to think that your religion can't be that important to you

[theevildead2]

if you can just "switch to catholicism" when it suits you?

There is a bit on the news at the moment about women maybe being allowed to be bishops. Apparently some of our local priests will be leaving the church if women get this right???

What translation do you use? And you did get Latin for hundreds of years (very pretty), so you got some of the good tunes ...

Ooo, I have loads of theories if theories are what you want. F'rinstance, I think when God created Adam and Eve he made all his sperm and her eggs genetically unique from each other. This is why there was no problem with their kids interbreeding.

The problem is you can't really talk theory at the soft play center over a cuppa. People look at you funny....

Its interesting that almost as soon as the bible was available in english (and actually compulsory) there were moves to restrict its availability to the common people. Such a small period when it was thought to be a good thing for the commoners to be able to read the bible in their own language, but I suppose when so few of them could actually read at that time it was rather a moot point!

I've always liked the latin service, so soothing to listen to (and I prefer not understanding thw words entirely)

Ahh, but it'd be a great line to clear the room with, Mary!

Buzz - I think people read to each other much more back then, so not being able to read wasn't so important. I expect they probably understood bits of Latin just the way we do - not all of the service but quite a lot of it, guessing from the context and so on.

I am such a big geek. I love this stuff.

The RSV for day to day use, occasionaly the old Jerusalem bible or the Douay. I do still use the KJB for sheer joy of language, particularly the Psalms and Gospels. I draw the line at bibles that have been rewritten for gender neutarlity. Find them insulting of my intelligence, as if it weren't for enlightened translator boffin I'd end up believing Christ only came to save those who stand to pee...

RSV is quite close to KJB, isn't it? I love the Vulgate psalms and kind of wish my Latin were better (people sometimes sing them in Latin as Christmas carols and they sound great, I think).

It's funny, but I was thinking that quite a lot of Catholics were very upset when the Latin Mass was taken away, and I guess that's an even less 'theological' issue than married priests ... so I guess we all respond to familiarity more than theology sometimes.

There was no restrictions on vernacular bibles as such, only of poor translations. Remember, for a very long time Latin was the vernacular for those educated enough to read.

No, the vernacular Bible was banned by Arundel at the beginning of the fifteenth century.

Well, that's another pet theory of mine. God allowed VaticanII precisely so people could work out their experimantel urges on a vernacular mass. Now that people are starting to get sick of all the loosey-gooseyness, the old rite is starting to resurge, essentially unchanged. If ther's one thing God is good at, it's forward plnning....

That wasn't a general church prohibition, but a particular English one, aimed by King Henry II and the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Lollards, who were disseminating bibles denying the the Real Presence of Christ in the eucharist. As far as Catholic doctrine goes, that's as heretical as you can get. For vernacular translations in general, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_translations_in_the_Middle_Ages here}] is a short but informative article.

intheMiddle_Ages here

here

Yes, I was just thinking about England and the English Bibles.

I research this area and I find it really interesting, especially as I'm not Catholic and have to try to get my mind around the way it must have felt, which is so much harder than the more abstract 'academic' theology.

I think English medieval religion has such a distinctive character, it'd be hard to imagine that in some way affecting English Protestantism whatever happened with Henry/Elizabeth.

I'm not sure how much it feeds into what's happening in the churches today, though.

Just reread that article and realized it failed to point out that Pope Gregory's prohibitions were aimed particularly at Catharsist heretics who were spreading around vernacular bibles claiming a dualist religion where all matter is evil and you might as well fornicate all you want.

Just wanted to clear that up

Mary Mungo,I am really enjoying your posts - though I should be working! - and as a Unitarian, I would really like to go back to your earlier offer of explaining why Christians assume that Jesus had to die so our sins could be forgiven. Why couldn't they just be forgiven if we truly repent? I mean, if God makes the rules....
Genuine interest. Ta.

You see, the medievals fundamentally believed in Absolute Truth in a way that is very difficult for modern man to duplicate. Our culture has become so inculcated with the idea of equivalency, present in our educational system, our legal system, and especially our entertainment. In this media age we're absorbing the idea that there is no such thing as Absolute Truth almost 24 hours a day. It's only in certain religions that you'll hear any different, and even most of those find it uncomfortable to talk about.

Now why did Christ have to die, and die so horribly. Atheists believe Christ died because he didn't know when to shut up in the face of earthly authority, if He existed at all. Muslims believe Jesus was a great prophet and, as nothing so obscene could ever happen to one of God's chosen, it was a simulacrum that died on the cross, no suffering involved. Christian believe Christ died for our sins, that they could be forgiven and that we could see God face to face. That is why the dead of the old testament went to Abraham's Bosom, and not heaven until Christ's coming.

If you are going to go as far as this, to believe that Christ's death was salvific, then that death and that particular death must have been necessary, else God (being perfect in all things) would have accomplished our salvation in some other way. Next we need to speak of hell.

I've never heard an atheist profess that view, although I'm sure some would. I and most atheists I know would more likely say that the person who was or is known as Jesus either did not exist or was just another man who was assigned attributes he did not possess.

Interesting posts though mary.

I am really enjoying your posts too MM (and finding them helpful as you communicate an insider view of Catholicism very convincingly).

One of the views I've come across in medieval writing, is that we can't really understand God, or become close to Him, which is why Adam and Eve sinned. Christ became incarnate so that we could learn to understand God. If you focus on Christ's incarnation rather than just his death, it makes more sense I think.

I also think if you remember that for much of Christian history, people have been living with pain and inexplicable death in a way that we don't really any more - death is much more hidden away in our culture, and also much more rationalized - when someone dies, a reason for it must be put on the death certificate, so we feel we know why death happens in a physical sense. I think if death is something all around you, that is painful and inexplicable and horrific, then perhaps the idea of God dying is almost a comfort? It would make him tangible and understandable.

I think in our culture we struggle with that - if we'd written the Bible, Christ would probably have become incarnate in order to have sex, and then we'd feel we could relate to 'him' in a human way!

Now, the bible speaks too much of hell for a Christian to dismiss its existence, and its existence is fundamentally tied to sin. Sin is theological antimatter, sin and God do not coexsist, thus Hell is where God's presence is not.

The bible speaks of the need to expiate sin, it is something to be atoned for, it's something that incurs a penalty that must be paid. The ultimate penalty is hell.

Next we take a detour into the doctrine of Purgatory.

If sin and god do not exist then what is hate the sin love the sinner is all about? If God loves all his children, even the sinners, then He is everywhere, God is in the sin and in the sinner?

Isn't that the fundamental question religion/theology asks?

I think it relates to agency, but I'm not sure.

I think a lot of this theology comes from an absolute assurance that life is dark and painful, and that anything positive is a miracle. We don't really feel like that any more, so we're coming at it from the opposite side.

Thanks for your helpful response. (As a parent) I still can't get my head round why a loving God would require his own flesh and blood to perish horribly to atone for sins of his Creation (that He - being omniscient - knew would be committed when He gave them free will). More inclined to think that Jesus, as Son of Man, brought a divine message of the New Covenant and forgiveness of sins, but crucified by people who didn't get it/saw him as a threat to established religion. Eagerly awaiting an explanation of purgatory!

Catholics believe that there is an eternal punishment due for sin, and a temporal punishment. Simply put, if you steal the widow's last mite you deserve to go to hell, but you ask forgiveness and Christ forgives you, thus you are absolved of that eternal punishment. However, you still have to give that mite back, and make restitution for what you did to that poor widow, perhaps even go to prison. That is temporal punishment.

If you get hit by a car before this temporal punishment is taken care of, it still must be paid. That is where purgatory comes in.

Oh wonderful, some say, look how easy the Catholics get it. Do anything they like, then mouth some words and they still get to go to heaven.

And they'd be right if not for a couple little facts that don't get spoken much. The fires of Hell and the fires of Purgatory feel exactly the same. The only difference is that Purgatory's fire ends. Eventually, that is, and that's the other rarely mentioned fact. There's a reason the Catholic church used to speak of this penance equaling 400 days in purgatory, or that pious practice equaling 30 years in purgatory. It's not because Purgatory has literal time, it's because there is no penance so efficacious as one performed in faith, and in Purgatory there is no faith. You know for sure where you're going.

In short, there is something in the nature of sin that requires some measure of suffering to expunge it.

I don't understand it either. All I know is, I don't want to mock people who lived in a very different world, and who believed they did understand it. I want to try and work out what they were thinking. The nearest I get is that if you believe everything is naturally dark and horrible, maybe even purgatory seems like a generous second chance.

I think part of it is that God who requires his own son to perish, is the same as that Son. So it is perhaps more like someone making a sacrifice knowing that it'll be painful, than someone hard-heartedly letting their child do it.

I don't know if this is good theology though.