A question for my Catholic friends (and anyone with a strong opinion, which is probably ALL of you)

[lagilman]

The following is brought to you by the letters W, T, and F: Bishop Will Read Up On Auschwitz, But May Not Recant

He's been dismissed from his post at an Argentinian seminary because of the outcry, but I don't expect him to back down from any of his rather... inflammatory and offensive views, which cover far more than "merely" the Holocaust...

"In one letter from 2001, addressed to his “friends and benefactors” in Canada, Bishop Williamson came down firmly against college education for women, arguing that “women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God’s Nature which characterizes our times,” and concluding: “True universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true girls.” In the same letter the Bishop also asserted that for women, wearing trousers was another violation against nature and should be discouraged." (emphasis mine)

I'm sure y'all can imagine the spluttering going on at Ch. Felidae right now....

As some of you may or may not know, there is no single 'structure' for Jews the way there is for Catholics -- our synagogues are independent, and even among the more Orthodox or sect-like branches, we can best be defined as an "un-organized religion." Five Jews, seven opinions, at least two books of Commentary. So having someone "in authority" hand down statements about god's opinion about what I am/am, not capable of or worthy of or presentable for, and expect me to fall into line with that, is pretty much out of my comprehension. I mean, it's not like disagreeing with the president, or your mayor -- this is, supposedly, your Moral and Religious Authority, endorsed by Pope-and-God.

So I ask the practicing Catholics on my f-list -- how do you reconcile something like this, when the Pope has accepted him back into the Church proper? Are you able to compartmentalize "he says" vs "I do?" And if so, then what does that say about Papal authority? Where's the line? I'm not trying to start a flame-war, just get at some kind of understanding...



(and the icon is amazingly apt for this discussion, no?)

Comments

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

So I ask the practicing Catholics on my f-list -- how do you reconcile something like this? Are you able to compartmentalize "he says" vs "I do?"

Just about every Catholic does that, LOL. For example, Catholics tend to be more pro-choice and pro-birth control than some Protestant sects, even though the Pope says no. And I know plenty of Catholics who think women should be allowed to be priests, including my mom, who considers herself devout. So, that compartmentalization is part and parcel of being Catholic. It's one reason they (we) tend to be so screwed up. ;)

[lagilman]

It really does explain an awful lot about World History....

[rhienelleth.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not Catholic, but my husband is, and we've talked about stuff like this at length. The primary reason he no longer attends church is because of politics within the local catholic congregation, and when his old priest retired, the new one just never really...not that he was bad, or anything, he just wasn't the personality the DH was looking for in 'his' priest.

When it comes down to it, people are people. Every religion in the world has its share of a**holes. Are there more of them in Christianity, and the Catholic church in particular? Maybe, but it's also one of the larger religions, so then it becomes a numbers game.

Do I have respect for the papacy? Yes. But I also know it's an organization driven by man. While I believe there are men who truly do feel called by God, I also know that man is fallable. Joan of Arc was persecuted primarily by one man - a Bishop of the church who wanted to be remembered in history. I don't remember his name off the top of my head, but the irony here is that he IS remembered, as one of the most reviled men in all of history. When she was finally made a Saint, a mob invaded his tomb and desecrated his body.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Actually, Pierre Cauchon's tomb was destroyed some time between 1754 and 1783. Joan wasn't beatified until 1909.

[ex-fashioni.livejournal.com]

As a non-practicing Catholic, I find it to actually be remarkably like Judaism in the compartmentalizing. (Like dianora2 says.)

I mean, talk to most Jesuits and they'll look at Bishop Loonypants like he has a screw loose and try to figure out ways to send him back to the Inquisition.

In my experience, the Pope may govern over the religion, but he doesn't govern how people, including priests, worship within the religion.

[lagilman]

so Papal infallibility regarding matters of doctrine is... um, more honored in breach than observance?

[lagilman]

except Jews don't compartmentalize, as such. We simply don't have a single faith-wide source for doctrine -- even the Torah gets endless commentary, and rabbis have been known to slap each other with fish over bad translations (okay, I made that part about the fish up. But they definitely did/do have slapfights).

In a total oversimplification someone will doubtless call me on: A Jew can join a Reform or Orthodox or Reconstructionist or Conservative synagogue, and not be any 'less' or 'more' for it (except of course for the Orthodox who claim that Reform Jews aren't really Jews, but they can't kick us out or anything...because there's nothing to be kicked out of)

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

One of my friends says that compared to the religious right, for example, the Jesuits that ran her Catholic school taught over and over again that the bible is metaphor and allegory, not the word of god.

[havocthecat]

You've also got to consider that American Catholics are WAY more willing to ignore the Pope and dogma than just about any other flavor of Catholic in the entire world.

[lagilman]

see above question: if so, then were does the entire basic idea of the Pope as the heir of Peter end up? And if you toss that... what's left of Papal Christianity?

(Enter the Schism: two Popes Enter, One Pope Leaves. Oh no, wait, already did that one...)

[emmaco.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting - I was brought up a Catholic in Australia and American catholics on tv/in newspapers etc always seemed far more devout and hardline about traditional (ie pope) beliefs than any Catholics I knew.

I suspect Catholics everywhere compartmantalise, you just have to look at the way birthrates in predominantly catholic countries like Italy and Spain have been low for ages to realise they ignore the whole anti-contraception thing.

Because my schools and churches were quite liberal I might be a poor judge but I don't think the whole pope is infallible thing really crossed many Catholics minds, and certainly not with regards to bishops. I'm not sure where that leaves papal authority...

[saare-snowqueen.livejournal.com]

Except the Italians, strangely - or not.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

I'm Quaker, which is by nature one of the least organized religions ever, so I wasn't going to comment on this because, really, what I know about modern Catholicism would fit on the head of a pin. Except I realized that I do have a similar thing in my life at the moment. First, a bit of explanation, since Quakers are confusing.

Quakers belong to a loose hierarchy of meetings--monthly, quarterly, yearly, and the umbrella group. The time bit refers to the frequency of Meeting for Business, but the meetings also become geographically larger as you go up the list as well. Monthly meetings are the smallest, the local meeting you go to every week. Quarters are groups of monthly meetings, Yearly, groups of Quarterly meetings. So I grew up in Lewisburg Monthly Meeting, in the Upper Susquehanna Quarterly Meeting, and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Philly belongs to FGC, Friends General Conference, the liberal group. This is how I was raised: outside of Christian trappings, in an inclusive, ridiculously liberal meeting. Though God is mentioned in the Faith and Practice, when everyone talked in meetings, they'd usually use 'the light within' instead, which is code for 'whatever it is that you believe in.' (Original Quaker belief is there is 'that of god in everyone.' Liberal interpretations go with 'the light within' or 'that of good in everyone.')

Time went by, and I moved up here, which I love. And I said to myself, I love living in Boston, I should move my membership up here to the local meeting that I also like. Except up here, the Yearly Meeting belongs to two umbrella groups: FGC, and FUM, which I hate. OMG, HATE. They're more conservative, more christian, totally different from how I was brought up: members of their meetings supported the war in Afghanistan (mind you, there are only like 3 'pillars of Quaker faith' but the big one is the Peace Testimony. NO EXCUSE FOR WAR.), they won't hire ANYONE who has sex outside of marriage to work for the group. Which in most states rules out all non-hetero peoples. Etc Etc. I don't like them, and I have gotten into minor slapfights on my journal for saying as much.

So, what all that stuff above this comes down to is: I live here, I go to meeting (in theory--I'm lazy), I was born Quaker, and I can not bring myself to change my membership to this meeting because it supports something which offends me SO MUCH. And at times I think, really, is it worth being this upset about something? Does what they support *really* interfere with my life at all? And no. It doesn't. But at the same time, it goes SO COMPLETELY against my view of this religion that I just can't do it.

sideline, yet related commentary...

[lagilman]

Interesting. And yet, I wonder -- is there a way to join-and-change? Or is this group set in stone [odd, if they're not adhering to basic tenants and yeah, supporting war is...odd, to say the least. I wonder if there was a political/fear element to that? If so, a shame]. Is there someone who can slap their hands for that, or is it more the 'created of the community' philosophy I grew up with?


As an aside: a friend of mine once explained being Quaker as "like being fannish. Except less gets done at our Meetings."

[infiniteviking]

..Nothing to contribute, but yes, apt icon is very apt. *snickers*

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

This is but one illustration of why this Catholic School survivor hasn't voluntarily been to Mass in going on 20 years. :P

In Catholicism, you're not supposed to think. You're just supposed to do what you're told. That's how the whole "papal infallibility" thing has persisted through the centuries ... baa, baa, we sheep. And if you're female, well, then you're lucky they even let you through the church door!

I think my mom's attitude toward Rome is more common than not: I have my own relationship with God, and that's what really matters.

[lagilman]

Orthodox Judaism isn't all that great for gender equality, either, alas. I have friends who really fit better, religiously, in an Orthodox community, but have joined a Conservative synagogue because they didn't want to raise their daughters in a community where they were considered somehow 'less worthy of participation' [no bas mitzvah, kept separate during services, etc] than their sons/brothers. But, again, it's a local-community decision, and an individual choice, not a hierarchical one imposed [successfully, or otherwise] on all members.

[jperceval.livejournal.com]

Reading stuff like this makes me glad I don't practice (or even consider myself Catholic any more). I up and left over things like that -- I just couldn't compartmentalize any more. I should ask my mother what she thinks about it -- she's a master at rationalization in her faith.

[smoemeth.livejournal.com]

Oh, and if the Papal authority is making your head spin, this will make it pop clean off your body.

(No, I can't help explain it. I'm too busy bashing my head against the wall in disbelief.)

[mt-yvr.livejournal.com]

Wth? REALLY? They're going to sell them again?


Holy ...

Just... wow.

[fatbaldguy60.livejournal.com]

The fact that an all-powerful God can't get his church leaders on the same page is only one of the reasons I am no longer a practicing Catholic. [Or a practicing anything else, for that matter.]

[ilvack.livejournal.com]

Coming from a small town that was split not only by race but also by religion, I've seen first hand how some Catholics end up justifying their beliefs.

What it seems to come down to is, if the Pope tells you fish live in trees, some Catholics will start throwing nets over oaks.

It's not really all that different than other branches of Christianity. Homosexuality is an abomination, but shellfish isn't, despite the fact that they are both considered sins in the same chapter.

I feel that a great deal of the issues come from lack of understanding their own faith. People can be lazy, and can and often do let someone tell them the way of the world without really doing any follow-up research. Or, when they DO the research they end up not comprehending what's being said.

[jmward14.livejournal.com]

I reconciled with it by dumping the dogma at fifteen and keeping only the lessons I found useful--e.g., knowing what was really happening from a religious viewpoint in DRACULA and Renaissance art, and accepting both prosperity AND want as tests of the spirit.
But I suspect a lot of practicing Catholics operate like my mom, who repeatedly told me in all seriousness: "The Pope isn't against birth control; he just doesn't want young girls to be promiscuous." She more than believed it--she lived by it, so much so that when she served as a nurse in ghetto schools in Philadelphia in the early 1950s, she routinely "took steps" to prevent underage rape victims from carrying the additional burden of a child.
For me, one of the most interesting thing about Catholicism--or any religion, for that matter--is the way good people can always manage to work around their religion's strictures to better their world.
Cheers,
Jean Marie

[lagilman]

"The Pope isn't against birth control; he just doesn't want young girls to be promiscuous."

But it was okay for the boys to be sluts?

(this could oh so easily lead into "well, if you don't want unwanted pregnancies and it's a sin to spill it on the ground, why not okay equal-opportunity homosexuality?" roundabouts. But maybe we should save that for a slow posting-day....)

[mattador.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite a practicing Catholic, but my mother's side of the family is - a huuuuge Irish Catholic family mostly full of liberal feminist gay-friendly socialist pot-smoking folk who pretty much ignore any pronouncement of the church that doesn't jibe with what the Bible tells them about Jesus.

[rwglaub.livejournal.com]

I saw in the news where the German clergy is having an absolute connipion fit over this. And then German chancellor Angela Merkel called up the Pope and basically read him the riot act, very politely, of course.

The Curia put Church unity above anything else. Trouble is, this is going to cost them more believers than they will gain back from the Society of Pius X (the order to which those four soi-desant bishops belong).

A parochial school run by the Order caused a great deal of controversy last year on the basketball court. It was in Kansas I believe. They had joined the state athletic association, and solemnly gave their word to observe all the rules and regulations. They did, until they had a game where there was going to be a woman referee. The school administration refused to play unless the woman was replaced with a man. Shamefully, the other team and the other referee capitulated to their demands. It caused a huge stink, and led to the local TV station doing an investigation of the school, exposing to public view their medieval views on women.

[neutronjockey.livejournal.com]

“True universities are for ideas, ideas are not for true girls, so true universities are not for true girls.”

Holy Mary Wollstonecraft... I think she just rolled over in her grave...

[lagilman]

rolled over, hell. She sat up and reached for a club....

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

And then the Church whinges that huge swathes of the population are turning to paganism and the New Age. The average Jesuit has a pretty good grasp of the principles of cause and effect, but I'm not sure that some bishops do.

[lagilman]

Apparently, they'd rather have a small core of hard-core loons than a worldwide coalition of the willingly diverse. Which makes sense if you''re a terrorist organization but... ah. It begins to make sense now. I hope they're not aware that the Jews, Pagans, and Agnostics have a slightly stronger hand than we did during the last Inquisition.... plus Internet!