Why should someone become, or remain, Catholic?
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New digs for ponderings about Levantine Christianity.
The interior of Saint Paul Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Harissa, Lebanon. I have decided to set up a Substack exploring Eastern Christi...
Because it is true and as has been noted before the Church has even been able to survive even us Catholics.
ReplyDeleteJohn 6:68-69.
ReplyDeleteParaphrased:
Where else shall I go? Here are the words of eternal life (spoken in the context of Jesus' Eucharistic proclamation "he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life").
I honestly don't know anymore. The above answers strike me as trite and facile since, aside from a few folks on the internet, five priests of my acquaintance, and a few folks at our parish I don't know anyone who acts as if those statements are true.
ReplyDeleteIf they're called? You know, Damascus Roads and stuff?
ReplyDeleteBecome? All I'm coming up with is Fish Fries.
ReplyDeleteRemain? Gotta go with Pro Ecclesia. Where else shall we go? Despite a Pontiff that doesn't seem to care much for quite a bit of his flock, we still have the EF available to us. I'm getting a good, hard lesson in keeping my head down in prayer and humility. I can't help thinking that the next Pope will be someone closer to a Cardinal Burke. What happens then? What shall we do? How shall we witness to those who think Pope Francis is the bees knees?
-greenlight
hmmm...
ReplyDeleteSoon after posting the previous comment, I ran across this:
http://www.osservatoreromano.va/en/news/popes-radical-call-new-evangelization#.UwoW9l6z67p
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Eternal Salvation.
ReplyDeleteJeff nailed it on the first comment
ReplyDeleteGreenlight. Read pages 14 & 15 in this booklet. It brought me up short
ReplyDeletehttps://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_hx148tn3a6UWZoazlQd3JqSFU/preview
Chloe
Interesting, but none of them really touch on what I'm thinking of, except obliquely.
ReplyDeleteMore on that later. I've been chewing on this one for a while.
"Unknown" above being your host.
ReplyDelete--Dale
Well we have a crab fest this Sunday at the local mens religious shrine.
ReplyDeleteWhy should anyone stay (in my case) Catholic? My hope for heaven and getting to see Jesus and Mary.
In this current vale of tears, asthe Lord said, "I am the Way and the Light". Without His way and light, I am worse than lost. Living without Christ and His church would not be living. heck, I'm not sure I would still be among the living without Christ and his Church. How to live without the sacraments? No Real Presence? No Mass? No Confession? No sacramental marriage with my wife? Impossible.
Authority. That's the beginning and middle and end, and it's why I ceased being a Protestant and became a Catholic.
ReplyDeletePS Congratulations on being the only blog using a captcha I can actually read.
It's still my favorite museum piece; if I'm lucky, it'll come back in style in the Church before I die.
ReplyDeleteSlightly less acerbically, I still hold the faith as the most intellectually satisfying Weltanschauung and most existentially enriching Lebensform available, ceteris paribus.
I'd also rather not burn in Hell for eternity.
Because it's the surest way to piss off and foil the work of demons...as well as the other good answers already mentioned above...
ReplyDeleteDunno. The Popes certainly don't seem to think it is very important. And since they have the deciding voice...
ReplyDeleteFrancis: Atheists are great!
Benedict: Stay Lutheran.
JPII: False religions are vehicles of salvation
PaulVI: The UN is more Important than the Church
Because the Church provides valid sacraments, most especially the Eucharist, and excommunicating yourself cuts you off from them. (Even if you leave for a denomination with valid sacraments like Eastern Orthodoxy you have still cut yourself personally off from them).
ReplyDeleteEverything else besides the Real Presence in the Eucharist diminishes to irrelevance by comparison. That isn't because those things are unimportant in finite human terms; it is because He is so much greater than all of those things. Life, death, the survival of the human race -- everything else pales in comparison.
Because Catholicism's not anti-Eastern while Orthodoxy is anti-Western and has sold out on contraception, and its teaching on divorce and remarriage doesn't make sense in theory (even though it's not a bone of contention between the two sides).
ReplyDeleteThe Pope can't change the teachings of the church. He's only a caretaker.
The church, handed down from Christ and the apostles, simply is.