Who was harsh?

De Maria August 9, 2012 at 5:30 PM

you said:
Steve, you are a convert to Catholicism from the Evangelical church. I am a convert from Islam into Christianity at large. Converts have a tendency to react harshly against their past, thus be fanatic.

Perhaps you are projecting. I have found that converts to Catholicism from Evangelicalism or Protestantism tend to be very charitable towards their former peers.

I love Catholic books; in fact, they are mostly what I read in Arabic Christian books. But if you convert to Catholicism, you don’t have to swallow every phrase of their own. It is okay to be a Catholic convert par excellent and still have reservations on their excesses. To have excesses is human. We as humans like to give big, huge titles such as the Holy Father, the Holy of Holies, the Best in the best or the best of the West, and it even gets more interesting when you deal with a Semitic person like me, we like to exaggerate; we thrive on exaggeration. Unless an Arab like me exaggerates, he hasn’t expressed himself. So, the phrase “Holy Father” while I see it as a title of respect and it is okay, but it is still an excess in expression, and it lends to man more than what he can afford.

Respectfully, I disagree. Perhaps you didn’t read the entire explanation which Steve gave. But I thought it was excellent. The title does not imply that the Pope will never sin. It means that he has been set apart, as have all of us who are Baptized. We are set apart and in that sense “holy”. The Holy Father is set apart in a more exclusive sense, since Jesus set him apart to shepherd His people (John 21:17).

He is indeed a man like you and me, same thing like our Lord Jesus Christ in His full divinity, a man like you and me.

I’m not quite following that one. Are you saying that Jesus Christ was a man like you and I? You have not left Islam behind completely, it seems. In Christianity, we believe that Jesus is God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.

Sincerely,

De Maria

De Maria August 9, 2012 at 5:45 PM

There were comments made concerning that Steve may have been “harsh” in his response.

It seems to me, when someone yells out “The Pope is a sinner….” in the middle of a Catholic conference, that person is not being especially caring about Catholic sensitivities. Therefore, Steve’s response seemed perfectly attuned to the nature of the communication. That was not a question of inquiry. It was a question wrapped in an insult.

Just my two cents.

Sincerely,

De Maria