catholic

Sep. 13th, 2006 10:56 pm
lobelia321: (ikon)
[personal profile] lobelia321
There's a thing most of you don't know about me. *g*



I've been going to Catholic mass regularly for about a year now and I've just come back from my first session on 'How to be a Catholic'. I am not baptised and I'm thinking of becoming a Catholic.

omg (literally this time)

Prepare to be bored by the zeal of the newly-converted. ;-)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-13 10:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wanderlost.livejournal.com
As long as you'll still approve of the man-on-man action, good for you!

Pray for me, okay :0)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-13 11:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com
Ah. I thought something of the sort was up. Don't ask me how, I'm just brilliant, and me mum's in the clergy.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-13 11:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sonicbookmark.livejournal.com
A football slash fic writing Catholic.

Well. There have been stranger things.

I guess.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 06:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] birdgerhl.livejournal.com
really??? unlike duckie, i am surprised. will you tell us more?

i kind of like all the trappings of catholicism, but not the ideology.

b.x :)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 06:07 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] birdgerhl.livejournal.com
ooh, icon!!!!

b.x :D

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 08:02 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] brightest-blue.livejournal.com
Heh. I thought something might be up, in spite of your ongoing depravities. The good thing about Catholicism, is you can confess it all, and then do it again! That's probably not correct, but that seems to me to be one of the advantages. *sigh* I wish I could join you, but I'm just too hard-core Protestant, when I'm feeling religious at all.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 10:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
I was talking to a friend about his during the holidays and he said, 'You seem to be very Protestant about your Catholicism', and I think that's true! I am culturally Protestant and I'm going to be a Protestant-style Catholic! (Maybe.) Hey, it's all good, right? Look for ranty quotations from the Septuaginta...

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 10:36 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
I have been keeping very mum. LJ is not often the place for spiritual disburdenment, is it? Although my fics are, or maybe I'm allowing them to be. Well, ... this discussion could get me into deep waters and I have to be off to hospital in a minute so I will stick to the shallows for now.

Will you tell us more? I may, I may.

I love the trappings of Catholicism. Who could not as an art historian? Stupid C of E with its iconoclastic zeal. The German Lutherans, too, with their bare churches. I'm totally in it for the trappings. And, when the waters go deep, I will let you have my very Protestant thoughts about the spiritual advantages of trappings and rites over inwardness and guilt.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 10:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
I bet there are thousands out there. Thousands.

Hm, I could see my way round Jesus/John His Favourite Disciple... *cackles blasphemonically*

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 10:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
You are brilliant, Duck! Well, it must have shone through, or who knows, -- anyway, you are telepathic and should look into a career in counselling or summat. And your mother's in the clergy? Did I know this?

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 10:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
Heh, I've not noticed the Catholic church being averse to the man-on-man action...

Okay, let's not go there, though. :-(

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 03:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] brightest-blue.livejournal.com
I'm going to be a Protestant-style Catholic!

Hee. Aren't those Anglicans?

*waits for ranty quotations*

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 04:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] birdgerhl.livejournal.com
oh, do tell us more. i'm intrigued at your decision to embrace religion, as most people i know (myself included) have rejected whatever religion they were raised with (or else have simply maintained their religion).

b.x :)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 05:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com
I may have mentioned it in passing -- do you remember the post I did about her ordination - I had a terrible hangover and was sick on the way to the cathedral.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 05:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com
Hee. Aren't those Anglicans?

Meheheheh, that is so true! :)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 05:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
Well, I wasn't really raised with any religion so there's nothing to reject. Possibly an object lesson in the need to inculcate our children with dogma so that they have something to slough off in later life? Heh, that's certainly happening with mine who both took Holy Communion and the whole shebang. I had R.E. in school, and then in my tender teenage years went to Christian Science sunday school for a while. Then, at uni, they made us read the bible for art history iconography and I thought, cool, wow, fantastic, see these mosaics of Samson slaying the Philistine with an ass's jaw!

Then I married a Catholic. You can see where that got me. We didn't get married in a Catholic church, though; we got married in the college church where the minister (or whatever their name is) didn't care if I was baptised or not.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 05:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
Oh gosh, yes, that rings a bell. So what's happening about that? Have you seen her preach??

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 05:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
But no! I am Protestantly-Catholic in a very GERMAN way! I shouldn't have said 'protestant', I should have said Lutheran. C of E totally puts me off by being a state church.

Hm, not that German churches aren't state churches; they even get you to pay a church tax straight to the government. Well, I dislike that, too. The Catholic church is kind of its own state; I prefer that.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 05:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sheldrake.livejournal.com
No, well, only at the ordination, and then a year later at the second ordination (the first one was just when she became a deacon). I've read some of her sermons though - one had Harry Potter in, I'm not sure why. I don't remember him from the Bible, but then I haven't read it recently.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 06:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
Harry Potter appears in the Epistles of Draco to the Jehosaphateans, chapter 13, verse 11: "And thus smote Harry Potter the Eritreans, the Egyptians, the Druses, the Syriacs and the Armenians with the jaw bone of a gryphon, and thus was he smitten himself for the ungodly use of magic and cast down into the seventh circle of hell where he cavorteth to the end of all time with his fellow sorcerers and satan worshippers."

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 07:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] birdgerhl.livejournal.com
but how/where does this catholicism stand with being a feminist? (or maybe you wouldn't describe yourself as being a feminist...i don't know...i guess i just assume that all slashers are feminist by definition, hahaha). afaic the pope is a dangerous and misguided man - and i make no apology for that statement. people are *dying* - of AIDS, in childbirth - because of the stuff he preaches.

anyway - i have some great bible mosaic pics from my hols that i will share soon(ish), which i am sure you will enjoy! i love churches, saints, iconography, all o'that - i just can't subscribe to the beliefs.

b.x :)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 10:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] brightest-blue.livejournal.com
I know! I attend an Anglican church occasionally- mostly when I'm trying to convince myself that I'm not a total heathen- and I always think they might as well be muttering away in Latin and hailing Mary, because they are this close!

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-14 11:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] laduchesse.livejournal.com
oooh. i have so much to inquire and comment but i'm suppose to be studying... ergh. i need to catch up in my f-list.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-15 08:45 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
Pope: Hello, my son, what brings you to my private chambers of this dark and stormy night?

Cardinal: Ah, your Holiness, the afflictions of the flesh are once again assailing me.

Pope: Kiss my ring and the hem of my papal fanon.


P.S. The fanon is papal canon!!!

111

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-15 02:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] birdgerhl.livejournal.com
oh, lobelia. lobelia!

b.x :D

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-15 05:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] travelingcarrot.livejournal.com
Oh, they're gonna love you...

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-15 06:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] crowswing.livejournal.com
thorn in the flesh and all, hey? i'm learning more about catholic church history than i ever wanted to. academia. *shakes head fondly*

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-15 07:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
I'm wicked, aren't I? But I can't help it; I'm drawn to irreverence.

Anyway, to get back to some of your earlier questions.

Feminism? Ah, *sighs*. I called myself a feminist in the 80s and now I don't know. I certainly am a former feminist but I don't even know what feminism is about these days, exactly. But also I'm not sure how Catholicism wouldn't square itself with feminism? I find the whole male-dominated atmosphere quite sweet, and there's a certain frisson in the woman-priest thing (I'm just reading the very, very anti-clerical 19th-C. novel La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas about a woman who has an affair with a priest). In Germany, the women who are mistresses of priests have formed their own registered associations (that's Germany for you, *g*). Anyway, clearly these are side issues and not the reasons I am 'drawn' to the Catholic church. I may make another post about this, spurred on by your questions. It will come in 3 parts: why religion at all? why Christianity? and why Catholicism?

But I am not the type to buy into anything wholesale. So we will see whether I go the whole hog and do the baptism thing. Although t'h says that my very prevarication is highly Protestant and that a Catholic (such as he) would just get on with it and not angst so much. Which is precisely what I like about Catholicism, *g*.

My seminal experience was attending Easter mass at the tiny church of Duino in 1983. I went there with a friend who loved Rilke and his poems 'Duineser Elegien' about Duino. In the confessional near the entrance, I noticed a young boy in a suit, perusing a Playboy magazine. Come time to take communion, he tucked the magazine under his coat and trundled up to the altar, along with his smartly-dressed family. That sums up something for me.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-15 07:30 pm (UTC)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-15 07:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
I loved Christian iconography at uni. Loved it.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-15 07:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
You're looking very lilac today. :-)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-15 07:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] travelingcarrot.livejournal.com
Technically I am purple on a lilac-y pink background. But yes, thanks for noticing. Purple ROOLS.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-18 04:58 pm (UTC)
ext_14405: (dreaming is free)
From: [identity profile] phineasjones.livejournal.com
i will never even come close to the edge of understanding this sort of thing, not being remotely christian or religious at all. but, in all honesty, i'm troubled. being brought up catholic is something i have sympathy for. choosing to be a part of such an institution completely befuddles me. as a gay person, i'm sad to read this.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-18 05:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
You cannot be nearly as sad to read this as I was to find that one of my dearest Friends on LJ is dying of cancer. :-( Let's put sadness in perspective.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-18 05:25 pm (UTC)
ext_14405: (Default)
From: [identity profile] phineasjones.livejournal.com
no, those are certainly very different levels of sadness. but i don't think these are at all related. and i don't think you should be shaming me for voicing my opinion because something bad is happening that i was unaware of.

i'm truly sorry to hear about your friend.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-18 05:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
Well, this was maybe not the right tone to hit but I have to tell you that I was annoyed when you typed 'saddened'. It seemed to imply some sort of criticism. I can't believe you really are saddened; I read it more as that you were annoyed with me but maybe I am just misreading due to LJ typingness and all that.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-18 05:32 pm (UTC)
ext_14405: (Default)
From: [identity profile] phineasjones.livejournal.com
no. i think i said what i meant. and this probably is one of the worst places to attempt any serious discussion of this sort of thing. but, briefly, these things do make me sad, in part because they are so far beyond my understanding. i'm sad to feel like i'm criticising something anyone believes in. because i admire belief when it's positive and i wish it could just stay there, at that level. but i feel personally affronted by the catholic church. how could i not? and to hear about someone who i respect and admire choosing to become a part of it... it's just a painful reminder of how much i don't get about this religion thing and the gaping distance there is between me and so many of my christian - especially catholic - friends. so, yeah, sad.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-09-18 05:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
Well, I've been thinking about making a post about the whys and the wherefores because some others have also been asking me about this but I just haven't got round to it yet on account of the semester beginning and argh, having to go back to my Institution of Hate. The answer comes divided into three sections, a) why religion at all? b) why Christianity? c) why Catholicism? If I start typing now I won't stop for an hour so I'd better not as I have some spaghetti carbonara to make... Also, hey, I'm not baptised yet! And may never be because who knows? After having gone to my 'how to be a Catholic' sessions, I may decide against it. I have reasons, though, for going in the first place. Watch this spot for my Exhaustive Post About Religion and Whatnot. Especially Whatnot. :-) And it's fair enough that you don't get stuff because I'm on the other side of the equation, I can't imagine what it is like to have grown up with organised religion and then need to discard it in adulthood. Because I didn't grow up with it so there was never anything for me to reject. Hence I see it more from the outside, the institutional part, though not the spiritual side which is, I suppose, very important and dear to me which is why I got annoyed at what I took to be your criticism. But the critique of institutions, that I can understand. I am just reading Leopoldo Alas's novel La Regenta and have never read anything more anti-clerical and scathing of the Catholic church. But I guess nobody criticises Catholicism more than Catholics... *g*

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Lobelia the adverbially eclectic

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