Ask A Catholic

oh man I got onto other stuff and now there's a lot of questions

Something I've always wondered about: Why do Catholics revere the symbol of the crucifix when a) it was just the most common Roman instrument used for putting people to death, and b) it was the method used to kill Jesus.

well, it's not just Catholics - that's all Christians. Crosses everywhere. It's a paradox, kind of your classic Jesus paradox: Jesus came to save you. You love him for that, right? Assuming you accept that you were damned & were likely going to Hell, this Dude came to take your place, because He loved you exactly as you were, warts and all. You on your worst day, He still loves that person enough to die in his place. Presumably you love Him back for that, but He has to die to accomplish the work of grace. So the cross on which He dies in transformed into an instrument of triumph; the instrument of His demise becomes the sign by which those redeemed by Him recognize one another and gain comfort and fellowship.

this is not a specifically Catholic teaching but it's the cross as I understand it.

NB I do not still actually believe much of this but I'm willing to offer defences as long as people don't talk like "oh ua believes all this stuff," I don't, I'm just intimate with it

The English theologian John Bale attributed to Pope Sixtus "the authorisation to practice sodomy during periods of warm weather."

i'm hazy on this but i think the cross took a while to really take off as The Symbol of the church. the fish was the 'sign' among believers for a good long time

xp Didn't you know? Anal keeps you cool.

I actually see more people with fish pendants and fish symbols on cars than crosses and crucifixes.

evangelicals love all the 'early church' stuff

btw sodomy /= anal

i mean, i'd rather sit on a pillar in the syrian desert than live in a dallas exurb myself

xp

I was raised Anglican, mostly High Church style, was even an acolyte, let active belief fall away from me gradually and have been a fairly content agnostic since I was twenty or so. I've always wondered if my joke that being raised Anglican means you get all of the ceremonies of Catholicism but none of the Catholic guilt is true and from the sound of it it is (thus your opening words), I certainly don't remember any particular focus on the idea of guilt as intrinsic in my religious upbringing as such, and might explain why I found it so easy to let go. Is it something that is ingrained from the start in any/all Catholic religious instruction?

Catholic guilt is tradition. It does make intuitive sense to my indwelling Catholic: the Holy Family suffered as they did for me, but how grateful am I really, in my daily life? Not very. I'm more interested in myself. That's my nature, and I don't do much to overcome it or transcend it. But the saints show me that I could, if I really cared. Hence, guilt!

Lots of straights don't understand that though. Fortunately in Catholic school I learned what constituted sodomy since it was all non-procreative sex anyway.

xxxp can include anal sex

I actually see more people with fish pendants and fish symbols on cars than crosses and crucifixes.

that may be, but in hoc signi vincis iirc

Alfred, if you were Philip K. Dick & saw those fish symbols, you would be transported back to the first century, and a pink light would tell you about your son's birth defects

goole right, wiki sez, but the cross was still around early:

During the first two centuries of Christianity, the cross may have been rare in Christian iconography, as it depicts a purposely painful and gruesome method of public execution. The Ichthys, or fish symbol, was used by early Christians. The Chi-Rho monogram, which was adopted by Constantine I in the 4th century as his banner (see labarum), was another Early Christian symbol of wide use.

However, the cross symbol was already associated with Christians in the 2nd century, as is indicated in the anti-Christian arguments cited in the Octavius of Minucius Felix, chapters IX and XXIX, written at the end of that century or the beginning of the next,[2] and by the fact that by the early 3rd century the cross had become so closely associated with Christ that Clement of Alexandria, who died between 211 and 216, could without fear of ambiguity use the phrase τὸ κυριακὸν σημεῖον (the Lord's sign) to mean the cross

If my sister's experiences in the mid nineties are any indication, Catholic schools are feebler institutions than they were in the fifties and sixties.

no more nuns to run them

oh that's for sure. it's the one thing that i kind of mourn about the slow death of the catholic hierarchy.

Why do/did Christians hate Jews for killing Christ when He* had to die for our sins so that we can go to Heaven?

The Sanhedrin, "an assembly of twenty-three judges appointed in every city in the Biblical Land of Israel" as Wikipedia handily puts it, handed Christ over to Pilate to be crucified. The race stuff in all this is way too dense for me to really parse without making an utter ass of myself, but, speaking from a how-it-seems-to-me position rather than a doctrinal position here, it seems like Christians (including Catholics over the ages) think of Christ as a Jew-who-passes. He's not really a Jew, because the Jews persecuted Him. Yes I know this is profoundly fucked up, but I do think that's how anti-semitic Xians think of the matter.

"lay teachers"

Who'd'a thunk it? That Catholicism would be the Hot Topic of the Day on ILE? Next thing you know it will be declared DaVinci Code Day on I Love Books.

Can you explain the Immaculate Conception a bit more? Like, how is that possible? How is it connected to St Anne being a saint?

It's possible because of grace. Pius IX institutes the doctrine in 1854: "In the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin." From newadvent.org, further explanation:

The term conception does not mean the active or generative conception by her parents. Her body was formed in the womb of the mother, and the father had the usual share in its formation. The question does not concern the immaculateness of the generative activity of her parents. Neither does it concern the passive conception absolutely and simply (conceptio seminis carnis, inchoata), which, according to the order of nature, precedes the infusion of the rational soul. The person is truly conceived when the soul is created and infused into the body. Mary was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin at the first moment of her animation, and sanctifying grace was given to her before sin could have taken effect in her soul.

Not only did the Sanhedrin hand him over, but Pilate also gave the crowd a chance to save one of the convicted, and they chose to have Barabbus, a "bandit", freed instead.

VERY INTERESTINGLY, wiki has just told me that "bandit" is one translation, but that "insurrectionary" or "revolutionary" is another one. So perhaps the interpretation is that the Jews who voted for Barabbus betrayed Christ by picking the WRONG revolutionary/the wrong version of their future??

Meanwhile, leave it to the Onion for timing (unless this is what prompted the threads):

http://www.theonion.com/articles/pope-to-ease-up-on-jesus-talk,19727/

xp it's cos of paddy's day tomorrow

Yeah, it was Mary who was a virgin at the time of Jesus' conceptions. Anne and Joachim definitely porked.

the wiki summary sort of implies the doctrine of the IC was a little bit political:

From early on in the history of the Catholic Church, in numerous places in the writings of the Church Fathers, the belief is implicitly stated.[citation needed] In various places the feast of the Immaculate Conception had been celebrated for centuries on 8 December when, on 28 February 1476, Pope Sixtus IV[6] extended it to the entire Latin Church. He did not define the doctrine as a dogma, thus leaving Roman Catholics free to believe in it or not without being accused of heresy; this freedom was reiterated by the Council of Trent. However, the feast was a strong indication of the Church's traditional belief in the Immaculate Conception.[7][8] On 6 December 1708 Pope Clement XI decreed that the feast of the Immaculate Conception be a Holy Day of Obligation.[9] throughout the entire Catholic Church.

The Immaculate Conception was solemnly defined as a dogma by Pope Pius IX in his constitution Ineffabilis Deus on 8 December 1854.[10] The Catholic Church teaches that the dogma is supported by Scripture (e.g., Mary's being greeted by the Angel Gabriel as "full of grace") as well as either directly or indirectly by the writings of Church Fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyons and Ambrose of Milan.[11][12] Catholic theology maintains that since Jesus became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, it was fitting that she be completely free of sin for expressing her fiat.[13] In 1904 Pope Saint Pius X also addressed the issue in his Marian encyclical Ad Diem Illum on the Immaculate Conception.[14]

check them dates!

"expressing her fiat"

oh well if ambrose had her checked out first then i guess i believe

any takers on the alternate view of virgin as a mistranslation from the hebrew? i always found that interesting.

oh and i am like a catholic once removed or something - raised atheist but oh man never to be mentioned around my irish catholic grandmother. who was awesome btw, so i figure catholicism is aok. also radical nuns are the coolest shit ever. ok then.

I find it interesting too. It's was supposedly maiden or something and not virgin, right?

maiden is a virgin?

by definition I think it just means unmarried

The whole virgin vs maiden vs maid thing is v confusing. Really it used to just be a young unmarried woman. I think for a very long time there wasn't necessarily a connotation that she was also sexually pure!

p sure 'maiden' suggests virgin but that the mistranslation suggested only 'young woman' or somesuch

"Several distressed correspondents have queried the mistranslation of 'young woman' into 'virgin' in the biblical prophecy, and have demanded a reply from me. Hurting religious sensibilities is a perilous business these days so I had better oblige. Actually, it is a pleasure, for scientists can't often get satisfyingly dusty in the library indulging in a real academic foot-note. The point is in fact well known to biblical scholars, and not disputed by them. The Hebrew word in Isaiah is (almah), which undisputedly means 'young woman', with no implication of virginity. If 'virgin' had been intended (bethulah) could have been used instead (the ambiguous English word 'maiden' illustrates how easy it can be to slide between the two meanings). The 'mutation' occurred when the pre-Christian Greek translation known as the Septuagint rendered almah into ... (parthenos), which really does usually mean virgin. Matthew (not, of course, the Apostle and contemporary of Jesus, but the gospel-maker writing long afterwards), quoted Isaiah in what seems to be a derivative of the Septuagint version (all but two of the fifteen Greek words are identical) when he said Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, 'Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel' (Authorised English translation). It is widely accepted among Christian scholars that the story of the virgin birth of Jesus was a late interpolation, put in presumably by Greek-speaking disciples in order that the (mistranslated) prophecy should be seen to be fulfilled. Modern versions such as the New English Bible correctly give 'young woman' in Isaiah. They equally correctly leave 'virgin' in Matthew, since there they are translating from the Greek."

Yeah - it was young woman - my b.

i forgive u

VERY INTERESTINGLY, wiki has just told me that "bandit" is one translation, but that "insurrectionary" or "revolutionary" is another one. So perhaps the interpretation is that the Jews who voted for Barabbus betrayed Christ by picking the WRONG revolutionary/the wrong version of their future??

Use this site or this one to cross-reference any claims made on wikipedia regarding this sort of thing imo. Wikipedia tends to slant a bit on any given day. Number of different translations of Mark 15:7.

btw in case the Holy Father is reading this thread I apologize for reading the Bible

again btw in re: virgin vs. maiden the Church very conveniently regards tradition as one of the ways that God speaks to us. So if an early translator happened to say παρθένος for עלמה that was God's hand telling us more about the story

Yeah dude everyone knows Catholics don't read the the Bible. What are you doing? x-post

I'm not sure what your point is, aero, because pretty much all of those translations confirm that Barabbas was an "insurrectionary" and had been involved in an uprising in which some murders were committed, although they differ on whether he was a murderer or just involved with a gang or rebel group who were accused jointly.

Which is still interesting to me because I was only taught that he was a robber and murderer when in fact neither is proven and one isn't even suggested.

@ ENBB when I was getting my training to teach Catechism I had a Bible question and I asked this young priest whose weekly homilies were pretty heavily Get Back To Tradition stuff and his answer, hand to God, was: "Why do you need to know?"

hahaha

well Laurel take this one:

English Standard Version (©2001)
And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas.

vs this one:

New Living Translation (©2007)
One of the prisoners at that time was Barabbas, a revolutionary who had committed murder in an uprising.

To "rebel," in the tradition, is to be against God. To be a revolutionary, that's another matter.

What is this, pick the examples we like day?

Bible in Basic English
And there was one named Barabbas, in prison with those who had gone against the government and in the fight had taken life.

American Standard Version
And there was one called Barabbas, lying bound with them that had made insurrection, men who in the insurrection had committed murder.

I'm reading this as, he was a rebel against the Roman system and was in jail primarily as a political prisoner. Which is why I posited that he might have represented a more earthly kind of victory for the Jews under Roman rule.

But I mean you are reading that based on your reading of various translations. That's in the nature of Biblical exegesis: you have the text, and you have the translation, and you have your own beliefs, and you make your interpretation based on a confluence of those three. If you're Catholic, you add in the fourth & overriding matter of tradition.

I just set up those two to show that there are several readings. And even if we all spoke Esperanto, there would be many ways of "reading"/interpreting. Absent the author here to tell us what he meant, and absent a completle documentary view of the circumstances, we're going to be interpreting and bringing our own biases to the table. That is why we need the Church to guide us.

Was raised Catholic growing up and was probably one of the model examples - taught Sunday school, Catholic summer camps, altar boy, etc. Maybe it was just the church groups we attended, but none of the more detestable aspects of the church were apparent or just leaned into through it all. I stopped attending as soon as I hit college because I think there were people involved that were more representative of Christianity as a whole that turned me off. That idea that "I can behave terribly but I'll be fine because I go to church and God always forgives" started becoming more noticeable in my later teen years when it seemed like the more reasonable option was to JUST BE NICE to people.

A lot of this is my story too. I was an altar boy, I went to CYO, I went on Catholic youth retreats, I went to an all-boys' Catholic high school for two years. I never had any bad experiences through any of it; I guess I just wasn't any of my local priests' type, because at least two of them were defrocked or quit the church later. One moved to Las Vegas and got murdered one morning by a guy he'd molested years earlier. Anyway, I stopped going to church when I moved out of my mom's house at 18 — I'd long since drifted away from any kind of Christian belief and into reading about other stuff (Zen, Taoism, the usual shit). These days my "beliefs," such as they are, are a kind of personal amalgam of Zen, Taoism, Stoicism, and Norse/Asatru values — blood, honor, manliness, but without all the stuff about the gods.

My mom is still very much Catholic; she does the readings at her church just about every week, and does a lot of charity work — drives meals to the elderly, does people's taxes for free, maybe some other stuff too. She acknowledges all the shitty things the Church and her alma mater, Penn State, have done, but it neither invalidates her engineering degree nor impacts her faith.

similar for my dad, who was born and raised Catholic. He joined the Knights of Columbus after he retired and all the kids left the house. I don't ask too much about it but as far as I know that's mainly been a social thing for him.

I know he has some old-school thoughts about women that aren't as severe as other people, and he's been called out by my sister, so I've never felt like piling on to what's probably an in-grained lost cause. But he was never a Jesus-first parent - which I really appreciate looking back.

perhaps Heez hasn't finished Home Alone. Marley and his son forgive each other at the end.

well, my Methodist-turned-Catholic mom took me to see Home Alone when it was originally out in theaters, and I'll cherish that time and parenting decision forever.

Bob marleys in home alone?!? Ok I’ll finish it.

I grew up Lutheran in the south. It was extremely chill. Church camps all that stuff. Not much guilt or anything like that. My mother and father are still Christian but they do not go to the same church nor do they vote for the same party. My mom prefers the activist, community oriented side of the church while my dad prefers the traditional side. The south is mostly are up of baptist and evangelicals who believe in the gospel of prosperity and rarely do community outreach.

I now live near DC in a neighborhood filled with federalist society lawyers who rarely engage with their non-Catholic neighbors. I also know a lot more of the New England Catholics, well former Catholics, who are some of the best ppl I know, but seem extremely damaged by the church and their strictly religious parents.

Anyway Catholicism has come to represent this very corrupted version of religion that you either walk lockstep with or fight against. And yes, I understand my small neighborhood doesn’t represent the entirety of Catholicism, so I’m mainly just asking questions, be it from a very skewed place

The thing about having 1.35billion adherents, is you're going to be able to find whatever you're looking for within that communion, good and bad.

― H.P

sure. 1.35 billion adherents is a lot. i don't need to play diogenes looking for a Good Catholic. they're all over the place.

one pope, though. one college of cardinals. all men, all celibate, or pretending to be. one Young archbishop of Portland, denouncing "gender ideology", issuing edicts forbidding teachers in Catholic schools from referring to trans kids by their _names_, from gendering them correctly.

one man. how many children? how many fucking kids is this one man abusing, and nobody says anything, nobody _does_ anything, it's _fine_ because he does it in the name of _Christ_, he does it in the name of the Roman Catholic Church?

-

I can't... I can't talk about what it was like for me, growing up Catholic. How it affected me. I try, but I can't. It hurts too much. Sorry. Y'all... I think y'all talking, I really would _like_ for y'all to know. But I can't tell you. Maybe someday. The most I can do is jump off Heez here:

I also know a lot more of the New England Catholics, well former Catholics, who ... seem extremely damaged by the church and their strictly religious parents.

My Catholic roots are Midwestern. Brahmin-y, but Midwestern. My parents, my mom's parents... I don't think of them as "strictly religious" either. I went to Catholic school, Catholic college, church every Sunday, but I don't think of my upbringing as "strictly religious" in the "women with exposed ankles are immodest" sense. Have I been extremely damaged by the Church and my parents? Absolutely.

I can't say more than that right now. I wish I could. I don't believe in... I don't believe in the culture of _silence_ I was raised in. I really want to speak up. I just can't right now. I'm sorry.