Suggestion box for St Peter's

Shirley,I think this thread shows that good communication is not in the interest of either this cafe or the church. Everything must be said from an ecclesiastical point of view with a lot of ecclesiastical JARGON. What better means of communication? and what better way of saying 'we want to listen' is there than the suggestion box?
This raises another question: Do lay catholics have a voice in Christ's church? [and another do non-JARGON- TRAINED christians have a voice in this cafe?]
It is theological JARGON that got the church into the divisive mess it is in and it is plain John xxxiii talking that will get her out of it.

Can you imagine all the women trying to crowd into that one office? I love this thought today!

My talking points for the Pope when he visits UN.
My friends as a representative of a christian community with no authority other than what authority you and the christian community lend me. I come in peace as Christ did so peace be with all of you.
I echo what John xxiii said in this hall 'War no more..no more war..war never again'
A great wrong is being done, a wrong comparable to the holocaust when people make and traffic in machinery that is designed for the extermination of races and communities.A great right is being done when help is offered to communities suffering from disease and starvation. I thank God for groups in all the Christian churches that participate in the Samaritan mission.
War no more --never again war
A great wrong is being done when companies withold knowledge of Pharmaceuticals [ knowledge that is rightfully and profitably gained] that could cure illnesses that are decimating part of the globe. I greatly admire the medical professionals who work tirelessly and without borders to alleviate suffering.
Peace be with you.
A great wrong is being done by countries and companies who destroy the air we breathe and the family nest we live by abusing the natural resources [not only abusing the resources but fighting to control them] Scientists in this field and in many other fields we hold in high esteem. It is not good when church authorities get too far involved in science and vice versa. Ultimate science can lead to the greatest appreciation of creation.
Peace and knowledge be with all of you and it is my hope that each of you, countries and companies, work as hard at the work of peace as you have worked in the work of war.

Dennis, you might have started a discussion on what could or should be the talking points of the popes message to the UN. I'll give you mine in a few days

Peter in Newtown, PA

Wouldn't it be marvelous for the bishop or cardinal to drop by unannounced at a local parish and celebrate Mass? No ruffles, florishes and tafetta. Just with us and Jesus.

That I can understand. I believe people have met there before. I know Pope B16 met with Fr. Hans Kung there. I could be a good place for reconciliation

This is a great thread, sevenup. I like how it concretizes those fantasies we may have about how the church could/should be, but seems to find it impossible to fulfill. I also like how stark and simple the suggestions are. And yet how unrealizable, without will from the center to talk about what the church should be.

The preceding suggestion puts me in mind of a statement of Dietrich Bonhoeffer that combines both the preceding suggestion, and your previous one about creating an inclusive space for our non-Catholic sisters and brothers in Christ.

Bonhoeffer says,

"The table fellowship of Christians implies obligation. It is OUR daily bread that we eat, not my own. We share our bread. Thus we are firmly bound to one another and not only in the Spirit but in our whole physical being. The one bread that is given to our fellowship links us together in a firm covenant. Now none dares go hungry as long as another has bread, and anyone who breaks the fellowship of the physical life also breaks the fellowship of the Spirit."

William D. Lindsey

What would be the point of that? The Vatican is already engaged in dialogue with many other faith communities. they do alot to foster reconciliation

To read your point of view one might think that the dialogues were successful. There are reasons for my point of view. I have a guest bedroom in my house and it is set aside for my brothers and sisters. Other denominations should ALWAYS be invited and welcomed as brothers and sisters in my father's house. We should even move people out to make them welcome.
Actions speak louder than words and most of the dialogue starts from the point of view of 'how little do we concede in order to look good?'

That leads to the next suggestion.
The Holy Father should, with or without leaders of one or more other denominations,issue an apology to Christ for the division that has been caused by pride.

I would say that it is not the Church's fault that dialogue is not successful. I think the Church has reached out to many denominations. What do you say the Church should start out and concede, The Eucharist?, the Primacy of Peter? The Blessed Mother?

Spoken as a true authoritarian!! I think of other denominations as brothers not enemies.....Business is business. War is war. Conceding might be in place in both business and war, but not here. Friendship is friendship, and family is family and other denominations are part of my family and I thank God for them. There are no Doctrine Doors on my house.

Thanks for the judgement. My mother is Roman Catholic and my Father's family are members of the Church of Christ. So I do know about interfaith dialogue. Most of my fathers family did not understand when I told them that I wanted to study theology to be a youth minister, there reaction was why would you want to help people beleive in a Church that worships Mary and idols and all the other misconceptions that many people have of us Catholics. While I share much with my familyin regards to faith, it is sad that I could never really speak about my love for Our Lady, or the Eucharist. We must not forget as Dominus Iesus has reminded us that we are the Mother Church and we need to share our faith with others, but we cannot water down our beliefs.

Mavfan46,

Someone share this with me once:

"You are all believers in GOD, and to you religion shall not become a theologic shelter to which you may flee in fear of facing the rugged realities of spiritual progress and idealistic adventure; but rather shall your religion become the fact of real experience which testifies that God has found you, idealized, ennobled, and spiritualized you, and that you have enlisted in the eternal adventure of finding the God who has thus found and embraced you."

I thought that was a pretty good statement Mav because it seems like more denominations could embrace that idea.

If we spent more time around what we hold true in common we would be better serving God by promoting the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind.

We sweat the details when there are so many beautiful concepts of God and spirituality that we can all embrace?

I mean would you rather love your brother and sister as God loves you or would you rather fight with your brother or sister like Cain fought with Abel?

Personally, i know what God wants me to do. Do you?

Warriors Fan 69. Peace my brother! Go warriors!
The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the
more we want to do God's Will

I always thought the violence in Ireland was tragic. It seems that the more logical action would have been for each side to show that they were true believers by loving the other instead of retaliating. What a witness. But the troubles in Ireland were more about power and not faith. Sharing our faith with each other is important, but so many times, and I can tell you from experience, it means that we water down what we believe in. I was part of a bible study once where we went through the beginning of Luke's Gospel, it was tragic that I did not feel comfortable enough to break open the Word and share our lady. This type of sharing is tragic

Your warriors are killing me. Don Nelson know how to coach. I still have the theological virtue of hope that the mavs will come back from deing down 3-1. Incidently you are the first person on this site that picked up on the mav fan reference.

Well Col's Jazz picked off my Warriors. It was a good run while it lasted. It's been a long time coming since we were in the playoffs. It was great! Peace be you Mav Fan and Col! Go Jazz!

The more we discover how much we are Loved by God, the more we want to do God's Will

Not true Mavfan, I picked up on it a couple months ago and responded to one of your posts with "Go Jazz." For which someone gave me a zero. Really.

Anyway you're right about a number of things. Don Nelson is a good coach, and the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland were primarily about economic power, and that's how both sides really saw these issues. The religious thing was a smokescreen but served well to entice Irish American Catholic dollars to the IRA. I have had the priveldge of discussing these issues with both Betty Williams and Bernadette Devlin. I came away from both discussions frustrated with Irish Americans who fostered their sense of "Irish" at the expense of the children of Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland-- I know Northern Ireland and there was not a smokescreen there. True It was not a 'religious' cause but it was about civil rights. As a Catholic growing up I was discriminated against- I was beaten up on a public bus in Northern Ireland and actually saved by a Protestant bus driver. A Catholic at that time could not be hired in 90% of the jobs and vice versa a protestant could not be easily hired by a Catholic. I was stopped and searched more times than I can remember. My ,at the time, 70 yr old mother was held at gunpoint for five hrs by the RUC-NI police force] Even the English Government report openly declared the the Catholics had been discriminated againstfor the entire history of the provence.
Many Catholics and Protestants were not aware of the damage caused be hate and misplaced loyalty in education,in the culture,in sports,in music and in community activities. On the Catholic side many of these things were controlled by the church.And that training started in Maynooth. Yes the church was involved but there was no conflict over faith as such. As Jimmy Carter said recently [to paraphrase 'division within denominations and in Christianity is the biggest disgrace in the world' The blood on Ronald Reagan's hands and on Margaret Thatcher's hands is not all Central American or Argentinian.
If the Irish in New York helped the IRA that was probably not the best thing to do but Ronald Reagan was giving all kinds of technical help to the RUC, help that enabled the RUC to screen all telephone calls in and into the North of Ireland. Much of the IRA activities was defensive in that retaliation was the only thing that could help. The UDR [corresponding to the IRA] was fed daily briefs from the Brittish secret service and when it was obvious that they had done something wrong they were not ever arrested.
Where did the idea come from that it was a religious war? The BBC is an arm of the Brittish government and our daily newscasts were written,down to the last comma by the Brittish government at the beginniong of the conflict. How naive it is to have a foreign government use your airwaves to broadcast into this country. Would the CIA be allowed to broadcast into Brittain? The BBC is good in most cases but not when it is acting for the Brittish Government. They christened it a religious conflict.
Would anyone believe that Titanic was built in Belfast without the help of a single Catholic? and the few Catholics who were hired at the shipyard much later,died from accidental causes on the job? That was an interesting time to live through. I better not add to this but faith was not part of the problem but the Church was a cause through neglect and brain washing. [This post deserves a Zero but there are a few points and it does relate to what the Pope might say when he visits the UN]

Sevenup, why do you think your post deserves a zero? I wonder if many people around the World would believe the things we will be saying about the Bush Regieme in a few years...I am very sorry for what happened to your Mother, and for all the others who suffered in Northen Ireland. I know from my own Family History that much of this is true. One of my "great-great-great grandfathers was the son of an English Lord who fell in love with the Irish lass who worked in their home in Ireland, and was "disinherited" for doing so. So he married her and they came to Boston and settled there. Besides the Cork ancestors, I have this wonderful open-minded pair to look up to! It is a real shame that so much divisiveness is caused by peoples' failure to walk in the moccasins of others.

Thanks for adding more insight into those terrible times.

There is a tradition that the Pope is the bishop of Rome, but is this a defined doctrine? While the belief has the capability of puting him on a par with the other bishops it is good. I assume that he has an auxiliary that takes care of the work there while he devotes his time to the rest of the church.
He is also the defender of the faith. He is also the first evangelist and as such is a mentor to christianity in its entirety. He is Christ on earth. He is Christ to the evangelicals. He is Christ to the non Catholic Christians. He is Christ to the Mormans and he is Christ to the world.
Would Christ come to the UN in Sept and hammer on the table like Kruschev? Would He make a whip and drive them from the building or would He come with the sermon on the mount? I hope he will not quote the 12th century teacher as a source on Islam but will follow the words of John xx111.

He should stay away from groups like the above, who advocate abortion,sterilization and contraception and all other sinners. Association with sinners is not a good thing or is it?

God forbid that he have to stay in NY,that might be cruel and unusual punishment. I mean that he would travel to all nations including the United Nations. He would support the local clergy locally without condemnation and preach PEACE and JUSTICE to anyone,anywhere,anytime. He would still be the bishop of Rome.