Dear American Catholics, stop calling yourself Catholic and quit the church

[AtheistCrusader]

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/freethoughtnow/dear-american-catholics-stop-calling-yourself-catholic-and-quit-the-church/

With the pope’s impending visit, the wall separating state and church is going to be breached as politicians attempt to please their seemingly large Roman Catholic constituencies. But how many of those constituents are actually Catholic? His visit might be a good time for America Catholics to reflect on their faith and ask, “Am I really a Catholic?”

The Roman Catholic Church claims almost 1.2 billion adherents worldwide and a steadily declining percentage of Americans, now about 21%. But can they truly believe everything that a Catholic is required to believe? Do they even know what they are required to believe?

The canon law of the Catholic Church governs the church and the mandatory beliefs of Catholics worldwide. John Adams wrote that canon law is

“the most refined, sublime, extensive, and astonishing constitution of policy that ever was conceived by the mind of man [and] was framed by the Romish clergy for the aggrandizement of their own order.” Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765).

More at the link.


Not really sure why the pope's impending visit is more than a footnote to anyone.

[rug]

1. Dear Andrew Seidel, you're an idiot.

The "anti-human, totalitarian sentiment" he finds in Canon 752 is no more than a deference to the teaching authority of the Church.

If he was as informed as he claims, he'd realize that Paragraph 1800 of the Catechism, "1800 A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience", puts the lie to his prejudged conclusion: "This also means that Catholics cannot pick and choose from the tenets of their religion. According to that law, there is no such thing as a 'cafeteria Catholic'."

His following rant on transubstantiation and sex is outdone daily on reddit.

Stick to writing stern letters to school boards in Alabama, Andrew. You're clearly an amateur.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. So, when the pope speaks ex cathedra, and defines doctrine, if that doctrine is out of true

with the conscience of the individual, they are in fact not risking anything in defying it?

There seems to be varying levels of certainty to church teaching/doctrine.

[rug]

5. No, they aren't.

Dogma has been defined as infallible ex cathedra I believe a total of three times since 1870 at Vatican I. those dogmas concern Mary and rarely rub up against anyone's modern sensibilities.

The RCC teaching on conscience is that Catholics have an obligation to have an "informed conscience", meaning that Catholics have an obligation to know Church teachings and the rationale for them. The assumption is that if Catholics correctly understand the doctrine, their consciences will be in conformity with church doctrine. That is not always the case, by far, but the real conflict would be on one of the three enunciated infallible dogmas.

Statements not made ex cathedra are not infallible but are authoritative.

The most common statement is that Catholics use contraception and utilize abortions at the same rate as non-Catholics in the U.S. I don't think that necessarily means they have objections to the teachings but are willing to go to Confession afterwards.

[Act_of_Reparation]

2. If OfficeDepot were to refuse to make copies of this tract...

...would it be discrimination?

These and other mysteries perplex us.

[trotsky]

3. It's all Eve's fault.

For the bible tells me so.