> Alternatively, someone could have serious doubts about
> the cosmological parts of Catholic theology, but still think the
> moral teachings had value, not only as a matter of social
> order, but (for example) because they encourage charity.
> He might even be doing charitable work in that church context,
> and feel that his doubts about (say) the virgin birth were outweighed
> by the simple fact that people who would otherwise go hungry
> were being fed.
This cuts both ways, there is a lot of suffering in the world which
results directly from blindly following church teachings no matter how
well the priest means. For example birth control and abortion. Wouldn't
it be ironic that the starving children the priest feels compelled to
feed are the result of unintentional births by couples using the
unreliable "rhythm" method because the church says "no condoms" followed
by "no abortion". Then at the other end of the life cycle, people with
painful terminal diseases are forced to endure hell on earth because the
church says "no suicide".
On a more sinister level, a priest who doesn't believe in it himself but
continues to preach church dogma to people for whatever personal
reasons, is probably doing more harm than good. Real education would
sooner "save" people from their personal hell of poverty and
overpopulation than superstition any day. I'm from the Third World, so
my attitude towards the [Catholic] church is based on what I see in my
own country and other countries around me.
I read a "Peanuts" cartoon where Snoopy was supposed to get married but
the bride ran off with his brother, Spike. Lucy had made a salad and
Linus was supposed to deliver a sermon. After his bride left Snoopy
said/thought "I'll eat the salad, but I won't listen to the sermon". My
point : take the church's salad, but spare us the sermon (which is what
I did since I attended Catholic schools from age 5 to 18).
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* Hakeeb A. Nandalal *
* nanco@trinidad.net *
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