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butterfly blog
what i learned in oakland
I learned some interesting things, and some things that I'm not sure I understand and wish I would have stayed & asked the questions, but oh gosh was it ever late by the time I finally made it home. So, here's what I learned:
*Mormons are not Christians? Can anyone out there clarify this one for me? Father Summers was talking kind of fast at this point in the evening and I think that's what he said but I'm not sure it makes sense to me... I mean, if I'm not mistaken they believe that Jesus is the Messiah, so what makes them not Christians... and do they know this?
*Jehovah's Witnesses were founded in Pittsburgh.
*While it is certainly not a pleasant thing, capital punishment is not forbidden by the Church. This goes along with Just War Theory and what not and should be a VERY RARE thing.
*Non-negotiable life issues include abortion and euthanasia. We must always oppose these things and work to preserve the sanctity of human life. (this I knew, but it's worth emphasizing)
*Father Summers explained the Catholic teaching about who gets to Heaven and how they get there really well and I'm going to try to explain it here but I could really use some help from anybody who was there & heard what he said. Here's my attempt: The Church believes that salvation comes through Christ. In order to achieve salvation through Christ one must know/learn the Fullness of Truth, which is contained within the teachings of the Catholic Church. As to who will be saved, the Church says that all people have a chance to be saved because Christ came for all of us, not just the Jews or the Gentiles or the Catholics or the Evangelicals. Only God can say who exactly will be saved.
There was also some brief discussion about the youth in the Church. Someone commented that the evangelical-type churches have huge youth programs that are successful and keep teens excited about God and Jesus and yet after the 8th (or 9th or 11th) grade and Confirmation our youth fly the coop never to return. Father Summers suggested that perhaps what should happen is that someone needs to invite these evangelical-types to sit with our Catholic youth ministers and talk with them about what it is that they do to get the teens excited about coming and what they do to keep them there and interested... essentially to learn how to evangelize our youth. I think it's a pretty darn good idea. Except that it involves that "evangelize" word. That word has kind of gotten a bad rap in recent years. When I hear "evangelize" I think oh no somebody's going to be thumping me over the head with the Bible telling me I'm going to rot if I don't do things their way. We're certainly called to spread the Gospel, but there's a line to be drawn. Reflecting on this, I think we as Catholics need to work on making "evangelize" a less dirty word by doing it differently and better than our protestant counterparts. I just don't know how we're supposed to do it. I know I can be very definitive about what I believe and that I believe/know it to be right and the Truth, and I'll thump you over the head with a Catechism to say "Hey, the answer is in HERE." I hope I've never told somebody that they're going to burn or rot or whatever for not doing things "my way"... and if I have, I apologize because that was not my intention.
Once again and as always, feel free to comment, especially if you have any answers to my Mormon problem or ideas of ways to evangelize without "evangelizing"
A note about anonymous commenters... so that you don't have to have a blogspot account, I allow anonymous comments here, but please just stick your name/screen name /whatever you wish to be called in your comment somewhere.
posted by Amy : 8:17:51 PM
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