However, I've had a few musings that I thought I'd share. First, when I began attending a nearby Anglican (not Episcopalian) parish, I developed a taste for high church Anglo-Catholicism. However, I eventually came to realize that my parish had many Anglo-Catholic tendencies, it wasn't quite as high church as I'd have liked. Bells and smells. That stuff. In fact, I noticed a real lack of high church Anglo-Catholicism anywhere in my local area. I was given to understand that this was common almost to the point of being ubiquitous. So why was it such a pain in the neck for me to find it?
I eventually realized that the reason for this is due at least in part to Pope Benedict XVI establishing an ordinariate several years ago that Anglican parishes all over the place took advantage of. Being as they were Anglo-Catholic to begin with and thus likely very high church, it stands to reason that their joining with the Church would necessarily result in far fewer high church Anglo-Catholic parishes dotting the landscape.
Completely new subject now. Something else is I saw a YouTube video by John Cleese that purports to show the spread of various religions over something like 5 or 6,000 years in a minute and a half. Shall we say The Other Side is very accomplished at presenting "facts" (if that's what we're calling them now) without commentary and making you fill in the blanks on your own. If you show any manner of outrage, they can accurately (if not completely truthfully) say they themselves asserted nothing. They're just messengers. Don't shoot the messenger!
Unfortunately the commenters were perfectly willing to speak out where the video itself was silent. And sure enough there were comparisons to the spread of cancer and, my personal favorite, accusations of "cultural genocide".
That accusation has always fascinated me. Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, supposedly developed the Prime Directive in reaction to Christian missionaries going overseas to share the gospel with natives of unchurched (dare I say "heathen") places. It seems that the sentiment is that such people ought to be left alone to develop their own unique culture rather than having big mean western imperialist religion crammed down their throats.
Now, personally I disagree with that. Partly it's because I'm a Christian myself and partly it's because missionaries spread more than just religion. They also spread medicine, sanitation techniques, immunizations against disease and other objectively good things as well. But The Other Side still considers this cultural genocide. They view the Church moving to some new area and effectively trampling that peoples' native culture with Christianity to be a no-no. Fair enough.
So please explain to me then why the Church is just as frequently (if not more frequently) picked on for absorbing influences from other cultures. Valentine's Day, Easter, Christmas, all have at best a mixed biblical origin. You can tie Easter in with the Bible more easily than you could with ancient pagan fertility pageants and whatnot. But at the same time, you can't deny the influence paganism had on the placement of Easter on the liturgical calendar and elements of the observance.
Which is it? Is the Church mean and evil because it spreads to areas and effectively wipes out the native culture? Or is it mean and evil because it has been influenced by other cultures and religions? You can't have it both ways. Either the Church should be completely original and effectively smother all other religious expression when it preaches the gospel in a new area (which we're told is bad) or it should be willing to be shaped by the newcomers as much as it shapes them (which we're also told is bad).
Pick one and stick with it.
Separately from all that, we watched a History Channel documentary about the Shroud of Turin in my RCIA class a few days ago. The Church's history is actually one of the main reasons why I'm joining to begin with. The Catholic Church can trace her history directly back to Christ Himself in an unbroken line of apostolic succession. That's a 2,000 year history. ANY institution that's survived that long will invariably have some amazing and fascinating history to it. And that's right in my wheelhouse.
As to the Shroud, members of the Church believed for centuries that it was the burial cloth of Christ. Back before we had modern computers and carbon-dating and other things to support their argument, several faithful Catholics took the authenticity of the Shroud for granted. The more time goes on, the more the evidence supports the conclusion that the Shroud is indeed Christ's burial cloth.
Usually this is where somebody says (or thinks) that it's not a matter of salvation. You can be a faithful Catholic and believe the Shroud is the genuine article. You can also be a faithful Catholic and believe it's a hoax or a misunderstanding. That's completely not my point. I'm not talking about one's faithfulness or salvation. I'm talking about the authenticity of the cloth. It irritates the hell out of me when people say patronizing BS like that because it has nothing to do with the point at hand.
Anyway, to bring it back to topic, the evidence supports the conclusion that the Shroud is absolutely for real. Now, I don't have a dog in the race either way apart from thinking it would be awesome if the Shroud IS real. What interests me though is the vehemence with which the Shroud's authenticity is attacked. Putting aside how spurious the contrary evidence is (which, for the purposes of this discussion, includes questionable carbon dating samples), the nay-sayers seem to have WAY too personal an interest in destroying the credibility not only of the Shroud but of anybody who believes the Shroud could be authentic.
We're so often told that science is a fair, objective, unbiased series of methods to uncover the truth. Or at least facts. And that may even be true. But scientists are generally smarmy, puffed up, arrogant, self-absorbed, immature brats who don't know half as much as they think they do. Their determination to undermine the Shroud's authenticity in spite of the evidence rather than because of it is just a reminder to us who the objective free-thinkers and who the petulant little children are.
Next, and finally, RCIA's been going great. I've really been enjoying it. The standout lessons so far have been the tour of the parish building (because of all the layers of symbolism and meaning) and the lesson about the Shroud. The Catechists are friendly, knowledgeable and have answered pretty much every question we've fired their way. But the rest of the time we've watched a video series. And honestly, while those videos are informative, I could watch videos in the comfort of my own home rather than driving to the parish building once a week to watch them there. It's a hoop so I'm jumping through it but I can't help but feel that our time would be better spent watching this stuff on our own, writing down questions we may have and then asking those questions in a Q&A format with the Catechists and the other Inquirers. But nobody cares what I think.
Anyway. Apart from little quibbles like that, I've found my spiritual home. Couldn't be happier.
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