James, as of the '60s, when I was still taking Catechism classes--and I have no reason to think things have changed--the church still maintained a platonic vision of creation as a hierarchical structure. If memory serves, we had the triune God at the top, followed successively by the Blessed Virgin, saints and angels in their stratified …
James, as of the '60s, when I was still taking Catechism classes--and I have no reason to think things have changed--the church still maintained a platonic vision of creation as a hierarchical structure. If memory serves, we had the triune God at the top, followed successively by the Blessed Virgin, saints and angels in their stratified ranks, the Pope, cardinals and bishops, priests, (maybe civil authorities in there somewhere under priests?) parents, and last and least, children. That last place for children was emphasized with the assertion that we, as children, had no right to question the higher levels of authority above us. I don't recall any discussion of unborn babies' place in all of this, perhaps because the obvious implication of sex was to be avoided. Or perhaps my memory is faulty. In any case, according to this paradigm, unborn babies should be at the bottom, but somehow they've been elevated to somewhere above parents. Call me cynical, but it seemed to me when I first noticed this that this elevation approximately arose in the wake of the pedophilia scandal. Again, memory is faulty, so there's always that.
James, as of the '60s, when I was still taking Catechism classes--and I have no reason to think things have changed--the church still maintained a platonic vision of creation as a hierarchical structure. If memory serves, we had the triune God at the top, followed successively by the Blessed Virgin, saints and angels in their stratified ranks, the Pope, cardinals and bishops, priests, (maybe civil authorities in there somewhere under priests?) parents, and last and least, children. That last place for children was emphasized with the assertion that we, as children, had no right to question the higher levels of authority above us. I don't recall any discussion of unborn babies' place in all of this, perhaps because the obvious implication of sex was to be avoided. Or perhaps my memory is faulty. In any case, according to this paradigm, unborn babies should be at the bottom, but somehow they've been elevated to somewhere above parents. Call me cynical, but it seemed to me when I first noticed this that this elevation approximately arose in the wake of the pedophilia scandal. Again, memory is faulty, so there's always that.