COURSEWORK BOOKLET



COURSEWORK BOOKLET

CATHOLICISM 1

Course book 4

IDENTITY, DIVERSITY AND BELONGING

Identity

What does it mean to be a Catholic?

Catholics are members of the worldwide Christian Church and, like all other Christians, believe that there is one God who has revealed Himself in Three Divine Persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In other words, Catholics believe in the Holy Trinity. Catholics also believe in a person - Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Catholics, like all Christians, have as their ideal a desire to live by the teachings of Jesus and to accept his transforming love.

The authority of the Bible

Catholics, like all Christians, accept the authority of the Bible which is one way in which God has revealed, and continues to reveal, Himself to people throughout the ages. The Bible is the Word of God. While Catholics accept the authority of the Bible, few Catholics are fundamentalists i.e. believe in the literal truth of every story in the Bible. Catholics believe that the Bible needs to be interpreted to make the absolute Truth about God understandable for people today. The Bible does not touch on every topic that might be troubling for people living in the twenty-first century, for example, medical research and nuclear weapons. For this reason, Catholics believe that God speaks through the teaching authority of the Church (the magisterium) i.e. the bishops.

The authority of the Church

Being a Catholic means belonging to a community that is founded on the faith of the apostles, who were the first witnesses to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Catholics believe that the authority of the apostles of Jesus has been passed down to the leaders of the Catholic Church today – the pope and the bishops. As a result of this belief in the apostolic succession, Catholics believe that the leaders of the Catholic Church have Christ’s authority to teach and to lead the Church. Catholics believe that the pope, in particular, has a special role of leadership as he is the successor of St Peter whom Catholics believe that Jesus chose as leader of the Church when He said:

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Catholics also believe that Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church into all truth until the end of time and so therefore the Church can never be in error on questions of faith and morals.

The importance of the sacraments

Being a Catholic means sensing God’s presence and power in the sacraments. The Catholic Church teaches that there are seven sacraments. These are important ceremonies which, through the use of signs and symbols, help people to develop relationship with God. Signs and symbols such as water, bread and wine, oil, the use of vestments, and other aids to worship, as well as the use of symbolic actions (touching and blessing, bowing and genuflecting), help us to become aware of God’s presence and power. Through participation in the sacraments, Catholics are enabled to develop a sacramental sense that reaches beyond even these specific signs. For just as in the bread and wine, Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is truly present, so other ordinary elements of life become transformed and communicate the power and presence of God.

The teaching of Jesus on love

Catholics believe that Jesus taught that love of God and love of neighbour were inseparable. In his teaching, especially in parables such as the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) and the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:31-46) Jesus taught that we will be judged on how much love (agape) we have shown to others. Christian love can be defined as ‘seeking the other person’s highest good’ and there is a strong emphasis therefore in Catholic teaching and practice on putting the needs of others first.

There is also a strong emphasis in Catholicism on the corporate Works of Mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, welcoming strangers, looking after the sick, visiting those in prison, and burying the dead. This can be seen in many actions of Catholics today.

Many will seek to help the poor or less able members of the community, and many will go on pilgrimage to places such as Lourdes, where healings have been reported. In parish life Catholic organisations such as the Society of St Vincent de Paul and the Legion of Mary encourage their members to embrace love of the marginalised in local communities. This approach has also encouraged new movements in Catholic theology, such as liberation theology (Archbishop Oscar Romero sought this in El Salvador), where priests and people have worked against poverty and injustice, and sought to use new social awareness of poverty to promote solidarity between the rich and poor (seek the Common Good).

• List the areas of Catholic Social Teaching in this area

Being a Catholic takes time. Baptism makes people members of the Church, but it takes time to grow into a mature Catholic.

Basic tasks

1. Read the information on pages 1-4 and, using the knowledge you already have, describe what it means to be a Catholic.

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What are the benefits of being a Catholic?

The original meaning of the word catholic is "universal." Because the Church is universal, it calls all Catholics to a universal vision. As the world gets smaller every year, we need to regard everyone in it as our neighbour. Our faith is already larger than most of us realize, challenging our narrowness and preparing us for global citizenship.

The Catholic Church is also a multicultural Church. It is not just European and American but also Latino and African and Asian. People of every race and culture embrace the Catholic faith and are embraced by the universal Church. The Catholic vision, when fully lived, reflects God's concern for the entire human family.

Society has been transformed again and again by Christianity. Jesus proclaimed the coming of God's Kingdom, and the Church has tried again and again to make the Kingdom real. The Church has always been concerned for human betterment.

God wants everyone to reach full potential as a human being created in God's image. This means first having basic human needs met and then growing to full maturity in Christ through meeting the needs of others. The gospel is a message to be shared at every level of human life, and the good news is that God's power is available to redeem the world.

Accepting the Catholic vision means never accepting things the way they are. People are always hurting and suffering oppression. People are always needing to be healed and set free. But to stop much of the pain and hurt, society itself has to be transformed. Being Catholic means standing with those social reformers who have always wanted to change the world, making it more like God's Kingdom.

To a great extent, many Catholics in the developed world have lost the Catholic sense of community. Our large parishes are often very impersonal; at Sunday Mass most people feel more like an anonymous audience than a faith community. Perhaps this is because Catholics have started to believe that they have to make it on our own and that, if they are successful, they should have their own separate houses, their own private cars, and all the appliances to live comfortably by themselves.

This is disastrous for community. It is not the ideal taught by our Catholic tradition. The Christian way of living is communitarian. The Acts of the Apostles paints a very idealistic vision of the early Christian Church:

Early Christians were so connected to one another that St. Paul called each community a "body of Christ." Even today Catholics are searching for new forms of communal life to seek spiritual fulfilment. Many in religious orders are moving into smaller, more personal living arrangements. Prayer groups, spiritual movements and base communities are all attempts to revive this Catholic charism (gift) in a modern setting. In our individualistic society, there is a felt need for this gift of community.

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Basic Tasks

1. Explain the advantages of being a Catholic today.

2. Read the extract from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:42-47) on page 5. Think then about your experience of parish life. What similarities and differences do you notice?

3. What are the challenges facing Catholics in Australia today?

1. Secularism

Secularism is the belief that religion is irrelevant and unnecessary.

In a number of areas, however, the Catholic Church’s teaching is under attack by secularism.

For example, Catholics believe in the sanctity of life, that is, that all life, created by God, is sacred from the first moment of conception until the moment of a person’s natural death. Catholics believe that defence of the sanctity of life is part of their duty to love their neighbour.

In 1967, however, the UK Parliament passed the Termination of Pregnancy Act (Abortion) Act which made abortion legal in certain circumstances. Further changes over the last forty years have made abortion on demand a reality. Pressure groups like FLI (Family Life International), SPUC (the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children) and LIFE have campaigned for a change in the law and Catholics have been prepared to use the law to protect the weak and promote what is good.

Another threat to life is the campaign to legalise euthanasia (‘assisted suicide’). Recently, for example, Lady Mary Warnock's report called on people in mental decline to see it as their "duty to die". Lord Joffe introduced a new bill to legalise assisted suicide. The bill would have made it legal for doctors to prescribe drugs that a terminally-ill person could take to end his or her own life. He said just having the prescription would take the pressure off patients. While the bill failed new attempts are bound to be made in the future to make euthanasia legal. In a statement after the defeat of Lord Joffe’s bill, Archbishop Peter Smith of Cardiff said,

Another example is gambling. In recent years the secular state has encouraged gambling and used it to raise funds. Catholics have traditionally opposed gambling for various reasons, and state sponsored gambling in particular, because of the great social evil it creates and the damage done to individuals and families.

Thus, Catholics oppose such practices partly because it is based on a lie, and partly because Christian love is based on love of neighbour, and do not wish to see them ruin their lives and turn themselves into slaves to addiction. However, even Catholics, take the opportunity to play the National Lottery and fall prey to secularism.

So too with education. Catholics provided the great drive for education. Whilst there is a strong desire amongst Catholics to ensure that their children are taught within a Catholic context and framework, this has not been the main motivation for Catholic education. Rather what drove people was the desire to love their neighbour. Catholics have been concerned to teach a clear moral framework. Catholics believe that the world will be a better place without murder, theft, adultery and so on. Therefore, by teaching these commands to others, Catholics are showing the love of God. The motive for such involvement in education, at its purest, is love. It is not hard to see why some secularists are against this.

2. Relativism

Relativism is the belief that everything is equal; all faiths are the same and so are morals, especially sexual morals, and are relative to the desires of the self. There is no ‘truth’, one person’s truth is as good as the next. For example, relativists would argue that homosexuality is the equal of heterosexuality and so homosexuals have the right to have children even though, according to Natural Law, they cannot. So the government enacts legislation that is opposed to the Catholic view of the Natural law, legalises ‘Civil Partnerships’ and gives homosexuals the right to adopt children. No agency may refuse them on the grounds of religious beliefs.

The challenge from Science

Science is based on scientific truth i.e. evidence-based truth, while religious belief is based on faith which, because of its nature, cannot be proved scientifically. For many, therefore, science and religion can never be reconciled.

While there has always been a clash between religion and science, in the UK today the arguments have ‘hotted up’ with the work of Professor Richard Dawkins. Dawkins argues that all religion is false, that there is no God and that people would be much happier without belief in God. In Dawkins' view, there is a battle taking place in Britain between the forces of reason, and religious fundamentalism and it is far from won. On the other hand, new insights into our knowledge of the universe and the ‘New Physics’ has led many scientists to acknowledge that there seems to be an intelligence at work in the universe which Christians may acknowledge to be God (Intelligent Design). Fundamentally while science explains how the universe has come to be, religion deals with more fundamental questions of life, for example, why are we here, what is the meaning of life, what is our destiny?

Basic Tasks

1. Explain some of the challenges of being a Catholic in today’s society.

Catholic attitudes to other religious traditions

Australia has a very strong spiritual heritage based on the Christian religion. However, over the last fifty years, Australia has become a multi-racial, multi-faith society and this has brought many challenges.

Catholics are committed to religious freedom for all religions. They believe that everyone should have the freedom to express their religious beliefs in any way they choose. The Second Vatican Council taught that people should not suffer any form of religious discrimination against them.

Within this framework, there are three approaches in the Catholic Church towards other world religions.

The exclusive approach. This expresses the belief held by many Christians, including many Catholics, that there is only one approach to God – through Jesus Christ. These Christians often use the text in which Jesus is recorded as saying: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that people who belong to other religions are searching for God and have some part of the truth but have not found the whole truth – which is to be found in Jesus.

The inclusive approach. Catholics who follow this approach often refer to the incident in the New Testament when Paul is visiting Athens. He recognises that their search for the Unknown God, to whom they have built an altar, the Athenians are following a genuine spiritual search. Catholics who follow this approach recognise that people can reach God by following different spiritual paths but only Christianity has the full truth. Those who genuinely believe in their own path are ‘anonymous Christians’ who will be saved in the end.

The pluralist approach. This approach says that all religions concentrate on reality. By following their own religious path, people become more reality-centred and less self-centred. All religions, including Christianity, have produced both good and bad people. All religions are equal to each other and, in their best forms, produce better people. The Bible is one of several ‘Words of God’. People are free to choose whichever religion best suits them to reach God.

Basic Tasks

1. What are the three approaches that Christians adopt towards other religions?

2. ‘Other religions are just as true as the Christian religion’.

Do you agree? Give reasons or evidence for your answer, showing that you have considered more than one point of view. You must include reference to religious beliefs in your answer.

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Candidates will be expected to know, understand and analyse what it might mean to be a Catholic in multi-faith Australia today through a study of the benefits and challenges that might arise through being a Catholic in Australia today and through a study of ways in which Catholics might understand the relationship of Catholicism to other religious traditions today. They will also be expected to evaluate the role of Catholicism in a multi-faith society.

“You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; what you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.”

Matthew 16:19

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Acts 2:42-47

“Assisted suicide and euthanasia cannot be the way forward for a civilised society. Instead, we should all be working together to ensure that the benefits of good palliative care are available to all who need them.”

We cannot truly call on God, the Father of all, if we refuse to treat in a brotherly way any man, created as he is in the image of God. Man's relation to God the Father and his relation to men his brothers are so linked together that Scripture says: "He who does not love does not know God" (1 John 4:8).

No foundation therefore remains for any theory or practice that leads to discrimination between man and man or people and people, so far as their human dignity and the rights flowing from it are concerned.

Nostre Aetate

“All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God …The Catholic Church recognises in other religions that search for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath in all things, and wants all men to be saved.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church

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