A la carte catholics

The Core RPGC Main Forum
21

One thing you should all keep in mind is that many people are not given a choice regarding their beliefs or values… many are not even aware they have a choice!

I was Catholic because I was born in a Catholic family, like the majority of Puerto Ricans. I was told it was the true faith, period. And I believed it. Why not? My loved ones said so.

Of course, most people here are also ‘non-practicing’ Catholics- they rarely go to church. And that, too, is accepted as the norm. No one questions if this is wrong because everyone else does it (except the church-going people, of course!)

I went to Catholic School, because my oldest sister (who raised me) insisted I did. This actually gave me the chance to question many of the Church’s tenets, as I had the chance to study religion formally, something I likely would have never done on my own. Being the inquisite person I’ve always been, I noticed contradictions, I asked about them, and either was given unsatisfactory answers, or was told not to question the Church. That didn’t work for me.

Still, it wasn’t until I was an adult -and had both matured as a person, and realized that lifelong-held beliefs -likea America always being the Good Guys, for example- could be wrong, that I formally stopped being a Catholic; I didn’t so much quit as I realized that I wasn’t really one to begin with. My beliefs never quite fitted in with the Church’s.

Please note, however, that I still have a healthy amount of respect for the Church. Yes, it’s a human organization and therefore, will always have failings, from corruption to unjust beliefs, but in a world full of organizations that are even worse -like most governments- at least I know that most of its people really do mean well.

22

Point was summed up nicely for me when most people my age called me an idiot for not having my confirmation, because “it gives you so much money”, which is why everyone else did it.
I won’t let myself be bought into dishonesty, thank you.

23

The crux of the problem for the Catholics is that I doubt it would be considered very Christ-like for them to be so “uncharitable” to withhold sacrement from those who are casual about their Catholicism. My personal view is that they should do it, but when taking into account the views of Catholocism I believe it would not be a smart move spiritually (or, more practically for them, politically). For instance: although a sinner might want his daughter baptised, she might become a devout Catholic. How would she become a devout Catholic unless she was exposed to the religion?

I’m most certainly not a Catholic, so my view might be wholly skewed, but I doubt it.

24

You’re right. That’s exactly what most catholic priests say. In fact they use the argument that Christ often directed his speech to the people with weaker faith first, so as to strengthen their faith, before turning to his disciples. When asked why He’d do so, Jesus said that doctors should see after the sick first, not the healthy, and that He’d be doing the spiritual analogue thing to it.

Thus the church favors the casual practitioners in hope that they’ll become more loyal sooner or later (that’s what they say, I’ve already put what I think in text in an earlier post, though).

What the… Just how does undertaking a sacrament bring you any financial return? Now that’s a whole new level of nonsense to me!

I’ve been throuigh confirmation, but because I was fervorous when I did it. Among the people who went through it with me, there were lots who didn’t have the slightest idea about what it meant and where doing it because “others were doing too”, or (the majority of them) “because it’s a prerequisite to have a catholic marriage someday”. But I’ve never ever heard it gives you money in return. And believe me, I’ve seen fucked up stories about the sacraments. People in rural areas around here believe that babies can die for merely not being baptismed within their first seven days of life.

Really, what those people told you is now one more reason for me to stand against the ideals of the catholic church.

25

Every child from my family has gotten the equivalent of a birthday party upon their confirmation. Hell, mine funded my purchase of an N64.

26

Oh, that…

Dude, that’s too cheap a value for you to sell yourself.

27

I just say let people believe whatever they want.
. . .
Does that make me a pick and choose Sikhist?

28

I’m fairly certain DT is, or at least was raised, Lutheran.

Protestant denominations, even the ones that still regularly do most, if not all, of the Sacraments, do not place too high of an emphasis on any of those rituals except for baptism. In fact, I don’t believe any of the primarily American Protestant denominations (Baptist, Methodist, etc) do confirmation. In its place is the shirking of infant baptism and recognizing only baptisms chosen to be undertaken by the person.

Roman Catholicism is unique in Christianity in that is both orthodoxic and orthopraxic. There’s a heavy emphasis on both correct belief and correct practice. You generally won’t see such a hubbub over Christmas and Easter Christians in Protestant denominations, even the “Catholic-lite” (Anglican/Episcopalian, Lutheran), because Protestantism doesn’t place any emphasis on the rituals. In fact, the only ritual emphasis you’ll see is baptism, but even then you’ll see some denominations be rather liberal in what they accept (Lutheran, Anglican, Methodist). You might and probably will see solitary church members complain about such members, but nothing should be given from some sort of higher authority.

As an aside, I still call the Sacraments by their more formal names. My Baptist friends have to stop and think for a second when I refer to the Rite of Holy Eucharist. It even gives them pause when I say Communion. One of them, though, is intrigued with the notion of each church goer having to willingly go forth to receive the bread and, in his case, grape juice. He’s not totally satisfied with the Baptist tradition of the bread and juice being passed around, aisle to aisle.

I don’t go to church regularly myself. I sleep in. I’ve tried a few Episcopalian services in Athens, but the Episcopalian service is an odd one. It is half litany. Therefore, some churches are dead. The words have no meaning, and many of the people seem to be there because they think it’s necessary (see the UGA Episcopalian student worship center). Others take the litany and breathe life into it such as my church back home. I think that occurs partly because of the distinction between high and low churches. The high churches always seem dead to me; the low ones seem, at least to me, to embrace their connection to the history of American revivals. It’s unfortunate about the high churches though.

29

All the catholic churches in Brazil have masses which are much more than half litany. If you’ve read the bible and seen one of them, you’ve seen them all.

To be honest, there is the two-minutes intro, then some litany, then there’s a second litany, then the “creed prayer”, then a third litany, then there’s the “holy father” prayer, then the bread, more litany, and thus ends. Always in this order. It only changes when it’s a mass in homage to someone who’s died (7th day mass), or something really big has happened. Not even Christmas masses are different, they jsut focus on Jesus’s birth more.

30

Yeah. The “Catholic-lite” churches derive their heavy litany from their Catholic roots. The standard Episcopalian service has an opening procession/hymn, reading from the Old Testament, church recitation of a Psalm, reading from one of the non-Gospel NT books, a reading from one of the Gospels, and sermon for the non-litany first half. There’s then an “intermission,” at least in my church, of just general church announcements. That’s followed by the litany with one of four different prayers for the people (depending on the church season, Catholics have the different seasons, right?), the Nicene or Apostle’s Creed, formulaic confession of sins, recitation of the Last Supper, Lord’s Prayer, then Communion. Then the priest, deacon, acolytes, crucifer, etc leave. All in all, my services back home took about an hour. It’s easy for the second half of the service to devolve into a rather dead portion of the service. Same with the Psalm reading, depending how it’s done (I’ve always preferred the spoken reading as opposed to the chanting/singing that high churches do).

31

I’ve never even heard of this. When I had my confirmation there was definately no focus on money. I just remember myself asking a lot of questions about why I had to be confirmed into the faith when I was already baptised into it.

32

is protestant, indeed. Communion is catholic, I did not confuse that with confirmation.
I don’t know about other countries, but in germany you normally get a ton of money from friends, family and relatives and everyone invited. A friend of mine who comes from a rather poor family actually financed a high-end laptop from it and went clothes shopping with the leftover money; others I know went on holiday trips. You get anywhere from several hundreds to even thousands of euros from gifts alone.

33

While what DT is talking about is a little excessive, what she’s describing is what this article is referring to and it is a common practice. I got F-zero for my communion in 3rd grade amongst other things. So believe it.

34

Hey, why not? He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none. They are nice enough to do this with money. If you get a thousand euros and go on a trip where you pick up a few things, that’s fine with me.

edit: Otherwise Sin wouldn’t be the fastest driver in the Galaxy.