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April 4, 2008A Catholic is not a Protestant……and vise-versa. Yes, I know, it’s obvious, but sometimes the obvious must be stated, and a guest post at Brutally Honest has brought us to one of those times. Rick’s guest blogger, Tom Flake, urging “intellectual honesty” writes:
If you read the whole post you see the fellow seems to be making a real attempt at intellectual “honesty” but without full understanding of the apples-to-orange comparison he is making. The writer also seems not to understand that a Protestant may jump from one church to another and get essentially (not precisely, of course) the same stuff. Catholics, in contrast, cannot get their liturgy and Eucharist just anywhere. Their choices would be to go Orthodox (which is very different worship, although also Eucharistic) or Eastern Rite (nearer to Orthodox) or Anglican - which we cannot do because we do not recognize their Eucharist as valid. So Obama may be asked “why did you not leave your pastor,” and a Catholic may be asked “why did you not leave your PARISH” - if the parish was one involved with the shameful priests or pastors. It is quite a different thing to ask, “why did you not leave your church.” If the writer does not understand that distinction then his whole point is unmade. Believing, as Catholics do, that the source and summit of our faith is the Holy Eucharist, which we believe to be the Real, Physical Body and Blood of Christ, “walking away” is not an option. You don’t “leave;” you fix the problem. In making his erroneous comparison the writer does not acknowledge that Wright and his church have done nothing to “clean up their act” so to speak, while it is undeniable that the Catholic Church has done an excruciating public penance and taken dramatic steps to both make restitution and to insure that these pederasty exploitations and scandals do not happen again - that effort is ongoing and it is thorough and “zero-tolerant.” Some, happier to keep hating, simply refuse to acknowledge that. As to the rest, we have a constitutional right to worship freely where we will…why demand Obama leave his church? Let him stay and let that speak for itself. I don’t know that it is ever right to demand that anyone “leave their church.” Someone might consider it a right thing to do, or a politically expedient thing to do, but no one should ever leave their church because they feel pressured to. And as I’ve written elsewhere, a pastor is not a whole church community, so, I am not even sure I accept Sean Hannity’s premise. And frankly, if Obama did leave the church because of political pressure, I’m sure his critics would quickly suggest that he was doing so solely for political considerations…so that doesn’t exactly encourage “intellectual honesty,” anywhere, does it? http://theanchoressonline.com/2008/04/04/a-catholic-is-not-a-protestant/trackback/ 14 Responses to “A Catholic is not a Protestant…” |
April 5th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
That brings to mind something (tangential, I know, but I thought it would interest you) we learned from close friends of ours, a Mormon couple. They are not allowed to choose the ward (church) they attend. This came up in a discussion of how liberal and conservative Catholics often gel into liberal and conservative parishes. They — our friends — stopped going to church out of a pretty severe disagreement with the clergyman there, and did not have the option of going to the other ward across town.
April 5th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Everytime I hear “intellectual honestly” I have a pretty good sense it’s going to be “distorted intellectual stupidity” at least when it comes to Hollywood and/or Catholicism. I live in LA, where every one is a film critic and 9 out of 10 movies are “sooooo intellectually honest.” Just don’t ask a follow up as to “what exactly does that mean?”
Well, we can see by this example that it’s used with the assumption that no one will challenge the facts. Good thing, because if it were really about “honestly”, it would have to be written that not only was the sex abuse scandal mostly acts of homosexuality, but last year “reported” cases were less than 0.1%. And to be “more honest”, even at it’s worst, Catholic priest STILL are the lowest reported cases of sexual abuse, including all Protestant and Jewish demominations. Teachers and Psychiatrists rank at the top.
In my “intellectual” opinion, this sounds like the writer is simply an anti-catholic with a Sean Hannity problem.
April 5th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
You are most kind in extending the benefit of every doubt to the author who I see as writing a thinly-veiled Catholic bashing screed.
April 5th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
In a similar vein, many people who are not church members are making much of the news that 14% of people are in a different church than they were born into. As an evangelical, I have been a member of three different denominations. The changes did not seem earth-shaking to me. Christ was praised, preached and worshipped in all three.
A Catholic friend of mine told me told me about Catholics not wanting to give scandal to the faith. Sadly, that is what many priests and bishops did. The church has paid dearly for their mistakes, especially by giving Catholic bashers a whole pile of stones to throw. Non-Catholic believers should not take joy in this. Almost always the Catholic-basher would happily also throw stones at them, given the chance.
April 7th, 2008 at 7:23 am
KIA said:
“And to be “more honest”, even at it’s worst, Catholic priest STILL are the lowest reported cases of sexual abuse, including all Protestant and Jewish demominations. Teachers and Psychiatrists rank at the top.”
I’ve heard and read this before and believe it probably is true, but is there a source for it? Can anyone identify a reputable study, preferably something not by a Catholic source, that we can use in response when people jump on the sexual scandals as evidence of how bad the Church is?
Dominus vobiscum.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:46 am
rightwingprof, why can’t a Mormon go to whichever temple/church/ward he wants?
I agree with Anchoress, it is best to confront the priest/minister with your disagreements, but if they have too many supporting them, going to a different parish is a good idea.
When I was young I thought my Baptist preacher was wrong about something, and did some research and planned to confront him the next Sunday, but my parents would not allow me to do it, because it might upset people in the Church (as if an ordained minister could not handle himself i a debate with a teenage boy.)
But I refused to go back to church unless I was allowed to confront him and I had to go to church, so I was forced to become a Methodist, because that was the only church in walking distance. I did not really like their practices, so wen I went away to college I did not get involved with any church.
April 7th, 2008 at 11:58 am
[...] A Catholic is not a Protestant… [...]
April 7th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
My Dear Anchoress,
I will take you to task over your first comment-Protestants are indeed Catholic by definition, since ‘Catholic’ means universal, and most denominations believe in one Baptism. We still say the Apostles’ Creed, although many replace “the Holy Catholic Church” with “the Church Universal”, since in most minds today, “Catholic” is automatically equated with “Roman Catholic”.
I like Sen. Obama, am a member of the United Church of Christ, and I wanted to say a bit about the relationship of the individual Congregations, their Pastors and the Denomination.
In the UCC, there is no central authority-this comes from the Congregational system of Church governance (as does the New England Town Meeting-they were one and the same in the beginning). This means that many issues of doctrine, liturgy and the like are decided on the Congregational level by the individual Congregations, hopefully with the guidance of their Pastors. This results in quite a variety of Congregations, ranging across the spectrum, (although tending to the left, as more conservative churches often leave the Denomination.) Each church raises their own money, draws up their own budget, owns their own facility, pays their own employees, decides what missions to support or engage in, and with the exception of some start-up churches, receives no support from the greater Church.
Each Congregation pays dues to their regional Association, and pays voluntary contributions to the national church for “Wider Mission”, which is the primary responsibility of the national Church, along with benefits for clergy (”Wider Mission” is a pretty wide umbrella, which causes a lot of angst in many congregations, ours included). The national church has a Synod every other year consisting of delegates selected by the Associations using a quotas which guarantee a liberal bias (OOOHH-did I say that?
) The Synod essentially makes suggestions to the individual Congregations, but they are not binding, although they do direct the Wider Mission spending.
The Associations grant ‘Standing’ to Pastors, which means that they have been ordained and are well educated, and have been background checked. Pastors are chosen and called by the individual Congregations-I served on the Search Committee for our current Pastor. They are employees of the Congregation, and serve at the pleasure of the Congregation according to the terms of the Pastor’s contract.
Thus, if a UCC Pastor is to remain employed, his public views and preaching must reflect the views of a great many members of his Congregation. So if a member has a long-standing difference with a Pastor over his views, it is nearly certain he has the same difference with many in the Congregation. It is then up to that member if the social and spiritual ties to the other members in the Congregation outweigh his objection on that issue.
Finally, here’s something completely different; we in our Choir have been working on John Rutter’s “The Lord Bless You and Keep You”-a beautiful hymn that I wish we could sing half as well as these fine men and boys of the St Paul’s Cathedral Choir:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8QcpfiU3YA
Have A Blessed Day!
oddball
April 7th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Dear Miss A,
This is certainly timely. I have been tryng to get a Catholic friend of mine to explain this to me and she can’t.
Would someone please explain to me why Catholics will not change churches? In large cities, certainly, there are many Catholic churches to choose from. Lexington isn’t very big; but, there are 7, I think, Catholic churches in the city and more in surrounding towns. They vary from Latin Mass to contemporary; but, the people invariably stay in which ever one they grew up in, pedophile priest or not, liberal theology or not, doesn’t seem to matter.
When I decided to go back to church in 2001, I went to about 20 before I found one I liked. If we had a change in ministers, I might find myself looking for another. I’m simply not going to pay a minister to say and/or do things I don’t like. He’s free to do them, I’m free to take myself and my money elsewhere. Catholics don’t do that. Why not? I really would like to know.
Is part of the reason the Catholic laity’s lack of ability to decide who will lead their individual church? In most Protestant churches, the members own the building, the Board of Deacons or the Elders run the church, and the minister is just a hired hand. He’s supposed to be a leader; but, if the congregation doesn’t like him, they can and do fire ministers.
Its one of the reasons there couldn’t be a massive coverup of pedophile ministers in a Protestant denomination. We aren’t organized enough to do it.
On another subject, while I have heard the Catholic pedophile priest scandal put the number of sex offensive priests no higher than similar numbers of Protestants, the difference is when Protestant ministers act out, they tend to do so with grown women. Not little boys. I got that from “Time” by the way. I don’t know if they knew what they were talking about or not. A lack of knowledge certainly never stopped them from reporting anything before.
Regards,
Sarah
April 7th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Oddball - thank you for the link to the hymn; I remember singing that in High School and loving it very much. I’m sorry you felt the need to “take issue” with the Big-C, Little-C Catholic distinction - generally I think my readers are smart enough to know it - but thank you for that, too.
Sarah, I will answer your question as best I can, and I probably can’t do that well, but I would just take a second, in the spirit of “making distinctions” to make one that always bothers me, and that is the use of the word “pedophilia” or “pedophile” used to describe those terrible scandals (and everyone does it, so I am not talking about YOU in particular) but these scandals - or 98% of them - would more accurately be described as “pederasty” or “pederasts.” That might not seem important to some but it makes the distinction between a little child and an adolescent. The great majority of those cases did not involve little kids, but adolescents, and usually adolescent males. While some gay priests characterize the (way past due) weeding out of those bad priests as a “gay witchhunt” the truth is it wasn’t about “weeding out” gay priests but weeding out priests who would not keep to their vows. That excuses nothing, of course, but I think it’s only right to use the correct word and keep an accurate picture in our minds. Pederasty is bad enough. Pedophilia gives it an even more awful character. As to the question of whether Protestants or Orthodox or secular school teachers have numbers comparable, I don’t know and can’t speak to it. I have seen stories of pederast Orthodox priests, ministers and Rabbis; I know the numbers are much smaller because the congregations are smaller and I have no idea what the percentages are because I don’t read that stuff…to me that’s defensive nit-picking. Bad is bad, and saying “the other guys numbers are the same” doesn’t really matter to me.
All I do know is - as I’ve said - the people who want to characterize the whole priesthood as horrible because of a few bad ones are like the folks who would make our Marines out to be psychos because of Abu Ghraib…they tarnish and hurt many good men by speaking in such generalities.
As to your question, Sarah, I think the answer is that most Catholics don’t go to mass for the priest and - unless the priest is a horrific bore or offensive - don’t really care which priest is doing the mass, because it’s not ABOUT the priest. Don’t get me wrong, we’re thrilled when we get a good preacher, but the Mass is not about the preaching - that’s a very small part of the whole, and the main focus of the mass is the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the Communion. It’s ALL important, and of a piece, but Whether you have Fr. Drone, Fr. Hyperactive, Fr. Firebrand, Fr. Smug, Fr. Handsome or Fr. Snooze is really incidental; the point of the mass is - as our priest excellently described it yesterday - to basically re-enact the whole “Road to Emmaus” in Luke’s Gospel, where three days after Jesus’ death, fellow travelers are joined by another, they share the remarkable news…one (if the priest is doing his job) helps interpret the Scripture, we share a meal and recognize Christ in the breaking of the Bread. We commune with Him; Just as Jesus then “disappeared” he “disappears” inside each one of us, and we are meant to reflect Christ to each other.
Our priest yesterday said, “I am referred to sometimes as a robot when I am behind the altar. When I hear that I feel good, because that means I am getting out of God’s way and simply doing what needs to be done without calling attention to myself, because “I” am not important and I am not the focus.”
In a way that answers your question. A minister is a minister…but a priest is a priest. We, all of us can be ministers to each other, in one sense (and that is not meant to demean Protestant ministers) but a priest is charged with not only ministering but imparting the sacraments as we believe they are commissioned to do by Christ. Their priesthood doesn’t make them perfect people; they bring all of their faulty humanity into their priesthood with them - it just makes them apostolically ordained to dispense licit sacraments, and even a pain-in-the-butt priest who is bored and grouchy and uninspiring can still celebrate a licit and fully sacramental mass. Because he’s just an instrument; it’s not about him.
We honor our pope - he’s the big kahuna, obviously - but I don’t think that many people become or stay a Catholic because of the pope or the priest (some do, of course, just as LEAVE because of popes and priests). The priest doesn’t have to be great and we don’t have to always agree with him, or even like him, because in the end, it’s all about Christ, in the Eucharist, and our Communion and relationship with Him.
Honestly, I think you’ll find that when Catholics DO “shop around” for another parish it has less to do with the priests, in general, than the whole TONE of the worship - whether it’s too happy-clappy, too “liberal”, too “traditional” etc.
Does that help? I hope it does.
April 8th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Dear Miss A,
Thank you. That makes sense to me. As I remember, homilies seem to last only about a third as long as sermons. Being a Lutheran now, we get the 20-30 minute sermons, as well as communion, so the services tend to run about 90 minutes. Big change from most Baptist services I remember from childhood.
I knew about the age distinction; but, frankly I had forgotten the word. That was in “Time,” too; but, like you with the Big C little c deal I figured everyone would know what I meant.
Regards,
Sarah
April 8th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Hi Sarah, I am glad that made sense to you!
Lutherans run 90 minutes every week?
I am surprised (and glad) to know that TIME made the distinction, thanks for telling me; I never, ever see it made, which is why I took the time to do so. Glad you knew I wasn’t just picking on you!
April 8th, 2008 at 5:47 am
“rightwingprof, why can’t a Mormon go to whichever temple/church/ward he wants?”
Church rules, apparently. Odd, isn’t it?
“Would someone please explain to me why Catholics will not change churches? In large cities, certainly, there are many Catholic churches to choose from.”
But we do. You’re confusing church with parish. Directly across the street from our house — and I don’t mean down the road, I mean right across the street — is the liberal parish, which I call St. Josef Stalin. Liberal Catholicism correleates strongly with Protestantization: No kneelers or kneeling, holy water fonts that are supposed to represent the womb of the Blessed Mother, lots of old hippie Masses (guitars, etc.), priests who tell the congregation that Christ is a metaphor, that sort of thing. Across town is Our Lady of Victory, the larger, conservative parish. We drive across town rather than go to the Episcopal-wannabe parish across the street. OLOV is large enough a parish that there are three clergy there, and since this is a fairly conservative diocese, the odds of getting a liberation theology priest are minimal. I understand that St Josef Stalin came about because the liberal Catholics wanted their own parish. In the vestibule at St Josef Stalin they used to have a big picture of Cindy Sheehan (we vote there). The vestibule at OLOV has a large pictureboard of the troops, and there is a parish charity specifically to send things to the troops.
And the Anchoress is correct. The priest doesn’t define the parish. The Eucharist is the reason we go to Mass, not the sermon. OLOV homilies rarely, if ever, touch on the political.
And the Eastern Rite churches here (there are lots) run about two hours.
April 10th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Dear Miss A,
We do everything you do, PLUS:
serve wine with the bread,
sing 4 hymns with the choir usually singing a 5th,
have more Bible readings,
have a 5 minute kiddy sermon (puppet show with this minister),
listen to a 20 minute or so sermon.
Starts 10:30, ends noonish.
Regards,
Sarah, now, aren’t you glad you’re Catholic!