Atheist converts to Catholicism!!
...sort of...
Excuse my cynicism but on the rare occasions when we see a headline like this, the question always pops in there, "What kind of Catholicism?"
She "questions certain aspects of Catholicism, including the church’s positions on homosexuality, contraception and some aspects of religious liberty" and is "in a Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults class..."
Ah, that kind. Thanks, NewChurch.
Any bets on how long it takes her to start posting about how morally and intellectually incoherent Catholicism is?
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ReplyDeleteNot in the mood, Cat.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first read that - I thought she must be doing it for the boyfriend.
ReplyDeleteIf she is that much of a thinker than why would she join a church in which she questions much of the hard coree morality it espouses?
Then again RCIA can be a joke in many places - lead by a LCWR religious or a pastoral worker or the left leaning priest.
Don't be too quick to write her off. When I came into the Church from evangelical protestantism (14 years ago now), I couldn't believe in a number of things the Church taught - infant baptism (and the salvific purpose of baptism), for instance. But I had to say: "If the Church says something I don't believe, then I'm wrong and the Church is right." I think most converts are in this situation: in fact, somewhere or other Ronald Knox says that he could more or less construct the entire Catholic faith out of the various difficulties new and prospective converts have. Ultimately, the grace of God does the job.
ReplyDeleteAs for RCIA, of course it's pretty ghastly on the whole: mine was led by a woman called Mary who rejected more or less everything which might be described as even moderately traditional and quite a bit of orthodoxy (she was very keen on telling us how lucky we were not to be converting - sorry, 'becoming New Catholics' - during the Bad Old Days). I still remember a session on suffering: the consensus seemed to be that we just had to put up with it and no one one knew why God allowed it. I mentioned Colossians 1:24 (one advantage of having been an evangelical), to which Mary responded: "Oh, that old woman-hater Paul! We don't want to bother with him.")
But there are plenty of decent books still around (most, admittedly, written before 1960), and the traditional Mass has amazing power, even if one discovers it more or less by accident (or apparently so).
You're the second person to think from this that I'm "writing her off".
ReplyDeleteI'm writing RCIA off, in case you missed it.
I'll probably come off as a gloomy Eeyore but I don't think that lionizing this girl is good for her.
ReplyDeleteWell, Augustine seems to have made a decent bishop, whatever Jerome had to say at the time (and now they're *both* on our Calendar); but who will echo Hilary's concerns (which I indeed share) to Miss Libresco herself? The latter has no reason to pay any attention to me, for instance.
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