Posted on 08/18/2008 11:07:43 AM PDT by koinonia
In a Blog entry entitled "The New Christology", Fr. John O'Keefe writes:
Calling Jesus “Saviour” or “Redeemer”, to say that Jesus was sent by God to die for me, and that I should pray to Jesus is quite ludicrous. To take the literal meaning of most of the scripture texts as being absolute truth is to make the scriptures stories of complete fantasy...
Was Jesus God? No, Jesus was a human being who had to learn about God in the same way that we learn... Jesus had no special privileges, no special knowledge, but the spark of divinity that is in all of us was something that he so easily brought into play.
Was Jesus the saviour of the world? There doesn’t seem to be much salvation in the world I know. He may well have been saviour to those people whose lives he influenced, but putting all our trust in Jesus as our one and only saviour has not had any great effect. Jesus was perhaps saviour of the world in showing us how to live our lives in a creative, a forgiving and a compassionate way.
The best translation of the Greek word "Logos" that I have come across is "creative energy"... Yes, Jesus was full of the creative energy of God and showed that energy is so many ways, in the familiarity of his relationship with God, in all the things he said and did... We have to recognise that creative energy of God in other people, not just in Jesus. There is one thing I have been saying for a long time, and firmly believe: ALL THAT JESUS WAS WE CAN BE!
(Excerpt) Read more at catholica.com.au ...
Ping...
Some may not be suitable for family viewing. This is bizarre, IMO.
That’s supposed to be a Catholic saying that?
“Any comments on this one?”
The Great Schism made this sort of apostasy inevitable.... :)
Only one: why does this person continue to pretend to be a Christian? His comments fly in the face of Trinitarian doctrine and are (here comes the “b” word) blasphemous, in that they deny the deity of Jesus Christ.
Bring it on.
John, Ted and Nancy call themselves Catholic too.
ping
I didn't know the Unitarians had priests.
Jesus was a New Age guru. NOT
Wow this is really dumb. I know atheists who know the Bible better than this guy.
That webstite is like going to a natural history museum and looking at dinosaurs. I didn’t know there were that many left-wing catholics left. I figured JPII had sent them all packing. These guys are not supportes of the pope and evne question the divinity of Jesus. How can they even claim to be Christian - let alone catholic Christians?
Bring it on.
I think it's totally OK to call it what it is, so long as no kindling or stakes are involved.
This is actually kind of interesting for me. Since being saved I have come across people with diverse opinions on one doctrine or another. But I've never though, "hey this guy crossed the line". Now here I see this guy and it's clear to me that he crossed it at some point (and apparently left it far behind).
So anyways, I wonder, what is the line? My thoughts are that the core of our faith is Jesus Christ, who is God who chose to become flesh to suffer and die for our sins.
And so a lot of people in my Bible study and church, I hear a lot of things against what Catholics believe and what not. For example it's brought up that they pray to Mary (and other saints).
I knew an orthodox guy who did the same and he said basically that "would God have time for us? that's why we need these guys to intervene". He also believed that to be saved you had to be a member of the orthodox church because it is "the church".
Now, I've found this bits to be false from the Bible and from my own experience with God. So what does that bad doctrine mean? Is that beyond a line? Are these guys still my Christian brothers?
My thinking is that yes, it's wrong. So it's what, a sin? Is it a different kind of sin then my sins? Are they forgiven with the rest of our sins?
What about the wrong ideas or notions we have in our own doctrine? Surely none of us have it all down perfectly, surely we all have a few mistakes?
I think that if you have faith in Jesus then those sins are forgiven. So I think that's the line between a Christian and non-Christian...faith in Christ who is God and one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Please let me know your thoughts.
Wait, why was my #9 removed? :(
Clearly they’ve cornered the market in indulgences.
I don’t know if this is the same O’Keefe but it would not surprise me.
The article I read he went on about how Christ was incarnate since creation and how that tied into the Eucharist.
I’ll check my source when I get home.
Potty language - and references to potty language - are not allowed on the Religion Forum.
Yes momma. :(
I won’t do it again. :)
Catholica Australia is a cyber initiative that has grown organically from a small group of lay Catholics who first met about five years ago when the CathNews discussion forum was established. They were individuals characterised by a search for a deeper understanding of their faith but, in many cases, also struggling with significant challenges in their own lives.
Much as I love the Internet, back in the real 60s, these people were probably on a commune, staying out of the way, deservedly obscure! Though I couldn't help wondering how many of the "significan challenges" they faced were in the area of mental health!
One person who commented on the article persisted in capitalizing "self" -- yes, he was talking about himself (himSelf? his own Self?)!
As the Pope and Doctrine say, "Once a priest, always a priest", even a sinning, unworthy, priest remains a priest.
“Actually, this line of thought is very similar to Gnostic thought that PRE-dates the Catholic interpretation.”
Indeed...and until the break with The Church in the East, the Rome had this sort of thinking under control.
Such controls that the Catholic church used - beatings, murder, torture, etc should not be held in high esteem as they are counter to the teachings of Jesus.
Acts 4:12 from John 14:6 from John 3:16 from Genesis 1:1
Can a Catholic priest deny divinity of Jesus and still be a Catholic priest?
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church #454 The title "Son of God" signifies the unique and eternal relationship of Jesus Christ to God his Father: he is the only Son of the Father (cf. Jn 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18); he is God himself (cf. Jn 1:1). To be a Christian, one must believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God (cf. Acts 8:37; 1 Jn 2:23).
"God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God"--that's what all true Christians have always professed.
Let's pray for him and those he may be misleading.
As has already been said, any man validly ordained by a bishop in Apostolic Succession is a priest forever. The change is indelible.
It is not infallible and can be corrupted. Fr. O’Keefe may well continue to be a priest by ordination but if he continues to broadcast open heresy like this, he is very likely to be deposed. In such a case, the man is inhibited from celebrating Catholic sacraments in any church under the deposing bishop’s authority. Any brother bishop can recognize depositions made by bishops he recognizes as Apostolic and thus the inhibition can extend beyond the original canonical jurisdiction.
I can’t see a reasonably faithful Catholic parish petitioning for him as rector nor accepting him should a bishop recommend him. I’d expect his sermons to be on the...vague side.
Do not use potty language - or references to potty language - on the Religion Forum.
My statement about blasphemy was an acknowledgement of the definition of blasphemy - denying God, His power or His deity. I didn’t feel I was judging this [insert pejorative of your choice] priest, merely identifying his statement for what it was.
None of us is the Judge, but we are called to discern and speak the truth in love. Contradicting statements that directly conflict with Scripture (not merely with doctrine) is a Christian’s holy duty, to protect the ignorant or nonbeliever (as opposed to unbeliever) from believing something false about God.
RE: whether sins are forgiven, of course they are; however, there’s scriptural support for calling blasphemy “the unforgivable sin”, in that it’s not possible for God to forgive the person who denies His deity. If He did, what would be the purpose of belief in Him, rather than in reincarnation, Nirvana or nothingness?
Good questions and good observations.
“Such controls that the Catholic church used - beatings, murder, torture, etc should not be held in high esteem as they are counter to the teachings of Jesus.”
No, those methods should not be held in any kind of esteem. I was referring to teaching the correct theology, which indeed Rome had done, for which we in the East are eternally grateful, with remarkable consistency until the Great Schism. In the East, The Church had no need for “...beatings, murder, torture, etc” as there The Church was confident of its theology and left the beatings etc to the State for the purposes of the State.
Why? Maybe we need to define what "priest" means before we continue this.
He’s actually a priest? What, a Jesuit?
Except that the Catholic church did in fact use those methods to quell any and all questioning of the official interpretation. As for the teaching of correct theology, how Rome deviated from scripture is what started the questioning of the official party line. It was Rome’s zeal to ENFORCE the traditions of man over the scriptures that lead it away from the teachings of Jesus.
A ‘priest’ in the Catholic sense is a man who has been trained, tested and then ordained by the imposition of hands by an Apostolic bishop (one himself consecrated by bishop who was himself consecrated by...by the Apostles). No other authority than a valid bishop will suffice to convey the necessary grace. He is supposed to be expert in the duties of priesthood in the same sense that a lawyer or medical doctor is qualified: the training is supposed to be rigorous and to tend to winnow out weaklings and those missing either aptitude or skill.
Now, this is a very technical definition. It utterly avoids the true test of a priest: is he in fact a living exemplar of Jesus Christ, imbued spiritually with the power of the Holy Ghost to proclaim Christ crucified for our sake and to minister sacramentally to those given into his pastoral care for the cure of souls and the building up of the kingdom until the King returns. There is one taller order than this: bishop. There is no heavier spiritual load in this life.
If the writer of that article was in fact priested, as the phrasing goes, then he is supposed to have gone through a pretty tough vetting, not least a strict examination by chaplains themselves certified as fully expert in faith and practice and to have been found to have a valid vocation by spiritual inquirers, usually led by the bishop. This is supposed to have found out such little oddities as total dismissal of the Two Natures of the One Person Jesus Christ, Son of God. One suspects that this opinion has emerged over time, not having been a feature of the man’s belief set when originally vetted.
As I say, when these kinds of things pop up, the best solution is presentment for heresy. If found guilty, then deposition and public advertisement as being unfit for priestly duty is the right road to take.
“Except that the Catholic church did in fact use those methods to quell any and all questioning of the official interpretation.”
The Church of Rome did, not the rest of The Church.
“As for the teaching of correct theology, how Rome deviated from scripture is what started the questioning of the official party line.”
Until the 11th century, the teachings of the Church of Rome were thoroughly Orthodox. Indeed, Rome was the rock of Orthodox Christianity in the face of one vicious heresy after another arising, generally, in the East. After the Photian Schism, its orthodoxy waned. Widespread questioning of the “party line” didn’t occur until after the Schism. BTW, there was no Reformation in the East.
I agree that physical duress is strictly wrongful in dealing with any kind of spiritual dissent.
I think that, as was true in the East, the West generally employed the secular arm for the torments typically imposed in past ages. I know that the Inquisition became torturous when the Church was divested of its control, which then passed to the Spanish state. That religious were employed in the tortures is not to be denied.
Even in the case of the Templars, the tortures were conducted by French authorities, though the warrants were obtained by application to the Pope. It was also the French crown which eventually burned them.
I’m hoping to be irenic here and to add to the conversation.
This can't be a blanket statement, Kolo. Rome passively embraced "filioque" way before the Great Schism, along with Augustinian teachings while subscribing to the orthodox faith of the Councils.
Pope Honorius I passively embraced heresy in Constantinople, for which he was posthumously condemned as a heretic by the whole Church, with a new pope's approval. He was cursed by every succeeding pope since then until the Great Schism, after which the practice stopped.
The whole Photian mumbo-jumbo so-called "VIII Ecumenical Council(s)" revolve around Rome's unorthodox theological grounds for their divergent practices two hundred years before the Great Schism.
As early as the 5th century, at the Council of Chalcedon, Pope +Leo I argued against Eutychian monophysitism by saying that the Word assumed human nature but not the guilt. You know very well that the concept of "guilt" inherited form Adam is a purely Augustinian theology that never had any basis in the East.
All this points to the fact that dfference in theology began very early. The Council of Orange, also 5th century, is a tel-tale proof that the west was thoroughly "Augstinionized" by then.
Sure, the Popes maintained orthodoxy on other issues, such as iconoclastic heresy of the East and a variety of monothelian and similar heresies coming from the highest echelons of the eastern Church, but that doesn't mean that the Church was in any theologically united before the Great Schism.
If anything the Great Schism represents the culmination of the theological divide of the time, bordering on absurd (the East was accused of such "heresies" as having married and bearded clergy by self-styled papal "legate" Cardinal Humbert, representing a dead pope!).
During this period of "remarkable consistency" of theology in the Undivided Church, the Church experienced decades of Easter-West breaks in communion on a variety of issues.
The thruth that emerges, when the history of the Church is exposed, suggests that there was never true unity in theology in the Church. Pauline Epistles attest to that. The Petrine-Pauluine, and the "hypocrites" of James at Antioch, all indicate that, once Christ departed, divisions began.
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception and Vatican I in the 19th century were the last straw in creating an irreparable schism with the East theologically speaking, only as a culmination of theological divisions that existed all along.
This doesn't mean we are not close or that our clergy and their clergy are not "real" clergy. It simply means that either one or the other Church is correct, or that both are wrong. If anything, the continuous rifts only indicate a failure to obey Christ's commandment that the Church be one.
And a failure to realize Christ's commandments is a failure when it comes to the that which calls itself the Body of Christ. There seems to be a disconnect between the Body and the Mind.
It would be interesting to see an official Catholic list of all heresy that has been put down.
How can someone who denies Christ (as the Church teaches it) be considered alter Christus (or as an icon of Christ, as the Orhtodox say)?
A doctor who kills patients is not a healer. Just because he passed all the medical school tests and received a diploma doesn't make him a doctor; it's what he does that does. It's not enough to just be born human; one must be human.
Calling Jesus “Saviour” or “Redeemer”, to say that Jesus was sent by God to die for me, and that I should pray to Jesus is quite ludicrous.Was Jesus God? No,
Was Jesus the saviour of the world? There doesn’t seem to be much salvation in the world I know.
The best translation of the Greek word "Logos" that I have come across is "creative energy"..
Who is this guy? Clergy, lay? If he's RC, is there anything like discipline there anymore? ALL THAT JESUS WAS WE CAN BE!
crypto-LDS?
A lawyer can be disbarred. A doctor can have his license taken away. A priest can be deposed. It is the same action for comparable reason.
The deposed priest is supposed to obey the deposition and not perform priestly actions. He would sin doing so. There is, however, nothing preventing him simply ignoring the deposition, buying elements and holding vagante Eucharists because he is still apostolically a priest, even if canonically he is inhibited. I know it’s complex, but this is the way it is, to my understanding.
Put another way: the doctor who kills may have been board-certified as competent at some point in time. Let’s assume the death was accidental, caused by unintentional malpractice rather than malignant intent to murder. That doctor could be brought up on charges and if found guilty, would lose the license to practice. He would then stop being a doctor, it being a recognition by ordinary mundane authority of demonstrated skill, aptitude and moral standing.
The priest is all that and more. He can be inhibited, but that will only remove his authority to publicly practice. It will not affect his ordinal status or his spiritual power. That was given unconditionally and continues. That he will likely pass along spiritual death through false and destructive teachings is the great danger in not being fully public about the deposition and inhibition because he could well simply cite his lineage and be taken as being in good standing. The responsible laity should then be always warned to not merely obtain proof of ordination but also proof of good standing to be sure that the man is not only ordained but still faithful and orthodox.
A lawyer who has been disbarred is no longer a lawyer. One can practice law by virtue of his license not his education. Meeting academic requirements only gives you the right to take a licensure (bar) exam. The law diploma by itself doesn't make you a lawyer. When disbarred he is no longer a lawyer.
Put another way: the doctor who kills may have been board-certified as competent at some point in time. Let’s assume the death was accidental, caused by unintentional malpractice rather than malignant intent to murder
No. That's not how it works. One must show negligence. Accidents may be negligent or they may be just a freaky situation beyond our control.
In the case of Fr. O'Keefe, his theology is not accidental. It's very well thought out.
It will not affect his ordinal status or his spiritual power [sic]
Now we are talking 'magic.' What 'power' does the priest have? His power comes from God when he is doing God's will. His prayers are valid if they are in harmony with God's will.
It is not the priest who changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood but the Holy Spirit on account of the priest honestly supplicating God to affect the change (something liturgically known as the epiklesis).
Otherwise, we cannot trust the priests we have. If the Church ordains Judas priests, then none can be considered alter Christus. An unbelieving priest is no priest. Period.
O'Keefe is allowed to have his beliefs, but they are fundamentally opposite from the Church he claims to represent. He was ordained a Catholic priest on a premise that he believes what the Church teaches. Otherwise God calls on nonbelievers to be become Judas priests, in which case everyone is a suspect.
If the bible is not true why is this guy in a religious order? Seem like he is a hypocrite.
We might as well do as Paul suggested if Christ be not risen the our hope is in vain and we should eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.
Revelation 00054 3:5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
It appears that Jesus can blot names out of the Book of Life, so to say someone can do what they want with no consequences is a lie.
I did not say there were no consequences. I said that the ordination was indelible. In point of fact, for an ordained priest to volitionally sin is a graver matter than for a layman and his name will certainly be blotted out. Just because he is ordained does not insulate him from his sin and his wilfullness.
The bible does say that if a teacher teaches error and cause one to stumble there is a greater punishment.
“Now we are talking ‘magic.’ What ‘power’ does the priest have? His power comes from God when he is doing God’s will. His prayers are valid if they are in harmony with God’s will.”
So, you assert that the minister’s worth determines the validity of the sacrament? You do know that the Church decided the oppposite many centuries ago, yes? I grant that the controversy was in the West, but the circumstances appear to have been widely noised about at the time and still have currency. The issue arose because of lapsi during the Decian persecution, particularly clergy who renounced their vows to avoid martyrdom and who then appealed to be readmitted to active status when the persecution passed. Their admission was not the point, but there were clergy who had been ordained by them and who then were considered for episcopal authority. The Donatists denied that these could be considered true clergy because they had been ordained by clergy who later lapsed. This brought the issue up as to whether a sacrament validly performed with full intent to effect what the Church believes is the gracious purpose by someone otherwise qualified but who is in a state of grave sin (known or unknown) is in fact valid.
The Church decided that because the source of the sacrament’s validity is the warrant of Jesus Christ, the intent to properly administer, the fact of being properly administered by a minister acknowledged to have been authorized to celebrate and administered to a person qualified who fully believes that the sacrament will be effective suffices to guarantee the sacrament’s validity.
That does not mean that sacraments celebrated by men previously ordained but now under deposition are necessarily valid, even if they scrupulously observe every particle of necessary form and matter. It does not mean that such administrations are invalid. Too many variables remain undetermined (for instance: do those receiving the sacraments even know the minister is under deposition and is not supposed to celebrate?).
We can only say that if the inhibition is publicly known, then those who still go to that minister for sacramental grace themselve sin. They know he is not permitted to celebrate and it is a godly admonition from their bishop to respect a bound they should not pass.
All that said, Fr. O’Keefe has unburdened himself of fantastically askew opinions so dramatically in opposition to the core of Catholic/Orthodox faith that anyone thinking to employ him for spiritual help is only fooling themselves. He himself does not believe such grace is on offer, so sooner or later they are going to recognize that none is forthcoming. As I said, there has to be intent to perform that which the Church prescribes and part of that intent is to volitionally consent to the truth that God will operate through the actions of men He has caused to seek ordination in order to provide the grace God affords. If you do not believe you can do this or if you do not believe that God is capable of providing it, then the intent is absent and the sacrament fails.
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