Independent Catholics? (Main Forum)

by George Haydock , Monday, June 11, 2012, 15:59 (348 days ago) @ Enda

There are a few things that make me Catholic:
• The sacraments of initiation.
• A strong conviction of a sacramental theology of life – that all life is a Revelation of God and that all I need to believe in is revealed as my life unfolds.
• A strong awareness that in my very bones I am part of the “communion of saints” – a mob of believers, many of whom who are dead, with whom I maintain strong connections in time and space even if I do not believe exactly what they believed/believe. This is very strong when the faith was passed down to me through generations of persecuted believers. It is even stronger when I know some of their names and where they lived; in the case of one, having visited his place of trial, his place of imprisonment and his place of bloody public execution.
• A determination to insist that I am part of the Catholic family and cannot be excluded from it or enslaved within it by priest or bishop.
• A disdain for dogma, particularly dogma formulated under defunct cosmologies, philosophies and anthropologies; dogma that only serves to alienate people from the truth that God has written in their own hearts, and to enslave them with fear and guilt.
George Haydock