I was posting in this thread, and Stratocaster called me on being out of line with Rome’s teaching about abortion. Which is quite true, and accurate, as my reply made pretty clear.
The question I have is this: How many other Doper Catholics, especially here in North America, have their own private reservations or disagreements with Church teachings?
Personally, considering that both Canada and the US are primarily founded and governed by English legal and cultural legacies, I think it’s pretty unlikely that all American Catholics are in line with Rome. The whole Protestant movement was founded upon the need of the inividual to consider God’s word, and come to a personal understanding of what it means.
To me that culture of individual doubt and measuring are a large part of both American and Canadian culture. And because of that, it’s impossible for Catholics of those cultures to not apply the same thinking to their religion. At least for a large part of us.
Heck, while the American Catholic Church is notably more liberal than the European Chuch, we’ve also got more churches still using the Latin rites than Europe does, too. (Or so I understand. If someone has better data, I’d be pleased to hear it.) Both phenomena seem linked to the whole individual conscious concept that the Protestant Reformation was predicated upon.
I’m posting this in IMHO, because I think it’s more a poll than anything else. If people want to debate I’d enjoy that, too. But I think this is mostly a poll.
I am a lapsed Catholic. The primary reason I call myself that is because of disagreement with Rome on various issues. These disagreements are on significant enough issues that I don’t feel that I can continue to be an active Catholic unless either my opinions change or the Church’s stance on various issues were to change. (including, but not limited to: birth control (particularly barrier methods), homesexuality in the priesthood and the role of women in the church). Since neither one of these events is particularly likely in the near future, I will probably be lapsed until such time as I choose to select another denomination of Christianity.
I’m not Catholic but married into a Catholic family. My husband no longer considers himself Catholic due to his increasing disagreements with their positions and actions. However, I have met a lot of Catholic people and frankly I’d be hard-pressed to find more than a couple who don’t have some disagreement with them. For instance, almost all of the Catholics I know disagree with the prohibitions on artificial birth control, infertility treatments like “test tube babies,” and, to a lesser extent, abortion. Even the Catholic couples at the pre-Cana classes we had before getting married in a Catholic church talked about how they’d shopped around back when they got married to find a church who wouldn’t openly condemn the Pill, and the family planning part of the class was limited to “here, we’ve got this pamphlet about a rather reliable (if you follow the instructions) method of charting fertility via basal body temperature and other signs.”
The impression I’ve gotten is that a lot of Catholics consider it to be a bit more than a religion, that there’s a near-cultural aspect to it as well, and thus find separating from the religion difficult. I left a conservative branch of Protestantism (part of the Reformed Church of America synod) when I was a teenager, due to no longer being able to tolerate many of their teachings, and joined the United Church of Christ, one of the most open and tolerant branches of Protestant Christianity. I didn’t have any similar “cultural” connections and was glad to be gone from that place.
Banning women from being priests
Not allowing priests to marry
Banning birth control
Homosexuality as a sin
Things I am on the fence about
Abortions - I have a serious ethical problem with abortions-on-demand but can see how it might be necessary in certain circumstances. I’d support limitations on abortion (e.g. banned after 3 months) but not an outright ban.
Death penalty - I used to be pro-death penalty and know I’m on the fence.
Welfare, etc. - In order to feed the poor, we’ve created a sub-culture that, frankly, doesn’t feel the need to work. While I get the church’s position on it, I think ethically it’s not a good thing for our society to subsidize people who are healthy and able to work.
Well, yes, Catholicism (and Orthodox Christianity) when a “cradle” religion, tends to involve a high degree of identity investment – historically when a people adopted the Church, it embedded itself in the culture and they embedded the culture into it.
This identity investment gets specially visible in the American social context, where the mainstream was Anglophone Protestantism, with shopping around for best fit (or for a church that welcomed “your kind of people” – not so easy for traditionally Catholic ethnicities in the past) being kid of expected.
Having to struggle with where the heck do you fit in The One True[sup]TM[/sup] that does not quite make sense to you but at the same time is one of your support structures as a “minority”, I guess some would say “builds character” You develop a sort of loyalty to the struggle itself because you’ve invested so much time trying to work around the hurdles you’re not going to say all that was in vain.
It’s my understand that Catholicism does not require a Borg mentality: you don’t have to agree with everything the Church says in order to still be a Catholic. When I was still Catholic and strugging with my faith, I went to talk to my pastor about the fact that I disagreed with some Church teachings to the point where I could no longer practice them, and that an extremely conservative priest (an old family friend I’d gone to for counsel) had told me that I was no longer Catholic and shouldn’t receive communion.* I still wanted to be a Catholic, and considered myself a Catholic, so the conversation I’d had with the other priest was distressing.
My pastor told me about “informed dissent,” which – if I remember correctly – means that if you disagree with an aspect of the Church’s teaching even after careful study and consideration, you can still be a Catholic. Of course, the Church has no way to know whether Married Catholic Couple #1 thought long and hard about Humanae Vitae before going ahead with birth control or whether Married Catholic Couple #2 didn’t give it a second thought, but a lot about religion is bound up with intent. Those who take Catholicism seriously enough can find out about informed dissent – if their priest is liberal enough to acknowledge its existence.
*I am not talking about excommunication, which is something entirely different.
Yep, that’s the part of no longer being a Catholic that I still struggle with sometimes.
-Catholicism (IMO) doesn’t encourage thought, it encourages rote learning and recitation during the mass
-Priests are not defrocked for pedophilia
-Abortion and birth control (especially telling third-world countrypeople that AIDS passes through condoms!) are none of the church’s business
-Neither is my sex life, nor that of my friends and neighbours
-Women are not less worthy than men to assume positions in the clergy (higher than glorified servants, which is what the nuns I’ve known have been)
-My parents are not married in the eyes of the church because their first marriages ended in divorce, rather than anullment. Anullment in the Catholic church in Canada is a money-grab, and I’m sure God doesn’t give a shit how much money I give to the church. If the local church needs money, why the hell doesn’t the Vatican open its coffers?
Yeah. Not so much a Catholic anymore. I’m certain my ex-priest (non-pedophile, thank you) grandfather and his nun sister are rolling in their graves.
I’m a very traditional Catholic. I don’t care about gay priests, as long as they’re celibate. I don’t feel the need for women priests - it’s not like women don’t have a strong role in the church. Many orders of nuns have great power and wealth, running hospitals. I’m pro-life, against both abortion and the death penalty. As far a birth control, I’m ambivilant. I don’t necessarily think that children should just be scheduled at one’s convenience, but neither do I feel that people should have to have an infinite number of kids. I don’t think it hurts anyone to not have sex 24/7. The Church doesn’t teach that sex is bad - just the opposite. Sex is God’s gift and should be respected. It isn’t a just pleasant aerobic exercise.
The thing is, truths don’t change because society does. Just the opposite. As for abortion - people want to destroy life because it’s not convenient. To me, modern medical technology convinces me more that you can’t define when life starts. Abortion is something that, giving the chance, I would outlaw. Birth control is not something I’d legislate. People should be allowed to do what their heart dictates, not the Church, as long as they aren’t harming someone else.
I’m sure more than a few Jesuit/Marist/etc-educated eyebrows were raised upon reading this one. You are invited and encouraged to think. Just that in the end, what will be put in action is the Church’s answer to the question, whether or not your thinking led you to the same answer… And the Mass IS supposed to be a stylized, coreographed, recitative ritual.
The other ones indeed are items on which many Catholics feel the RCC has failed them.
When I was “seeking” my spiritual home, I attended Mass many times with a Catholic friend. I found the services to be exactly what I needed - spiritual, soothing, comforting, welcoming - just wonderful. The ritual aspect of it all seemed to fill some need in me. Yet I could not become a Catholic, and the main reason is because of what I see as the inferior treatment of women. While I have no desire to be a priest, I can’t understand why a woman can’t be one for no reason other than the fact that she is a woman. The ban on birth control - a bunch of men telling me what I have to do with my body? Unmarried, permanately celibate men as marriage counselors? As much as I enjoyed the services and liked the majority of the people I met there, I couldn’t profess faith in a religion that tells me I am a second class person.
Catholics, please do not take offense at this. Some of my impressions may have been mistaken - this was many years ago and I (of course) was much younger.
I pretty much got fed up with the whole priest scandal, the no birth control, (I can understand their stance on abortion, even if I disagree, but birth control?), no women in the church, etc.
It just seemed like they were tolerating reasonable disagreement (I might privately disagree with the church) and I just got fed up. It makes me sad, because I really miss my Catholic upbringing, but I got so sick and tired of sitting in Mass, fuming while the priest read his homily on the evils of abortion and homosexuality, and blah blah blah.
Anymore, Catholicism is becoming the unbendable branch, and a branch that does not bend with the wind will break.
I could not disagree more strongly with this view. That may be the case in CCD or Sunday School settings, but the history of the church is replete with informed discussion of doctrine and sharp disagreements about various doctrine. People like St. Augustine are famous for their contributions to this body of thought.
I respectfully suggest that you have not experienced any formal Catholic education beyond early teen years.
I second this. I’m also curious, Bricker - I know you are in favor of legal gay marriage, now, but you didn’t answer the OP’s question. Do you differ on other issues?
I believe in full civil rights for gay people; though I don’t think the Church is obligated to bless their unions, I hope that day comes. Women being disallowed from the priesthood is okay with me, because they have other roles which men cannot fill. I’m on the fence about non-NFP based birth control for Catholics (for non-Catholics, I think I’ve decided it’s okay). I am (a feminist and) pro-life (anti-abortion and anti-death-penalty and anti-war), and I have a hard time understanding how one could be a practising Catholic and not be - but then, many people have a hard time understanding how I could be a Catholic and be in favor of gay marriage, so I don’t spend much time on my hangup, there. I am very pro-science; luckily, the Church is too, but I still struggle with issues of rationalism vs theism.
The new Pope kind of scares me and makes me feel kind of icky, and I’m still trying to process that. I have a lot of conflict over my religion in general, and I’ve been taking a break from it while I sort out my head, but I doubt I would ever actually leave the Church (unless to become Greek Orthodox). She is old and she is slow to change, but that’s part of her glory, I think.
In general, I try not to think about what other people should be doing in their religion or lack thereof, and focus instead on my own backyard.
I wish I could disagree. Alas, Benedict rubs me the wrong way, too.
I’m also agreeing with you, Bricker and others who’ve disagreed with GingerOftheNorth’s view on Catholicism and debate, vice CCD teaching. Though - I have met priests, nuns and others who do try to stifle all debate, so I do believe she’s accurately reporting her experience.
I did not attend any Catholic school beyond high school graduation. I did state that it was my opinion. Clearly, my opinion is based on my experiences.
I agree mostly with cthiax. On just about every single point. I do, however, think that people of both genders should be allowed to be ordained. I simply don’t see why not–there’s a shortage of priests, and women want to serve and are tired of feeling marginalized. I understand that some nuns have a lot of power/responsiblity, but most willing and qualified young women don’t see much appeal to the nun lifestyle and would be much more suited to the preisthood. I do think that the celibacy requirement should be upheld, and that sexual orientation should have nothing to do with eligibility for religious service.
I’m also taking time to question my faith and grapple with rationalism vs. theism stuff. I haven’t been to church since my summer wedding but plan on going to Midnight Mass with my family in a few days. There is something very special and glorious, I feel, about the Catholic Church, so much that if I ever drift away, I don’t think I could ever join another church or denomination or faith tradition.
You do realize that the nunneries across the nation are drying up and their population is dying off? The average age for a nun in somewhere in the 70’s, if not early 80’s.
My mom’s 1st cousin is the 2nd in charge of the entire specific branch of Nuns ( which I forget right now and my mom is not home to ask. It’s in Michigan. Maybe in Adrian or SCS.) They did a nation wide TV-Magazine-Radio marketing ad blitz a couple of years ago ( maybe 2 or 3) D’ya know how many women called up with interest to become a nun?
Three.
Two were women (crack/drug addicts) looking for a free meal ticket and one was a complete loon. They spent a shitload of money on this campaign.
My mom’s cousin was in charge of meeting the prospective candidates.
It is a relic of a more subservient time and should be allowed to die off. It is an insult to the battles and independance women have won over the last 100 years or so for injustice and equality. The Chuch brought it upon themselves by refusing to look to the future instead of living in the distant past.
[sidebar: I fully gave up a few years ago when Pope JPII apologized for what the church did to Gallileo. All I could think was…*This was 400 or so years ago and they are just getting around to this now? WTF kind of logjam of paperwork is piled on the Holy Father’s Desk? When are they going to get into the 20th century?*I’ve been so much more at peace with myself since I fully let go then any time before that despite all the years of religious schooling and church.[/size]
Women in the church have zero power. I’m not talking about what to decorate the altar with or songs to sing for Xmas. I’m not talking about each individual churches level of beauracracy. I’m talking about the Vatican. How many women are in power positions there?
Zero. Who picked the pope? A bunch of old men. Who is the pope? An old man. Who will be the next pope? A old man…and so it continues. They are so afraid of change that they have been standing in the same spot for a millenia looking backwards.
In any religion, great acts of kindness and charity have been done. As well as great acts of Do What Was Easy rather than Doing The Right Thing. No one sect or any religion is without blemish. Do not overshadow the fact that also standing still as time marches on is to waste the person or community as a whole and an insult to the previous generations and future generations.