Anne Rice, whose book Called Out of Darkness was a beautifully-written spiritual confession, has decided that she loves Christ but not Christians.
She’s neither the first nor the last to feel that way.
Sometimes I do, too. Sometimes I hate myself as a Christian, because I do the thing so badly.
Christianity is easy to do badly. You take the dogma and leave out the love – you’re doing it wrong.
You try to “correct” others and bring too much “righteousness” and not enough love – you’re doing it wrong.
Apply too much love, without accountability – you’re doing it wrong, then, too.
We cheat Christ when we do it badly.
We cheat Christ and each other when we teach Him badly.
We cheat Christ and each other and the Church when we catechize poorly, or when we approach the Supernatural with superficiality; when we stop applying thought to it.
Forty years of sloppy, empty elementary catechesis during concurrent social revolution and generational upheaval was a bad choice for the churches, who now reap what they have sown.
Rice writes:
In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life.
Rice’s angry frustration with what she (and, let’s face it, many others) perceive to be a sort of Institution of No is interesting. She refuses to be “anti-gay,” but the church teaches that indeed we must not be anti-gay, that homosexual inclinations are not sinful in themselves, but that all are called to chastity, whether gay or straight.
So, what she is refusing is not so much church teaching, which she incorrectly represents, but the worldly distortion of church teaching both as it is misunderstood and too-often practiced. I do not know how anyone could read the USCCB’s pastoral letter, Always Our Children and then make a credible argument that the church is “anti-gay.”
But then, I do not know how anyone can read Humanae Vitae and credibly call the church anti-feminist or anti-humanist.
I do not know how anyone can read Pope John Paul II’s exhaustive teachings on the Theology of the Body and credibly declare the church to be reactionary on issues of sexuality or womanhood.
I do not know how anyone can read Gaudium et Spes and credibly argue that the church is out of touch with the Human Person or Society.
I do not know how anyone can read Fides et ratio and credibly argue that the church does not hold human reason in esteem.
I do not know how anyone can look at the Vatican supporting and funding Stem Cell Research, or the even the briefest list of religiously-inclined scientists and researchers and credibly argue that Christianity is “anti-science.”
Anne Rice wants to do the Life-in-Christ on her own, while saying “Yes” to the worldly world and its values. She seems not to realize that far from being an Institution of No, the church is a giant and eternal urging toward “Yes,”, that being a “yes” toward God–whose ways are not our ways, and who draws all to Himself, in the fullness of time–rather than a “yes” to ourselves.
Unfortunately, we Christians teach this poorly and generally make too many excuses for our failings. Too many of us go out into the world seeking to confront and “fix” others, when the key to the Christian life begins with confronting and “fixing” the self. This can only be done through grace, which enters upon the Yes, and moves and grows on the intentional breeze of Willingness, because that is the only thing that counts, our intentions and our willingness; “worthiness” does not enter in.
But willingness only comes with humility. It comes when we can say “Thy will be done,” and then actually surrender, instead of preparing a treaty.
The world, because it is worldly, cannot understand Christianity or the churches; the world will never love either, and it is foolishness to think otherwise. But the church is not here to be loved by the world; it is here to serve the Bread. The Living Bread did not come for the love of the world, but for its life.
If the media defines us, that is our own fault in allowing it. If the world defines us poorly, that is our fault, too, because the Gospel, rightly preached, is irresistible; we’ve too often preached the Gospel poorly in our actions.
We are not supposed to hide our light under a bushel-basket, but we’re also not supposed to put others under its glare, and thus send them scurrying back into the shadows. At the Transfiguration, the dazzling brightness did not sting the eyes of the apostles.
If the light is well-placed, it does not repel others, it attracts from out of darkness where, God help us, we may all be well taught.
Also writing:
Joseph Bottum
Rod Dreher
Deacon Greg
David Gibson
Googling God
American Catholic
Michael Rowe
Augustine, Aquinas and Anne Rice
Bruce Kesler
Bookworm
July 30th, 2010 | 5:53 am | #1
I prefer Anne Rice’s honesty to Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to have it both ways.
July 30th, 2010 | 6:03 am | #2
I hate to say it, but I always wondered how long Anne Rice’s flirtation with Christianity would last. She seems like a nice enough lady…but kinda weird.
She also seems a bit confused. I am not sure–unless one is a member of the clergy of the Episcopal Church–how you can be both a Christian and a secular humanist. Can you be both a vegan and a carnivore?
Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
July 30th, 2010 | 6:40 am | #3
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by The Anchoress, Tuesday. Tuesday said: RT @TheAnchoress: Pondering Anne Rice & Quitting Christianity: http://tinyurl.com/2ebf3tx [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 6:45 am | #4
I think this lady is kind of lost after the death of her husband. Her liberal inclinations and desire to fit in with the people she has been close to for years is running counter to church teachings. Perhaps she should become a Presbyterian, they are much more adaptable.
July 30th, 2010 | 6:47 am | #5
Anne Rice has no one to blame but herself for her departure from Christianity. She has used her free will to embrace moral relativism as so many others have in epic proportions. This is not Christianity.
Authentic Christianity requires relinquishing ones pride and putting on humility and embracing the truths of Christianity even if one does not always understand.
Many people are leaving Protestant churches and embracing Catholicism because they are tired of political correctness and moral relativism. As Catholics to be truly authentic we must embrace Christ through the teachings of the Church who speaks for Christ.
July 30th, 2010 | 7:09 am | #6
“Rice writes:
In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life.”
She sounds like she was a superficial Catholic to begin with. No thinking Catholic is anti-any-of-those-things. Well, what can one say, except may she see the light.
July 30th, 2010 | 7:40 am | #7
No thinking Catholic is anti-artificial birth control? Have I been on a different planet for the last 43 years? I think Humanae Vitae was the product of “thinking Catholics,” and maybe even a force higher than that.
July 30th, 2010 | 7:40 am | #8
Anne Rice is one of those people whose beliefs move like tides, in and out. We’ve seen that on many things. Today the tide is out; in a while it may creep back in again. I do think it’s sad that, like many people, she frequently assumes goodwill and goodness in everything except what’s really good for us. If health issues were morality, she’d have written a lot of stuff down the years denouncing calcium as an imprisoner of bone marrow.
But OTOH, being in public life is a terrible thing, and I’m sure she attracts many really pathological people who tell her horrors in the name of Christianity (as well as those doing plain old harassment and stalking). I’m sure she’s never gotten over her grief for her loved ones, because one doesn’t. When you combine grief with anger or disgust at nasty twisted people and fatheads, you’re probably going to end up hitting out in all kinds of crazy directions. But since she loves Christ, she loves His Bride — whether or not she can see it at the moment.
We can and should keep praying for her.
July 30th, 2010 | 8:23 am | #9
This brings to mind the parable of the wheat and tares, Matthew 13. We can do a lot of damage when we try to root out evil, or, as the Anchoress puts it so well,
“You try to “correct” others and bring too much “righteousness” and not enough love – you’re doing it wrong. ”
“Too many of us go out into the world seeking to confront and “fix” others, when the key to the Christian life begins with confronting and “fixing” the self.”
July 30th, 2010 | 8:27 am | #10
Another blog is reporting that Ms. Rice said on Facebook, “I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being ‘Christian’ or to being part of Christianity.”
And there’s the crux. On becoming Catholic, I was firmly opposed to the Church’s stance on artificial contraception, but I had become convinced of that the Catholic Church is Christ’s Body on earth and that obedience to Christ required submission to things that I didn’t understand. In time — years! — God gave me the grace to “feel” the truth of this teaching that had to be accepted earlier on nothing by faith. Understanding sometimes follows obedience, IMO.
Ms. Rice must be told, lovingly, that there is no salvation outside the Church she has chosen to leave. Others have made the point that she misunderstands Church teaching on many points (homosexuality, etc.), and that’s true enough, but at least regarding the culture of death embraced by today’s liberals, she’s spot on that it’s incompatible with Christianity. “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Well, she has.
Let us hope that Ms. Rice and Ms. Pelosi, who was referenced in a post above, both return to Christianity. Of the two, Ms. Rice is at least the more honest about her break with the Church, and — to be quite frank — the more palatable.
July 30th, 2010 | 8:30 am | #11
If you read the book “Conversations with Anne Rice” by Michael Riley (published in 1996) you will find that Rice was in a similar place about 15 years ago with regard to atheism and liberal “dogma”.
The “conversations” took place several years before she returned to the Church, and in some of them she says that the liberal/leftist “orthodoxy” she encountered during her years in California was in many ways far more repressive and intolerant of dissent than the old-fashioned pre-Vatican II Catholicism she grew up with.
July 30th, 2010 | 8:34 am | #12
“Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground. Christianity is the only frame which has preserved the pleasure of Paganism. We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff’s edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the center of the island; and their song had ceased.”
-G.K.Chesterton
July 30th, 2010 | 8:36 am | #13
Beautifully said…thank you Elizabeth!
We are never finished as Christians…hopefully she will find her way back!
July 30th, 2010 | 8:53 am | #14
I hope she comes back, but she wants to become a Christian but remain the same in her beliefs. As someone wrote … ‘There’s a God and He thinks just like me!’. It’s almost a form of atheism.
It took a LOT of swallowing of pride once I reverted. I have/had many libertarian views which I had to/still have to change. But I know in the case of faith and morals, if I disagree with my 2000 year old Church, I’m probably the one that’s wrong. As a Mensan, and still a somewhat intellectually arrogant person (although that is changing), it’s an incredibly tough thing to believe. But I’ve read Humanae Vitae and realized that (just maybe) I’m not right about everything.
You can receive the gift of faith, but unless you have a conversion of heart and mind, it won’t stick around. I hope the Holy Spirit raps her across the hand and brings her back, somewhere back in our Christian faith, whether Catholic or not.
July 30th, 2010 | 9:06 am | #15
I always wonder what God does with people like Mrs Rice. It’s not my place to judge and I won’t, but there are so many people I meet each day who are sincere…and do their best to live a life that’s (albeit by their own definition) upright…but simply do not (or cannot) believe. Or worse, have venom for the Church and God that comes from a place I can only describe as diabolical.
I know the Catholic answer…”we leave them to the mercy of God, trusting His judgement.”
Nonetheless…I still wonder what the moment will be like when they face Him and realize all they resisted for their entire life, all they refused, all they denied…what happens then?
July 30th, 2010 | 9:09 am | #16
[...] The Anchoress—how I love her–writes (her bolds): Rice’s angry frustration with what she (and, let’s face it, many others) perceive to be a sort of Institution of No is interesting. She refuses to be “anti-gay,” but the church teaches that indeed we must not be anti-gay, that homosexual inclinations are not sinful in themselves, but that all are called to chastity, whether gay or straight. [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 9:11 am | #17
To add to your list of ” I do not know how anyone can read______ “, I would add, I do not know how anyone can read the Scriptures and come away thinking that the Gospel message is negative and hateful. Anne Rice does not understand the good news!
July 30th, 2010 | 9:13 am | #18
“Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair.”
-G.K.Chesterton
That is a point that the Holy Spirit constantly whispers to me. And for good reason;
I am forever trying to “win the argument”, and in the process I end up losing my compassion. In my misdirected efforts to correct the world’s misconceptions of Christianity, I end up confirming the worlds observation that I, like all men, am fundamentally broken. In my attempts to “convince” the world that faith is the way, I end up losing my way because I forget to rely on my faith in God.
I am slowly realizing that I will always be a work in progress, that Christ can only transform me when I stop getting in my own way. It is easy to misunderstand that so often our attempts to convert others, is really a misdirected attempt to convert ourselves.
More often than not when our faith becomes a “battle” in this world, it is waged not so much against others, but against the unsettling reflection of ourselves that we recognize in others.
At least, that’s how it is for me.
July 30th, 2010 | 9:29 am | #19
Let me translate Ms. Rice’s lament: I’ve grown tired of being shunned by my literary peers. Please start inviting me in again, guys!
Following Christ requires us to swim against a very swift cultural current. It is a difficult thing to do. I’m sure Anne Rice’s current was much fiercer than mine.
July 30th, 2010 | 9:42 am | #20
I posted a comment earlier which seems to have “disappeared” so I’m posting once again.
I don’t believe that anyone is to blame for Anne Rice’s decision but Anne herself. She decided (free will) to accept moral relativism as her “religion” which is not Christianity.
To be an authenic Christian one needs to rid oneself of pride and take on humility. This means following Christ and His commands and if one is Catholic then ascenting to the teachings of the Catholic Church which speaks for Christ, even though we may not always understand.
These days we experience “Cafeteria Catholicism” and dissenting thought everywhere. The good news is that many Christians from other denominations are joining the Catholic Church because she represents Truth and does not cave in to political correctness or moral relativism.
I hope the Anne Rice finds her way back.
July 30th, 2010 | 10:01 am | #21
What disappointing news to read this morning. Back to praying for her reconversion and time to add a footnote to any of her books I recommend. My one comment to Maximus Decidius Meridius is PURGATORY. I am hoping I may arrive at that state before check-out time, but my own personal struggles and grasping for holiness make me think that my purgation will be intense. I’d be so much holier if I didn’t complain! Padre.
July 30th, 2010 | 10:08 am | #22
Elizabeth:
You’re right about bad catechesis. At its heart, Christianity is very subtle and complex. In an effort to make it easier to comprehend, we’ve reduced its transmission, in many instances, to an orwellian simplicity that is distorting its message, destroying the church, and doing nothing for the souls for whom it was intended.
Lack of clarity has also made it possible for ideas from the Left to pollute and subvert its message. To say nothing of the effects of accepting the validity of relativism.
The icing on the cake comes from the mass of Protestants who, instead of honoring the solid, traditional theology worked out in the first 500 years of the faith, rely on sola scriptura–the Bible means whatever I may think it means–to pervert and fragment the Word.
July 30th, 2010 | 10:13 am | #23
I’m not a Christian, or really a religious person at all, but the thing that strikes me about people like Rice is that they assume their emotions are by themselves a guide to ultimate truth.
If Rice believes that there is such a thing as a God, which she evidently does, then how can she assume that she understands the wishes of the deity based only on her feelings and on the opinions that are common in one social circle in one society during one period of time?
She says that she refuses to be anti-science, but reasoning about factual things that is purely emotion-driven is indeed anti-science, and if used in the field of applied science (ie, bridge and aircraft design) would be very likely to be fatal.
[Nice comment. With your insight about Rice's emotions, you might like this -admin]
July 30th, 2010 | 10:15 am | #24
Dear Ms Rice,
You have apparently only seen the “hate the sin” aspect of Catholicism but have not seen the “Love the sinner” aspect. Perhaps you need to take another look at what the Church actually teaches. “So what!” if most of us Catholics are a bunch of “hooligans” who don’t understand yet how to love properly as Christ would have us love. Perhaps you were meant to lead us. The “Church” after all is supposed to be for sinners not the self-righteous. It is a shame that you have quit the: One, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Church. I hope you will reconsider and change your mind. Would you get off the best and quickest Bus if it was taking you to meet with your Beloved just because you did not care for some of the other passengers? I think if you disliked all Catholics and thought we were all “Anti’s” perhaps the problem was not entirely ours. I wish you well.
God Bless,
Leonard
July 30th, 2010 | 10:16 am | #25
Like so many Catholics, she never really studied her professed faith. Too many Catholics think they learned all they need to know about their faith in Sunday school as a child. The church is not anti-gay. Certainly not anti-science. Just because the church paints this picture or that does not equate to hate. Her last 2 books were rather anti-Christian. So I really can’t say I am surprised.
July 30th, 2010 | 10:20 am | #26
I don’t put much faith in Anne Rice’s moves either ‘in or out’ of the Church. They seem ‘self-promoting’ to me.
July 30th, 2010 | 10:25 am | #27
[...] was made of Anne Rice’s conversion a decade ago. Via the Anchoress, Rice has left the church. Her arguments for doing so are all based on earthly things, and open [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 10:25 am | #28
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” – Chapter 5, What’s Wrong With The World, 1910, G. K. Chesterton
G-d has given us many gifts; Christ, our lives, our ability to reason as well as faith and blessings to numerous to count (especially chocolate, air conditioning and Hank(my dog)).
I have only been a Catholic for a few months and I understand where Mrs. Rice is coming from, but G-d has never quit on us so we should not quit on him. He is not afraid of our questions unlike our human parents and we shouldn’t be afraid of his answers either. He wants our faith and love to be given freely. It can not be forced.
My prayer for Mrs. Rice is that she turns to Him for her answers and that He will comfort her in this time of confusion and grief.
July 30th, 2010 | 10:25 am | #29
Forty years of sloppy, empty catechesis . . . Unfortunately, we Christians teach this poorly . . .
Anne Rice, born in 1941, is a product of those wonderful glory years of catechesis before those awful 40 years in the desert, as were countless others of her generation who led the charge out of the Church in those years of social revolution and generational upheaval. Those 40 post-Vatican II years of sloppy, empty catechesis did not cause Rice et al., rather, these pre-Vatican II people caused the upheaval.
Indeed, it was because so many confused people like Rice were out there that the Pope deemed it necessary to call the Second Vatican Council in the first place — the Church was inadequately addressing modern issues and explaining Church teaching even to Catholics, much less non-Catholics, and too many of the faithful were unable to apply that teaching to everyday practical situations.
To be sure, too many of those confused took the reins and hijacked the Church post-V2, but things are actually improving, not getting worse. In fact, Humanae Vitae, Fides et Ratio, Theology of the Body, and the bioethical teachings — understood by countless people — are all products of those 40 years of sloppy, empty catechesis. Indeed, these teachings ARE THE CATECHESIS of the last 40 years.
Again, too many of the confused are the ones in charge of handing on this catechesis, and too many of the confused fail or refuse to accept or even attempt to understand the catechesis, but you cannot force people into the light. Some will always prefer the darkness. And some are simply overwhelmed with their confusion that they need some time to come to the light.
But whether Rice prefers the darkness to the light, or whether she is simply too overwhelmed in her confusion that she is afraid to leave the darkness and she is not sufficiently accustomed to the light (which can be blindingly bright to those who have been in the dark for a while), whatever the case with Rice, this much is certain — her “rejection of Christianity” while “keeping Christ” will not bring her comfort.
She will remain restless and ill-at-ease. Because the problem is not other Christians, who are admittedly poor witnesses for Christ, the problem is the same problem that we have had since “the beginning” — a desire for our own truth. Rice has eaten The Fruit and wants to keep on eating The Fruit. As a result, her entire worldview is twisted around backward, where good is evil, truth is error, hate is love.
If she wants the comfort of Christ, her answer is not to reject her fellow Christians for being the jerks that we are, much less the Catholic Church (and given her baptism, I’ve got news for her — she can NEVER leave the Church), rather, her answer is to throw away the fruit. The truth — and only the truth — will set her free of her anxieties and unease.
It is for us, in all charitable patience, to help her to see that the fruit is poison, that it and her desire for the fruit are the cause of her being thrown out of the Garden, and it is for us to encourage her to set the fruit aside, to be a loving beacon of light for her, and not an angry beacon of more darkness.
She is not alone in her struggles. Too many Catholics and too many non-Catholic Christians are along side her. And much of the non-Christian world is in darkness so intense that it can be felt.
We need to be patient. We cannot force them to the light, we cannot force freedom upon them. The best thing to do is to simply reflect the Light ourselves, to merely offer truth to them in love.
[You've made a right distinction to my point on catechesis, but I think I will still maintain that it is the sloppy parish-offered catechetics that are hugely at fault. While it's true that these documents you and I are pointing out are all post-VCII examples of catechesis, they are directed toward adults. The problem, however, is that our elementary catechesis is too often watered-down marshmallow fluff that offers kids 6-8 years of "God is special, you are special, Mass is special, you are special" and does not ignite their passion or hold their attention. The majority of kids coming through our CCD classes manage to make their confirmation and then they disappear - they launch themselves out into the world and the pop/youth culture and that's it; they're gone for years; many never come back. To them "Twilight" is more real than the Eucharist or the life of faith, and encyclicals and documents mean nothing. What is needed is a streamlined catechetic system that does not change from parish-to-parish. In my neighborhood, we have one parish using the excellent Ignatius series for its CCD program, and one two miles away that uses the equivalent of stick-figure drawings and super-dumbed down language. When I "home-schooled" my kids with the Ignatian materials, the DRE's eyes popped out, "you're teaching them from that?" It was too sophisticated, too high and challenging for children, she thought. But Catholic catechesis should be challenging; that's how we rise! admin]
July 30th, 2010 | 10:49 am | #30
I believe Rice said her son is gay, which explains her understandable emotional orientation on that issue at least. The churches engage in so little sound extended discussion at the local level on these issues that I am not surprised people get washed out by secular hostility. Here is an excellent related excerpt from Frank Sheed written way back in ’67:
“It is not good to be the sane minority in a society that has lost contact with God. We hold our own mental health precariously when sanity so partial and defective is accepted as the norm. Insanity is catching: we grow uncertain of the cadences of normal speech when all around us men are gibbering, and gibbering so learnedly and so gravely and so confidently. Our world at its best has all the airs and graces, the rationalizations and courtesies and card indexes of sanity, so that the notion that it might not be sane may not occur to us…
‘Fanatic’ is the word. We can frighten ourselves with it. I have talked of assumptions and seepage that we are unaware of. But there is something else: the [Christian] can be consciously embarrassed at his difference. There are those who feel out of step, self-conscious because out of step, self-questioning because out of step. If they have not made the mysteries of revelation truly their own, they may see life fluid and free, theology all bones. There is great psychological value in a strong affirmation, said Belloc. No affirmation was ever stronger than our world makes of its own rightness.
The temptation is to try to get into step with everybody else, while somehow hanging on to the truths. Short of denying them, there is a kind of scaling down and shading off, a resolute switching of the mind away from doctrines at which the world would raise an eyebrow. At all costs, one must not be a fanatic. St. Paul had met this attitude, right at our beginnings: “Be not conformed to this world, but be re-formed by the newing of your mind” (Rom. 12.1).
It is not only Faith that demands this, but sheerest common sense. On remembers a stock joke of the last fifty years—the old lady watching a line of soldiers on parade and saying proudly, “They’re all out of step except my George.” We all smile, we all assume without the shadow of a second thought that it is George who is out of step. But if everybody else in the battalion happened to be deaf, then George might well be the only one marching in time to the music of the band.
The parallel is exact. The follower of Christ does hear a music that does not reach the ears of other men: he is bound to be out of step with them, for they are out of step with it. But in our world we must listen to that music with unflagging attention: partly that it may not be drowned out of our own ears by all the tomtoms of chaos, partly that others may begin to catch from us first some hint of the rhythm, then some hint of the tune. —God & The Human Condition
July 30th, 2010 | 10:58 am | #31
This is all very sad. Charity is the best way to go here. Let’s leave the rocks on the ground and throw our prayers toward her instead. I am sure the pressures of Hollywood must be great for people like Anne Rice, Mel Gibson or others in their position. But, they also have the opportunity to witness like many others do not. We need to pray that these very public Christians have the strength to stay faithful. All of us need that strength to persevere.
July 30th, 2010 | 10:59 am | #32
[...] What Being was she hoping to become? She, and her family, should be in our prayers for sure. http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/theanchoress/2010/07/30/anne-rice-quits-christianity/ “Many are called, but……” [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 11:10 am | #33
“Unfortunately, we Christians teach this poorly”
This is certainly true. Yet, perhaps we should note that we Christians LEARN poorly. How many so-called “thinking Christians” bother to educate themselves on what the Church teaches and why? In the age of the internet it really is not very difficult to do. For once, I think we should call a spade a spade: rather than excoriating practicing Catholics, why not admit that some Catholics are too lazy to learn their own faith?
July 30th, 2010 | 11:22 am | #34
After exchanging several emails with Ann Rice, I found her to be a confused and disordered woman, If you asked her to give a reasoned rational for her refusals I doubt she would be capable of doing so. No wonder she is an icon for our times
July 30th, 2010 | 11:23 am | #35
Amen, Bender.
My question to Anchoress and to the rest of us is this: what does “love” look like? If I pray for the sanctity of marriage as the union between one man and one woman, does that make me anti-gay? If I support a crisis pregnancy center, does that somehow make me anti-woman or anti-feminist? How should “speaking Truth in love” be done? What expression of Christian Truth would please Ms. Rice?
If one of my children came to me and said they thought they were gay, I would try (and I emphasize *try* because I think I would be in a panic) to present the Church’s teaching on the matter. Of course, I would still love them and of course they would still be a part of my life, but I would not validate that particular choice. Because I believe to the depths of my soul that active homosexuality is a death sentence (sometimes physically, but most certainly spiritually). Likewise, if I had a daughter come to me pregnant and tell me she wanted to get an abortion, I would do the same. I would explain the Church’s teaching (which as Catholics we believe to be Christ’s teaching) and beg her not to make a deadly mistake (again, both physically and spiritually). Does this mean I am not be loving toward my children?
Again, how would Ms. Rice prefer the Christian witness be portrayed?
Yes, we as Christians fail, sometimes miserably, in being charitable. As others have noted, we are sinners too and until we leave this earth will remain so. Does this mean we get to reject the message because the messenger was deficient? The cynical side of me agrees with Doc that Ms. Rice has found herself on the “outs.” But Benders eloquent comment is a loving response and gives me pause. Perhaps, like Ms. Rice, many of us are uncomfortable with the blinding light and prefer to remain in darkness.
[I would suggest that it is easier to know what love DOESN'T look like. One can fully support Christ's notion of marriage being exclusively male/female without being nasty (or sanctimonious and condescending) about it, as some Christians do get (I see it in my email all the time.) There is an argument I get in my email frequently from Christians, "we're supposed to teach and correct" but as Paul said we are to "instruct and admonish each other" in wisdom made perfect; anything but the most loving way will not do. The problem is too many people seem to think that "love" means "acquiescence." It doesn't. But harsh lights and two by fours don't carry the love, either, I don't think. Jesus ever used them. -admin]
July 30th, 2010 | 11:53 am | #36
I haven’t read her books but her “I refuse” litany in the Anchoress’s post reveals someone who doesn’t seem to have studied Catholicism at all. Maybe she is operating in the realm of pure emotion.
@Maximus, what we do in life, echoes in eternity.
July 30th, 2010 | 11:54 am | #37
Jes said, “For once, I think we should call a spade a spade: rather than excoriating practicing Catholics, why not admit that some Catholics are too lazy to learn their own faith?”
Unfortunately, this is true. Take contraception for example. The Church has very clearn moral, theological and biblical basis’ for teaching that contraception is a grave sin and very few Catholics have every bothered to understand these or are able to articulate these to another.
Regarding Mrs. Rice’s “I refuse to be anti-” statements, in a time before the internet, before mail order books, before most people could read and before the printing press had been invented, blind obedience to the Church may have been the end of it. In our age, it is our responsibility to leary why the church teaches what it does, especially when we find that we disagree with one of Her teachings.
Everything was created by God for good. The Church really isn’t anti anything except sin.
-Tim-
July 30th, 2010 | 12:05 pm | #38
Beautiful post Elizabeth, thanks! I hope many pray for Ann, as I suspect she never really learned the true faith.
I think the mistake most like her make is that the church has an obligation to please the world, when in fact, the church is timeless and essentially “outside of time.”
The irony is, the “real” world IS the church, not ‘reality’ as we, in the world, ‘know’ it. IMO, the best read to get the “reality”, is Frank Sheed’s, “Theology and Sanity.” Sheed puts reality and the supernatural into basic common sense, understandable by anyone willing to read it.
July 30th, 2010 | 12:09 pm | #39
I think Anne Rice is probably on a genuine journey of faith, and I wish her well. I am surprised that she hasn’t yet looked behind the inaccurate stereotypes of Catholic principles to find the radical theological virtues which are essential to Christianity, not to mention the sermon on the mount, the corporal acts of mercy, etc, etc. Maybe she’ll learn about these things over time. I’m sure she has encountered people who are poor examples of Christianity, but then we all are poor examples of Christianity most of the time. I hope she doesn’t think she’ll find a more purified version with all saints and no sinners somewhere outside the church. If she asked my advice I’d tell her that Christianity is difficult and mysterious. I would refer her to someone like Graham Greene, a popular writer who struggled with his faith. It might help for her to realize that struggling is common when you are dealing with a mystery. It doesn’t help that there are so many Christians claiming that Christianity is easy or obvious or profitable, or that Christianity leads to peace and happiness. I agree with the poet who suggested that we spend time with people looking for the truth and run from the ones who think they’ve found it.
July 30th, 2010 | 12:23 pm | #40
On the second anniversary of my decision to enter the Catholic church (not to mention my 22nd wedding anniversary) I went and prayed the Rosary before I went to work. I hadn’t yet heard this news, but the prayer “Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, and lead all souls to Heaven” certainly applies here, to Mrs. Rice, myself, and so many others.
July 30th, 2010 | 12:43 pm | #41
beautifully written and beautifully stated. i whole-heartedly agree with everything you’ve said. i only wish people could see the Church for what it actually is and not for the negative caricatures presented to them…
July 30th, 2010 | 12:58 pm | #42
That’s incredibly sad. I sometimes think that the desire to be normal has kept more people from Christ than just about anything else.
And that’s what Ms. Rice’s list sounds like to me. It’s not so much about the issues (whether she’s being fair to church doctrine or not). It’s about the fact that she wants to follow Christ and still fit in in her community. And she can’t.
July 30th, 2010 | 1:07 pm | #43
Anchoress, thanks for the link. I see your point (and that comment thread was very enlightening).
[Yeah, those comments were pretty amazing, weren't they? -admin]
July 30th, 2010 | 1:10 pm | #44
our elementary catechesis is too often watered-down marshmallow fluff that offers kids 6-8 years of “God is special, you are special, Mass is special, you are special” and does not ignite their passion or hold their attention
Part of that is due, as I said, to too many of the confused pre-V2 and post-V2 Catholics having taken charge of religious education. But part of that is also due to too many of those who enthusiastically embrace the Magisterium not signing up to teach CCD and RCIA. Too many people (and I’m not including the Anchoress here) spend too much of their time complaining about religious education and not enough time bothering to get their hands dirty to become catechists and actually teach it.
The majority of kids coming through our CCD classes manage to make their confirmation and then they disappear
Well, even in the best of religious education program, this happens a lot. The modern world has a lot of prodigal children. And even if they don’t leave CCD immediately after Confirmation, eventually they grow up and CCD does end and they are left to either live their faith or walk away. That a good proportion will leave, or will miss a lot of classes because soccer practice is more important, or will find the allure of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll in college to be more exciting, is to be expected.
But in catechesis, you are not planting fully-grown trees, you are preparing the soil and planting seeds. Many will not take root and sprout until long after you have moved on. And if the catechist does not see it right away, he has to understand that he is not the only one involved in the process — he needs to leave some work for the Holy Spirit to do. Many — maybe even most — of those in CCD and in Catholic schools will leave or drift from the Faith. That is to be expected — the world is highly temptatious and most people are prodigals at heart. But you need to have the faith — and the patience — that if you prepared the soil properly and planted the seeds, that they will return. There is no reason that they cannot all be Augustines, but they do need to find their own faith, that is, they need to embrace the Faith as a personal act, not merely passively go along with what their parents and teachers tell them.
Same with Rice. I would not worry or wring my hands too much. Be patient. Encourage in her those things that are good and positive. Do not aggravate by arguing those things that are not good or positive, lest you drive her further away. Let her know where “home” is, but do not go chasing after her, just as the father did not go chasing after the prodigal son. Allow her to come home when she is ready.
[Oh, I agree with you. Not worried about Rice because I think she's on a journey, like the rest of us, and pften long, circuitous routes are part of that. Just for a little clarification, though, one reason I harp on elementary catechesis so much is b/c I DID volunteer as a CCD teacher for many years and found it very difficult to do much in 45 minutes per week with materials that were like mushy sweetrolls and really did not challenge; I often brought my own supplements to it all, but then there is still the problem of parents not reinforcing the lessons at home. I'd have the kids for 45 minutes a week, and then a mother said, "I just found out my 7 year old doesn't know the Our Father, what are you doing, here, why am I wasting my time bringing her here if you're not teaching her that?" And I had to answer, "you have her for 6 days and 23 hours more than I do a week...why aren't YOU? Why aren't you closing your evenings together with prayer? Or starting your mornings with it?" She just got annoyed and "tsked" at me. I started "homeschooling" CCD for my own kids (mostly Buster) only because I'd returned to school and could not manage the scheduled times...but since I was doing it alone, I went for the better materials!
-admin]
July 30th, 2010 | 1:22 pm | #45
Anchoress, your blog post here is so helpful, I’m going to email it to my family members. Its a great apology in the true sense of the word. So helpful. I’ve been watching Dr. Thomas Wood’s series on the Church Builder of Civilization and it is what you say, the Church is not anti-reason, science or person.
So many comments above remind me of Plato’s cave. Many humans are more content to watch the shadows on the wall than come out into the blinding light. The Transfiguration did not sting the eyes perhaps, but, they did fall to the ground. Truth can be overwhelming. Sloth can affect the intellect and make one lazy even in pursuing one’s own faith.
I agree with all the charitable comments above. We must storm heaven for her and other public figures falling so short in their understanding of the Faith.
I knew I could die in peace and not fear hell when an old priest said to us in a daily mass sermon, “The Church is not a showcase for saints but a hospital for sinners.” I’ve checked myself in for years ever since.
I’m glad Dave Foster chimed in. It was good to see an intelligent person who is non-religious be able to see that her statements lack logic. It gave me a sense of relief because I worry over irresponsible statements like hers causing even more to go astray.
I hope and pray she returns and studies her faith. Its the most wonderful treasure trove on earth. I still have not found its bottom and the riches are never ending. She would be such an example for the public if she came back through more than feelings.
Again, Anchoress, your prophetic words about sentimentalism seem to have been a theme this week.
July 30th, 2010 | 1:34 pm | #46
My stance has always been that I can’t understand those who seek a halfway house or don’t take their religion seriously. I do think this is quite often found amongst right-wing people too, less obvious but if anything even more deadly (to you) than that amongst liberals.
What I just don’t get is how people can casually profess a religion & not make it the utter centrepiece of their lives. If I followed a faith I would be hardcore studying the relevant texts at all times, & any of my views that were inappropriate would be thrown in the bin. Of course it’s not always easy to remember that at 9am on Monday, but how many even make the effort? That is what Chesterton got right
It is a common theme of mine that I think a lot of self-professed religious, right down to ministers, don’t believe it. In fact, reports have reached me before of actual pastors who have become atheists some time ago but won’t admit as much because they can’t unburden themselves to their family, “friends”, etc.
I would very much like to see ex-Muslims expressing similar sentiments to Anne Rice but, although they undoubtedly exist, they are often too intimidated to speak their minds. I do not think (though it’s always so hard to tell) that the Asians I have worked with are all as devout as that. I also think that a lot of leading politicians are heathen. How plausible is it, really, that Pete Stark is the only infidel in Congress?
Rather, I think they profess Christianity, often of a fairly fundamentalist kind, because their careers would suffer. Yet surely, as well as honest government, the church suffers from this. Wouldn’t you rather vote for an honest man than a pious fraud? For that matter, what about the image put across by the insincere?
I find it quite troubling. I remember that Nick Clegg (now the deputy prime minister- thanks in part to my support!) revealed his godlessness a couple of years ago. He was attacked for that, so he backed down by saying that his children were being brought up as Catholics & wnt to a Catholic school. The reason he couldn’t have the courage of his convictions is that the parade of Muslims (especially), Hindus, Sikhs & not forgetting Christians would have expressed their usual manufactured outrage.
PS-
I became acquainted with Graham Greene when I was 22, my parents split up & when walking my mother’s dog & generally looking after the place I found that the former owner had left some books behind. I had a browse through this library, it was great. There is someone called Piers Paul Read who stakes out simila ground. He sounds like a right tit o me, but that probably makes him good in the eyes of this blog’s readers
July 30th, 2010 | 1:50 pm | #47
I followed a couple blog posts/comments in the aftermath of the Sr. Margaret McBride issue. (on another Catholic website). A poster who called herself Anne Rice (and did not deny being the author herself), was upset and confused about the Church’s stance on this terribly heartwrenching issue.
Unfortunately, most of the commentary hurled at this poster was far less than charitable. The ‘dialogue’ she encountered seemed loveless and self-righteous. While her ‘opponents’ were dogged and vociferous in their support of Truth, they seemed far too willing to espouse it at the expense of the person who was needing it the most.
If it was truly Anne Rice I was reading in those comments, then I can say that the Church she encountered that day, left her bruised and battered and even more entrenched in her own confusion.
At times, I have felt that way myself in my attempts to communicate online with other Catholics. I praise God that here in Denver, I can take refuge in the Eucharist, in a community of believers led by an Archbishop who guides us firmly and lovingly in the Truth of Holy Mother Church.
And I thank God for the First Things site, where you all folks are intelligent, loving and overwhelmingly charitable!
St. Isidore, pray for us as we communicate with one another online!
July 30th, 2010 | 1:52 pm | #48
I hope and pray she comes back to her faith. Her statement “I refuse to be…” can be taken as “I will not obey”.
July 30th, 2010 | 1:52 pm | #49
i always appreciate how you manage to proclaim the truths of a given situation without so many trappings of anger.
i only wish i could pull this off as well as you.
July 30th, 2010 | 2:08 pm | #50
(The Anchoress wrote – “The problem is too many people seem to think that “love” means “acquiescence.” It doesn’t. But harsh lights and two by fours don’t carry the love, either, I don’t think. Jesus never used them.”)
This is exactly the struggle I find myself in since I slowly returned to my Catholic faith over the last six years.
On one hand I want to “fight” the prevalence of liberation theology in my parish with the use of rhetorical 2×4′s against the heads of the delusional members who blindly submerge themselves in it’s lies. To do anything less feels like a form of quiet compliance that only serves to allow the spread of the corruption of True Faith and in effect, offers no real purpose other than that of a useful doormat.
On the other hand, by resisting too vigorously my heart can easily give way to it’s natural inclination of self-serving pride, arrogance, viciousness, and anger, and thereby defeat the entire point of Christ’s purpose in our lives.
This Christian life is a hard life to live. It is the most difficult path I have ever chosen. There are days (more often than it seems there should be) that I wonder- what’s the point? What the hell? Why do I even care to try?
But then, I can’t seem to forget those moments of transformative peace that I have experienced in the last few years and continue to encounter. And my heart recalls the overwhelming love and mercy that has been poured over it when it was cold and hard. And my memory can’t erase the first time I felt truly complete and valid as a human when (and only when) I had the deeply profound realization that I have ALWAYS been in God’s eye. That I was not an after-thought to Him, but rather, I was His forethought.
And so, I carry on in all my flaws and bad habits as I try to learn and change.
What else can I do?
You called to me Oh Lord with an unheard voice, and I answered………
July 30th, 2010 | 2:39 pm | #51
materials that were like mushy sweetrolls and really did not challenge; I often brought my own supplements to it all
This last part is key. Even with the Ignatius Press material like “Faith and Life,” one needs to supplement, and the catechist/instructor/assistant needs to remember that he is a life-long student as well, needing to not simply teach from the text, but learn beyond the text and teach from the heart. Simply subscribing the Zenit and reading the Pope’s frequent homilies, addresses, and Angelus and Wednesday audience catechesis, does wonders in knowing what to say and how to say it to students.
July 30th, 2010 | 2:41 pm | #52
In challenging us to say “Yes!” to the highest form of good in regards to belief, practice, and personal action, the Church is also challenging us to say “No” to settling for lesser goods – and especially to say “No” to fooling ourselves and others that these lesser goods are not “lesser”. However, in arguing that these lesser goods are indeed “less good”, it is very easy to make the mistake of asserting that these lesser goods are not merely “lesser” but in fact not “good”. This, I believe, is what gets Christians (fairly or unfairly) tagged as being “anti-” a great many things that the Church itself sees as “good”.
July 30th, 2010 | 2:46 pm | #53
Last Sphere,
That could have been me writing your post. Thank you.
July 30th, 2010 | 2:49 pm | #54
That is, subscribe TO Zenit.
But even with that grossly inadequate 45-60 minutes per week, it is possible to leave an impression that will bear fruit later on. After years of wandering in the desert, they might think back (and Rice might do this too) and say to themselves, no one else has been much help to me, but I remember that there was that one CCD teacher, who said some things that somehow got stuck in the back of my mind and they are starting to make sense. I don’t even remember that teacher’s name, but he/she made a difference.
I cannot underestimate the impact on me simply from seeing habits on the nuns when I was little. That tiny little image — the veil/habit — stuck in my head and did as much to, at least keep me in the neighborhood, if not bring me back, as anything else did.
July 30th, 2010 | 2:51 pm | #55
Anchoress, the Ignatius Press catechisms Faith and Life are by far the best. I used them when I taught CCD. The priests were AMAZED that the kids not only knew answers, but why.
I made it mandatory for my “parents” to come to their own CCD with me twice in the school year. They groaned, moaned and complained. I provided the coffee and did a powerpoint presentation for them one day on the sacrament of reconciliation and another day on the Eucharist. Most did NOT know the basics of either sacrament. I packed as much as I could into the talk, including quoting from the catechism and church documents about THEIR moral obligation and duty to pass on the faith. The eyeballs were wide that day. I think it hit a nerve. I really drove it home that it was they and not I who were responsible. Only I did not have to say it, Mother Church did it for me.
July 30th, 2010 | 2:51 pm | #56
Sister,
The only rational way to deal with fellow human beings is to apply equal measures of love and discipline.
Seneca III
July 30th, 2010 | 2:53 pm | #57
Rarely do I wade into the comments section, because I usually come away with the bitter taste of anonymous adhominem vitriol. But here, there is compassionate Truth, and I hope somehow Ms. Rice stumbles onto it. What a thoughtful, charitable bunch are all of you…I have learned much today!
July 30th, 2010 | 2:59 pm | #58
Hahaha. This is funny:
“In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life”
SO NOW I’M…. ANTI-Christian
Too funny. If only these people listened to their own words. In the name of openness they become soooo narrow minded.
July 30th, 2010 | 3:08 pm | #59
On the subject of CCD, I love the example of F, who said that she required the parents of her students to come for two classes. Before I read that, I had been thinking that parishes should provide materials (and only the best) to parents and invite/require them to teach their own children (with mandatory tests administered by the parish). I am just so lukewarm about the idea of 45 minutes per week with a lay catechist. (My children are fortunate to attend Catholic school, where they are receiving a good grounding in the faith.)
When I was in high school, my Lutheran peers attended two years of weekly night classes with rigorous homework in order to be confirmed. As a Catholic, I attended milquetoast discussions about the Sacraments to be confirmed. There are so many Anne Rices out there! Maybe her sad story will encourage more of us to pray and work for a better understanding of the faith among Catholics and non-Catholics.
July 30th, 2010 | 3:17 pm | #60
See Mrs. Rice: we Catholics LOVE all of these people (i.e. gays, people that use artificial contraception, feminists) more than you would ever do. We have the guts, at the risk of being hated, to tell them that practicing homosexual acts, using artificial contraception, and being activist for those “lifestyles” is very bad for them. We tell them that those behaviors will make them miserable in this life.
No you would not have the guts to be so helpful with people that are ruining their happiness; you would only go so far as telling them the innocuous: don’t eat at MC Donald’s and exercise (the supreme value of this age)
Go on and spend your life just getting along, while gays live miserable lives, babies are slaughtered in their mother’s wombs, and marriage becomes a mockery of the life giving unity that it should be.
July 30th, 2010 | 3:32 pm | #61
Anne Rice sounds like a quarrelsome person herself!
July 30th, 2010 | 3:37 pm | #62
It’s a good thing she didn’t quit Islam. They execute people for trying to do that.
July 30th, 2010 | 3:42 pm | #63
It’s incredible how long some of these comments are.
People should learn the virtue of brevity if they expect others to read their comments.
July 30th, 2010 | 3:48 pm | #64
Very useful and understandable posts & comments – we will order some copies of the Ignatius Press catechisms, as some of our adult grandchildren, after Confirmation with semi-useless materials, have stopped practicing their Faith.
TeaPot562
July 30th, 2010 | 3:53 pm | #65
Awesome blog and these may be the best, most thoughtful comments I have ever seen! Thanks Anchoress and Commenters. And “Last Sphere” you said most of the rest I would add!
July 30th, 2010 | 4:02 pm | #66
[...] The Anchoress – Anne Rice Quits Christianity [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 4:10 pm | #67
I concur with Caroline W…these comments are refreshingly understanding and kind. FYI: The USCCB’s “Always Our Children” is a highly flawed document. To understand what really happened with AOC, please see a formal response from Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz here:
link
I am saddened by Ms. Rice’s decision…and hopes she finds her way back home.
July 30th, 2010 | 4:17 pm | #68
At our parish, I notice the teen group goes through the Catechism with a very talented gentleman. (I know he is a professor, but I don’t know his area.) The kids clearly adore him and I can’t think of a better preparation for life.
How well I remember my own high school experience: “Well, we don’t have an answer for that, but Catholics believe…”
July 30th, 2010 | 4:27 pm | #69
Mary wrote:
“Anne Rice has no one to blame but herself for her departure from Christianity. She has used her free will to embrace moral relativism as so many others have in epic proportions. This is not Christianity.”
She left because of people like you who throw around boilerplate moral accusations of those you think you understand, but don’t understand. It’s really hard to have a deeply developed conscience and listen to Jesus turned into a banal conservative talking point.
July 30th, 2010 | 5:42 pm | #70
[...] wrong: we are not called to be spiritual hermits, to fall into the trap Ms. Rice appears to be setting for herself. At least, I am not called to be a spiritual hermit. I’m called to take my liberalism out into [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 6:02 pm | #71
Last Sphere, that was beautifully written and captured the spirit of Christ that I try (and frequently fail) to emulate. When we see others who are deeply and truly in love, we find ourselves saying, “I want that.” That is what I hope people will see when they look at the Church. It’s up to those of us struggling along the road to extend help to each other when we falter but also, to accept that help, even though we may think we don’t need it. I am reminded of St Francis of Assisi’s words, “Preach the gospel often…if necessary, use words.” For someone like me, who loves to debate, it is a gentle discipline worth practicing. Ms. Rice has my prayers, hope, and love that she will find her way into truth.
July 30th, 2010 | 6:31 pm | #72
From my own experience, I can tell you that you can have a gay child, love them completely and unconditionally, allow their friends to visit (not overnight) and still completely and totally follow the Church’s teaching of chastity whether gay or straight. Always loving the sinner never means loving the sin.
July 30th, 2010 | 6:36 pm | #73
1) Ann Rice used to be Catholic… she started sleeping in a coffin.
2) Ann Rice stopped sleeping in a coffin… she started being Catholic again.
3) Ann Rice used to be Catholic/Christian again…
Does it follow she’s going to start sleeping in a coffin again?
—-
Its her choice to leave. We all have the responsibility to save our own souls through the sacraments. There’s too many Christians who don’t fully except that point. There are sins. We are all susceptible to them… everyone of us. What she seems to have a problem with is the CHURCH pointing out those sins. That’s what the confessional is for. Besides, we’ll ALL be sleeping in coffins at some point. Better to be prepared than not.
July 30th, 2010 | 6:44 pm | #74
Great helpful posts.
July 30th, 2010 | 6:44 pm | #75
I have been drining, i would be of the school of thought that said it’s best to go to bed right about nowe
[Sleep well -admin]
July 30th, 2010 | 7:02 pm | #76
Rice has always struggled with inner demons and, when she needed him, turned to Christ…..and now, in good times, turns away. Hopefully, they will reunite.
July 30th, 2010 | 7:06 pm | #77
[...] Anne Rice Quits Christianity (firstthings.com) [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 7:22 pm | #78
Reading about this over at Commonweal (which toots Rod Dreher’s mention of them), the question arises —
Who really has done more to push Rice away from the Church?
Those admittedly obnoxious overzealous conservative types?
Or the like-minded progressives who, instead of providing Rice and others like her good-faith explanations of the faith (with the Sr. Margaret McBride situation, for example), and instead of encouraging her in love for the Church, alleviating her concerns, have instead encouraged disenchantment with the Church and have fed her distress?
[I looked at Commonweal in the wee small hours when I was writing this, to see what they were saying...I'll go look now -admin]
July 30th, 2010 | 7:35 pm | #79
This seems to be turning into an uncharitable and condescending attack on “conservative” Catholics. Ruining an otherwise good thread.
July 30th, 2010 | 7:45 pm | #80
[...] I was going to write on the Anne Rice bit… By datechguy …but it would be impossible to do better than the Anchoress has done. [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 7:53 pm | #81
The key element is Catholicism. She did not become a Catholic, therefore she did not get the full package.
July 30th, 2010 | 7:59 pm | #82
This seems to be turning into an uncharitable and condescending attack on “conservative” Catholics.
I do not agree. Rice’s own published statements accuse conservatives in explaining why she has left, so it is appropriate for others to consider and reflect upon what she herself has said.
July 30th, 2010 | 8:10 pm | #83
[...] By datechguy Poet James Marley… as said to me after I called and read him the Anchoress piece. (He has no computer) The “Act accordingly” is his but he doesn’t recall where he [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 8:27 pm | #84
Given that the parable of the wheat and the tares has always been true — it is one thing to lament our sins and any scandal we have caused, but another to think we can clean up the Church in a manner that would prevent it.
Especially given that what some people really reject is the annoyance of concrete flesh-and-blood people and the solidity of doctrines.
July 30th, 2010 | 8:33 pm | #85
How the word conservative came up here, I do not know. And how it is naturally attached to other ideas such as judgmental and condemning I also do not know. Church teaching has for 2000 years evaded any and all attempts at pigeon-holing. It is neither liberal nor conservative: it is either taught with conviction and clarity and made clear out of love for our fellow man and woman’s salvation, or it is not. Stalwart defence of Catholic teaching has gotten many killed in both left and right wing countries. I find Rice’s terse “firing” of the Church to be highly judgmental, and I believe made more to impress her fellows in her circle than the Church, and therefore attach no significance to her blather.
If she wants a denomination that lets her build a god of her very own instead of accepting God, the same way you can build your own customized teddy bear at those chain stores, she ought to go Unitarian, where they have seminars on doing exactly that!
July 30th, 2010 | 9:03 pm | #86
(Bender wrote – “Rice’s own published statements accuse conservatives in explaining why she has left”)
Which is not surprising.
As I have stated before on other threads- Liberalism IS it’s own form of secular religion.
For the Liberal, all other religious beliefs, spirituality, and doctrines, must conform to and bend around modern progressive tenets.
The obvious conflict for the Liberal is the progressive belief that “truth” is always being redefined in terms of the most modern developments of our society, that morality is always evolving by it’s own relative nature.
By contrast The Church understands that Truth in it’s essence is the timeless morality of Christ.
And that Truth has always been protected and preserved by the traditional teachings of the Church regardless of societal evolutions.
So in very real terms Christianity is conservative by it’s very traditional nature. Whereas Liberalism is the antithesis of tradition by it’s progressive and morally relative nature.
July 30th, 2010 | 9:20 pm | #87
One should never leave a church because of its followers, I have found. I don’t and won’t attend church until I go with someone who cares about me; but that is because I spent years, even decades, going to church buildings where no one cared about me, and I have become very sensitive in my middle age. I go where the love is, and most of the Catholics in nearby churches have no love for me. Rather, they are composed of cliques and families, with no room for me. I am sure that one day God will supply the love I am looking for and I will be able to go back without actually crying from the utter indifference. But that does not make me become anti-Church or anti-Christ. Just because I, as insignificant as I am, cannot find what I need there yet, doesn’t mean that I am not a part, because I am. I would tell Anne that God wants to give us all good things, and that the Church shows us a different face at different times to strengthen us, because it is made up of frail human beings. If we cannot love the Church, we cannot love one another, so that is a failing on our part, not the Church’s. We must learn to love people just the way they are. And when that love comes, we must jump at the opportunity and enjoy the human side of the Church. How do we find it? Through giving, not receiving. Anne has made a fortune writing about Christ, on receiving, and now she cannot even love his Church. She must learn how to love from the Church, which has weathered so many storms and yet hung together in its wisdom, far more moons than she ever did. I am sure that many Christians adore her; so how can she turn against the Church in this light? It would be different if she were treated like Blessed Margaret of Castello was; and yet Margaret stayed Catholic. Whenever it seems that people are a reason for leaving the Church, remember Margaret and keep on giving and keep on loving. As it did with Margaret, it might take you years to receive anything; but God is watching everything we do. One day I will be able to attend church again and feel a part of the group, because I never stopped loving the Church. You reap what you sow.
July 30th, 2010 | 10:21 pm | #88
[...] Rice wants to do the Life-in-Christ on her own, while saying “Yes” to the worldly world and its values. She seems not to realize that far from [...]
July 30th, 2010 | 11:01 pm | #89
Why, how, who’s to blame??!! All this discussion and no one cites Jesus’ words in the Gospels or any other Word of Scripture.
Here’s your answer and it’s been the same for thousands of years, for billions of people. Faith is a gift. To be a gift requires that someone be willing and able to receive it. Pride often gets in the way of receiving and accepting the gift, and even more so when it is God’s gift of Faith. We aren’t meant to change the Truth, it’s supposed to change us.
From the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 8:
[1] And it came to pass afterwards, that he travelled through the cities and towns, preaching and evangelizing the kingdom of God; and the twelve with him: [2] And certain women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities; Mary who is called Magdalen, out of whom seven devils were gone forth, [3] And Joanna the wife of Chusa, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered unto him of their substance. [4] And when a very great multitude was gathered together, and hastened out of the cities unto him, he spoke by a similitude. [5] The sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.
[6] And other some fell upon a rock: and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. [7] And other some fell among thorns, and the thorns growing up with it, choked it. [8] And other some fell upon good ground; and being sprung up, yielded fruit a hundredfold. Saying these things, he cried out: He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. [9] And his disciples asked him what this parable might be. [10] To whom he said: To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to the rest in parables, that seeing they may not see, and hearing may not understand.
[10] “Seeing they may not see”… See the annotation, Mark 4. 12.
[11] Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. [12] And they by the way side are they that hear; then the devil cometh, and taketh the word out of their heart, lest believing they should be saved. [13] Now they upon the rock, are they who when they hear, receive the word with joy: and these have no roots; for they believe for a while, and in time of temptation, they fall away. [14] And that which fell among thorns, are they who have heard, and going their way, are choked with the cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and yield no fruit. [15] But that on the good ground, are they who in a good and perfect heart, hearing the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit in patience.
[16] Now no man lighting a candle covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it upon a candlestick, that they who come in may see the light. [17] For there is not any thing secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hidden, that shall not be known and come abroad. [18] Take heed therefore how you hear. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given: and whosoever hath not, that also which he thinketh he hath, shall be taken away from him.
And I’ll close this with St. Peter’s warning in his Second Letter, Chapter 2:
[1] But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be among you lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction. [2] And many shall follow their riotousnesses, through whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. [3] And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you. Whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their perdition slumbereth not. . . . [9] The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly from temptation, but to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be tormented. [10] And especially them who walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government, audacious, self willed, they fear not to bring in sects, blaspheming.
[11] Whereas angels who are greater in strength and power, bring not against themselves a railing judgment. [12] But these men, as irrational beasts, naturally tending to the snare and to destruction, blaspheming those things which they know not, shall perish in their corruption, [13] Receiving the reward of their injustice, counting for a pleasure the delights of a day: stains and spots, sporting themselves to excess, rioting in their feasts with you: [14] Having eyes full of adultery and of sin that ceaseth not: alluring unstable souls, having their heart exercised with covetousness, children of malediction: [15] Leaving the right way they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam of Bosor, who loved the wages of iniquity,
[11] “A railing judgment”… That is, they use no railing, nor cursing sentence; not even in their conflicts with the evil angels. See St. Jude, ver. 9.
[13] “The delights of a day”… that is, the short delights of this world, in which they place all their happiness.
[16] But had a check of his madness, the dumb beast used to the yoke, which speaking with man’s voice, forbade the folly of the prophet. [17] These are fountains without water, and clouds tossed with whirlwinds, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved. [18] For, speaking proud words of vanity, they allure by the desires of fleshly riotousness, those who for a little while escape, such as converse in error: [19] Promising them liberty, whereas they themselves are the slaves of corruption. For by whom a man is overcome, of the same also he is the slave. [20] For if, flying from the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they be again entangled in them and overcome: their latter state is become unto them worse than the former.
[21] For it had been better for them not to have known the way of justice, than after they have known it, to turn back from that holy commandment which was delivered to them. [22] For, that of the true proverb has happened to them: The dog is returned to his vomit: and, The sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.
July 30th, 2010 | 11:17 pm | #90
I worry about what Rice’s brand of Christianity does, not necessarily to followers of Christ, but to the Church itself — especially when the church is already hanging by so thin a thread. The Apostle Paul admonishes us numerous times to not forsake the coming together in worship, yet this is what many Christians do, in the name of rejecting evangelicalism, if not evangelism itself.
[The church is not hanging by a thread, I don't think. She's merely doing necessary penance, and will be doing so for a while. Jesus made it very clear, when he said "upon this rock I build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail..." that the Supernatural battle rages through all time, all around us. Our "reality" is something of an illusion in that respect. Nothing is static; eventually it will seem like hell has the upper hand, and the church will perhaps undergo persecution and even be driven underground. But that will when the victory will be assured. The church is never more powerful than when she is nakedly dependent upon God, and serving up her martyrs. Do not be afraid. If Christ is to return, certain things do have to happen. The world was never going to remain in the middle of the 20th century, after all -admin]
July 30th, 2010 | 11:18 pm | #91
Although I profess I do not know the whole story behind Ms. Rice’s comments, I must confess that it appears that she does not love Christ, but rather loves her own construction of Christ. It is impossible to know Christ and not love what He loves, ie. Truth and His Church. Many love their own perception of Christ – some would suggest “Christ in their own image”; but that is not truly Christ. He is more than our imaginations. He is beyond our understanding. He is greater than our hearts. So it seems to me that she really has never met Christ if she cannot love the Church He gave His life to give to the world. It may take a lifetime of grace to really know Christ and knowing comes before loving. Anything else is illusionary. All of us must seek after Christ in our own way as given by grace. When the time is right He will let Himself be known. Then all our
knowledge will be as naught. Or as St. Thomas said “everything he wrote was but straw. We perhaps can aid Ms. Rice best by prayer – and recall that many of us willingly or unknowingly take detours along the way to Christ until at last He reveals Himself to us.
July 31st, 2010 | 12:16 am | #92
I can’t really add anything except to say that you really do have the most thoughtful, well-spoken commenters I’ve ever seen. Y’all are great.
July 31st, 2010 | 1:14 am | #93
When Ms. Rice first returned to the Church I read what she had to say. It seemed to me that while she preferred the post Vatican II Church she had rediscovered to the pre Vatican II Church she had left she understanding neither. She seemed particularly susceptible to some common fallacies about the purpose of the Vatican II reforms.
To tie this in with another post by our gracious hostess, Baby Boomers are often blamed for the narcissistic excesses in today’s society, but I have found that those born in the late depression and during WWII are often far worst offenders. Think about it. Many of the names associated with the excesses of the 1960s belong to those like Rice who were born between 1935 and 1945. Indeed when I look at cultural maligancies of all kinds from authors and muscians like John Lennon and the lyrics of Imagine to media figures to politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank and some of our more risible Bishops and Cardinals I tend to find that the people who are really clueless were born between 1935 and 1945.
July 31st, 2010 | 1:16 am | #94
Wow. This is a great post/article by Ms. Scalia and I commend those who have commented. I have enjoyed reading your many true and faithful sentiments. That said, I should have know, with this being a Catholic blog, that the ‘Protestants aren’t REAL Christians’ garbage would rear its ugly head.
I assure you ‘Mary M’ (as God is my witness) I am a protestant and I am every bit as much of a Christian as you or any other Catholic.
In case you missed Christianity 101, it teaches you are not worthy to judge anyone or question anyone’s faith.
Don’t worry, Mary M, I’ll pray for Christ to soften up your hardened heart, and because my prayers are answered every day, I have a good feeling I’m getting through.
God Bless you All.
[I have not had a chance to read all of the comments yet, but I you've identified one problem that exists among Christians, a complete misunderstanding of who may or may not call themselves "Christian." You'd be amazed at how many emails I have gotten over the years from Fundamentalist Christians who scream that I'm not a Christian but the spawn of the Whore of Babylon. Or, sometimes, I get nice notes complimenting me on having a respectable knowledge of scripture "for a Catholic"!
I am not happy to hear that anyone would dare to suggest that non-Catholics are "not Christians". The Body of Christ is going to under extreme assault in the coming years and it's going to take every arm and leg to make it through. We need to come together -admin]
July 31st, 2010 | 2:27 am | #95
[...] This response from the Anchoress on First Things. So, what she is refusing is not so much church teaching, which she incorrectly represents, but the worldly distortion of church teaching both as it is misunderstood and too-often practiced. I do not know how anyone could read the USCCB’s pastoral letter, Always Our Children and then make a credible argument that the church is “anti-gay.” [...]
July 31st, 2010 | 6:49 am | #96
[...] birth control, she seems to be allaying herself once again with the world of vampirism. (Here is the Anchoress’ take on Rice’s muddling of what the Church stands for and against. [...]
July 31st, 2010 | 7:03 am | #97
To the contrary: she’s saying that Christianity is morally wrong. This is the exact opposite of a relativist claim. She’s not saying Christianity is wrong for her, but that it’s wrong period.
July 31st, 2010 | 7:05 am | #98
I don’t know any liberals that think that. We think, rather, that there are truths and that the progress of society can be measured by its progress toward that truths. People were wrong to think slavery OK, they were – and are – wrong to think homophobia OK, etc.
July 31st, 2010 | 7:49 am | #99
You write: “She refuses to be `anti-gay,’ but the church teaches that indeed we must not be anti-gay, that homosexual inclinations are not sinful in themselves, but that all are called to chastity, whether gay or straight.”
And this is where Christians fall down, and fall into the self-righteous bigotry that Rice condemns. Because all you Christians think about is sex.
Okay, so gay people should remain chaste. Let’s say that you’re free to counsel them to be so, to any extent that you wish. But you’re not, of course, free to legislate that they be so. Yet you still seem intent on denying them intimate personal relationships. Yes, they form couples and families with members of their own sex. The Church recognizes that this is their nature; it would be an absurd charade for them to pretend to be straight. And yet you Christians insist on punishing them for their relationships and punishing their families and withholding benefits from their children that your own children enjoy.
Why are Christians anti-gay? Because they “preach”, through their political activities, that gay and lesbian people must be denied close personal relationships with members of their own sex; that any children that they might have and may be raising must not be treated the way children are treated in “normal” families; that all talk of the inherent dignity of gay people is just a load of papal bull….
You boast of the Church’s embrace of stem cell research. But that’s one small aspect of the Church’s relationship with Science. What we see in the GLBT rights debate is Christian cognitive dissonance on a huge scale, acted out with trantrums and lies. I’m sure you recoil from that word “lies”, but its an obvious truth: when you have Church officials stating that gay and lesbian couples can not raise children properly because this Bible verse implies it, or that snippet of 8th Century dogma predicts it, or because the Oracle at Delphi intoned it, or … and not a single shred of evidence is supplied for this point, and not a single contradiction to the evident FACT that numerous well adjusted kids are growing in exactly that sort of situation; then you lie. You ignore the facts and preach your preconceptions. You are, by definition, bigots.
[Funny, I was talking about this with a gay family member; we were discussing Matthew 19, and specifically these lines:
I say to you, 7 whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery."
10
[His] disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
11
He answered, “Not all can accept [this] word, 8 but only those to whom that is granted.
12
Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage 9 for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”
Stipulating that “incapable of marriage because they were born so” to mean homosexual (this comes, remember, right after the discussion of marriage being male and female and again the notions of chastity are understood). Notice there is no condemnation of homosexuality by Jesus, just the acknowledgment that such were not created specifically for marriage. This leads to a logical question: if, in God’s intention (which we can never fully understand) some were specifically created to remain outside of marriage, then shouldn’t homosexuals be asking “then for what purpose has God created me?” Not everyone is meant to be married, and that is true whether one is gay or straight. Camille Paglia once wrote that gays were never as creative (and therefore more culturally powerful) than when they were “in the closet” and had to expend their energies through their art, and that art has suffered since everyone “came out.” Perhaps we have not fully understood the role of art or the artist in creation; perhaps artists are meant to be the “necessary others” just like priests. It’s an interesting point and one I wish I had the time to really explore, someday. We know that God’s creations are no accidents, and that all are loved into being, and for a purpose.
As to Christians “constantly thinking about sex,” I can’t believe anyone would write that. The Christians are not the ones who have devolved the culture into the belief that the Almighty Orgasm is the ends toward which so many means must be employed. We like the orgasm, but it doesn’t rule us, and because it is part of an act that is co-creative with God, we choose not to debase our sexuality or use our bodies like playgrounds, as per the secular culture.
As to science, why don’t you go look at those links within my piece instead of suggesting that the notion of religious people embracing science is some sort of bogey. I do back up what I write.
Finally, you are certainly free to make a blanket-statement like “all Christians are bigots” but that, of course, would put you in the ranks of people who say things like “all gays are freaks” – bigot is as bigot does. The Christians I know try to love and respect, others, and most importantly try to understand our place within God’s intention, so far as we may. Sentimentalism indulges feelings, but feelings are not always reasonable, are they? This site tries to be an actual, safe place to have actual, safe discussions exploring all sorts of ideas with civility and respect. You are welcome here, but I hope you’ll do more than emote and call us bigots. -admin]
July 31st, 2010 | 8:06 am | #100
[...] Anne Rice announced on her facebook page, that she’s had it with the organized Church: (Via) For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m [...]
July 31st, 2010 | 8:35 am | #101
A very excellent post. In this age, the irresistible urge is to make religious principles conform to political ones — instead of the other way around. And to her credit, Ms. Rice is honest about that.
July 31st, 2010 | 8:40 am | #102
I have to say I’m not really sure why Rice is even famous. She wrote the “vampire” books? Am I remembering that right? Aren’t the one step above Harlequin romances?
July 31st, 2010 | 9:31 am | #103
“Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history.”
July 31st, 2010 | 9:32 am | #104
I think what baffles people, even Christians, about Christianity are the paradoxes. I’m re-reading Chesterton’s chapter on this in Orthodoxy and will share some gems.
[Writing on life] “its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden.”
“Not merely that it [Christianity] deduces logical truths, but that when it suddenly becomes illogical, it has found, so to speak, an illogical truth. It not only goes right about things, but it goes wrong (if one may say so) exactly where the things go wrong.”
“The idea was that which I had outlined touching the optimist and the pessimist; that we want not an amalgam or compromise, but both things at the top of their energy; love and wrath both burning.”
This is me (WC): On the issue of homosexuality, the Church reveals this duality: the logical truth that the alimentary and reproductive functions of the body are not intended for one another (natural law); the illogical truth that the homosexual is so precious to God, He sent His only Son to die for him on the cross.
“In so far as I am Man I am the chief of creatures. In so far as I am *a* man I am the chief of sinners.”
“It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is – Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? *That* is the problem the Church attempted; *that* is the miracle she achieved.
As to my friend LS’s struggle with Liberation Theology in the Church (mine too)… “if some small mistake were made in doctrine, huge blunders might be made in human happiness.”
It is a worthy struggle.
July 31st, 2010 | 9:41 am | #105
Has anyone else attempted to read the post on her FB page? She is a “friend of a friend,” so I went there to read it for myself. All I have seen are people’s reaction notes (+/-). So is this an urban legend in the offing?
[This is not an urban legend. Rice has now spoken w/ the AP about this -admin]
July 31st, 2010 | 9:49 am | #106
Dear Western Chauvanist: “This is me (WC): On the issue of homosexuality, the Church reveals this duality: the logical truth that the alimentary and reproductive functions of the body are not intended for one another (natural law) …”
How could this possibly be logically deduced natural law when indeed virtually every species on the planet exhibits homosexual behavior? It is not logical to ignore the evidence of recent science.
But beyond that, in what sense is the “natural purpose” of some body function proscriptive? If a man loses the use of his legs, is he condemned to a life of immobility simply because no other part of his body has locomotion as its natural function? Can we not give him a wheelchair or a pair of crutches and let him use his arms for this purpose, or does God disdain the use of arms for locomotion simply because these are not their natural function?
Of course not. You wouldn’t say such a thing. Your argument is not intended to be logical or even generically true. It is intended to apply only to sex.
One does not choose whom one loves. This is a simple fact of the human condition that’s been documented in our literature and arts for millenia. Sex or no sex, I will not permit you folks to tell my son that he can’t build a life with the man he loves. That you do so, and continually degrade him for following his own path, makes you Christians the cold-hearted loveless beings that you are. If only you could stop thinking about his genitalia for a moment and consider his heart and mind and soul. Fat chance.
[Do you think you're the only person around here who has gay family members they love? Who here has degraded anyone by making nasty blanket statements about anyone, besides you? Who has mentioned your anyone's genitalia, besides you? Considering the heart, mind and soul is what we do, here. We strive not to indulge in kneejerk sentimentalism for a genuine exploration of "what it all means." You've come into the saloon with both of your guns blarin' pardner, only to discover that we're all nursing a Guinness and working hard on our interior lives, our understanding and our salvation. Pull up a chair and calm down, already -admin]
July 31st, 2010 | 10:06 am | #107
I always suspected Rice’s conversion was a publicity stunt to sell her Christian-themed books. This would seem to confirm that suspicion.
July 31st, 2010 | 10:39 am | #108
I was raised a Catholic (went to Catholic schools all my life–church every Sunday and all Holy Days)…and the thing that steered me away from organized religion was that I was taught from a very young age not to question anything about the church or God or Jesus or the Bible. I was to blindly have faith in whatever was told to me. The older I got, the more ridiculous it felt to me–that I could not question things that did not seem right to me–because if something is true, it should be able to withstand all sorts of inquiries and questioning. Organized religion felt like a belief system (just like political parties) where you must buy into what they are preaching and “just go along.” It’s a means of controlling the thought processes of large amounts of people. Also, churches are WAY too concerned about money and getting you to give them money and I’m sorry but my relationship with the divine should not have to cost me a penny. Religion should not be a business.
All organized religion does is take you further away from a real relationship with the divine because it focuses on the wrong things. They’ve been corrupted by corrupted people who do not have our best interests at heart. They teach us to let others figure things out for us–to follow and not question–to put our destinies in the hands of other people.
Jesus said the Kingdom of God is INSIDE of us. We are all more powerful than any of us believe because we forget this.
July 31st, 2010 | 10:47 am | #109
Anti Democrat?
What Catholic Church is she talking about?
I keep hearing our bishops come out in favor of open borders, sanctuary cities and against laws like Ariznona’s to curb the flow. Doesn’t sound to Republican to me.
In the 80s I kept hearing our bishops preaching about the immorality of the arms race (some more outspoken ones demonizing Reagan himself) and in favor of us laying down our arms and (golly gee whilikers) maybe the Soviets would follow our example and do the same. Doesn’t sound to Republican to me.
July 31st, 2010 | 10:55 am | #110
Wow, Karen. You and I live in different universes. Studying the teaching of the Catholic church is the most intellectual (questioning, truth-seeking) pursuit I have ever undertaken or ever hope to undertake. Since I opened my mind to the possibility of God (at about age 40 after 20 some years of atheism) I have never stopped questioning. I am very sorry if a few bad practitioners turned you away from the infinite riches She offers. Hopefully you will not find yourself impoverished in your singular pursuit.
July 31st, 2010 | 11:10 am | #111
“We are not supposed to hide our light under a bushel-basket, but we’re also not supposed to put others under its glare, and thus send them scurrying back into the shadows.”
On the other hand, we have reformers like St. Catherine of Siena, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Teresa of Avila…etc., etc., etc.
admin]
[All of whom managed to shine their light with great attraction, thanks be to God!
July 31st, 2010 | 11:13 am | #112
“Too many of us go out into the world seeking to confront and “fix” others, when the key to the Christian life begins with confronting and “fixing” the self. …But willingness only comes with humility. …The world, because it is worldly, cannot understand Christianity… it is foolishness to think otherwise. But the church is not here to be loved by the world; it is here to serve the Bread.”
I spent years in a very liberal/left-wing hobby-fandom forum trying to serve the Bread; trying to teach Christ’s truth by being rather than talking, by emphasizing my own fallibility and sinfulness, God’s mercy, and the obligation of Christians to be understanding and forgiving. People said all sorts of nice things about me that I, in my shameful pride, became quite addicted to (and I use the word deliberately).
But the moment it became obvious to the rest of the forum that for all my understanding and acceptance, I still believed on the bedrock truth level that certain teachings of the Church were true and correct — that I thought same-sex marriage was neither sacramentally valid nor socially desireable, that those who argued for abortion and euthanasia argued for murder, that polyamory and promiscuity were destructive ways to try living life — all that goodwill vanished in a heartbeat.
Because for all the proud claims most liberal/leftist groups make to “tolerance” and “nuance” and “compassion”, they are really very black and white in their thinking: the notion of “love the sinner, hate the sin” makes literally no sense to them; they will accept no compromise — if approval is not 100% it is no better than outright bigotry, indeed it’s *worse* because it seeks to hypocritically cloak itself in “nuance”.
We are here to serve the Bread, but I can testify that it gets very, *very* tiring to not only have that Bread refused, but refused in that particular way — to have the ones you’re trying to serve actually look as if they’re considering it seriously, exclaiming that it looks so much better than they had heard, and then upon finding grains of a spice they don’t like, heaving it at your head with a scream of betrayed rage as if *you* were the sinner for daring to suggest that they *needed* Good News.
July 31st, 2010 | 11:29 am | #113
(jpe wrote – “I don’t know any liberals that think that. We think, rather, that there are truths and that the progress of society can be measured by its progress toward that truths. People were wrong to think slavery OK, they were – and are – wrong to think homophobia OK, etc.”)
You’ve actually proven my point jpe:
Racial slavery (not to be confused with the slavery mentioned in the Bible which was not based exclusively on race) was never morally acceptable in scripture or by The Church. In fact, the acceptance of racial slavery was mostly accepted by society and misconstrued as religiously acceptable just like homosexuality and abortion are today by the Left. And the basis of the abolitionist movement was actually a religious movement based on the ancient Truth of the scriptures.
In fact, if there is any modern equivalence to the immorality of racial slavery, it is the Liberal belief that abortion is somehow morally acceptable in our “progressive society” even though it denies the most basic human rights to the most innocent and defenseless of all human beings.
On the other hand, what “truth” has ever revealed that homosexuality is morally acceptable?
July 31st, 2010 | 11:37 am | #114
Christians are such hypocrites. When I see Sarah Palin talk about her faith with one hand on the literally-true Bible, and with her other hand she rakes in millions of dollars, I ask myself, “Does she even know that Jesus said that a rich man can not enter heaven?” Jesus himself said that. So why is she willingly walking the path to Hell? Logically she must either be ignorant of the Truth she preaches, or she willingly embraces the road to Hell and is merely using Christians to acquire more wealth.
Christians are such annoying intolerant people. We need laws to prevent them from abusing their children by indoctrinating them into these harmful cults. Religion is a choice, and children are not capable of making that choice themselves. The should be shielded from its lies until they are old enough to be rational agents.
[Oh irony! "These annoying, intolerant people should not be tolerated! And while I'm at it, let me quote some of the scripture I don't believe about Palin (who has nothing to do with this thread) because I am obsessed by Palin! Irony aside, while Jesus did make the point that clinging to materialism can condemn the soul, scripture also makes it clear that wealth has its place in the grand scheme of things, ala Joseph of Aramethea. -admin]
July 31st, 2010 | 11:41 am | #115
Karen,
Jesus also said “Blessed are you, Simon bar Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, adn the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”
Both statements are true, and we accept one and reject the other to our loss.
The kingdom is inside us because the Church is the vehicle, set up by Jesus, by which we access that kingdom. Perfect grace extended though the hands of imperfect people.
July 31st, 2010 | 11:43 am | #116
I can see where Rice is coming from. I was brought up a Catholic, sent to Catholic schools and intended to become a priest. All that is needed to live, Christ laid out and his disciples wrote down. Try a Jeffersonian Bible. If you have the need and choose to live with a theology, than that is your choice, but it is not a requirement of salvation. Fortunately, there are real Christians in the world but the majority seem to be floundering around in self pride as a number of these comments show.
July 31st, 2010 | 11:52 am | #117
Nerina wrote: “If one of my children came to me and said they thought they were gay, I would try (and I emphasize *try* because I think I would be in a panic) to present the Church’s teaching on the matter. Of course, I would still love them and of course they would still be a part of my life, but I would not validate that particular choice. Because I believe to the depths of my soul that active homosexuality is a death sentence (sometimes physically, but most certainly spiritually).”
The simple fact that you’re missing is that by acting in this way you will almost certainly be locking yourself out of your child’s life. “Should we invite your mom here for Christmas?” “Goodness, no, she’ll be lecturing and admonishing for the week.” This is exactly transpired with my husband’s mother. She makes herself an unwelcome annoyance. She forces religion on our children. She offers judgement. And no matter how loving she thinks she is, she is an unwelcome buttinsky who is unwelcome in our home.
My husband and I both have PhD’s in the sciences, and I have to say that our experience with the religious – and especially with the most zealous of you – is that your beliefs are inconsistent with a modern scientific understanding of the world and of humanity. Instead of convincing me to follow your path to salvation, you have in fact convinced me that you’re all foolish simpletons. Someone above wrote about “love the sinner, hate the sin”. A silly and empty defense for bigotry. What does all of your anti-gay posturing have to do with “hate the sin”? How many of your anti-gay positions are directed solely at homesexual acts, and not at the people who are gay, who love someone of the same sex? My mother-in-law has never witnessed an act of gay sex between me and her son. She has no knowledge of whether or not we even engage in sex. That’s never stopped her.
Maybe you’re not all like my mother-in-law. But, well, I can only go by the evidence at hand: Christians are ignorant simpletons.
July 31st, 2010 | 11:55 am | #118
The reason that “homosexuality” has become more acceptable in our society is not because some newly discovered truth has been discerned that instantly deems it natural and moral.
But rather, that our society has “progressed” towards the lie that morality itself is mostly relative to the eye of the beholder.
We have reached a sort of mutual agreement in our modern “enlightened” society that believes the fallacy that the real immorality in our new found progressiveness is actually the ancient tradition that believes there IS such a thing as immorality at all.
“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable”
-G.K.Chesterton
July 31st, 2010 | 11:57 am | #119
Wow, Karen. You and I live in different universes
Really? Actually we don’t. Your experience has been different from mine but mine is not less valid because it doesn’t mirror yours. That’s the thing about Chistians/Catholics–they want everyone to be the same. They believe with their hearts that they’ve found the ONE truth and would like to demand you believe the same things they believe. I can’t tell you the number of Catholics I know who behave like heathens 6 days a week then go to church on Sunday (not the Sabbath, which is Saturday, and the day the God of the Bible tells us to keep holy) and act as though they are morally superior to those who don’t attend church. It’s not one or two people, either. Have you questioned why the Catholic church changed God’s ten commandments? Do you question why we celebrate Jesus’ birth on December 25th when that’s not his real birth????
My singular pursuit has led me to much peace and much happiness. I wish you the same.
July 31st, 2010 | 12:06 pm | #120
Last Sphere asks: `… what “truth” has ever revealed that homosexuality is morally acceptable?’
What would you accept as revealed truth of moral acceptability? Apparently not merely the fact that there are millions of people in this world in same-sex relations who are indistinguishable from you and your spouse and your family, except for the gender differences.
That’s fine: you will, of course, believe whatever nonsense you choose to believe. But how do you live with the inconsistencies. Jesus, in his own words, condemned divorce and remarriage. And yet we have divorce and remarriage common in society. Two years ago, all but one of the GOP nominees for president was an adulterer, as defined by Jesus’s standards. And yet where is your outrage about this? Why is it the relationships of gay and lesbian people that you folks constant attack, and not the hypocrites who live among you?
Newt Gingrich! Now he’s a prize Catholic. So zealous and devout. Cheats on his wife when she’s on her deathbed; then divorces her and remarries. Yes, yes, the Church was oh so gracious in annulling his first marriage. What hypocrites.
[Yes, it looks like hypocrisy on the surface, and if that is as far as people care to look it is all they will see...it is one of the difficulties of being Catholic -admin]
July 31st, 2010 | 12:13 pm | #121
`The reason that “homosexuality” has become more acceptable in our society is not because some newly discovered truth has been discerned that instantly deems it natural and moral.’
This is a lie.
The reasons that homosexuality has become more acceptable in our society are several:
1. Science has determined that there is a biological component to sexual orientation and that it is fully determined early in life. No reputable medical or other authority would attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation. We recognize it as an immutable attribute of people. Even the Catholic Church recognizes this.
2. Gay people can easily hide their sexual orientation if they choose to do so. This was common in the 1980′s and earlier. Since that time, everyone is open and honest about it: everyone is coming out. As a consequence, almost everyone knows someone who is gay: a parent, a teacher, a co-worker, a child. The myths and preconceptions fall away when you know someone who is gay.
These are the reasons why perceptions of GLBT people have changed. It is also why the greatest opposition to GLBT equality is found among those who are baby-boomers and older. Fortunately, that generation will so go gentle into that good night. Bye, dinosaurs!
July 31st, 2010 | 12:29 pm | #122
Maximus Decidius Meridius
July 30th, 2010 | 9:06 am | #15
I always wonder what God does with people like Mrs Rice. It’s not my place to judge and I won’t, but there are so many people I meet each day who are sincere…and do their best to live a life that’s (albeit by their own definition) upright…but simply do not (or cannot) believe. Or worse, have venom for the Church and God that comes from a place I can only describe as diabolical.
I know the Catholic answer…”we leave them to the mercy of God, trusting His judgement.”
Nonetheless…I still wonder what the moment will be like when they face Him and realize all they resisted for their entire life, all they refused, all they denied…what happens then?
_____________________________
God will say, “Welcome, my child.” and he will wrap his arms around them.
July 31st, 2010 | 12:34 pm | #123
Reading over the comments the occasional sense of Christ’s great love comes through. I mean something beyond dogmatic arguments one way or another. Something at a deeper level called me back to the Church, a kind of core level truth and joy.