Earlier today, I read a post made by an old friend of mine, an American and not a member of the Catholic Church, though he is still a Christian.
He shared a video about the Pope: start viewing at 2:15
My friend’s wife then commented about how this isn’t a new thought for Catholics. That ALL CATHOLICS believe that they can only get to heaven through the Pope, that she cannot stand the Catholic Church, and that Catholics listen only to the Church, not to Jesus.
Below is my response, and correct me if I am wrong as I do enjoy learning the views of others, whether or not I agree or they think I will agree/disagree.
Keep in mind that nothing about my post is meant to say that they are bad people, I just want to share our words in order to potentially continue the conversation:
How I reacted:
Before reading my response to this post, and _______’s comment, anyone who reads this should keep in mind that I was raised American Catholic, and had issues with the Catholic church myself, over the years, though I have chosen to stay Catholic after seeing how the church works outside of the U.S. You should also know that I am fluent in Italian.
I would like to begin by discrediting your video. First of all, whoever translated the Pope’s Italian did not do a very good job and, in fact, made some fairly significant errors that changed the entire meaning of what the Pope was trying to communicate. For example:
1. The Pope said “C’è chi ritiene di poter aver un rapporto personale diretto, immediato con Gesù Cristo al di fuori della comunione e della meditazione”. The translator wrote “There are those who believe you can have a personal, direct and immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside of the communion and mediation of the church”.
“Meditazione” is a direct English cognate and means “meditation” NOT “mediation”. In this sentence, the Pope is NOT describing people having relationships with Christ outside of the “control” of the Church. Nor does communion simply refer to the act of taking Communion during church. Communion is the sense of community one finds through being surrounded by believers. Meditation refers to the study of God’s word and what one does to further develop a relationship with Christ.
2. When the Pope said “Non esiste il fai da te”, what was translated as “There is no ‘do-it-yourself’”, he is using “fai da te” in a way that means “do it your way” in a “do it on your own” kind of way, which does not necessarily mean “do-it-yourself”. This is his way of referring to the fact that you, as a Christian, should follow God’s word, God’s way, not your own and not “only the parts that make you feel good”. The church is meant to study His word and share its analysis with its people, so that it can be studied and the study, further developed. As a Christian, you should listen to other believers, whether they be priests, pastors, or other Christians (because the Church is wherever Christ is and he is anywhere where two or more are gathered together in His name). Listening to each other helps you further develop your understanding of God’s word and will. Christians do it all the time, whether they call themselves Catholic or not.
3. The translator made a mistake when he said that “some brothers or sisters (in the church)…” The pope did not say “in the church” nor did he mean “in the church”. When he referred to our “brothers and sisters”, he meant everyone…as he later described as “humans, all of us, as witnesses”
4. Adding on to number 3: the translator said “and in our brothers and sisters, with their gifts and limits, who come to us and make themselves known”. What the Pope really said was that we are able to see God’s message of salvation “in our brothers and sisters, with their gifts and limits that confront you and make you recognize yourself”. This is a subtle difference, but is it not true that sometimes you are the only Bible a person will ever read? (Here, I am definitely quoting Mr. Russell, I know haha) When we follow Christ’s teachings, we act a certain way, we use our gifts and confront our limitations in a way that is noticeable to those around us. Those around us are then forced to notice themselves, to think about who and how they are (as this is something natural that humans do as they observe the lives of those around them). We are then the brother or sister that makes them recognize themselves, recognize that they are sinners and need Christ.
If one chooses the “do-it-yourself” religion, that allows them to dislike a church or change the meaning of a scripture anytime they disagree with it, without that change being contested since “what you think is all that really matters”. That is wrong, as the Pope said, very directly. The church is not simply “the Catholic church”. The church is a communion of people who follow the same faith and seek the same truth.
Saying that you “believe in God, in Jesus, but are not interested in the church”, is wrong. It is not enough. Satan believes in God, and in Jesus, does that make him Christian? Sure, you are saved when you ask Christ to be your savior, but you cannot just do that and then go on with your life as you wish. You must seek to build or join a community of believers, and to then grow that community – to be witnesses to the world. How many times did the apostles get in trouble for trying to do things their way? Christianity can’t be done, fully and to its greatest extent, on your own. Saying you have a personal, direct, and immediate relationship with Christ that is outside of a faith community, is dangerous. It can lead to misinterpretation. It can lead to false prophets.
I have a personal relationship with Christ. Though I am Catholic, I confess my sins directly through prayer, not to a priest. However, I keep in mind that I am not omniscient. I am human. All humans have their faults, but perhaps, by comparing notes with other humans who have the same faith, the same Father, the same Savior, I can come to better understand the path that I am meant to be on. Better understand how to communicate my faith to others. And Better understand what it means to be a part of the faith and the religion I call mine.
That is what the Pope’s message said to me. I may not agree with everything a figurehead of the Catholic church might say, but I most certainly don’t agree with everything a figurehead of a Protestant church might say. I did not take each word literally, I read the meaning between the lines and I would like to share that with you because I do believe they were wise words that can be followed by all branches of the Christian church.
I am sorry about the translation errors, I feel they are going to lead to a lot of confusion and misinterpretation of the Catholic church. I hope I was able to provide some clarity on a few of the mistakes and I am most certainly open to your comments/continued discussion.
As for Catholics and their faith:
A common misconception is that Catholics require a “father” or “Pope” to interpret scripture for us. Reality is that Catholics often question and study scripture in the same way that the American “Christian” does (“Christian” is in quotes because “Christians” think they are the only Christians while Catholics consider themselves to be Christian). American Catholics are known as the lazier Catholics who you described, but not all Catholics are that way in the U.S. and they are most certainly not that way overseas. I will admit I was shocked when I first experienced this difference in La iglesia de los capuchinos in Argentina. Or when my boyfriend told me about the Catholic youth group he was a part of in the UK. And even when, years later, I found a Catholic church in Italy that has a large community of university students who meet for dinner after Sunday night mass to build both a community of friendship and ask “so what do you think of what the Priest said?” “What did his words say to you?”.
The Pope, and priests in general, dedicate their lives to studying scripture. They then interpret what speaks most to them, and present it to those who will listen. Those who listen are then tasked with asking themselves what that particular scripture means to them. A good priest loves when you approach him to talk about what his homily said to you, what you understood from the scripture. It helps you both grow. Isn’t that what a Pastor does as well? Isn’t that what we, as Christians, Catholics or not, are supposed to do as we go along on our Christian journey?
A comment then followed where I was told that my translations were just personal opinions and that most Catholics are not as I describe, though I was quickly reassured that I was okay in this person’s book because I was the exception to the usual Catholic way. I was told that most Catholics believe that what the Pope says is absolute truth and that if God chooses to reveal something to them that goes against something a Pope says, a good Catholic must ignore God to follow the Pope.
My response to the comment:
Hmmm…I only picked out a few of the errors, mind you (meditazione being the biggest one – i did not like that they made it “mediation”, that is a big difference, and not simply a personal interpretation). Numbers 3 and 4 were also big misstranslations, not just personal interpretations.
I can see you thinking that “fai da te” is a personal interpretation, but when you study languages, you find that you cannot always interpret the full meaning of a phrase from one language to another. In fact, there are some words that just don’t translate at all or that require entire sentences or paragraphs to translate. My “personal interpretation” of that phrase, was just trying to tell you what it means in Italian.
Your response made one huge mistake: The Pope did NOT say that we cannot have personal relationships with Christ outside of the church. What he did say, is that our relationship is deeper with the church. Then he defined the church as being our fellow believers, he did not specify the Catholic church, the translator added that in, the Pope said people, humans.
We need our church, our community to grow in Christ. To grow to understand the world around us. To understand God’s creation and the beauty of the free will he gave us. Refusing that community (whether it be as small as your family, or as large as the Catholic church) means that you think you are the only one who can properly interpret God’s word, you are all-knowing and what you say is law, is law; which is a mistake because God does not speak to everyone the same way and you cannot declare that you know the truth and no one else does, that everyone else interprets it incorrectly.
Now, I am not saying that you do this, or that non-Catholics do this (and I do not think that the Pope was either). However, I will say that I do not like the turn that your response took. It seemed to come from a “Holier than thou” perspective as you seemed to know what was on the hearts of “most Catholics”. When I went through a bit of a rough patch and stopped going to church years ago (I did not like any church, Catholic nor Protestant, I wanted to “do it myself”), it was because of comments like that. I ran into so many church goers who seemed to believe they were better than anyone who didn’t think exactly the same way they did.
Catholics are not afraid of listening to Jesus, or the Holy Spirit, or God – we listen to all three as part of a trinity. I have heard some Catholics express the concern that Protestants spend so much time listening to Jesus that they actually forget to listen to the rest of the Trinity.
The Pope is not an idol or any sort of supreme being. The Pope is simply the Pastor that everyone listens to. Listening to the Pope is like listening to a pastor of a very large congregation on Sunday morning. A Catholic listens and knows that everyone else heard the same words, they then go and ask other Catholics or Christians, even Muslims and others, what they think of what the Pope said. They go home and pray on it; open their Bibles to any scripture that was quoted and see what it said.
Anyway, I tell you that your comment upset me because I know that you and _____ are looking at going into Ministry and I think it is important that you get this kind of feedback before you go out and start talking to people who view things differently than you do. It doesn’t matter how many times you say “not all ____ do this, but” or “not all____ are like this, but”, you will offend people into ignoring you if they are either 1. not interested to begin with, 2. even a little skeptical, 3. they have heard it before, or 4. they don’t agree with even the smallest part of what you are saying.
When I refer to Catholics, I am referring to them through my understanding of what the Church actually teaches, based on conversations with Catholics from around the world, Catechism courses, and the attendance of Mass in churches around the globe. (believe it or not, the university church in Perugia actually hosts Christian rock concerts every now and then and the priests and nun dance to the music. The concert then ends with everyone being asked to find a prayer partner and pray for each other, not with Our Fathers and Hail Marys, actual prayers being said by a crowd of young people, praying from the bottom of their hearts).
Judging Catholics based on a few you know, except for the few exceptions you know (meaning likely not very many actually fit into the category you are judging) is not a very Christian thing to do, and you should watch out for it. Catholic truths are not every word that comes out of the Pope’s mouth. In general, they follow the Catholic Catechism, which does not often get modified and is usually only modified to clarify things in modern dialect, and even then, only when the modern dialect is more like a completely different language. Then, of course, each Catholic has his own faith. (one last example, the Pope is usually against any form of birth control. Some Catholics are for it, others are against it. In fact, most American Catholics I have met are for birth control, despite whatever they hear from the Pope; I have even heard them state that they disagree with the Pope using specific things he said).
Catholics acknowledge that the Pope is just a man, he just tends to spend more time reviewing scriptures. There can be good popes and bad popes, the last one actually resigned because he was not up to the task.
Assuming that Catholics treat the Pope’s word as undisputed law would be the same as me assuming that you and everyone who goes to your church treat your pastor’s word as undisputed law. There may be a few who treat religion that way, but it is wrong to think that all do, or that even a majority do.
From my Caffè table 