Filum Romanum - A Thread for the Catholic Church

Random thought, one that isn't necessarily strictly about Catholicism but rather Christianity in general.

At least according to the Bible Jesus was a carpenter (or mason) before starting his ministry. How come there are no Christian traditions involving crafting things?

Probably because carpenting played no significant role in Jesus' teachings, as far as I'm aware.

He used to be a carpenter, then he wasn't anymore.

Jesus' carpentry/masonry trade prior to his ministry is generally not relevant theologically speaking. At most, it was brought up as demonstrating Jesus being respectful — the way I understand it, Jewish tradition was that a dutiful son was responsible for his mother (especially since Joseph had died already leaving Mary a widow) until around age 30 (coincidentally, right when his ministry began).

Though all that manual labor probably helped when it came time to flip off the money-changers at the temple.

Edited by megarockman on Feb 27th 2021 at 7:51:06 AM

Hm. Both of you got points.

Edited by dRoy on Feb 27th 2021 at 10:13:08 PM

I've also heard a few time the translation might be incorrect there and his actual job was as a stonemason.

Yeah I think the translation may be uncertain, it could have been carpenter, stonemason, architect or similar.

Well, given the way construction was done in those days, being a carpenter also meant preparing beams for houses and it's likely that he also picked up some knowledge of stonemasonry by inertia.

Now, there might have been some religious traditions related to masonry back in Antiquity, the Middle Ages or the Modern Era for all we know, but I'm not sure any mainstream tradition survived until today.

Perhaps there's one or two rural communities that have a tradition revolving around crafting things but you'd have to explore outside of the city to find out. I speak from experience because, at least in the highlands of Peru, there are many religious traditions that are kept alive by the local communities and rarely get the spotlight.

Pope Francis is heading to Iraq to meet Iraqi political/religious leaders and hold mass there for the local Catholic community with security work being in the works.

Going to Baghdad would be highly symbolic considering it used to be centre of the Islamic world and was home to the famed House of Wisdom.

I pray for the best for Pope Francis.

(Insert jokes about the Catholics finally winning the Crusades)

US Conference of Catholic Bishops says: If you have a better choice, don't get the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, due to the use of abortion-derived fetal stem cells in the production.

They do say that if it's your only choice, get vaccinated.

Are people currently being given a choice of vaccine? My understanding is that you get the vaccine that your vaccination centre has on hand.

In Serbia, we get to choose between five vaccines. But we choose the vaccine or vaccines we want to take online and are called when we have them on hand.

Pope Francis was given a big welcome after he got to Iraq.

@Silasw At least where I live, the state lists which sites are offering which vaccines and it's up to the patient to make an appointment with the site.

Security is high in Iraq, given that some Shia militias don't like Pope Francis' visit and call it foreign interference.

The Pope is due to visit ex-ISIL territory in Iraq.

As usual, more security is expected.

Is it true that the concept of Purgatory is a purely catholic invention that has no basis in the Bible or was that merely some anti-catholic nonsense I just read up?

Edited by Forenperser on Mar 8th 2021 at 4:08:20 PM

I was under the impression Purgatory was made up by Dante for The Divine Comedy, much like how a lot of the popular interpretation of Hell comes from that poem when in truth it's something closer to Cessation of Existence.

Not precisely. It's a Catholic interpretation of the purpose of praying for the dead (which is in 2 Maccabees, a book that's canon to the Catholics, but not to Protestants or Jews). The belief had become commonplace well before Dante, though (12th century or thereabouts).

Edited by Ramidel on Mar 8th 2021 at 11:17:06 AM

Yeah the bit on Purgatory is scriptural extrapolation. The specific interpretation of Purgatory as a physical locale is what's more of a folk Catholicism concept without much basis in scripture.

It's basically the Catholic counterpart to the protestant belief in The Rapture in that sense, but significantly less harmful.

In 1274, at the Second Council of Lyon, the Catholic Church agreed that:

• some souls are purified after death
• such souls benefit from the prayers and pious duties that the living do for them.

Its translation is done thus on Wikipedia:

In 1431 the Council of Florence added the concept of punishments and that mass and other stuff should be held in the name of the dead

On December 4 1563, the Council of Trent added that the church was getting pretty annoyed by people asking "OMG DID X FIGURE MAKE IT INTO PURGATORY!?!?" and they answered with a "shut the fuck up". But in latin. So it was either "shuttus fuckus uppus" or...

Of note, Dante Aligheri wrote The Divine Comedy between 1308 and 1320, but it was not super popular back then. Took a few hundred years for it to pick up the traction we see to it today. So, when it began to pick up that traction and they saw the brutal fanfic where Dante placed figures in hell and purgatory left and right suddenly everyone wanted their own fanfic answers questioned and The Catholic Church pulled literal Word of God to make instead of a Shrug of God a "You are too dumb for this, plebe" of God.

Anyways the other two more "modern" mentions of purgatory belong to some of the former popes, Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger) and Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla).

People wondered if Purgatory was a place of flame and punishment, but Benedict XVI asked theologians to follow the interpretation of Saint Catherine of Genoa:

Regarding it being a specific place, John Paul II says the following on a 1999 general audience:

A Ramidel rightly mentions, the bit about Purgatory is stated by 2 Maccabees 12:42-45 that Protestants regard as Apocryphal

The ultimate interpretation of the scriptures belongs to the institution of the Catholic Church, so those councils brought up defined it thus

Edited by Aszur on Mar 8th 2021 at 3:58:21 AM

for such informative and yet hilarious post (I literally spat out my drink at the shutupus the fuckus part)

Edited by dRoy on Mar 8th 2021 at 9:09:05 PM

As a general rule I think that its accepted that Dante made up very little in the Divine Comedy but unintentionally became the single greatest source for what is sometimes described as "folk religion," popular beliefs that aren't officially sanctioned by the authorities.

The Divine Comedy is a case in which the mix up between Classical mythology, medieval events and legitimate Catholic doctrine can leave someone scratching their heads on what parts are truly dogma and what is just story elements.

The ladies that appear in Purgatorio for instance are meant to represent the Three Theological Virtues, a concept that later on evolved to incorporate the Four Cardinal Virtues and became the Seven Heavenly Virtues.