From: jocallag@bach.helios.nd.edu (john ocallaghan)
Subject: Re:      Re: Nature of List--Fossil
Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 17:58:35 GMT

In article <AeyyDX2_NU00IM_6do@irenaeus.mlo.dec.com> Eric James Ewanco <ewanco@MLO.DEC.COM> writes:
>Ack! John O., you're frustrating me.
>
>I am NOT suggesting that the church was at any time in error, pre- or post-
>Vatican II.

Glad to hear it.

>
>But John, I am sure you will agree that as a human organization, *IGNORING
>DOGMATIC PRONOUNCEMENTS*, there are elements of the church that wander off
>into the wrong direction.  If people of the church (is THAT better? ;-))
>always did what was right, there would be no need for ecumenical councils,
>right?

I would prefer to say not that the Church is both a divine and human organization, but that it is a divine organization with human members; but I accept the
spirit of you distinction, which is what I was hopin for.

>
>Take the Arian heresy.  I could say that the church headed straight down
>the path of heresy, because a rather large proportion of its bishops believed
>Arius.  Now when I say that I do not mean the church as a whole speaking
>infallibly was heretical, but that the minds of the people who made up the
>church headed into the wrong direction.  Now.  Keeping this example in mind,

I would want to be a little careful about identifying the divinity of the Church with its actions when it defines something infallibly; how about its 
sacramental life, how about its caring for the poor and infirm?  Everything
that is good is of Jesus Christ, everything that is bad is not.  There is much
that is bad, but there is much more that is good than just infallibble 
statements.

>I think that the way the faith was lived out both pre- and post-SVC has been
>off the ideal.  I think certain things have been wrongly emphasized in both
>situations.  For example, the church did some very wrong things in the period
>leading up to the Reformation.  These things were not right, but the church
>did them.  Hence the church was, in a sense, off the right path, not the
>Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church (i.e. the one the gates of Hell would never
>prevail against), but rather the human beings who make up the Church.
>
>I think the pre-SVC church lacked a lot of love and charity.  I think that
>sacred Scripture was not emphasized as it should have been, I think that
>evangelism was not emphasized as it should have been, and I think that it
>acted legalistically in an unhealthy way.  I think of nuns who picked children
>up by their ears and beat them for the smallest infractions, and nuns who
>generally exhibited not one whit of the Gospel.  Basically, I think that in
>day-to-day living, the true Catholic Faith was not been lived out as it should
>have been.

Here again I have a difficulty with *ideal*.  I don't think there is any
such *ideal* against which the Church can be compared.  Certainly the   
members can be judged against the Revelation of Jesus within Her, but
there is no *ideal* Church.  There is only this Church, which Christ
has chosen for His bride in full knowledge of it, and its members.
*Ideal* sounds to Platonist for me.

>
>Hope that clarifies,
>Eric

It does, thanks.
Peace,
John