The Lutherans: A Rant Against Reconciliation and Priests

There are a lot of things about Lutheran Social Teaching that I like. I think that there are a lot of “however” clauses in their teachings makes sense. After all, most cases aren’t cut and dry. I don’t think the world is always as black and white as Catholic social teaching seems to imply sometimes.

I like their stance on abortion, especially because sometimes it is necessary to protect the mother. I don’t think people should use it as a form of birth control, but if your life is in danger, then I don’t think it should be forbidden. I also think cases of rape are difficult enough without having to deal with a pregnancy, and though I don’t know how I would personally act in that situation, I think the option should be there for women in a way that they won’t feel like they’re going to hell afterwards. I liked that Lutheran social teaching allowed for this.

I also think that they points that they make about the world being imperfect are true. We don’t live in a perfect world. I think Catholic social teaching sometimes relies too much on perfection and doesn’t allow for the gray areas.

I’ve had some issues with corrupt priests in the past within the Catholic church and my experiences have made me uneasy with the Catholic view of priests. When a priest confides in you that he’s been stealing money from the church for his own purposes, you’re less likely to see him as a mediator from God and more as a human being full of sin. I think seeing a pastor as a person who has just studied more than you on a certain subject and might interpret it a different way from you is a great way to think.

I also think Martin Luther was right about the Catholic church’s sacraments making people feel like they’re not forgiven. I stopped going to church every Sunday because I was tired of being made to feel guilty. I don’t see how feeling guilty all the time is going to help anyone. I’ve also disliked reconciliation for a long time because of this. I think it’s good to say “I’ve done something wrong, I shouldn’t do that,” but I don’t see how a lot of things that priests have prescribed to me help. Praying 50 “Hail Marys” is rather unproductive. I have had a few that have given helpful penitence, but most of the time it’s pointless to me. I suppose this also has to do with my distrust of priests really being mediators for God. I have trouble with the fact that I just can’t directly say these things to God. Also, because I never do anything REALLY bad, I feel like bringing up tiny things that I’ve done doesn’t help me. One time I even had the priest laughing through my entire confession because I was trying to think of “sinful” things that I’d done. Sometimes it does help to say, “I do this and it’s mean or hurtful, I shouldn’t,” but “I fought with my sister” is one that I constantly have. This is so normal and neither of us gets hurt by it- sometimes it helps us move past things and have a stronger relationship- and yet these are the kinds of things I have to “confess” and feel guilty for. I think constantly bringing things up only allows for people to feel badly about themselves.

That being said, there are some things I’m not entirely sure I understand. This whole “faith first, works will follow”… I’m not sure I like that. I like works to be the emphasis. I don’t think people will go to hell just because they don’t have faith if they were a person who helped others throughout their life. I’ve always considered the works to be the most important thing. I know we’re supposed to love God above all things, but I’ve always thought the best way to show this was through helping others.

I do think the emphasis on human dignity and helping the poor is a good part. The second document we read was very well written and explained things well. I agreed with the points it brought up, and the fact that it was so well written probably helped this. I kind of want to force the Catholics to read it and say, “THIS is what clarity looks like… please follow it.” Of course, I’m an English major, so I suppose I’m slightly over critical.

I haven’t started at the Food Pantry yet (I start Friday), so I’m not quite able to apply what I learned to there yet, but I will be helping those who can’t afford to get food, so I think the Lutherans would approve.

Rewriting Goals

The Dubuque Food Pantry (hopefully my new service site) was started by Immanuel Congregational United Church of Christ. When it expanded, it moved to a larger location, and is now only a block away from the church. I’m going to be going to there on Friday to talk to Sister Lynn and hopefully start working there. I have no idea what she’ll have me doing there, but hopefully some human interaction will be involved. The food pantry provides for people within the community by giving food that has been donated to those who need it. They give food only to people who have been recommended to them. Many people will call Immanuel Congregational United Church of Christ so that the church can recommend them to the food pantry. They also collect food items for the pantry each week. They have an event that gathers even more food around the time of the Superbowl. In this way, they have managed to stay connected with the pantry and the community.

Looking back at my goals from a month ago, I think I can achieve most of them, though probably not all of them.

They were:
1. Learn about the community
2. Learn about the church.
3. Grow in communicating with other people.
4. Start something with the church that could turn into something more.

I am still learning about the community. I think this will increase with my exposure to the food pantry (regardless of what I do there), and also with the history of the church Carla and I have been doing. I’ve already learned more about it, so I’m well on my way to reaching this goal. Bob has been a great resource for this, and I’ve learned a lot about the community from him.

I also am learning about the church. Carla and I will be meeting with Pastor Sue to learn more about the doctrines. I’m interested to hear how it differs from Catholicism, especially because I’m not as well versed on my Protestant religions as I’d like to be. We’ll also be reading a lot of information about it, so this should help us as well. The church has provided us with a lot of documents to shift through, and we’re learning more about how it’s involved itself in the community.

So far, I’ve only been communicating with Sister Lynn, Pastor Sue, and Bob, but I expect this to change. I know I’ll meet more people on Friday at the food pantry. Carla and I have also realized that the church documents will not be sufficient enough to help us with the church’s history of participation in the community. The newspapers we’ve found haven’t really been enough either. We think the best approach will be to go talk to the older parishioners. We’re hoping they’ll be able to tell us more about the church’s community involvement. I’ll have plenty of opportunities to speak with people I don’t know very well.

I don’t know that I’ll be able to start a sustainable project that the church can use indefinitely. I think they’ve done well on their own with their food pantry- it’s come a long way, especially if it’s become its own entity. I think I want to change this one to helping the churches with intercommunication, because they don’t seem to have a strong of a connection to each other. I think they could connect better to the community if they did. Carla and I will be talking to Pastor Sue and Bob about the group that Joe has mentioned in class several times. I think this will help them with the connection. Through Bob, the church already has a strong relationship with the community and its decisions. I think helping them connect with other churches will be beneficial in getting more churches to connect with the community. Bob and Pastor Sue would like something like this to happen. I think our class can use the group Joe has talked about to make this a reality.

Meghan's Attempt at CST

If I had to talk about Catholic Social teaching at Immanuel Congregational United Church of Christ, I would start by directly quoting from Gaudium et Spes. “Christ entered this world to give witness to the truth, to rescue and not to sit in judgment , to serve and not to be served.”

I think it’s important to show that Catholics very strongly support human lives and believe that no one person is more worthy or important than another person. I believe this is the very foundation of CST, so I think a great deal of emphasis would go to it. Chapter 2 of Gaudium et Spes heavily focuses on the importance of community, and I think this would be a wonderful thing for those who didn’t know about CST to read. It portrays the ties that each person has with one another. It also shows the responsibility we have towards each other.

I’m actually most curious to see what they would think of this idea of strong community. I think it’s perhaps easier for Catholics to have a larger sense of community because the Catholic religion is so much more widespread than many Protestant religions. (It is the largest Christian church...) I would be curious to see the other side of this, and believe this would be where the most interesting insights would come from.

I was excited to read about “preferential option for the poor” in the 3rd chapter of Himes, mainly because it’s one of my favorite parts of CST. Every class I’ve ever taken about Catholicism talks about preferential option for the poor. It’s a great idea to consider topics as how they affect the poorest/ least privileged members before the more privileged ones. I think this was a very prominent point in all of Jesus’ sermons and teachings. He was always trying to help the underdogs, and I’m glad that the church has integrated this into their social teachings. I think it’s one of the strongest points of the Catholic church. I would definitely make sure to take some time to mention this.

I wasn’t a fan of John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra. Though he did make some points about the importance of equality for workers and they were all an important part of the companies they worked for, I believe this was covered first in Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. (I do like this part in Rerum Novarum, and would have them read that specific passage. It marks the modern social teaching that every person has inherent worth.) Other than that, John XXIII gives very vague descriptions of being a good Christian without ever really explaining what that entails. It does make some nice statements about how the wealth in countries is unevenly distributed, but I doubt this would be news to the people learning about Catholic Social teachings. Mainly, he makes a lot of good points, but takes forever to make him (or maybe I was just impatient with him). His points can be summarized without anyone needing to actually read the document.

I would just hope that by the end of my talk, everyone would have a more informed view of CST.