[Milton-L] apostasy and apology

[Horace Jeffery Hodges]

Does my being a "Roman Catholic 'in error'" -- not so hard a concept for me to accept since I've often been wrong about things -- qualify me for partaking of the Roman Catholic eucharist?
   
  Not that I'll try, but I'm curious.
   
  Jeffery Hodges

"Fr M J (Mike) Logsdon" <mjl at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
  J D Fleming has made my religious slip into an interesting question,
thankfully. I have very little to add (I think), except to remind all
and sundry what the real Roman doctrine actually states. Beyond that, I
have very little to offer, except in clarification.

Rome then and now teaches there is only one Church, founded by Christ,
and all Christians are members of it. What is a Christian? Someone who
follows Christ and accepts his teaching (a little hairy when it comes to 
the Mormons and J Dubyas, but the concept is there). So, Milton, by 
default, was a Roman Catholic, merely "in error". Not so weird, when 
you consider that anyone not under Rome is "Roman Catholic, merely in 
error". Milton, the average flaming Pentecostal, etc -- all Roman 
Catholic, just "in error".

Moral? Rome gets a very bad rap. True, there's no salvation outside 
the Church, but as the Church She is pretty generous as to what 
constitutes "membership". Ie, if you're a Christian, you're a member. 
Granted, you'll spend an extended time in purgatory, but you're still 
"in". And then there's those who are "invincibly ignorant" (ie, members 
of other religions) who don't know any better. Basically, any good 
heart is taken in, no matter what. Some serious purgatorial cleansing, 
yes, but still quite the deal.

Roman Catholicism, basically, ain't all that exclusionary, once one 
studies the doctrine.

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University Degrees:

Ph.D., History, U.C. Berkeley
(Doctoral Thesis: "Food as Synecdoche in John's Gospel and Gnostic Texts")
M.A., History of Science, U.C. Berkeley
B.A., English Language and Literature, Baylor University

Email Address:

jefferyhodges at yahoo.com

Blog:

http://gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com/

Office Address:

Assistant Professor Horace Jeffery Hodges
School of English, Kyung Hee University
1 Hoegi-dong, Dongdaemun-gu
Seoul, 130-701
South Korea

Home Address:

Dr. Sun-Ae Hwang and Dr. Horace Jeffery Hodges
Gunyoung Apt. 102-204
Sangbong-dong 1
Jungnang-gu
Seoul 131-771
South Korea
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