I’m sure she meant ‘scourge’ in a GOOD way, yuh know, like righteous punishment. 
I’m not sure I can give a specific example; not being religious myself, let alone Catholic, I’m not well versed in what matters might lead a religious person into a quandary. I suppose an example might be someone finding themselves pregnant and in their situation finding themselves considering an abortion when that might not have even crossed their mind as acceptable before. It’s the kind of thing that, while the apportioned results are laid out clearly, might require a lot of thinking and may well have no perfect solution.
Sure, but a crisis of faith may be instigated by excommunication, or by the potential of it. The other way around, basically. I mean, as I understand it, that’s the whole point - to get someone who has perhaps unthinkingly sinned to bring themselves to task for their decisions.
A fair point.
We Catholics are into that kinky stuff.
The reason I ask for something concrete is that there just aren’t that many things you can be excommunicated for. You don’t get excommunicated for thinking about having an abortion. You don’t get excommunicated for having an abortion. That’s a sin, and that’s what confession is for. You might get excommunicated for publicly advocating abortion rights, and challenging the Church’s teachings about abortion publicly. But then again, the Church might have bigger fish to fry, and let it slide.
If I join the Boy Scouts, and then stand out on the street corner saying they should give out merit badges for killing babies, I’ll probably get kicked out of the Boy Scouts. Or censured, at least. Which is like being excommunicated.
ROFL
The nuns at my grade school had miniature baseball bats. :eek:
psik
Sorry dude, my dues have been paid.
I spent 13 years in Catholic schools. I don’t care what any Catholics think of what I said. Cruden’s Concordance says the translation is wrong. Just get one and look up HELL.
psik
1 vote For and 2 votes Against.
Did the the 2 Nay voters spend years in Catholic schools?
The way one talked about apologizing to Catholics didn’t sound as though he was raised as one. A religious apologist? Everybody’s religion is wonderful, never point out that the emporor has no clothes. 
psik
If you are referencing Cruden’s correctly, that merely says that Cruden’s is not to be trusted too closely.
For example, the story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke uses the word Hades, but the rich man is clearly described as being tormented by fire–which has no part of the Classical Greek Hades, (or Hebrew Sheol).
What some folks, (including, if you are correct, the Cruden’s editors), fail to recognize is that there was an entire body of literature that arose in the Levant around the second and first centuries B.C.E., in which earlier notions of Gehenna were expanded upon and elaborated to describe a place of fire and torment for those who were wicked in an earthly life.* When that apocalyptic literature was translated to (or written in) Greek, the word used was as liable to be Hades as Gehenna.
To claim that the translation of Hades as Hell in that particular parable is “wrong” is simply to be ignorant of the language of the first century employed by both Christian and Jewish authors.
Clearly, the image of Hell that is currently popular in Christian mythology does not correspond to the Hades of Classical Greek mythology or to the Sheol of Hebrew mythology, but that is s separate statement from how the word was used at the time that Christianity expanded out of Palestine. Words change in meaning over time and this is a clear example. (Would you insist that anyone from the 23d century reading a current passage describing a person as gay must resolutely come to understand that the person was merely lighthearted and merry and that any reference to sexual orientation was “wrong”?)
For that matter, the English word Hell cames from the Norse Hel or a Germanic cognate and it too, much more resembled the Classical Greek Hades and Hebrew Sheol than the Christian Hell, so really there is no word that you would permit to be used to describe the current images. 
- The issue of whether the people would be subjected to fiery torments for eternity is a separate question that is not even part of this discussion.
OK, want more votes?
From pre-kindergarten to graduating college, that’s a total of 22 years in Catholic schools. And, while I had several nuns that blew goats and one priest whose middle age crisis took the form of “overstepping the boundaries” with us kids (groping), only one of my teachers used the Hell card (pre-K nun, when I used my left hand, which she called “the Devil’s hand”). My mother, on the other hand, tosses it around with such abandon it frisbees.
So by your reasoning, 42 years of a mother who goes on about Damnation at the drop of a hat means that all mothers are terrorists, rather than meaning my mother is an idiot.
Sure, but the point still stands that being kicked out of the Boy Scouts, or any club, generally isn’t as big a deal as is being excommunicated.
Again, my issue is not with the method - I agree with you there. They are similar. They’re not similar in terms of severity of result.
Actually, that’s one of the offenses where it is automatic. Even if for the life of both mother and unborn child, to even Bricker’s chagrin.
Still, you’re right that it’s not like shunning. It’s only certain religious parts that you are not allowed to participate in.
And, yes, there is anti-Catholic bigotry. It’s when you don’t know what Catholics believe, but have been told they are evil, believe that each individual member is evil, and thus express hatred towards them.
In fact, when it comes to people in groups, a general rule is that you don’t hate the person, but the group they belong to. If you must hate the person, hate them for what they do, not what they are.
Sorry, but how do you have an abortion “for the life of the unborn child”? Unless you’re talking about reductions re. IVF it doesn’t seem to make sense.
My mother used to whip me with an electric cord but she didn’t talk about hell much. Yeah she was a terrorist.
But the Catholic Church is designed to produce IDIOTS. That is what the psychological sabotage and manipulation is about. Religion is GROUP THINK. Hindus begat Hindus and Muslims begat Muslims and Catholics begat Catholics.
Who is in a better position to brainwash you than your mother?
So the Catholic Church is a weaker terrorist organization in the US than it was 700 years ago in Europe. The Founding Fathers of the US helped create social trends that weakened it. That good work needs to be continued.
psik
I’m Catholic and generally pro-life, and usually even where I don’t agree with the Church, I can at least defend their consistency. But this is one doctrine that I just don’t get.
Excommunication is usually not for “sins,” per se. For instance, you can murder an already-born human person, and not get excommuncated…IF you are truly sorry and do your penance and sincerely intend never to do it again. My understanding of excommunication is that it is something that happens to you when you choose to live outside of the Catholic faith. This could be sins, if you are not repentant for them (which is why old-fashioned “living in sin” could count, where just plain fornication wouldn’t), or it could be having a major quarrel with Church doctrine (such as ordaining females priests). The point is that it’s an ongoing state of being at odds with RCC teaching, not a one-time sin. Or even a 1000-time sin, if you are truly repentant and know that it’s wrong and are trying not to do it.
I don’t see how having one abortion one time falls into this definition, and I have a real problem with the Church over it.
I’m Catholic (not practicing, though) and attended Catholic primary and secondary schools. Apart from having to attend Mass every couple of months for holy days of obligation, and having stricter uniform/hair cut codes and discipline than most other schools (all for the good), there really wasn’t anything different than a normal school. Certainly no terrorisation, anyway.
But in what years did you attend? I was there in the 50s and 60s. Check out the movie Heaven Help Us with Donald Sutherland. I thought it was a great portrayal of what went on then. I could see things loosening up during the time I was there. The church has a nun shortage now.
I had to go to church every Sunday when I was in grade school because the nuns checked up on us and you had to sit with your class. but I decided I was an agnostic at 12 and stopped going to church after grade school graduation. I got straight Ds in religion freshman year in high school because I wouldn read and copy that crap. They must have had a policy of not flunking people in religion.
psik
I went to Catholic schools from September, 1956 to June, 1968, (then I went to a couple of Catholic colleges for five years ), and I did not witness all the “terrorism.”
My teacher in first grade (1956-1957), had a habit of inflicting embarrassment on her charges, but the convent kicked her out and told her to get professional help the next year. I do not recall any particular emphasis on telling kids they were going to hell. It was mentioned, from time to time, but it was not dwelt upon and it was certainly never trotted out as the punishment for anyhting a kid was caught doing.
I am sure that a lot of the stories about inflicting pain and about threatening kids with damnation are true. However, it had as much to do with the individual religious group, location (local culture), and even person as it did with the church.
Boy, that is some terror they had there–they gave you a D for refusing to participate in a class.
The nuns at my grade school carried miniature baseball bats. I did get whacked in the palms with them.
You are absolutely right. I decided I was an agnostic when I was 12. I wasn’t about to read and copy their idiotic garbage to just get a grade.
psik