Ask A Catholic

he can't get most of his co-religionists to listen to him except when they want to.

ah, democracy

Yes, distributism has actually been Catholic orthodoxy for nearly a century, and there've been papal encyclicals and agitation by the faith's intellectual leaders (Chesterton was an eloquent advocate).* But I think the degree to which it emerges in American (or indeed Irish) Catholic sermonising is very much hostage to the fact that American (and Irish) Catholicism are both currently facing unprecedentedly mobilised demands for democratic accountability to their actual-factual local congregations, so that anti-war or anti-capitalist pronouncement are maybe getting undermined by all the sex stuff especially. (Garry Wills used to write a lot about this, but I haven't seen anything much recently.)

*It's the root source of the Blairite "Third Way", also, I think...

the left has this facepalm habit of openly being like lol religion ha ha ha we can do without those fusty antiquities! magic snakes amirite! zombies! without realizing that the right does exactly the same thing (in that they pragmatically jettison all the commie love-and-charity stuff and just leave in the key bits about killing gays) without actually making the boneheaded move of telling everybody. the left should be the party of religion and the right should have spent the last forty years in the outer darkness trying to justify its psychopathic new faith where compassion is the primary sin; instead they've been allowed to invert the central moral assumptions of thousands of years of religion and thought while still being able to straightfacedly call themselves "conservative" because at least they don't think women should be allowed to make decisions.

(and yeah part of why they've been able to do this is the weird calvinist nature of american religion in the first place, but maybe right-wing christianity wouldn't seem like the only option if the left hadn't arrogantly decided that it was totally unnecessary to appeal to the religious, i guess under the leninist impression that in the enlightened future they won't be around?)

so then you get something like the above papal announcement, which is really cool and everything but which the left is in no position to gain from because they've already alienated all the people who would listen.

i think theyve alienated those people a lot more by supporting same-sex marriage and lesbian soldiers and forced gay adoption than they have by being sort of snide about religion. but i dont know which left were talking about--there arent a lot of atheists holding higher office!

american politicians are required to profess faith the way they're required to wear ties, but even the Democrats (who yeah are not what i mean by the left -- i mean the left that's been cast out entirely from american politics and just mopes around university departments now) don't put religion to the political use that their opponents do; they've given up on it. and yes, all those social policies alienated the people to whom christianity mostly meant "gays and abortion are bad", but there was no alternative model on offer -- partly, no doubt, because it was the rightist interpretation of the faith that had the backing of business and of the making-a-comeback politicians subservient to business, but i think also because there was no resistance to it at all; the social democrats seemed to assume there was just no reaching these people.

if theres no alternative model on offer--which i dont think is strictly true but--why is that the fault of the left? not sure i buy the idea that 'the left' and 'the right' and 'business' drive religious belief...

maybe im misunderstanding you but it seems weird to say that the reason there isnt a strong christian left is the left's habit of dismissing religion--seems to me that there is a lot, like a LOT more going on--

like enough other stuff going on that college professors dismissive attitudes toward religion dont really enter into it

how big is this christian left demographic that supports samesex marriage and evolution

(I know a few but I'm genuinely curious)

a few weeks ago several of us discussed in another thread the church's role in the abortion wars and why the congregation seems to be more in lockstep with the clergy on this issue than, say, the death penalty or war. here's an very interesting and readable (and lengthy) excerpt from a book (which, on the title alone and from what i've read of this excerpt so far, i should probably buy) published this past january on the social mission of the church that deals with a lot of that:

http://ncronline.org/news/politics/us-catholic-bishops-and-abortion-legislation

difficult listening hour - yeah totally otm, perfectly put. I actually grew up around mostly left-of-center and moderate Christians, and there are a lot more of them than people realize. Right Wingers just do a very successful job of creating the sense that most christians actually buy into their totally un-Christ-like, Calvinist-y prosperity gospel bullshit, which has a lot more to do with this weird American perversion of post-Enlightenment values than actual Christianity

difficult listening hour - yeah totally otm, perfectly put. I actually grew up around mostly left-of-center and moderate Christians, and there are a lot more of them than people realize. Right Wingers just do a very successful job of creating the sense that most christians actually buy into their totally un-Christ-like, Calvinist-y prosperity gospel bullshit, which has a lot more to do with this weird American perversion of post-Enlightenment values than actual Christianity

otm - the Church isn't Bill Donohue either

there were a bunch of guys at OWS handing out info on distributionism, about which the more i learn the more i dig

which the left is in no position to gain from because they've already alienated all the people who would listen.

― occupy the A train (difficult listening hour), Sunday, October 23, 2011 3:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i don't think this is completely true

it's largely true tho Hoos I think

guys

this proclamation is useless
the jews have all the money
and they don't listen to il papa iirc

well they should b/c god talks to him

did anybody read my link it was very enlightening

i'm mid-wormhole at this point but this is also a pretty awesome read, who is this hillary hammel person she seems really smart

http://catholicmoraltheology.com/the-princeton-abortion-conference-one-year-later-guest-post-by-reproductive-justice-activist-hilary-hammell/

sorry i went out and it kept getting to be a longer trip!

yeah max of course you're right the conflict between the whole tradition of social liberty and the habitual repression of organized religion is a forever-old thing and did not start in 1970. and i was being glib about "liberal" snobbery towards religion (which tbf is not just restricted to the college professors, depending on where you live), but the complaint stands: i wish that the social left in this country, meaning the ones who don't subscribe to the nihilistic individualist cult we've invented, felt comfortable with? were willing to invoke? the pretty central and saleable tenants of christianity (and pretty much every other religion) re: compassion/class equity/escape from bondage to anything like the same degree that the cultists are willing to invoke its tenants re: repression and prejudice.

but then of course you could say that the repressive and prejudicial aspects of religion are always easier to organize around politically because they're the more reliable qualities of people, and that they're in the religions because of who we are whereas the compassion stuff is more aspirational. but you can get people whipped up about it still! i guess i wish that there were more religious demagogues on the left. at least trying. like tolstoy! instead we just have michael moore, who talks about his religious "upbringing" like he's brandishing an ID; christopher hitchens, who's suddenly decided at the end of his life that anti-god is the battle that most needs fighting; and a bunch of politicians who dutifully confirm that they go to church and then change the subject. maybe there's no Market for the other kind.

oh i do think business drives religious belief though, just like religious belief drives business; calvinism+its descendants and western european free enterprise are really intertwined and they pushed each other in the 1600s and they're still pushing each other now. but there's a whole other tradition we could have that i wish the left would try to develop.

HOWEVER i should own up to knowing this: in russia in the 1870s/80s there was this whole movement where urban student radicals got devoutly christian and went out into the country in a whole "To The People Movement" where they tried to convince the peasants (the barely-better-off post-serfs, whom americans are natch way better educated than and way more rich than in terms of stuff owned but whom they are coming within striking distance of on the misery front) that they were being abused and exploited and that their oppressors were violating the teachings of jesus, and the response they tended to get was that it was indeed hard to be a peasant and life was full of unnecessary suffering but at least they could be thankful for the tsar. so this stuff is difficult i guess.

First word from the Corner: ignore this pope fella, he's out of touch.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/281099/catholics-finance-and-perils-conventional-wisdom-samuel-gregg#more

waiting for William F Buckley to chime in from Hell.

ha

raising taxes? Even Bill Clinton thinks that’s not a great idea

btw, this "rebel nun" from L.A. who died a couple weeks ago, Anita Caspary, was a fascinating figure:

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/16/local/la-me-anita-caspary-20111016

god did i really say "tenants" twice up there when i meant tenets

These guys have been popping up at occupy camps:

http://protestchaplains.blogspot.com/

I did run into one lady in her clerical robes on Sunday last week, walking about the Portland camp offering communion to anyone who'd receive it.

yeah we've got a methodist dude who comes and leads interfaith services every day which is awesome

This belongs in two threads but I thought this bit here from an article about the group deserved mention:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2011/10/10/occupy-wall-street-protest-chaplains_n_1004112.html

On Sunday (Oct. 9), a diverse group of New York religious leaders marched to Zuccotti Square carrying a handmade golden calf fashioned to resemble the iconic bull statue near the New York Stock Exchange.

do any of y'all say "happy good friday"? is that a thing?

also raise your hand if you observed meatless fridays all throughout lent!

*does not raise hand not even a little bit*

I say "Have a Good Friday," and then I wink really hard.

I'm just glad I don't have to try to bargain with Mum anymore about what exactly constitutes 'no meat'

we tried to convince her to let us to have Dim Sims with our fish & chips but she wouldn't budge. we used to get SO mad at her, lol.

for my dad it means 'just plain cheese pizza'

our family didn't really eat much fish anyway so it always meant something horrible like fish sticks or tuna mornay

My brother in law was telling me how virulently anti-Catholic his grandfather was, and speculated that he may have been a KKK sympathizer in the 1920s, when the klan was quite strong in Oregon. But a little while later I was trying to explain to him the concept of Limbo, the Pagan Good, and the Harrowing of Hell, and his only comment was "Superstition!"

Is there any way to talk about the more esoteric parts of Catholic belief without eventually walking into a lamppost?

What is "the PAgan Good" and the "harrowing of hell"?

Aren't the Church going softly-softly on limbo now because the whole thing about unbaptised babies really upsets people? I know my school (not an explicitly Catholic one btw) was pretty dismissive of the idea.

Good grief! Are they teaching kids nothing in schools these days? (/facetious)

The harrowing of Hell was when Jesus descended into Hell after his crucifixion, for some reason or another. I've been a Catholic my whole life and have never heard the term "The Pagan Good" before.

It's my understanding that Limbo is not current Catholic doctrine any more. I think the church abandoned it several years ago.

I think it might depend on culture too? I know I was surprised to find that a Mexican-American friend & her family all ate fish every Friday - definitely not done in my part of Ireland.

I knew the harrowing of hell, but had to google the pagan good.

I googled the pagan good and didn't get anything. Hence why I asked.

Yeah, just double-checked and even adding "catholic" I don't get anything.

do any of y'all say "happy good friday"? is that a thing?

everyone is just saying 'happy easter' in the office today

To the best of my understanding (nb: I am not aero), there are different levels of accepted belief, ranging from traditions (which are respected, but not required) up through doctines and dogmas.

The concept of the Pagan Good was never doctrinal, but a tradition, which tried to account for the afterlife of pagans who lived blamelessly before the redemption of humankind by Christ's crucifiction. Dante, in the Inferno spared these Pagan Good from the torments of eternal punishment, because they had not sinned apart from their share in Original Sin. Dante consigned them to hell, because church doctrine required this, so their essential punishment was removal from God's eternal grace. But they got to sit around in a pleasant place and chat. iirc, that place was Limbo, right along with all those unbaptised babies.

The doctrine of the Harrowing of Hell (again, to my best understanding) concerns the "rescue" of the souls of some important biblical patriarchs and prophets from hell. Before the Resurrection, they couldn't be redeemed, but we know God SPOKE to them and used them as instruments of His Will, so God can't just leave them festering in hell, even though they were jews, so right after Christ was ressurected He went to hell and redeemed them, too, quick as He could get around to it. I mean, we're talkin' MOSES and ABRAHAM, fer chrissakes! They got preferential treatment.

Oh, ok. I've heard of that. But there must be some other word for it than "Pagan Good"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuous_pagan