I was delighted to read the post from HomeschoolNfpDad about the Controversy at Medjugorje. It spoke eloquently and powerfully from within Catholic understanding.

It's easy to acquiesce to the latest rage in private spirituality. But such acquiescence creates two major problems. The first is the promotion of individual pride over and above public revelation and natural law. ... Humility speaks for itself and is ready to accept the magisterial authority of the Church.

However, my immediate pleasure in this very sound message was soon counteracted with my disappointment at the perceived recent drift in CE away from the Catholic Church.

Some time ago I submitted a rather innocuous post, claiming torture was wrong. This was not agreed to, apparently since the end, the security of the US, justifies the means, torture.

In CE authority seems to be questioned, the CCC, the magisterium and even Scripture. It seems the basis of truth is the direct words of God to the individual. What one is directly told by the spirit becomes truth. Is it something like in old Boston where the “Cabots speak only to Cabots, and the Lodges speak only to God.". Only the direct word from the Almighty to the individual seems authorative.

It is also unhealthy that up to approximately 80% of the posts are from one individual. I do not understand much of what this individual says and I disagree with a lot of it. I had considered that CE was a forum for debate within Catholic belief. Thus I had hoped that opinions contrary to the faith would have been countered. This is not happening always.

It is also sad to see former contributors disappearing, some giving their farewells, others have just disappeared.

Thus CE has fewer posts from fewer contributors and the Catholic ethos is disappearing.

I have considered this post for some time. I try to practice charity in all things, while emphasizing the importance of unity among Catholics on the essentials. I may be wrong in my views. Perhaps others would let us have their views.

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I list a few quotes from recent discussions from this one individual.

Controversy at Medjugorje

My point being that the Church elders or priesthood of bishops often are humanly minded when it comes to apparitions, locutions and such. Skeptical. Because they tend to see things inside themselves rather than seeing God outside their exclusive domain called their mind. I can identify with this myself as I'll try to be more clear. I believe because God allowed wanted me to believe at first.

(Pope Benedict.)

I suspect the Churches dogma changed because they decided to be more Christ-centric. Maybe the elders felt that this teaching no longer applies; were in times 'past' and time to 'move forward'. Another words what's more behooving to the current doctrines of faith.

The CCC according to this topic is in error and needs to be changed to reflect to show the truth rather than someones ideas.

What is torture?

I'm a Military person so I must do as I'm told.

The CCC is not Gospel. It is a crack at explaining the churches Stance. ... As Noelfitz pointed out, the churches teachings have changed over time (I did not). Not all teaching is sound doctrine of Jesus Christ.

The Real Presence…

I think you need to come outside the box and take in others views about Christ other than yours. Then you might learn something. When the world is brow beating you for quoting the CCC which only makes sense to Catholics, you might wake up and say hey I think I need to take a second look and see what's wrong. When you come to this point it's liberating. No longer are you bound to your own ideas. Letting go of your understanding. Allow the Spirit of God to show you…. Tell me your experience, it this way you sprout wings and take flight telling from your true soul.

Secondly you missed my experience entirely, because you ideas of Christ and the Eucharist is still according to what someone else has told you and that someone else is human, and if they didn't tell you, you probably wouldn't go so far as to searching on your own, Asking the Holy Spirit to reveal all the truths in the Scriptures.

It is mystical, which you haven't experienced. The Spirit.

I get my answers from and they come from experience after being enlightened by God, mixed with Faith and the Word

For St. Paul says Faith but he understood spiritually, so to write about it to others he had to use lesser words which misconstrued everything … At this point the Spirit takes me into His realm and speaks with words and spirit sense that can only be done in the Spirit. Thank God we have a soul or else we be just intellectual beings. That would be boring. The other day when I went to Noon Mass, I really saw Heaven on earth it was so incredible—

One being that which we were told and believe through repeated use and have no other view or intelligent definition other than what is written. Scriptures and CCC and word of mouth. The second being that of the Spiritual where you cannot describe the experience intelligently because it is Spiritually discerned and anything we come up with is less than par on the golf course.

Make Christianity Believable

Education is good only if it serves a good cause. There is bad education which serves selfish wants and ideals.

To be Catholic is not optimistic(a worldly term) it is to believe in the Son of God to believe in Christ and what He passed on to the Apostles who passed on what they were taught, and witnessed. Succession.

If the Church decides to institute a new doctrine which says we do not obey the 10 commandments, do you obey it? I do not because that is not in keeping with Gods Laws.

Israel has to come under Christ in order for Christ to Return… The world is in error. To have faith and hope and Charity is Catholic Teaching not optimism. This thinking is from the Aristotle and others.

A soul is trapped in a person who is alive to sin.

NF: Read Espistles they will show you what you don't know. You don't have to agree with what the bible says as at least 85% of Catholics do not.

The Inquisition forbade people from becoming literate because of the high illiteracy rate during that period in history.

The Church is the mystical Body of Christ. It is not just your parish or the one next door. (geographical) It is not just the Catholic Church but those other denominated sects who broke off the body of Christ and have strayed from Apostolic Teaching.

Here's my reason for why I feel that the NT is not as robust as it should be…

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God bless,


NoelFitz.
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In necessariis, unitas; in dubiis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas.
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Mary

thank you so much for your charitable and irenic post.

In fact it make me feel worse, having given vent to my strong emotions. I hope to be less passionate in future.

God bless,


NoelFitz.
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In necessariis, unitas; in dubiis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas.
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RE: "bhokuto has come up in a problmatic way, let me tweak the Catholic conscience of all of you and ask, have any of you, in the spirit of Matthew 18, attempted to personally engage him regarding what you percieve as a problem?"

I understand that NoelFitz using the acronym "CE" incurred the risk of the interpretation you formed.  I myself did not.  I understood the post to refer to the community.  And, of course, as you point out, it isn't necessarily practicable or desirable, to maintain a strict guard on all that is posted and on all posters. 

Wherever the above leaves us, I want to say that I myself have been concerned for some time because whenever someone posts and doesn't cite a valid authority, there is a risk that a visitor who is just "dropping by," perhaps someone who is "actively seeking," will get a completely erroneous idea of Catholic teaching.  I've been mostly silent about this concern because I could not develop a suggestion of how to cope with the risk, and still maintain the openness that a "forum" must have if it is to be true to its name.  I did adopt around that time a tag line that explained my credentials so that anyone reading one of my posts would know that I wasn't some sort of authority,  I had hoped for some imitation on this score but there hasn't been any of which I am aware.  Perhaps one's profile ought to contain some sort of mandatory question (but how ensure someone like composer doesn't deliberately fabricate their status?) that gave the member's position in the Catholic Church.  Along with that, at least some of a member's profile ought to be visible at the point of a post one is reading.  The "contact" function doesn't even seem to work.

We must all realize that with teaching accumulated for almost 2000 years, there aren't too many topics for which a principle, previously enunciated by Mother Church, does not already exist.  To that extent we delude ourselves when we spill "bits" putting our two cents in. 

Perhaps there is valid room for exchange when it appears there is room for interpretation.

For myself, I don't believe that anyone can just quote some of these teachings and then assert their undisputable application means thus and so in regards to a particular subject, such as torture.

In regards to the torture question, Mr. Shea weighed in, but must have been too busy to address the practical consequence of the Church's teaching, and NoelFitz seems hard-over on his understanding of the teaching, somewhat like Mr. Shea, I would venture.

We are called on to turn the other cheek, but can we insist (either by our actions or our absence of action), that someone else also turn their cheek?  If returning hate with love is our calling, then few Catholics should contemplate high office.  Maintaining a loving outlook while trying to stop the immoral terrorist is a surpassing challenge.  (Which may be a clue that all of this is the work of the devil.)  Yet, doesn't it verge on the immoral to force another to make the ultimate sacrifice because of our moral code.  This is not to say that we cannot argue for our position.  However, we must do that with prudence so as not to make the situation more dangerous than it already is.

To your question:

I have asked BHokuto to clarify one (perhaps two) of his posts.  I have also criticized him for rambling and not making a clear point.  Have I acted in the spirit of Matthew 18?  Likely not.  I haven't tried too obviously to make amends but I did try to provide some technical advice.  But, this was impeded by BHokuto's vagueness at explaining the problem.

If there were a way to quickly express disagreement with a posting, something like a poll button (thumbs up/thumbs down), maybe the inclination to add an acerbic or sarcastic rejoinder would be less as words wouldn't even be needed to express disagreement. 

I'm already too long & haven't done well in making any point, so I'll quit & come back to this if I can find a better way to continue.

Regards,

Old Sigma (Cradle Catholic & generally inveterate amateur)

RE: "...who is the one individual that you claim is taking over the forum?"

The other week I was sending copies of my e-mail to another site to ensure that I would have everything together once more (I wasn't sending from CE mail.)

I apparently exceeded some limit on the number of e-mails & I was required to insert a code which varied each time, to ensure that I wasn't generating spam.  Perhaps some sort of limit on the number of posts in a 12 hour period would work here in the forums.  Also, there perhaps ought to be a limit on the length of an individual post.  An inflexible limit.  Both probably too difficult but still I would think worth some thought.

Regards,

Old Sigma (Cradle Catholic & generally inveterate amateur)

Pouliot

REPOSTING MY ABOVE POST WHICH YOU DID NOT CARE TO POST: Maybe you're lagging? 

I post things to show a different way of thinking other than your own, because I know that my own thoughts need polishing that is why I post. To get a polished view. To continue to move forward. But it seems to me that some are still stuck in their own views. To learn others views gets us out of our mud. This frees us from self, which allows for a higher thought to come in. St. Thomas Aquinas understood this well.

I do not take offense, because if I was offended, I'm egotistic. But rather, I look for a better way. Moving forward.  Forgiving.

Does this help?

The other thing is you all take offense.  Silly.

Have a nice day. Peace 

exactly why should anyone care?

Since I've been here no one has said welcome! No one has said peace be with you and hope you enjoy the fellowship of the Catholic community.  No Welcoming wagon.

Instead it's free for all and smorgasborde of stuff and some highly opinionated folks who do not promote Christ teachings, but their own views. Which if you do not agree with them they disdain you.  Where's the love?  I dont' see it. I see and feel misery and hey why do you say that? It's not church teachings. oh really, (I'm just having a conversation with myself).  Get a grip, love love love.  it seems when you post something of interest other that whatever the set in group seasoned seeders post you are ignored.  And some lady posted to have a rosary sent around the world.  No one entered the post to see what she was doing which is more important.  It only seems like what Warren says ego! If it ain't manly don't post attitude. 

Leave the flesh out folks talk about real things or else forget posting.  So far whatever I've entered into to post, I get thrashed, what a great community of loving Christians. 

I'll be quite frank Noelfitz your're a whiner. Get over it! Go find some straw!

bkohuto,

Is there more than one person contributing to your posts?

bhokuto, I am trying to pay some attention here because of the controversy.  It seems to me for one thing that you write as someone whose native langauage is other than English.  Perhaps that is part of why you get many questions back to your posts asking you to clarify.

Also, it is not an "attack" or "accuasation" as you infer when someone asks you to clarify your meaning or points out that what you have written does not seem to harmonize with the Catholic faith. This is a Catholic website and the reason for its existence is evangelization.  We welcome non-Catholics here to ask questions, but the Catholics on this forum are not here to be lectured about some other religion or to be prosyletized. The mission of evangelization includes helping our fellow Catholics to know their faith more deeply, reflect upon its spiritual treasures, and live better Christian lives.  They are for the most part trying to be good Catholics and hence they take seriously the authority of the Church.

For this reason, if someone posts some thingthat seems theologically amiss, they will question what the source is and what the Church has to say on the subject. That is in no way an attack upon the poster, it is rather a way to help all of us refine our understandings.

Now, from what you have written above, it is clear that you are either a non-Catholic or a poorly-instructed Catholic. Either way, you are welcome to be here to learn.  But please do not take correction as an attack. You should be wanting to learn from what the Church teaches.

We really aren't too impressed with personal theological opinions around here, even (or especially) when they are introduced with "its so obvious."  What we believe as Catholics is not really "obvious," otherwise we wouldn't have need revelation from God.

I don't have any trouble with term "Roundtable." We need to make some more adjustemnts to the website, so if you all would like to bring back that name, weigh in on it.

Blessings to you all,

Mary

Been reading this thread since it was posted and was not planning on making any response untl I read the latest response from mkochan and Zachaeus.  I cannot agree that CE has lost its way.  In fact I feel this forum (I like roundtable better) helps many of us "find our way" because many of the comments posted make me think.  I try not to take offense to anything anyone says or posts.  If there is something posted that does not entirley agree with my catholic teaching, I try to find what the Church actually teaches on the subject.  And more often than not I can find it right here on 'Catholic Exchange'.  This is either on the main part of the website and its many links and sections or by reading the posts here.  With that in mind I feel CE has not "lost its way" but is providing "a way"

Some contributors on here really make me think about my faith.  I enjoy reading posts from Pristinus Sapienter as his comments make me think about faith on different levels.  The comments from noelfitz are good to read too.  Sometimes I feel he (or is it she) takes the "devil's advocate" role on some issues which again stirs up the thought process and makes me delve into some subject matter more deeply.  Noel, I may not always agree with but I read what you have to say.  There are others on here that I look forward to reading such as mkochan and Alvinal.

As for controversary in this forum, yes there will be controversary as religion and faith are controversial subjects.  But this is a wonderful forum for discussing this subject matter "sitting around a roundtable having a friendly open discussion."  I may get "attacked" for my posts and if I do so be it.  I'm probably not as educated as good many people on this forum and even though I teach CCD, I still consider myself a student of my faith.  I have even used material gained form this website to teach some CCD classes! 

May God bless you all. 

Tarheel

(dave)

Here Here!  PTR is correct.  Perhaps we all have been remiss in remembering our fellow contributors in our daily prayers.  I shall correct this transgression starting now.

God Bless!

Tarheel

(dave)