Hi Anne..I hope things are going well for you. When I wrote faith and morals ..I mean those *laws * that were passed down from Peter (the first pope) those laws which are immutable. The examples you have given are very true...but those are traditions ... things that evolved over the course of the church. I would disagree with you about the fasting..and confession. ....still there and encouraged. ( I remember the first time I saw my principal out of her traditional habit...I could not believe it. She not only had legs but hair too!)Bree wrote: I feel I must defend the CHURCH. The Catholic church is like any other club..organization.. in that that have tenets..rules to follow. When you join anything one usually agrees with the rules..if not, get out. The Catholic church on morals and faith will not change with the whims of man.I have to respectfully disagree with you on this one, Bree. In my lifetime, the church has changed its stance on some rules that I was told were vitally important when I was young. These may seem trivial, but as people followed them less and less, the church changed its mind about their importance and pretty much abandoned them altogether:
But those stances that *even* the pope CAN NOT change because they did not come from man.( Approval for abortion..euthanasia.) Because certain laws/rules came directly from God and given to His church through HIS SON JESUS. That all life is sacred...therefore the pope, the Church, can not give it's approval to abortion.
Take care..
Bree
- women wearing a hat in church (nobody does that anymore. I had to put a &*#$@ kleenex on my head once to enter a Catholic church as a kid!) - not eating meat on Friday (enter McDonalds and that went out the window) - nuns wearing the traditional "habit" (sorry, a burqa by any other name... now nuns wear suits or something) - fasting from 12:00 to 3:00 on Good Friday (everyone's at work; who fasts?) -having to go to confession to receive communion (I'm not so sure anyone goes to confession anymore...) - quickly bowing one's head when saying the name "Jesus" - genuflecting (quickly kneeling on one knee) before entering the pew of the church or when passing in front of the altar (although my brother and sisters and I all remembered to do this long forgotten gesture at my father's funeral when we went up onto the alter to do the readings, which impressed my mother and various assorted relatives!) I know these can be seen as mostly ceremony. Yet, I think it illustrates that churches/religions do change with the times. Thanks for listening. lots of love Anne
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