Jerry, you seem to me distressed over the current situation. Permit me to offer this prayer in the Pastafarian style:
Flying Spaghetti Monster,
The noodliness of Your appendages reminds us of how You are ever reaching out to us, Your creation.
Wrap Jerry in the warm embrace of Your comfort, and baste him in the sauce of Your graces
that emboldened by Your favor, he will walk confidently in the path which You have set before him, that he may be a guide to others of Your children to do the same.
We ask this in the name of Your sauce, our Lord, the Anointed Salvation, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Al Dente Spirit, one Bowl, forever and ever.
Ramen
insert:moment_of_silence.wav
Pressing on now...
What kind of Church are we? Pretty much the opposite of the RCC...
If you'll excuse me for being a killjoy, I'm afraid Mr. LaVey beat you to that model
Nobody would dispute that the Pope has an iron grip on the Roman Catholic Church, which is the world's oldest and largest religious institution. But that doesn't make him Honcho over the Entire Planet!! In a similar vein, it's occasionally said that the President of the United States is the 'leader of the free world'. But that's not literally true, he's not even the actual ruler or titular head of Easter Island.
If the "free world" (pause for the forum's chuckle at the naivete of such an idea) were to decide that the government of Easter Island needed to take and/or refrain from some action to which it was not a mind to do, and it were to reach the level of the President of the USA, she or he is definitely granted the authority to command the level of power that could compel it to act otherwise. No one, however, would claim that the office could - on a whim - make dictates to the government of Easter Island without consequence - that office can't even get what it wants from its
own government much of the time, even with less than whimsical reason.
Similarly, the Pope does not dictate to even his own church, much less the others. If an alien species were to land on our planet and seek out the chief spiritual leader of our species, many would probably point out the lack of a unified belief on the matter, and others might even point to the Dalai Lama. If those same aliens said they were going to verify the person's response with a poll of a random sampling of other earthlings, with potential consequences for a "wrong" answer, I feel certain even the most ardently anti-papist Primitive Baptist would be tempted to mention he who sits upon the throne of St. Peter.
...which - for anyone who lost their program - is where this line of thought began. To turn this around, then: are you aware of some
other world religion which worships a personification of the underlying truth of reality? Or do you know of some other office which claims to be the appointed Vicar of Christ in His absence? Maybe its there, but I'm unaware of such things
The statue was built specifically in the image of the Moloch idol which appeared in the 1914 film Cabiria, in a scene in which babies were being fed into a fire in the belly of the beast. It's unmistakable that this is a monument to human sacrifice.
The Coliseum was, after all, the place where many Christians were sacrificed, so it seems like a rather appropriate placement. We're talking about, after all, a cult that places at the focal point of its worship space, an effigy of its own Lord being tortured to death
And so I rest my case, for Postflavian Spiritual Superiority over the Pope and the RCC.
If only we still lived in a spiritual age. But now we live in a political age, and a
democratic "democratic" one, at that :: shrugs ::
So you're saying that the difference between a "utilitarian charlatan" and your own position, is that you aren't really even hoping that anyone is going to believe you, any more than they believe radar images of Santa Clause?
Matthew 5:5-6 (NABRE) presents the words of our Lord as:
"When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you."
I don't think any of us here would imagine for a moment that the likes of Benny Hinn recites any prayers - certainly not to Jesus - in between cashing the social security checks of his sheep, and the placing of his head on his pillow at night. But what of someone like Stephen Colbert? While I think he's traded the edge he once had for pretty milquetoast toeing of the party line when it comes to entertainment value, he doesn't seem to get much of anything from his Catholicism beyond the intangible benefits of religion, and I would bet Bitcoins to bagels that he prays every day to a god he doesn't even believe in (in the way he believed as a child, at least).
Here he is on a Jesuit channel (no less), all but saying that he's an atheist (in any sense that your typical Southern Baptist would define such a matter):
Does the Catholic Church still excommunicate spiritual dissidents, or are they indulged as long as they don't go burning effigies of the Pope?
That's a great question! As I think we discussed previously, I had to cross this
pontus in my own RCIA journey to full communion with the Holy See when I shared with Fr. Kane my skepticism in a historical "Jesus of Nazareth." Obviously that worked out fine. My experience is that by and large, any good clergy has spent so much time in contemplation - and therefore doubt - of their
own faith, that - if anything - they
welcome someone who is willing to so openly share the doubt that they must know we all carry inside us. "Suffer little children... " and all that.
The potential sin is in deliberately
choosing to deny the possibility of believing the doctrines of the faith, rather than leaving oneself
open to the possibility that the Lord (through His supernatural graces, no doubt) could happen to move one to more perfectly believe in accord with the church.
At any rate, I am still confused about your position, Marcilla. Are you a Postflavian at heart, working undercover within the Catholic Church? Or are you a Catholic trying to get us to acknowledge that the Pope is the World Spiritual Honcho?
Rest assured that I receive no compensation based on what anyone else does or doesn't acknowledge. Besides, where is the possibility that I'm working
overtly within HMC? Or my identity as a Wesleyan-Anglo-Catholic Certified Lay Servant in the UMC? Or as a Minerval of the OTO? Or as an ordained minister in the ULC or First Church of Atheism? Or as a UU? Or as a Presbyteress in the Universal Church triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic? Or as an Anarcho-Catholic-Internationalist? "Make America
Even More Catholic"?
I would think it would be disheartening to work within Catholicism. This
warning post from Charles Eisenstein comes to mind:
But how will you ever know whether the potion will grow or shrink you until you drink it, Alice?
Taking the IRS at their word, where do we stand as Postflavians?
Near the starting line? I think some basic questions left unanswered are: "what do you worship?" "What is your liturgy?"
Answering these questions for their own sake may not be the best path to legitimization. Consider the raised eyebrows with which (entirely) new religious movements are viewed, when compared to those which splinter from some already established tradition. Certainly this is affected by your end goal. Weren't you, Jerry, known to frequent a UU church on occasion? Do you disagree with the UU stance on vaccinations? How do you feel about the idea of legitimately splitting from the main body of the UUA over the issue?
Now I'm excited, because Marcilla really has grokked our most important central teaching. "Postflavians Call All Institutional Truths Into Question." Discovering the truth about Christianity is just the starting point.
And I am in turn excited that you've grokked the need to decide on a starting point
Now who's our target audience?
Oh, that opened a memory cell, today is the anniversary of my becoming a Doctor of Divinity in that church, many years ago. I had become a Minister six months earlier, primarily because the Beatles were members of that church. No, I never made use of my "credentials", "
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law".
Love is the Law - Love, under Will.
So we are all ordained in the Universal Life Church?
That would be the OTO, but surely not the Universal Life Church?
Oh, please! Despite the pearl-clutching of the trads, isn't it in line even with the doctrine of HMC?
"I delight to do thy will, O my God;
thy law is within my heart." --Psalm 40:8 (RSVCE)
