Catholicism is dying. Even my grandmas friends, devout Polish immigrants, are willing to express some confusion and doubt about the direction of Catholic dogma after a few drinks. If you take the religion seriously, it just doesn’t make sense anymore.
It isn’t even really Catholic dogma anymore to assert that the Catholic Church is the only path to salvation. The Pope regularly talks about Christians broadly and defends Protestantism. For those of us that were taught differently, we just kind of nod our heads and take the gaslighting.
Some priest dropped one word and it’s going to cause a lot of strife for the Catholics in phoenix that were impacted. Yet we went from prayers in Latin to every language under the sun and nobody bats an eye at what was lost in translation there? There are a lot of (now outdated) catechisms that warned against this.
I don't think it's dying - it thrives in Global South (Africa, S. America) The biggest undoing for Roman church was to succumb to theological innovations. It started a while ago and probably irreversible (see Vatican 2). I see many Catholics and protestants coming to Orthodox Church for the reason of "immutability" - the Ancient Church with Tradition that spans over almost two millennia and theology that did not change and will not change.
And to this point, those who have asked for a return to "immutability" within the Roman church have been pilloried, mocked, and continually derided by the current Pope and his henchmen.
> It isn’t even really Catholic dogma anymore to assert that the Catholic Church is the only path to salvation.
The dogma hasn't changed, the stomach of modernist clerics has. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is in force, no matter how many times the Pope kisses the Koran.
> Yet we went from prayers in Latin to every language under the sun and nobody bats an eye at what was lost in translation there?
“I”, “We”…. These pedants sound like the Pharisees Jesus preached against. Also, 3-into-1 as a doctrine can lead to confusion, unless 2/3 of them don’t participate in baptism.
How to turn people against formal religion.
I always thought that if one approached a sacrament with an open, honest and clear conscience that the action was valid. Conversely, if you follow the form with a hard, closed heart it’s invalid. Guess there’s a lot of souls in the deep who are in trouble unless the ship’s captain had the correct form.
Based on what I read in the gospels, my take would be that God cares more about the heart of the one being baptized than a minor error of speech by the one doing the baptism.
The profession of faith of the one being baptized is what I believe God cares about.
That's pretty hard for babies to do. I think in the Bible, only people of age to understand what they are professing ever get baptized. Even Jesus was in his 30's before he was baptized, and by definition he would understand better than anyone.
Even worse, if one of the partners in a marriage was baptised by this priest, and the marriage was performed by the Catholic church, they may need to get re-married.
“The error also means that because baptism is the first of the sacraments, some people will need to repeat other sacraments, according to the diocese webpage for frequently asked questions.”
“According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, there are seven sacraments in the Catholic church: baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, reconciliation, anointing the sick, marriage and holy orders.”
Well the more complicated the road to salvation, the more likely to be disqualified on a technicality.
Sorry, your sacrament is being recalled. If you think you have been notified in error contact the repentance office at your earliest convenience. You will be given a case number and be allowed to remain in limbo until a decision is made whether your benefits can be reinstated.
Yeah, otherwise HRH will be very disappointed in heaven.
Look, Petrus is standing there and only ever to let you in if the rituals were done in order. Otherwise... no luck for you... straight to hell.
Very interesting! Most of it probably went above my head, but it seems that there are several problems beyond "changing a simple word";
* a priest cannot change the formula as he wishes
> to modify the sacramental formula implies a lack of an understanding of the very nature of the ecclesial ministry that is always at the service of God and his people and not the exercise of a power that goes so far as to manipulate what has been entrusted to the Church in an act that pertains to the Tradition
* when saying "We" instead of "I" he is probably meaning something different as well and acting out a different role
> When the minister says “I baptize you…” he does not speak as a functionary who carries out a role entrusted to him, but he enacts ministerially the sign-presence of Christ, who acts in his Body to give his grace and to make the concrete liturgical assembly a manifestation of “the real nature of the true Church”
I also enjoyed this quote from the footnotes:
> in personal prayer the believer can follow the impulse of the heart, in liturgical action “he must open himself to a different kind of impulse which comes from a more powerful source: namely, the heart of the Church which beats through the ages. Here it does not matter what personal tastes are, what wants he may have, or what particular cares occupy his mind...”
That was my reaction as well. Picture a benevolent deity condemning you to eternal suffering because the priest used a wrong word in their protective spell…
Limbo is a place of perfect natural happiness. The only thing unbaptized innocents lose is the beatific vision. Otherwise, they're living much better lives than either of us.
That seems to be one view of the Limbo of Infants, but other theologians were less optimistic.
Either way, do you really think it makes sense for somebody to be consigned to a place like this based on whether a priest used all the right words in a ritual?
CCC 1257 says, "God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments." I think I've seen the hierarchy quote this a few times re this story.
I believe that Rome's position here is that they have been entrusted with specific sacraments as tools / "means of grace," and it's not their place to tinker with them, but that doesn't imply that anyone is automatically consigned anywhere as a result of such tinkering. It's entirely reasonable to believe that God is extending grace in a non-standard way because God agrees that this does not make sense. But the fact remains that it is still a non-standard way and not actually the use of the sacraments as given to the Church, and the Church doesn't have the power to decide how much tinkering is too much. It just gets the sacraments the way the sacraments are.
A bad attempt at a nerdy analogy here is to a sudo rule. An unprivileged user who doesn't have "ALL" sudo access must run specific commands in the way they're phrased in the sudoers file. If the sudoers file says you can run "sudo shutdown -h now," and you type "sudo shutdown --halt now", it won't work. But that doesn't mean that the root account is unable to run "shutdown --halt now" or that root doesn't think the "--halt" version is a good idea. It certainly doesn't mean you're unable to contact whoever is root and say "Hey, please run shutdown --halt now," or that they'll ignore you if you do. If root runs it, it will work, and have the same effect. It's just not what's in the sudoers file.
That's an interesting analogy, and it certainly makes sense that an all-powerful God could grant salvation as a discretionary act even if the wording is not quite right.
But what it seems that the church also believes in the other side of the analogy: that if your command line DOES match the sudoers file, (i.e. the wording IS right), it somehow obliges God one way or the other, and that part seems difficult to believe, even if one accepts the underlying concept of baptism.
A run of Bibles printed in 1631 accidentally omitted "not" from the commandment "thou shalt not commit adultery." All of the copies were burned and the printer was fined and lost his printing license[0]. Apparently it happens a lot[1].
It isn’t even really Catholic dogma anymore to assert that the Catholic Church is the only path to salvation. The Pope regularly talks about Christians broadly and defends Protestantism. For those of us that were taught differently, we just kind of nod our heads and take the gaslighting.
Some priest dropped one word and it’s going to cause a lot of strife for the Catholics in phoenix that were impacted. Yet we went from prayers in Latin to every language under the sun and nobody bats an eye at what was lost in translation there? There are a lot of (now outdated) catechisms that warned against this.