For current or fallen Catholics

Not a theologian by any stretch, but my 2 cents on ...

Withholding communion: If you have serious sins and haven't gone to confession, you're supposed to stay in the pew or just go up for a blessing, right? Because you're not "in communion" with the Church.

Don't see how a political stance, or voting for a pro-choice candidate, amounts to a serious sin. But then, I'm a cafeteria Catholic.

Church attire: Since our church doesn't have A.C. (and it still gets stuffy inside, even here in the the Northwest), I'll wear khaki shorts and a collared shirt during the summer. Jeans are OK the rest of the year; I'd say 90 percent of the guys in our parish wear them.

As Bubbler said, as long as you're participating and taking Mass seriously, I don't think God cares if you leave the tie at home.

 

Ok, it's 1:12 a.m. my time and I am seriously drunk.
I'm so drunk I contemplated starting an 'Our new marketing overlords ask questions of drunk Buck' thread.

I was raised catholic, severe catholic. I went to a Tridentine Latin Mass for most of my youth, and we couldn't go to a Tridentine Mass we went to a Ukranian orthodox Mass because the language of the offeratory was more appropriate than the catholic Novus Ordo.

We did a rosary every week as a family in the house.

I am not a lapsed catholic. I didn't break faith with doctrine or dogma. I just don't believe in god.

All of that said, I don't get it when catholics put their own church on blast.

Women priests, married priests, gay marriage = ruses

If you believe in god and choose to worship with a group, you are subject to the rules of the group.
And the rules come from the object or idea being worshiped, allegedly.

 

To explore the idea of absolution, it requires repentance.

If you go to confession as a 10-year-old kid and tell the priest that you have cursed or shop-lifted, he should tell you to make reparation or at the very least tell you not to persist.

Let's assume that a 10-year-old is truly sorry.

He/she sincerely intends to live differently.
That's absolution.

 

Confessing sins that you know that you have no intention to stop does not absolve you.
The priest says the words, but that is not absolution. Absolution is between god and the repentant. Cursing, shop-lifting, murder, adultery - absolution requires true contrition and repentance, and true contrition and repentance entails an active desire to make right wrongs done and to no longer persist inn sinful actions.

Al Capone might have confessed to his priest. His priest might have spoken the words of absolution. However, if Al Capone was not contrite and repentant in his confession god did not absolve him.

 

I am really drunk, so I'm going to keep going. Maybe it's been a long time since I've embarrassed myself.

There are distinctions between dogma, canon law and doctrine.
Gayness and abortion = canon law
Both speak to the new hot topic of Onanism, but despite that level of coolness canon law is a difficult, almost impossible hurdle.

Honestly, if you support abortion or gay marriage you should seriously consider a new church. Rome will not change its stance in our lifetime, and maybe not even within the next lifetime.

 

I know plenty of folks who have predictable personality changes when they're drunk (me included).

I would have never predicted Buck turns into a theologian.

 

It's a welcome change from his usual modus operandi of molesting collies.

 

Collies, dolphins, the man's downright pansexual.

 

And neither is specifically banned in the Bible, so...

 

I really don't know you people, but you are some of the best with whom I have ever associated.

 

OK, last week at mass, a small group of our youth started clapping during the Gloria. Didn't think much of it because they had just come back from a youth conference and were just having fun.

Flash forward to today. We start singing the Gloria and what happens next? More damn clapping. Mostly by the same damn kids, but this time they're joined by some adults. And the adults weren't totally into it, but they were doing it because they were thinking they had to do it. In all, I'd say less than a quarter of the attendees were clapping, but it was more than the week before.

I'm already dreading next week, thinking more people will start clapping next week. If that's the case, what should my next move be? I'm thinking about doing cartwheels up and down the aisle. Thoughts?