Saturday, October 20, 2007

Plowing the furrows on a fall day

Once again, Fred, over on Deep Furrows, brings up some important issues, like have most Catholics lost, or never acquired, what one might call a Catholic sensibility, or have we all become mere Pastafarians?

"It's misleading and wrongly triumphalist" Fred writes, "to speak of Catholic sensibility since Catholics are not en mass markedly more sensible than anybody else." All I can say in reply is Amen! Well, of course I can and will write more:

This has a lot to do with the breakdown that Fred and I discussed yesterday between faith and reason, the separation of goodness from beauty, and the belief that truth is entirely subjective. Sadly, Catholics, at least most in the U.S., are no different than our Protestant friends and neighbors in this regard. To this end, I got in a real-life argument, as opposed to a blargument, this week with somebody who dared insist that the Catholic Church was but a denomination. Hell, even actual Protestants, ones who know what a Protestant is, wouldn't make this claim. The sad truth is that most Catholics today would accept the truthfulness of such an erroneous premise. To do so is to concede the argument up front, thus limiting yourself to one beer.

2 comments:

  1. It reminds me of a conversation with my father I had yesterday.

    Him: Well, we each have different spiritual paths but they will both lead to the same destination.

    Me: But how can two different paths lead to the same destination?

    Him: Well, why does one believe in anything at all?

    And that pretty much stymies me. All sorts of people lead long lives believing in one thing,or in something else, or in not much at all. Some people change beliefs while others don't. Some end their lives in confusion.

    Its a mystery to me. Is there a doctrine that explains the multiplicity of faiths and belief systems? Can the Truth be measured? Will it always yeilds the same results when manipulated?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, David. This is a great example of just what I was trying to write. Such a response cuts off any meaningful dialogue. After all, why not believe in the Flying Spaghetti monster?

    Read Vatican II's Nostra Aetate, if you grasp that move on to Fr. Jacques DuPuis' Christianity and the Religions: From Confrontation to Dialogue

    Link to Nostra Aetate:
    http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html

    Link to Fr. Dupuis' book
    http://www.amazon.com/Christianity-Religions-Confrontation-Jacques-Dupuis/dp/1570754403/ref=sr_1_3/102-0850090-5166552?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193094245&sr=1-3

    With that I believe I will have a well-deserved glass of Beaujolais-Villages!

    ReplyDelete

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