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Italy's Padre Pio 'faked his stigmata with acid'
Telegraph ^ | October 24, 2007 | Malcolm Moore

Posted on 10/25/2007 9:24:05 AM PDT by NYer

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To: Campion

Wow, you really need some help untwisting Scripture.

Your first point is just babble. I am saying there is no need to pray to departed (dead) christians who will then shuttle my request to Christ for me, because I can pray directly to Christ. You are incorrectly equating praying to a dead Christian to pray for you or send your prayer up to God for you, with asking a Christian who is alive on the earth that you can talk to and ask to pray for you. They are not the same thing. Unfortunately you don’t realize this. There is no violation. The body of Christ on earth can help each other while on the earth. If you get there’s a disconnect in the ability of a dead human being to help living human beings still on the earth, you really don’t get a very simple concept.

Second point you are distorting what it means to be ‘absent from the body, present with the Lord.” They are in heaven right now, but they have not been resurrected yet, like Christ has. They have not yet received their immortal bodies yet, like Christ has. And forgive me, but they do not have the same powers of Christ. They are not God nor will any of us ever be God. Just because they are alive in heaven does not mean you can say that they can intercede for us.

You still cannot admit there is ONE mediator, Jesus Christ. We need no other. We don’t have to ask anyone else in heaven to do anything for us. They cannot do anything for us anyway.


61 posted on 10/25/2007 1:08:10 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man
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To: Pyro7480

Being ‘alive in Christ’ does not mean they have the powers of Christ. Or can do everything that Christ can do.

I am alive in Christ right now. I cannot do everything that Christ can do. Paul was alive in Christ. He could do miracles for awhile, until those powers were taken away from him. But Paul could not do everything Christ could do. It is not theologically sound or supportable that from the phrase ‘alive in Christ’ that you come up with the idea that the dead can intercede for us.


62 posted on 10/25/2007 1:11:23 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man
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To: Quix

Check that pride, did an angel come down and give you the scriptures?


63 posted on 10/25/2007 1:11:54 PM PDT by AliVeritas (Pray, Pray, Pray)
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To: Campion

You twist Scripture and take things out of context just to provoke. I feel sad for you.


64 posted on 10/25/2007 1:12:53 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man
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To: Secret Agent Man
For the sake of understanding your point of view: do you believe the Apostles' Creed? The Nicene Creed?

"What we do not see are examples of anyone teaching or promoting the idea of praying to dead Christians (absent from the body, present with the Lord), so that they in turn can take our prayers to God for us. There is nothing biblical about this. Paul never taught it."

But John did:

Revelation 5:8
And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God's people.

Revelation 8:3-4
Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God's people, on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God's people, went up before God from the angel's hand.

Clearly the citizens of heaven are offering the prayers of all God's people to God.

Surely you believe you are in a state of spiritual interconnection with people you cannot see. Do you stop praying for and with people if you don't have their phone number or their e-mail address? Isn't a fellow-Christian in heaven as close to you, or closer, than one in Passaic NJ?

It seems you believe in a boxed-up, compartmentalized Church, part-dead, part-living, out-of-touch and altogether incommunicado. But Christ teaches us we are all part of His body, utterly beyond the limitations of time and space, and utterly alive.

When you see us all as united in the living Christ, it's really quite beautiful.

65 posted on 10/25/2007 1:14:30 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (What does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God)
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To: Tolkien; Campion
No New Testament saint or Old Testament saint prayed to the dead

They are alive in Christ. Catholics believe as do our non-Catholic Christian friends, that there is only one mediator between God and man and that mediator is Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5). We do believe, however, that there is nothing wrong with having a member of our church pray for us. There are many examples of this in the Bible. Paul asking for prayer, Paul praying for others, and scriptures encouraging us to pray for each other.

66 posted on 10/25/2007 1:17:33 PM PDT by NYer ("Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church" - Ignatius of Antioch)
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To: Secret Agent Man
Being ‘alive in Christ’ does not mean they have the powers of Christ. Or can do everything that Christ can do.

Did you even read what I wrote? They have no power other than their prayer. God does the heavy lifting.

There's other biblical support for this. Then again, your "spiritual fathers" centuries ago expunged them.

67 posted on 10/25/2007 1:18:37 PM PDT by Pyro7480 ("Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus" -St. Ralph Sherwin's last words at Tyburn)
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To: Tolkien

Gee, I wonder if our elder brothers feel this way about Christians. Since to them Jesus was just another false human prophet... who was slain btw (i’m sure plenty of them didn’t witness the resurrection, Jesus was taking care of business), so to them, we’re using a dead human guy that was a fake. Would you say they were right? How could you prove they weren’t? They would tell you to pray directly to God, why would you use Jesus.


68 posted on 10/25/2007 1:20:25 PM PDT by AliVeritas (Pray, Pray, Pray)
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To: pillut48

dittos, to all the explanations you received.


69 posted on 10/25/2007 1:20:53 PM PDT by cheme
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To: Tolkien
As for Tolkien, I can pick whatever name I want as long as it's not taken by anyone else. If it's so important to you, why didn't you take it when you had the chance? I like him for his authorship, not his religion.

"The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision."
-J.R.R. Tolkien

70 posted on 10/25/2007 1:21:58 PM PDT by Pyro7480 ("Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus" -St. Ralph Sherwin's last words at Tyburn)
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To: NYer

Padre Pio, like Josemaria Escriva, will always be a polarizing figure. I know in the case of Josemaria, however, the charges are largely ludicrous (”Opus Dei runs the banks!”), to the out and out laughable (such as the “tell all” book by Josemaria’s secretary that accused him of using “foul language” from time to time).


71 posted on 10/25/2007 1:22:46 PM PDT by Clemenza (Rudy Giuliani, like Pesto and Seattle, belongs in the scrap heap of '90s Culture)
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To: Tolkien
"All my own perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded upon Our Lady."
-J.R.R. Tolkien
72 posted on 10/25/2007 1:24:13 PM PDT by Pyro7480 ("Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus" -St. Ralph Sherwin's last words at Tyburn)
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To: NYer

Carbolic acid is a very weak acid. It might cause chapped hands, but it will not induce bleeding.

OTOH it IS used for sterilization.


73 posted on 10/25/2007 1:24:17 PM PDT by kidd
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To: Mrs. Don-o

Your revelation examples are symbolic language. The whole book of revelation has many symbolic passages. It is symbolism. Further your example does not mention any specific dead person by name that the prayers were offered to, only that the prayers are in a bowl being held or moved around by angels or an elder. No names. Symbolic. You need to learn the difference between symbolism and literal language.

Second, the whole do I forget to pray for someone if I don’t have their phone # or email? You’re talking about people who are still alive on the earth that I can actually physically contact in some way.

You fail to understand that there is a divide between the living and the dead. Yes the dead in Christ are part of the Church Universal, but that does not mean that those still alive on the earth can communicate to them as if there were still here in their bodies. Once someone dies, Christian or not, there are certain avenues of communication that no longer work. Being part of the body of Christ does not mean you can access every part of the body of Christ the same way. God’s Word says you don’t try to talk to the dead (those no longer in their physical bodies).

Cmon people it’s not that hard.


74 posted on 10/25/2007 1:24:53 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man
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To: kidd

If memory serves, St. Maximilian Kolbe was killed by an injection of carbolic acid.


75 posted on 10/25/2007 1:25:26 PM PDT by Pyro7480 ("Jesu, Jesu, Jesu, esto mihi Jesus" -St. Ralph Sherwin's last words at Tyburn)
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Comment #76 Removed by Moderator

To: Secret Agent Man; Mrs. Don-o
Yes the dead in Christ are part of the Church Universal, but that does not mean that those still alive on the earth can communicate to them as if there were still here in their bodies. Once someone dies, Christian or not, there are certain avenues of communication that no longer work.

What is your source for these statements of fact?

It seems to me that the argument that communicating with the saints in Heaven is "necromancy," and therefore a sin, contradicts this argument, in which it's claimed that communicating with the saints in Heaven is impossible. I would suggest that the Biblical evidence, presented by others up the thread, supports the contention that communication with the saints (and perhaps with the non-sanctified) is quite possible. After all, why forbid something that's impossible anyway?

"Dead" is just a materialist obfuscation. "All live to Him."

77 posted on 10/25/2007 1:31:12 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("For is he not of noble birth? The first child born above the Earth!")
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To: tiki

I’m so sorry about your loss, tiki. Your family will be in my prayers.


78 posted on 10/25/2007 1:32:00 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("For is he not of noble birth? The first child born above the Earth!")
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To: Secret Agent Man
You are incorrectly equating praying to a dead Christian to pray for you or send your prayer up to God for you, with asking a Christian who is alive on the earth that you can talk to and ask to pray for you. They are not the same thing.

And how are they different, exactly? I mean apart from special pleading.

The Christian in heaven is freed from sin and enjoying the complete intimate union with God that is only possible in heaven.

The Christian on earth is not yet completely freed from sin and isn't yet enjoying that intimate union with God. And this makes his prayers more efficacious ... because ... ???

They are in heaven right now, but they have not been resurrected yet, like Christ has. They have not yet received their immortal bodies yet, like Christ has.

According to Christ, they're alive. According to you, they're dead.

Who should I believe?

You still cannot admit there is ONE mediator, Jesus Christ. We need no other.

You continue to distort and misunderstand that verse. Read it in context.

79 posted on 10/25/2007 1:32:49 PM PDT by Campion
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To: Secret Agent Man
You twist Scripture and take things out of context just to provoke. I feel sad for you.

What I'm trying to "provoke" is critical thought on your part, about the degree to which your presuppositions contradict Scripture, and even contradict themselves.

80 posted on 10/25/2007 1:37:00 PM PDT by Campion
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