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[Dsarker]

Hello there.

As the quote trolliest Catholic unquote, I have taken it upon myself to start a thread on the Catholic Church. Yes, there is a thread on Christian beliefs and discussion, but there is a plenitude of different Christian denominations, more's the pity, and this is one specifically about the Catholic Church.

"There are not a hundred people in America who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions of people who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church — which is, of course, quite a different thing." - the venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen

So, to provide some illumination about the One True Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, I have decided to post this thread to allow questions and responses.

Let's keep things relatively civil. You may question me, you may question the Church, but she is a very pretty lady and I'm happy to white knight for her. Attack me all you like, but the Church is kinda off-limits.



I, for my own part (and any other members of the Universal Body of Christ may join in) will attempt to answer any and all questions you may have. The first one that you might have is to the thread name, which is a reference to the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church and their equality under the Pope.

Be warned: If you express an opinion that I believe is utterly dishpan-ish, I may be terse. If I am, please call me on it. It's the only way I'll learn.

[smjjames]

Let's keep things relatively civil. You may question me, you may question the Church, but she is a very pretty lady and I'm happy to white knight for her. Attack me all you like, but the Church is kinda off-limits.

Doesn't the bolded bit defeat the point of the thread which is to discuss the Catholic Church and have both sides?

You also kind of go back on your statement of saying you may question, but where does a question become an attack and an attack a question.

[Dsarker]

Let's keep things relatively civil. You may question me, you may question the Church, but she is a very pretty lady and I'm happy to white knight for her. Attack me all you like, but the Church is kinda off-limits.

Doesn't the bolded bit defeat the point of the thread which is to discuss the Catholic Church and have both sides?

You also kind of go back on your statement of saying you may question, but where does a question become an attack and an attack a question.

Well, firstly, I don't know that the point of the thread is to discuss the Catholic Church and have both sides. The point of the thread, the vision of it, is to discuss the Catholic Church and reveal truth.

As to the second, questioning is as follows: "Why does the Catholic Church hate gays?"
Attacking is as follows: "The Catholic Church hates gays. You guys suck!"

To the first, I can attempt to answer and explain. The second is just a statement.

[smjjames]

Well, have fun and try not to let it go up in flames.

[Dsarker]

Well, have fun and try not to let it go up in flames.

I will!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to ask/say them here. Otherwise, have a good day, and God bless!

[Baffler]

PTW. I'll try to keep the flaming to a minimum, hehe.

[Orange Wizard]

Why do you have a Pope, bishops, priests, fancy hats, and all the other extraneous malarkey?
Is there any Biblical (or at least canon) justification for it?

[Neonivek]

PTW. I'll try to keep the flaming to a minimum, hehe.

I would love to see this sort of jabbing still be considered appropriate in a topic about different races or feminists.

Ohh wait it wouldn't be.

Do we REALLY REALLY need a third "Lets make fun of Religion" thread? We don't even have as many active "make fun of terrorist" threads.

[Telgin]

This probably could have just been rolled into the other Christianity thread, but it's specific enough I guess.

Anyway, here's one: what justification is there for praying to anyone but God (I'm combining Jesus with God here)?  Around these parts that's considered pretty bizarre and heretical.

[Dsarker]

Why do you have a Pope, bishops, priests, fancy hats, and all the other extraneous malarkey?
Is there any Biblical (or at least canon) justification for it?

Pope, bishops, and priests come from different sources. We'll examine them one by one, if that's okay.

We'll start with the bishops.

Each of the bishops today is a successor to one of the Apostles. The ordination of a bishop is a big thing, and that gets tracked. Each of them is a successor in their role, as well - to be a shepherd of the flock. Most, if not all, of the Apostles had churches that they were the local heads of. St Peter is one of the most well known - head of the Church in Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. The one in Rome is the reason for the Pope, which we'll get to later. St John the Evangelist appears to have seven, whom he wrote to (see the book of the Apocalypse, in the first two chapters he writes to the seven churches he would have administered). So the idea of bishops is one that has come from the apostles, in most of its facets.

The priest is the hard one. See, priests aren't mentioned in the Church of the New Testament (see St Paul's letters if you want to see what I mean), although Deacons and Bishops are. I don't have the sources to really answer that properly at the moment, though I will endeavour to do so soon.

The Pope is a follow-on from the Bishops. As the successor of St Peter, there is the follow-on from the Petrine Confession (basically, if this is unfamiliar to you, it's where Peter says 'You're the messiah' and Jesus says 'Finally, one of you got it.'). It happens to be in Rome because that was /the/ big city of the time. Basically, Peter went to the centre of the Empire to preach, and that's where he died. If Peter had never gotten to Rome, it wouldn't be the Pope in Rome.

As for the fancy hats and extraneous malarkey, that's mostly just the traditional clothing of the priest, which follows from the Roman clothing of the time. Symbolic meaning was attached to it (for example, 'clericals', or the soutane, have thirty three buttons, one for each year of Jesus' life).

I hope that answers your questions, though if it doesn't, tell me!

Do we REALLY REALLY need a third "Lets make fun of Religion" thread? We don't even have as many active "make fun of terrorist" threads.

Well, I wouldn't call it a 'make fun of religion' thread. And I think it's reasonably necessary. Christianity is a broad church (haha), and looking at one specific part of it is a better topic for a thread rather than a general discussion of all of it.

Anyway, here's one: what justification is there for praying to anyone but God (I'm combining Jesus with God here)?  Around these parts that's considered pretty bizarre and heretical.

Well, there's a difference between praying and worshiping. Here's a brief explanation.

It's a similar sort of thing to what happens on Earth. "I've got cancer, can you pray for me?" However, we believe that, because the Saints are in heaven, with God, if we ask them to pray for us, it'll be better! Mary, as the Mother of God and without sin, is even better.

We don't pray to the Saints or Mary as a divinity. That would be pretty bizarre and heretical. However, we ask the saints and Mary to pray for us.

Take the one that everyone's thinking "Hey Dsarker, what about this?" about. The Hail Mary.

Hail Mary, full of Grace
The Lord is with you
Blessed are you among women
And blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God
Pray for us sinners
Now and at the hour of our death,
Amen.

I've separated them into two paragraphs. The first paragraph is completely Biblical. It's an amalgamation of the angel's greeting to Mary and Elizabeth's greeting to Mary. Jesus is added because we know who 'the fruit of your womb' is.

The second paragraph is not Biblical, in that it doesn't come straight from the Bible. All it is, however, is us asking Mary to pray to God for us.

We do not worship saints or Mary. We honour them for what they have done on Earth, and through that, honour God. We only worship God.

[Baffler]

You misunderstand. I am Catholic, I was just making a (not very good) joke about how flammable topics like this are. I do think that this thread's purpose is pretty well covered by the Christian Beliefs and Discussion thread though. That said...

Why do you have a Pope, bishops, priests, fancy hats, and all the other extraneous malarkey?
Is there any Biblical (or at least canon) justification for it?

The justification all stems from the idea of Apostolic Succession. The first Pope is widely considered to be St. Peter, who Jesus named "the rock on which the Church would be built." Modern Popes are successors of St. Peter. Likewise, bishops are the successors of the Apostles who went out to different places to spread Jesus' teachings. The Pope is held to be supreme over the bishops of other Sees for the same reason.

This probably could have just been rolled into the other Christianity thread, but it's specific enough I guess.

Anyway, here's one: what justification is there for praying to anyone but God (I'm combining Jesus with God here)?  Around these parts that's considered pretty bizarre and heretical.

This is more common in some places than others. Some people do kinda take it a bit far, I'll freely grant, but the purpose is basically to ask that person to pray for you, rather than ask for their help directly.

Ninja'd with more clarity.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I cannot even describe the amount of willpower it took for me to not make a comprehensive Jack Chick-esq trollpost about the Catholic Church once the idea came to mind. I hope you're all happy, now my minor amusements will never be fulfilled until slightly later this hour.

[Orange Wizard]

Interesting. In my church, we speak of any Christian - regardless of stature or achievements - to be a saint, as in, sanctified by God. How does sainthood work in the Catholic church? What does one have to do to be recorded as, say, Saint Orange Wizard?

...

I cannot even describe the amount of willpower it took for me to not make a comprehensive Jack Chick-esq trollpost about the Catholic Church once the idea came to mind. I hope you're all happy, now my minor amusements will never be fulfilled until slightly later this hour.

I, for one, think that Jack Chick's trollposts tracts are very unifying. We can all join together and laugh at the silliness.

[Baffler]

I cannot even describe the amount of willpower it took for me to not make a comprehensive Jack Chick-esq trollpost about the Catholic Church once the idea came to mind. I hope you're all happy, now my minor amusements will never be fulfilled until slightly later this hour.

Yeah, I'm slightly disappointed as well.

Interesting. In my church, we speak of any Christian - regardless of stature or achievements - to be a saint, as in, sanctified by God. How does sainthood work in the Catholic church? What does one have to do to be recorded as, say, Saint Orange Wizard?

...

I cannot even describe the amount of willpower it took for me to not make a comprehensive Jack Chick-esq trollpost about the Catholic Church once the idea came to mind. I hope you're all happy, now my minor amusements will never be fulfilled until slightly later this hour.

I, for one, think that Jack Chick's trollposts tracts are very unifying. We can all join together and laugh at the silliness.

It works exactly the same way, IIRC. The Catholic Church just has a structure and system regarding recognizing people as such.

In a nutshell, the people who are Canonized are not the only Saints, they're just the ones who have had two miracles attributed to their intercession. The next step down, "Blessed" has only one miracle definitively attributed to them, or was a martyr. Below that is "Venerable" who was known to live an exceptionally pious life, but does not necessarily have any miracle attributed to them. These are all people from the rank below that, "Servant of God" who have been recognized by the Pope as such. A Servant of God is named as such by a bishop after the congregation (or the Pope) says he should, basically. Such a person is assigned someone called a Postulator to look into the person's life to see if they're deserving of being called Venerable.

[Dsarker]

Interesting. In my church, we speak of any Christian - regardless of stature or achievements - to be a saint, as in, sanctified by God. How does sainthood work in the Catholic church? What does one have to do to be recorded as, say, Saint Orange Wizard?

In the Catholic Church, the title of 'saint' refers to those called 'canonised saints'.

This is a somewhat confusing term to work out, so please tell me if I'm not clear.

Anyway, so we all have a call to saint-hood. All of us are called to be saints. Canonised saints are those who fit the following criteria: 1) They are dead. 2) They have lived a life of holiness. 3) After their death, through their intercession, miracles have been worked by God.

The idea is that Christ died to sanctify us, but we can reject or accept it. Because we have free will, we can choose to reject or accept it multiple times.

When you die, the final judgement is made. After that, it doesn't change. So, while someone might be really good on Earth, and live a life for God, if they change their mind and reject Christ...

Hmmm. While I was writing this, it came to me how confusing I'm making it.

Basically, we use Christian for follower of Jesus, and Saint for those who are confirmed to be in heaven (because they are able to intercede for us before God). Does that make any sense?

Baffler has returned the favour