Two Popes and One Halo - Or a Saint He Ain't

[latraviata]

No. My daughter, her husband, and I are Unitarian-Universalists (see this site

for info), although the rest of my family is Catholic. Several years ago, I decided that I couldn't in good conscience remain affiliated with a church when I disagreed so wholeheartedly with many of its essential teachings. For years, I had had problems with Church teachings on the equality of women, reproductive freedom, and marriage equality, and the overall rightward tilt of the Church. It felt hypocritical to remain when, after having tried so hard for years, I still couldn't embrace the dogma of the immaculate conception, the virgin birth, and the resurrection.

I was raised catholic, although my mother was rather pious, it was more the tradition than actual religion. Of course I went to catholic schools and I hated it from day one. As long as I can remember I had not a religious bone in my body and even as a young child I thought it was all fairy tale and nonsense.

I live in a very secular environnement so nothing out of the ordinary here. In short, I am an atheist. I have no rancor against the church at all. You can wake me up for a good sung Latin mass, but it doesn't make me feel, there must be a deity present, I just don't have it. In that sense, you could call me a ritualist, lighting candles when I visit a church and all that. My mother loved to take the children with her to church and we were fine with that. When they asked us questions about it, we just explained them that their grandmothers believed in god and we didn't. We never forced anything upon them. They both are/were atheists, which is nothing special in my neck of the woods. The Dutch are not very interested in religion and we hardly talk about religion, it is not a very popular topic of conversation because hardly anybody cares.

People, friends, noticed we (Germont and I) had a catholic upbringing, because the difference in 'culture' between protestant and catholics are or were quite obvious in the Netherlands. Catholics tended to enjoy life more than protestants, more festive and abundant and less lust suppression.

[Hane]

I've always enjoyed religious observance and ritual, so that's one of the reason I changed my religious affiliation rather than discarding the idea altogether.

[Ave Maria]

Sure, I can agree you should have a good spiritual (or moral) background behind doing service, or behind teaching your kids to volunteer.

I don't think the primary purpose of service/volunteering is for the volunteer's "spiritual benefit" though - I think it's to help other people and benefit THEM. Any benefits you get from performing the service are secondary IMO. To me the whole purpose of doing service is getting outside yourself and not making it about yourself! And so, while the people who are being served might benefit slightly more by someone who is altruistically-motivated and really believes in the work they are doing, if someone is there just to fulfill hours but is doing everything they are supposed to/working to a good standard, then most of the time I tend to think that is better than those people not being helped at all.

All the Catholic elementary through high schools I have experience with (went to a Catholic elementary and there were a few others in the area friends went to, and lots of my friends went to Catholic high school) required mass attendance, at school. I don't see how they could require attendance outside of school as a lot of the time that is outside the student's control and there were often a lot of non-Catholic kids in attendance. Though I can see how if they require out-of-school service hours it would make sense to require out-of-school mass attendance. I think most tried to have opportunities to fulfill service hours through school/clubs (if they required service hours) in case you couldn't do them outside of school. I think you were generally expected to participate in prayers at school including the rosary but if a non-Catholic kid wasn't comfortable doing that nobody forced them. I'm not sure how that could be reliably tracked outside of school though? You could have a priest sign off on being at mass (and I think we had to do that for a certain number of masses to get confirmed now that I think about it but that's it) but it would be so easy for a parent to just sign off on the rosary without the kid really having done it... But then I think you run into the same problem!!! Is it really spiritual growth when you are just going to mass or saying a rosary because your school requires it? Again, I think something is better than nothing and agree with you about forming good habits, but to be fair I think you have to consider that question for required religious activities too.

My Catholic college did not require service (unless you were in a rare class that did a service project together) or mass attendance. Plenty of opportunities for both though. My med school actually does require service, and I love that because otherwise it would be easy to just forget about it because we are so busy, even though it's something I would want to do outside of it being required. I can definitely see how allowing people to compete over hours would be counterproductive and definitely think that would happen here. We don't get any extra credit or rewards for going over the required amount or having the most hours which I think is a good way to keep service as something altruistic.

All of our service hours had to be outside of school unless you got special permission, and that was only for seniors. No hours, no graduation. It was just like homework -- it had to be done, or else. We had Mass on campus, sometimes, but no one really understood it. We had religion class, but nothing was ever really explained very well. I don't know that making kids check off boxes for Mass attendance and saying the Rosary is the answer, because how much do you learn when it's forced by the school, especially when the parents don't back anything up?

Of course service is also about the person being helped -- it's primarily about the person being helped. However, when the helper is poorly trained, poorly formed (spiritually speaking), young, and not doing this voluntarily, it's a recipe for burn out and other less than optimal results for everyone involved. My classmates and I wound up in the special dementia area of an old folks home, under the direction of the people there, without being told we would be working with dementia patients. How the heck does a 14-year-old tell an 90-year-old stranger "No, you're parents aren't coming to pick you up and take you home"? Or were we supposed to let them think that? Frack if I know -- no one told us what we were in for, let alone what to do. I wound up telling her that I didn't know when her mother was coming, and she burst into tears, started rocking back and forth, etc.

[samurai_sarah]

Ave Maria - How does your parish accept FSSPX* blessings, when they aren't recognized by the Roman Catholic Church? As far as I know, the FSSPX is apostate, so I do rather wonder how that works out, within the RCC system.

*)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_St._Pius_X

[Marianne]

Ave Maria - How does your parish accept FSSPX* blessings, when they aren't recognized by the Roman Catholic Church? As far as I know, the FSSPX is apostate, so I do rather wonder how that works out, within the RCC system.

*)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_St._Pius_X

The situation of the SSPX is an orgasm for a student in canon law, according to a friends (who studies canon law) They are priests without warrants (mandat ? I can't find a better translation, sorry :( ). Anyway, it seems to me that a catholic can receive a blessing from protestants, muslims, or Jews (it's what I see in my city), so, why not SSPX ?

[Palimpsest]

Ave Maria - How does your parish accept FSSPX* blessings, when they aren't recognized by the Roman Catholic Church? As far as I know, the FSSPX is apostate, so I do rather wonder how that works out, within the RCC system.

*)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_St._Pius_X

Ok, I've figured out that FSSPX has to do with the Lefebvre schism.

Question for you practicing and Traditional Catholics: How does that fit with Feeneyism -- our homegrown NE version of Lefebvre? Feeney was a renegade excommunicated Jesuit post Vatican II. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeneyism

There was a big split in the Feeney movement way back when, so the St Benedict's Center at Still River is now a fairly straightforward Benedictine Monastery, fully reconciled with the Church but still using the Roman Rite. Services are open to the community at large and it is a well-used retreat center for all faiths -- but no woman shall attend Mass without modest skirt and proper head covering!

The other half of the split is the place in Richmond, New Hampshire - Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is a hate group per the Southern Poverty Law Center and is widely believed by the local townspeople to be a full-blown cult. The group has bought up half the town and they are super-weird by many first-hand reports. This group is is supposedly reconciling with the Manchester Diocese as of 2010, but that doesn't sound like a good thing.

[Marianne]

Ok, I've figured out that FSSPX has to do with the Lefebvre schism.

Question for you practicing and Traditional Catholics: How does that fit with Feeneyism -- our homegrown NE version of Lefebvre? Feeney was a renegade excommunicated Jesuit post Vatican II. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeneyism

There was a big split in the Feeney movement way back when, so the St Benedict's Center at Still River is now a fairly straightforward Benedictine Monastery, fully reconciled with the Church but still using the Roman Rite. Services are open to the community at large and it is a well-used retreat center for all faiths -- but no woman shall attend Mass without modest skirt and proper head covering!

The other half of the split is the place in Richmond, New Hampshire - Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This is a hate group per the Southern Poverty Law Center and is widely believed by the local townspeople to be a full-blown cult. The group has bought up half the town and are they are super-weird by many first-hand reports. This group is is supposedly reconciling with the Manchester Diocese as of 2010, but that doesn't sound like a good thing.

Does Feeney ordain priest or not ? anyway, Lefebvre accepted baptism by desire, I think.

American Traditional catholics are weird compared to French. I've been to a looooot of traditionnalist mass for my thesis, and even if people know that I was member of the Communist Party and living with a woman and atheist, they were very polite and happy to help me for my thesis. I've never seen a woman with head covering, and rarely with "modest skirt"

[Ave Maria]

Ave Maria - How does your parish accept FSSPX* blessings, when they aren't recognized by the Roman Catholic Church? As far as I know, the FSSPX is apostate, so I do rather wonder how that works out, within the RCC system.

*)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_St._Pius_X

If they're apostate, so are we, as we are independent of the local bishop.

We, and the SSPX, function under supplied jurisdiction (priests, even those who don't ordinarily have jurisdiction, have it in a state of emergency, such as the current crisis in the Church), as well as the idea that priests can give the Sacraments to anyone who asks (it's in Canon law). Ordinary jurisdiction is given by the bishop of the area, who obviously aren't so friendly to us or to the SSPX -- though a few bishops who are friendly have given SSPX priests ordinary jurisdiction.

ETA -- I've started a thread in Ask Me Anything for questions like this, since this isn't about the JPII or JXXIII canonizations.

[samurai_sarah]

If they're apostate, so are we, as we are independent of the local bishop.

We, and the SSPX, function under supplied jurisdiction (priests, even those who don't ordinarily have jurisdiction, have it in a state of emergency, such as the current crisis in the Church), as well as the idea that priests can give the Sacraments to anyone who asks (it's in Canon law). Ordinary jurisdiction is given by the bishop of the area, who obviously aren't so friendly to us or to the SSPX -- though a few bishops who are friendly have given SSPX priests ordinary jurisdiction.

ETA -- I've started a thread in Ask Me Anything for questions like this, since this isn't about the JPII or JXXIII canonizations.

Thank you for answering. That makes it a bit clearer. I'll take all other questions to the AMA.

[2xx1xy1JD]

All of our service hours had to be outside of school unless you got special permission, and that was only for seniors. No hours, no graduation. It was just like homework -- it had to be done, or else. We had Mass on campus, sometimes, but no one really understood it. We had religion class, but nothing was ever really explained very well. I don't know that making kids check off boxes for Mass attendance and saying the Rosary is the answer, because how much do you learn when it's forced by the school, especially when the parents don't back anything up?

Of course service is also about the person being helped -- it's primarily about the person being helped. However, when the helper is poorly trained, poorly formed (spiritually speaking), young, and not doing this voluntarily, it's a recipe for burn out and other less than optimal results for everyone involved. My classmates and I wound up in the special dementia area of an old folks home, under the direction of the people there, without being told we would be working with dementia patients. How the heck does a 14-year-old tell an 90-year-old stranger "No, you're parents aren't coming to pick you up and take you home"? Or were we supposed to let them think that? Frack if I know -- no one told us what we were in for, let alone what to do. I wound up telling her that I didn't know when her mother was coming, and she burst into tears, started rocking back and forth, etc.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that volunteers shouldn't receive decent training.

My province requires volunteer hours for all high school students, and my daughter's religious high school adds on some extra hours to that requirement. I think it's a good thing.

Sure, I suppose it's good if someone has a great spiritual attitude toward volunteer work, but:

1. Helping others is primarily about the people you help, not you.

2. From a religious POV, my religion teaches that doing things to help others is mandatory, period, regardless of how you feel.

3. Unless you believe in radical unschooling, school in general is about training kids and making them do things until they develop knowledge and skills and internal motivation. If kids get into the habit of volunteering - even if the hours are required - they start to incorporate that into their lives, it becomes something familiar instead of strange, and they may be motivated to continue.

4. Emphasizing volunteer work says something about a school's values, and kids get the message that this is important.

[2xx1xy1JD]

“All life has inestimable value even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn and the poor, are masterpieces of God’s creation, made in his own image, destined to live forever, and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect.â€

Pope Francis. So. Against abortion, plus the poor are the masterpieces of God's creation, and all this evil socialist who fight poverty are bullshit because God wants poor to be poor and it's soooooooooooo good to be poor. SEriously. This kind of poverty worship remember me this :

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions (Marx)

1. I remember reading some criticism about Mother Theresa that she wasn't actually helping people in meaningful ways. I don't remember reading any similar criticism of Pope Francis. Do you have any examples of him glorifying people being poor instead of trying to help them?

2. I know that quote from Marx. How much persecution and human misery and death resulted from it?

[Marianne]

I don't think anyone is suggesting that volunteers shouldn't receive decent training.

My province requires volunteer hours for all high school students, and my daughter's religious high school adds on some extra hours to that requirement. I think it's a good thing.

Sure, I suppose it's good if someone has a great spiritual attitude toward volunteer work, but:

1. Helping others is primarily about the people you help, not you.

2. From a religious POV, my religion teaches that doing things to help others is mandatory, period, regardless of how you feel.

3. Unless you believe in radical unschooling, school in general is about training kids and making them do things until they develop knowledge and skills and internal motivation. If kids get into the habit of volunteering - even if the hours are required - they start to incorporate that into their lives, it becomes something familiar instead of strange, and they may be motivated to continue.

4. Emphasizing volunteer work says something about a school's values, and kids get the message that this is important.

I pity the leaders of associations that receive incentives adolescents without motivation and who will tease more than help...

Except if american teenager are holly, and don't make any problems when you make them to do something that they don't want to do. I know that american are less selfish than french (I'm not ironic telling it, btw. We hate to work in group and are very individualistic). But seriously, when I was in high school, it was very difficult to have less than 15% of the class drunk every afternoon. We were loud, grumpy, sometimes violent, we never obeyed, we hated to come an hour longer than necessary in high school ... How do you manage to have docile teenager who makes volunteering ? What is the secret of the american school ?

Anyway. I do a lot of volunteering. If people in the high school would have force me to do it, I would never do it now. When something is compulsory, you hate him.

1. I remember reading some criticism about Mother Theresa that she wasn't actually helping people in meaningful ways. I don't remember reading any similar criticism of Pope Francis. Do you have any examples of him glorifying people being poor instead of trying to help them?

1) cf my quote... I am not a specialist of Pope Francis.

2. I know that quote from Marx. How much persecution and human misery and death resulted from it?

A lot of persecution and human misery come from Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, juch (North Korea). From Marxism ? Well, I wait.

[Hane]

I don't think anyone is suggesting that volunteers shouldn't receive decent training.

My province requires volunteer hours for all high school students, and my daughter's religious high school adds on some extra hours to that requirement. I think it's a good thing.

Sure, I suppose it's good if someone has a great spiritual attitude toward volunteer work, but:

1. Helping others is primarily about the people you help, not you.

2. From a religious POV, my religion teaches that doing things to help others is mandatory, period, regardless of how you feel.

3. Unless you believe in radical unschooling, school in general is about training kids and making them do things until they develop knowledge and skills and internal motivation. If kids get into the habit of volunteering - even if the hours are required - they start to incorporate that into their lives, it becomes something familiar instead of strange, and they may be motivated to continue.

4. Emphasizing volunteer work says something about a school's values, and kids get the message that this is important.

Thanks, 2xx1xy1jd. That goes a long way toward explaining Judaism as an orthopraxy (how to conduct oneself in a community for the benefit of all) rather than an orthodoxy (fixed and sanctioned set of beliefs)--although, of course, there are greater or lesser variations in different branches of the faith.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Marianne:

Any teen who used their volunteer time to tease people would not only NOT receive their hours, they'd get into some serious shit with the school.

The mandatory hours are no different than any other school requirement. How do you get kids to attend English or math class? If you want to graduate, you do it. If you don't graduate, you won't get a decent job or be able to go to college or university.

Here, the kids choose their volunteer assignments. It needs to be done with a proper charitable organization, but there's a wide range of things they can do. The school has a list of volunteer positions, and kids can contact organizations on their own as well. So, it's an opportunity for the kids to do something that's meaningful and interesting to them. Without the requirement, many kids might feel that they were too busy with school to have time to volunteer, even if they thought that volunteering was a good idea. Volunteering also gives them experience that they can use to see what areas interest them, to gain skills and experience, to make connections with people who can give them references, etc. All of this is useful for applying for jobs or university.

I recently volunteered with my daughter, delivering holiday food packages in a building where most residents were poor, older immigrants. There were a lot of students helping. Their help was needed to get the job done, and they also saw that the food packages were needed and made a difference to the residents. The mandatory hours just gave some added motivation for the teens to get out of bed and do this early on a Sunday morning.

In addition to the mandatory volunteer hours for high school students, there is also something called Project Giveback at my kids' school for kids in grade 4. It's not in all schools, but they have both private and public schools who do it. Kids are encouraged to find out more about a charity that it meaningful to them. My son, for example, chose the hospital which treated my husband for his eye problems. All the kids in their school need to participate, but they choose their charity and make their own activities and presentations.

http://www.projectgiveback.com/aboutProject.php

[2xx1xy1JD]

Marxism was the theory. Marx himself didn't lead any revolution - his theories just inspired other revolutions.

Repression of religion and persecution of those involved in religion occurred in a number of Communist countries, and this quote from Marx helped to fuel that.

[Marianne]

Marxism was the theory. Marx himself didn't lead any revolution - his theories just inspired other revolutions.

Repression of religion and persecution of those involved in religion occurred in a number of Communist countries, and this quote from Marx helped to fuel that.

Bible helps Catholic church to make crusades, Saint Barthélémy massacre, Judeocide during the Middle Age, etc...

Qur'an helps somes muslims 11/09/2011, and I can't count all the number of terrorism attack....

(God, Nobel laureate of the war, as say a newspaper here)

That's why you think that Bible and Qur'an are dangerous books ? That's why you think that christian and muslim should be persecuted ? That's why you think that ALL the christian and all the muslims are terrorist ? That's why you think that all the contain of the Bible and the Qur'an is wrong and dangerous ?

As i've said later, I don't whorship Urss or Mao. But I'm not from the USA, we don't have cold war, and here, Marx is a philosopher as another. I'm a lot from Marx and Trotski, so you have to have more than "People who misinterpret this quote kill other people, that's why this quote is wrong" to convince me that this quotes is bad.

What you describe seems good, but : I wonder how it works in school with a high rate of violence, absence, alcoohol, marijuana etc... the teacher on my high school were very lucky if they were hit only once in the year. Telling to us to do voluteering would have been irresponsible. I think it could work in middle/high class schools, but it seems to request help from the parents, wich would have been impossible here.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Bible helps Catholic church to make crusades, Saint Barthélémy massacre, Judeocide during the Middle Age, etc...

Qur'an helps somes muslims 11/09/2011, and I can't count all the number of terrorism attack....

(God, Nobel laureate of the war, as say a newspaper here)

That's why you think that Bible and Qur'an are dangerous books ? That's why you think that christian and muslim should be persecuted ? That's why you think that ALL the christian and all the muslims are terrorist ? That's why you think that all the contain of the Bible and the Qur'an is wrong and dangerous ?

As i've said later, I don't whorship Urss or Mao. But I'm not from the USA, we don't have cold war, and here, Marx is a philosopher as another. I'm a lot from Marx and Trotski, so you have to have more than "People who misinterpret this quote kill other people, that's why this quote is wrong" to convince me that this quotes is bad.

What you describe seems good, but : I wonder how it works in school with a high rate of violence, absence, alcoohol, marijuana etc... the teacher on my high school were very lucky if they were hit only once in the year. Telling to us to do voluteering would have been irresponsible. I think it could work in middle/high class schools, but it seems to request help from the parents, wich would have been impossible here.

Re volunteering:

I've done work with families where kids have issues including substance abuse. It's rare for a kid to be so bad that they are drunk or high all the time. Most kids have a good side as well. Volunteering is more enjoyable than math class - the kids aren't stuck in a classroom. They pick where they work and what they do. It's more active than sitting in a class. It's usually more rewarding, and people thank you so you feel good instead of stupid. It can let a kid who doesn't do well in class shine.

Here is a description of the type of activities that qualify, from the Toronto school board: http://schoolweb.tdsb.on.ca/cedarbrae/G ... Hours.aspx Many of those things can be done in the school or close by in the community. Kids in high school can get there themselves.

Re the quote from Marx:

I'm not really sure what you were trying to say, but I'll try to explain what is wrong with the quote.

1. Even if religion is the opiate of the people, it beats heroin. Marx assumes that without religion, the masses would rise up in revolution. Well, turning to drugs and alcohol is another possibility for people who are miserable.

2. It's not a message of tolerance. There is no acceptance of the idea that we can accept that different people will have different beliefs and lack of belief.

3. How exactly do you abolish religion? That's not about respecting the views of other people. It's saying, "I want you to think and believe the same way that I do".

4. There is no real respect for the masses. Marx is assuming that they can't think for themselves.

[Marianne]

I don't forgot your post, but I will anwer you later, I'm under morphine for one week and I don't have the concentration to write a long post in english, I'm sorry. Btw, they are interesting question about Marx, and I begin to understand the philosophy with volunteering.