Posted on 04/23/2013 1:31:08 PM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
The church can be anywhere.........it is not brick and mortar, which many people think it is.
A really long time ago, a pastor said in the days of Jesus, if people where asked where the church was, the answer would be, “well, Jane is over there, Peter is over there.....”, today people would say “123 Main street”.
It is amazing to me how many people go to “church” to be served, rather than to serve.
So, I completely understand.
Why would you not know? The scripture you listed confirmed it. “For outside of the Christian church there is no truth, no Christ, no salvation.” Protestants are in a Christian Church so they are not outside the Church.
Any Christian Church that believes that their church is the only way to salvation is flawed and offensive. I would think a Catholic would be offended as well if a Protestant told them they were not sure Catholics could attain salvation (not my belief BTW).
John 11:26(KJV)
26 And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?
Seems, pretty clear five.
I have no need for a pope or any earthly priest for I have a high priest, The One and Only High Priest, the sole Mediator able to stand between sinners and an awesome and thrice Holy God. The Bishop of Rome is a deceiver of no use to me or any other poor sinner.
“For by grace are he saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
“He is trying to convert you. You may want to listen.”
You know, what I listen to is people like yourself.
Before I joined this site in 2009 I really didn’t know any Catholics and I didn’t know anything about Catholicism. But after I joined this site I learned a lot about Catholics and I’ve learned a few things about Catholicism.
What I’ve learned about Catholics as they are represented on this site is that they are condescending, rude, impertinent, haughty, myopic, stubborn, and are readily provoked into anger.
Meanwhile, I’ve come to find that your Popes are generally decent men who are necessarily dogmatic (it goes with the job). While I think your Pope is wrong on what he said I doubt that he’d tweak about my disagreement as much as you or your fellow Catholics do.
I know more than a few people in the FLDS (which most folks would agree is a cult) and those people are frankly less reactionary when I criticize Warren Jeffs who is their Prophet (which in their eyes outranks a mere Pope).
In contrast I know that I can easily provoke a rabid, cult-like response from Catholics with a simple comment like in my first post in this topic. It’s kind of fascinating to me that the people who are members of a mainstream faith behave more cultish than actual cult members.
Tangential to this topic but in line with this particular discussion, I’ve also had four years to notice a concurrence between Catholics and Democrats. In my opinion I’ve concluded that the majority of Catholics are also Democrats because the Democrat Party better fits the worldview of Catholics.
Catholics in their faith need someone to tell them what to think and what to believe and they also fervently believe in a large, authoritarian, bureaucratic, and hierarchical organization that controls their faith. Transposing that view of religion into politics and it makes sense that Catholics would generally support the Democrat penchant for a large, authoritarian, bureaucratic, and hierarchical government.
In short, Catholics want a government that resembles your church.
We Catholics DO think something like the “fullness” of the Church “subsists”among those in communion with the Holy See.
But, while we loosely speak of “converts” the technically precise name for the act of a baptized person's “becoming a Catholic” is “being received into full communion.” It is quite wrong to say they ‘converted.’
If one can entertain the idea, “lex orandi lex credendi” then a good place to go for an experiential understanding of what we think would be the “solemn collects” of the Good Friday Liturgy.
In them, as I like to say it, we pray that God will, so to speak “apply” the benefits of the Cross to all the world. So we pray for Catholics, for all Christians, for Jews, for theists, and for atheists, that grace will be shed on them.
When I think of “the Church” in the broadest sense, I think of everyone we pray for on Good Friday.
In other words Catholics believe you have to be a Catholic to be saved but you also pray for all the heathens and hope they join the Catholic Church so they can become saved. Gee thanks.
There is no salvation outside the Church Christ founded. That Church is the Catholic Church (and the Orthodox but that discussion is outside this debate.)
Anyone who is validly baptized is baptized into the Church. Therefore they can attain salvation. I know how Catholics who lose the state of Grace they receive in baptism by mortal sin can be returned to a state of Grace. That is through sacramental confession. I do not know how non-Catholics who fall from the state of grace through mortal sin can return to a state of grace outside of the means Christ instituted in scripture, i.e., sacrental confession. I do know that those who die not in a state of grace cannot attain heaven so I do fear for the salvation of those outside the Catholic (and Orthodox) communion who commit grave sin.
To characterize basic Catholic belief as offensive is nothing new. What is new is a Catholic pope who is willing to once again state that outside the Church there is no salvation. We’ve lived with false ecumenism so long that non Catholics are shocked and offended now when they hear true ecumenism. In other words the problem isn’t that the pope said what he said, the problem is that what he said has been said so rarely these past 50 years due to false ecumenism.
Amen
You say that you can provoke a response by posting something like you did on this thread. That is called baiting and the Religion Moderator doesn’t take kindly to it.
And I’m trying to be kind.
Thanks for your straight-forward and direct response. It is offensive, indefensible and bizarre but it is what it is. I knew that was the position and just wanted to see if a Catholic would own up to it. Thanks. It is there for all to see ... without all the lofty doublespeak.
I agree with you, so I will repeat your post...
“The Pope is wrong.”
I asked you if Jesus was lying or mistaken, and you say "not either or, but both and." Are you hearing yourself? Maybe you mean something else, and are not being clear.
I do read in totality, and to label John 11:26 part of a "manmade belief system" is to minimize and denigrate the very clear statement Jesus made. Again:
"And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"
Do you believe Him?
Yep, simple
So what??? If they repeat a lie long enough it becomes the truth???
But, when most of those referred to the ‘church’ there wasn’t a capital ‘C’ in front of the word...THAT perversion belongs to Rome...
The Mass is the unbloody remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice for us.
And, what’s more, it’s celebrated all over the world!
Feeney was disciplined for claiming that only formal members of the Church could be saved. The idea that only formal members of the Catholic Church could be saved was a misrepresentation of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus and is not the teaching of the Church. The Church teaches that those who die in a state of sanctifying grace go to heaven. The question then becomes, how do those who are not formal members of the Church by sacramental baptism obtain sanctifying grace initially or if it has been lost by mortal sin.
Remember, the Church teaches that any baptism by water in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a valid sacramental baptism, makes one a member of the Church, and confers sanctifying grace and is cause for the remission of Original Sin and personal sin.
The Church also teaches baptism by desire and baptism by blood. It is by an elastic interpretation of baptism by desire that many ecumenical types have claimed that there might be salvation outside the Church.
Communion is remembrance.
What it appeared you were saying was the bread and wine became the literal blood and flesh of Christ.
transsubstantiation
trans — transfer
substantiation — substance
The substance of bread and wine are transfered into the actual substances of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
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