Amazing,
I hope you don't mind my commenting here:
With regard to Catholic Church tolerance (or lack thereof), notice this section of Chapter 1 of Crisis of Conscience (this chapter is found online at http://www.commentarypress.com/eng-crisis-ch1.html ):
The examples of three men—each a religious instructor of note in his particular religion, with each situation coming to a culmination in the same year—illustrate this:
One, for more than a decade, wrote books and regularly gave lectures presenting views that struck at the very heart of the authority structure of his religion.
Another gave a talk before an audience of more than a thousand persons in which he took issue with his religious organization’s teachings about a key date and its significance in fulfillment of Bible prophecy.
The third made no such public pronouncements. His only expressions of difference of viewpoint were confined to personal conversations with close friends.
Yet the strictness of the official action taken toward each of these men by their respective religious organizations was in inverse proportion to the seriousness of their actions. And the source of the greatest severity was the opposite of what one might expect.The first person described is Roman Catholic priest Hans Küng, professor at Tübingen University in West Germany. After ten years, his outspoken criticism, including his rejection of the doctrinal infallibility of the Pope and councils of bishops, was finally dealt with by the Vatican itself and, as of 1980, the Vatican removed his official status as a Catholic theologian. Yet he remains a priest and a leading figure in the university’s ecumenical research institute. Even students for the priesthood attending his lectures are not subject to church discipline.(They simply receive no academic credit for such attendance.)
The second is Australian-born Seventh Day Adventist professor Desmond Ford. His speech to a layman’s group of a thousand persons at a California college, in which he took issue with the Adventist teaching about the date 1844, led to a church hearing. Ford was granted six months leave of absence to prepare his defense and, in 1980, was then met with by a hundred church representatives who spent some fifty hours hearing his testimony. Church officials then decided to remove him from his teaching post and strip him of his ministerial status. But he was not disfellowshiped (excommunicated) though he has published his views and continues to speak about them in Adventist circles.
The third man is Edward Dunlap, who was for many years the Registrar of the sole missionary school of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, also a major contributor to the organization’s Bible dictionary (Aid to Bible Understanding [now titled Insight on the Scriptures]) and the writer of its only Bible commentary (Commentary on the Letter of James). He expressed his difference of viewpoint on certain teachings only in private conversation with friends of long standing. In the spring of 1980, a committee of five men, none of them members of the organization’s Governing Body, met with him in secret session for a few hours, interrogating him on his views. After over forty years of association, Dunlap was dismissed from his work and home at the international headquarters and disfellowshiped from the organization.
Thus, the religious organization that, for many, has long been a symbol of extreme authoritarianism showed the greatest degree of tolerance toward its dissident instructor; the organization that has taken particular pride in its fight for freedom of conscience showed the least.
Note that Hans King WAS NOT excommunicated from the Catholic Church; he was not even silenced. He was removed from a position of speaking FOR the Church regarding Church doctrine, but other Catholics are still allowed, with no penalties, to listen to him. He is still a PRIEST as well.
I am getting ready to go into RCIA. I have had a great many discussions with one of the RCIA teachers regarding the subject of Catholic tolerance of diverse beliefs (I have a certain difficulty with the concept of eternal torment but no problem with the concept of eternal destruction or eternal separation from God). I have been told by this teacher that entrance into the Catholic Church is dependent upon acceptance of the Nicean Creed ( http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11049a.htm ):
We believe (I believe) in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages. (God of God) light of light, true God of true God. Begotten not made, consubstantial to the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven. And was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary and was made man; was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried; and the third day rose again according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose Kingdom there shall be no end. And (I believe) in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father (and the Son), who together with the Father and the Son is to be adored and glorified, who spoke by the Prophets. And one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We confess (I confess) one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for (I look for) the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen."So I expect that someone who does not truly believe in the Trinity, or who does not believe that Jesus was God in the Flesh, would not be accepted as a member of the Catholic Church. Also I expect that belief in the virginity of Mary as the Mother of God would be necessary.
She told me, however, that many new converts have difficulty with one or more Catholic teachings (the example she used was Transubstantiation, not because I had mentioned it but because someone in a recent RCIA class had mentioned it). She said that all Catholics grow in their knowledge and understanding of Church doctrine as they mature as Christians, and that the oridinary Christian is not expected to be a Theologan.
My friend also has frequent discussions with another lady she works with. This other lady is a devout and practicing Catholic, but she is wishy-washy with regard to the role of the Magesterium and has difficulty with the concept of papal infallibility. These views do not inhibit her Catholic worship or her standing as a Catholic, and my friend does not view her any differently just because they disagree on this point of Church doctrine.
My husband left the Catholic Church in 1972. He also very forcefully insists that the Catholic Church is much more arbitrary and authoritarian than I have found it to be. His experience with taking his questions to the parish priests was about as bad as that recounted above by Amazing. He has been inactive with the Witnesses for as long as I have, but contends he is still "going back" to the Kingdom Hall and that he would never return to the Catholic Church (he is a "cradle Catholic" who was baptized, confirmed, and graduated from a Catholic High School). When he was attending Mass, it was conducted in Latin. He is astonished and greatly troubled by my decision to investigate the Catholic Church.
It seems to me that the Church went through some difficulties in the last half of the 20th Century. There were some infamous disagreements regarding the catechism during that time. These difficulties may have simply been a reaction to the spirit of revolution and of protest that was so prevalent during the 60s and 70s. I really don't know, as I was a firmly entrenched "cradle JW" during those years.
I am finding the Catholic Church to be a very welcoming environment with patient and loving teachers who attempt to answer all questions that I might raise.
Ruth