Is there a penance for eating pork?

John,

I never joke about eating more pork.

I will address your points as soon as I have the time, which is scarce, as I have three reviews and a feature due in the next week.

Basically I will not argue with you point for point, as that is fruitless, but I will be addressing the proper way to interpret Sacred Scripture, which is within the framework of the Holy Catholic Church.

Erik-I don't know-it seems to me that jokes about "eating more pork" do amount to a lack of respect.

Just on that point-what IS the difference between the legalism of the Roman Church (with all its carryovers from pre-Christian pagan systems) and the legalism of Islam? Or for that matter, the legalism of the Jewish dietary laws? Yes, The Roman Church has the core of Mere Christianity in its teachings. But there's so much else that's been added!

Roman Catholicism, most especially with its maintenance of a priestly sacredotal caste, is still stuck, in many ways, in a system that has never fully acknowleged or understood, the full victory "delivered once and for all" at Calvary.

But arguing with a Catholic about such matters is dangerous. At least Muslims, presumably, take the Koran seriously. Catholics will tell you they believe the Bible as much as evangelicals do, but when you disprove their claims, using Scripture, they'll say, well, only "our Church" has the authority to interpret Scripture. So Catholic teachings on, say, Mary, as flatly contradicted as they are by what the Bible actually says, must be accepted. You guys interpret the Bible the way lefties interpret the Constitution: "It means whatever WE say it means." It's an intellectual shell game.

I'm attacted to the cultural conservatism and support of the arts I see on a lot of Catholic sites. But those of us who have been delivered from Catholicism tend to be more than willing to debate the Church's status as self-appointed Arbiter of Truth.

John,

I have too much (paid) writing to do to demolish, I mean, take on your arguments regarding the disciplines of the Catholic Church one by one, although nothing grieves me more than not being able to do so tonight, as this is the sort of dialog that I love!

Anyway, just a brief response about the Mohammedans. I have a lot of respect for them and for the monotheism, belief in the patriarchs, and so forth (in short, all that is true) in the Mohammedan faith. I have spent a lot of time among Mohammedans as well as other Arabs, though, and have found that we are completely barking up the wrong tree when we think that they will respond the same way that we will.

For one thing they take their truth claims seriously. I do to, and as a result refuse to call them Muslims or their faith Islam, for to tell them that "submission to the will of God" is wrong is clearly foolish. What they need to understand is that submission to the will of God means full membership in the one church that does have the full deposit of the Faith, namely the Roman Catholic Church.

What they follow is a perversion of Christianity concocted by a fellow named Mohammed, hence, Mohammedanism. We call other perversions of Christianity by the names of their founders as well: Lutheranism, Calvinism, Arianism, etc. I am all for dialog and respect, but I draw the line at giving an inch of Truth. I don't ask them or anyone I am debating with (which I am not really doing here, as I doubt that I will get many Mohammedans entering my architectural contest) to give an inch of what they believe to be true either, just to admit when God opens their eyes to the full truth and not to be obstinate in error.

I am not a compromizer. It is something completely foreign to my nature.

Just my non-Catholic opinion, Erik, but you'd persuade more Muslims if you treated them, and their religion, with respect.

All religious systems are man-made, and by definition contain much error. This is true of Christian and non-Christian systems alike. None has the full truth, which is known to God alone, though he has revealed much of that truth to us through the Bible. The Roman Church made the grave error of seeing its own traditions as a kind of revealed truth. This error is different only in degree, not kind, from the Muslims' belief that the Koran is inspired.

It's ironic that you joke about eating pork while talking of the Catholic tradition, equally a wholly human invention, of not eating meat on Fridays. I suppose the Church no longer teaches that it's a sin to eat meat on Fridays, but that's precisely my point. The Church, as a thoroughly fallible human institution, has changed its collective mind on many issues. But it must be said that it has, in the process, become far more Biblical than it was even fourty years ago.
John

dittos on the prayers for children and for those who are trying to have more children (I have a vested interest, of course, in promoting the latter petition....)

I will say that I had six children, and now that I am at the age where further pregnancy becomes increasingly unlikely, I wish that we had been more generous and had more than the six, especially because none of them has married and given us grandchildren yet!

Erik I agree...in fact I am at work right now and I am going to say a few our fathers for our cause. Then I am going to go to the Vietnamese Deli and buy those wonderful bbq pork sandies, for about $1.75 each and enjoy every bite.