I attended a social event the other night where there happened to be eight people who claimed to be Catholic sitting at our table.
My wife mentioned how pleased she was that the Priest at our church had no problem being outspoken about abortion and moral values generally. She rightly believed that mention of this topic would be safe among fellow “Catholics.” She may have been right 50 years ago.
Four or five of the other alleged Catholics jumped on her opinion as if she had two heads. One proclaimed that the Priests opinions aren’t worth diddly and basically that everyone’s situation is different and they ought to be able to do what feels right to them. I thought to myself in that instant that this reinforces my opinion about Catholics – that of the minority of them who do attend Mass regularly, most appear to attend for the ritual and out of habit rather than out of any love of the church or sense of allowing Catholic doctrine to permeate and influence their lifestyle or morals. The fact that 50% of Catholics voted for Obama despite his violation of Catholic religious freedoms and doctrine flashed through my mind. This tells me how much half the Catholics care about Catholic doctrine – very little.
But it got worse. Two or three of these “Catholic” apostates went on a rant about the past sins of priests and a number of other complaints about the Church. This was very old news, but still stuck in their craw. It got to the point that I mentioned to the woman next to me, “this discussion is motivating me to write a blog about how a group of Catholics can be so opposed to their own Church.”
It is one thing to understand the moral decline of our nation by doing extensive reading about it. It is quite another, and much more disconcerting, to experience a table full of alleged Catholic Christians poo-pooing the idea of moral absolutes right in front of my eyes. This experience represented one microcosm of why this nation is in moral, spiritual, and economic decline.
The room we were in was noisy, and conversation was not easy without getting loud ourselves. My wife and I had to bite our tongues because there was a lot we would have liked to have said to these others if the environment was conducive. So we left a bit early. Were were getting “tired”, not sleepy tired so much as tired of the bullshit.
2 comments:
I know exactly your feelings. But its not just "Catholics" who are fighting against their church's own beliefs. I see it all over the place. It saddens me. Too many people say the associate themselves with a religious group but do not live or even support the basic teachings and fundamentals of their religion. I have also learned that on the subject of politics no where is safe to talk about heavy political topics specifically among those who you think you should have common ground with because they profess to have the same religion to do.
Something to think about, I am adding this just for you, I realized during this past election that the reason I do not like the Democratic party platforms' on a deeper level than economics and ideological reasons but I've realized that a fundamental reason I oppose them is their ideas pretend to give you more or better choices, but then don't, they are actually slowly taking away our agency and choice one small thing at a time. Like the slow cooking frogs in a pot. I don't want the gift God gave me to make choices taken away by anyone. It sickens me to realize that this is happening and the majority of Americans are happy frogs slowing cooking until it will be too late to change the course of action. I thought you might enjoy mulling over that one. Glad to hear you and your wife are doing well. Don't let those people make you too "tired".
Thank you for your comment. What you say is true. Many in other denominations, if not critical of their church, attend out of habit, for socializing, or simply to "feel good" about themselves. There is nothing wrong with feeling good, but that is not the purpose of the church in my opinion. The purpose of the church as I understand it is to join with other like minded people to strengthen one another's faith in God, to worship Him, and to be encouraged to exercise our gifts to promote God and His will in our lives and in the world.
You are right, the Democratic Party didn't even want God mentioned in their party platform.
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