I don’t know when, how, or why, but the Church has collectively decided that the best way for it to proclaim the glorious message of salvation to a world desperately in need of it is timidity.
Please read my thoughts on this approach in Woody Allen Catholicism at the National Catholic Register.
As always I truly appreciate your support over there.
September 4, 2013 at 8:55 pm
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September 5, 2013 at 1:10 am
To the administrator who "moderated" my post:
If Catholics actually took the time to learn from Evangelicals instead of disparaging them at virtually every opportunity, perhaps the Church wouldn't be in as awful a shape as it is. The came could be said about learning from the Eastern Orthodox.
Catholics have a tendency to vilify Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy but give Islam a pass. Why, especially since Protestants and Orthodox believe in Christ's redemptive mission and self-declaration as the Son of God, while Muslims certainly don't?
Do you want to know why Catholicism got into the situation it finds itself in today? Because centuries ago, the Church decided it needed a symbiotic relationship with the State to survive. Popes have even written that Catholicism should receive special privileges from the State. Tell that to the earliest martyrs and see what they think.
When the Church develops such a relationship with the State, it focuses on building power, influence and secular prestige at the expense of its spiritual responsibilities. In the process, it develops an overwhelming sense of institutional entitlement and arrogance that exists to this day.
Vatican history bears that out but it's not just a Catholic problem. Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy, in their own ways, carved out such symbiotic relationships with the State — thereby emasculating the faith in Europe.
I should also remind you that many Evangelical churches have roots in the "free church" movement that started in Europe after the Reformation as a response to the "establishment" of churches in various countries.
September 5, 2013 at 1:17 am
I know Evangelicals and Pentecostals who have traveled overseas as missionaries. They lived and worked with the people they taught. I have attended Bible studies and home groups where the passion and commitment of those attending makes the Catholic response to spiritual things pale. I'm not talking about excessive emotionalism. I'm talking about a firm, unwavering commitment.
Catholicism kills passion for the Triune God because of its legalism, its insistence on monarchistic deference to superiors, its insistence on Magisterial teaching over Scriptural teaching (JPII's prudential judgement on capital punishment being the most prominent example) and its tendency to assign to Mary and the saints the traits of compassion, tenderness and empathy that rightly belong to Jesus, thereby obscuring His role as the "Heavenly High Priest" described in the Letter to the Hebrews.
September 5, 2013 at 6:26 am
Funny, I know Navajo polytheists whose "firm, unwavering commitment" I would put up against your little book-club-pretending-to-be-a-church any day of the week. Does that make their religion true, Amazon Queen?
To have a firm unwavering commitment to your religion is called "being worth a tinker's damn". I can see why you are awestruck by that, admittedly.
September 5, 2013 at 8:39 am
SF, your substitution of blind institutional identity for genuine faith and your mocking the things of God will send you to Hell faster than the Concorde spanned the Atlantic.
September 5, 2013 at 12:43 pm
Pat,
We need a Pope ( he alone has the world press at his command) who says to radical Islam…" your way leads only to hell and never to paradise". And he says that through CNN, Al jezeera, Le Figaro, Reuters etc and he says it every 40 days.
But Vatican City would then need a lot of metal detectors. and I think Francis only understands moderate muslims.
September 6, 2013 at 1:41 am
Allah has no Son to love or to love him.
September 6, 2013 at 1:46 am
Bill, I wouldn't hold out any hope for Pope Francis on this issue:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/The-Vatican-and-Islam-315582
September 7, 2013 at 5:43 am
Patrick, I find it interesting that you delete my comments yet allow a personal insult from "Sophia's Favorite" to stand.
Hypocritical, much?