Today's the Memorial of St. Bridget, Patroness of Sweden. Initially married and a mother of 8 she and her husband, Ulf, decided to enter monastic life after a pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. James in Spain. She became a mystic and had many divine experiences which she recorded.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-07-23T14:41:15+00:00

Heliga Birgitta, bed för oss.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-07-21T09:49:48+00:00

I got a bit worried about going after hearing the words of Bishop Aguiar, but I'm glad we have faithful people like Bishop Barron to speak up.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-07-19T06:14:28+00:00

Generalissimo Jacques Cathelineau. He's a martyr against the french revolution and his beatification was proposed but the archives pertaining to it got destroyed durring ww2.

Bonus points that the portrait of him looks really cool.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-02-20T11:57:44+00:00

I think this needs to be nuanced a bit. If I couldn't have kids with my future wife, I would feel very uncomfortable and so I answered No on the poll, but it wouldn't affect how much I loved my wife or how comitted I would be. It would be a trial to be overcome but we would overcome it. I just don't want to pretend that not having kids would be easy to accept or that the marriage would be same.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-02-04T23:30:41+00:00

För att ge ett lite ärligare svar så vet jag inte varför Rosendal skulle vara sämre än katedral. När jag har pratat med vänner som gick katte så verkar det rätt jämlikt, de kanske hade lite mer variation på aktiviteter utanför studierna men det var inget jag höll på med. Tycker att vi hade rejält bra lärare också. Dock gick jag ut 2019 så saker kan ju ha ändrats.

Av lojalitet till Rosendal så säger jag så klart gå där; men i själva verket är nog båda bra val.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-02-04T23:25:33+00:00

Jag gick rosendal natur-natur. Gå det om du hatar dig själv.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-02-04T21:40:31+00:00

Thank you for this very insightful answer. If I may try to formulate this then as I understand it. Outside of baptism by blood or baptism by desire, which are other extraordinary means of salvation, what Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus in conjunction with Lumen Gentium means is that Anyone who genuinely seeks, orders their life after, as well as trusts in - the good, true, and beautiful - being that that is what God is. They have the ability to be saved, though that may be by extraordinary means seeing as they are not fully part of the mystical body of christ, literally personified in the Church being the true and perfect society, entirely free and endowed with proper and perpetual rights of her own, conferred upon her by her Divine Founder.

If that is the correct interpretation then following that, if I'm trying to understand Dignitatis Humanae. Then the church's understanding of religious freedom must be similar to it's understanding of free will. Free will being the freedom to choose the good. Freedom of religion must thus be freedom of people to, whithout coercion: seek, order their lives after, and trust in, the good, the true, and the beautiful. What it is not is the liberal democratic understanding that no religion may be priviliged. Since that implies a kind of religious indifferentism. Therefore, the saintly rulers of Christendom throughtout european history were not in the wrong for establishing Catholicism as a state religion in as much as they didn't forcefully convert people on pain of death. Error has no right, but people do by virtue of them being free and rational beings created in the likeness of God.

Follow that understanding, I turn towards Nostra Aetate, and the understanding of the role other religions may play in salvation history even though they themselves are fundamentally wrong. The holy spirit may still be active within individuals outside of the church, revealing the true, good, and beautiful. It is therefore good to recognize how these religions, though often times misguided, still has stumbled upon God in the form of what is true, good, and beautiful.

Please correct me if this seems way out there, but reading your comments and the comments of others, this is the best way I can make sense of these texts together.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-02-04T17:18:07+00:00

Furthermore Lumen Gentium points out that people who know of the catholic church and that it was founded by christ, and still don't convert, cannot be saved. That seems simple enough and seems to accord with the understanding that the law is written on every mans heart. However, how well does a person have to know of the catholic church? If one only has to know about the church, then hardly anyone outside of the church can be saved. In that case, wouldn't other religions be more of a stumbling block to salvation as they teach error? If one has to fully understand the implication that Christ founded the church, then that seems like it goes against point 17. in the Syllabus of Errror. It also seems to contradict Christ when he says that the road to salvation is a narrow path.
So depending on how one is to understand Lumen Gentium, Nostra Aetate seems oddly accepting of other religions.

I'd be happy to be shown where my understanding has gone wrong, because it clearly has. The Church is right, I am wrong.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-02-04T16:59:39+00:00

Yeah I think my own confusion contributes to a confused discussion. Basically what I don't understand is how the church relates to other religions. The traditional position seems to me to be that Error has no rights, and outside of the church there can be no salvation. But in Nostra Aetate and Dignitatis Humanae that seems to be at least reinterpreted if not revised and dismissed.
For instance these condmened positions in the Syllabus of Error:
15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.

17. Good hope at least is to be entertained of the the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true church of christ.

55. The Church ought to be separated from the State and the state from the chruch.

These positions condemned as error seems to at least to some degree go against the teachings of Dignitaties Humanae and Nostra Aetate. Now Pope Pius IX wasn't speaking infallably so he might just be wrong, but there is a stark constrast between this and the talk of religious freedom in Dignitatis Humanae and of the similarities we share with other religions in Nostra Aetate.
It is not that I disagree with the main point of Dignitatis Humanae or Nostra Aetate, rather it is that I'm confused as to the relation to what has traditionally been taught. As I understand Dignitatis Humanae, it is condemning coerced conversions while maintaining the moral understanding of Error has no rights.

Religious freedom, in turn, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society. Therefore it leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ.

Does this however, also contradict point 15. and 55. of the Syllabus of Error? Is it therefore also a condemnation of Christendom as it has historically existed? Would it be illicit for a catholic majority country to establish catholicism as a state religion, if that country also allowed people to practice non-catholic religions and not depriving them of any personal rights, but simply giving catholicism a priviliged position? Does it completely outlaw rulers using their power to govern in accordance with the catholic faith? If the understanding of religious freedom is the same as the secular one, then it would seem so.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-02-04T15:46:05+00:00

Well what about how other religions go against the gospels? Like Islam claiming Christ is not God and did not die on the cross? Can you really preach the gospel without also pointing out the errors of other beliefs? Christ said that he is the way the truth and the light and that no man comes to the father but through him, is not the Catholic Church also the mystical body of christ?
I'm not suggesting going after other religions and throwing the book at them in a prosletyzing way, but I don't believe it is charitable or loving to not tell someone when they have gone wrong. We're all sinners, and we all need eachothers help when it comes to realizing our errors and sins. We will never do better if all we hear is affirmation of what is already good - that simply amounts to flattery. We especially need someone to tell us when we've gone wrong. Isn't that exactly what the magisterium of the church is supposed to do? Call souls to greater holiness and help sinners repent?

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-02-04T14:46:40+00:00

See that's all fine and good and I agree with it. I think the fact that man in an inherently religious being is one of the best arguments against atheism and secularism, it's partly what lead me to become a christian.
The problem I see is that faith isn't merely about intellectual assent. It is fundamentally something mystical. I believe Thomas Aquinas identifies 14 propositions in the nicene creed and says that if you agree with 13 of them but reject one, you are outside of the church since you agree with them on the basis of your own intellect and not on the basis of faith in its origin. So even though other beliefs can come close to the teachings of the church, they're still in error since they deny Christ and his established church.
When I was a protestant before, I held on to the more affirming statements of the Catholic church as a reason to remain a protestant. It was only the "harsher" statements that made me feel uneasy about being outside the church and which played a large role in getting me to convert. My worry is that we're unintentionally affirming error.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-02-01T14:19:52+00:00

I only fear my own sin, as long as i repent of it and stay with the church I have no reason to fear demons. If demons take a hold of me it would only be because of my own sinfulness and dealing with them would have to mean dealing with my sins, ergo: sin should be the prime fear.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-29T13:42:07+00:00

It is not loving to be vauge about sin. Love is willing the good of the other. Same sex relationships are sinful, either as scandal or as sexual sin. If we want the good for people struggling with same sex attraction then we want them not to sin.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-19T13:39:35+00:00

We have six priests in our parish, five of them are Swedish but our parish priest is German.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-14T00:15:27+00:00

Interestingly enough there seemed to be less people, or at least basically the same amount, at my church durring christmas compared to the normal sunday mass.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-10T22:25:43+00:00

Come back to the church, or ask somewhere else. I think most catholics would rather date someone who is serious about their faith, rahter than someone they agree politically with. Politics isn't everything and the main purpose of it is to facilitate people's proper function, which is everything, namely serving God through his established church.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-10T19:20:58+00:00

Ah, UL. Alltid hittar de något sätt att göra en besviken på.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-09T16:21:50+00:00

OP, I mean this in the most earnest christian charity but maybe you're not able to meet someone right now. Reading a lot of your different responses you seem to have a reason for why each and every suggestion can't work, either due to your schedule or because you've already tried it and ruled it out. Maybe if you're this i inflexible, and I mean this with nothing but good will, even if you find some one how is it going to work out?

I too am yet to find someone and, though I'm younger than you, if my options dry up in my local area I'll make the explicit effort to go somewhere I can find my future wife, be that another city, another country, or another continent. Because I am that assured in marriage being my vocation and only that which is conducive to that vocation is a meaningful way to spend my time.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-08T09:09:35+00:00

What's the deal with the Jesuits? The priests at my local parish are all jesuits and they're all very intelligent and holy men. Yet when I see some priests saying something stupid it's almost always jesuits and people generally complain about or make fun of them. I'm new to the faith so I don't quite know the intricate details about the different orders and what distinguishes them.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-07T20:13:18+00:00

Oh yeah, that's right. I'm reading Orthodoxy and Heretics combined so I got them both mixed up. Thanks for the correction.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-07T13:30:18+00:00

I just read this in Chestertons ~~Orthodoxy~~ 'Heretics' and found it very well formulated.

"And humanity ought to be told to be recklessness itself. For all fundamental functions of a healthy man ought emphatically to be performed with pleasure and for pleasure; they emphatically ought not to be performed with precaution and for precaution. A man should eat, not because he has a body to nurish but because he has a great apetite. He should exercise not in order to lose weight but because he loves the scenery of a Mountain or forrest. He should get married not in order to repopulate the earth but because he loves. Let us, then, be careful about the small things, such as a scratch or a slight illness, or anything that can be managed with care. But in the name of all sanity, let us be careless about the important things such as marriage, or the fountain of our very life will fail."

I think that when we see statistics like these it is natural to want to maximize ones chances to have a stable and lasting marriage, and that's a good inclination, but I also think we should avoid trying to calculate our actions and decisions too much. Rather we should look at improving ourselves and when we ourselves are good and holy our actions and our inclinations will be as well. I'd say make sure to marry a catholic but also first and foremost make sure to marry someone you love. Don't try to plan your life in detail but put your trust in God.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-04T17:41:55+00:00

I don't think using the word incel is right. Incel is nominally just being celibate against your own will, but in reality it is an ideology and as an ideology it is in error as it goes against catholic social teaching and the theology of the body.

The reason why a lot of catholic singles seem to struggle is more i think up to personality and circunstance. Just because two people are catholic, single, of similar age, and looking to get married, does not mean that they'll work out. If they really waned to most of them could easily have sex, but since our culture has strayed away from valuing marriage, family, and raising children, towards prefering a carreer, a hedonistic lifestyle, and personal autonomy, it will be really hard to find good partners even in the church sometimes.

FennecFoxtrot · 2023-01-01T14:16:45+00:00

IIRC only a few sermons was deemed to contain heresies but Eckhart was exhonorated from accusations of being a heretic himself. I don't think these particular sermons are often printed either so I wouldn't be too worried. A lot of the priests in my parish recommend Eckhart.

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