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Cake day: January 3rd, 2024

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  • I feel like ASL should be taught to more of like everyone, I see circumstances where it seems like it would be useful frequently (either quiet or really loud places, like libraries or where there is heavy machinery, or from driver to driver in cars where you can’t hear them)

    also not sure of all the SLs that exist and what attempts have been made towards standardication. I imagine there is more than just American SL / ASL for SLs but I haven’t looked in to all the ones that exist




  • a leader who will condemn non-believers

    While a leader might be kind and caring in speech, he’d also have to be subject to the rules and enforce them at some level (note that popes are “above the law” to some extent, but this is a different discussion).

    Think for example of a forum like this that we are using: “rulebreakers” are banned. Imagine someone posting illegal content for example, they might be banned (and arrested) in society.

    Now imagine unbelievers being in danger of being sent to prison forever (hell). Wouldn’t the “kind” thing be to follow the rules yourself and set a good example for others, as well as to explain the rules clearly? Wouldn’t someone who teaches people the wrong rules, that ends up getting such people in trouble, be thought to be a “bad” leader?

    I think that’s how Francis is viewed, he says words that are thought to be “kind”, but which are ultimately harmful to people. Imagine if you were going to drive a car that was not safe to drive, and someone “kindly” instructs you that you’re fine to drive it, to go ahead, and then you crash and are injured. This was not “kindness” then; instead, the person could have “kindly” warned such a person not to drive such a dangerous car.

    Francis seemed to consistently speak and do bizarre things against a traditional Catholic way of life; we could discuss the matter further if it doesn’t seem clearer upon further investigation.


  • this is a common objection, although there are clear differences

    Francis for example had said, “Nowadays, Lutherans and Catholics, and all Protestants, are in agreement on the doctrine of justification: on this very important point he was not mistaken.”: https://onepeterfive.com/recant-lutheran-heresy-francis/

    By this logic, it wouldn’t matter if a person is Catholic or protestant to be “justified”. Ergo it seems Francis would be the one in error and leading people in to error, more like the protestants than the sedevacantists

    However, I think ordinarily these conversations become more unproductively antagonistic as they are part of temporary confusing conflicts. To me it seems clear the current papal lineage is invalid, and all those who claim to be Catholic ideally need to come to agreement about this, and then elect a pope that is actually valid. We are living in the temporary period of confusion leading up to this future moment of clarity.



  • my understanding:

    The Catholic belief is when a person dies, they are judged either to heaven or hell.

    Purgatory is for those on the way to heaven who die with some accrued debt from sin, for example: you steal a car and are sorry for having done so, so are forgiven, but you are still legally required to pay the car amount back, but say you die before doing so. The ultimate “debt” of having stolen the car, the infinite debt of sin, you confessed to, and Jesus paid that debt, so you were forgiven. But still you had done wrong. This “wrong” was usually to be made up with penances in life (where the indulgences controversy came in). I think this is a sound enough explanation but you could search out others. If you had paid the car off so to speak, and were sorry for the sin of theft, you would be in a position to go straight to heaven.

    I have read orthodox have some idea of “toll houses”, which is not like the Catholic conception of purgatory at all, and which I am not entirely acquainted with.

    The Catholic idea of limbo is basically a place in hell, but not one of active suffering, for those who die unbaptized but otherwise lived “good enough” of a life (naturally virtuous ignorant pagans, or unbaptized infants, for examples). This speculative state arose because all who enter heaven must be baptized, but these such people are not baptized, but they have also not chosen to be evil with their will (in the case of infants certainly, but even with "virtuous ignorant non-Christians). In the case of infants, it is also hard to apply the idea of a “baptism of desire”, or that such infants would have desired baptism if they had the opportunity to obtain it, and even is difficult in the case of those who are unaware of the need for baptism, like an otherwise virtuous ignorant non-Christian.

    Souls may be prayed “out of purgatory”, and purgatory is a place of suffering “purification”, like hell is a place of suffering. So, as people metaphorically say they are “going through hell”, I could see a Catholic possibly expressing praying a soul out of Purgatory as “praying them out of hell”, but they wouldn’t mean this literally, and I would wonder if some theological cross-confusion might have resulted from speaking in this way.

    An exception (skimming the article) might be some mirculous-like stories where people have died temporarily and come back from hell to tell the tale, or had a near-death vision of hell. This is the only instance I can think of from a Catholic view where a person might “go to hell” and come back, possibly due to the prayers of others.












  • not everyone has to be good at it, but it’s often about just following instructions, or maybe you didn’t have good teachers, if you’d still like to improve with it

    http://www.khanacademy.org/ is one resource for learning up to high school math I think

    the “higher” math seems more conceptual than it is focused on calculations

    I mean in school they often had us calculate a lot of things by hand, but we have access to computer calculators and computer programs which can do the calculating for us. So idk there can be a different approach to “doing math” when you aren’t expected to calculate by hand but just to plug in the right numbers for a calculator or computer program to calculate for you

    It can be like following the step-by-step recipes for baking, doing some math


  • Sede View at a Minimum

    I forget Lovs if I have posted about my developed thoughts on this situation as time’s gone on, but I think basically right now we have the sedevacantist view which in some way I think at a minimum all Catholics need to adopt (the view that Catholics currently have no pope, and Vatican 2 must be rejected)

    Clergy Issue with Sede View

    However, the sedevacantist “pure” view is kind of cornered: they have no pope, yes, but much more than that, no clergy with ordinary jurisdiction. This seems to logically imply to me that there must be Catholic clergy in the Vatican 2 church.

    Another Western Schism?

    The only way to “have this both ways” then I think is to think of the situation as a kind of “virtual schism” like the Western Schism was. During the Western Schism, there were two antipopes and a pope and confusion about if there was a pope at all or who the pope was, for 40 years. Those Catholics following antipopes were not considered to be formal schismatics, nor even “material” schismatics, but fully Catholic.

    Implying a Future Resolution

    Likewise today I think most people conventionally think Vatican 2 is Catholic and Francis is the pope of Catholicism - if this is incorrect, as sedevacantists assert, it doesn’t seem that such people are to be considered to be non-Catholic for erronenously following a big institution that purports to be the Catholic Church. I think there is instead a “genuine confusion” and therefore that the remedy to this will have to be the whole Vatican 2 church along with the scattered “independent” traditionalist groups all coming together, affirming a rejection of Vatican 2, and proceeding to elect a pope who is actually Catholic. This will have to mirror the papal election that ended the confusion of the Western Schism, where the pope and antipopes resigned mutually and then a pope was elected and agreed upon and the confusion was ended (Martin V was elected at the Council of Constance).

    Alternative Proposed Resolutions

    A lot of the alternative view seems to go in some “independent” direction, which has led to a bunch of schisms, no one agreeing on things, strained small groups, people without authority being thrust into leadership positions, and so on. This has implied to me a need for a more “total” solution that “converts” the V2 church back to Catholicism, rather than set up an enduring “independent” entity. A minority simply thinks there is no pope nor clergy today and awaits the end of the world, some “home alone sedevacantists”. My main problem with this view is simply that the world continues, now even decades after they have been thinking the world will end “imminently”. Another alternative view was the idea sedevacantists should just elect a pope separately of their own and forget the V2 church (“conclavism”). This has been attempted, but never really took off, and to me again implies a need for a “bigger” solution to the problem. Then there are all these various “independent” religious organizations or chapels, who are often in disagreement with one another, are disorganized, and are scattered. I don’t think they have authority to operate (they lack ordinary jurisdiction), but in themselves whatever is to be said of them, they’re not a long term solution that addresses how Catholics are to get a pope, unless they are a variant of a group waiting for the end times. So I haven’t really liked this approach and attempts at organization have been thwarted with disagreements and schisms.

    Conclusion

    The groups like in the OP are a temporary and necessary attempt to separate from a formerly Catholic system which is “off kilter”. However, I tend to think the Vatican 2 church can and must be “reformed” back to pre-Vatican 2 traditional Catholicism, rather than that Catholics will end up leaning in to these fractured “independent” entities for the long term. Somehow the world must become convinced of the sedevacantist position, which will lead naturally to a resolution with the election of a future pope who will be Catholic without question.


  • on the Catholic front Fr. Lasance comments on this topic in “My Prayer Book”, p. 55: https://archive.org/details/MyPrayerBookHappinessInGoodness/page/55/mode/2up

    Attempt at Summary

    The heresy of Jansenism in the 1600s tended towards a strict view of salvation that only a few would be saved. Over the centuries we are now tending towards the other condemned view of “universal salvation”, or that all will be saved no matter what. A common opinion of theologians is that “few” will be saved, but we know not how many.

    Fr. Lasance writing in the early 1900s mentions that it is permitted to believe that a majority of Catholics will be saved, or the majority of mankind; Catholics have not authoritively stated we must believe this number or that number will be saved.

    People are simply encouraged to strive to be among the few; if only a few are saved, then hopefully they are among that number, and if many are saved, then they should also be among that number:

    If you want to be certain of being in the number of the Elect, strive to be one of the few, not one of the many. And if you would be quite sure of your salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few. -St. Anselm

    Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and shall not be able. Luke 13:24

    (Note on Feeneyism and Opposite Error of Universal Baptism of Desire)

    (A parenthetic note that today there is a “strict” error Catholics have had to deal with dubbed “Feeneyism”, or the view that only the water baptized may be saved. Catholics have acknowledged that one may be “baptized by shedding their blood” or “baptized by virtue of desiring baptism”. There are many examples of martyrs who were not baptized by water, but “by their blood”, who are considered to be saints, or among the saved. I think this error of “Feeneyism” came about in reaction to an opposite error of “universal salvation by baptism of desire”, or modernists arguing “everyone has an implicit desire for baptism, whether they know it or not”. In effect they were arguing that almost everyone will be baptized, simply because they have an unknown desire for baptism, and therefore will be saved. This seems to plainly conflict with people who are aware of a need to be baptized by water, but who for whatever reason do not go and receive baptism, nor make any attempt to do so; the counter-argument would be here that there are at least some people who have had a desire for baptism they haven’t acted on or have opposed, which would be considered to be “morally imputable”. In any event, I think these are twin erroneous tendencies, with “Feeneyism” taking a strict incorrect approach, with the “universal baptism of desire” approach, which is unnamed, having an incorrect “broad” view of things, and with Catholics taking a “moderate” position that some may be “baptized by blood or desire” and be saved. For another thread but it ended up coming up in response to this post naturally… I have heard some young people have become attracted to the idea of “Feeneyism” as a “strict” reaction to some “broad” erroneous attitudes today)