Catholicism: Criticism & Debate Thread

[analyst_green]

 

[Northumber]

This doesn´t make much sense. It reeks of elitism. And some kind of sense of superiority. They are more pure. What a crock of shit! We are better than you, so you stay out.
I do that to my cat and dog, you know. Keep them out of the house. The dog doesn´t even attempt to enter anymore. The fucking cat always tries to eat our food. The fucker eats bread. Which cat eats bread? FFS. The dog knows how to hunt rabbits. When I arrive home, there´s a dead rabbit in the garden. Living on a farm sure has its perks...

I thought this was only a protestant objection. I think we modern people are highly offended that someone could be better in terms of holiness. Equality rings in our minds. But, in reality, it's ok. It's just like with Mary, the Theotokos. We should be happy for her, if anything. It's ok, the entire structure around Christ is like that. These holy people are there to help us, pray for us, inspire us. They are there through God's grace. And I don't mind being protected from myself from things I am not yet ready for. This tradition and warning is even in scripture about those who partake in the Eucharist unworthily and unknowingly drinking condemnation on themselves.

It´s not a western thing. It´s as if you are learning Russian and decide to speak Russian with each other. In the west, you have the Catholic Church. Inside the Catholic Church, you have really conservative groups. Why not attend those? SSPX, or Opus. Maybe inside prots there´s conservative groups.

We, in the West, are now noticing something severely dysfunctional in its ethos. The problem is deep, and it's embedded from centuries ago.
There is a West that looks like the East, but it's over a millennia ago. This is the West I'm trying to connect to.

 

[magoo]

I'm open to creating a new thread as I'm sure the Orthodox teaching will shine the light of truth in any debate, but this topic is not a red herring to the topic at hand. Roman Catholics presuming to have a superior teaching on divorce and remarriage is what keeps many Roman Catholics in papalism. They see how the protestants have divided endlessly and have liberalized, and so that seems like a dead end. Then they look to the Orthodox and see almost everything they want, but they've convinced themselves that the Orthodox have "caved in" and "liberalized" on questions of divorce and remarriage and contraception, and so they believe that the Orthodox Church is in error and not worthy of converting to.

I've seen it happen many times that once a Roman Catholic realizes that he or she had grave misconceptions about Orthodox teaching on these two topics, they immediately decide to embrace Orthodoxy. I would even be so bold as to say that the vast majority of "trads" I know would seek to become Orthodox tomorrow if they realized that what they were taught about history/tradition regarding 1) divorce and remarriage and 2) contraception, and about how the Orthodox Church treats these matters, is false. They rightly perceive that things are not right with Rome, but they feel boxed in and trapped with nowhere else to go because they've been convinced that the Orthodox have "caved in" and "liberalized" on divorce and remarriage and contraception, so the Orthodox Church is not an option for them.

It might sound really strange to non-Roman Catholics, but trad RCs have largely fetishized these two topics (divorce/remarriage and contraception), and the perceived superiority of the RC position on these topics for them is what keeps them RCs and keeps them distrusting of Orthodoxy.

If a woman can divorce 3 times. She is nothing more than a whore. Nothing will change my mind. This is not a religious discussion.

 

[magoo]

I thought this was only a protestant objection. I think we modern people are highly offended that someone could be better in terms of holiness. Equality rings in our minds. But, in reality, it's ok. It's just like with Mary, the Theotokos. We should be happy for her, if anything. It's ok, the entire structure around Christ is like that. These holy people are there to help us, pray for us, inspire us. They are there through God's grace. And I don't mind being protected from myself from things I am not yet ready for. This tradition and warning is even in scripture about those who partake in the Eucharist unworthily and unknowingly drinking condemnation on themselves.



We, in the West, are now noticing something severely dysfunctional in its ethos. The problem is deep, and it's embedded from centuries ago.
There is a West that looks like the East, but it's over a millennia ago. This is the West I'm trying to connect to.

The problem is german and english. Because they started the protestant movement. The anglican church is based on a debauched king. Who wanted to bang and marry whores. As if this can be an example to anyone. But he knew the cath was the right example. And structured molded the anglicans around cath church.

You will in stats see more and more man who call themselves ortho looking into catholic woman. Because they are well raised. Don´t know about ortho enough. Only googled it yesterday because of Samseau. For Roosh it was another fad.

Ortho is like russian food. Now I will go and eat in a russian restaurant?

You study that in law. And it has a name. Which I don´t remember. But there´s a lack of real life enforcement. When the legislator makes a law. He must know it will not be 100% applied. This is specially true in labour laws. So the law as to be stricter. To protect the employee.

 

[Lawrence87]

I'm open to creating a new thread as I'm sure the Orthodox teaching will shine the light of truth in any debate, but this topic is not a red herring to the topic at hand. Roman Catholics presuming to have a superior teaching on divorce and remarriage is what keeps many Roman Catholics in papalism. They see how the protestants have divided endlessly and have liberalized, and so that seems like a dead end. Then they look to the Orthodox and see almost everything they want, but they've convinced themselves that the Orthodox have "caved in" and "liberalized" on questions of divorce and remarriage and contraception, and so they believe that the Orthodox Church is in error and not worthy of converting to.

I've seen it happen many times that once a Roman Catholic realizes that he or she had grave misconceptions about Orthodox teaching on these two topics, they immediately decide to embrace Orthodoxy. I would even be so bold as to say that the vast majority of "trads" I know would seek to become Orthodox tomorrow if they realized that what they were taught about history/tradition regarding 1) divorce and remarriage and 2) contraception, and about how the Orthodox Church treats these matters, is false. They rightly perceive that things are not right with Rome, but they feel boxed in and trapped with nowhere else to go because they've been convinced that the Orthodox have "caved in" and "liberalized" on divorce and remarriage and contraception, so the Orthodox Church is not an option for them.

It might sound really strange to non-Roman Catholics, but trad RCs have largely fetishized these two topics (divorce/remarriage and contraception), and the perceived superiority of the RC position on these topics for them is what keeps them RCs and keeps them distrusting of Orthodoxy.

Perhaps you're right. It just strikes me as a red herring. "Orthodox get things wrong" even if true, does not invalidate any criticisms of Roman Catholicism. Its a distraction.

Also I'd say permitting remarriage if the priest thinks it is beneficial is less ergegious than blessing faggot couples. But that's just me.

 

[magoo]

Perhaps you're right. It just strikes me as a red herring. "Orthodox get things wrong" even if true, does not invalidate any criticisms of Roman Catholicism. Its a distraction.

Also I'd say permitting remarriage if the priest thinks it is beneficial is less ergegious than blessing faggot couples. But that's just me.

A woman who has been married 3 times. Is a whore. I see now the sudden interest from prot in ortho. Your relation with woman is strange. She should be virgin and marry one time. And always be faithful. That´s it. My wife is cath. And no way in hell would I put her near a church that allowed divorces. At least the prots have good economies. But the orthos. It´s the worse of two worlds.

 

[magoo]

Also I'd say permitting remarriage if the priest thinks it is beneficial is less ergegious than blessing faggot couples. But that's just me.

No no. The priest has to shut is mouth and mantain the unity of marriage. Because he cannot separate what God united. Only God can do it.

 

[Rodion]

It´s as you are telling me to eat russian food. I don´t see enough differences. To make someone change. Ortho has some novelty into it.

It seems like you basically don’t know anything about Orthodoxy.

Sure it wouldn´t. Dude was just Iranian and Armenian descent. His father I think was muslim. Actually Iranian girls. Are pretty hot. What was the dude doing in Poland. If he wanted he could have just asked his father friends for a chick. There was something deep between Roosh and his father. A lot of things didn´t made sense.

This makes no sense to me, that it would be better to bang hot Iranian chicks than to seek the Church of Christ

 

[magoo]

It seems like you basically don’t know anything about Orthodoxy.

I don´t. I´ve stopped in the divorce part. And only started reading it because of Samseau. For Roosh it was probably just another fad.

This makes no sense to me, that it would be better to bang hot Iranian chicks than to seek the Church of Christ

Marry. Not bang. Yeah islams are also strange. They also have divorces.

The strangest shit. Once was talking to a muslim and he tells me his first wife had divorced him. Who would have thought?

 

[Lawrence87]

No no. The priest has to shut is mouth and mantain the unity of marriage. Because he cannot separate what God united. Only God can do it.

Bad faith mischaracterization

Orthodoxy doesn't just permit divorce willy nilly. Nor is it a guarantee that if it does, it will permit remarriage

 

[analyst_green]

A woman who has been married 3 times. Is a whore. I see now the sudden interest from prot in ortho. Your relation with woman is strange. She should be virgin and marry one time. And always be faithful. That´s it. My wife is cath. And no way in hell would I put her near a church that allowed divorces. At least the prots have good economies. But the orthos. It´s the worse of two worlds.

Your church allows divorces too. They just call them annulments to make it sound better, and they are way more lax about it than the Orthodox Church. We Orthodox like to call a circle a circle and a square a square.

You are also forgetting that there are sometimes legitimate reasons for divorce as Jesus said Himself, including infidelity of mind, body, or soul.

 

[Northumber]

The problem is german and english. Because they started the protestant movement.

Yes, but what is really at the core of this protestant ethos? I think I'm beginning to see what it is, and this is why I posted that link to St. Popovich's criticism. The other interesting thing to note here is what Germany was, it was the Holy Roman Empire.

Ortho is like russian food. Now I will go and eat in a russian restaurant?

haha! That's pretty funny. I do actually think it's a valid concern. I feel Western in my bones (I'm North England/Nordic/German) and live in the US. I'd love to connect to deeper tradition and Catholicism should be my logical choice. But, it's been a painful thing to look at my own cultural roots (art, architecture, all the progress) with a critical eye. Isn't it interesting the entire world pretty much still looks up to Western Europe? Everyone travels there to sight-see, it seems the nicest and most beautiful. In many ways it is. The history is creative, but there is something else that can be seen, something like a creative tragedy. Honestly looking at the renaissance and the art that came out of it is quite telling about the direction of the West. To be crude it's a little gay. Once you see it you can't unsee it. That's one of the ways the dysfunction expresses itself. Also included would be the protestant expression of revolt.

I'll try to summarize what I think this deep dysfunction is. (I should note I'm only an inquirer, I'm interested in what the Orthodox here think)

Part of the dysfunction comes out of a need to control, (and to simultaneously try to avoid being underneath the true heart of our problems). - These are also issues we all have and were present at the garden.

We control (and avoid) now in the West by:

mechanizing life

and, by mechanizing salvation

So, in the West we've developed the concept of Church as an institution
vs.
concept of Church as the God-man organism

Loss of the concept of the nous:
The highest faculty is not the intellect. It's not emotion, it's not intellect, but rather something else.

The notion that we are developing:
I do not believe we have a better conception of reality and truth now than in the past. And so, this would also apply to the notion of development of doctrine.

 

[SeaEagle]

I can see this is yet another fruitless Orthodox circle jerk thread.

Recognizing your own bias and lack of good-faith research would prevent divisive threads like this.

I rarely see Catholics start threads like this here, or on other platforms.

Strawmanning Catholic positions isn't charitable. This whole thread reeks of pride. The truth speaks for itself.

 

[Samseau]

I got a new phone that can summarize web pages for me, so I asked it to summarize this page. Here's what came out:

• The poster, a genealogist, expresses a desire for reconciliation between Catholics and Orthodox Christians, acknowledging their shared brotherhood in Christ despite differences. They criticize certain Catholics who seek to join the Orthodox Church solely for personal salvation rather than bearing the cross of their own Church. While they believe in the superiority of the Orthodox position, they emphasize the importance of staying within one's Church and working to improve it, unless spiritual detriment is experienced due to changes within the Church.

• They predict the continued decline of the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations due to doctrinal errors and structural problems, citing the Orthodox model as the most stable and enduring. However, they affirm that all organizations based on the name of Jesus Christ are under divine jurisdiction and will be sustained by God's mercy despite human shortcomings.

• The poster asserts that the Orthodox Church, as the elder sibling of Christianity, will not abandon other Christian denominations despite conflicts and challenges, emphasizing the importance of unity and support within the Christian family.

Wow, all of my arguments were given credit to a poster whose written like 10 sentences in this thread. AI is really just a plagiarism machine.

 

[Samseau]

I can see this is yet another fruitless Orthodox circle jerk thread.

Recognizing your own bias and lack of good-faith research would prevent divisive threads like this.

I rarely see Catholics start threads like this here, or on other platforms.

Strawmanning Catholic positions isn't charitable. This whole thread reeks of pride. The truth speaks for itself.

You've just made one of the most proud responses in this thread so far.

 

[Samseau]

This is a common attack that Roman Catholics level at the Orthodox. It's misinformed and ignorant of Church history, however.

The universal church of the First Millennium (both East and West) "allowed" divorce and remarriage, which is why the Orthodox Church also allows divorce and remarriage today. If Roman Catholics "trads" are going to try to claim to be the same Church as the Church of the First Millennium, then this is a self-own on their part.

Where do we see this? Look at the Canons of St. Basil the Great (from the 300s). They explicitly allow for divorce and remarriage in the cases of adultery, abandonment, and grave violence. These canons of St. Basil (one of the greatest saints in the history of the Church) still form the basis of Orthodox canon law on this question. Why? Because these canons were accepted as canonical at the Council of Trullo (691 AD) and the 7th Ecumenical Council (which accepts Trullo as canonical) in 787. Roman Catholics, and their unfortunately ignorant historical scholarly work, seem to have no knowledge of this at all.

Not only this, but "Eastern Catholics" (those who pretend to be Orthodox but who are in communion with Rome) were "allowed" divorce and remarriage by the Roman popes until their canon law was revised in the early 1900s. This is well documented by Melkite Catholic bishops like Elias Zoghby.

Moreover, the post-1054 invention of annulments is a pure innovation (ie, anti-traditional), and it's a highly legalistic and pharisaical way of allowing divorce and remarriage in spirit, but not in letter. It also comes with its own problems and inconsistencies, for example the Roman Catholic canon law for annulments allows them in extremely vague cases like "psychological immaturity of the person at the time of marriage." Almost anyone can claim they were "immature" in their early 20s or at any time in their life (which is why this specific canon is the most often cited canon in the vast majority of annulment cases worldwide). You can have a married couple of 20 years with 10 kids who just "oops! I was actually immature when we were married so we were never actually married this whole time!" happen. This is not just a hypothetical scenario--it's the real lived experience unfortunately of thousands of Roman Catholics in the post Vatican II era. When we have such vague canons surrounding the validity of marriage, can we really ever say that we "know" we are married if we're Roman Catholic? If an annulment tribunal can rule (and has ruled in millions of cases worldwide) that my marriage never happened, can I really ever know that I'm objectively married if I'm Roman Catholic?

Not only this, but Christ Our Lord "allows" divorce and remarriage in the Book of Matthew for the case of adultery--and virtually all Church fathers accept this interpretation. I guess Roman Catholics know better than Christ? We know that popes have often thought they knew better than the consensus of the Church Fathers (eg, Mary's Immaculate Conception), but better than Christ Himself as well, huh?

These "trads" not only don't have a traditional position, they also have to reject their own modern pope (in Amoris Laetitia) in order to retain this illusion that their Church's perfect immaculate doctrine doesn't allow divorce and remarriage. This is obviously not a superior position to that of the Orthodox Church and its great saints and doctors (eg, Saint Basil the Great and all of those council fathers who accepted his canons). Not a single saint of the early Church criticized St. Basil for his allowance of divorce and remarriage, but modern Roman Catholic "trads" think they know better than not only their own pope, but also these great early saints.

Only when the Roman Church separated itself from the universal church after the First Millennium, separated itself from its own roots, and forgot its early saints and councils (eg, every RC can tell you about Vatican II but most/all have no idea what any of the early ecumenical councils were about), only in this context could these bizarre "trad" doctrines of "divorce cannot exist, but we have annulments bro" come to exist and be presumed superior.

Again, the vast majority of the Church Fathers believed that this verse allowed for remarriage in the case of adultery. Your extremely narrow "trad" interpretation doesn't make any sense: so you can divorce for adultery only, but you can't divorce for any other reason? So a woman who is beat up every day by her husband and put in physical danger can't divorce?

How can you "commit adultery" unless you are married? If we have an "except for adultery" clause given to us by Christ, then the person would no longer be married, and therefore wouldn't commit adultery. Either way, you have disproved pre-Francis Roman Catholic doctrine which stated that divorce doesn't exist at all, and the only thing that can separate spouses is death (with the legalistic/pharisaic technicality of having hundreds of thousands of annulments per year for backup when this doesn't work out).

You accuse protestants of making up doctrines over a thousand years after the Apostles handed to us the faith once delivered to the saints. Unfortunately, the RCC has done the same thing multiple times (papal infallibility, divorce doesn't exist at all, all priests must be celibate, papal indulgences to get out of purgatory, the immaculate conception of Mary, etc). Just look at the Dictatus Papae (mainstream papal teaching from just after the 1054 schism). It's very clear that the Roman Church departed significantly from the universal Church of the First Millenium after the Schism of 1054. The Dictatus Papae is disowned/contradicted by all Roman Catholics today (including "trads" like sedevecantists and SSPX) even though it was the mainstream papal teaching from 1070-1170. Again, most Roman Catholics have no knowledge of this at all, and none of the RC apologists even try to deal with my previous claims about divorce and remarriage being accepted by the Canons of St. Basil the Great, the Canons of the Council of Trullo, and the Canons of the 7th Ecumenical Council (approved by Rome).

All of this being said, we should be grateful to the Roman Catholic "trads" on this forum who make their own church look completely divided and incoherent with traditional Christianity. The only people who can take these "trad" doctrines seriously are those who are already heavily indoctrinated into it. For all others on this forum we can just see more and more clearly how false the Roman church now is, and how dangerous heresy can be. I don't want this to be a bashing of Roman Catholics (who already have enough stress with the state of their Church), however, I only wanted to respond by clarifying and defending a point that many Roman Catholics have bashed the Orthodox for on this thread.

Most Roman Catholic "trads" would probably become Orthodox overnight if they had their misunderstandings related to 1) divorce and remarriage, and 2) contraception cleared up. I feel like these 2 issues are basically the last remaining threads that keep people holding on to "trad" Rome over Orthodoxy. And for Roman Catholics both of these threads are only possible due to ignorance of history (in the case of divorce/remarriage) and misunderstandings about how Orthodox come to know what is true (in the case of contraception).

SeaEagle and Genealogist are giving a poor interpretation of scripture. Here's what they are missing:

Adultery is not merely cheating on one's spouse. How do we know this? Because the Christ said so:

(Matt 5:28)

Therefore, since Christ revealed that the Lord will judge us for "adultery of the heart," which is more than merely cheating on one's spouse, it follows there are many ways one can commit adultery of the heart. Such as:

- Beating one's spouse
- Refusing sex
- Abandonment
- Cam-whoring your spouse for cash
- (insert common sense here)

As the Lord states, it's not what goes into the mouth that corrupts, but what comes out - for what comes out reveals the desires of the heart.



All of the early Church fathers, like Basil the Great, understood this, which is why it is absurd to say Christ only meant adultery for divorce. Christ obviously meant more than mere cheating, which is why he mentions adultery of the heart, which is consistent with his other teachings on the desires of the heart.

Above are the well-written responses given by Cornelius and I on marriage and divorce, from another thread. Reposting it here to save people time if they are genuinely interested in the topic.

 

[Rodion]

don´t. I´ve stopped in the divorce part. And only started reading it because of Samseau. For Roosh it was probably just another fad.

Then this is pointless. Roosh is undoubtedly sincere since he has nuked his entire online presence, sacrificed moneymaking opportunities and lives a normal life now.

 

[magoo]

Your church allows divorces too. They just call them annulments to make it sound better, and they are way more lax about it than the Orthodox Church. We Orthodox like to call a circle a circle and a square a square.

You are also forgetting that there are sometimes legitimate reasons for divorce as Jesus said Himself, including infidelity of mind, body, or soul.

Nope. Not true. They didn´t allow it to kings.

The disease of western world is:

Jewish religion.

Less but also Protestantism.

Would never thought orthos to be more liberal than caths. Who would have guessed? With those beards and all.

The anglo world are just reaping what they sowed with debauched King VIII. Whorestantistm. And it´s spreading like a disease. Anglos now are resorting to catholic girls. But there will come a time if this disease isn´t stopped. All woman will be touched by whorestantism.

Orthos are ok. Isn´t you´re church called catholic also? What are people arguing here anyway?

Save your efforts for jews and protestants (jews in spirit). IMO this is nothing more than an academic debate. Since what brings us together is much more than what separates.

Protestantism or to be more correct whorestantism is a slippery slope. Maybe it was a good idea when it was founded. But it was doomed to transform into what it is today: Whorestantism. Hollywood is a factory of whores. Anglo man low self esteem is becoming contagious.

 

[Perseus66]

And Roosh seems to be on drugs. He looks awful. He suffered a lot of pressure and cave in. He was really lost. Even though he didn´t kill or steal anyone, There's been too much criticism of him. Like he was a big-time sinner. He exaggerated by banging whores. But come on. Snap out of it. And the idea that everybody has to become some kind of monks. It wasn´t the death of sister only. But the end of an era. PUA had gone. Trump had gone. Now christian. And from this something else would come. But he was already old and worn out. To pull his next thing. Also maintaning the forum didn´t made any utilitarian sense to him. Costs outweighed benefits. If he wasn´t selling books. Why keep this.
[...]

But westerners converting into ortho. It seems like you're forcing something. It´s not a western thing. It´s as if you are learning Russian and decide to speak Russian with each other. In the west, you have the Catholic Church. Inside the Catholic Church, you have really conservative groups. Why not attend those? SSPX, or Opus. Maybe inside prots there´s conservative groups. I have a friend from SSPX, and if you told him, a woman could marry three times. He would spit on you. Guy is a fanatic. But I like to talk with him. Every six months. SSPX is french. OPUS is spanish.

Not trying to point any fingers, but I suspect this "rootlessness" is a remnant of our sinful past. It seems that the PUA days and the excessive semen loss through self-abuse and fornication during this time left many of us with some form of permanent brain damage or mental disease. I noticed this in myself too - for a long time I used to despise my own heritage and family and thought my own background "sucked". Grass always appeared greener on the other side. It's an illusion, like a Fata Morgana.

Before RVF 2.0, people used to search for exotic hookups in foreign countries. Now, many want to convert (or already have converted) to a religion like Orthodoxy that is exotic to our ancestors because they secretly desire to marry a devout slavic wife from ROCOR church, or go wife-hunting in some remote Eastern European village. Slavs may be Christians, but they are genetically and culturally different from Germanics, more mongoiloid or Asian shifted. Not as bad as taking a Buddhist Thai wife, but still...

It's basically a milder version of the same mental disease that causes European leftifts to promote "anti-racism" and "open border"-policies for their home countries. After years of unhinged sexual sinning and accompanying insanity, men suddenly find that all they really want is Love and Peace, do Yoga and convert to fancy Buddhism. Some become Anime fans who seek to race-mix with a cute girl from Asia. Other westerners say "our women are useless; Polish and Russian women are more traditional/better", convert to Orthodoxy and basically abandon their own women. Shame on us, we should stay faithful to our sisters and defend them. They belong to us no matter what - not to the muslim and African men invading our home countries! Also, it would not be fair for us to steal women from Polish and Russian men.

Now what would be the best solution to stop Europe's downfall? Sure it has to be returning to Christianity in general, but I'm not sure about Orthodoxy as it's foreign to NW Europe. Stick to your roots and take an example from the way your ancestors used to live. If all your known ancestors were Protestants, you would be a "traitor" for switching to Orthodoxy.​

 

[SeaEagle]

That today, the Papacy has degenerated into child abuse (very small compared to the Roman Church as a whole, but still) sex scandals, and now LGBT acceptance, comes as no surprise to Orthodox. The Roman Church has been reckless for centuries and we all suffer for it.

I apologize if my post above was reactive, but this paragraph shows that you took mass media headlines as fact and didn't read Fiducia Supplicans or the followup statement.

I agree it's problematic, but the document itself reaffirms perennial Catholic teaching on marriage.

I intend to remain in the barque of Peter, knowing the true extent of Papal infallibility defined in Vatican I. Jumping out every time the Pope makes a questionable statement isn't viable and shows a lack of faith in my opinion.

I attend the SSPX, which has a very sensible position given the crisis we face in the church currently. I would recommend any wavering Catholics to watch the 'Crisis in the Church' series to get a better perspective of what happened in the church, and what they can do.

God bless everyone, and sorry again for my reactive post earlier.