Are you sure this went away with Vatican II? Vetran of Catholic schools and post Vatican II baby that I am, I heard all about Purgatory. In fact, I distinctly remember an All Souls Day Mass when I was in college where the sermon was about Purgatory. And the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the subject doesn’t mention that it’s out, that I read.
I think the argument against it is that it isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Bible, and Heaven and Hell are. Add to that fact that number 3 (indulgences) were largely presented as “Get Out of Jail Free” cards for use when you found yourself there (or for relatives you thought might be there already)–so buy plenty! The more you hammered away at the suffering of Purgatory, the more important it became to have a few indulgences on hand. And indulgences are still a big issue for lots of Protestants, as evidenced by their appearance on this list. Even folks who know the sale of indulgences ceased ages ago can get bent out of shape when they realize that they’re still actually available. Indulgences seem to be the symbol of everything Protestants think is wrong with the Catholic Church’s position on salvation and justification, the whole argument distilled down to one word so potent it can make otherwise reasonable people foam at the mouth. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Purgatory owes it’s presence on this list almost entirely to its involvement with indulgences.
(for the curious, no, you can’t get them for cash anymore–you mostly get them by performing specific acts of penitence. For more information than you ever wanted on the subject, see this site. Also do read jmullaney’s very informative links).
I love reading the articles Jack Chick writes about Catholicism. I especially like how he says that every Catholic is taught from birth to swear allegiance to the Vatican above the US, and that the Pope is our true leader, not the president.
My estimation is that this guy has never entered a Catholic institution his entire life, and that the extent of his experience with Catholicism is old reruns of The Flying Nun.
lestrange, you are correct that Purgatory has not been removed from Catholic thought. (We have stopped talking about Limbo, however.)
OTOH, the link to the Catholic Encyclopedia is not accurate for discovering what was promulgated by Vatican II: the on-line Catholic Encyclopedia is a transcription of the monographic encyclopedia written between 1907 and 1919. (Look up John XXIII some time.)
Purgatory is a sore point between Catholics and (most) Protestants for a whole series of reasons. The first has to do with our dispute over the canon of Scripture. The notion of Purgatory arose from a passage in II Macabees. After one of their battles, Judas M discovered that the slain among his men were all carrying small idols as good luck charms. He has sacrifices offered for them in reparation for their sin and in the hope of the Resurrection. When Luther was re-examining the Deutero-canonical books with an eye to casting them out of his canon, that passage was a clear red flag that the work was not inspired (on top of the other arguments he had gathered against it).
Of course, the Catholics who had been using that book for nearly 1500 years as Scripture, and as the basis for the developing notion of Purgatory, disagreed. Guinastasia, I believe that Chick might have actually been raised as a Catholic for a few years as a child. It was certainly pre-Vatican II and he obviously didn’t learn squat–but then he is one of the believers in the Nine Commandments and he is not bothered by the inaccuracy of his rants. (I may be confusing him with one of his assistants. It is not as though I relish the thought of reading his biography.)
As every Catholic knows, everybody else is wrong and going to hell (or purgatory) anyway…
As every non-Catholic knows, those damn Catholics’ve been screwing things up for two thousand freaking years.
Was born RC, got out as quick as I could (as George Carlin points out, ‘they were after my soul’). Was confirmed in this when an acquaintance of mine pointed out (in all seriousness, because Catholics have a hard time being anything but) at a large get-together that she and I were the only persons present going to heaven because we were the only baptized Catholics…
But it sure as hell ain’t like Catholics have a monopoly on humorlessness when it comes to faith.
That’s probably the biggest reason I respect the Jews - they don’t want any of you people joining up…
According to Martin Larson in The Story of Christian Origins the whore of Babylon was a derisive phrase originating with Babylonian marriage practices which repulsed many rural people. Apparently, a virgin would go to a Aphrodite-type temple before her wedding and have sex with the first man who picked her (certain temples in pagan times were well organized brothels dedicated to gods of love). The un-virgin would then be suitable for marriage. It was taboo to marry a virgin in Babylon, according to Larson, who credits them with keeping a vestigial pre-ancient tradition alive that did not consider a woman to be the property of a man, but rather considered women to be “communal assets.”
“For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach - and, properly understood, does teach - that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts; a Christian historian who draws the line limiting the field of enquiry at any point whatsoever, is admitting the limits of his faith. And of course he is also destroying the nature of his religion, which is a progressive revelation of truth. So the Christian, according to my understanding, should not be inhibited in the smallest degree from following the line of truth; indeed, he is positively bound to follow it. He should be, in fact, freer than the non-Christian, who is precommitted by his own rejection.”
Paul Johnson
“A History of Christianity”
BTW, He is Catholic. I guess I should post this on the various “evolution” debate threads too.
And then there’s Palm Sunday. Remember to wear your comfy shoes, because you’re going to have to stand there while three bleeping CHAPTERS of the Gospel of Mumble are read. The only good part is that everybody gets to yell cool things like “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” (and you get to see who drew the short straw and has to read Judas’ lines this year). You can also try whacking your sister with your palm branch, but this is usually not worth the risk. Not only does it make Mom nuts, but the nuns will probably see you and will make sure your teacher knows what you did, so you get to start Monday morning by writing I must not whack my sister upside the head in church 500 times, and handwriting counts.
Ahh, childhood memories.
And, uh, zoony? Catholics don’t believe everybody else is going to Hell. It’s a bit tricky, but there’s a difference between believing someone else is a bit shaky on the details and believing they’re up for eternal damnation.
**My husband says the same thing. He sometimes says Lutheranism is “Catholic Lite.”
I’ve been an ELCA Lutheran all my life, and he’s Catholic. Parochial school, the whole nine yards. We were married in my Lutheran chiurch, and he comes to church with me, but has never formally joined the Lutheran church. He hasn’t been to confession (or even inside a Catholic church) in at least 8 or 9 years (other than for weddings), but still adheres to some of those Catholic-school ideals. He had a fit yesterday, because I let the kids have hambugers from McD’s for lunch. I just know that little Catholic voice inside his head was saying, “Your wife and kids are going to Hell for eating meat on Good Friday.”
I’d have to agree with that. The Lutheran church (at least the ELCA, I don’t know about the Missouri and Wisconsin synods) has been moving back a little towards the Catholics a little bit at a time. We used to do communion once a month; now we have it every week. When hubby and I started dating and he came to church with me, he kept saying, “This is just like we have! Catholics do this, too! This church is a lot like the Catholic church!” He was amazed at how close the two were.
2.5 hours, approximately. Eight readings or so, plus rites of initiation for those joining the Church. But there’s the new fire and playing with candle wax in church. Always a plus. And it’s a beautiful service, with a lot of meaning for me.
But I get to go take a nap now, so that I can handle the 2.5 hour service this evening. And, yes, I have comfortable shoes and clothes to wear, though not jeans and sneakers like I usually wear to Mass.
To the OP…if you want a ahem hearty debate that could easily become mean spirited, may I suggest the message boards over atleftbehind.com. Some days I laugh and laugh and laugh at what some believe about the Catholic church. Though Jack Chick is always good for a laugh too.
I think Catholics themselves (or some Catholics, some times, to make this even more general) perpetuate this notion that Catholics aren’t Christian because of simple word choice. Many Catholics I know wouldn’t identify themselves as “Christian,” if asked, the response is usually “Catholic.” I’m trying to think of a case where I would identify myself as a Christian – in my mental vocabulary, this would be like answering the question “ok, so that’s a large pizza with pepporoni, for delivery, where do you live?” with “The United States.” By saying that I’m Catholic, I’m assuming the Christian part is understood. With the pizza place around the corner, I’m assuming he wants information about my street address, not my citizenship.
You are aware that the official Catholoc stance is that evolution is “more than a theory”? This isn’t whole-hearted acceptance, no, but the Church has always reacted slowly to the world–not a bad policy overall. The church is certainly very receptive to science and in fact supports many many scientists. In some ways, a Jesuit astronomer is the the envy of his colleges–he dosen’t have to scramble for grants every year and his work is not nearly as subject to pressure passing fashions faahions or whims. The celebacy part is the downside.
So I am afraid that the hard-line creationists would tell you to go stuff your quote since it is by a Catholic, and the Catholics would br like “well, duh.”
OTOH over here in the good old Russian Federation, members of the Russian Orthodox Church identify others as Catholic, Protestant, etc., but call themselves (and only themselves) Christian. And ya wanna talk about exercise- these folks have services that go on for DAYS- and you stand through the whole thing. They also had a big ritual a year or so ago in which they ritually blessed Russia’s nuclear arsenal. And they recently canonized Nicholas II and family for their “suffering” (but I don’t think they canonized the servants that were killed with them, and thus “suffered” equally). The best thing about that was that the reason for the canonization was a compromise- a very large minority (45%) of the priests, etc. in the church wanted Nicky canonized because he died “fighting the Jews.”
They have also found very clever uses of the post-communist law which bans “slander” of religion. JDM
This might be part of it, but most of the Episcopalians, Lutherans,Baptists, etc. that I know identify themselves by denomination, not as Christians,and those denominations aren’t said not to be Christian. In fact, most of the people I know who answer “Christian” belong to what I guess you could call an unaffiliated church - there really isn’t a level between the name of the specific congregation and “Christian”.
