Filum Romanum - A Thread for the Catholic Church

I'm content that the Vatican acknowledged need for continuation of Vatican 2 since both Wojtyla and Ratzinger did their utmost to counter any progress made by their precedessors.

This may sound like a stupid question, but what exactly is Vatican 2?

Complicated.

From Simple English Wikipedia:

Basically, the First Vatican Council was a furious, Counter-Enlightenment-esque reaction to the sweeping changes like modernity and socialism, and which doubled down on issues like biblical literalism (the Church didn't officially acknowledge the truth of evolution until 1950 (Humani Generis), and the Jesuits waged a fierce campaign against it during the 19th century). The Second Vatican Council was another one. In it, the church embraced more modern doctrines, such as letting Mass being in different languages.

edited 12th Apr '13 10:15:07 AM by Achaemenid

About Vatican II, am I the only one who does not really care about the liturgical language issue? I can see the advantage of using national languages; but I can also see the advantage, and the symbolic significance, of using one single language, and the homily was in the national languages already...

I care much more about its publishing of Lumen Gentium, which finally allowed for some collaboration between Catholicism and other Christian denominations.

edited 12th Apr '13 10:40:01 AM by Carciofus

You kind of had to be there before Vatican II to understand the difference allowing the Mass in the vernacular made.

I was. And I can still reel off the Latin responses, if I'm given the proper Latin cues and I don't stop to think about what I need to say. But that's just it: the Latin was noises that meant nothing to me. I didn't really understand what I was saying when I said "Et cum spirtitu tuo"; I just knew it was what I was supposed to say when the priest said "Dominus vobiscum." (I didn't really understand what he was saying, either. I just recognized my cue.) Which meant that a lot of the Mass was really nothing more than more-or-less-Pavlovian conditioning: Hear <this>; Say <that>; Everybody is happy. And that applied to roughly 90% of the Mass; the readings were in a language I could understand, and the homily, and the intentions, but the rest of it? Was gibberish.

And I don't even want to touch the fooforaw that arose about exactly how to translate the Latin...

edited 12th Apr '13 12:16:25 PM by Madrugada

Perhaps I'm spoiled by having a native language that is closely related to Latin. I dunno, when I were in the Netherlands I often went to the Mass in Latin — it was conveniently nearby, and I liked the chants — and to be honest, I had far more trouble with the readings in Dutch than with the Latin liturgy

But yeah, probably my experience was not typical.

Could that be because you don't speak Dutch?*

Yeah, that was definitely part of it

(I tried to learn it, I really did; but people kept answering in English, and in far better English than I could use...)

The switch from the Latin parts to the Dutch ones of the liturgy was very jarring, I have to say — one moment you heard the polysyllabic, flowing sounds of Ecclesiastical Latin, and the next one you were hit by a cluster of consonants straight out of R'lyeh

edited 12th Apr '13 12:49:19 PM by Carciofus

You're Italian, right? What you ran into with the Dutch was what many of us dealt with everyday with the Latin Mass. So take your experience and reverse it: the whole Mass is in Dutch, except for the readings...

edited 12th Apr '13 1:42:21 PM by Madrugada

If masses in Poland was celebrated in Latin, the level of ignorance among Catholics would skyrockets. And it's already over 9000 without that. Let's see:

90 % of people here are nominally Catholics. 2/3 of them are hypocrites who don't believe at all or are deists but attend Church during major festivals to keep up appearances. Probably only 1/3 truly believe in God. And overwhelming majority of those 1/3 would be heretics from Catholic viewpoint, so they beliefs are infused with pseudo-Paganism and magical superstitions. Yet many of them believe they are the true Catholics *facepalms*

While I don't have problem with the Catholic Church unless I have specific reason to criticize it, I held Polish Catholics, both hierarchy and worshippers, in contempt unless they are proved to be more like mainstream Catholics.

edited 12th Apr '13 11:26:36 PM by CaptainKatsura

Poland to unveil world's biggest statue of JPII

Fiberglass? Really? Seems a bit... tacky.

Language does not work that way. First of all, Jesus was speaking in Aramic, and Matthew was written in greek. The Vulgate that you quote is already twice translated.

Second, the "Peter" that you spoke of was named "Simon, son of Jonah". This line is literally the first time where Jesus is giving him the nickname. In context, he is basically saying "I name you Rock, because you are the rock that I shall build my church on".

There was no pun intended, Jesus just gave Simon a meaningful nickname that was not considered a first name at the time. Note that the later books by Paul still refer to the apostole "Cephas", which is aramic for rock. Peter's own letters translated the nickname to "Petros", and the Vulgatae translated it to "Petrus", and it got translated to english as "Peter", and then it became a first name in all three languages.

I'm aware that Jesus wasn't actually punning - but whoever did the original Vulgate obviously had a sense of humor. "Cephas" isn't Aramaic for rock - it more properly translates as "ball" or "clump".

edited 13th Apr '13 8:05:38 AM by Achaemenid

Except that Jesus was already obviously using cephas to mean stone, and not saying that Simon is to be called the Ball that he is building his Church on. And it was not the Vulgate that first made this translation, Peter's letters in greek already call him Petros, (their authorship is contested but in either case they were written centuries before the vulgatae translation).

In fact, John 1:42's recital of the same incident contains an aramic You Are the Translated Foreign Word note that makes it clear that Petros is indeed the liteeral translation of Cephas:

edited 13th Apr '13 8:25:35 AM by Ever9

Fair enough - the local priest who also taught religious studies at my school always said it was a joke.

Pope sets up an eight Cardinal working group on Curia Reform.

Question for homework: What's the Church's official line on converting members of other faiths?

"Awesome, let's do that as much as we can".

Catholics don't generally do the whole door-to-door preaching thing; but Catholicism has definitely universal ambitions — it's in the name — and it aspires to be the religion of humankind.

Which does not mean that we cannot get along with people of other faiths, of course.

edited 13th Apr '13 9:04:10 AM by Carciofus

OK, thanks. Any official Church documentation I can refer to?

Catechism of the Catholic Church. The whole section that I linked is relevant to your question.

Consider in particular art. 816:

and Art. 845

However, one should also keep in mind Art. 819 and 843, that recognize that good can be found also in non-Catholic religions, and Art. 847, which allows for the possibility that non-Catholics/Christians who do not know that Catholicism is the true religion could obtain salvation.

K, that's all I need. Thanks!

You might also be interested in the Doctrinal Note on some aspects of evangelization, which, among other things, reminds us that

Oh, and if you need some references about the formal process of conversion to Catholicism, look at the Wikipedia page for RCIA. The whole process takes at least one year, usually more — it's not just a matter of going "'kay, I'm Catholic now", and this is exactly for the purpose of allowing people to take this sort of decision slowly.

edited 13th Apr '13 9:31:18 AM by Carciofus

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22131957

I'm ashamed of my country. The largest and kitchest statue of Jesus in the world is not enough?

Non-Catholics and few sane Catholics left here joke that soon Poland will deify Karol Wojtyła since even canonization won't be enough.

List of heretical (from Catholic POV) things Polish Catholic apparently believe, according to research:

- reincarnation

- that animals have immortal souls

- magic, divination and other occult bullshit

- some reject existence of Trinity

edited 13th Apr '13 9:58:28 AM by CaptainKatsura

Strictly speaking, animals having souls is not heretical. According to Aquinas, all living beings have souls (but only human beings have "rational souls").

EDIT: I see, immortal souls. Yeah, that is not standard Catholic doctrine (but I don't know if it has been declared heretical).

edited 13th Apr '13 10:00:59 AM by Carciofus

Yes, I'm aware that Acquinas claimed that animals have earthly souls that are however mortal. I'm quite familiar with Catholic theologists for an unbeliever. I could even put to shame some of priests here (I noticed that only group of priests here of whom majority is good at theology are jesuists and dominicans. And they often accuse Polish Church of lagging severely behind western theology).

It's quite a shame that contemporary Polish theologists are on par with those from 15th and 16th century. Paweł Włodkowic was one of the first teologians who claimed that Pope and Holy Roman Emperor has no right to conquer pagans in order to convert them since it's likely only excuse to take their lands and converting pagans to Christian faith should be done peacefully.

edited 13th Apr '13 10:13:31 AM by CaptainKatsura