Posted on 11/03/2003 9:42:20 PM PST by RnMomof7
What do you think it says?
SD
Duh. Of course the Orthodox sites are supportive of their own view. Why would you say "even" the Orthodox sites?
It is a historical fact that the Orthodox accepted the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.
The Orthodox church never taught unum sanctum.
They recognized the primacy of Rome. Which is the same thing, no matter how much you want to deny it. Unum Sanctum is simiply a restatement, not a new thing. It's like running around in circles with you. You have no evidence and you refuse to listen to those who do.
And if I presented any evidence, you would wave your hand and dismiss it as fraud or forgery.
Unum Sanctum before it was altered, stated that Anyone claiming to follow Christ must submit to the bishop of Rome and without such submission they could not be saved. Now we know the "invincible ignorance" clause has since been added.
Unum Sanctum was never altered. You live in a dream world.
So the church is in error either for teaching unum sanctum or for not teaching it. You can't have it both ways.
Apparently we are, to you, wrong no matter what. Since that is your a priori decision, why the pretense of an argument? Just say you know Cahtolics are wrong cause your belief system is structured around the dogma that Catholics are wrong? It would be more honest of you, instead of pretending to mimic logic and facts?
SD
The proper question is what do I know the canon says.
Never forget No Catholic teaching has a certain enough meaning that it cannot be denied or modified as needed.
Dave is correct Havoc. What has been altered is the understanding of Unum Sanctum.
Not unless you believe that the idea of "culpabilty" was nowhere to be found in the middle ages.
SD
I take it by your response your Church does approve of divorce/re-marriage. The Bible is emphatically clear that anyone who divorces and marries another is committing adultery. But what the heck, all the other Protestant Churches allow it so it must be OK.
Ah yes, I feel the love. Peace be with you.
I don't know when I have been more confused. I am trying to understand all of this one True Church. I believe in one true Church, but that being all who believe and accept Jesus as Savior. I assume I am being told here that only the Catholic church is the true Church, but I might make it because I am not aware of that fact through ignorance of false teaching. Or something like that?
I wanted to get back to you on this ...
Most Protestants/Non-Catholics believe as you do that the church of Jesus Christ is composed of all those who have believed upon and accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour.
Catholic belief is somewhat different.
Catholic belief is that Jesus established the church under the authority of Peter the Apostle. Catholics consider Peter to be the first pope.
Catholics further contend that Peter passed on his authority to govern the church to a successor before he passed away, who then passed on his authority, and so on and so forth, ... till we come to the present day, where the latest recipient of this authority is the current pope, John Paul II.
So, in effect, Catholics contend that Peter's grant of authority over the church, by Jesus, and the subsequent passing on of that authority to successors over the last 2000 years, established a line of popes, who have, successively ruled over the Catholic church from the days of Peter until now. Further, Catholics contend that the line of the popes has, for the most part, had the Vatican in Rome as its headquarters.
Now, as to other christians, ...
... we see from the New Testament writings that the church, early on, had begun to organize itself via locality ... so we see references to the church at Jerusalem, the church at Antioch, Corinth, Sardis, Rome, Ephesus, etc.
It appears that this tradition continued across the early centuries of the church's existence, whereupon there were bishops appointed to pastor these various local church bodies. The church, over time, spread so that there came to be what was known as the Western (or Latin speaking) church and what was known as the Eastern (or Greek speaking) church. In time, there arose tensions between these two branches of the church, fundamentally over the issue of the claimed authority of the Bishop of the church of Rome over the remainder of the church. Such tensions would eventually lead to a split (or schism) between the Western church (which became the Roman Catholic church) and the Eastern church (which became the Eastern Orthodox church).
Now, the Bishop of the church in Rome, even today in the 20th century, insists that he has a primacy of jurisdiction over all Churches. He claims they should be subject to him since "he is not only Bishop of Rome, but also the Vicar of Christ on Earth, the successor of St. Peter, and the Supreme Pontiff". The Orthodox church is told that it would not be necessary to change any of their teachings or customs, only that they must submit to the Pope's jurisdiction. The question as to the supremacy of the Pope was the main cause of the separation of the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman) Churches.
A few centuries later, ... Martin Luther, a Roman Catholic monk, ... complained to the Roman Catholic church hierarchy about what he saw as a non-biblical practice by the church ... that being the apparent selling of indulgences by the church.
Now one of the major differences in belief between the Catholic and Protestant churches concerns the issue of Purgatory. Catholics contend that it is the rare christian which goes directly to heaven upon their deaths. Rather, they will, likely, go to Purgatory, where any remaining sinfulness will be purged from them, ... afterwhich they may proceed to heaven.
This is just one of a collection of doctrinal differences between the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches.
Now the Roman Catholic church, by Luther's time, had approved and established the practice of the granting of indulgences to its people. Such a grant (of an indulgence) would subtract some portion of the experience of Purgatory from those for whom the indulgence was granted. The church stipulated requirements which must be fulfilled in order to obtain an indulgence. That the recipient of the indugence perform acceptable works were one of the requirements for the granting of an indulgence. Monetary gifts were considered as acceptable works at the time. So, to Luther, it appeared that the Church was enriching itself from what he saw as the sale of indulgences to the Catholic public.
In response to this practice, Luther posted his 95 theses (primarily his objections to the church's practice of the selling of indulgences) to the door of the Wittenburg church. The Roman Catholic church's response to Luther's theses was to demand that he recant his published disagreement with Catholic church or be excommunicated. Luther refused to recant, and so, the Catholic Church excommunicated him.
Upon his excommunication from the Catholic church, supporters of his theological positions rallied around him ... and so began the Protestant Reformation, out of which were born the various Protestant churches.
The Protestant churches rejected the claim of the Pope's authority over the church and based their theologies on what they interpreted strictly from the scriptures.
And so it continues today.
As I mentioned previously, the Roman Catholic church continues to see itself as the only viable church of Jesus Christ which is in existence today. Up until the 1960's, the Roman Catholic church regarded all others which claimed to be christians as false claimants ... doomed to hell ... all because they not a part of the Catholic church.
As of the 1960's or so, the Roman Catholic church amended its position on this ... instead declaring that claimed christians which were outside of the Roman Catholic church were to be considered to be separated brethren, insomuch as they were invincibly ignorant of the fact that the Roman Catholic church is the only true church in existence.
I hope that this serves to alleviate some of your confusion. The subject of the validity of the claims of the Roman Catholic church/Orthodox church/Protestant churches can be a complex one.
There are representatives from all of the major parties who post regularly on FR. Hopefully, any questions you may yet have can be addressed to your satisfaction. I would, certainly, be open to address further questions.
As of the 1960's or so, the Roman Catholic church amended its position on this ... instead declaring that claimed christians which were outside of the Roman Catholic church were to be considered to be separated brethren, insomuch as they were invincibly ignorant of the fact that the Roman Catholic church is the only true church in existence.
Again, very well done. And again, I would like to stress/add that certainly the degree of culpabilty for remaining outside of the Catholic Church is different for the 1st generation Protestant than it is for the 21st.
And again, even those formally outside of the Church who are Christians are still spiritually linked to the Catholic Church because of baptism.
To sum, there are those formally members of the Catholic Church who will go to hell. And there are those formally outside of the Catholic Church who will be "saved." The former may be formally a member, but is not spiritually attached to he Church, while the latter is the opposite.
SD
I say "even" because I know your tactics. And I'm ready for them.
It is a historical fact that the Orthodox accepted the primacy of the Bishop of Rome.
This would be the greatest announcement since we learned from you guys that you really had nothing to do with the deaths in the inquisitions - that it was the fault of the civil authorities (whose arms you twisted to get it done). Oh, wait - all technicalities with ya'll.. thus the next bit..
Unum Sanctum was never altered. You live in a dream world.
Unum Sanctum is here. Just punched it into google and grabbed the first link. See how that works. Out there for the world who you seem to think is too stupid to use a search engine, read or understand anything without it being explained by Rome first. Harsh way of putting it; but, then it doesn't have the eloquence that ya'll wrap your condescentions in. You'll note that nowhere in the bull proclaimed by Boniface is the "invincible ignorance" clause. Nowhere. That came much later under a different infallible pope who decided that Boniface's version of infallible statement must have been in error and provided a parachute for all us idiots who don't know anything about your authority after memorizing the Bible. What's that truism, The lie doesn't sound as good stated frankly by the one who exposes it. I understand you have to say the things you do in order to keep the "faithful" from worrying that they might have blind people leading them. It doesn't bother you to say one thing one day, the opposite the next and pretend there is no problem with it. That's why we aren't supposed to be involved in 'vain philosophies' of men. You've got us off topic again btw, don't think I don't know that's what you intend as a damage control device. But one more thing..
Boniface pronounced this in the 14th century. For roughly 1300 years, nobody ever heard of this requirement for salvation. All them poor Catholic fools who never heard of a pope prior to your defining one 3/4 of the way through the first thousand years AD must be shocked about now. And the ones who all didn't make it to the 1302 must really be cheesed. Maybe they were releived when they later got the invincible ignorance clause to know that you all just think them imbeciles for not knowing this doctrine that the Apostles never taught - that Christ NEVER taught.. lets back up and catch one more thing before I get us back on point again.
It's like running around in circles with you. You have no evidence and you refuse to listen to those who do.
Running in circles - yes it is like that because getting you to admit when your clergy is wrong is like getting Bill Clinton to admit he lied. You always want to split hairs and evade. You are technically correct that Unum sanctum wasn't altered. But the truth is it never contained the escape clause which got added to the doctrinal stance later - basically a 180 reversal on ya'lls part. Then you'll argue there is no difference in the two teachings or something similarly offensive to common sense.. Been there with you before - remember. Were I to listen to you and yours, and reject history, I might be dumb and blind as to believe what you all tried to argue about the decretals back in the NES. That really caused some major need for damage control. Ever get them crow feathers picked out of your teeth or are you still trying to resist eating what you cooked? Oh, wait, forget it. Not nice to refresh your memory on such things - like calling a direct quote of Jesus "near blasphemy" cause you didn't have a clue he'd said it. Oh, wait... Yes, we should all just take your word for it and ignore our lying eyes and ears - I do forget.
Apparently we are, to you, wrong no matter what. Since that is your a priori decision, why the pretense of an argument?
Ah, I wondered when the next underhanded debate tactic would come up. The old presumptive bigot argument couched in dime words. But you've skillfully labelled me and played the sympathy card and the martyr card all at once. Tell me, does the police officer that writes your speeding ticket hate your guts, or is he merely doing his job? Grow up. You are wrong when you do wrong. You are right when you do right. Otherwise I could care less. But you are hear presuming to speak for Christianity and can't demonstrate sound judgement, let alone what Chrisitanity is. I'm a Biblical Christian - you know, those pesky thorns in the side who won't be told that Christianity is someone's philosophy dressed up with a few Christian themes to beg authority for the philosophy. That is my interest here. I personally don't care if you're Catholic, Krishan or Mooney. You start uttering error and proclaiming it Christian and as long as I'm here, I'm going to stand up for the scriptures and for Christianity. You're too busy defending your philosophical doctrines to know what scripture says on the whole beyond a few verses you've been indoctrinated in to support your philosophy. And that's, to you, why error isn't error unless it doesn't mess with your philosophy to admit it. I'm concerned for your soul, but, you can be in error all you want if you don't want to listen. I don't care. I'm just not going to let you stand here and mislead people. You've lied about orthodoxy here. You're trying to decieve with regard to unum sanctum. And you are dodging the central point.
There is no blanket protection of the church, much less it's clergy. It isn't in scripture. And it is further shot down by example in what I've shown. There are plenty more examples to deal with - as you guys are a literal well of error examples to draw from. The only ones as apparent from my emails that can't see it are you guys here carrying water for Rome.
See, even after dealing with your smoke screen, I can get us back on point. Dave, Does it make you more credible or less credible to deny what everyone else sees and understands? And more importantly, when you have to stand reality on it's head, what is it you're defending? And why?
Havoc are you Orthodox? You certainly have a tremendous knowledge of the church.
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