Catholics to the left, Catholics to the right. In the past four or five days, I have been bombarded with pro-Catholic propaganda. Fine, okay, a lie: Two people -- one real, one non1 -- whom I have never discussed my confused religious situation2 with have talked with me in the past four days about my faith journey and how Catholicism fits in.
So. Here is a two-step program to convert me to Catholicism:
1) Convince me that capital-T Tradition exists and is an acceptable corollary to the Bible. Easiest way to persuade me of that: Show pieces of my faith that are based on the tradition of the Church and not from a straight, literalisticish reading of the Bible, such as a Trinitarian view of God. (Yes, sure, a Trinitarian view of God -- three in one, etc. -- can be inferred from the Bible, but it’s never explicitly stated, I believe; thus, nearly all Christians are taking an important aspect of their faith on what Catholics would consider part of Tradition.) (By the way, I came up with this argument all by myself. Why wasn’t this brought up in Catholic Inquiry? I happen to think it’s a dreadfully persuasive line of reasoning, if only as a starting point.)
2) Convince me that, if there is such a thing as capital-T Tradition, that the Catholic Church’s interpretation of such is the proper one. A proper argument would start with trying to draw an unbroken line from Peter to the Pope that shows a more-or-less uninterrupted chain of command that is dogmatically consistent (or, if not, at least not dogmatically inconsistent) with the Catholic Church’s catechism today. I am not sure where a proper argument would end.
You get those two, and by definition all other problems I have with the Catholic Church (boring ol’ clichéd list: Transubstantiation, loveliness of Mary, etc.) would fall away.
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1 What I mean is one from the real world and one from the fake, Internety world.
2 (This is mostly pilfered from an e-mail I wrote a couple days ago.) I was born and raised in what must have been the most conservative congregation in the third- or fourth-most liberal denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). (How conservative? My pastor was a predestinationist, and my youth leaders were big big big on the Rapture.) At age 14, I moved to a college town, where I started attending a relatively liberal church in the CC(DoC) denomination. In college, I attended CC(DoC) churches, Lutheran churches (both Missouri Synod and ELCA), a Baptist church, blah blah blah. So I haven’t really had a home denomination in seven years, even if I have had home churches in the interim.
oh so lovingly written by
Matthew |
i sincerely do not know what you are doing here. are you lost? were you
looking for your delicate calico cat, and did you follow her up two flights of stairs
to this room? she is not here. she was here, yes. we gave her a warm bowl of milk, we talked with her about campaign finance reform for a time, and then she bid us good day. i believe she was
going to the post office two blocks down, but i don't quite recall.
for surely you did
not find your way from prinsiana, the least traveled site on
the internet. if you did, though, perhaps you are looking for humor. perhaps you are looking for profundity. perhaps you are looking for answers.
i'm sorry, but you shall go naught-for-three.
