Despite my username I was raised in about the most Trad of all TradCath households you can imagine. AMA. Save me from being #14 in line at this cursed job audition
aren't patron saints just a fancy workaround for polytheism?
Short answer: yes
Longer answer: yes but with fine print.
The tradition of patron saints descends at least in part from late Roman state cults and the idea that these different deities presided over specific domains in which one could ask for their assistance. But there's also a medieval tradition of patron saints being named from among a city or principality's clergy to help shore up support of the local ruler or to endorse some theological / political movement that saint was associated with.
There are a handful of "modern" patron saints, but now the Church is much more careful about who they canonize, seeing as the whole world is watching them 24/7.
Hello fellow raised trad Cath.
We’re you too not told a thing about Catholic social teaching?
Not a goddamn thing. I didn't learn about the El Slavador priest-led protests until I was 18.
Dude same. I went to a jesuit school which was shunned by my parish and they were the ones who told me about all that, Romero, liberation theology etc. changed my life.
Jesuits are usually pretty good when it comes to a lot of progressive social issues, which I think is interesting given that they were explicitly formed as a counter-reformation force and spearheaded the Inquisition.
Education and a dedication to the poor and social justice does that. The fact that Jesuits are Rey wired to do that year of being poor and sieving off the goodness of others seems to change a lot of them. For the better
They were designed to fuck up Protestant Theologians, talking down some peasants about to turn Hussite or Reformed means you have to engage materially and quickly. They also very quickly came round to the Benedictine critique of Colonialism.
As for the Inquisition, it's a common misconception that Jesuits spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition (they did have a substantial role in the Roman Inquisition, but that was not nearly as nightmare fuel.) It was unfortunately mostly Franciscans (another usually quite based order) who lead the worst abuses.
It was unfortunately mostly Franciscans (another usually quite based order) who lead the worst abuses.
Oof. Now I feel weird telling people my Confirmation name is Francis...
Francis is cool, as are Franciscans mostly. The Spanish Inquisition and its supporters were looked at as borderline heretical by Rome, even at the time. Rome gave asylum to Jewish refugees fleeing the inquisition.
Speaking of Franciscans, I saw above that you had some harsh words for the Poor Clares. Besides running EWTN, is there anything that sets them apart as being particularly bad? I thought their vow of poverty wasn't any worse than that of like the Bernadines.
I think my impression of their poverty amd heavily cloistered exisistence is coloured by 16th Century accounts of their lives like in Galileo's Daughter.
From what I hear the modern order is far less harsh and their commitment to the Franciscan rule is admirable.
Yeah, in my experience at least they've been pretty chill. My aunt was childhood friends with a woman who became a Clare and she'd bring me along for visits to the convent as a kid; they always were kind to me even after I came out.
I mean as a whole they probably had the same reactionary tendencies that you see in a lot of Church organizations, but I did appreciate that they were nicer to me than my own folks were sometimes.
I went to a Jesuit highschool where they I granted liberation theology into us and I had an honest to god Sandinista supporting priest. Changed my life and got me here too. I still good liberation theology is good and should be maintained and encouraged.
whats your opinion on the last 3 popes (francis, benedict and john paul)
John Paul 2 - Fuck him
Benedict - Fuck him double
Francis - Fuck him, but just a little bit.
What do Catholics eat? What sort of climate do they live under? Do you need a heat lamp to keep one?
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Mostly potatoes and red sauce
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As oppressive as you can make it
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No, but they'd appreciate the constant reminder of eternal damnation.
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What was the belief/tenet/tradition you had the hardest time processing/absorbing?
And which one was the hardest to deprogram/get away from?
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The assertion that "divine intercession" was somehow different from "magic."
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The belief that sex outside of a cishet marriage is sinful. Being that I'm not het, it was a tough one to untangle.
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do you have a favorite saint and are you still culturally catholic at all?
I still have a soft spot for St. Francis of Assisi. My man tried to stop the whole Crusades all by himself.
I'm still culturally Catholic I guess in that I still go to Mass with family occasionally, still celebrate a few feast days and still fast during Lent. But I make it clear to my relatives what my boundaries are in terms of belief, and that I'm doing it more for their sake of wanting me to participate in religion with them than I am for my own.
Catholics are obligated to attend mass once a week, and on the high festival days, unless circumstances make that difficult to do. it's not under threat of excommunication or anything though, just something you are supposed to do.
It's just a liturgy if there's no consecration of the host, not a Mass (the Good Friday liturgy is an example). And you can push through a mass in 15 min if the priest wants to and the music setting is short plainchant. Mozart's pretty beautiful Salzburg masses never touch 1 hour, even the High Festival Masses (which are usually the 3 hour Tridentine ones you're likely thinking of.)
The priest can also provide communion from pre-consecrated wafers/wine in remote areas or to people who find it difficult to attend a full mass(Buzz Aldrin took communion on Apollo 11).
So you could do it but it would make you a bad Catholic. But most Catholics are bad Catholics, that's part of the point of being Catholic as opposed to some humourless Calvinist who thinks the first sign of sin means you're not part of the elect.
Buzz Aldrin took communion on Apollo 11
the catholic president sent a catholic to the moon 👁️ 👁️ 👁️
Lord, this could be a whole other post in itself. Basically, there's a lot of different takes. Most people I know who were honestly, truly appalled by it left the Church or just stopped going. Then you've got the reformers who want to let priests marry and have sex because they think that will stop them from abusing kids, and the revanchists who think the guilty priests should be excommunicated and put to death, and the radical centrists who think they should all be sent to therapy and then let back into the Church to preach after some arbitrary amount of time in penance.
It doesn't help that most of the abused kids were boys, which in a lot of conservative Catholics' minds only reinforces the notion that LGBTQ people are all evil pedophiles.
It's Bad and Weird. My personal take is that the Church should be abolished and all the Vatican's internal records be made public, but that's not going to happen any time soon.
Eh. In my experience they're generally the same types who think we need more conversion therapy centers for gay people.
What heresies are you referring to? Gnosticism and Arianism and the like all predate Catholicism by a couple centuries.
Gnosticism is one of those tendencies that kind of merged Judaism, early Christianity and polytheism in a much more fluid way than post-Nicaea 2 orthodoxy. I honestly don't know too much about it except that it was declared heretical several times over and may have also partly inspired Sufism, which is pretty neat.
One can hope, but I'm not sure. When Spain began colonizing the Carribean and what is now Latin America, there was a lot of syncretism there too between the Catholics and the indigenous belief systems. A few monks in New Spain even commented in their journals how similar the natives' bloodletting rituals were to Catholic Eucharistic sacrament.
With early Capitalism already pumping gas into the colonial engine, I don't know if a Gnostic Spain would have been acted any better.
Hey, me too. There was one book I remember reading about a world where Christianity never replaced Roman Polytheism, but I forget the title. Basic outline of the world was that there was little-to-no gender discrimination, but slavery was still legal.
Hussites - Branch Davidians, but with slavs
Bogomils - don't know anything about them
Fraticelli - based
Cathars - based but also just wannabe Manichaeans
Just being facetious, really. But they were followers of a charismatic leader who had bones to pick with the religious authorities of the time, had a streak of nationalism running through them, and were involved in armed conflict over defense of their sect.
Holy shit I just realized I mixed up Heaven's Gate with the Branch Davidians. My bad, I am dumb.
isn't Heaven's Gate the people who were like "if we kill ourselves during Haley's comet our soul's will ride on it to paradise?"....or soemthing?
Yeah. I mixed them up with the Branch Davidians, who fought the ATF at Waco in 1993.
I'd say the idea that the Pope is always right. Got a lot of that from WASP friends growing up; they thought that Catholics literally believe the Pope is infallible. That's really not the case. I think papal infallibilty has been invoked like three times since the 1500s? And even then not without a shit-ton of controversy.
As for your bet, :side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
There really isn't much difference. Catholicism has absorbed a lot, like a lot, of polytheistic influence over the centuries.
Which saint would have been the best poster? Who would be the worst?
Best: St. Augustine of Hippo
Worst: St. Thomas Aquinas
Can you explain?
Edit: also I only know the name St Augustine of Hippo from The Simpsons.
Augustine was a convert to Catholicism from polytheism, which gave him a unique perspective. He was known for his wit in his writings and philosophizing.
Thomas Aquinas was something like a proto-scientist, very interested in ideas of natural law. His work is influential but also super super dry.
I chose Francis myself. Dope Italian hippie just spreading the love to all God's creation.
Just imagining Pelagius and Augustine shitposting at each other for the lulz.
What are your personal top three most bangable depictions of Jesus?
Eh, that's a bit outside my experience. There was a crucifix and framed Jesus portrait in my family room coming up, which were definitely not sexy.
Is it still pushed to have a lot of kids or is that a stereotype about the ¥+@£¥@#$
Can't speak for all Catholics of all ethnicities but it was definitely pushed in my family.
Did you learn about the concept of Stewardship, and do you think it affected your current politics?
I did, and kind of? Mostly in that I rejected it. A big unsaid in Stewardship is that humans are somehow above nature or separate from it, and that never sat right with me. I remember it being used to justify the existence of zoos, which always rubbed me the wrong way.
Hey thanks, I was curious how it hit other people, because the way it stuck in my head growing up basically grew and fused with ideas about climate protection. I'm sure it probably wasn't the intended lesson but :shrug-outta-hecks:
I mean, I do know other Catholic and former-Catholic climate activists who link what they do to Stewardship, so it's probably not a black and white thing.
