Posted on 07/03/2012 1:45:47 PM PDT by NYer
Regarding the recent protest outside the Basilica of the Assumption against Archbishop William Lori celebrating a mass initiating the "Fortnight for Freedom," I fail to understand why those who don't agree with church teachings remain in the church ("Catholic leaders launch campaign against Obama policies," June 21).
It seems that it is a case of the tail wanting to wag the dog. They don't want to adhere to church doctrine; they want the church to change to meet their beliefs. It is reminiscent of King Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More.
There are many Christian religions that support contraception and even same-sex marriage and abortion. Those who do not want to adhere to church doctrine can surely find some religion that will satisfy their needs and stop complaining about the Catholic Church.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
Catholic ping!
The link does not attribute this statement to Bishop Lori, but to a Sun reader by the name of “R. Zanella.”
Other than them being a little weird and creepy, I didn’t have much of a problem when I left the church at about age 18. Doing Mass in my native language and shaking hands in church is a definite turn-off.
He’s my new Bishop and I already love the guy! Dolan and Lori..............we’ve needed men like this for 50 years.
Those who choose to remain Catholics(and refuse to sign on to dogma/doctrine)are nothing more than”Cafeteria Catholics”!
"Them" being catholics?
The title:
“Bishop Lori: Dissenting Catholics are free to leave the church”
should be:
“Dissenting Catholics are free to leave the church”
As well, as another poster points out, it isn’t an essay by Archbishop Lori, but apparently a letter to the editor by R. Zanella.
I don’t know whether or not the attribution can be changed.
Exactly! The imperfect must be shunned and purged. Those who are impure of thought must be removed from our society. We should send them out in railcars, and either re-educate them, or, if it proves impossible, simple do away with them.
Twas ever thus. The righteous must remain powerful and untainted!
I bet you find a story just like yours here.
And remember that the moment you die, Jesus will ask you why, with the mark of a Catholic Baptism on your soul, you ever abandoned him and his Church????
I’m from Maryland, sadly. I don’t trust the “Catholics” up here. They’re all GODLESS libs who have no problem letting avowed homosexuals into their churches.
Does this invitation also apply to the traditionalists who regularly rail against Vatican II here on Free Republic?
Shhh! As expressed by a poster called “Nathan,”
The last time the church imposed its judgment in an authoritative manner on “areas of legitimate disagreement,” the conservative Catholics became the Sedevacantists and the Society of St. Pius X, the moderate Catholics became the conservatives, the liberal Catholics became the moderates, and the folks who were excommunicated, silenced, refused Catholic burial, etc. became the liberals. The event that brought this shift was Vatican II; conservatives then couldn’t handle having to actually obey the church on matters they were uncomfortable with, so they left. — Nathan, - www.ratzingerfanclub.com/blog/2005/05/fr-michael-orsi-on-different-levels-of.html
Then there is this by a talented poet:
SL = SSPX soft-liner. HL = SSPX hard-liner.
SL Outside the Church is not where we should be!
HL Who left the Church? Vatican II! Not we!
SL Once in the Church, we could do so much more!
HL If we detested error, as before.
SL Why should we stop detesting error, pray?
HL Because we would be joining in their fray.
SL We need to live within the Church’s law.
HL Not if it is not serving God any more.
SL The Catholic Church is visible. We’re not there.
HL The Church is holy. Do we see that? Where?
SL But things have changed since the Archbishop’s day.
HL The modernists still hold exclusive sway.
SL What Rome now offers, he would have approved.
HL Never, once Benedict to Assisi moved!
SL The SSPX stands strong, need fear no fall.
HL Let all who stand fear falling, says St. Paul.
SL But our Superiors have grace of state.
HL Did leading churchmen never prevaricate?
SL Our leaders to the SSPX belong!
HL And does that mean they never can do wrong?
SL But, Pre-condition One, Rome freed the Mass.
HL And left in place the “bastard rite”, so crass.
SL Rome also lifted the ban on bishops four.
HL But did that make them more free than before?
SL Yet Benedict is calling for our aid.
HL To make Truth prosper, or to help it fade?
SL Of harming Truth, how can the Pope be accused?
HL His modernist mind is hopelessly confused.
SL Yet truly, Benedict wants us all back in.
HL As a modernist, yes, but modernism is a sin.
SL Then do you still believe that he is Pope?
HL Yes, but we must for his conversion hope.
SL What can you mean by, “As a modernist, yes”?
HL Our true Faith he can only harm, not bless.
SL Our welfare is his genuine concern.
HL Not our true welfare, if our true Faith he spurn.
SL A lack of supernatural spirit you show!
HL If woe I say there is, where there is woe?
SL Not everything in the Church is gloomy, dark!
HL Where do you see of true revival a spark?
SL A movement towards Tradition is under way!
HL While fully in control the modernists stay?
SL Then is the official Church still God’s own Church?
HL Yes, it’s the churchmen left us in the lurch.
SL But surely Pope and Rome have both meant well.
HL So? – “Good intentions pave the way to Hell.”
SL But evils worse that Vatican Two can be.
HL The Archbishop – remember? – called it World War III.
SL You’re harsh. Your attitude to schism will lead.
HL Better than undermine the entire creed!
SL Not all the Church authorities are bad.
HL The good ones have no power. It’s very sad.
SL Priests should not say, authority is untrue.
HL But bishops were the cause of Vatican II!
SL Still, Catholic instincts seek their Catholic home.
HL Today, for Catholics, that’s no longer Rome.
SL Then where is the Church? Just in Tradition? Where?
HL “One, holy, catholic, apostolic” – there.
SL You want to solve this problem overnight!
HL No, just that a start be made to set it right.
SL We trust in God. We trust in his Sacred Heart.
HL Bravo! But humans too must play their part.
SL That part is not for us just to complain.
HL Tradcats work hard, Tradition to maintain.
SL If we went in with Rome, we could turn back.
HL No. More and more we’d follow in Rome’s track.
SL Why stop the Romans making restitution?
HL Because they’re set upon our destitution.
SL Back in the mainstream Church we’d set to work!
HL Rather we’d lose our way in all their murk.
SL But we are strong, with bishops one and three.
HL Alas, the three with the one do not agree.
SL We’re firm in the Faith. Modernists are no threat!
HL We’d easily slide. You want to take a bet?
SL Strong in the Faith, we can afford to agree!
HL But that Faith says, from heretics to flee.
SL But Gott mit uns! We are the SSPX!
HL Not if we choose to ignore all prudent checks.
SL Were we approved, Romans would learn from us!
HL O Heavens, no! They’d throw us under the bus.
SL Were we approved, the earth of Rome could quake.
HL But not before to pieces we would shake.
SL Our leader has graces of state. We must obey.
HL Was Paul the Sixth given graces to betray?
SL Rome is now weak, meaning, we could stay strong.
HL For right, Rome’s feeble. Mighty it is for wrong.
SL So what’s the answer, if you’re always right?
How can the Church be rescued from its plight?
HL The Church belongs to God. In his good time
We’ll see his answer, stunning and sublime.
Till then we grieve, and thirst for right, and trust.
That which we cannot cure, endure we must.
From error and the erring stay away,
Even while for their immortal souls we pray.
And tell God’s truth, however few will hear –
As close as the nearest door, his help is near. - www.boacp.com/tag/sspx/
And for some things we and they can disagree on, http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/DisagrementsSSandSE.html
So, what you’re saying is that all the more-conservative-than-thou braying is but a prime example of the Shakespearean “the Lady doth protest too much?” That all the Vatican II hatred is coming from dissenters, who are likely sedevacantists like the schismatic SSPX?
Hmmm. That explains a few things on the RF.
Or from those who argue like them, while trumpeting the unity in Catholicism based upon excluding those who do not adhere to their interpretation of the”sense which holy mother church held and holds”, or at least did hold to, as this can be different from what it now does. But being an autocratic entity allows this. http://peacebyjesuscom.blogspot.com/2011/09/contradictions-in-roman-catholicism.html
See the current story about how Episcopalians and Presbyterians are now "considering" whether to "bless" "same-sex marriages". That's where the Protestant dynamic of "I only believe what I can convince myself the Bible teaches" has led. When are you Protestants going to take responsibility for it, instead of running away from it?
There are Catholics who are just as liberal, but the difference is that not one of them can point to the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church and say that "this backs me up" or "they didn't anticipate the homosexual relationships of today". That's the benefit of having a living Magisterium in Rome, rather than the magisterium of "my Bible and what's behind my eyebrows" that modern Protestantism, whether liberal or conservative, ultimately rests on.
Is your magesterium in error with Vatican II, Campion?
WOW! What's in the heart comes out the mouth. Catholicism is choosing 'man' over GOD's Word, JESUS!
Matthew 12:34 "You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks."
That's the benefit of having a living Magisterium in Rome rather than the magisterium of "my Bible
"For the Word of God is LIVING and ACTIVE. Sharper than any double-edged sword, IT penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart."
In fact, the Catholic Church consists exclusively of such people, and we know it: that's why every one of us, clergy and laity, popes, nuns, adults and children, confess at every Mass that we are sinners and that we stand in need of God's mercy.
That's why we need a Savior.
That's why this Savior founded a Church.
In a different category, however, are people who reject the healing, saving, merciful purposes of the Church, and then make themselves a nuisance by insisting that everybody else must likewise abandon the core objective of healing sinners, and instead adopt a policy of affirming sin.
The first category (by analogy) would be like people who join the Vegetarians United and sincerely strive to live veggie-style, despite regrettable bacon-chomping setbacks; the second would be people who join Vegetarians United in order to demand Barbecues.
Is that anything like "trumpeting the unity in Protestantism" while excluding all those heirs of the "reformation" [sic] who have fallen into open apostasy of every sort?
You are comparing one church with many churches, rather than churches which operate under the basic Protestant distinctive of Scripture as the fully inspired, assured and supremely authoritative of word of God after its historical Scriptural manner, versus those who operate under the model of sola ecclesia after the manner of Rome, in which the church effectively proclaims it is the supreme authority (though what she teaches can be subject to varied interpretations).
Those who have fallen into “open apostasy of every sort” are such as those who also effectively depart from holding Scripture after the aforementioned Scriptural place and manner, and allow such views as that “the Bible is culturally conditioned and not necessarily factual or even always true” (PCUSA) — which is also an approved view of Roman scholarship — or other views which leave what the church or men say to be the supreme authoritative authority.
In contrast, the more souls hold the Scriptures like the way it internally reveals men of God of held them (as the literal word of God), then the more conservative they are, even among Catholics. (http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/33304.pdf)
See the current story about how Episcopalians and Presbyterians are now "considering" whether to "bless" "same-sex marriages". That's where the Protestant dynamic of "I only believe what I can convince myself the Bible teaches" has led. When are you Protestants going to take responsibility for it, instead of running away from it?
You act is you have no shims and divisions within Catholicism, but you do, and in which one sect considers the others to be somewhat akin to the the Episcopalians and Presbyterians (as their literature can attest).
The latter parallel liberal Catholics, but unlike us who can leave to be part of a more faithful body within the Church, unless you leave to be in schism from Rome, which among others asserts she only is the one true Church® in particular, and which separation many Catholics feel the liberal bent of Rome forces them to make, you are stuck with them as Rome treats them as members in life and in death.
Meanwhile, despite divisions, rather than Sola Scriptura fostering doctrinal anarchy, its positive legacy has been an overall assent to core truths, which is manifest in an evangelical lay unity of the Spirit, spontaneous as well as in other ways, and historically by a common front against those who depart from these shared truths, as in cults, as well as as well as against teaching as doctrines the traditions of men, while realizing or allowing varying disagreements in other areas according to a hierarchy of truths.
The same exists within Catholicism, in which there are significant differences even among higher truths (papal infallibility and power), besides the many things Catholics can disagree one (including how many teachings required assent of faith).
There are Catholics who are just as liberal, but the difference is that not one of them can point to the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church and say that "this backs me up" or "they didn't anticipate the homosexual relationships of today".
That is absurd, as Roman Catholics do not have an assured infallible interpreter of their supreme authority anymore than the evangelical has of theirs, nor is the former consistently succinct or clear enough to negate it being significantly open to interpretation. Even on FR i see various interpretations of what extra Ecclesiam nulla salus means, while as one camp of Catholicism points out regarding Vatican Two,
Conservative Novus Ordo Catholics who object to the drastic changes call them "abuses" that result from the "misinterpretation" of Conciliar teachings. They point to many fine and orthodox statements in support of their contention. Those on the other hand who are on the forefront of the Revolution - the Liberal post-Conciliar Catholic - can justify almost anything they wish by recourse to the same documents...The much debated issue as to whether the Council is only an "excuse" or in fact the "source" of the "autodemolition" of the Church is entirely beside the point. Whatever the case may be, as the Abbe of Nantes has pointed out, "there is not a heresiarch today, not a single apostate who does not now appeal to the Council in carrying out his action in broad daylight with full impunity as recognized pastor and master."
“The definitive texts are for the most part compromise texts. On far too many occasions they juxtapose opposing viewpoints without establishing any genuine internal link between them.”
“It is then the ambiguity of the Conciliar statements which allows for any interpretation one wishes.” — http://www.the-pope.com/wvat2tec.html
What it can do is provide parameters, though this yet leaves the Catholic great liberty to interpret the Scriptures in varied ways to support Rome as they see understand her, and as an ongoing thread shows here, this can be contradictory.
Yet Rome is just one magisterium among other ones, effectively only having power over her own flock (unlike the apostles who manifested real spiritual power), which is also true of other magisteriums who likewise required assent to core truths, and allow disagreement in others, with parameters.
And on the level of the laity which reveal what is being effectually taught, even in this late hours (with our shared spiritual declension) evangelicals testify to greater unity in many aspects of Scriptural faith and morals.
That's the benefit of having a living Magisterium in Rome, rather than the magisterium of "my Bible and what's behind my eyebrows" that modern Protestantism, whether liberal or conservative, ultimately rests on.
In Protestantism no one is claiming assured infallibility of what is behind their eyebrows as they read Tradition, Scripture and history, as per Rome, and as said, it is those who do so that the greatest aberrations are found, and which again, those who hold Scripture as supreme have historically characteristically contended against.
As said above, Rome is one among many others operating under sola ecclesia, which is also shared with many cults such as the LDS, who effectively claim assuredly infallibility, and thus like Rome, they can interpret their “Tradition” Scripture and history as supporting them. While such may be invoked, in reality only what the Church says has authority. As saith Manning,
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine... I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves. — Most Rev. Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228.
You cannot be wrong if you autocratically claim to define what is error.
While providing stability and unity (depending upon how rigid required submission is, and cults can excel in both), the danger is if the living magisterium misleads then the flock will continue to follow it as the autocratic supreme authority (which can justify itself being so) — and which included turning in your neighbors to be tortured for suspected theological dissent — rather than correction occurring rather quickly due to submission to a transcendent infallible material standard correcting them.
For us that standard is Scripture, it alone being the perpetually assured Word of God, (2Tim. 3:16), which is what the Lord conformed to in establishing His claims, while Catholic schisms who look to the past teaching of their magisterium as being that standard reprove the current living magisterium of Rome as departing from it. As do the EO Catholics in regards to what Tradition Scripture and history teach.
But in Scripture we do not see assured perpetual formulaic infallibility promised, which is what Rome presumes, having infallibly declared she is and will be infallible whenever she speaks in accordance with her infallibly defined (scope and subject-based) formula, which renders her declaration that she is infallible, to be infallible, as well as all else she accordingly may declare in support of her.
While support for this is extrapolated from texts promising the Lord's presence, and promises of preservation of truth, yet before there was a church in Rome writings (most of the Bible) were established as Scripture (seen by the abundant references to it which show its supremacy), and truth was preserved without an assuredly infallible magisterium, as per Rome.
And that even being the instrument and steward of Holy Writ (Rm. 3:2; 9:4) did not make one the assuredly infallible interpreters of it. And thus the church began in dissent from those who, like Rome, presumed assured veracity as inheritors of Divine promises, guidance, presence and perpetuation, and as having historical decent, (Lv. 10:11; Dt. 4:31; 17:8-13; Is. 41:10, Ps. 89:33,34; cf. Mt. 23:2 etc.) .
And like as Rome does to those who have not her sanction, they rejected the authority of the Itinerant Preacher who reproved them by Scripture, (Mk. 7:3-16; 8:31; 11:28-33) and who established His claims thereon, in text and in power. For while Scripture provides for the magisterium, it reveals Scripture as the supreme transcendent authority as the perpetual assured Word of God, and by which men of God are established as being so, even if rejected by men who are supposed to affirm them. And by whom those who sit in power but presume more than is written, (cf. 1Cor. 4:6) as Rome does, are corrected. And thus the church as the
The reality is that authority in Scripture is established not by infallibly proclaiming you are infallible, and thus are effectively autocratic, but by conformity to Scripture in text and in power. This allows for correction by those who sit in power or claim to, but who presume more than is written, (cf. 1Cor. 4:6) as Rome does. But thus the church began and thus it continues as the body of Christ, which overcomes by faith, which comes by hearing the Word of God, (Rm. 10:17) and which Scripture most assuredly is. And thus it must continually manifest it is the church of the living God, with the evangelical gospel effecting manifest regeneration, versus its institutionalized counterpart. May I and all do so better.
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