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Ignorance of faith risks creating cafeteria Catholics, pope says
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Ignorance of the faith puts Christians at risk of following a “do-it-yourself” religion, Pope Benedict XVI said.
People need to become more familiar with the creed because it is there that the “Christian moral life is planted and … one finds its foundation and justification,” the pope said Oct. 17 at his weekly general audience.
Before an estimated 20,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square, the pope began a new series of audience talks to accompany the Year of Faith, which marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council.
He said he hopes the series of instructional talks, which is expected to run until Nov. 24, 2013, will help people “strengthen or rediscover the joy of faith and realize that it isn’t something foreign to or separate from everyday life, but is its soul.”
Pope Benedict said the widespread and dominant nature of today’s secularism, individualism and relativism means that even Christians are not completely “immune from these dangers.”
Some of the negative effects include faith being lived “passively or in private, a refusal to learn about the faith, and the rift between faith and life,” he said.
“Often Christians don’t even know the central core of their own Catholic faith — the creed — thereby leaving room for a certain syncretism and religious relativism,” he said. Without a clear idea of the faith’s fundamental truths and the uniquely salvific nature of Christianity, “the risk of constructing a so-called ‘do-it-yourself’ religion is not remote today.”
“Where do we find the essential formula of the faith? Where do we find the truths that have been faithfully handed down and make up the light of our daily life,” he asked.
He said the answer is the creed, or profession of faith, which needs to be better understood, reflected upon and integrated into one’s life.
Christians need to “discover the profound link between the truths we profess in the creed and our daily life” so that these truths are allowed to transform the “deserts of modern-day life.”
The Christian faith is not a belief in an idea or just an outlook on life, he said, but a relationship with the living person of Christ who transforms lives. [More]
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3 Comments
Pope Benedict says we should become more familiar with the creed. He and the hierarchy need to really look at the creed which leaves out ALL of Jesus life. Note, “he was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified”. No mention of anything about what he was about, what he did and taught, just that he was born and killed. Did we crucify a baby??? Those in power need to get back to what Jesus’ mission was and do that instead of vying for positions where they can dictate to the laity who are 99.9% of the church. They are really out of touch with the world, the Cosmos, the Groun of Being.
Jesus – For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, He suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
He asscended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead and His kingdom will have no end. (in this small portion of the Nicene Creed the questions about who Jesus is and what He is about and what His mission while on earth was, are all answered).
That does not mention what he was about, i.e. compassion, forgiveness, unconditional love for ALL, inclusivity, (he had a domination free group), he never ordained anyone nor put one above another. He taught that if you would be first you must be servant of all, you must wash each others’ feet as he did to his followers, you must be your sister’s and brother’s, keeper, that we are all connected. Remember that the scriptures are literature and cannot be read literally, they are not history, they are an expression of the experience of God that the people in that time and culture experienced. All of scripture is contextual, written by a certain culture, in a specific time, for a particular people and we read it in a particular culture, in a particular time even in a particular gender. We have evolved and have made many discoveries since they were written and much of the imagery they use does not hold water any more. They wrote according to what they knew at the time. Anything we say about God is metaphor, and God is greater than any metaphor we use. The creed doesn’t tell us who Jesus is and what his vision was.