Friday, April 13, 2012

"there are Catholics ready to take immediate offense, to explode in righteous anger"

TUAD sent this link over:

What's That Supposed To Mean? by James Martin, S.J. This Roman Catholic blogger makes some great points about Internet discourse. The link is worth skimming through.

For what it's worth, my tolerance for Internet dialog has diminished over the years for similar reason to what the article points out.

7 comments:

Truth Unites... and Divides said...

""there are Catholics ready to take immediate offense, to explode in righteous anger""

Sounds like some of the Catholic folks who've commented here on this blog and elsewhere.

But to be fair, we Protestants also have the same problems too....

PeaceByJesus said...

Actually, the exaggerated extrapolation that his attackers engage in, using whatever expression or term they can in order to indict the priest, is seen to a significant degree in attempts by many Catholics to defend traditions from Scripture.

Such as making Mary to be sinless, shedding her blood for man, and giving it to be eaten, and assumed and crowned and enthroned as Queen of Heaven with almost unlimited power, including having the ability to process virtually unlimited number of prayer requests, and is even set forth as a more immediate and superior recourse for help than Christ Himself, whose uniqueness and exaltation most of this the exaltation of the Catholic Mary parallels

Hadassah said...

both parts have people ready to take immediate offense & explode in so-called "righteous" anger. I had catholic people making fools out of themselves in a video in youtube, bullying me & other people & calling on their "friends" for "gang support" to attack me, because it's obvious they feel inferior & insecure about themselves & the institution they defend, just like I did when I was a catholic. It was funny & sad at the same time to see. Though I haven't had the same situation with protestants yet, I did have a situation where a religious protestant was having a really haughty attitude, having superior airs. So yeah, as for having religious biggots, we have 'em on both sides

Hadassah said...

btw, PeaceByJesus, I've never met a catholic that said Mary shed her blood for man.. though they do say she's "co-redemptrix"

PeaceByJesus said...

They do, in the biological sense, but which by extension goes all the way back to Adam, yet like the term "Mother of God," it is used to uniquely exalt the Catholic Mary (versus the humble and holy human of Scripture) to be a demigoddess .

The words of Ratzinger on the use of "Co-redemptrix" apply here, even if they are inconsistent:

"...the formula “Co-redemptrix” departs to too great an extent from the language of Scripture and of the Fathers and therefore gives rise to misunderstandings.” ..“For matters of faith, continuity of terminology with the language of Scripture and that of the Fathers is itself an essential element; it is improper simply to manipulate language.” (God and the world: believing and living in our time, by Pope Benedict XVI, Peter Seewald, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2000, p. 306) More

As far as the language Scripture, if not some well-meaning "fathers," this applies in principal to the Theotokos title, which conveys that God ontologically had a mother, which is more than what it may technically allow, and is part of the supererogatory of praise which is “above that which is written.” (1Cor. 4:6) And “written” almost always refers to Scripture.

PeaceByJesus said...

FIdentem Piumque Animum: Moreover, one must remember that the Blood of Christ shed for our sake and those members in which He offers to His Father the wounds He received, the price of our liberty, are no other than the flesh and blood of the virgin,

..to her, Jesus owes His Precious Blood...Next to God, she deserves the highest praise....no creature, can ever be compared to her: "To what shall I compare thee, or to whom shall I liken thee, O daughter of Jerusalem." (Lam. 2:13) [another verse taken out of context, as it refers to the affliction of Jewish mothers in general due to the judgment upon Jerusalem]

..all graces of the Precious Blood come through Mary. No grace is given without her intercession. 9http://www.salvemariaregina.info/SalveMariaRegina/SMR-098.html)

Go with this ineffable chaste thought to the banquet of God and you will find in the Blood of the Son the nourishment of the Mother.

..in Jesus is always the Immaculate flesh and the Virginal blood of His Most Holy Mother which penetrates into our hearts and inebriates our souls.

What is needed is a mother who may eat this supersubstantial Bread, transform it into her milk, and in this way feed her poor children. This mother is Mary. She nourishes herself with the Word and transforms It into the Sacred Humanity. She transforms It into Flesh and Blood, i.e., into this sweetest of milk which is called the Eucharist."..

"O Christian who comest full of faith to receive the Bread of life, eat It worthily, and remember that It was fashioned out of Mary's pure blood." Mary can quite rightfully beckon to us and speak to us in the words of the inspired prophet, "Come and eat my bread, drink the wine I have prepared" (Prov. 9:5)...

Thus every time we go to Holy Communion, something sweet to recall is that Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the Bread of Life produced from Mary with the flour of her Immaculate flesh, kneaded with the admixture of her virginal milk. (http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary/virgin-eucharist.htm)

"The union between the Immaculata and the Holy Spirit is so inexpressible, yet so perfect, that the Holy Spirit acts only by the Most Blessed Virgin, his Spouse. This is why she is the mediatrix of all graces given by the Holy Spirit. And since every grace is a gift of God the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit, it follows that there is no grace which Mary cannot dispose of as her own, which is not given to her for this purpose." Manteau-Bonamy, Immaculate Conception, 91; F.X. Durrwell, The Holy Spirit of God (Cincinnati: Servant Books, 2006), 183-185.

(d) During His passion, Mary suffered in her heart all the pains that Jesus suffered in His body. For this reason, God exalted her so greatly.

(f) Jesus redeemed us with the blood of His body, Mary with the agonies of her heart.

(g) We were condemned through the fault of one woman; we are saved through the merits of another woman. Just as Eve was the root of death for everyone, so Mary was the source of life for everyone. (Ten Series of Meditations on the Mystery of the Rosary,” by John Ferraro, w/ Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur)

PeaceByJesus said...

The latter was supposed to be prefaced by,

Back to the blood aspect being concomitant with Catholic hyper exaltation: