JimBowie1958
Old Fogey
- Sep 25, 2011
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From the time of the Romans, the church had used Latin to show the unity of the church across national lines. No matter what nation you attended mass in, other than the homily being said in the local language, everything else was the same no matter what nation you were attending mass in or what time era. The old Latin rite was a unifying symbol of the church that rose above the national quarrels and jealousies of this world and it strove to give a glimpse of the Heavenly places. It was pushed aside, and now this Pope almost completely bans it.
The changes have not only unmade Catholicism but it has confused, alienated and reduced to resentment and defiance many in the church. There were, for example, many people who went to a lot of trouble to avoid violating the ban on eating red meat on Friday. It was a moratal sin to violate that ban. I know one lady who would have to eat her bag lunch at school as her friends rode off to the local hamburger joint because she couldnt go with them as she ate her fish sandwich. She could not attend her best friend's recital because it was held in a heretical Episcopalian church. And many more incidents that I wont bore everyone with. When Vatican II unbound these mortal sins, she felt like a fool for having ever followed them and to have ever sacrificed so much of her friendships to be a 'good' Catholic. 'How can mortal sins suddenly be non-sinful?', she asked. It made no sense to her, and so it became a lie all along in her mind.
The church has reversed itself so many times on so many issues, that even within the clergy there has been a long awaited set of further loosenings ever since, like allowing married priests, priestesses, and contraception. The church has so many things that are mortal sins and only the rite of confession can remove these mortal sins, and yet Confession is only offered a few times a week for maybe an hour at a time. Who would be OK with the local hospital emergency room having a similar schedule? Isnt eternal damnation a much more serious thing than catching an infection early or setting a bone? This points to how the church today does not take its own doctrines seriously at all.
When I first converted to Catholicism, I followed the Catechism and went to Confession weekly, but after the third or fourth time the priest told me that once or twice a year was fine. I started going much less frequently after that, and the disparity between what the Catechism says and what the priests actually do, how they actually behave says far more than the mere words in a dusty book.
Catholicism is really dead already. No one takes its dogmas seriously any more, the least of whom are the clergy themselves, starting at the top, with the Pope who has surrounded himself with atheists and queers.
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