#Relevance of the Catholic Church

[paularoseauthor]

Ten Reasons Why You Need the Catholic Church:

I am seeking inquiring into the Catholic Church because it serves as a beacon of spiritual guidance, moral foundations, and communal support for individuals seeking meaning and purpose. 

The Enduring Relevance of the Catholic Church In an era marked by rapid societal changes and diverse spiritual paths, why one needs the Catholic Church may resonate deeply with those seeking a sense of purpose, moral guidance, and spiritual community.  The Catholic Church, with its rich history, goes back to the time of Christ. Apostolic sacramental practices and teachings have been deeply…

[alliluyevas]

looking at course selection for next semester (already???). one thing i miss about undergraduate is that the requirements were so much less specialized and you could take things across a broader range of interests. obviously that is the point of grad school and i have decided to focus on 19th century america and i'm not upset about that but I'm also like. i wish i could take readings in the history of the catholic church or cultural memory in early islam.

[queerpyracy]

i made the apparently extremely foolish assumption that i would easily be able to find some culturally significant catholic church in geneva that would have been operating as such at the time this fic is set in but as it happens apparently the calvinists were like "thanks this is ours now" for everything that is significant enough to be written about in english

[miqojak]

"I am going to do some Gpose today" I have said to myself for a week or two since my health issues have been lessening... and then I think about how much energy and time it takes, and I just... don't.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

For today’s video, I give you one of the longest standing Christmas Extravaganza traditions: The Virgin Mary and The Virgin Mary Dancers cheering up Santa with their burlesque rendition of “Santa Baby” feat. Sabels, Suspenders, and Stripping. The ‘Nice List’ always was overrated, anyway. Choreo by @cogrobs, Costumes by @bren_bash

[molluskzone]

eve and her family were initially written to be catholic (because that is the ONLY religion i have any personal experience with) but im kind of enraptured (LOL) by the very concept of rapturing. so i think i might make them evangelicals instead? that will be such a pain though i have 0 experience with evangelicals. or really protestants of any flavor.

[richmond-rex]

When Pope Alexander VI responded to [Henry VII]’s request to consider the canonization of Henry VI in a bull from 1494, he referred to earlier letters sent by Henry VII, in which his half-uncle’s saintly life, charity, devotion and founding of colleges had been mentioned, as well as the many miracles he had performed before and after his death, as grounds for canonization. Henry’s suffering in life and unnatural death were not mentioned at all, and his power to work miracles was not linked to his martyrdom [...] In the two bulls written by Pope Julius II in 1504 and 1507 in response to Henry VII’s applications, Henry VI’s sufferings and death were similarly ignored. Henry VII chose to emphasize to the popes those qualities of his half-uncle which were most likely to gain their approval: charity, defence of the Church, mercy and piety.

Danna Piroyansky, ‘King Henry VI: Glory of Innocence’ | Martyrs in the making: political martyrdom in late medieval England

The suffering and death of Henry VI were irrelevant; bringing up old political grudges from the past may have seemed to be counterproductive. Yet in the English context, to an English audience, Henry VII employed a different strategy. In a Latin poem praising Henry VII and celebrating the birth of his son, Prince Arthur, in 1486, Henry VI’s troubles were recited, culminating in his murder by the man who later killed Edward V and his brother.

[precambrianhottopic]

i don't think i could believe in god if i tried but oh man do i think religion is cool

[essence-of-femininity]

"I want people to know me and feel that I am close to each of you."

(Revelations of God the Father. Quote.)

[positively-patroclus]

i love writing art history essays cause when else am i going to be researching a catholic saint and her inedia prodigiosa/ anorexia mirabilis for the religious context of the painting by a nun who the paper i am writing is actually about

[lanteanserver]

I think technically speaking, I'm not an Irish Catholic or an English Catholic, but I'm a Ro[a]m[i/a]n{g} Cat{-}holic until and unless they excom{m/eow}nicate me, and really, if they're going to do that,

[anarchotolkienist]

you’re attacking that neopagan kind of birthstone post about druid plants, but could you please elaborate or at least clarify the explicit trope that is being used that has been historically weaponized?

I used to spend about a good third of my time on this godforsaken website attacking that idea, but sure, I'll do it again. This will be a bit of an effortpost, so I'll stick it under the readmore

There is a notion of 'celts' or Gaels as being magicial and somehow deeply in touch with nature and connected to pre-Christian worldviews that the people who decided to make up the "Celtic tree astrology" used. This is also why Buffy used Irish Gaelic as the language of the demons, why Warhammer uses Gaelic as Elvish, why garbled Scottish Gaelic is used by Wiccans as the basis for their new religious construct, why people call themselves Druids to go an say chants in bad Welsh in Stonehenge, or Tursachan Chalanais, or wherever, etc etc. This stuff is everywhere in popular culture today, by far the dominant view of Celtic language speaking peoples. Made up neopagan nonsense is the only thing you find if you go looking for Gaelic folklore, unless you know where to look, and so on and so on. I could multiply examples Endless, and in fact have throughout the lifespan of this blog, and probably will continue to.

To make a long history extremely brief (you can ask me for sources on specifics, or ask me to expand if you're interested), this is directly rooted in a mediaeval legalistic discussion in Catholic justifications for the expansionist policies of the Normans, especially in Ireland, who against the vigourous protestation of the Church in Ireland claimed that the Gaelic Irish were practically Pagan in practice and that conquest against fellow Christians was justified to bring them in like with the Church. That this was nonsense I hope I don't need to state. Similar discourses about the Gaels in Scotland exist at the same time, as is clear from the earliest sources we have postdating the Gaelic kingdom of Alba becoming Scotland discussing the 'coastal Scots' - who speak Ynglis (early Scots) and are civilised - and the 'forest Scots' (who speak 'Scottis' (Middle Gaelic) and have all the hallmarks of barbarity. This discourse of Gaelic savagery remains in place fairly unchanged as the Scottish and then British crowns try various methods for integrating Gaeldom under the developing early state, provoking constant conflict and unrest, support certain clans and chiefs against others and generally massively upset and destabilise life among the Gaels both in Scotland and Ireland. This campaign, which is material in root but has a superstructure of Gaelic savagery and threat justifying it develops through attempts at assimilation, more or less failed colonial schemes in Leòdhas and Ìle, the splitting of the Gaelic Irish from the Gaelic Scots through legal means and the genocide of the Irish Gaels in Ulster, eventually culminates in the total ban on Gaelic culture, ethnic cleansing and permanent military occupation of large swathes of Northern Scotland, and the destruction of the clan system and therefore of Gaelic independence from the Scottish and British state, following the last rising in 1745-6.

What's relevant here is that the attitude of Gaelic barbarity, standing lower on the civilisational ladder than the Anglo Saxons of the Lowlands and of England, was continuously present as a justification for all these things. This package included associations with the natural world, with paganisms, with emotion, and etc. This set of things then become picked up on by the developing antiquarian movement and early national romantics of the 18th century, when the Gaels stop being a serious military threat to the comfortable lives of the Anglo nobility and developing bourgeoise who ran the state following the ethnic cleansing after Culloden and permanent occupation of the Highlands (again, ongoing to this day). They could then, as happened with other colonised peoples, be picked up on and romanticised instead, made into a noble savage, these perceived traits which before had made them undesirable now making them a sad but romantic relic of an inexorably disappearing past. It is no surprise that Sir Walter Scott (a curse upon him and all his kin) could make Gaels the romantic leads of his pseudohistorical epics at the exact same time that Gaels were being driven from their traditional lands in their millions and lost all traditional land rights. These moves are related. This tradition is what's picked up on by Gardner when he decides to use mangled versions of Gaelic Catholic practice (primarily) as collected by the Gaelic folklorist Alasdair MacIlleMhìcheil as the coating for Wicca, the most influential neo-pagan "religion" to claim a 'Celtic' root and the base of a lot of oncoming nonsense like that Celtic Tree Astrology horseshit that started this whole thing, and give it a pagan coat of paint while also adding some half-understood Dharmic concepts (three-fold law anyone?) and a spice of deeply racist Western Esotericism to the mix. That's why shit like that is directly harmful, not just historically but in the present total blotting out of actually existing culture of Celtic language speakers and their extremely precarious communities today.

If you want to read more, I especially recommend Dr. Silke Stroh's work Gaelic Scotland in the Colonial Imaginary, Dr. Aonghas MacCoinnich's book Plantation and Civility in the North-Atlantic World, the edited collection Mio-rún Mór nan Gall on Lowland-Highland divide, the Gaelic writer known in English as Ian Crichton Smith's essay A real people in a real place on these impacts on Gaelic speaking communities in the 20th century, Dr. Donnchadh Sneddons essay on Gaelic racial ideas present in Howard and Lovecrafts writings, and Dr. James Hunter's The Making of the Crofting Community for a focus on the clearings of Gaels after the land thefts of the late 18th and early 19th century.

@grimdr an do chaill mi dad cudromach, an canadh tu?

[katakaluptastrophy]

You know when you're at a dinner party with God and things start to get...weird...? It's Maundy Thursday, and it's time for more Bible study for fans of weird queer necromancers!

It's currently Holy Week, the week where liturgical Christians reenact the events of Jesus' death and resurrection in real time. And today, it's Maundy Thursday, which commemorates the Last Supper, where Jesus ate with his friends before he was crucified.

Before we get to the Locked Tomb, what's so special about the Last Supper?

There are actually a few significant things that happen during the Last Supper, but this is where Jesus introduces the concept of communion:

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood. - Matthew 26:26-28

This isn't actually the first time Jesus has told his followers they will need to literally eat him:

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. - John 6:53-56

If you're thinking that sounds a bit intense, you're not alone - the Bible says that "many" of his disciples left after being told that they were apparently going to have to eat Jesus to be saved and resurrected.

While many Protestant denominations take this symbolically, Catholicism teaches transubstantiation: that when the priest prays over the bread and wine at mass, they really do become Jesus' body and blood.

With this in mind, let's circle back to necromancers:

"Overseas to Corpus. (She likes the word corpus; it sounds nice and fat.)"

This is probably Corpus Christi College, Oxford (named after the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, where the church celebrates the real presence of Jesus in the eucharist). The symbol of the college is a pelican - there's even a fabulously gilded pelican atop the sundial in their main quad.

What do pelicans have to do with the eucharist? Quite a lot, actually... The pelican is a really old symbol for Jesus, because it was believed to feed its young on its own flesh and blood in times of famine. The pelican on the Corpus Christi sundial is pecking at its own chest.

The pelican, like Jesus, was believed to give its own body to save those it loved.

Okay, so we've talked about Jesus, and weird cannibal birds, but why is this relevant to necromancers?

Specifically, the necromancer, the Necrolord Prime. John Gaius styles himself as "the god who became man", echoing Jesus as "the word became flesh". His entire pastiche of divinity is a sort of bootleg Catholicism. But while Catholicism posits Jesus' offering of his own body as foundational to the salvation and resurrection of humanity to eternal life, John's godhood relies the exploitation of other's bodies as the foundation of an empire of eternal death.

I've mentioned before in discussing Lyctorhood, how vampires have been understood to represent a sort of inversion of the eucharist because instead of consuming Christ's blood to receive eternal life in heaven, they consume other people's blood for an cursed eternal life on earth. John, and the Lyctors who followed him, gained power and eternal life from the consumption, body and soul, of another person.

In Catholic theology, Jesus offered his own body to degradation and death for the eternal salvation of humankind, but John forcibly consumes someone else's in service of his own apotheosis and immortality, dooming humanity in the process. He wants to be a Catholic flavoured god, but without the suffering that entails. But he's perfectly willing to outsource that suffering to others.

There's something just achingly awful about Alecto liking the feel of the word "corpus" - "body" - when she so hates the body that John constructed for her. John describing Alecto as "in a very real way" the mother of humanity and the mother pelican on the Corpus sundial rending her own flesh for her children. John forcing the earth into a personification of femininity and playing Jesus on another's sacrifice. His daughter, unwillingly trapped in her own corpse walking around with the wounds of her significant self-sacrifice like the resurrected Christ but yet again another body exploited by John in support of his performance of godhood. It brings to mind a very different fantastical engagement with Catholicism, where in the Lord of the Rings Tolkien - riffing on St Augustine - suggested that evil cannot create, it can only mock and corrupt. The ethics of The Locked Tomb may be messier than that, but there's something indicative in how John shies away from his creative powers - his abilities to grow plants, and manipulate earth and water - in favour of his dominion over death.

The metaphysical world of The Locked Tomb is clearly not intended to be the same as that of Catholicism. But with hindsight, perhaps John was onto something when he was surprised that he didn't "get the Antichrist bit" from the nun too.

John isn't the Antichrist. But he is, thematically, anti-Christ.

If we're talking about John and Jesus, there's also, of course, the question of Resurrection. But we've got to go through Hell and back before we get there on Sunday...

[liefdesleven]

while a deacon is like you said not a priest and you cant take away priesthood, an archdeacon often was (its not very common anymore right now i believe hence was) a priest, solely because of the amount of authority they ended up having. an archdeacon is most often a priest who works as an assistant to the bishop

Watching them run calorum with an obvious roman catholic stand in is so funny to me personally because they get the broad strokes but obviously didn't get the full indoctrination

Like girly pop, you can not demote from priesthood to any form of deacon. You can remove them from clerical state, but a priest is a priest forever.

Deacon is a special state between lay person and priest, most commonly held by married men. They can't consencrate host; they're ordained helpers

[saintjosie]

i’m gonna cave and say one more thing about demilypyro because it irritates me to no end that people are accusing me of lacking reading comprehension when imo the actual issue is a tremendous lack of historical context and how out of touch people are with how absofuckinglutely devastating christianity has been to the modern world, especially for people of color.

But sure, some christians and weirdos online think trans people are icky so it's not real, probably. lol.

THIS is the part of her post i have tremendous issue with. it’s not her coping with humor. and i hope it’s obvious that i think transphobia is bad.

christians have done SO so much more harm than just thinking that queer people are icky. because before colonization happened, queerness was common and accepted, and in many cultures, even revered.

but then guess what, the roman empire happened. and then after the byzantine empire happened.

and then after that the still very much alive institutionalized catholic church rooted it’s cancer in the world.

and then after that, the british, french, spanish, portugese, german, italian, and yes, dutch (being particularly relevant, demilypyro supposedly being from the netherlands) empires happened.

and of course, we now have america.

and thus through conquest, bloodshed, and genocide, white people spread christianity to literally every corner of the world and with it, christian values of homophobia and transphobia.

as a second generation korean immigrant, first generation american, and the eldest child of a pastor, i am directly impacted and incredibly traumatized from white colonialism.

so yeah, it pissed me off more than a little bit how quick people are to accuse me of lacking reading comprehension and jumping to defend someone who made at best, a carelessly offensive and at worst, horrendously privileged comment.

if you don't have to think at least a little bit everyday how horrendously fucked up things are because of christianity, then that is an immense privilege.

i stand by what i said and i hope that more people seek to actively decolonize themselves instead of reveling in passive ignorance.

[transmutationisms]

i feel like my perspective on catholicism is so discordant with how people talk about it on here lol like having grown up knowing as many schism catholics (pius x &c) and sedevacantists as regular mass goers and also being raised by 'ex catholics' who have since converted catholic larp denomination like i just don't put any stock in the idea of like doctrinal control or consensus and i think that's such a misunderstanding of organised religion. like when i think "catholic church" that's a political entity yk the relevant activities are like. owning land. doing colonialism. integration with various states. what im NOT thinking basically ever is doctrinal content like i literally don't think of catholicism as doctrine you have to believe in order to practice or align with. in actuality many people simply don't. if you tell me you're catholic there are definitely assumptions i make about you and actually none of them have to do with the intricacies of your religious beliefs