Originally posted by tys_mommy
So how was Mary still a virgin at death???
You were raised Catholic, weren't you?
Don't get me wrong, I'm Catholic. I intend to raise my kids that way. But the average parish teaches the Bible and the Catholic religion at a child's level. They don't ask you to think. When I went to college, the church I went to asked to to approach your faith on an adult level. The priest discussed with us little known church documents (specifically the "Vatican II" documents) that radically defy what your parish priest taught you, without invalidating the basic tenets of the faith. The problem with Vatican II is it allows people to question things the Church taught for centuries without being branded heretics, which was done in the past. The problem with that is, it shook the Catholic church to it's core, many devout Catholics couldn't handle that and many parish priests and schools tried to pretend it never happened. Many, to this day won't discuss it.
I cannot find the passage I want to quote, but there is something about when Mary comes to Jesus on the cross, it also says that his brothers were there. But some denominations, Catholic especially, are so fixated on the idea that Mary was and always will be a virgin, they actually deny the words in the Bible.