Comments on: Spit and Mud http://therumpus.net/2013/02/spit-and-mud/ Books, Music, Movies, Art, Politics, Sex, Other Fri, 24 May 2013 06:36:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Colleen http://therumpus.net/2013/02/spit-and-mud/comment-page-1/#comment-397603 Colleen Wed, 13 Feb 2013 18:39:51 +0000 http://therumpus.net/?p=111028#comment-397603 I was glad to read these. So often I see friends posting things about why they are disgusted with the Catholic Church and I can’t even bear to read them…they are so filled with hate and disdain upon a religion that has given me so much.
I too, was raised in a Catholic family full of love and understanding. And church was often dull for me. Until I attended World Youth Day in 2005 and something was awakened when Pope Benedict spoke to 1,000,000 young people in a field in Germany and I found myself crying at the beauty of it.
Since, in my study of philosophy and religion, I’ve found that there is nothing in this world that recognizes the mystery of life like the Catholic faith. I’ve always been committed to living in the world, & my faith has never kept me in a box. Unfortunately, there is an enormous tragedy in the miseducation of Catholic youth. The catholic schools that I attended growing up were unconvincing at best in their explanation of the catechism.
The saddest part of this article was when you mentioned how moved you were by the beauty of that church and by the service, but how you dismissed it upon remembering it stands against everything you believe in.
The Church does not stand against everything you believe in. Although it is yes, conservative, it holds these beliefs for solid theological reasons that are largely misconstrued and ignored. There is a popular saying among those young serious Catholics like myself that many people hate what they ‘think’ the church is, and not what it actually is. I know this sounds like a consipiracy theory, but our society largely ignores the church or dismisses it and its ideas quickly without serious thought. Why is it that the largest crowds ever gathered in the world have been for World Youth Day (Manilla, Philipinnes) yet the news never reports upon it? An event larger than the Olympics, the World Cup…millions of young Catholics all coming together from 190 countries around the world…and a main news source won’t say a word.
No other religion has that universality. Catholicism is not about judgement…it is about something universal. We all long for truth, for beauty, for good…beyond our culture, or our pasts, or outdated traditions.
It’s not a morality for the sake of morality. This is 2,000 years of cumulative thought. It’s a tragedy what happened to those young men. But what makes me sad is the large misconception of how widespread that abuse was. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100330032853AANXog5
Because the media loves it. Our world has taken puritanical values and applied them to the Church. But the Church is nothing if not understanding of the human experience. We fail. We are forgiven. This is not judgemental. This is true.

I suggest reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis or Is it Possible to Live this Way? by Luigi Guissani. Or both.
The Church is dedicated to goodness and beauty. I won’t deny it’s made its mistakes, but the beauty of the Church is that it continues to go on. Look at the corruption before the reformation. Yet it didn’t crumble. It reformed itself and moved on. You mentioned the oppression of women…pregnancies getting carried to term because of “God’s will”. This is a superficial dismissal of why the Church is pro-life. Read the Theology of the Body by JPII.
The misconceptions go on and on…I strongly suggest reading Marc Barnes’ blog Bad Catholic for a more thorough explanation on all subjects. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/posts

I would like to thank you for your honesty on the subject and your openness.

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