Catholics
dirt track date -- Saturday, July 06, 2002 -- 02:29:01 PMSo why the hell haven't you left the church yet? I have church-shopped off and on for decades, and have never found anything comparable. I disagree with most of the church's teachings, but then so do most other Catholics I know. In what other religion can you cheerfully ignore the official line but still be welcome? I guess that's why I haven't left.
What about you?
This thread is tagged: faith, religion(All users will see what tags exist for a thread. Please tag carefully!)
So I've been fretting for the past few months because we still go to St. Matt's in the city. I knew we could get the babies baptized there (probably; I hadn't talked to anyone and wasn't certain how strict they are about making people do things at the church whose parish boundaries they fall into), but as far as I knew, they didn't have any CCD.
So I had been trying to decide whether we should find a church in Alexandria and put down roots there, or whether we should keep going to St. Matt's and sort of half-ass it once the kids got old enough for CCD. Maybe find another place to send them to CCD? I dunno. The church whose parish boundaries we fall into did not excite me. They don't allow girls to be altar servers. All their organizations are divided by gender; all the women's organizations do things like clean the church and arrange flowers and all the men's organizations do things like Outward Bound.
So the sensible thing would have been to make an appointment with the Monseigneur and talk it over with him. I found it easier just to fret for a while and do nothing and push it off.
Some of the priests were greeting people outside the church today before Mass, and I stopped and started talking to one of them. He said they'd be happy to baptize the babies! He didn't care that we lived in Alexandria; he didn't even care if we were registered parishoners, but was delighted to hear that we were.
Then at the end of Mass, the priest announced that the cathedral was starting up CCD classes this fall.
I am so relieved. I had sort of resigned myself to going to some other church while the kids were CCD age, but honestly, we just love St. Matt's so much. I've been going there for almost fifteen years and we were married there and it will mean so much for me to have the kids baptized and confirmed there.
That's excellent. It's great that you'll be able to bring your kids up in the parish community you already love instead of joining a parish that you don't like as much.
I went to the baptism of my friends' baby a couple of weeks ago and after the sacrament, the woman from the church (some kind of pastoral assistant or similar title) walked the baby around the church so everyone at Mass could welcome her to the community. I had never seen that before, and I absolutely loved it. Maybe a little woo-woo, but it was so great to see everyone (many of them strangers) so thrilled to welcome their newest member, and such a nice way to add a little more meaning to the baptism.
Lizzie, I'm glad it was all resolved so that you can be where you're comfortable and happy.
louise, I think that's very sweet. My nephew's baptism was like most I'd been to - it was held at a special time and only the families were present. My neighborhood church is supposed hold baptisms at a special time but the Monsignor insists on doing them during Mass so that the child is surrounded by his/her new community. I've always thought that was the better way.
I remember baptisms always during Masses--either baptisms I attended, or just seeing them when I was at Mass. I wasn't even sure it was allowed outside of Mass! My nephew's in a few weeks will be after Mass, but that's because my brother and his wife will also be having their wedding/marriage blessed by the church. (They're all legal and everything, but they couldn't have a church wedding last year because my SIL's annulment wasn't complete in time.)
Lizzie--are there any churches within a reasonable distance that have a good parish school? We landed at a church and put down roots where there was a really strong school community and it gave both kids a really strong grounding and education, as well as keeping me involved in the Catholic church far longer than I probably would have had we not been involved in the school.
If they have a school they probably also have CCD as a school tends to attract lots of young families.
Yeah, the church with the ladies' cleaning clubs is the one that has the school. They also offer CCD. But now that St. Matt's offers CCD, too, I don't have to go to Our Lady of the Gender Stereotypes.
Anyway, part of the reason we moved to Fairfax County was the school system. As much as I might like the idea of sending the kids to Bishop Ireton, I just can't justify the cost.
When I was 4, my family moved across town, and went from the urban hipster parish St. Al's to the more suburban St. Tony's of Gender Stereotypes. My Mom was always offended that her math teacher and accounting whiz self was not allowed to serve on the parish or school finance committee because that was a men's committee, but spent years gritting her teeth about it because St. Tony's school was less than two blocks from our house and they felt like it was the best school for us in the area.
After my younger sister made it through 8th grade at St. Tony's and was headed off to the consolidated Catholic high school, my parents were back at St. Al's like two Sundays later. Interestingly, a lot of their old friends who had moved from the St. Al's attendance area to the suburbs over the years also tended to eventually end up back at St. Al's as well after a 10-15 year gap going to church closer to their current homes.
I just couldn't believe that the only women's organizations for our close-by church were, seriously, cleaning and flower arrangement for the altar. I mean, Grandma's church had gender-segregated organizations, and for all I know they spent time cleaning up the church, but they also did things like go to Poland.
St. Tony's of Gender Stereotypes
I love this so much.
My sister has started going to church again. Sort of. There's no Catholic church within an hour's driving time of her house, but a priest from one of the far-away churches comes to an elementary school a mile from her house every Saturday afternoon and holds a vigil Mass in the cafeteria. So that's what she went to last Saturday.
Her husband has never gone to any church service of any kind. So his first church-ish experience was a Catholic Mass held in an elementary school cafeteria. My sister reports that the cognative dissonance blew him away. Also, during the sign of the peace, he didn't know that people were saying "Peace be with you." He thought they were saying "Jesus loves you," and he got very irritated at being expected to make an affirmative statement about whom Jesus loves. Afterwards, my sister was like, "They weren't saying Jesus Loves You! Catholics don't go around telling people that Jesus loves them! That is between you and Jesus!"
I told her that it would probably make a lot more sense to him if he saw a Mass in an actual church, and she agreed. Then I told her about Boy's first few Masses, where he didn't skip a beat because of his Episcopal boarding school experience. Didn't miss a beat, that is, until the Nicene Creed, when he was all, "What is this? What is this? We didn't do this at St. George's! I haven't heard this before!" No kidding, Boy; the Episcopalians don't recite a creed stating that they believe in one holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church? You don't say.
Not to intrude, but Episcopalians recite the Nicene creed frequently--I remember doing so every week for years on end. But the version you'll find in the Episcopal prayer books reads "one holy catholic and apostolic Church" with a decidedly lower-case c for catholic.
Here's a page with versions of the creed used in different churches and at different times.en.wikipedia.org
Yep- Episcopalians do the Nicene creed regularly. Back when they did not do communion every Sunday, the Apostle's Creed was used during morning prayer.
Pope announces plans for Anglicans to convert en masse
The Vatican has announced that Pope Benedict is setting up special provision for Anglicans, including married clergy, who want to convert to Rome together, preserving aspects of Anglican liturgy. They will be given their own pastoral supervision, according to this press release from the Vatican:“In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony.”
Anchoress has a bunch more stuff.
Maybe the Catholics and the Anglicans can trade priests and bishops like the AL and the NL trade players.
We get all the gays..oh wait..that means no more Catholic clergy...but you get the cranky old married guys to rebuild with.
Um, what everybody else said. Not only do we say the Creed, we follow with a full Act of Contrition---ON OUR KNEES--every Sunday. In ADDITION to the Kyrie. And if that isn't enough you can do individual confession.
I thought Episcopalians were Protestants until I started attending an Episcopal church, and they really aren't, in the American sense of "protestant." They aren't protesting anything other than Papal authority.
I have to say at our church the liturgy is more traditional than the Catholic one I grew up with. They don't have their panties so much in a wad about homosexuality or divorce, but everything else is very much in line with Catholic teaching. They do however, maybe because of our priest, insist on a certain theological orthodoxy. Our priest's message: "You know, we put up with a lot, but the Creed is kind of the bottom line here, and by the way you need to show up every week and be part of the community for this stuff to work."
That isn't what "protestant" means, or ever meant, even though it has meant many things.
The word Protestant is derived from the Latin protestari meaning publicly declare which refers to the letter of protestation by Lutheran princes against the decision of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, which reaffirmed the edict of the Diet of Worms in 1521, banning Luther's documents. Since that time, the term Protestantism has been used in many different senses, often as a general term merely to signify people who believe in Christ who exist outside of the Catholic Church.
Anglicans aren't Protestants. They consider themselves catholic, part of the Apostolic succession, but they don't hold with the Pope.
Actually some do- until very recently the official name of the American Episcopal church was the Protestant Episcopal Church.
You seriousely have no idea what you are talking about.
I realize that religion is just a role-playing game for you, but even role-playing games have rules.
Lutherans consider the Apostolic succession unbroken in their denominations as well.
They separated from the Catholic Church in a different manner than the Lutherines, Anabaptists and Calvinists and such like "Protestors". So, some of them claim to be as different from the Protestants as the Orthodox are.
Henry VIII established the Church of England but did not reject any of the Roman Catholic doctrine--his vision was only that he should be in charge and not subject to the Pope. Elizabeth I inherited a mess--Henry's crowd who had no particular quarrel with "catholic" tradition, Protestants who had established a foothold during the reign of Edward, and then Mary's re-establishment of Catholicism.
Under Elizabeth the Thirty Nine Articles laid out the framework of the church of England and adopted some reforms associated with Protestantism.
I don't think of Protestant churches as having sacraments, and the Episcopalian church does have two: Baptism and Eucharist. I don't know anything about the Lutheran tradition so I am not sure whether they also have sacraments.
Here's something from wikipedia which is consistent with other sources on Anglican history: History of the Anglican Church
Indeed, reforms like "being Protestants".
You are mistaken. Some Protestant churches do not have sacraments, but most have those two.
But I am glad you are starting to actually learn something about Anglicanism, as it is the religion you are currently playing.
This piece annoys me. She admits that in the entire time she's been living in Italy, she can't be bothered to even begin to educate herself about Catholicism. Like, she doesn't even know that you don't take Communion during Mass unless you're a Catholic who has had his or her first Communion. Yeah, I grew up in Massachusetts, but in a heavily Protestant town, and no one I grew up with was ignorant of this fact.
And yet she has no problem sending her children to participate in whatever solemn moment they happen to be fascinated by at the time, without even taking the time to consider whether A. maybe the people taking part in this solemn moment for real wouldn't appreciate the religious tourism and B. maybe it's not a good idea to send kids into situations for which they are so flagrantly unprepared. And, indeed, her kids wind up embarrassing themselves on at least two occasions. What the hell? What is the point of this article?
That's really unfair to her kids. If they're curious about the church, do some research and give them the information, don't just let them fumble around like idiots. Since she is treating church like the zoo (grr), she should approach it the same way. I assume she wouldn't let her children pet zoo animals without consulting zoo rules/staff about what's allowed.
One of our Diocesan candidates for priesthood is named Jacob Stein. Heh.
I was thinking his name sounded Jewish rather than Catholic, but Petros is good too.
Our pastor is surnamed Pietramale. That also cracks me up.
I haven't been surfing or posting,for a long time. When I tried to find this thread, under Values and Beliefs, I discovered it is now inactive. I guess everyone of the catholic faith has converted to something else.
I started thinking about something, while I was grocery shopping, this afternoon. It was a Mother's Day prayer, somebody had posted here, a couple of years ago. I can't remember who the author was; but, I did copy it onto my hard drive.
"Dear Father in Heaven. I ask your blessing on my mom. I pray that she will always follow the example of Mary, mother of Our Lord, and imitate her fidelity, her humility, and her self-giving love. May your Holy Spirit constantly inspire and strengthen her. Amen"
I wonder: is the sentiment of the prayer obtainable and sustainable? Or, is it naive? After 55 years of a catholic marriage, I can honestly say that as a matter of faith and experience, I'm at best unsure.
Simon gave this to me on a card for Mother's Day one year. I found it a bit odd that the people in his religious ed program thought it an appropriate gift for Mother's Day--if only my Mom could be like the Savior's mother!
It seems that the proper prayer for mother's day would be for you to be like Jesus - it would make being your mother much easier. (Well except seeing your child die early and gruesome death part). Plus being like Mary means she never has sex with her husband.
I'm not Catholic but what I do pray for is to be so open to receiving God's love as Mary was- her "yes" still amazes me.
I also remember a meditation by Mother Teresa talking about Mary's pregnancy as a long holy communion with Jesus.
epiphany- congrats on 55 years.