Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

Christian ethics and theology with an Anabaptist perspective
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Bootstrap
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

Post by Bootstrap »

Hats Off wrote:And from any information I have been able to find, i believe that there may be sincere Catholics who believe that a simple rural based lifestyle would be beneficial to them and there families. I even read a line somewhere that indicated they may hope with a plain lifestyle to convert some Amish to the Catholic faith. Anything I have read suggests that they may be individuals scattered across the country and subscribe fully to Catholic doctrine. This would seem to fit Max so unless he has a hidden agenda, I do not know what keeps him from responding more openly here.
On Catholic Forums, this thread may be helpful:
Plain_Catholic wrote:We have an apostolate to the Amish and other Anabaptist groups. Our plain and simply modest clothing with head coverings breaks down many barriers to facilitate dialogue with these groups. My wife and daughters have been very effective in their presence and witness to our Catholic faith while they wear prayer kapps and caped dresses. The New Evangelization calls everyone.
You can easily find other threads on the topic by looking at threads that Plain_Catholic participated in:

https://forums.catholic.com/u/Plain_Catholic/

Max also participated in one of these threads:

https://forums.catholic.com/u/Maxfide
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temporal1
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

Post by temporal1 »

Hats Off wrote:And from any information I have been able to find, i believe that there may be sincere Catholics who believe that a simple rural based lifestyle would be beneficial to them and there families.
I even read a line somewhere that indicated they may hope with a plain lifestyle to convert some Amish to the Catholic faith.
Anything I have read suggests that they may be individuals scattered across the country and subscribe fully to Catholic doctrine.
This would seem to fit Max so unless he has a hidden agenda, I do not know what keeps him from responding more openly here.
yes, this seems to match with what i see Max describing.
i hope he will come to a place where he feels comfortable in sharing more. i don't sense this to be an impossibility. possibly, he does not want to be mistaken for using this forum to convert others, which could easily happen. i do not know.
i would enjoy learning more. i'm ok with waiting.
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Wayne in Maine
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

Post by Wayne in Maine »

Bootstrap wrote:On Catholic Forums, this thread may be helpful:
Plain_Catholic wrote:We have an apostolate to the Amish and other Anabaptist groups. Our plain and simply modest clothing with head coverings breaks down many barriers to facilitate dialogue with these groups. My wife and daughters have been very effective in their presence and witness to our Catholic faith while they wear prayer kapps and caped dresses. The New Evangelization calls everyone.
So the new topic is "Are Plain Catholics proselytizing Anabaptist?"
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Hats Off
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

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On an Anabaptist forum yet! Talk about sneaky!
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

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Wayne in Maine wrote:By posting this topic in response to a statement Max made, I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that Plain Catholics actually exist and that he is one of them - though I have doubted that any such thing as "Plain Catholics" exist based on some of the evidenced Boot has presented at various times. In the very least I was interested in hearing what Max understood of the theological roots of Anabaptism and what the theological affinity is that he has with Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites rather than focusing on head coverings, beards and rural living (which are peripheral to Anabaptism).

No matter what one would like to discuss in this thread, it is tainted by Max's evasiveness and by the serious doubts we rightfully have about the authenticity of "Plain Catholics" ant the movement's promoter(s) and apologist(s).
I have been giving the benefit of the doubt also hoping for clear answers, mainly out of curiosity. I'm still hoping for some replies here from Max. From what he has posted in this thread and from a private message, the best I can understand is that PCs share the Anabaptist view of the Trinity and some other basic doctrines such as salvation, God and his plans, but in the critical (to Anabaptists at least) areas of believer's baptism and nonresistance/non-participation in war, there can be little commonality. Because Plain Catholics do in fact permit/practice infant baptism as well as participation in the military according to what Max has said, putting the matter to rest in my mind.
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mike
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

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Bootstrap wrote:On Catholic Forums, this thread may be helpful:
Plain_Catholic wrote:We have an apostolate to the Amish and other Anabaptist groups. Our plain and simply modest clothing with head coverings breaks down many barriers to facilitate dialogue with these groups. My wife and daughters have been very effective in their presence and witness to our Catholic faith while they wear prayer kapps and caped dresses. The New Evangelization calls everyone.
That's quite interesting. The thread looks about four years old. I wonder what the purpose of the dialogue is, but I suppose that is made obvious by the term "New Evangelization."
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

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Wayne in Maine wrote:Here: Catholic Land Movement
There's some interesting discussion and some familiar photos. In the comments "Magnus" is the spokesman for Plain Catholics.
Two interesting things about this. First, the discussion of evangelizing Anabaptists:
Plain Catholic clothing is just dresses and work clothes without all the accessories. Since they’re on a mission to Anabaptists their clothing makes sense where your clothing would not.
Evangelizing Anabaptists is the reason given for choosing Amish / German Baptist clothing rather than other simple clothing. Of course, they are working from the images in the website, which are of Amish and German Baptists.

And also the part where the person running the site says he would love to actually talk to some Plain Catholics and write about them on his site, asking where he can find them:
I have done a yeoman’s job of reading their website. I notice this line on a forum dedicated to Plain Catholics “…I read a post by a Plain Catholic on a forum that they decided to put up a website to explain the concept without constant interruptions to their separation from the secular culture. If people ask them they just point them to the website.” After reading their website, I still don’t know exactly where any of them are, if I wanted to walk up and talk to them, could I? I would love to share with the readers of this blog, which is encouraging people to move to the American Redoubt if there exist any communities of Plain Catholics in Idaho, Wyoming or Montana. Since the magisterium of the catholic church does not demand we live as Plain Catholics live, what guidelines do they follow?
This blogger encourages people to move to the country and live an agricultural lifestyle, and he is looking for people to interview and write about. He didn't find them.
Last edited by Bootstrap on Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

Post by Bootstrap »

One other useful indicator: look for any mention of Plain Catholics before they put up their first website in 2001. Nada. Even after that, there just isn't anything that shares personal experiences knowing Plain Catholics.

In books, "plain Catholic" means a simple, normal Catholic, not a Catholic in Anabaptist clothing or a Catholic who decides to homestead.

The same is true in articles.

The Catholic Land Movement, on the other hand, is well attested in articles, in books, and on the Internet. There's widespread agreement that it died out without leaving a successor movement. And it was quite different from what we see described on the Plain Catholic website.
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

Post by Valerie »

I really enjoyed reading one of the links you provided:

https://forums.catholic.com/t/plain-cat ... ress/49042

These comments go back to 2006 in that thread regarding plain Catholics- at least by what I've sifted through somewhat briefly, it does give some credance to the claim of there being 'plain' catholics-

What I really enjoyed was the tone of the discussion among these Catholics and I saw there was a former Mennonite lady on there that had apparently become Catholic- it was kind of ironic how she seemed to not be real supportive of plain dress- but there were a lot of good comments about dress on there and they were so kind to each other! I thought that would be a good thread for Francis on here to read since she is trying to resolve this modest & cape dress issue. I learned some things- the cape dress was originally copied from nuns?

ANyways in thinking about this, wasn't it one of the women on MN who had originally discovered plain Catholics and invited Max on here to begin with? Am I remembering this wrong? It was an MN poster, of Anabaptism- that brought the whole thing up to begin with- and shortly after Max began posting- do you remember who that was? Maybe in archives- I think he was 'invited'.
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Re: Are Plain Catholics Anabaptists?

Post by Wayne in Maine »

Max wanted to discuss this in a private message against my wishes, so I will post his PM.
MaxPC wrote:Greetings: I'll answer the questions that are standing out at the moment.
Re Baptisms: The important point I have re the Code of Canon Law is this: removing one paragraph to quote out of context is not the way to look at the COCL, the CCC, or the Bible. That single excerpt posted alone is grossly misleading just as posting a single paragraph from the Bible misleads. That paragraph on infant baptism came from a larger section on procedurals. Farther into that section of the CCOL the procedurals are also given for adult baptism; baptism for fetuses that manage to survive abortion procedures; baptism on the deathbed; etc. The Catholic Church can and does baptize adults. The choice is up to the believer.
What I posted from Canon Law was quite explicit " Parents are obliged to take care that infants are baptized in the first few weeks"... The complete text of canon law regarding baptism is here: Code of Canon Law:BAPTISM (Cann. 849 - 878)
The common ground to which I'm referring is the belief in the Trinity, Salvation, Resurrection, etc. For us, these are the chief and principle matters of all theological points. The Dordrecht does do a more thorough job of defining Anabaptist teachings in these matters of God and His plans. They are in sync with our teachings. God's nature and plan for our salvation is in our view, the most important teaching of all. Age of baptism aside, there are many more points on which we agree in these matters than disagree. YMMV and I respect your perspective.
We could discuss this. In my experience the understanding of "God's nature and plan for our salvation" is quite at variance between the generation of Anabaptist represented by Dortrecht and Schleitheim and the Roman church both of that time and of the present time.
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