Opinion of the American Apostolic Old Catholic Church

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Although I'm still Episcopalian, I've been doing some churchbrowsing during the pandemic. After coming across one Episcopal service in which the priest made 3/4 of the sermon about the (*gag*) Harry Potter series, I crossed them off and started exploring the American Apostolic Old Catholic Church (AOOCC).

My only disagreement with them really that they reject the Immaculate Conception and Mary's Assumption into Heaven. But I came across this interesting part of their Statement of Faith, which I'm sure will turn some heads:

In the future, if the Roman Catholic Church were to accept and affirm these excluded children of God, welcoming them into full participation in all of the sacraments and celebrating their unique dignity, the AAOCC would consider her mission fulfilled and would therefore cease to exist as an independent body.

Anyway, I can already predict how the conservatives feel about this but I'm interested to hear Nathan's or BRTD's opinions especially.

[Kingpoleon]

I think the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America is the most interesting of the independent Catholic churches.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

My only disagreement with them really that they reject the Immaculate Conception and Mary's Assumption into Heaven.

By and large, I find the Mariology of the Catholic Church problematic, and generally abiblical. Both the Immaculate Conception and the Perpetual Virginity act to deny the humanity of not only Mary, but of Jesus, and to me the Crucifixion is a meaningless mockery unless Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. The Assumption into Heaven is largely driven by the desire to make Mary more divine than is needed for her to be the Theotokos, but at least has Biblical precedent in Enoch and Elijah, so while I don't see the necessity of that doctrine, it doesn't bother me either.

In any case, it's not those particular doctrines that the Old Catholic Churches reject, but the doctrine of papal infallibility that added those doctrines to the dogmata of the Roman Church.

Having been proclaimed outside a truly Ecumenical Council, her Immaculate Conception and her Assumption into Heaven are not recognized as dogmata by the AAOCC. Nonetheless, these doctrines are traditional and venerable and they are incorporated into our teaching, liturgy, and piety.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

My only disagreement with them really that they reject the Immaculate Conception and Mary's Assumption into Heaven.

By and large, I find the Mariology of the Catholic Church problematic, and generally abiblical. Both the Immaculate Conception and the Perpetual Virginity act to deny the humanity of not only Mary, but of Jesus, and to me the Crucifixion is a meaningless mockery unless Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. The Assumption into Heaven is largely driven by the desire to make Mary more divine than is needed for her to be the Theotokos, but at least has Biblical precedent in Enoch and Elijah, so while I don't see the necessity of that doctrine, it doesn't bother me either.

In any case, it's not those particular doctrines that the Old Catholic Churches reject, but the doctrine of papal infallibility that added those doctrines to the dogmata of the Roman Church.

Having been proclaimed outside a truly Ecumenical Council, her Immaculate Conception and her Assumption into Heaven are not recognized as dogmata by the AAOCC. Nonetheless, these doctrines are traditional and venerable and they are incorporated into our teaching, liturgy, and piety.

If I recall the way Nathan explained these things to me, the basic idea of Catholic Mariology is that these things may or may not be true, but it is 'appropriate' for the woman who carried and birthed God to have been sinless and possessing divine-like qualities. You'll also have the occasional small-c catholics like me who aren't a great deal concerned if it's true or not but view it necessary for Christians to have a motherly figure in addition to a fatherly figure, not to worship, but to venerate.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

My only disagreement with them really that they reject the Immaculate Conception and Mary's Assumption into Heaven.

By and large, I find the Mariology of the Catholic Church problematic, and generally abiblical. Both the Immaculate Conception and the Perpetual Virginity act to deny the humanity of not only Mary, but of Jesus, and to me the Crucifixion is a meaningless mockery unless Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. The Assumption into Heaven is largely driven by the desire to make Mary more divine than is needed for her to be the Theotokos, but at least has Biblical precedent in Enoch and Elijah, so while I don't see the necessity of that doctrine, it doesn't bother me either.

In any case, it's not those particular doctrines that the Old Catholic Churches reject, but the doctrine of papal infallibility that added those doctrines to the dogmata of the Roman Church.

Having been proclaimed outside a truly Ecumenical Council, her Immaculate Conception and her Assumption into Heaven are not recognized as dogmata by the AAOCC. Nonetheless, these doctrines are traditional and venerable and they are incorporated into our teaching, liturgy, and piety.

If I recall the way Nathan explained these things to me, the basic idea of Catholic Mariology is that these things may or may not be true, but it is 'appropriate' for the woman who birthed God to have been sinless and possessing divine-like qualities. You'll also have the occasion small-c catholics like me who aren't a great deal concerned if it's true or not but view it necessary for Christians to have a motherly figure in addition to a fatherly figure, not to worship, but to venerate.

I have some sympathy with the desire to have a motherly figure to venerate, but:
   a) that need not be the Theotokos,
   b) even if did need to be the Theotokos, it doesn't require denying her being human.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Aren’t Old Catholics like the successors of Jansenism? If so, FC.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Aren’t Old Catholics like the successors of Jansenism? If so, FC.

That's shocking from you, HenryWallaceVP.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Aren’t Old Catholics like the successors of Jansenism? If so, FC.

That's shocking from you, HenryWallaceVP.

Old Catholics aren't Catholic though. If choosing between Jansenism and High Church Anglicanism, as Scott is, I'd actually say the latter are the worse papists of the two. Jansenists, who were subject to Jesuitical persecution themselves, are much to be preferred to the Tory tormentors of dissent and nonconformity.

[DC Al Fine]

Microdenominationalism is bad enough when Protestants do it. Catholics doing it is hard to take seriously.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Aren’t Old Catholics like the successors of Jansenism? If so, FC.

That's shocking from you, HenryWallaceVP.

Old Catholics aren't Catholic though. If choosing between Jansenism and High Church Anglicanism, as Scott is, I'd actually say the latter are the worse papists of the two. Jansenists, who were subject to Jesuitical persecution themselves, are much to be preferred to the Tory tormentors of dissent and nonconformity.

FYI I am not considering Jansenism because I thoroughly reject the Calvinist or Reformed line of thought, irrespective of how they were persecuted hundreds of years ago. If we were living in the 17th or 18th centuries, I almost certainly would not have converted to Anglicanism. (Given my ancestry, I likely would've either been a well-to-do Scandinavian Lutheran or a Catholic living in a country - Poland - whose entire early history is defined by war and territorial conflict.)

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

papists

On another note, please, for the love of all that is good, never use this word unironically. It's 2021, people.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

papists

On another note, please, for the love of all that is good, never use this word unironically. It's 2021, people.

It may be 2021 for you, but Henry is stuck in the 17th and 18th centuries.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

papists

On another note, please, for the love of all that is good, never use this word unironically. It's 2021, people.

I was actually semi-ironically referencing a 1683 issue of The Observator where Roger L'Estrange makes fun of the fanatics for thinking "we [Anglicans] are the worse papists of the two" compared to actual Roman Catholics, but I wouldn't expect anyone here to get that.

papists

On another note, please, for the love of all that is good, never use this word unironically. It's 2021, people.

It may be 2021 for you, but Henry is stuck in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Yes and?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

papists

On another note, please, for the love of all that is good, never use this word unironically. It's 2021, people.

I was actually semi-ironically referencing a 1683 issue of The Observator where Roger L'Estrange makes fun of the fanatics for thinking "we [Anglicans] are the worse papists of the two" compared to actual Roman Catholics, but I wouldn't expect anyone here to get that.

The worse papists of the two are definitely actual Roman Catholics. Source: I am one.

papists

On another note, please, for the love of all that is good, never use this word unironically. It's 2021, people.

It may be 2021 for you, but Henry is stuck in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Yes and?

Oh, that was not meant as a criticism.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't approve of microdenominationalism, but this church bothers me less than others because it does have clear conditions for reunion with Rome, even though those conditions are extremely unlikely to be met. I think that's much more respectable than a denomination just drifting off on its own over the decades.

Also, I can accept the idea that the Immaculate Conception makes Mary vaguely inhuman, but the idea that the Perpetual Virginity does the same is absurd and offensive to me. I don't want to make this a "Mary was a smol valid aroace! uwu" thing because I think that's absurd too, but there are plenty of manifestly human people who never have sex or even who are in sexless marriages. Sexuality, wonderful as it can be, is a faculty that we share with most other life forms, not some unique marker of human identity.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Nathan, have you ever read the Protoevangelium of James? That's the primary source for the doctrine of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary.  It'd be one thing to hold that Mary never had sex, but according to that text, Mary was physically a virgin, with an intact hymen, even after giving birth to Jesus. Altho, I suppose the temple curtain she wove prior to being wed to Joseph could be viewed as a symbolic hymen that would be rent upon the death of Jesus, thus marking the birth of a new age. However, even with that literary conceit, the whole episode pretty explicitly denies the humanity of at least one, if not both Jesus and Mary. Tho, there are plenty of non-theological reasons for rejecting the Protoevangelium. The principal reason is that if the childhood of Mary had indeed been as described in it, she and Joseph have been major Judean celebrities of the 1st century BC and not an obscure Galilean couple as described in the Gospels.

[RI]

Mary was physically a virgin, with an intact hymen, even after giving birth to Jesus.

Which is as ridiculous as the "like light sliding through glass" phrase arguing Mary had no birth pains.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Mary was physically a virgin, with an intact hymen, even after giving birth to Jesus.

Which is as ridiculous as the "like light sliding through glass" phrase arguing Mary had no birth pains.

Yes; I've read the Protoevangelium several times and there are good reasons why it's not canonical. That doesn't make Ernest's insistence that the perpetual virginity of Mary ipso facto renders her other-than-human make any more sense to me.

I like the perpetual virginity dogma because it makes Mary and Joseph out to be real weirdos (a sexless marriage would not have been seen as ideal or even as desirable, for anybody involved, in Second Temple Judaism). Real weirdos are, or should be, the demographic core of the Christian religion.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Mary was physically a virgin, with an intact hymen, even after giving birth to Jesus.

Which is as ridiculous as the "like light sliding through glass" phrase arguing Mary had no birth pains.

Yes; I've read the Protoevangelium several times and there are good reasons why it's not canonical. That doesn't make Ernest's insistence that the perpetual virginity of Mary ipso facto renders her other-than-human make any more sense to me.

I like the perpetual virginity dogma because it makes Mary and Joseph out to be real weirdos (a sexless marriage would not have been seen as ideal or even as desirable, for anybody involved, in Second Temple Judaism). Real weirdos are, or should be, the demographic core of the Christian religion.

Not really.  Christianity has always aspired to be a religion for everyone, not a select few.  We can't all be weirdos, because if we were, then our weirdness would be normal instead of weird. Indeed, the Pauline/Gnostic idea that celibacy rather than chastity should be seen as the Christian ideal strikes me as exceedingly flawed.  Jesus told the woman taken in adultery to go and sin no more, not to have sex no more.

Indeed, Christian sects that advocated celibacy for all, such as the Shakers, have repeatedly died out.

The Song of Songs can certainly be viewed in an allegorical fashion, but to treat it as purely allegory is misinterpreting the text. The corporeal and sensual are not wicked of themselves.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Mary was physically a virgin, with an intact hymen, even after giving birth to Jesus.

Which is as ridiculous as the "like light sliding through glass" phrase arguing Mary had no birth pains.

Yes; I've read the Protoevangelium several times and there are good reasons why it's not canonical. That doesn't make Ernest's insistence that the perpetual virginity of Mary ipso facto renders her other-than-human make any more sense to me.

I like the perpetual virginity dogma because it makes Mary and Joseph out to be real weirdos (a sexless marriage would not have been seen as ideal or even as desirable, for anybody involved, in Second Temple Judaism). Real weirdos are, or should be, the demographic core of the Christian religion.

Not really.  Christianity has always aspired to be a religion for everyone, not a select few.  We can't all be weirdos, because if we were, then our weirdness would be normal instead of weird.

Not what I was getting at but okay.

Indeed, the Pauline/Gnostic idea that celibacy rather than chastity should be seen as the Christian ideal strikes me as exceedingly flawed.  Jesus told the woman taken in adultery to go and sin no more, not to have sex no more.

Yes; and this has to do with Mary why, exactly? The doctrine of the virgin birth is not of Pauline or Gnostic origin, and the perpetual virginity of Mary is an application of the same underlying logic as the virgin birth.

Indeed, Christian sects that advocated celibacy for all, such as the Shakers, have repeatedly died out.

I've been to the last remaining Shaker village, in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. It's a fascinating place, and a sad one.

The Song of Songs can certainly be viewed in an allegorical fashion, but to treat it as purely allegory is misinterpreting the text.

Well, yes, everything in the Bible has both allegorical and non-allegorical interpretations. However, with the Song of Songs the problem I encounter far more frequently than excessively allegorical readings is people rejecting the allegorical level in favor of adolescent snickering at the ~plain meaning of the text~.

The corporeal and sensual are not wicked of themselves.

I don't think anybody in this thread would ever suggest that they are.

[Kingpoleon]

Yes; I've read the Protoevangelium several times and there are good reasons why it's not canonical. That doesn't make Ernest's insistence that the perpetual virginity of Mary ipso facto renders her other-than-human make any more sense to me.

I like the perpetual virginity dogma because it makes Mary and Joseph out to be real weirdos (a sexless marriage would not have been seen as ideal or even as desirable, for anybody involved, in Second Temple Judaism). Real weirdos are, or should be, the demographic core of the Christian religion.

I concur on the first paragraph; it would be like debunking Deepak Chopra and then announcing that quantum theory is wholly invalid.

The “real weirdos” statement is absurdist, and the premise is itself flawed. It is fairly common, in different societies, for very young women to marry elderly men for property purposes. This was actually common in the 20s and 30s for poor families to secure pensions by marrying their daughters off to Civil War veterans - the perpetual virginity does not require some sort of absurdist marriage as you imply.

[RI]

I like the perpetual virginity dogma because it makes Mary and Joseph out to be real weirdos (a sexless marriage would not have been seen as ideal or even as desirable, for anybody involved, in Second Temple Judaism). Real weirdos are, or should be, the demographic core of the Christian religion.

I heard a Bishop Barron homily once about the linguistic origin of the Holy Family's names suggesting they were a part of a restorationist sect of Judaism, so perhaps they were generally viewed as "weirdos" at the time.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Mary was physically a virgin, with an intact hymen, even after giving birth to Jesus.

Which is as ridiculous as the "like light sliding through glass" phrase arguing Mary had no birth pains.

Yes; I've read the Protoevangelium several times and there are good reasons why it's not canonical. That doesn't make Ernest's insistence that the perpetual virginity of Mary ipso facto renders her other-than-human make any more sense to me.

I like the perpetual virginity dogma because it makes Mary and Joseph out to be real weirdos (a sexless marriage would not have been seen as ideal or even as desirable, for anybody involved, in Second Temple Judaism). Real weirdos are, or should be, the demographic core of the Christian religion.

Not really.  Christianity has always aspired to be a religion for everyone, not a select few.  We can't all be weirdos, because if we were, then our weirdness would be normal instead of weird.

Not what I was getting at but okay.

Indeed, the Pauline/Gnostic idea that celibacy rather than chastity should be seen as the Christian ideal strikes me as exceedingly flawed.  Jesus told the woman taken in adultery to go and sin no more, not to have sex no more.

Yes; and this has to do with Mary why, exactly? The doctrine of the virgin birth is not of Pauline or Gnostic origin, and the perpetual virginity of Mary is an application of the same underlying logic as the virgin birth.

Indeed, Christian sects that advocated celibacy for all, such as the Shakers, have repeatedly died out.

I've been to the last remaining Shaker village, in Sabbathday Lake, Maine. It's a fascinating place, and a sad one.

The Song of Songs can certainly be viewed in an allegorical fashion, but to treat it as purely allegory is misinterpreting the text.

Well, yes, everything in the Bible has both allegorical and non-allegorical interpretations. However, with the Song of Songs the problem I encounter far more frequently than excessively allegorical readings is people rejecting the allegorical level in favor of adolescent snickering at the ~plain meaning of the text~.

The corporeal and sensual are not wicked of themselves.

I don't think anybody in this thread would ever suggest that they are.

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary has far more to do with Christology than Mariology.

At its core, it's about the Christ not being a physical, living, creature. Whether Mary was a relatively normal young girl who remained a physical virgin because Jesus was never physically incarnated as the Gnostics maintained or she was supernaturally inhuman so that she could bear Christ, (Hence the need for her Immaculate Conception in Catholic Mariology.) and as physical sign of that was granted the accident (in the philosophical sense) of being perpetually virginal, is beside the point.  The need for the dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of Mary has absolutely nothing to with embracing celibacy either as an alternative mode or as a preferred mode of existence, but everything to do with making the Christ be noncorporeal because it would be gross for the Divine to be made out of corrupt matter. That's a decidedly Gnostic POV and I despise self-loathing Gnosticism more than any other heresy. Indeed, tho it would imperil my immortal soul, if I were a Medieval inquisitor, then to help Gnostics divest themselves of the corporeal body in which they believe themselves to be trapped, I'd cheerfully assist them by burning them at the stake. (I wouldn't do that today because of air pollution concerns.)

[If my soul was made of stone]

That's a decidedly Gnostic POV and I despise self-loathing Gnosticism more than any other heresy. Indeed, tho it would imperil my immortal soul, if I were a Medieval inquisitor, then to help Gnostics divest themselves of the corporeal body in which they believe themselves to be trapped, I'd cheerfully assist them by burning them at the stake. (I wouldn't do that today because of air pollution concerns.)

I'm pretty fundamentally opposed to it on a very basic level vis à vis my personal faith, but I've always been fascinated by Gnosticism and frankly found it a lot more interesting than pretty much any conventional branch of Christianity due to its mysticism, inward focus, and eclecticism. It's a shame that the early church fathers were so strict about cracking down on it and spread all of their awful polemics about Gnostic sects (that many suggest were largely fabrications, although maybe I'd be genuinely down for some of the more libertine things falsely attributed to them).

I've expressed my rather stop-having-fun-guys feminist neo-Freudian take on the various superhuman qualities and epithets attributed to Mary and their intersection with other conceptions of female divinity elsewhere on this board (https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=433870.msg7984916#msg7984916), so I'll skip repeating them. Either way, I think that, to answer the original question of this thread, the AAOCC sounds like a pretty Freedom Church to me, with the perpetual caveat on all matters related to Abrahamic concerns that my faith is not remotely Abrahamic and that the Abrahamic god would view me as a filthy idolatress and a harlot.

[Mopsus]

Christianity has always aspired to be a religion for everyone, not a select few.  We can't all be weirdos, because if we were, then our weirdness would be normal instead of weird.

Institutions founded for weirdos can perfectly easily accommodate normal people, but the opposite is usually not true. If you want to be "for everyone", you have to have the weirdos in mind.