Catholic Doctrine

Walker Got Me To Thinking

Over the past few months of blogging I have not attempted to hide my Catholic faith. It is something that is important to me, and something worth sharing. In that time, I have come in contact with other outspoken Catholics, like John Pacheco at Socon or Bust, where I have learned more about my own faith. I have also had the opportunity to read blogs by Deborah Gyapong, an Anglican Catholic, who shares her faith beautifully and openly.

Many others share their faith directly and indirectly through their writing and through their emails. In the group of new brothers I have encountered are friends from the more evangelical side of the Christian house, Stephen Boissoin, where much of my contact has been through email, Scary Fundamentalist whose faith shines through his blogs and his comments to my blogs and those of others we meet at, and Walker Morrow from The Lynch Mob, who is asking more and more probing questions as we come to know each other better.

As usual, Walker got me thinking with his opening comment in his recent piece called "Catholics":

Now, I’m not a Catholic. And I probably never will be – not that I have anything against Catholicism. I just disagree with the Doctrine.

And I wonder, is "I just disagree with the Doctrine," as throw away a line as "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt" like our Human Rights Laws say. Is that something we take for granted that we just disagree, and that's the way it is, or do we care enough to know what the doctrine is and what it means so we can say truthfully after some study that "I just disagree with the Doctrine?"

Since Walker wasn't writing an article about Catholic Doctrine, it may or may not have been a throw away line, and I am not trying to disparage my young friend, nor discourage him from his comments. In fact, I have recently encouraged him on more than one occasion to comment on the material that he incorporates into his entries to let himself shine through.

So, I am going to write a number of blog postings on what it means to me to practice my Christian faith within the Catholic Church. While I thought about doing this, I did some searching, and came across this site, created by David MacDonald, a Catholic who's journey to Christianity was circuitous but marvellous. He is a Christian musician and has Catholic Bridge, a site focused on explaining Catholic doctrine for our Evangelical brethren, because of the challenges he faced daily as a Christian musician who happened to be a Catholic. I intend to use it in my own writing, but also to share my own experiences, and to touch on some other church teachings as well.

We'll see where this goes. Tomorrow, I will start with a posting on Communion.