Corruption In The Church And The Shroud Of Turin

There has been corruption in the church. Look at the law that we must eat fish on Fridays, the wealth gathered into the Vatican...And now the shroud may actually be real.

 

I attended a lecture some years ago by a team of experts on the Shroud. I don't recall the names of the members, but I am not sure the validity or non-validity of the Shroud will ever be determined. It has been contaminated by the environment over the years, and pollen grains from Palestine have been dated back to the first century, and it has been through fires, floods, and been repaired several times. It isn't allowed to cut the Shroud to pieces, so until they develop a non-destructive manner of testing, it will surely remain a mystery to the non-biased scientific researcher. There is also a face cloth that supposedly goes with the shroud as was mentioned in the New Testament, and I believe it resides in Spain and has not been tested much. How the Shroud was imaged through the head covering is yet another mystery if the Shroud is real. The fact that we cannot reconstruct the image, or even determine how the image was created makes me think there is some truth to the image. Also the fact that it was created in the negative, which, until photograph was invented in the 19th century and was unknown prior to that is another point in its favor.

The Shroud of Turin is not pivotal to my faith, so it is really just a scientific curiosity to me. As to the corruption mentioned by you, it has certainly been an issue, perhaps since the Church began, but that not not mean the teachings held and avowed by Christianity is invalid. I detest the current Pope, and many I have known say that it is not allowed for a Pope to resign, so Benedict was still Pope when Francis was selected, so Francis is invalid and there is no valid Pope at the moment. As a non-Catholic, I have no dog in that race though.

 

After Vatican II there were probably a lot of pissed-off Catholics who went to hell for eating meat on Friday. And people wonder why I have a problem with organized religion.

 

The fish on Friday thing predated anything in the U.S. It was supposedly begun to support fisherman, and the Spanish were exempted as they were fighting the Moors at the time it was enacted. It was thought at the time that soldiers needed meat to fight well. It was interesting here in AK, as the Natives wanted to class whales, seals and walruses as fish.

 

I could understand their reasoning on that- all are from the sea not the land.

 

I grew up with fish on Fridays in my Catholic household and actually looked forward to it. The fish was always coupled with greasy potato pancakes and was great.

Another rule was to give up things for lent like going to the movies. I got around the movie thing by sitting in a different area in the theater where god couldn't find me.

 

The thing about the shroud video I found humorous was that they took a corner piece for carbon dating that had been a repair.

 

In my somewhat limited experience with Catholicism, there was no "fish on Friday" rule. It was "No MEAT on Friday." So many Catholics had seafood on Fridays instead.

Abstinence is one of the oldest Christian traditions. “From the first century, the day of the crucifixion has been traditionally observed as a day of abstaining from flesh meat (“black fast”) to honor Christ who sacrificed his flesh on a Friday” (Klein, P., Catholic Source Book, 93).

 

It was a weird day that I’ll always remember when:

Two priests ordered filet mignon and a half bottle of wine for lunch at Arnaud’s one day.
They were reminded that it was Friday and it was also Lent.
The older of the two priests said that it was okay because they would first bless the meat before consuming it and as for Lent, they had already given up something. (I do assume they meant sex)

On the other hand, Charles Puglicci, the owner of 14 merchant ships and who was known for keeping company with a variety of female guests and his culinary habit of 5-8 course meals, came in by himself and ate a small salad w/water on the same day and time the priests had their steaks and wine.

 

My mother always used to make disparaging remarks about Jesuits.

 

Yeah, I’ve seen and heard a lot of that but I can’t bring myself to go that direction.

The thing is, we can quickly and without a thought say that the people in this denomination do this and the people in that denomination do that but isn’t that a bit general?
People often get earmarked because of the actions involved among the leadership and others who proclaim to be of a particular belief system so my standard is to sort of leave the denomination behind and get to know the person.

Now, to the point of the shroud and the leadership of the Catholic church: the shroud is meat for the curious and as far as how the church is run, I have to look at my own house and how I keep it before I look elsewhere.

 

My family, who was very anti-Catholic, always went to the fish fries on Fridays. It was a tradition when I lived in Pennsylvania. @Beth Gallagher is correct, as the rule was no meat, but fish was the fall-back. Mac and cheese was another meal for people who didn't like fish or seafood. Lenten tradition was also the origin of almond milk, as dairy was also not allowed during Lent for a while. People were trying to find a work around and developed almond milk that worked for most purposes.