Anonymous wrote:Can I just say that as a Catholic who is committed to the church that not all of us are the same? Just like not all Jews, Evangelicals, Muslims, etc are the same. Many of us are very distressed by our institutional church's viewpoints on human sexuality, their lobbying on health policy, the child abuse scandal, etc etc etc. And as a Catholic woman, I am personally appalled at how the bishops are treating the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, simply because they are focusing on service to the poor as Jesus taught, rather than on politicizing issues based on Catholic dogma. As a result I will not give cash to the church; my contributions are instead going to foreign missions for the poor and the LCWR directly. However many of us are not ready to abandon our faith simply because we believe that the institutional church is misguided. We are the church too. Before you cast stones at glass houses, examine your own religion, its history, its political positions, etc. Would you bash all Jews because you disagree with AIPAC? Would you bash all Evangelicals becuase you disagree with the Family Research Council? If so, you are guilty of very narrow thinking. Catholics are not a homogenous body that thinks in tandem 100% of the time, any more than any other religious, ethic or racial group is. Please people, when you disagree with something, try to keep it civil and focused on specific actions - not on ad hominem attacks against all members of a group. It's beneath any educated adult, frankly.
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But if you do not believe what the faith teaches, why bother calling yourself Catholic?
It's not that the Church only wants saints--Christ came for the sinners. But the Church has a creed, so why profess the creed if it is not yours? Why not start a new church, the church of fallen-away Catholics who want to do what they want to do but still feel righteous?
Faithful Catholics are, in fact, united in professing the faith. We are different races, genders, nationalities, and we have lived through centuries of disbelief, but the Catechism is what we believe.
You have free will. You can reject this faith.