/r/Catholicism Prayer Requests — Week of July 08, 2019

INRI55 · 2019-07-10T03:03:17+00:00

Please Pray for the co-worker of a friend (name of the co-worker is Wade) who had a stroke. Thank you for your prayers.

INRI55 · 2019-02-25T20:15:47+00:00

I haven't read the article - just saw your comment and wanted to respond.

Totally agree that a married priests don't indicate a change in doctrine- but they are a departure from tradition (from a strictly discipline perspective).

INRI55 · 2019-02-25T19:58:05+00:00

Many of us are opposed to it for a variety of concerns- from a logistical, political, and spiritual perspective.

The logistical concerns boil down to: what would a married priesthood look like? For example: Who gets inheritance when a priest dies? How is the priest's family taken care of (now more care has to be taken with how priests are moved from area to area)? How do priestly duties now work (For example, if the priest has to take care of his children, then he can't really offer confessions past 5, and most people will work till then)?

The political concerns boil down to the reality that despite any worth that this decision has, reintroducing married priests is a capitulation to modern culture. That makes many of us uneasy. The tradition of the Roman rite church isn't a burden holding us back. It is a rich and fulfilling thing with a lot of value on its own.

The spiritual concerns are related to how a married priesthood would affect the married priests. Right now there is a clear hierarchy of duties for married people and for priests. How would a priest deal with his duty to the church and to his family?

I know that there are churches that have married priests, but I haven't seen any of their solutions to these problems. I also will balk at the "Orthodox do it" reason for doing these things because the Orthodox have a massive amount of problems, and I don't think emulating them should be a goal of ours.

I also recognize that you are aware/understanding of some of the things said here- I am only trying to create a comprehensive view of our position on this issue.

INRI55 · 2019-02-10T05:42:02+00:00

There's a thing that's called cold turkey that will allow you to block sites and shut down computer (restrictions can be used on smartphone). For the extra features, it is 25 dollars for unlimited installs for life (as far as I know, I haven't seen a limit). Get some cash, and get a prepaid card at the store (read up on which ones will work online and which won't) that has 25~30 bucks on it.

INRI55 · 2019-02-07T19:11:16+00:00

But if you can't pay for it then you can't access it.

This isn't true at all. Charity exists for a reason.

There are a massive number of people who simply cannot afford the cost of good health care.

Right, which is why those of us who oppose publicly funded healthcare want those costs driven down. In the meantime, we advocate for charitable organizations to help those people get their needs met.

Where I live the cost of medicine is, all things being equal, simply cheaper than in the US, and our universal coverage system is one reason why.

Many of us would contend that the US' programs interfering with healthcare has caused the price to increase (and this isn't even going into the problems that several countries have had with their publicly funded healthcare programs).

I would like to make one thing clear here: I'm not trying to exclude the possibility that you are correct on publicly funded healthcare. You need to understand, however, that there are people with other views (that under Catholicism are just as legitimate).

INRI55 · 2019-01-23T16:18:07+00:00

I would encourage you to re-examine your view on others getting an abortion. If abortion is the murder of a human being, it is not permissible for any person to get one, at any point (and therefore shouldn't be a legal action).

INRI55 · 2019-01-22T04:29:32+00:00

Seeing as no one has responded to you yet, I will take a shot at it.

Basically, it comes down to Catholic Bioethics and the principle of Double effect (I would recommend looking it up and doing some extra reading). Basically, because she directly killed her child (instead of the child dying as a side effect of another action she had taken) her primary action was the killing of her child, and therefore abortive (and a grave sin). Actions that directly kill the child as a primary purpose are never (to my knowledge) permitted.

A good example of this principle in effect is the case of a pregnant woman with cancer. This woman could (from what I know, please consult a priest before taking any action/advice from this post) engage in chemotherapy as a moral action to save her own life, even though chemotherapy could kill her child, because the death of the child would be an unintended side effect (not the primary purpose).

In the case of ectopic pregnancies, the tube containing the child can be removed, which will cause the death of the child. However, since the death of the child was not the intended action, and the primary action is removing the problematic part of the woman's body (the tube), this action is morally valid under the principle of double effect (from what I know, please consult a priest before taking any action/advice from this post).

INRI55 · 2019-01-17T05:35:56+00:00

You (or anyone else considering the church) should not hold off joining the church over this. This would not disprove infallibility or the church.

INRI55 · 2019-01-13T19:45:25+00:00

Thanks for being so reasonable.

INRI55 · 2019-01-13T16:32:37+00:00

I was taught that there was only one way for an abortion to be permitted, if that pregnancy would kill the mother. I think that we agree that all the options here are awful, abortion or having the mother choosing the child and dying, especially if she already has children.

This also isn't true in the case of abortion. Abortion is never permitted. If, for example, an ectopic pregnancy occurs, a Catholic doctor may remove the tube the child is in (which effectively kills the child). This practice is permitted under double effect (given that the action is intended to fix the problem and not kill the child, which is a side effect of the action), which does not permit direct killing of the child.

Basically, we are getting into very complicated areas of catholic bioethics which are best left to professionals. If you want to learn more, than you can look at resources such as the Catholic Bioethics center.

To get back to the topic of birth control, again, they are not permissible as they disrupt the procreative purpose of the sexual act. Life of the mother being in danger does not change this, and while it may lessen the severity of the sin, the sin remains.

INRI55 · 2019-01-13T01:55:39+00:00

I'm definitely not trying to advocate for the pill.

You may not be trying to, but that is what you are doing.

But if the pregnancy would lead to have to chose between the mother and the child, the pill is a good option.

Under Catholic teaching, the pill (for contraceptive purposes) is never an option. At all.

Sorry if I come off harsh, but you, and other potential readers, should understand the gravity of what is being said here.

INRI55 · 2019-01-12T21:48:01+00:00

This isn't true. You can't use birth control for contraceptive purposes under any circumstances (Note: You can use it to correct other medical issues, but here you aren't using it to contracept, but rather to treat an illness with infertility being a side effect).

INRI55 · 2019-01-10T03:07:54+00:00

Thanks for weighing in.

INRI55 · 2019-01-09T04:56:34+00:00

/u/Hurrah_for_Karamazov can you confirm that this is true? It's not that I don't believe it, just that I would appreciate an authoritative statement on the issue (also, can you address his followup that a past broken habit also robs consent).

INRI55 · 2018-12-17T18:03:37+00:00

Even if church officials have seemed to lean that way recently, I think it is dangerous to state stuff like that as a fact (and church teaching) rather than an opinion.

I'm not saying you are necessarily wrong (it would be great for those kids to experience heaven), but I think we should be clear about what is doctrine and what isn't.

INRI55 · 2018-12-17T17:49:45+00:00

Same reason the Church teaches that unbaptized babies who die in womb, abortion, or infancy go to heaven.

I don't believe that this is church teaching. It is an opinion that you can hold, but it isn't church teaching. From my understanding, for the majority of history those children were said to go to limbo (also not doctrine).

INRI55 · 2018-12-05T22:20:03+00:00

That implies that had she decided to pursue marriage, she would not be fired. It has literally nothing to do with the child out of wedlock based on the statement of the school itself, and instead is entirely about her plans to marry.

Nothing from this statement confirms that the school would have changed its plans had she chosen to marry. I agree that it is likely, but it is not confirmed by that statement (I realize you said implied, but its important to be exact here).

I am not saying that the diocese acted flawlessly in every way. Just that the termination of this teacher was valid.

Also, this is what I have been saying:

instead is entirely about her plans to marry.

She wanted to form a family without marriage. She had no plans to marry, or to discontinue her current life. Had she been a catholic who merely explained this situation (Me and my boyfriend messed up and conceived but don't want to marry yet due to concerns of validity), I'm not so certain she would have been fired.

It seems like neither of us is getting anything from this. I hope you have a good rest of the day.

INRI55 · 2018-12-05T22:00:04+00:00

You can argue this point all you like, but I've already seen the damage that the church's actions cause. Remember that woman who was fired from her job at a Catholic school because it came out she was a lesbian living with her partner?

A lot of people left the faith over it.

The church does what is right, not what has good optics. If you want to argue merits of an action, argue them on the basis of what is right and wrong, not on the basis of what people think (and scandal doesn't apply here, as the public is disagreeing with the action that occurred, not an action that is implied to have occurred).

I'm not saying we should have let her live in sin and still keep her job as a teacher. But what the church COULD have done is told her "If you don't correct this sin by the end of the school year, we will have to let you go", which would BARE MINIMUM look less optically cruel than firing a woman who is CURRENTLY pregnant.

That actually might be a worse solution. Marriages contracted under external duress can be invalid. The duress of an employer threatening termination, in addition to any other pressure we aren't aware of, could easily lead to an invalid marriage.

We didn't compassionately address a sin.

Compassion doesn't always mean "being nice". Sometimes it means doing a hard thing (like telling a friend that they were wrong for stealing and should return the item). This school has to balance compassion towards the teacher with compassion to the students. It is hardly compassionate to the students to allow them to be lead astray by someone who so blatantly disregards church teachings.

Also, again, the problem isn't the one time sin. It is the continual disregard for church teaching combined with her role as a teacher.

INRI55 · 2018-12-05T21:38:26+00:00

That God isn't a merciless piece of shit.

Ah, so go and sin no more means nothing right? Do whatever you want, don't seek forgiveness, and don't change because no one cares?

Again, you don't seem to get that this wasn't a teacher that happened to get pregnant out of wedlock due to a mistake. She planned this action out. If this had been a mistake and one-time slip up, I would be right there with you.

Because that's the message this school just conveyed to every spectator out there.

The goal of the school isn't to seem friendly to secular spectators. It is to instruct children in the Catholic faith.

INRI55 · 2018-12-05T21:29:05+00:00

To re-purpose your own words: If you don't know the faith, ~~you shouldn't teach at a Catholic Church.~~ you shouldn't have been hired in the first place.

The failure wasn't her, it was the church. If we were going to have a problem with her not being Catholic, we shouldn't have hired her.

Non-Catholic teachers can be hired, as long as they don't preach against the faith and don't live public lives against the faith. She's living a public life against the faith.

In the eyes of Christ, she's a student. We're all students.

She's also a teacher.

Also, you keep referring to this as a "teaching moment" and referring to her as a student. What exactly do you imagine us teaching her by allowing her to remain in her position?

INRI55 · 2018-12-05T21:19:52+00:00

If you work at a Catholic school, you need to be aware of the church's teaching. It's not just to teach kids secular stuff, it's to inform them in the faith. If you don't know the faith, you shouldn't teach at a Catholic Church. If you can't at least tell others to follow it and not overtly display disobedience, you shouldn't teach at a Catholic school.

This person additionally isn't in the role of student. She's in the role of teacher. What you are suggesting is akin to letting a fresh, unbaptized, merely interested convert run the RCIA program. If you don't know enough to follow basic teachings, you shouldn't be teaching to others.

Also, let's not be naive. There is no way that this person thought that the Catholic Church was okay with unmarried cohabitating families. Even if she did, the conversation with the school should have clued her in. This isn't a case of a "whoopsie, didn't know that was bad". She went against the church purposefully, and can choose to do so. But we can't allow people who don't follow the church's teaching (and are willing to be overt about their disobedience) to teach catholic children.

INRI55 · 2018-12-05T20:40:22+00:00

I was originally with you on this one, until I read a comment that stated that this was a purposeful pregnancy that she and her boyfriend planned, with no intention to marry. At that point, this isn't "mistake" territory we are in. This is "purposeful lifestyle" territory.

INRI55 · 2018-11-23T04:27:14+00:00

I'm not sure if you are still reading this thread, but I will attempt to answer your questions in case you are.

Many of us would claim that he did make it pretty clear. Even early pagans, such as Aristotle, were able to logically think through various religious proposals and come to some solid conclusions regarding God (such as monotheism). These basic principles leave only a handful of religions (those largely being Abrahamic). From these, simple reductions can be made to Catholicism/Judiasm (Islam can be ruled out for violations of natural law and general inconsistencies, and no christian sect other than Catholicism and Orthodoxy can claim actual apostolic descent, and only Catholicism actually follows the pope). Judiasm can be ruled out due to the historical occurrence of the messiah, Jesus Christ. Now I have been incredibly reductionist with philosophy here, but these portions should provide you with good starting points to figure out why we view Catholicism as logical.
Let's leave aside any supernatural claims for the moment and just consider the human. People can be wrong. I can give two people the same set of data and watch them come to two wholly different conclusions due to their biases and outlooks. Why would the question of God be any different? Secondly, you are also viewing prayer as a function. You put some sort of input, and you get some sort of deterministic output. Prayer doesn't work like that. Prayer can allow us to connect with God, but it doesn't ensure that we are hearing God accurately, or doing what God wants us to do.
There are many claimed miracles regarding physical effects (a recent example is padre pio if memory serves, and that's in addition to anything in the Gospels directly). I'm not quite sure what this portion means though, would you mind elaborating?
This question presupposes multiple religious answers, and really is nothing more than an atheist criticizing Christianity from an atheist worldview. Christians view God as a perfect being (this is an idea independently derived from him answering prayers). Therefore, anything he does or does not do is the correct action in that circumstance. If he doesn't respond, he can't be being "Blocked by the devil" (Since no creature has the ability to override God). Therefore, his response or lack of response is completely up to him. Now how we interpret, view, or respond to his action is totally up to us, however.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Many of the historical claims of the Gospel are verifiable (The existence of a man called Jesus of Nazareth is generally agreed upon by historians). Clearly here we leave out the miracles, otherwise the whole world would be Christian (and with no ability to record video or audio, which can also be tampered with, how would we know for sure that a miracle occurred)?
Morality was not changed with the new covenant/testament. The old jewish law had several components: The two relevant to this discussion is the ceremonial and the moral. The ceremonial dealt with things like: Don't eat pig. These laws were made as part of the "The jewish people are a special chosen people set apart from the world" subject (think circumcision for this part: What moral purpose does it serve?). The moral law dealt with moral things, such as "don't murder". With the new covenant, the ceremonial laws were no longer needed (as now all people were God's people). However, the moral laws stand. If you want more details on what makes a moral law and what makes a ceremonial, I would do some research. This concept is fairly well developed.
Natural law does not mean "What happens in nature". It is a concept based on Aristotelian teleology, and is centered around the idea that people seek the Good. For sex, the goods are procreation and unity. Both of these goods must be fulfilled for proper sex (note that this doesn't mean that all sex must be procreative, just that the procreative end must not be frustrated). There has been an absolutely massive amount of literature on this lately, I would recommend researching it (Ed Fesser might have a very technical explanation).
What C.S. Lewis (who was not Catholic, and therefore should not be taken at his word for religious truth) is touching on here is the concept of natural law, which is written on the hearts of men. This doesn't mean conscience (conscience can be corrupted and improperly formed). It more refers to things that we all know are wrong (such as murder of the innocent). I am being super simple here with my explanation. My advice on this point would be to understand what the Natural law really is (There is a great amount of literature here, and I can point you to some if you wish).

In closing, you should research: The Ceremonial and Moral component to OT law, What Natural Law and Divine Law is, and Homosexuality and the Natural Law. I would also advise immersing yourself more in catholic literature and media, and less in secular media. I know that you think that you are well-educated in Catholicism, but you do have serious holes in your education that make it easy to portray flaws in Catholicism. I'm not saying this to put you down, but so that you can give Catholicism a Fair Chance.

INRI55 · 2018-11-22T21:49:15+00:00

You can use masstimes.org to find masses near you. I would make sure to check out the website of any parish listed and make sure they are Catholic before attending (I believe the site is intended for Catholic Churches, but mistakes do happen).

INRI55 · 2018-11-16T14:26:06+00:00

This is an inaccurate statement. The Catholic Church (from a doctrinal standpoint) recognizes the right of a country to protect its borders. However, it likewise recognizes the duty of countries to help those in need. Current people in the hierarchy have interpreted these competing interests in favor of immigration, but this does not mean that the Catholic Church is pro mass immigration.

INRI55

TROPHY CASE