Ask A Catholic

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

The harrowing of Hell was when Jesus descended into Hell after his crucifixion, for some reason or another.

Used to have this church book with a drawing of Jesus in Hell. Really threw me off as an 8-year-old.

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.

It would have been the case back in the day, though. My parents still have fish most Fridays though I think they are flexible about it.

The church shrugs and says "I dunno" about babies going to limbo:

On April 22, 2007, the advisory body known as the International Theological Commission released a document, originally commissioned by Pope John Paul II, entitled "The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die without Being Baptized."[25]

After tracing the history of the various opinions that have been and are held on the eternal fate of unbaptized infants, including that connected with the theory of the Limbo of Infants, and after examining the theological arguments, the document stated its conclusion as follows:

Our conclusion is that the many factors that we have considered above give serious theological and liturgical grounds for hope that unbaptized infants who die will be saved and enjoy the beatific vision. We emphasize that these are reasons for prayerful hope, rather than grounds for sure knowledge. There is much that simply has not been revealed to us.[26] We live by faith and hope in the God of mercy and love who has been revealed to us in Christ, and the Spirit moves us to pray in constant thankfulness and joy.[27]

What has been revealed to us is that the ordinary way of salvation is by the sacrament of baptism. None of the above considerations should be taken as qualifying the necessity of baptism or justifying delay in administering the sacrament. Rather, as we want to reaffirm in conclusion, they provide strong grounds for hope that God will save infants when we have not been able to do for them what we would have wished to do, namely, to baptize them into the faith and life of the Church.

Until recently at least, unbaptised infants could not be buried in a consecrated graveyard and would often end up in an unmarked field.

^^ Applying this sort of theological methodology consistently would lead to St. Aquinas being relegated to a mere pile of opinions and most of the doctrines of the church being opened to reasonable doubt... and I say, "more, please."

'sure knowledge'

!

sorry to derail, but will someone tell me about this Sister Wendy person in the video upthread?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/us/nuns-speak-about-vatican-criticism.html?ref=us

The Vatican ordered a “doctrinal assessment” of the women’s leadership conference in 2008 after years of concerns about its direction. The conference was formed in 1956 to provide communication and coordination among communities of sisters, and is a canonical organization, which means it answers to the Vatican. The assessment concluded that the leadership conference had hosted speakers who “often contradict or ignore” church teaching; had never revoked a statement from 1977 that questioned the male-only priesthood, and focused their efforts on serving the poor and disenfranchised, while remaining virtually silent on issues the church considers great societal evils: abortion and same-sex marriage.

yeah you don't say. as usual the nuns are fuckin awesome

truth bomb

The Catholic church is as big as any company in America. Bankruptcy cases have shed some light on its finances and their mismanagement

http://www.economist.com/node/21560536

That reminds me, I saw a sign for bingo starting next month. I wonder if I can get anyone to go with me.

The Catholic church is as big as any company in America. Bankruptcy cases have shed some light on its finances and their mismanagement

http://www.economist.com/node/21560536

The parishioners were unimpressed. Some heckled the bishop when he visited their parish to celebrate mass. One of the Boston parishes, St Frances Cabrini in Scituate, Massachusetts, has been occupied for the past eight years by parishioners who have refused to accept its closure. They have a roster chart to ensure at least one person is at the church at any time, so that the archdiocese can’t change the locks.

sweeet

The principle of separation between church and state in America means that religious groups are not required to file tax returns, list their assets or disclose basic facts about their finances

erm that is not what i thought separation of church and state was about

'entails that'

Non-taxation of religious organizations is purely a political decision by Congress which could be reversed at any point, if Congress decided differently. Not a constitutional issue whatsoever.

It's true that tax-exempt status for religious orgs is statutory, but the laws conferring that status - and those making them audit-resistant and exempt from filing annual financial reports - are based in principles, including that of separation of church and state. Also, some case law supports the idea of tax-exemptions for churches as being in line with the establishment clause and the ideal of separation of church and state (though OTOH, some decisions have held that tax-exempt status is a means of govt. support of religious orgs).

This article has an interesting section about the history of tax-exemptions for religious orgs and charities http://lawandreligion.com/sites/lawandreligion.com/files/livingston.pdf.

late cardinal, a progressive Italian Jesuit, in last interview:

"The church is 200 years out of date. Why don't we rouse ourselves? Are we afraid?"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48876172/ns/world_news-europe

No Catholic conservative would cop to being afraid of change or to being out of date, for that matter. To them, religion and morality are static reflections of an omnipotent, omniscient (and therefore unchanging) god. Consequently, change is not frightening so much as simply wrongheaded.

Once you get yourself deeply into this sort of a mental trap, you become a voluntary prisoner. Every door to change is wide open, but using one's freedom looks like a sin.

I don't know if this has been discussed anywhere else on ilx:

http://www.ontopmag.com/article.aspx?id=12865&MediaType=1&Category=26

79 year old celibate monk makes profoundly ignorant pronouncement about sex. This is sad and stupid, but not terribly surprising.

i acted as godfather at my nephew's christening on saturday, was v weird being back doing the vows etc. i didn't want to repeat them but i was at the altar and conscious of my sort of religious sister thinking i wasn't taking it seriously etc.

one thing tho, in one of the vow questions, the priest said something about rejecting "THE GLAMOUR OF EVIL". this phrase has been stuck in my head sense. THE GLAMOUR OF EVIL.

that's that good good Catholic stuff right there

the priest arrived late, and he said to me, and i can quote it cos he repeated it later "sorry about my lateness, i've never done a cremation that fast, believe me!"

A friend FB-posted: "Pope Francis washed women's feet on Holy Thursday, breaking canon law. The conservatives are going crazy."

http://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/popes-like-dads-dont-have-a-choice-in-the-matter/

the pastor mentioned this -- approvingly, i should add -- during the homily at Holy Thursday Mass today.

how could the prohibition on washing women's feet possibly have a scriptural justification? unless jesus just happens never to be mentioned as washing any women's feet (and does wash e.g. disciples' feet, and have his washed?)?

i wasn't aware that there was any sort of canon-law based prohibition on this (if indeed there is), either.

tbf jesus did a lot of stuff with his disciples that he supposedly never did with women

heh heh heh

catholicism is mostly "these guys who started our church, supposedly, who knew guys who were with jesus a day or two, supposedly, are the direct voice of God via Jesus/God, exactly, so do whatever we say because even though we elect our leadership it's whoever speaking through us"

see, direct line to the word of God

Petrine Succession, boyos.

is this a big departure?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/pope-francis-good-atheists_n_3320757.html