Catholicism: Its Meaning, Identity and Culture Catholicism: Its Meaning, Identity and Culture

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Catholicism: Its Meaning, Identity and Culture Fr.M.Peter Amaladoss, Arul Anandar College, Karumathur. Catholics are often seen to be just a little odd. They worship saints and statues; they have pictures of saints in the stained-glass windows of their often garish churches; they wear medals and carry rosaries that are superstitious charms; they obey a foreigner in Rome; they don’t think for themselves but do what their bishops and priests tell them to; they are clannish; they are morally lax, given to drinking and dancing; they think theirs is the only true church; there is so much superstition mixed into their beliefs and practices that sometimes they seem barely Christian, and so on and so forth. In the midst of such thoughts and opinions, there arise certain questions, and the following are some with which this essay deals: Why have this large international institution, the Catholic Church, in the first place? Why have popes and cardinals and Jesuits and Dominicans and Franciscans? Why is Catholicism so different from other Christian denominations? What does it all have to do with God and human relationships to God? Despite all these things, individual Catholics are frequently very nice people. They, of course, have a different explanation of what their religion is about, and a different interpretation of their practices. Meaning
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