Actually, I only have three main problems with the Catholic church.
Even with the ex cathedra limitation, I cannot bring myself to accept Papal infallibility.
Because I have considered the priesthood and may yet find myself called to join it, I cannot accept the doctrine that only men can become priests.
I greatly dislike the doctrine that only Catholics can take communion at a Catholic church.
I admit the third reason is based more reaction and upbringing than it is logic, but that may make it the hardest to overcome. Also, I ran into it rather forcibly at a stressful, if joyful time. What part of me hears is,“You’re not good enough to join us in this.” which leads to my instincts replying, “Fine! Then I won’t in anything.” I’m not particularly proud of this.
Oh well, as I told my former fiance years ago, I’m a reasonable Episcopalian, but I’d be a lousy Catholic. I suppose I’d better stick to doing what I do well.
I cannot change your emotional response, but you should realize that there is nothing in the Catholic position that claims that non-Catholics are not “good enough.”
I believe non-Catholics can receive communion with special permission from a bishop under certain circumstances. I remember this was discussed when Bill Clinton went up the communion line and received the host. President Reagan also took communion dispite him being a divorced Protestant.
Well, Doreen, I think that “I don’t share their beliefs” is perhaps inaccurate. Aside from any attitude that you might have that the RCC is the sole or principal vehicle of God’s grace, and presuming you to be an orthodox Catholic believing all the doctrine that the Church teaches, you would be welcome in the Episcopal Church without changing your beliefs.
The particular aspect you flag, the Easter Eucharistic obligation, is a Law of the Church – hence binding on you as a good Catholic but not doctrine, and quite changeable. If John Paul II decided today that one can be a good Catholic without annual auricular confession or communion, it would not be a change in doctrine, just in what obligations the Church places on its loyal members.
Perhaps the one thing in which we differ greatly is that the Episcopal Church tends not to teach as compulsory revealed doctrine some aspects of Catholic belief, such as the specifics of transubstantiation as the proper way in which Christ is really present in the Eucharistic elements, rather affirming the mysteries they seek to explicate, in the example His Real Presence.
In addition, each church has its own collection of church law. As a Catholic, you are not free to disagree with what your pastor or bishop (far less the Pope) teaches as the understood and proper way in which a Catholic addresses an issue. As an Episcopalian, you would not be free to reject the ministry of your diocesan bishop if she happened to be a woman and you did not accept the ordination of women.
But for me (and I believe for CJ), the reception of Christ’s Body and Blood is a vital and important part of why we attend the Eucharist, and to be told that we’re not welcome at His Table is fairly offsetting.
OK, I don’t share all of their beliefs.:), nor do they share all of mine. Otherwise, we’d all be the same religion.Specifically, we don’t share a belief in who can validly consecrate the Eucharist. The Episcopal Church may accept Catholic ordination as valid, but the reverse is not true. Which brings me to why I wouldn’t receive Communion in a non-Catholic church. At most it would be symbolic to me, and the members of the congregation may not believe it’s symbolic. Certainly, Episcopalians don’t believe the Eucharist is merely symbolic, and I think it would be disrespectful to receive Communion in an Episcopal Church when in fact I don’t share the belief of the congregation that it is the Body and Blood of Christ that I am receiving.
Are we sure about that? When a married Episcopal priest flees the Anglican communion to avoid associating with women priests, do the Catholics “re ordain” him, or just confirm him in his ministry?
(Certainly, we have not reached a level of “communion” with which the Curia can be comfortable, but I am not sure that we are denying thevalidity of orders, outright. The guys I’ve known were heading in the opposite direction.)
According to Pope Paul VI Decree on Ecumenism in 1964, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place in the separated communities of the West, but they are not excepted from this statement :
as distinguished from the Churches of the East, about which this is said
Of course, that’s not where I got the idea to begin with. That probably came from those instances of married Episcopal priests becoming Catholic priests. Both the Catholic and mainstream press referred to them as being “ordained” as Catholic priests. ( And I paid attention at the time because it was one of the things I disagree with the Church on- if married men are not to be ordained in the Latin Rite, an exception shouldn’t be made for fleeing Anglicans)
I refuse to get into an argument with Catholics I respect on the validity of Anglican orders. Except to bring up the one item from Leo XIII’s encyclical on the presentation of the Eucharistic “tableware” to the newly ordained priest being considered the “matter” of the sacrament of ordination – which if true would imply that the Church of Rome has no valid priesthood either, since the original Gregorian Sacramentary has no presentation of the vessels either!
(Which is a bit of a “tu quoque” – but the idea of Catholics judging that my church, desiring to preserve the apostolic succession, didn’t jump the right hoops to satisfy them in doing so, is just a trifle offensive to me as a sincere Anglican.)
Well, you’re not arguing with me on the topic. Once the RCC finally gets around to ordaining women, I figure we’ll get back to talking about some sort of rapproachment with the Anglicans.
Just popping in to mention that the Lutheran church (ELCA at least) echos the Episcopalian practice in allowing, even encouraging all baptized Christians present to take Communion.
I understand how you feel Polycarp, really I do. I know this is going to sound smart-assed, I don’t mean it to, but I can’t think of a better way to put it - that’s rather how I feel about the idea of Anglicans judging that the RCC guidelines for the reception of communion don’t satisfy them. But you won’t be getting an argument from me on the merits of the RCC position regarding Anglican orders - I don’t know enough about it to say anything more than that it is the Church’s position.
[btw I’m too young a Catholic to understand the Latin and it’s driving me crazy -translation, please)
Oh, I respect the RCC’s right to set its own rules on who can do what when and why. It’s just that, when attending a Mass, believing as you do in Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist and having a spiritual hunger for communion with Him, I feel very much shut out at being denied access to it simply because Pope Paul IV found it politically appropriate to excommunicate the monarch whose first cousin eight times removed my great-great-great-geat-grandfather gave his life to rebel against, and to include all her subjects who were at the time compelled by law to worship as she did, and church polemicists have been manufacturing reasons to retain the excommunication ever since.
However, it was my understanding that the Last Rites is supposed to have the effect of “earthly forgiveness” (or whatever the RCC calls it when a parishoner confesses his sins to a priest and the priest absolves him/her). That is, it’s supposed to reduce the time the deceased’s soul has to spend in Purgatory before being admitted to Heaven.
As an athiest, I’d like to echo that. I attended a Catholic mass for the first time a couple weeks ago, and I can say the rituals were definitely way cool. The call-and-response thing was awesome, how everybody knew it and the service was so unifying. It would have been cool to have bibles in the pews to read along (though the particular sermon was the Matthew “whatever you do to the least of me” thing which I already knew well), but they had books explaining the service’s procedure instead, which were helpful. Frankly, it beat the ever-loving snot out of any protestant church I ever attended. I was delighted to find that Catholicism had the best services, in addition to the best thinkers of the last 1500 years for which I had always credited them. They really are the cream of the crop, it appears.
Rex Dart, try the Episcopal Church sometime. We’ve got the same rituals (this according to that Catholic ex-fiance I’ve mentioned), the same call-and-response, and, at least in some churches, Bibles in the pews!
More seriously, I have experienced a remarkable sense of Power during the Eucharist, which I cannot describe in logical terms. While I may not believe the bread and wine become literal, DNA containing flesh and blood, I do believe something miraculous happens and that when we partake of it, it does become Christ’s Body and Blood, and we are granted a moment of unity. That’s why I do consider myself honored to have been allowed to distribute the wine at Eucharist.
On the one hand, I respect the fact that RCC actually attempts to answer some pretty tough questions, instead of allowing them to be “vagued up.”
OTOH - in my mind this makes them a pretty easy target for - uh - for lack of a better word - ridicule. And the fact that Catholics and Protestants can strongly disagree about something like transubstatiation…
In my mind, it takes a humongous leap of faith to even believe there is some sort of supernatural being/force - a god/God.
Then, you even have to cut some slack to believe an individual named Jesus existed.
His deification, however, requires accepting a pretty specific story, told by non-objective sources.
So on top of this rather rickety tower requiring multiple leaps of faith, arguing over something as technical as transubstantiation just seems so - I don’t know - pointless. Why would any Christian care?
I can imagine someone expressing a belief that there is “something” out there other than observable explainable nature. But when people’s “belief” starts getting more and more specific, depending upon obviously arguable interpretations of - uh - somewhat fallible source evidence…
Strikes me as odder than people arguing whether or not Balrogs have wings.
Of course Balrogs don’t have wings. Otherwise the one that Gandalf knocked the bridge out from under could’ve just flown to safety.
(Okay, okay, I suppose they could still have vestigial wings of some sort that aren’t powerful enough to lift them in flight, like ostriches.)
Now, about female dwarves and beards…
So why doesn’t the Catholic church ordain women? And how do ordinary Catholics feel about it? I know that I couldn’t be satisfied in a church that thought women weren’t good enough to serve as ministers.