Mna na h Eireann (Women of Ireland)

[gonzo914]

I'm curious.

And I am curial. Or is it Curial?

[Colin]

Does your tridentyne mass lose its flavour on the bedpost overnight?
Mine does ... Maybe that's 'cos I was raised a Church of Scotland
presbyterian (or should that 'p' be upper case? ).

[gonzo914]

Vatican Rag

• First you get down on your knees,
  Fiddle with your rosaries,
  Bow your head with great respect,
  And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
  
  Do whatever steps you want, if
  You have cleared them with the Pontiff.
  Everybody say his own
  Kyrie eleison,
  Doin' the Vatican Rag.
  
  Get in line in that processional,
  Step into that small confessional,
  There, the guy who's got religion'll
  Tell you if your sin's original.
  If it is, try playin' it safer,
  Drink the wine and chew the wafer,
  Two, four, six, eight,
  Time to transubstantiate!
  
  So get down upon your knees,
  Fiddle with your rosaries,
  Bow your head with great respect,
  And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
  
  Make a cross on your abdomen,
  When in Rome do like a Roman,
  Ave Maria,
  Gee it's good to see ya,
  Gettin' ecstatic an'
  Sorta dramatic an'
  Doin' the Vatican Rag!

Another Tom Lehrer classic.

[Redwolf]

And then, just for fun, we have the Anglo-Catholic Fight Song!

(Tune: The Church's One Foundation)

Our church is mighty spikey
with smells and bells and chants,
And Palestrina masses
that vex the Protestants.
O happy ones and holy
who fall upon their knees
For solemn Benediction
And mid-week Rosaries.


Though with a scornful wonder
men see our clergy, dressed
In rich brocaded vestments
as slowly they process;
Yet saints their watch are keeping
lest souls be set alight
Not by the Holy Spirit, but
incense taking flight.

Now we on earth have union
with Lambeth, not with Rome,
Although the wags and cynics
may question our true home;
But folk masses and bingo
can't possibly depose
The works of Byrd and Tallis,
or Cranmer's stately prose.

(Here shall the organist modulate)

So let the organ thunder,
sound fanfares "en chamade;"
Rejoice! For we are treading
where many saints have trod;
Let peals ring from the spire,
sing descants to high C,
Just don't let your elation
Disrupt the liturgy.

[Redwolf]

And, while we're on the subject: 20th Century Religious Theory

Capitalism - He who dies with the most toys, wins.

Hari Krishna - He who plays with the most toys, wins.

Catholicism - He who denies himself the most toys, wins.

Anglican - They were our toys first.

Greek Orthodox - No, they were OURS first.

Branch Davidians - He who dies playing with the biggest toys, wins.

Atheism - There is no toy maker.

Polytheism - There are many toy makers.

Evolutionism - The toys made themselves.

Church of Christ, Scientist - We are the toys.

Communism - Everyone gets the same number of toys,

and you go straight to hell if we catch you selling yours.

B'Hai - All toys are just fine with us.

Amish - Toys with batteries are surely a sin.

Taoism - The doll is as important as the dumptruck.

Mormonism - Every boy can have as many toys as he wants.

Voodoo - Let me borrow that doll for a second.

Hedonism - To heck with the rule book!? Let's play!

Hinduism - He who plays with bags of plastic farm animals, loses.

7th Day Adventist - He who plays with his toys on Saturday, loses.

Church of Christ - He whose toys make music, loses.

Baptist - Once played, always played.

Jehovah's Witnesses - He who sells the most toys door-to-door, wins.

Pentecostalism - He whose toys can talk, wins.

Existentialism - Toys are a figment of your imagination.

Confucianism - Once a toy is dipped in the water, it is no longer dry.

Non-denominationalism - We don't care where the toys came from,

let's just play with them.

Agnosticism - It is not possible to know whether toys make a bit of difference.

[gonzo914]

And then, just for fun, we have the Anglo-Catholic Fight Song!

And in this example, is "Catholic" capitalized because it is part of the title of a literary and other artistic work or because the Anglos are really Roman Catholic?

[Redwolf]

And then, just for fun, we have the Anglo-Catholic Fight Song!

And in this example, is "Catholic" capitalized because it is part of the title of a literary and other artistic work or because the Anglos are really Roman Catholic?

Because it's qualified by "Anglo." The issue is using "Catholic" by itself. I'm Anglo-Catholic," but not "Catholic." If I were to walk up to you and simply say "I'm Catholic," it would be a lie.

Redwolf

[cowtime]

And then, just for fun, we have the Anglo-Catholic Fight Song!

And in this example, is "Catholic" capitalized because it is part of the title of a literary and other artistic work or because the Anglos are really Roman Catholic?

Nahhhh, we're Anglo Catholic. ya know..... (love the fight song Redwolf)

[izzarina]

That is (*cough) the Roman Catholic party line.

Well, since I classify myself as a Catholic, did you expect me to toe a different line?

I'm glad you said it. It would have sounded meaner coming from me, even if I didn't mean it to (though I might have).

I guess I don't understand why you might want to be mean (?). I've done nothing to provoke such an action on your part.

[Bloomfield]

That is (*cough) the Roman Catholic party line.

Well, since I classify myself as a Catholic, did you expect me to toe a different line?

I'm glad you said it. It would have sounded meaner coming from me, even if I didn't mean it to (though I might have).

I guess I don't understand why you might want to be mean (?). I've done nothing to provoke such an action on your part.

While we're on the subject of the Catholic party line, let us remember mysterium fidei. Certain things, like the Trinity, the Holy Eucharist, or the eternal existence of God, are inscrutable and beyond the grasp of human intelligence. I have in the past found it useful to regard Cran's posts in the same light. I recommend this approach. After all, to the faithful, meditation on the incomprehensible mysteries will bring a deeper understanding.

[Denny]

tylenol will cure that

[djm]

I am a strong believer in genuflection.

djm

[s1m0n]

I'm thinking the Byzantine church WAS the Roman Catholic church before it moved to Rome. Please correct me if this isn't the case.

No, it wasn't. The process by which Rome became the head office was a gradual one; really, it wasn't until the rise of Islam wiped out the senior churches in Antioch, Alexandria and most of all Jerusalem did Rome's position really become secure. If I'm remembering correctly, the church in Alexandria claimed its descent from the apostle John, while the Church in Jerusalem was descended from the christian community founded by James, the brother of Jesus. Both of these, their adherents and many others felt, trumped Rome's claim of priority because of its descent from Peter.

One of the issues that the various councils of the fourth century were about was the very question of whose church was it? Until then, most christian churches were reasonably well organised up to the level of bishops--the hierarchy within each See was established and not greatly disputed. However, there was no agreement on what might be superior to a bishop. Could an ordained bishop be deposed for heresy? If so, how? Did the bishops of neighbouring Sees get together and gang up, gaining legitimacy from that? Were any of the Sees superior, and if so, which were they? None of that was settled.

Remember, the grounds upon which Rome based it's claim to seniority (the Donation of Constantine) is a forgery.

Purportedly issued by the fourth century Roman Emperor Constantine I, the Donation grants Pope Sylvester I and his successors, as inheritors of St. Peter, dominion over the city of Rome, Italy, and the entire Western Roman Empire, while Constantine would retain imperial authority in the Eastern Roman Empire from his new imperial capital of Constantinople. The text claims that the Donation was Constantine's gift to Sylvester for instructing him in the Christian faith, baptizing him and miraculously curing him of leprosy.

It's later than this period, but the fact that this was still an issue centuries later shows that in fact Rome's claim to central authority was weak. All Christians, if asked, would have declared themselves part of some form of united entity (the church), but very few agreed on what that should be.

The councils were called by the byzantine emporer of the day, mostly because HE wanted the church to be more united for political reasons: he wanted to use it to unify his very diverse, multilingual empire. He called the council and set the various churchmen to work on coming up with one (orthodox=='right-leading') doctrine, and to declare the other doctrines false, ie, heresies.

The nicene creed is the result of this process. It's main purpose is to create a test that Arianism and gnosticism (both doctrines well established in the somewhat too independent-minded christian communities from Asia Minor to Egypt) would be unable to pass.

In the council the 'greek' arm of the chuch was well represented, considering the meeting was called and held in the greek-speaking part of the empire. The latin wing of the church, centered in Rome, did send emissaries but they were somewhat less numerous than the greeks and the older churches of asia minor and the holy lands.

In RC church histories, the claim is made that Rome was the church and the greek church split from it. That's not the case; it's truer to say that christianity forked, with each branch having equal claim to being the true heir or senior branch. At the time there were more christians in what became the eastern branch than in the Roman church, and the roman church was far from the oldest christian community.

At the time of Nicaea, Rome's hegemony was well-recognised in Italy, where people were already conditioned to Roman leadership, and pretty much nowhere else.

The eastern church ended up seperate from roman catholicism not because they split from a central christian church, but because they declined Rome's attempts to create a central church with itself at the head. To this day, eastern orthodoxy remains much less centralised than roman Catholicism; much more like the loosely confederated Sees of the first centuries of Christianity.

So, if anything, the Church that split to become something else was Rome, not the other way round. The eastern churches merely stayed as they were.

[Jerry Freeman]

... it's truer to say that christianity forked, with each branch having equal claim to being the true heir or senior branch. ... if anything, the Church that split to become something else was Rome, not the other way round. The eastern churches merely stayed as they were.

We're not in contradiction here. I'm not arguing that the Byzantine church migrated to Rome and became the Roman Catholic church. I'm saying that both were the same church before they divided. So there's a direct lineage of the name "Catholic" from the present all the way back to its coinage.

The part I still don't get is how the Byzantine church coined the name "Catholic" but ended up calling itself "Orthodox," while the Roman church, which split with the Byzantine church, carried the name "Catholic" off to Rome to keep for itself.

Best wishes,
Jerry

[Bloomfield]

Remember, the grounds upon which Rome based it's claim to seniority (the Donation of Constantine) is a forgery.

Purportedly issued by the fourth century Roman Emperor Constantine I, the Donation grants Pope Sylvester I and his successors, as inheritors of St. Peter, dominion over the city of Rome, Italy, and the entire Western Roman Empire, while Constantine would retain imperial authority in the Eastern Roman Empire from his new imperial capital of Constantinople. The text claims that the Donation was Constantine's gift to Sylvester for instructing him in the Christian faith, baptizing him and miraculously curing him of leprosy.

The Donation is the basis of the Church's claim of Imperial dignity and was used to gain the Church temporal power in relation to the emerging Carolingans. But it wasn't the basis for the claim of spiritual supremacy. That goes back to the "Peter you are the rock on which I will build my church" bit.

Matt.16:18-19: "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."