well, at least historically, with immigrant groups such as Irish Catholics, Italians, etc. (whose backgrounds alligned them with class struggles and a fight for social equality) forming strong urban Dem voting blocks?...

― Virginia Plain, Wednesday, March 16, 2011 2:26 PM

Yeah i thought about America too, well actually the northeast (and maybe Chicago I'm not too familiar) but by left i meant in kind of (relative) socialist type terms and in recent years, so was sort of on the fence about that

One good thing about ex-catholics is that they/ we never turn into the kind of annoying Dawkins/ Hitchens/ Fry style professional secularist - which is really just that protestant determination to be right all the time with reversed polarity.

multiple xxxxposts here - I had forgotten some of those hymns - really always liked "Gather Us in," "Be Not Afraid," etc. The first thing I always did when getting to Mass was to look up what hymns we were going to sing and mark them somehow so that I could easily turn to them. The rest of it was zoning out. And if it was hymns I didn't like, ugh.

My daughter is really interested in God/church, etc. so I've been taking her to an Episcopalian church, which is sort of familiar-ish enough for me to not feel totally uncomfortable. We like to sleep in and so go to the later, "contemporary" service, which features some really odd music choices. At Christmas, "Angels We Have Heard on High" was done with a reggae beat. I guess it was fine, but I kind of think some things weren't broken and didn't need to be fixed.