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Any catholics or ex-catholics here

lionking

In the Peanut Gallery
lionking
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I was born into a strong catholic family, with uncles who are priests, aunts who are nuns and my father once a trainee Marist Brother (before he met my mum I must add). I was baptised, confirmed, was an altar boy and took my faith very seriously until I rejected the whole lot at about 13. I got top marks in Religous Studies, knew the Catechism well and fancied that I knew the New Testamant well. But it was only through this forum that I discovered NT references to Jesus's brothers and sisters (Matthew 13:55, 27:56, Mark 6:3, 15:40 and 16:1).

When I raised this with catholic friends none knew of this, many refused to believe me and a couple reacted quite aggressively. They, like I, were taught that Mary entered into heaven as a virgin

I don't want this thread to go along the "but there was no Jesus" line. This is quite a valid argument but let's assume he did for the moment. And I do understand the reluctance of the catholic heirarchy to concede that Mary actually did the wild thing with Joseph. But my questions to catholics and ex-catholics are: Did you know about Jesus's siblings? How do you feel about it? How do you feel about this information being withheld (if it was withheld from you)?
 
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As far as I know, this was a non-issue. Don't know if it ever came up; I saw the passage when I used to be Catholic, thought "well, Joseph waited until after the birth of Jesus for his honeymoon, good for him", and that was it.

I don't remember anyone saying that Mary went up a virgin. I would have remembered the passage, and mostly, because I was naive enough to have thought "what does it matter if she was a virgin or not"?
 
I don't remember those particular passages of the Bible, but I do remember reading an article about the discovery of some tomb that had an inscription on it indicating that the person buried within was "John, the brother of Jesus." IIRC, there was some debate over the meaning of that phrase. Was the Jesus referenced in the inscription the same one that Christians believe is the Son of God? Did the word translated as "brother" (I forget what language the inscription was in) literally mean "brother" or could it be a more generic term meaning "close male relative" (i.e. it could be a brother or a cousin)? I don't recall being particularly bothered about it, personally.
 
From what I understand, the Catholic church dismisses all references to brothers of Jesus as "close male family members that are not siblings" thus protecting Mary's perpetual virginity.

Seems like scapegoating to me, although I was never a good Catholic to begin with so what can you expect?

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Sorry for the DP. SL beat me by 30 sec.
 
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Thanks bignickel. But I always gathered that it was a big deal when I was young (this is the late 50s and early 60s). We prayed to "the virgin" as if she was still one not "the virgin until Joseph had his way with her". And I think it always mattered to the cardinals, bishops and priests who elevated Mary to goddess status, as much as they might deny it. Goddessness does not sit well with sex with a down-at-heel carpenter.
 
Ex Catholic here.

The Church does indeed insist that Mary stayed a virgin right up until the end. It's right there in the "Mea Culpa", "We ask Blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers to pray for me to the Lord our God..." (At least, I think that's part of the Mea Culpa. I get my old prayers mixed up sometimes. Whatever it was, we said it a lot in Mass.)

There are two explanations given for the "brothers" reference. One is that the word "adelphi" was sometimes used to mean "cousins", which is why "Philadelphia" is called the City of Cousinly Love. The other is that it doesn't say that Mary was Joseph's first wife. Some people say that Joseph was obviously a widower, with children from his first marriage. No one ever prays to the Virgin Joseph.
 
I was surprised when one of my high school classmates (VA public school) told me he was going to be one of Jesus' brothers in a school/church? play.
Having snapped many a mackeral up to then, I thought this odd, as any relations I'd seen mentioned weren't "brothers", but "brethren".
The various problems with religions didn't become bothersome for another 10 or so years, at which point I just got up one day and walked out of the mass, and haven't been back.
Lots of study since then hasn't done anything but help prove to me that religions are purely secular inventions to control the population.
I'm actually appalled that the leaders of any major religious theme can keep a straight face when preaching garf.
I presume the perks that go along with the elevated status as one progresses in the hierarchy soothe what conscience is left.
 
"James" is mentioned as one of Jesus' brothers in the quoted passage, and among the evangelicals it's suggested and often accepted that this person was the same James who wrote the New Testament book that bears his name.

Like the OP, this is stated within the context of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus all actually existing.
 
I was christened catholic soon after birth (probably against my will but what can you do eh?) I never really took to religion, and being a child with an enquiring mind I asked a lot of awkward questions in sunday school, much to the exhasperation of the tutors. How did mary have a baby if she was a virgin? Why did god allow his only son to be executed, what type of father would do that to his only son? Why was abraham so willing to cut his own sons throat because he heard a voice in his head telling him to do so?

Do I feel betrayed by not being told the whole "truth?" about the bible etc? Not really, like I said I never really took to it. Now I just see it as I did back then. A collosal waste of effort on the part of the faithful. The more I learned about this vengeful bloodthirsty god (who to be honest based on his demands seems clinically insane) the less I wanted anything to do with him.

However, suprisngly I am not an atheist. I Dont know if god exists, nothing I have seen would indicate this to be so. I suppose I am an agnostic atheist.
 
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Recovering Catholic diocesan worker here.

I was baptized Catholic as an infant, actually grew up Protestant, then went through RCIA to become a full Catholic a decade ago. I learned about the brothers and sisters in some non-denominational church while growing up, and didn't think it was a big deal. I know a fair amount of Catholics who also don't think it's that big of a deal even having heard it all their lives (probably because their faith has been shaken from the clergy scandal, and there were a lot of discussions then about faith in the people of the church vs faith in the idea of the church vs faith in God, but I digress).

The character of Rufus in the movie "Dogma" has some great lines about this, that I kinda agree with. "Mary gave birth to CHRIST without having known a man's touch, that's true. But she did have a husband. And do you really think he'd have stayed married to her all those years if he wasn't getting laid? The nature of God and the Virgin Mary, those are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down? Well, that's just plain gullibility."
 
I was 11 when I went to catholic school and fell in love with this nun who used to be our teacher.
I am sure there are alot of things they left out from the bible anyway.
even when I was that young and I saw the little drummer boy puppet TV show, I was asking questions like " how could GOD let that happen to this little boy's family? "
Always had my doubts but now they have been answered.
 
Meadmaker said:
Ex Catholic here.

The Church does indeed insist that Mary stayed a virgin right up until the end. It's right there in the "Mea Culpa", "We ask Blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you my brothers to pray for me to the Lord our God..." (At least, I think that's part of the Mea Culpa. I get my old prayers mixed up sometimes. Whatever it was, we said it a lot in Mass.)

There are two explanations given for the "brothers" reference. One is that the word "adelphi" was sometimes used to mean "cousins", which is why "Philadelphia" is called the City of Cousinly Love. The other is that it doesn't say that Mary was Joseph's first wife. Some people say that Joseph was obviously a widower, with children from his first marriage. No one ever prays to the Virgin Joseph.
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(My bolding). Very neat sidestep, but I suppose that if catholics are expected to buy the virgin birth thing, it is not a big stretch to believe this without a shred of evidence. But I am still perplexed why this is not dealt with in catholic education, or at least in the case of me and my friends. Yes, sexuality is a difficult thing when it comes to young children (I will never forget the look I got over 40 years ago when I asked a nun what adultry was) but still. And it is not really an irrelevancy given the cult of the virgin and the angry reaction I got from a couple of people.

And BTW I always thought that Philadelphia was the City of Brotherly Love, but am happy to stand corrected.
 
Sorry I just realised that you probably joking about the meaning of Philadelphia. It's been a long day and I am in my fifth state in five weeks (and we only have six).
 
lionking said:
Sorry I just realised that you probably joking about the meaning of Philadelphia. It's been a long day and I am in my fifth state in five weeks (and we only have six).
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Yes. I was making a joke about their attempt to linuistically sidestep the issue. I'm no scholar of ancient Greek, but the most common meaning of "adelphi" is "brothers", and the context of the message makes it seem that the author did indeed mean it in that sense. Matthew had just mentioned his parents, and it seems very likely that he would talk about siblings next, not uncles or cousins.

FWIW, here is the footnote found in my (Catholic) Bible on the passage in Mark:

First, the translation of the passage in question is "Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, a brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not his sisters and neighbors here?"

The footnote is:

"Some manuscripts have 'Is this not the carpenter's son?' The question about the brothers of Jesus and his sisters cannot easily be decided on linguistic grounds. Greek speaking Semites used the terms adelphos and adelphe, not only in the ordinary sense of blood brother and sister, but also for nephew, niece, half-brother, half-sister, and cousin. The question of meaning here would not have arisen but for the faith of the church in Mary's perpetual virginity."


(emphasis in original)
 
As a young Catholic lad in the 50s and early 60s, I must say that there was never any mention of Jesus' siblings whatever. It was only much later, after rejecting religion altogether, that I heard of James.
The explanation most often put forward is the simplest one; Jesus' sibling/s were the result of a previous marriage. Still doesn't provide any rational explanation for the magical knock-up, but who needs rationality when one is dealing with miracles?
 
Serenity's Light said:
I don't remember those particular passages of the Bible, but I do remember reading an article about the discovery of some tomb that had an inscription on it indicating that the person buried within was "John, the brother of Jesus." IIRC, there was some debate over the meaning of that phrase. Was the Jesus referenced in the inscription the same one that Christians believe is the Son of God? Did the word translated as "brother" (I forget what language the inscription was in) literally mean "brother" or could it be a more generic term meaning "close male relative" (i.e. it could be a brother or a cousin)? I don't recall being particularly bothered about it, personally.
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Do you mean the James Ossuary?

This is widely believed to be a fake for two reasons:

1. The "brother of Jesus" part's wear, coloring, and chisle style doesn't match the "James" part.

2. The guy who "found" it had a whole setup for forging things, and was convicted of other ancient forgeries. Also, they found the guy who forged this for him, who had forged other things.
 
I'm probably still missing something here:
The Catholic Church teaches that Mary died a virgin? Is this dogma?

The kid in me says "Who could possibly care if she died a virgin? You might as well be concerned whether or not her hair turned gray as well."

The adult in me says "what he said."
 
bignickel said:
I'm probably still missing something here:
The Catholic Church teaches that Mary died a virgin? Is this dogma?

The kid in me says "Who could possibly care if she died a virgin? You might as well be concerned whether or not her hair turned gray as well."

The adult in me says "what he said."
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"The Bull Munificentissimus Deus, 1 November, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared infallibly that the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was a dogma of the Catholic Faith. Likewise, the Second Vatican Council taught in the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium that "the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things "
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If memory serves, there's a prayer with "Blessed Mary, ever virgin".
.
Consider doing the nasty is something repugnant to many people, and freeing their icons from this stain is mandatory!
 
Beerina said:
Do you mean the James Ossuary?

This is widely believed to be a fake for two reasons:

1. The "brother of Jesus" part's wear, coloring, and chisle style doesn't match the "James" part.

2. The guy who "found" it had a whole setup for forging things, and was convicted of other ancient forgeries. Also, they found the guy who forged this for him, who had forged other things.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's what I was referring to--I didn't know that it had conclusively been identified as a forgery, though.
 
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