Whatever your personal opinion, the point of this thread is to discuss a Roman Catholic priest's actions. An understanding of Roman Catholic doctrine would be necessary to make an educated judgment about the validity of the priest's actions. Any other denomination's beliefs are irrelevant to the discussion - and christiangirl, despite the year's intense high school study, you betray a lack of comprehension of the biblical foundation and historical evolution of Roman Catholic tenets. You don't have to be Roman Catholic (at least I hope not, or I'm in trouble!) to comment, but attacking Roman Catholicism with the vehemence you do comes off as defensive. And dare I say - unchristian? What happened to they will know that we are Christians by our love?

eta - irishpipes, I think we posted at the same time!

Nittanyalum and Irishpipes you guys are right, it is catholic with a small c. I'm just so used to writing Catholic meaning the Catholic Church that that one slipped out.

I was actually talking to my dad about this. I learned some interesting things. I thought he "left" the Roman Catholic Church, turns out, he just stopped going because he liked going to church with my mom and us kids. Apparently my mom and dad agreed that us kids would be raised Methodist for unknown reasons when my brother was born. He actually said today that he was thinking about going back. He's still super active in the Methodist Church, too. Turns out, my mom and dad were married by a priest AND a pastor, and it was actually my mom's pastor that got my mom's name wrong during the ceremony.

My mom also alluded to the fact a few years ago that my dad may have had a falling out with his home church somewhere in the late seventies, early eighties. As I understand, it was quite the turbulent time for the RC Church around then, and he just got fed up. He's never said why that was, though.

Regardless, to the topic at hand. Apparently, his understanding (and you guys have understand that his Catholic education was before Roe v. Wade) is that if you have an abortion, you're excommunicated. He said that when he does go to confession, and goes through the steps to get back in grace with the Church (can you imagine that? "My last confession was 30 years ago."), he will only mention how he voted if the priest asks him. He didn't vote for Obama because he was pro-choice, my dad voted for Obama because he just plain didn't like McCain, and fell more in line with Obama's other views.

I do think my Church would frown on abortion, but I have never heard anything about not voting for someone based on their views. My hometown is weird though - it's in the North, so it's pretty progressive (I think) on some points, but it's in a really rural area, so it's pretty status quo on other points. The sad part is all the kids keep moving out of town, my dad's one of the younger people in the church and he's 57. I think that's a problem with the Methodist Church as a whole, though, because when I went to church in Pittsburgh I was the youngest there by at least 30 years.

I've gone on another tangent. Sorry.

Tangents are often my favorite part of a thread.

Well now you know that Mike and Carol were married in 1978.

My mom was a little offended. Her name was Karen.

My youngest son's baptism was amazing - the bishop performed the super-deluxe, candle and salt included service - but forgot the critical words "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost". Nope - just plum forgot it. I whispered in my husband's ear "I don't think Liam is really baptized!" After the service we had the conditional "If this child has not been baptized, I baptize you . . ." So hey, just be glad it worked out with Carol/Karen and your dad. :)

The Church does not hold that abortion=excommunication. (The act of procuring an abortion does incur excommunication latae sententiae, but the catechism is clear that the scope of mercy is not restricted.) There is a lot of bad information out there, and much of it does stem from that yucky time after Vatican II when there was a lot of confusion within the Church itself. No sin is unforgiveable with true repentance. The Church even sponsors a program called Rachel's Vineyard to help those traumatized by abortion (usually women who have had them and have guilt). (As well as prison ministries for convicted murderers and other criminals, so there is a lot of evidence out there that the Church actively reaches out to every Catholic, and especially to those in most need of forgiveness.)

Your dad may be like a lot of Catholics who are having to learn a lot on their own. I went to Catholic schools for 13 years and never learned a thing about my religion that mattered. It was all social justice and Kumbayah. I was raised during that period where very liberal cafeteria Catholics were running a lot of the schools and parishes. It took my own initiative as an adult to put the pieces together. It helps that I was raised in a very Catholic home, but like your dad, there were plenty of things that I misunderstood from my youth.

28 and three quarters happy years of marriage - If I didn't believe in soul mates before I did when my mom got sick and my dad spent 12 hours a day, more if they let him, in the hospital with her.

Karen (alias Carol) is in non-denominational heaven now, I do believe. :)

Of course we are, somebody has to be. ;)

Having done the traveling church circuit a few times, the ELCA seems to have catholic with a little c, you guys have the footnote, and our good friends at the WELS just have Christian. They also changed the words, but shoot, they put an ellipsis in any scripture quote that might give women the right to blink, so that's not surprising. The WELS apparently used to have a footnote but it went away.

I had to do this too growing up - we had it down. Communion was always at 9:35 if we went to 9:00 Mass, so we'd eat donuts and milk at 9:28 or so every Sunday. ;)

It's really common at the churches in the midwest to see a lot of couples where one goes and one doesn't. At my church in Minnesota there were a lot of interfaith couples so they started offering a blessing at Communion to those who crossed their arms rather than stuck out their hands or their tongue.

Wow, you spent one year studying a 2000 year-old religion. You must know everything there is to know about it. I'll call the Pope on my special purple phone to let him know we have a new expert on doctrine in town. :rolleyes:

You are doing a nice job in this thread. That is all. :)

Yeah - I put the caveat in there that his Catholic education was from the 50s, he knows there's been a lot of changes/deeper understanding since then.

I made a pastoral comment at the start of this thread. I like to see a church meeting the needs of the congregants on its own terms. Any church.

The pastor was a Brady Bunch fan?

;)

I live in an area that is very evangelical Christian, and not very Catholic. I am a funeral cantor so it is extremely common for most of the congregation at a funeral to be non-Catholic. Our priests offer the crossed-arms blessing to them if they care to receive it. On regular Sundays all children who haven't received First Communion go up to get that blessing as well. (I never did growing up, but I grew up in a very Catholic area in a different part of the country. I think it is a nice cultural gesture.)

Ha or maybe he just saw the show right before heading off to the ceremony. I'm really glad my mom's name wasn't actually Carol. Otherwise, my brother's name would be Greg and my name would be Marcia.

My parents debated on having fun with our names before we were born. A play on words here, alliteration there... my dad saw the combo of my name/middle name in the newspaper. They thought they were freakin' funny. :p

I just want to add, in the Roman Catholic mass, when we recite "One holy, catholic and apostolic church" during the Nicene creed, it is also lower case and meaning "universal". That's why it is followed by "We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins" The RC church recognizes any Christian baptism. If you have been baptized in another denomination and go through RCIA to convert to Catholicism, you are not baptized again, you only do the sacraments of Communion and Confirmation. Most of the people in my RCIA group had been baptized already in some faith.

The RCIA experience was fascinating and I did it in a rather liberal RC church. The main concerns of most of the people in my group were the church's views on birth control and abortion. When we asked the Priest about those items in particular, he told us that ultimately, what you do is between you and God and if you truly felt that it was detrimental to bring a child into your life at some point, you needed to pray and discern with God what was best.

ETA: For some of us, there is no church that agrees with our belief systems 100%. Does that mean we can never worship in fellowship with others by attending church? Of course not. That just means that ultimately, it will be between us and God.

Not only no religious denomination agrees with my views 100%, but no political party or candidate does either.