[UA] Templars Exonerated

[Christopher J. Carroll]

on 4/5/02 8:32 AM, Mario Magallanes at aegypto at telefonica.net wrote: >
> Well, I went to a Catholic school and never got this impression. Our
> religion texts included comments on buddhism, islam and judaism, and
> even if there was the assumption that we catholics had it "right", the
> other people had some things right, too, so they were not going to burn
> in Hell.
> 
> Now I come to think about it there was an old priest who was very
> condescending towards Luther and protestants, but he was so much your
> stereotipical old, fat priest (with an habit to pat children's shoulders
> if you know what I mean) that it was difficult to take him seriously.

Here in the US, the whole non-Catholics going to hell thing seems have been
pretty much dropped. The general consensus seems to be that as long as you
avoid the obvious evil stuff, you should be pretty much okay. We may be
right and you wrong, but God won't hold it against you.

> It's kinda like that thing about suicide being the biggest sin a
> catholic can commit. It gets mentioned sometimes in american series, but
> I never heard of it before watching them. Surely it's considered as a
> sin (I seem to recall it was declared a sin in order to stop crazy
> people who was too eager to chat with Jesus) but the biggest?

I think the reasoning is that by its nature suicide sends you upstairs for
Judgment with a sin on your conscience. Other sins at least allow for the
possibility of repentance and forgiveness from God before you die.

> Or maybe is that the american branch of the catholic church is more
> conservative and take these things more seriously. Dunno.
> 

I think it's pretty much the other way around. We colonial Catholics are
fairly progressive, at least by Church standards.
--
Christopher J. Carroll
<ccarroll1 at mac.com>


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