TSR Catholic Society

Found a great Youtube channel recently called ChurchMilitant.TV It's got loads of programmes, solid with Catholic church doctrine. I recommend subscribing to it ( http://www.youtube.com/user/ChurchMilitantTV ) or even better, getting an premium membership to see hundreds of hours of Catholic programming at http://www.churchmilitant.tv/index.php for only $10 a month.

Please share this with your Catholic and non-Catholic friends. It's a truly blessed service and I highly recommend checking it out, through either of these links.

Hope everybody here had a great Easter.

I'm not so sure about ChurchMilitant. Yes, there's a lot of truth in it, but a lot of it is worded very badly.
An awful lot of it is also ranting about opinions, and wording it as truth, and some of what he says is damaging. It's not a site I'd recommend to anyone looking into Catholicism, or who didn't already have a fairly strong faith foundation.

I will quite happily admit that I've not seen a lot of the website, but what I did see, I didn't like very much.
The truth in what he was saying seemed to be so mixed up in his own opinion and shoutiness that I found it quite difficult to see where it was.

However, I appreciate that some, particularly those already very traditional, do like a lot of what he says

Well... It's meant to come across as strong. That's why it's the Church "Militant". The truth is not something that should be watered down for accessibility. I emphasise this.

On the contrary, there are many current affairs that are spun in ways to try and inflict maximum damage to the reputation of the Catholic Church, and ChurchMilitant seeks to call this out.

Too many lies are spread about the Church and fewer people are being there to challenge and correct them. I'm sure you are aware of the quote by Bishop Fulton Sheen that "maybe 100 people hate the Catholic Church, but millions hate what they think is the Catholic Church."

Too many Catholics are sitting back - we must take a stand for our faith against constant and media and societal oppression.

Yes, some of what Michael Voris says is damaging... to those with weak opposing arguments, that is.

And a lot of what is on the Church Militant premium website is not just Michael Voris but a spectrum of other programmes made by Catholic laity and clergy for all age groups, which is equally helpful in understanding the mysteries of the faith.

It's not a very big organisation since it started quite recently, but it's growing quickly and is something you would do well to consider seeing again.

Today marks Eight Years since John Paul II died.

The priest on Sunday forgot the name of the current Pope, just as (a different priest) did three weeks ago. So we were asked to pray for Pope Benedict.

My older sister lives in Boston, USA. Today she was just doing some work when her boss came over and casually introduced her to Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston and (predicted by some) a previous contender for the role of Pope. My sister was so shocked she forgot to tell the Cardinal that she's Catholic too!

I'm agnostic (though I was baptised and raised as a Christian) but I think there are some aspects of Christianity (and probably theism in general) that make sense (from the point of view of why the universe exists, why morality exists, the nature of God and so on). Nevertheless, I can not reconcile some of my moral views with the views of the Catholic Church. So my questions is can you be a Catholic and still believe that:

1. Homosexual acts are not immoral or disordered.
2. Abortion may not be immoral.
3. Sex outside of marriage is not immoral.
4. Contraception is not immoral.

Whilst agreeing with virtually all the other theological and moral teachings of the Church (especially the core ones). I know that some very famous Catholic theologians hold the same moral views as I do but I remain deeply unconvinced that one could be a Catholic and still believe in the above.

First Communions started today (my church has a few children each week instead of one special mass not at a normal Sunday mass time, so that they are part of the congregation). So there were the family members and godparents in their 'glad rags', men wearing a suit who don't normally wear one, and dresses usually only seen for weddings and other special occasions.

It's not a 'jump' as such. Deism is a hypothesis invoked to provide a reason for why there is something rather than nothing, and was used also to explain why there is complex life before there was a cogent reason to explain the illusion of design. It was quite a respectable position until natural selection and an understanding of the flaw of a First Cause argument removed the reasons to believe it. Up until that point, atheism was the position that was harder to justify because an atheist had to have an unreasonable faith that deism was wrong, despite deism being the most simplistic explanation available at the time (the one that most ably conformed to Occam's razor).

I don't think it's fair to say to a deist that 'you might as well go the whole hog'. I think deism is a more respectable position than theism, because it does not claim anything more than is strictly necessary to explain why we are here. A theist generally makes the additional claims that:
And so on.

These are all claims that have no evidential justifications. It also strikes me as directly contradictory that often the theistic God is claimed to be benevolent, omnipotent and to love humans, yet is content to watch them suffer and die in cruel and unnecessary ways (Epicurus' problem of evil). With deism the presence of evil is acknowledged and explained as a product of the world that was created and the idea that the god may have no interest in us. It does not require the seemingly unjustified additional egocentrism of assuming God cares even one iota about the fate of humanity.

As for why the deistic god would bother to have created us, the answer to that would have been unknown and the only answers given would have been speculatory.

I should also add that what we believe should be completely discrete from what we wish was true. It may be wished that a god exists who has a personal interest in your own life, but that does not on its own merit it as an eligible candidate for belief.

You're right about unsolved murder cases. Prayers going up for this intention

Had a bad night but wanted to go to confession at my spiritual director's parish, so my mum woke me up and drove me. Fr S listened to me wail at him a bit ( ), then gave me absolution, Easter communion (in case I'm not able to go tomorrow) and a blessing

Feel exhausted but it was definitely worth getting up for

x

I'm agnostic (though I was baptised and raised as a Christian) but I think there are some aspects of Christianity (and probably theism in general) that make sense (from the point of view of why the universe exists, why morality exists, the nature of God and so on). Nevertheless, I can not reconcile some of my moral views with the views of the Catholic Church. So my questions is can you be a Catholic and still believe that:

1. Homosexual acts are not immoral or disordered.
2. Abortion may not be immoral.
3. Sex outside of marriage is not immoral.
4. Contraception is not immoral.

Whilst agreeing with virtually all the other theological and moral teachings of the Church (especially the core ones). I know that some very famous Catholic theologians hold the same moral views as I do but I remain deeply unconvinced that one could be a Catholic and still believe in the above.

May will be fifteen years since I made mine. I remember because I was the first of the twelve in our class to receive it.

Don't bother m'dear, just report and move on.

How is our lovely Catholic Community today anyway?

We're good, I think, intruders aside! How are you doing?

Bouncing along happily!
Trying to hunt down a verse or two, but I have no idea or what Book or chapter it's from...so it's slow going.

Been a while since we have chatted, do you think the Catholic Community has settled from the excitement of the New Pope?

I've calmed down a bit, certainly. I was very overexcited I expect Pope Francis to continue to ruffle feathers though

Yay for bouncing along happily That's what we like to hear

I have to admit, even I was excited by the whole affair, I may be simply hoping but I think he is going to bring a lot of change.