"The Catholic Church is not just the men in funny little hats. The Catholic church ARE the believers and the faithful who congregate on the Rock of God. I think Jesus was fairly clear on this point in the Beatitudes. Even if we were to accept that the Catholic Church knows best what being Catholic means, it is only because it has a definitional component to what constitutes membership to this organization, i.e. official baptism. But the inner meaning of one's faith can only be defined by the individual.
The Catholic Church only has infallibility over matters of doctrine but not on social matters and least of all matters of science, for they are temporal and need to be understood and responded to in the context of their times and the level of academic and scientific advancement, according St. Augustine. Take for example the Catholic Church's position on heliocentrism. 1 Chronicles 16:30 states 'the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved'. This was interpreted by the Catholic Church as the earth being the center of the universe instead of the sun despite Copernicus's or Gallileo's scientific work on the matter! Or when Pope John Paul II (progressively and heroically) admitted unequivocably that the Catholic Church has been wrong and apologized to other religions for what he said to be an erroneous, formerly long-held belief that only Catholics would be saved and others condemned to hell. Or when mentally ill people who died were refused a proper Catholic burial by the Church because their illness was believed to have been caused by the devil.
The Catholic Church only has infallibility over matters of doctrine but not on social matters and least of all matters of science, for they are temporal and need to be understood and responded to in the context of their times and the level of academic and scientific advancement, according St. Augustine. Take for example the Catholic Church's position on heliocentrism. 1 Chronicles 16:30 states 'the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved'. This was interpreted by the Catholic Church as the earth being the center of the universe instead of the sun despite Copernicus's or Gallileo's scientific work on the matter! Or when Pope John Paul II (progressively and heroically) admitted unequivocably that the Catholic Church has been wrong and apologized to other religions for what he said to be an erroneous, formerly long-held belief that only Catholics would be saved and others condemned to hell. Or when mentally ill people who died were refused a proper Catholic burial by the Church because their illness was believed to have been caused by the devil.
The examples above show how wrong the Catholic Church can be particularly when it comes to social policy. The Church clearly does not know 'best' in all matters and particularly in this matter and therefore should NOT be in the business of measuring one's Catholicism based on a public servant's duty to support a critical social policy affecting all citizens regardless of their religion. Em's support of the RH Bill does not make her less Catholic. It makes her admirable for choosing a difficult position that is ultimately the only soberly right thing to do on this issue."
This is a comment by Lucinda David on Facebook. She defended a mutual friend of ours who is in Congress and who supports the RH Bill.
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