Do Bishops Speak For All Catholics?

When a lay Catholic disagrees with a clergyman – especially a bishop – it is, at best, one of those “isn’t that cute?” situations, the same condescending attitude you’d give a child who’s trying out a new vocabulary word in the wrong context.   At worst, of course, the lay Catholic is blaspheming grossly (how dare she?!) and isn’t it a shame we can’t burn her at the stake anymore.  

I guess it´s difficult for most religious people to separate their faith from their religions.
Faith is what supernatural believes you have, it´s personal. Religion is the system that dictates what your faith must be like, it´s collective.
Of course sometimes your personal beliefs are gonna conflict with your religion´s position on some matter. But for them it´s better to cope with it or try to fit the dogmas in what they believe, sometimes even trying to rationalize things, than realize they don´t actually need a priest/bishop/iman/rabbi/shaman/whatever to tell them what they must believe in.
There´s also the cultural and social side of the thing. For some people, especially in small cities, religion cults are all social interaction they have, and they do this since childhood, with parents telling them it´s the right thing. Turning away from this is like losing a part of themselves.
Not all situations are as easy as Anita Ciannilli´s, unfortunatelly.

“So if I don’t agree with what my President is saying, or how my Congress votes, should I also stop identifying as an American?”

If you don’t think that a democratically elected government is viable or right, if you live in Southeast Asia, declare your home to be in Scotland, and recognize a monarch as your leader, then I would say you should stop identifying as an American.

I think the root of the question is this: does there exist some threshold of shared belief that needs to be achieved for any individual to consider themselves part of a group?  If yes, how does one go about establishing that threshold?  If no, what *are* the characteristics of belonging to a group – is simple declaration enough?  Can I identify myself as Canadian even though I have exactly zero ties to Canadian soil, culture, ‘birth-right’, or even a funny accent?  Do I get to be part of the Nickelback fan-club even though I detest the band?  Can I call myself a member of the US Republican party and while having massive love for big federal government?  Can I be a Catholic and not believe in the existence of god?

“Catholic” doesn’t just mean what the Pope or his bishops say it means, but also what people who identify as Catholics mean. I don’t think there are very many atheist Catholics, but someday there could be, just as there are many atheist Jews.

For now, it’s a matter of opinions about points of doctrine- some arcane, some less so. And there almost certainly is a threshold- disagree with too much, and you may simply stop identifying with the Church. Disagree with only some matters, and you might reasonably decide to stay, and either ignore those things (most are practically unenforceable), or perhaps push for change.

Either way, it’s a personal decision. I would not call a Catholic wrong (or foolish, or silly, or anything else) for continuing to identify as a Catholic while disagreeing with some decisions the Church has made. Nor would I have a problem with them leaving. Either way, it’s not my decision, and I usually wouldn’t even be comfortable making a suggestion one way or the other.

I’m not happy with the FFRF “Leave the Church” campaign, because I think it’s ineffective and maybe even counterproductive. I’d rather see something that uses the points of Catholic doctrine that are internally divisive to help drive change. How about “Leave the collection plate empty until the Bishops start speaking for me”? I think a lot more Catholics will respond to things that offer them positive support for helping facilitate change than will go along with the suggestion to quit.

 Right up until a Muslim family-owned company will tell non-Muslim employees they can’t have a ham sandwich for lunch. Which has already happened at least once.

I respectfully disagree.  If you are a Catholic and do not believe in God, you are living a lie.

How so? There may be aspects of the religion you like, even as an atheist. Or it may be a social outlet. You’re only living a lie if you fool yourself about why you choose to identify as “Catholic”.

Anyway, as I said, I don’t think the idea of atheist Catholics is really an issue now. They are rare. But the Church changes, and it is likely to look very different in the future.

Very informative Dave but you didn’t tell is what you do to prevent getting pregnant. Or are you just popping out the babies like a good catholic should.

I don’t disagree.  I know several Catholics in various stages of separation.  My hope is that for all of them rationality and sciences prevails.

Condoms cause breast cancer?   

I think, though, that this issue really does go beyond simple disagreement.

The Church has repeatedly affirmed that its position on contraception is infallible.  It’s God’s incontrovertible law, it’s the law of Nature itself, and it’s something that is simply not open to disagreement or debate.   What’s also not open for debate is that the deliberate use of any form of birth control (even withdrawal) is a mortal sin.  Meaning it’s not just a kind of bad thing they don’t like very much – it’s an act which will condemn you to Hell for eternity if you don’t repent it.

The church’s position on this is very strong, even extreme.  It’s also backed by very well-reasoned Biblical exegesis. Dissenting with the Church hierarchy on this position isn’t just disagreeing about a minor lifestyle choice.  It’s a grave act of heresy.  And maintaining that it is just a minor difference of opinion over a lifestyle choice, of no greater magnitude or import than the philosophical differences that atheists might have among each other, doesn’t just understate the case.  It implies that one disagrees with the Church hierarchy over the deepest fundaments of the faith itself.  Atheists, purely by virtue of being people who do not believe in eternal souls, simply cannot have a difference of opinion among themselves that’s anywhere close to as dire as this one.

Get this into your tiny, tiny brain:

Employers never provide birth control or any other medicine or medical procedure. They provide insurance. And just like don’t get to decide how people spend their salary, they don’t get to decide what that insurance is used for.

You’re exaggerating greatly there

 There IS a threshold of shared belief that needs to be achieved for any individual to consider themselves a Catholic. It’s called the catechism and it makes no mention of contraception. (I think the existence of God is made pretty clear in there though, but the author of the letter makes no attempt to deny that aspect of Catholicism anyway.)

Actually, the Catechism of the Catholic Church specifically mentions it more than once.  See CCC 2370 (everything but the rhythm method is “intrinsically evil”) and CCC 2399 (contraception is “morally unacceptable”).

That would be a good point, except that in cases where there is a real medical issue, the OCs would be covered – despite the fact that they don’t cure anything, they just mask symptoms (not an ideal approach, medically speaking).

There is no reason for your employer to be compelled to pay your wages partly in porn videos, just because that’s how you want to be paid. If it’s really just compensation, why not make it cash? – then it’s truly up to your merry little conscience what you spend it on.

I used to have enormous respect for Catholicism because it had produced so much great music, art, and literature.  But it comes at way too high of a cost.   I now think that it is past time that every single person of conscience leave the Catholic church.  Its corruption is too great and its bigotry too entrenched.  The leaders have decided that misogyny, homophobia, and a twisted view of reproduciton oare the hill they are willing to die defending.  Let them.  Come out of her, that great whore.  Come out.

Um Judaism and Catholicism are not really comparable. Judaism is an ethnicity as well as a religion. 

No, if you don’t like what your president or congress is doing and saying, theoretically (obviously this works very imperfectly, especially these days), you vote out the people that are saying and doing it. Same thing goes for unions or clubs. All of those things have at least some pretense to being representative bodies. This is not the case with the Catholic Church. They are essentially a religious monarchy. Their leaders are in no way accountable to the laity and can do whatever they want without ever having to worry about their careers. There’s only one thing that could possibly scare the Church out of the Middle Ages and that’s if people start leaving.

That is what I believe but that doesn’t mean I’m not sympathetic to liberal and moderate Catholics. I am Jewish, not Catholic, but I grew up in a heavily Catholic area and I’ve witnessed the sense of community and identity that the Church can foster and I can understand why people don’t want to leave that. I think it is lovely and idealistic that so many liberal Catholics want to “stay and fight” in their Church but I also think that they’re fooling themselves if they think that that will work. What reason do the bishops have to listen to anything they say? What do they have to fear from them? That they’ll vote them out of office?

I don’t envy the predicament of liberal Catholics. But there’s no way around the reality that the Church is not set up to respond to dissent within its ranks.

As for the Church not kicking you out for publicly voicing disagreement, tell that to one of my old professors who was excommunicated for doing exactly that.

It’s simple really. If the RCC doesnt want people getting OC’s on their health benefits they should stop offering benefits. That way they needn’t have this compulsion to break the law. Or stick their dirty noses into the sex lives of their employees.

The
question is a complicated one and it’s simply not useful to say what are the
criteria for belonging to a “group”. It depends on the group and how
it’s defined. Now “Catholic” DOES just mean what the Pope say(s) it
means. There are other meanings for catholic, as in Anglo-Catholics, but for
the common usage, it is holding to the faith of the Roman Church, which is
defined by the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, Successor of Peter, etc. etc., and NO
ONE else. That being said, denial of the Church’s teaching on contraception, is
not apostasy. The teaching is not an infallible one. The teaching that the Pope
alone defines the Catholic faith is, and denying that is a perfect example of a
belief which puts you out of the Faith.

This applies to some groups more than others. The Catholics aren’t going to kick you out if you disagree with them, or don’t follow all their doctrine. So there’s obviously quite a lot of flexibility in one’s personal identification with “Catholic”.

“Is this woman doing something good by taking a stand against her church
or is she deluding herself by remaining one of its numbers?”

Both.  I admire her for standing up to them but like so many of those “change them from the inside” types I think she’s deluded if she thinks they’re ever going to evolve on such matters.

Right, because a lot of Jewish holidays and traditions are ethnic/cultural celebrations. Purim doesn’t even have anything to do with God. You can remove God from a lot of Jewish tradition and it’s still Jewish. You can’t remove God from Catholicism and have it still be Catholic. Jewishness is defined by a people. Catholicism is defined by a doctrine–it has to be, because Christianity was always a religion that was meant to be trans-cultural and trans-ethnic, as opposed to Judaism, which is essentially a tribal religion, specific to a certain tribe.

The point is that since at least Vatican II, they don’t squash lay people anymore. They go after theologians, clergy or other higher ranking employees, yes. But they don’t give a fuck about whether an ordinary church goer believes doctrine or not. Coupled with the loss of prestige and authority of the priests, that’s why you see so much dissent about things like contraception and gay rights these days.

 Actually it is closer to requiring the company to provide  food coupons for lunch (part of their wages) and preventing the company from restricting the coupons to non-pork items.   In addition the coupons with pork restrictions are more expensive then those without (the insurance companies don’t seem to be complaining about the birth control extra probably because providing birth control for dozens of women is still cheaper than paying for one unplanned simple pregnancy (and not all pregnancies are simple)).

Whether people can successfully remove God from their Catholicism depends on them, and on how their church evolves. More than a few hundred years ago it would have been unthinkable to Jews that they could separate their religion from God.

Judaism is an ethnicity as well as a religion.

Christianity doesn’t look like an ethnicity because it’s dominant. But one could easily argue that in Israel, Judaism isn’t an “ethnicity”, it’s just the local culture.

But if it helps, you can substitute “Irish Catholic” (or other ethnic equivalent) for “Catholic”.

Or she might know her church history well enough to know that the church is in a constant state of evolution. Unfortunately, it tends to evolve slower than people would like, but that could also change.

They fix the not having children part. And they don’t mask the symptoms, they treat the symptoms. Other medication is used to treat the actual disease, but bc pills can and do successfully treat the symptoms caused by endometriosis, ovarian cysts, and a host of other female maladies. Treating the symptoms of these diseases and problems makes life more enjoyable and livable. Have you ever had endometriosis, ovarian cysts, pelvic inflammatory disease, or anemia caused by heavy periods? All of the painful and dangerous (PID can lead to infertility if not treated) symptoms of these can be alleviated using birth control pills.

Oh, and here are some other benefits of the birth control pill (specifically, the “combination” pill):
protection against:
bone thinning, acne, breast growths that are not cancer, ectopic pregnancy, endometrial and ovarian cancers, serious infection in the ovaries, tubes, and uterus, iron deficiency anemia, cysts in the breasts and ovaries, premenstrual symptoms, including headaches and depression, bad cramps, heavy and/or irregular periods

But I guess women deserve better than protection against all of those things. Might you suggest a better, cheaper and easier alternative than one simple pill a day (that has the added benefit of preventing unplanned pregnancies)??

I actually do belong to a church (not Catholic, obviously) where the members own the church, and the churches voluntarily associate into a national organization. Legally, the members own the church and indirectly control 100% of the funding of the national organization.

You do not give a shit about women or little girls, no catholic does. Keep your child raping cult out of my life.

Catholic Church excommunicates mother and doctors of a nine-year-old rape victim that had abortion – but not accused rapistRead more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/catholic-church-excommunicates-mother-and-doctors-of-a-nineyearold-rape-victim-that-had-abortion-ndash-but-not-accused-rapist-16163052.html#ixzz1yzGw8sNe

 p.s. You are a misogynistic catholic creep.

You’re right, they treat symptoms, but mask the underlying problem. The problem is – and I know this from listening to real women – that the little pill is often the only thing done about some of these problems. It’s the quick easy fix, and then we can just ignore all the downsides. Anyway, I’ll repeat, this is still just a red herring. Medical insurance can cover OCs prescribed for medical reasons. The conscience objection is with regard to having insurance pay for contraception, which has nothing to do with caring for anybody’s health.

LOL! Everything’s simple if you just stick your head in the sand and ignore all the real issues.

sorry – second paragraph should end with the word “obesity,” not “pregnancy.”

 You completely ignored what I said. Using the bc pill to treat the symptoms is not masking the problem. Nobody said that bc pills cure those things, it clearly says that they help with the symptoms and make daily life easier, and I listed a whole host of problems that bc pills help to prevent. More than 50% of women use bc pills for health purposes, not always only for health purposes, but it is a reason given for using them. Contraception is part of health care. Pregnancy and child birth affect a woman’s health. Preventing unplanned pregnancies is health care. Also, insurance that only covers bc pills for medical purposes is notorious for taking too long to respond to the medical problem, forcing women to prove that they are using the pill only for medical purposes. Often, it takes too long to cut through all of the “medical purpose only” red tape, and women suffer in the mean time because they can’t afford to pay for it out-of-pocket. Meanwhile, men can get their ED medication with virtually no trouble at all. All they need is a prescription.

 I’ll ask again: what is your alternative for treating the symptoms/preventing the following problems:  bone thinning, acne, breast growths that are not cancer, ectopic
pregnancy, endometrial and ovarian cancers, serious infection in the
ovaries, tubes, and uterus, iron deficiency anemia, cysts in the breasts
and ovaries, premenstrual symptoms, including headaches and depression,
bad cramps, heavy and/or irregular periods

The bc pill is basically hormone therapy which can be used to treat many maladies and has the added benefit of giving women control over their sexuality. How is that not real health care?

Also, don’t come on here and blatantly lie about the bc pill causing breast cancer (when it can actually help prevent it) and infertility (when it is commonly used to treat Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, which actually can cause infertility if not treated).

 Ever source I’ve ever looked up about NFP, or the rhythm method, or fertility awareness methods shows that it is at the bottom of the chart when it comes to effectiveness at preventing pregnancy. The rate of pregnancy while practicing NFP is at about 25 pregnancies per 100 women using it each year. The condom is 15-24 pregnancies per 100, the pill, patch, ring and shot are all 2-9 pregnancies per 100.

Here are just a few sources on that: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-topics/birth-control/birth-control-effectiveness-chart-22710.htm
http://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/birth-control-methods.cfm#d

I have found nothing that suggest NFP helps to prevent or treat any of the things oral contraceptives do. Is that enough research? Or do you have some citations I can peruse for a while?

NFP refers to any of the scientifically developed successors of the rhythm method. Is there a problem with antibiotics in our rivers and lakes harming fish? I’ve never heard of that. In any case, the issue would be completely different, since antibiotics are always used with the intention of treating actual diseases – they are actual ‘health’ care.

Of course I ignored a lot of what you said – most of it was pure red herring. I’m not going to go through each condition you list and detail possible treatments for each one. Don’t be ridiculous. Your accusation of blatant lies is also ridiculous. OCs do increase the risk of breast cancer in the group I mentioned – that’s what the research indicates.

 I just found this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8656904
But it’s from 1996 (a little outdated) and even it says that the risk found is minimal and disappears after women stop using it, and that more study is needed to actually see what the relationship between oral contraceptives and breast cancer are.

And I found this: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/oral-contraceptives#r2

Which seems to suggest that the link between oral contraceptives and breast cancer is minimal at best and then goes on about how oral contraceptives significantly reduce women’s chances of getting other kinds of cancer. See those key words: minimal risk (if any) is used for breast cancer, and significantly reduce is used for the other cancers.

Thanks for coming out as a pointless troll.

No, I really think that’s what you’re doing. Take endometriosis. Women with this condition (my wife, for example) usually just get the pill. Yippee! The symptoms are more manageable. If the condition cured? No. And most doctors just don’t care – why? – because they’ve given you a band-aid, which, however ignores the root problem. Now again, I’m not going into a lengthy discussion of every health issue you list – that’s a ridiculous demand and its mostly all red herring. But I invite you to read the following and think about it some more:

http://liveactionnews.org/media/i-think-its-cute-how-much-jezebel-loves-being-wrong-about-things/

Maybe you’ll find it easier to be receptive to a woman saying these things who has personal experience with these issues.

Out of arguments are we Dave?

 Being an American is not nearly as optional as being Catholic. You have to live somewhere, in some country, and whatever country you live in will have a government, and that government is going to do things that you don;t like occasionally. But again: You have to live somewhere. You don’t have to be a Catholic, or be a member of any church.

You should quit your union if its positions no longer reflect yours. It’s a matter of degrees: What position did your union take and how important is it to you?

If you don’t like your “local atheist club,” you can quit the club, but you need not stop being an atheist, since simply atheism merely reflects your view that there is no god. Likewise, you quit Catholicism (indeed, you quit religion) and still believe in Christ.

“The fact is that the Catholic Church “won’t kick you out for disagreeing with them.” This is false. It will, in fact, excommunicate you, if your disagreement is serious enough and you disagree loudly enough.

But the question here is not whether it will kick you out, but why anyone wishes to remain in an organization whose values don’t reflect their own.

Of course, atheists misunderstand Catholicism somewhat on this issue. Contraception is not that big a deal, really. The child abuse crisis was and is a far better reason to leave the church than a theoretical disagreement about the Pill.

I think it’s fine to remain a part of the church despite not sharing ALL of its official views. Again, it’s a matter of degree. When you find yourself disagreeing more than agreeing, then I think it’s time ask yourself: In what sense are you actually Catholic?

As noted elsewhere, excommunication does not mean the Church has kicked you out. They still acknowledge you as a member, and they expect you to do the same (although why any sane person would is beyond me).

Otherwise, I agree completely. It’s all about where each person draws their own line. It is the suggestion (common in this forum) that anybody who has objections to Catholic doctrine can’t be a “real” Catholic and should leave the Church that I find problematic. People should leave the Church when they feel they should- not when other people feel that way. There’s nothing wrong with staying and fighting for change. The Catholic Church looks the way it does today because of hundreds of years of pressure from its membership.

Lots of drugs that contaminate groundwater, not just abx but anticonvulsants and mood stabilizers. And they harm not just aquatic creatures but lead to abx resistant organisms.

And as far as abx being used just for diseases, that’s just bullshit. Besides OC’s are used to prevent one fairly nasty disease the unwanted pregnancy.

 Why would you assume that I would treat arguments from a woman any differently? I’m receptive to evidence-based arguments. Provide some of those.

Just because one person had one experience with a few doctors, doesn’t mean that’s the experience that is most common, or even prevalent. I’ve been to many doctors about some of these problems and they all go through every treatment option available. They show the benefits and side effects of each treatment plan, as well as the costs. However, I don’t assume my experience is the same as everybody else’s so: If they don’t do this, then there are agencies to which you can report them so that it will be investigated, if they don’t go through all of your options, ask them to. Ask them about specific side effects, costs, other options. But thanks for sending me to a “pro-life” writer who characterizes oral contraception as an “abortifacient.” That alone should be enough to discredit her claim that she has studied the scientific research. Not to mention the fact that she completely mischaracterizes how employer-based insurance works, and that the “medical purposes only” line only manages to delay needed treatment. This isn’t an over-the-counter drug, you have to have a prescription for it. If she had paid attention to what Sandra Fluke was actually saying, she would know that she was going to describe a situation in which a woman she knew was delayed needed medical treatment (oral contraception) and ended up losing an ovary–all due to “medical purposes only” lines in the student health policies.

“Now again, I’m not going into a lengthy discussion of every health issue you list – that’s a ridiculous demand”

I didn’t ask you to do this. I specifically asked if you knew of any other treatments that were able to provide so many benefits, and treat so many problems at the same time. You don’t need to go into every single one in detail. If there is such a treatment out there, just direct me to it. If there isn’t a treatment out there that can do the same thing then just say so.

Again, I never said oral contraception was a cure for anything, but it does make the symptoms manageable and your daily life more livable. Many of those things are not diseases that could be cured, many don’t have other treatments that are as effective.

I really don’t know why you have such a problem with a treatment that is characterized as “cheap and easy.” Anytime somebody mentions that, you seem to assume they mean “cheap” in the sense that it is inferior. Cheap in this sense means cost effective, you get a lot for your money. Health care is expensive and if I can take one pill that successfully manages the symptoms of two or three chronic problems, then I consider that a win.

If she ever has tithed or otherwise given money or manhours to the church, you better believe they do.

As a former Catholic who used to teach Religion at a
Catholic high school, I understand and accept that some people find within the
Catholic Church essential elements to support their spiritual journeys. Many
devout Catholics experience God directly in the Eucharist because of their
belief that the bread and the wine become the actual body and blood of Jesus.
This encounter feeds their souls in ways that they would not be at services of other
Christian denominations where the bread and wine broken in communion is
symbolically Jesus’ body in church. For these Catholics, their encounter of God
in the Eucharist is more important than any doctrinal or theological difference
they have with the bishops. What I cannot understand, however, and am
struggling to accept, is how any Catholic woman or man can still put money in
the collection baskets when their bishops have yet to take full responsibility for
what they did and failed to do, what they said and failed to say that
facilitated the rape of children by a relatively small but voracious number of
Catholic priests, brothers, and nuns. I am no longer Catholic and no longer
teach high school Religion. I left both for two main reasons: theological
differences – I am an eclectic pagan who reveres Jesus a buddha – and my
inability to align myself with an institution whose leadership is largely
morally bankrupt. My challenge to devout Catholics who need the Eucharist is to
continue going to Mass, but withhold your money until the bishops fulfill the
spirit of the Sacrament of Reconciliation as outlined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (see
paragraphs 1450-1460), and to obey the command of Jesus to reconcile with those
you have harmed before laying your gifts upon the altar (Mt. 5: 21-26). Any
argument that bishops have disclosed the full extent of their collusion in this
holocaust and repaired the harm they inflicted is laughable when one considers
the agony that many survivors continue to endure. The bishops may have admitted
their sins to brother priests in the secrecy of a confessional, but they refuse
to tell the whole story to the victims who are desperate to hear it. In telling
the whole truth, bishops could aid victims to break free of their recurring
nightmares. The refusal of these leaders to be humble, courageous, and faithful
in this matter may not preclude healing for victims, but it abandons the
wounded ones to break their chains alone.  

So why doesn’t the Catholic hierarchy excommunicate the millions of American women who use contraception if this is such an important issue?