Catholic religion E-Book

Jakob Munck

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 114

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

This book is a critrical review of some of the tendencies, that is seen in the Catholic Church’s theology and practice after 2. Vatican Council (1962-65). Is is about political opportunism, fillosemitism and a number of teaching issues, that is preventing the Church to unite with the Christian Churces in the East. Did Virgin Mary had a free will? Is Holocaust a Catholic Dogma? Is the pope infallible? What must catholics believe? The book is a pretext for debate.

Leseprobe

Contents

1. INTRODUCTION

2. ONE POPE TWO CHURCHES

* The Mass and its purpose

* Ecumenism

* Virgin Mary

* Lutheranism

* Moral

* Humanae Vitae

* Crucifixion and Mess sacrifice

* Indulgence

* The relationship to the Jews

* Judeo-Catholicism

* Holocaust

* Popery and the fight for "the Church's teaching"

* Conclusion

3. POPE PIUS XII AND THE HOLOCAUST

* Pope Pius XII

* Israel's occupation

4. IS THE POPE INFALLIBLE?

5. DOES MARY HAVE A FREE WILL?

6. WHEN BENEDIKT XI ABOLISHED CHRISTIANITY

7. CATHOLIC EXPERIENCES

* Introduction

* Apprenticeship and initiation

* The new bishop

* Personal matters

* Kozon’s new leadership

* Moral considerations

* Judean surprises

* Williamson affair

1. INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader.

To me to be Catholic is to believe that man is good, that we have free will, that we are all loved by God and that all people - regardless of religion - can be saved. Churches are cultural institutions which have a therapeutic and a social task to solve. It is a community and its liturgy, sacraments and all its theology is arranged such that it caters to people who feel they are "sinners" and who wants to be cleansed of the burden that they thereby have put on themselves.

A good Catholic is a Catholic who thinks for himself, who is critical and has not made the Catholic religion into his livelihood and thus has put themselves in a financially beholden to the local bishop. Such people are - unfortunately - very hard to find.

The opposite of a good Catholic is a papist. Papists are people who cultivate a unique religion. In the old days they called such people "ultra montanists" ("over the mountains"), because they sought to propagate the view that the Pope is infallible (like Muhammad) and that critical thinking therefore is dangerous. Critical thinking leads - after the Papists’ opinion - to schismatic perceptions, and because salvation is only possible if one is in full communion with the Roman Church, then it is wise to put his own sense on standby to avoid ending up in hell.

But the Popish doctrine is false. It is irreconcilable with the Christian faith and because I confess myself to this faith, it is a pleasure to me to give a modest contribution to its development, trying to follow the ideals of Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother Mary.

Jakob Munck

2. ONE POPE TWO CHURCHES

When in 1995 I went to be taught by Catholic nun about catholic faith, I asked several times for a text, which could briefly inform me what Catholics believe in. But it was not so easy to satisfy my need. Certainly they had documents from the last church-council, but they filled approximately 500 pages and covered a range of things that no longer was quite timely, since Vatican II had ended 30 years ago. I could also read the church's catechism, which had just been published in Norwegian, but it consisted of 2,600 clauses, and was a little too bulky. Of course there was the Bible, but my teacher made it clear to me that Catholics do not uncritical "believe in the Bible" just as some Protestants do. For Catholics, it is the tradition and teaching of the Church, which is in the center, the Bible is more some kind of historical source for the doctrine. Therefore, there is much in the Bible that Catholics do not believe in, at least not if it is to be taken literally. Paul believed, for example that women should not speak in public, and several of the prophets in the Old Testament recommend murder and war on the holy people's opponents. But the church does not believe in that.

But what does one believe in? I was told that I could read the Creed, then I would get a good impression of what Catholics believe, and this advice I followed. Here they had a brief formulation of the Church's teaching, and although many of the sentences in this declaration sounded strange and was not quite easy to understand, then this was a starting point. So the question was thus about whether this statement should be interpreted symbolically, metaphorically or literally, and I could not get a clear answer to this, so I came to terms with that the viewpoint that one has to decide for himself. If you could say the Creed, without feeling that you were lying, then you are a Catholic and a supporter of the Catholic faith, I was told.

In the coming years, I found out that the question of what Catholics believe was not only hard for my teacher to answer, but that this issue was one of the main themes of all Catholic debates. There were many different viewpoints, and ultimately every Catholic has his own view. I became informed that this and that perception was not consistent with "church teaching." On the whole, the concept of "church teaching" took a big part of the dispute. Some believed it and others did not. But it might not matter as long as the different directions still - after all - was so close to each other that they could participate in the same Mass. Because it is the Mass and the service which is at the heart of the Catholic Church, and those who cannot or will not participate in this ceremony, cannot fully count themselves as Catholics. What Catholics believe, my teacher taught me, that is what is said during Mass and all the rest are considered to be private views which you can decide whether to believe or not.

I gradually found out that there was a certain pattern and that Catholics can broadly be divided into two segments, which formally belong to the same church, but which in practice are very different. These two directions believe different things about the Christian morality, the Mass’ liturgy, other religions, morals, the Pope, the Jews and the church's role in the modern world. Being an active Catholic is to participate in an ever-running debate on these and other topics that relate to the question that I started to ask my teacher: What does Catholics believe in? It was not only me who had doubts about this, so had she, and also the church in general.

As the years passed my experience showed me that the Catholic faith and its followers can be divided into two main streams which are opposed to each other, and therefore expect each other to be heretical, old-fashioned and immoral, each of which wants to conquer the church and - if possible - to shut the others out. In the beginning of my Catholic career, I was mostly under the influence of one direction, the liberals, while I in course of time became increasingly oriented towards the traditionalist. Personally, I experienced this as a learning process, and today I perceive the liberal Catholics as being naive, un-Christian and Judaic. On the other hand, I am also sure that many of them perceive me as being conservative and Anti- Semitic. I think they are wrong just like they probably think that I am wrong.

In the following we will not deal with my personal experiences. I will try to describe the two mutually contradictory interpretations of the Catholic faith that I have met in the church. That the followers of these directions mutually despise each other and tries to shut each other out, is due to their different understandings of a number of crucial questions of moral, theological and historical nature, and these are the issues that we will deal with.

Maybe I'm not a completely neutral observer, but on the other hand, it is not my job to judge which of the two described directions that is the correct one. I try to describe them as good as I can, and so the reader can form his own opinion. I can say that I do not uniquely belong to either one or the other of these directions.

What is always true in conflicts is the question of what the one and the other side of the dispute shall be referred to as, is a subject of disagreement. You could call the two trends for liberals and traditionalists. But you can also designate them as being humanists and fundamentalists, left- and right-wing anarchists and moralists or Philo-Semites and Anti-Semites. Each of these conceptual pairs says something true about the contrast that exists between the factions, but one should be aware that the contradictions between the supporters of the two wings are not so great that they do not fall within the same church. They all have the same pope, but there are significant differences in how they interpret their relationship with this man in the Vatican.

The choice of name for the two wings and the way we characterize them, says something about where you are standing, because words are not neutral. None of the above names are adequate for the full contents of the two faiths, but all say something true. Actually, I should choose to designate them with numbers 1 and 2, as it would sound neutral, but it would also seem a bit artificial. Therefore, I instead choose to use the terms "liberals" and "traditionalists". What you will choose to call the two directions, you must decide after you has formed an impression. The fact is that what is important is the content. It's about what the Catholic faith is about, and what it should comprise. The question is whether there today is a single Catholic church, or whether it is more correct to talk about two? The latter I believe in and I hope so, because I would not like to have to subordinate me a majority that I do not like. I acknowledge that there is only one pope in Rome, but I do not recognize that this pope - or other ecclesiastical authorities - always tells the truth. History and my own experience have taught me that it is not the case. Schism is therefore not only a bad thing, because it leads to discussion and clarification. If the church should shift and not just petrify in a past form, it is necessary to open up the debate which the present text suggests. But many would prefer to protect their power and the notion that the ecclesiastical authority is infallible. It claims to be, when ruling on metaphysical dogmas, but beyond that, so it is just as fallible as any other authority. But, it is unfortunately not all Catholics who have the courage to face this.

And hereby we go to the description of Catholicism two main directions, which they appear at the beginning of the third millennium. What one can argue about is the following:

* The Mass and its purpose

Liberals believe that the purpose of the Catholic Church’s service - first and foremost - is the social community between church members. The divine service must therefore take place in a liturgical form that is a reminiscent of a circle, where the priest and the Mass' other participants see each other and communicate with each other. However, it is not only to meet each other, people go to the Mass, because God's Word and Sacrament have a meaning. The priest's sermon is a kind of moral rearmament, and it is therefore essential that he have the word of his power. And the sacrament acts like a kind of fixed point, which the faithful gather around to hear the sermon and to meet each other.

The belief in God's presence in the sacrament - according to the liberal’s perception - is a way to create emotional liberation of the believers and to provide them with psychological benefits of the aisle. The liberalists are of course like any other, followers of the doctrine about the bread transformation into the Body of Christ (transubstantiation), but do not expect this teaching of particular importance. They believe that it is an expression of empty scholastic, if one distinguishes between the Lutheran and Catholic Sacrament’ doctrine, and they therefore also believe that all Christians - whether they are Catholic or not - must have access to participate in the sacrament.

Traditionalists believe that the purpose of the Mass is to worship God, and not significantly to meet or communicate with each other.

It transformed remedy - the body of Christ - can be taken equally well in and outside the church, because the sacrament has a healing effect on those who receives it. Participants in the Mass turns his face in the same direction, namely towards the Blessed Sacrament and the modern liturgical handshake (greeting of peace) is not used.

On the other hand it is argued that the sacrament has a saving effect of the believers, recalling the impact that drugs have on sick people. Why it works so well, no one knows, because it is a mystery. But without a regular intake of the consecrated Host, one cannot live. Traditionalists stresses on the importance of bread transformation and the sacred content in the sacrament. It is believed that the Lutheran doctrine that rejects transubstantiation is heretical and that non-Catholics should not have access to receive the Body of Christ.

* Ecumenism

Liberals believe that anyone can go to heaven, and that there therefore is no particular reason to be baptized or to convert to the Catholic faith. Baptism is not a necessary condition for salvation, and it is not possible to designate one religion as being more authentic or nearer God than the other. This theology separates itself heavily from Islam, which they believe is violent and womandiscriminatory, and claims that this religion is a common enemy of Christians