Would some people "fake" a calling for the sake of a job?

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915525#Comment_121915525

Im a bit lost, how it’s that relevant to what I said? Not sure if your trying to move the goal posts, or simply missed the broken logic.

Somebody made the claim that people have been murder in the north over different interpretations of transubstantiation. They haven’t.

You then added, saying it was a Pringle could see you in bother. As it might be viewed as “evidence of being part of the other tradition”. That makes no sense, as neither tradition believes that it’s just a wafer.

Im saying the fact it disrespects/disagrees with both sides makes the claim illogical. I couldnt care less about the disrespect itself.

The fact it’s A+A is not a reason to abandon basin logical reasoning.

What is up for debate here is whatever posters care to debate once it is within the bounds of the forum charter.

It not up for debate, in the sense that there’s no disagreement. ie We don’t care to debate it.

Whether we could or not under the charter is irrelevant.

walkonby

….

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915560#Comment_121915560

The above works when the church happens to patronise the local national school where entry is a given. But it rapidly falls apart when the three nearest schools are over subscribed, and people have to pretend to be Christian just to get their kids a place.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915927#Comment_121915927

The GAA is a good analogy. Say the GAA ran a special school for future athletes. Football/hurling being compulsory at that school is totally reasonable.

Allow the GAA to run 90% of state schools, not so reasonable.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121916322#Comment_121916322

Somebody made the claim that people have been murder in the north over different interpretations of transubstantiation.

You might wan't to point out precisely where anyone said that, because I'm not seeing it.

It not up for debate, in the sense that there’s no disagreement. ie We don’t care to debate it.

Given the number of posts on the topic, not least from yourself, people clearly do want to debate it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121916501#Comment_121916501

right but the church runs as many schools because they built/bought them when our government wouldn’t!

it’s just for whatever reason despite the fact we’ve moved on from those days nothing has changed insofar as how schools are heavily involved in preparing for communions etc.

Considering the multi cultural backgrounds in schools nowadays compared to 20 years ago even it’s time to make serious changes. Why should Muslim parents say have to organise childcare etc during normal school hours because part of school is learning a religion they don’t believe in?

I’m in that same position but because of work I can’t do anything about it realistically. It’s a joke.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121917128#Comment_121917128

Surprised you couldn’t find it. You literally replied to @Peregrinus when he pointed out it was untrue.

Last sentence below;

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121909556#Comment_121909556

Given the number of posts on the topic, not least from yourself, people clearly do want to debate it.

Thats a best a gross misrepresentation. At worst well…🙄

I have not claimed or debated that the bread is actually anything other than a bland snack. Where are these posts you claim are debating that?

I pointed out the church’s claim, as the is their stance. That is not the same as suggesting it has any standing in reality.

I bit surprised I had to explain that.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121917469#Comment_121917469

The church may have done a lot historically for education. But I don’t think their control is based on the schools they bought or paid for.

The department of education exists over 100 years. There’s a lot of public funding into schools in that time. My school was build by the government, it was a church affiliated school. My point was that they should be free to run their own schools. But public funded schools should align to the public diversity.

Why should Muslim parents say have to organise childcare etc during normal school hours because part of school is learning a religion they don’t believe in?

They shouldn’t obviously, but why is it required nowadays? It’s not something I’ve had to deal with.

There were kids in my class who were another religion. They sat out. I assume that was still the (inefficient) plan.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121917745#Comment_121917745

Yea but that’s only during religious studies when it comes to church practice you (at least in our school), sort out taking them for the hour or two the class is gone.

But the very fact kids are on a several times a week basis taken out of class while religion is being taught is absolutely shocking.

2024 and we haven’t a better solution in place. Give me strength that’s all I can say

robindch

[Hotblack] Catholic teaching states that the communion wafer is literally the flesh of JC himself.

[smacl] There has been a ton of discussion here over the years on transubstantiation, whether it is symbolic or literally true etc... Whatever the official line of the Catholic church might be, I'd tend to agree with you that the majority of Irish Catholics would consider it symbolic.

The official line of the RCC is based squarely upon Aristotelian notions of how reality works - a strange framework in which everything is made up of substances and accidents which was current thinking around the time Jesus was alive, and remained so for many centuries. The distinction between substances and accidents is somewhat vague, but basically boils down to the substance of something being the essential quality of that thing which, by virtue of its existence within the something, makes it belong to that class of things. While the accidents of something are the unrelated qualities which can change from instance to instance of the thing, without changing the fundamental nature of the something concerned. Example - you have a white dog - the substance of which dog is the doggy bit while one of the dog's accidents is its whiteness; a brown dog will have the same doggy substance which remains unaffected by its unrelated accident of brownness.

Catholic theology states that transubstantiation - literally, the transformation of the substance of the priest's biscuit - changes the substance, or the fundamental nature, of the biscuit from being a 'biscuity' something to being a something consisting only of Jesus's meat, bones, nerves etc, while leaving the accidents of the biscuit (its color, taste, weight, general appearance etc) unchanged. FWIW, the RCC states that this transition is absolutely not symbolic but it completely real. Indeed, the RCC holds that this transformation is the core of the mass, without which, the whole thing is pointless - since, without transubstantiation taking place, the later necessary step of theophagy - eating the deity and acquiring various characteristics by doing so - cannot happen.

I wouldn't imagine one catholic in a hundred is either aware of the above, or could explain it, or believes it, but that's what the RCC states and what it requires its flock to believe.

One could have a productive conversation about the worth of a belief so vague that almost nobody actually knows what it is or holds the belief in any, er, substantial sense.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121918751#Comment_121918751

Well we couldn’t give the kids extra learnings now, unfair to give them an advantage on kids force to waste time on religion in the first place. 😂

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121918782#Comment_121918782

Close, but not quite.

Catholic theology states that transubstantiation - literally, the transformation of the substance of the priest's biscuit - changes the substance, or the fundamental nature, of the biscuit from being a 'biscuity' something to being a something consisting only of Jesus's meat, bones, nerves etc, while leaving the accidents of the biscuit (its color, taste, weight, general appearance etc) unchanged.

In the Catholic view, the consecrated bread and wine do not not consist of Jesus's meat, bones, nerves etc. In this language all the physical characteristics of a thing are "accidents", not "substance". That's not just limited to superficially observable things like colour, shape, texture, etc. It includes everything that's empirically observable, right down to the molecular structure and below. All of those things are accidents.

Consecration leaves the accidents of a thing unchanged. Consecrated wine is, in physical terms, wine; consecrated bread is physically bread; there are no muscles, bones, nerves, etc. The same atoms of hydrogen, carbon, etc are still present, arranged in the same way, and interacting with the rest of tjhe material universe in the way they always did. The claim that Jesus is really present in the eucharist is not a claim that his meat, bones, nerves, etc are present.

One could have a productive conversation about the worth of a belief so vague that almost nobody actually knows what it is or holds the belief in any, er, substantial sense.

The problem is not so much that the terms are vague as that they are outdated. This Aristotelian distinction between substance and accidents was state-of-the-art philosophical thinking in the late medieval/early modern period, which is why it was the language used (by both sides) in the Protestant reformation to argue about the nature of the eucharist. But it was superseded very shortly afterwards, and for several centuries now nobody has used this language to talk about anything at all except the rather arcane question of transsubstantiation. Is it any wonder it's widely misunderstood?

Tl;dr: the Catholic church's claims about the substance of the eucharist are not claims about physical substance; they are claims about metaphysical substance. This is commonly called the real presence because, of course, Christians believe that metaphysical realities are, well, real. Contemporary atheist materialists generally do not believe that there can be a metaphysical reality, so they default to thinking that "real" must mean "physically real", and "substance" must mean "physical substance".

smacl

Surprised you couldn’t find it. You literally replied to @Peregrinus when he pointed out it was untrue.

My bad, totally missed it.

I have not claimed or debated that the bread is actually anything other than a bland snack. Where are these posts you claim are debating that?

I pointed out the church’s claim, as the is their stance. That is not the same as suggesting it has any standing in reality.

Blank snack, wafer, cracker, crisp or pringle, I think Perigrinus' post addresses the lack of any physical change perfectly well.

mrslancaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121918751#Comment_121918751

If there is no school choice in an area, and some parents don't want their child involved in the religious education in the available schools, surely its not beyond the wit of BOM's and principals to facilitate everyone without the need for children to be removed from classes several times during the week. If schools are free to set and alter their own timetable, why can't religion be the last class on a particular day/s for those children who want to participate in the religious ethos of the school? The children not participating could leave before the class starts and would not see or watch or take part in religious instruction any way.

Parent pick-up would be staggered so there may be less congestion at finishing time, teachers would still do the same hours, no children would be taken out of class during the day. Until there are more non-denominational schools all over the country, could something like that work?

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121921734#Comment_121921734

It would make a lot of sense to do this, but I strongly suspect there would be serious kickback from religious parents on the basis that their kids would deeply resent having to spend the extra time in school where others got to go home. No doubt it would be framed differently, but it would take a lot of pressure to make it happen. The church and religious parents are loathe to do anything whereby not taking religious instruction would confer any kind of advantage, either through additional classes or additional free time. We've had cases discussed here where non-religious students weren't allowed to do homework during religion classes for this reason.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121911397#Comment_121911397

Yeah, Being a catholic in Ireland in 2024 for the vast majority of people who tick that box on the census is more about 'fitting in' than it is about any of the specific beliefs in the catholic catechism.

There is very little agreement in what people are supposed to believe, and even some disagreement on what catholics are supposed to do (should catholics go to confession, how often? Should catholics have sex before marriage, should catholics use contraception, how often should they go to mass, when can they receive communion? etc etc

And if you ask 5 catholics 5 questions about what they actually believe about 5 central catholic doctrines, you're likely to get 25 different answers.

1. Papal Infallibility and the Authority of the Pope
2. Sacraments - Ask them how many Sacraments there are and to name them
3. Salvation - How can a catholic receive salvation - (is it by faith alone, or do they do need to do good works, receive the sacraments etc)
4. Saints (and Mary) - Should we pray to the saints for guidance etc, Was Mary really immaculately concepted and a virgin mother?
5. Transubstantiation - Is the communion symbolic, or is it the actual miraculous transformation into the actual body and blood of Jesus by the priest during the sacrament of Eucharist

Bonus questions

1. What's the deal with Limbo/Purgatory and what happens to unbaptised souls (Bonus question)
2. Whats the deal with the soul, when is a soul first present in a human? Fertilisation, implantation, gestation, birth? some other point?

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121911482#Comment_121911482

Lads in the 'Pink Palace' getting up to shenanigans? perish the thought

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121911691#Comment_121911691

Absolutely nothing wrong with taking the limited opportunities for education that were available in 1950s Ireland. For many people, they were few and far between.

For a very long time in this country there were few choices available to people who were not from wealthy families.

My wife's father was educated up to seminary level by the Brothers too, he left before taking any vows but there are lots of things he never talked about while he was alive, and one of them was his time as a young teenaged boy, when he was taken from his family for life with the church. I suspect there were lots of things that happened to him there that haunted him for the rest of his life.

His sister is still alive, she became a Nun, and is still a nun in her 90s now, retired. She had a very different kind of life to what she would have had if she had taken the option of marrying a local man and raising his children, she travelled the world as a missionary and later became a mother superior in her order. I'm pretty sure she does have faith in God to this day, but she's not particularly dogmatic about it, at least not to her family and people she knows outside of her religious life.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121917469#Comment_121917469

They built the schools with our money so.....

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121917745#Comment_121917745

Even the tiny number of schools that were built by the RC church out of their own pockets, those schools wouldn't still operate if it wasn't for the fact that almost all of the upkeep and running costs are paid for by the state. Owning the building that a school operates from shouldn't give you the right to decide what gets taught in that school

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121915560#Comment_121915560

wholly unreasononable to demand that the event not take place, with the result that no child can participate.

Oh wow it's like the "how dare you atheists want to ban our church" stuff from 20 or 30 years ago. I thought we'd long moved past that sort of misrepresentation.

There is no justification to ban any religious organisation from having whatever ceremony it wants, within the law.

But there is also no justifiable reason to have preparations for a religious ceremony form part of the state-funded school day. That is specifically the problem. I mean ETs facilitate this preparation, but after hours. Everyone is happy. Why can't all schools do that?

@smacl In an article from the Irish Times in 2020 Archbishop Diarmuid Martin states that sacramental preparation should be taken out of schools, return to the parish, and have much greater parental involvement.

Martin liked to talk a lot about implementing reforms. He liked to talk a lot about facilitating divestment, too.

Complaints from 'bouncy castle' parents notwithstanding, if a diocese said "these are the rules, your child attends X number of classes after school, you attend Y number of masses with your child", they'd have no option but to comply if they want the ceremony. Same as you must meet specific conditions to get married in an RC church which are in addition to the legal requirements for marriage.

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121919660#Comment_121919660

In my kids school, our children weren't allowed to do their homework while the other kids did religion because that was considered to be unfair to the other kids...

They weren't being taught anything, and weren't allowed to learn anything on their own. All they were allowed to do was colouring in or read one of their own books....

Akrasia

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121921734#Comment_121921734

Legally, the children of non catholics are entitled to exactly as many hours of school per year as the kids of RC children. It should not be allowed to take kids out of school to avoid religion, it should be required to take religion out of schools to treat all children the same

Hotblack Desiato

@Mellor Thankfully parents no longer need to produce a baptism certificate / pretend to be catholic to get their child into an RC "ethos" school.

@[Deleted User] right but the church runs as many schools because they built/bought them when our government wouldn’t!

Almost all of the school buildings still in use today would have been built in the 20th/21st century and were substantially, if not completely, funded by the State. Teachers' salaries have always been, since the 19th century. So yes, even up until about ten years ago the State was buying a site, building a school, and then handing control of it over to a church with no financial contribution from that church whatsoever.

robindch

[peregrinus] In the Catholic view, the consecrated bread and wine do not not consist of Jesus's meat, bones, nerves etc. In this language all the physical characteristics of a thing are "accidents", not "substance". That's not just limited to superficially observable things like colour, shape, texture, etc. It includes everything that's empirically observable, right down to the molecular structure and below. All of those things are accidents.

[robindch] Catholic theology states that transubstantiation - literally, the transformation of the substance of the priest's biscuit - changes the substance, or the fundamental nature, of the biscuit from being a 'biscuity' something to consisting only of substance to the same substance as makes up Jesus's meat, bones, nerves etc, while leaving the accidents of the biscuit (its color, taste, weight, general appearance etc) unchanged.

[peregrinus] Close, but not quite.

Thanks, yes, my description above was incompletely phrased - see above four words deleted and eight added to correct it.

Is it any wonder it's widely misunderstood?

Not in the slightest. Though one would have thought that a body like the RCC which concerns itself with the minutiae of religious observance and religious difference would be concerned that one of its central truth-claims is, these days, essentially believed by nobody.

Tl;dr: the Catholic church's claims about the substance of the eucharist are not claims about physical substance; they are claims about metaphysical substance.

Indeed. I've always wondered why the RCC doesn't declare that, these days, metaphysical simply means 'political' or 'representational' or some similar word - the concepts would map over easily enough, not to mention that they'd actually make some kind of sense too, without discarding or distorting too much of the original meaning either. In such a changed world, transubstantiation would simply convert a biscuit from something thought of as a biscuit, to something thought of as a deity's body parts, but still looking like, and tasting like, a biscuit.

Contemporary atheist materialists generally do not believe that there can be a metaphysical reality, so they default to thinking that "real" must mean "physically real", and "substance" must mean "physical substance".

Not only atheists, but basically, pretty much everybody not familiar with the Aristotelian thinkiverse, to say nothing of an awful lot of catholics as well.

robindch

And if you ask 5 catholics 5 questions about what they actually believe about 5 central catholic doctrines, you're likely to get 25 different answers.

Somebody did something similar to that perhaps twenty years back - the name of the author escapes me - but the experiment doesn't. He picked five or ten central doctrines of the RCC, described each one accurately in the terms used by the RCC, then, with the permission of the priest, asked a churchful of believers to explain which doctrine was which. The results were, the writer assured us, almost entirely random.

NIMAN

No money in the world would pay me to study made up stuff for several years, then spend the next 50 years of my life having to say the same mass nearly daily (sometimes twice daily), as well as live a fairly solitary lifestyle.

Could think of nothing worse, no matter what the wages were.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121920577#Comment_121920577

You totally missed it? Even though you replied to with a scenario in post #38. Hmmm...

Again, the Christians religions have different views. No side goes with "it's just a wafer". So you notion that holding that view would see you painted as secretly of the other tradition up north makes no sense, as I've pointed out. The religious differences, play no part in the troubles. Causation, co-relation, etc

His post clarified the claimed metaphysical change. His clarification doesn't reinforce what you said. Nobody has, that I have seen, claimed that the transubstantiation is actually happening. Saying that I or anyone was saying that is a but disingenuous. Discussing the churches view does not mean that anyone here holds that view.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121922536#Comment_121922536

Did you quote the wrong post? 🤣 I literally pointed out that the funding came from the state. And I didn't suggest that owning/operating the school should allow anyone to dictate the syllabus.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121922593#Comment_121922593

No longer need a cert, and technically they can't discriminate. But indirectly, it's not hard to set up other criteria that might achieve similar bias.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121923742#Comment_121923742

They might makes sense insolation to come out and say that it means "representational". But that was a option 400 years ago, and the RCC are not know for changing their view.