Posted on 03/15/2008 10:17:55 AM PDT by big'ol_freeper
You wrote:
“No, it’s Catholics who believe that you can be prayed out of Purgatory if you’ve ever accepted the Catholic church’s teachings.”
Wrong. A one time acceptance of Catholic teaching in no way overrides the condition of your soul at the time of death. I know of no Catholic anywhere - certainly not one well catechized - who believes that a man’s actions and faith have nothing to do with his final destination. You are claiming that a mere intellectual acceptance of doctrine, once upon a time, ensures salvation. No one believes that, especially Catholics.
Try again.
“This is great for him, as he apparently fully accepted those teachings twice.”
There’s no evidence he ever accepted those teachings once let alone twice. 1) we have no evidence at all - NONE - about any particular strong devotion on his part when he was young and we know he renounced the faith when a young man. 2) He persecuted the faith and undermined it every chance he got.
Clearly he was not Catholic.
“Surely that means each prayer to get him out of Purgatory counts double.”
Surely your post is proof of not only ignorance but bitterness and bigotry as well.
When, and by what action, do you think these excommunications occurred?
During the Nazi regime, the Protestant Church in general supported Hitler. The Protestant clergymen who wound up as inmates at Dachau were those who were anti-Nazi, such as the Reverend Martin Niemöeller, one of the founders of the Confessional Church. Other Protestant ministers who were incarcerated in the Dachau concentration camp were Ernst Wilm and Kurt Scharf. Although there were far fewer Protestants who were persecuted by the Nazis than there were Catholics and Jews, Germany's Protestant Church has admitted using slave labour during World War II, and has pledged to pay compensation to Nazi victims. The admission came after revelations that Berlin church parishes set up a forced labour camp during the war, and used workers from mainly central and eastern Europe for tasks such as grave-digging. "This was complicity in a regime based on force and removed from the rule of law. We accept this guilt," said church council president Manfred Kock.
and
Let me conclude by quoting for the last time Mr. Peter F. Wiener "Throughout the Last war (WWI) and throughout the present one (WWII), the Germans have committed atrocities which are impossible to imagine by those who have merely read or heard about them. This is teaching hatred, but an undeniable though most unplasant fact. Not once in either war has any section of the Lutheran clergy protested -- such as have the churches of Norway and other occpied counties where the Gestapo is at least as strong as inside Germany. With the exception of a few refugee pastors in Britain, I do not know of any section of the German Protestant Confessional Church whose pastors have refused to preach, to serve, to ordain and bless the atrocities and horrors committed by the German armies and their leaders. These facts are unpleasant and horrible. I maintain that we can understand them and explain them only if we look at the dark figure from whom the German Lutheran clergy has for four centuries taken their orders: Martin Luther"
People should read directly what Luther had to say about Jews. It’s shocking.
You may justly criticize Luther for a lot of things, but it is true the church had come way off its center and mission by Luther's time and was in need of a huge correction.
Without Luther, the protestant reformation doesn't take place, nor would the Catholic church have reformed to the point that it would recognizable as Christ's Church once again.
My 2 cents.
Not at all and many protestants would diasgree with you. Read "Mein Kampf" and "Hitler's Table Talk" and Luther's "On the Jews and their Lies" and then try and assert that the association is unfair with a straight face.
“I do insist on the certainty that sooner or later—once we hold power—Christianity will be overcome and the German church, without a Pope and without the Bible, and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing.”
ADOLF HITLER
“Hitler's Speeches”, edited by Professor N. H. Baynes (Oxford, 1942), page 369.
“There is very little to be said for this coarse and foul-mouthed leader of a revolution. It is a real misfortune for humanity that he appeared just at the crisis in the Christian world. Even our burly Defender of the Faith was not a worse man, and did far less mischief. We must hope that the next swing of the pendulum will put an end to Luther's influence in Germany.”
Very Rev. W. R. Inge,(in the Church of England Newspaper”, August 4, 1944).
“It is easy to see how Luther prepared the way for Hitler.”
The late DR. WILLIAM TEMPLE Archbishop of Canterbury (“The Archbishop's Conference, Malvern, London, 1941, page 13).
I would drop this garbage. There's enough guilt to go around.
If you contrast Protestant North Germany and Catholic Bavaria and Austria, you'll find opposition and support for Hitler and the Nazis at various times and among various people. You can't draw a clear line between bad Protestants and good Catholics (or good Protestants and bad Catholics).
Rather, the line is between an era that was very receptive to statist or totalitarian ideologies, and our own, more libertarian epoch. After Hitler and Stalin, it doesn't take much virtue or intelligence to be anti-totalitarian, but if all of us had been alive and active seventy years ago, some of us would certainly have favored the dictators of the day.
Twice???
Did the first one not take?
All he needed in the bunker was a priest, a wafer, some wine, and say a couple of Hail Mary’s and he went right to Heaven. (Isn’t that what Rome teaches?)
I’m not Catholic, but know enough to say you sound pretty silly and what you said is simply false.
I’m actually not sure, but I don’t believe the Henry VIII or Cromwell preached hatred of Jews the way Martin Luther did. The Nazis were able to sell totalitarianism by blaming the Jews for every evil and Germany was willing to accept that in part because of the religiously based hatred of Jews.
“Queen Elizabeth I and the Popes of Rome
In 1570 Pope Pius V (1566-1572) issued a bull excommunicating Queen Elizabeth I for her actions in separating the English Church from the Roman Church and her persecution of Roman Catholics in Britain. In 1580 Pope Gregory XIII (1572-1585) conspired to have Queen Elizabeth I assassinated after his initial failure to get Emperor King Philip II of Spain to attack Ireland, the Netherlands and then England.”
http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/queen-elizabeth-i-jews-catholics.htm
That’s right, Luther was present at the Inquisition and tortured Jews.
Have you ever though that perhaps Luther’s Catholic roots were showing on this one?
Personally, I think God led to Hitler, because God made good things and Hitler perverted them horribly, and if God hadn't made good things, there'd be nothing for Hitler to pervert.
I think I Augustine lead to Hitler because Luther was an Augustinian canon.
I think Bush led to Hitler because everything is Dubya's fault.
According to the boss-lady, I led to Hitler because the whole point of getting married is to have someone to blame stuff on.
According to Freud, my mother led to Hitler.
Okay? Are we done here?
However, if you do believe it's up to God, but still based upon, in part, prayers of the living on behalf of those who are dead, then the prayers of Catholics should indeed be able to help persuade God to let Hitler into Heaven, even if he dies in apostasy. This is something Protestants do not believe.
:-)
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