During my conversations with Charity, my Spiritual Professor CIE, in 1995, I asked her about some of the old and present views of the Roman Catholic Church. Remember, I was raised in the home of a Presbyterian minister, so I was not directly exposed to these beliefs myself. I am expressing to her the views which I gathered in my lifetime as to what the Catholic Church believed to be true, both in the past and currently. The topics covered here are baptism, prostitution, contraception, indulgences, sainthood, man as center of the universe, and traditions.
Ralph: I have attended only one infant baptism in a Catholic church and, in that baptism, the priest clearly said that their understanding of the baptism was that, by sprinkling water on the infant's head and performing the ritual, the Spirit of God came into that child. Now that doesn't sound like anything you have indicated happens with that ritual. Do you have any conception of what that ritual does accomplish, because I didn't see any difference before and after in regard to the child. He don't look or act any differently.
Charity: Do you want it in regards to the children, or in regards to the adults?
Ralph: This is a Catholic view.
Charity: From the Catholic view of that, they consider, if we understand it correctly, with a very young child, of less than six weeks, they consider that child has been deposited on this earth as something that has been wrong from the very start. Therefore it must be made perfect. By being perfected is to baptize that child unto a new existence and a new way of being viewed into the custom of the church.
Ralph: I have a hard time in understanding how a newborn baby could be imperfect.
Charity: It cannot be. We don't sanction this.
Ralph: It always seemed illogical to me. What did the poor kid ever do? He was just lying there drinking his milk.
Charity: He was born.
Ralph: He was born, and he didn't have a chance. Even though he may have had free will, he didn't have much of an opportunity to exercise it. Adults were telling him what to do every day.
Charity: That's correct.
Ralph: What about these big ethical issues of the day. Prostitution you mentioned already, with women selling their sex for money, and you don't get all up in arms about it. I thought that would be something that you would think would be a generally poor use of their bodies.
Charity: They are not hurting themselves. Why should we be concerned?
Ralph: Because, again, they are violating one of the rules of God, as pronounced by the church. You are not supposed to have sex for any purpose but for having children. That is very clear in the Catholic Church, at least. You cannot even have fun. The Catholic Church would never approve of that -- you are not supposed to have fun that way.
Charity: The Creator made the human being to have, as we understand, a drive, so how can you, as a human, keep that drive from not occupying you and not being used and discharged?
Ralph: The Catholic Church has said, “You should stay away from all women and only live with men if you are a man.” That is what the priests do. I don't think that works out too well.
Charity: So what we understand is that it is a rule of the Church or the religious function to put this onto human beings to make them perfect unto the sight of the Creator, correct?
Ralph: Yes. The results are in the quotations in the book on The Origin of Satan, that the idea of being pure spiritually included castration, of all things, so they couldn't have sex or babies. They cut it off. That was supposed to make them even purer. Some of these great theologians did that.
Charity: If that was supposed to have made them purer, then they would not have been born into a male or female species.
Ralph: We only have those two choices.
Charity: You have what we are.
Ralph: Those are the only two choices we've got.
Charity: Or they would not have been born; therefore no aspect of a human is perfect, nothing.
Ralph: OK
Charity: So why try to be something or attain something that is totally unobtainable?
Ralph: Because that makes you like Christ. I think that would be the reason they would use.
Charity: And Christ was supposed to have been the Son of The Creator?
Ralph: Because he never had sex with anyone all his life.
Charity: If the Creator had chosen to make a son, and first of all, if the Creator had a gender, and second of all, then the Creator is going to be male, correct?
Ralph: That would be a logical extension of that concept.
Charity: So why would The Creator make a son?
[Here we go to a later part of the conversation about contraception.]
Charity: What you have to remember is that the longer her Essence can keep her charge from becoming pregnant, it is better for ourselves. The human's physical body can only last for so long before it will be detrimental to that life that they were going to try to have.
Ralph: We have a big argument on contraception, primarily supported by the Catholic Church. I can remember when I was delivering babies as a medical student, and we had this lady whose husband was a writer on a Catholic magazine. She had eight children by that time, and she was totally worn out. He was happy and healthy, but he didn't bear the children That poor woman.
Charity: But it is beginning to come around or turn around for that religion because even though the Pope, even though he does not recognize that part of contraception, even though he cannot agree to that, the other countries or continents that have that religion are changing their avenue and not listening to the Pope, so they are changing on that kind of aspect. Not all of them, but they are turning.
Ralph: What I understand is that people who were born into the Catholic religion find a ban on contraception and abortion and almost every kind of birth control method. Those who are born into it ignore it. They are wiser than that and say, “We are good Catholics, but that 20% we will ignore.” It's converts from another religion that feel they must believe everything, so they are the ones who are stuck.
Charity: What happened, though, is that the human beings begin to use their intellect, and they can't abide with that part of it. Regarding abortion, abortion, as you state, is taking a life?
Ralph: That is removing a fetus from the uterus between conception and three months later.
Charity: So what the humans are stating on that aspect is that is life for them, correct?
Ralph: They are saying that life starts at some early date within the uterus. The most radical state that life begins as soon as the egg and sperm get together and start multiplying.
Charity: OK, we will answer this question forthright and straightforward. First of all, your human existence does not start at any other point except at that time when that new physical life has been born and takes its first breath. When it has taken its first breath, the Essence is received into it. Therefore it is a living being and is therefore alive. Even though the physical part of it can breathe or not breathe, but the heart can beat, it can move its limbs, it is still not alive until it has taken that first breath.
[Here we go to another part of the conversation about indulgences.]
Ralph: Now the Catholic Church at that time recognized that nobody behaved well all the time. So if you did something that wasn't quite up to snuff to go to heaven, they would let you pay money to the church and buy what they called an indulgence. Which meant the priest forgave you for your sin for your contribution.
Charity: Monetary.
Ralph: Right, a major source of income for the churches. Then they put you back on the track of going to heaven. Now, they were selling those indulgences in such volume that obviously only rich people could afford to do it continually, and that is one of the things Luther got very upset about, being a priest in the Catholic Church at the time. “This is wrong, we shouldn't do that. If you are fated to go on to heaven, you will go to heaven; you won't get there by paying indulgences to the priest.” Because what they were saying was that, if you do all the good things, that proves that you belong in heaven. So even if you were a nasty guy headed for hell, if you could fake it long enough and play the game of being a good guy, you could sneak your way into heaven. So what is it, is it your behavior during your life that gets you into heaven, or is it your core nature that you were bound for heaven regardless of what you did? That was a big issue for a long time
Charity: Do you want us to answer that question?
Ralph: I don't know that there is an answer from your department. You have to see that what develops then are do-gooders, as we say. By doing all these good things that our society rewards us for, we are going to earn our place in heaven. And I think you have to recognize that is the culture of the Western European, English and American. That's been going on for the last three or four centuries with that argument being made clearly. Martin Luther was the one who said, “Hey, you can't buy your way into heaven.” Now you are throwing a monkey wrench into that whole concept and saying they are both wrong. I know that, but you have to understand that is how we are raised in this culture, subtly. What do our politicians do to get elected? They say, “I got you this service, and I got you all these things, and I've protected this, and you've got protection from everything.”
Charity: But that's all part of the Great Deception. You've got to realize this.
Ralph: Now, which aspect?
Charity: Your do-gooding aspect. First of all, your aspect of believing that there is a heaven and a hell, when there is no avenue on that aspect anyway.
Ralph: OK, so there is no place to head for in the first place.
Charity: That is correct.
Ralph: We are all going to get to the same place regardless of how we behaved on earth. It isn't going to get you to Door A versus Door B.
Charity: No, there are no doors.
Ralph: But what I am saying is that the gate of heaven is described that way, with St. Peter standing there to grade you.
Charity: Who is St. Peter?
Ralph: St. Peter was Peter the disciple that was the first Bishop of the Christian Church, one of Christ's students. He then was, according to the Bible, given the responsibility for being the head of the church.
Charity: No.
Ralph: It's all in the book. Peter got the grant from Christ to be the leader when Christ died.
Charity: No.
Ralph: No? These are specially wonderful humans who, when they have died , are responsible for miracles.
Charity: Like St. Jude?
Ralph: Yes, St. Jude is for crippled children. Each has some particular group that they are for. They have in the Catholic Church a process for declaring somebody who has died a saint.
Charity: Oh, yes we remember you sending something to us on that aspect quite some time ago.
Ralph: The process is this: A nun who has been very nice and very holy dies of old age. She has been known by all her friends as a wonderful person.
Charity: So she comes back in this lifetime and lives as a -- ?
Ralph: As far as they re concerned, this is the only lifetime she ever had. The people who remember her consider her to have been a very holy person while she was alive. Nice, wonderful, religious and all that . They then pray to her spirit for some particular miracle to occur, like a child getting well from a serious illness, or something like that.
Charity: Pray to her spirit?
Ralph: Correct, pray to her spirit. Then this child gets well. They then give credit to her spirit for having gotten the child well, when the child would otherwise have died. I think it takes a certain number of these incidents witnessed by people to qualify a person for possible sainthood. If they prayed to the spirit of Jude three times and the children got well, therefore Jude performed these miracles, and he's worthy of becoming a saint. I'm serious. I know it sounds silly when I tell you.
Charity: The aspect is the Spiritual Guardian that is doing this.
Ralph: I know that, but they don't. So I'm just saying that the people who have seen these miracles then file an application with the Catholic Church. They ask for this person to be honored as such a wonderful person. Then the church appoints a priest to be an investigator, to make sure the people are telling the truth. The priest writes up the report, and they then have different stages of an investigation. If the deceased person passes all the tests, he is then honored by being named a saint. At one point they have a hearing with one priest who is assigned to be the Devil's Advocate. He says, “No, this was a really bad guy, and he didn't do any good at all.” They have the hearing and take a vote, and, if he passes, he is named a saint by the Pope. Then they put his name on buildings and hospitals, since he is now a saint. That's what saints are. I'm just telling you it's an official decision by the Pope after somebody's died. He is holier than average.
Charity: The Creator is the whole, The Creator has always been the whole.
Ralph: I'm just letting you know how they make saints.
Charity: We disagree.
Ralph: I understand that. I just wanted to explain. This is a human process within the organizational structure.
Charity: Again it is a human process on rules and regulations that humans have evolved and defined.
[Now I go to another part of the conversation on man as the center of the universe.]
Charity: The Creator was here before to create Thoughtspace, the energy field that we have been in and reside in which has been here before physical properties were created.
Ralph: Which leaves open the possibility that this universe of rocks floating around in our Physicalspace might not have been the first one.
Charity: That is most correct.
Ralph: So therefore it is not all important, it is not the most important. We almost gets back to an earlier idea that the Church had that man is the most important element in the entire universe.
Charity: That is incorrect in that avenue. Human existence is one avenue.
Ralph: A few centuries ago, the Catholic Church said that the physical man is somehow the center of the universe, at least the center of the world, and everything was related to the size of the man, to the Earth, which had nothing to do with anything. I'm just saying that they were making man as the center around which everything else was revolving. Now that is a lot of importance to put on man.
Charity: That is what they were doing, and we are bringing it back to what it needs to be. The humans are important, yes, but the Creator and ourselves and the Essences are important, but they are not to be thought of or to be made human.
Ralph: I think that one of the problems with humans is that they tend to rank importance.
Charity: Of course.
Ralph:That is another human emotion – I'm more important than you, or I feel badly not being as important as you.
Charity: That is still the way it operates now, but, as you have noticed, the hope is there that there is a shift from what used to be very somber, the music very subdued; there was not any encouragement to bring forth new ideas.
Ralph: Very traditional, everything had to be centuries old.
Charity: But now with the generation shift, the religions, the churches, the buildings, are coming about with new music, new ways of experiencing different items, different ideas. They are encouraging thinking. They are encouraging questions. By doing that, the religions themselves are realizing they need to get away from the traditional aspects.
Ralph: One of the things that goes against this, with the Catholic Church being a prime example, they consider these cultural changes to be mere fads and temporary distortions. They are like the boat; they have their keel and they have the steady center of life, and they must maintain that ancient tradition because these things are just temporary changes that are not going to last. They are the ones who will last; therefore they must maintain the stability in our culture.
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