Posted on 07/27/2013 1:35:20 PM PDT by NKP_Vet
The Catholic Church is the longest-enduring institution in the world. Beginning with the first Christians and continuing in our present day, the Church has been planted in every nation on earth.
The Catholic Church claims Jesus Christ himself as her founder, and in spite of heresy from within and hostility from without, she remains in the twenty-first century the steadfast guardian of belief in his life, death, and resurrection. The teachings and redemptive works of Jesus as told in the Gospels are expressed by the Church in a coherent and consistent body of doctrine, the likes of which cannot be found in any other Christian body.
The history of the Catholic Church is long, complicated, and fascinating, and in this book it is expertly and ably told by historian James Hitchcock. As in the parable of Christ about the weeds that were sown in a field of wheat, evil and good have grown together in the Church from the start, as Hitchcock honestly records. He brings before us the many characters--some noble, some notorious--who have left an indelible mark on the Church, while never losing sight of the saints, who have given living testimony to the salvific power of Christ in every age.
This ambitious work is comprehensive in its scope and in incisive in its understanding, a valuable addition to any school or home library.
(Excerpt) Read more at amazon.com ...
It is only the weak backed liberal compromisers, similar to RINO's, who are only superficial in their faith, who agree with the RCC's historical claims, apostates they are. And, yes, "deniers" like myself in these apostate times are getting fewer and fewer, but we know who will win in the end.
You guys really know how to spin your history. "Several centuries?" Give me a break.
The oppression did not start until after the Protestant Reformation had started
Your tyrannical persecution of the Jews, though not in Rome mostly in Spain, took place before the Protestant. I'm sure you've heard of the Inquisition. You choice of words, "oppression" is more spin. Burning people at the stake is worthy of stronger language than "oppression."
The oppression did not start until after the Protestant Reformation had started.
Your tyrannical persecution of the Jews, though not in Rome mostly in Spain, took place before the Protestant Reformation. I'm sure you've heard of the Inquisition. You choice of words, "oppression" is more spin. Burning people at the stake is worthy of stronger language than mere "oppression."
I suppose I am a little more broad minded than that. Gods Church started in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve worshiped God there. His Church has gone down through the ages. Abraham. Joseph. Moses. Many leaders and followers. John 4:22 tells us “Salvation is of the Jews.” That was a statement then. It was a prophecy later fulfilled on Calvary. And it is a prophecy to be fulfilled in the future with the latter rain days. God has always had a Church. Jesus just magnified its meaning more clearly. Peace be to you.
Christ started one church, the Catholic Church. The other 35,000 or so Christian denominations were started by mortal men. That is the difference. Cut and dry. End of story.
Jesus was a Jew. He lived as a Jew. His Disciples were Jews. Salvation is of the Jews John 4:22.
The RCC is a paganized totalitarian impostor masquerading as the true church.ROTFLMAO!
Small correction. Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism were started as the same faith. While Eastern Orthodox technically broke away, they have not adopted heretical beliefs. And their faith today is valid as the Catholic Faith stood then.
2. At the outset, the Church (meaning, in this instance, Card. Robert Bellarmine) said Galileo could teach any concept of the sun, planets and stars he wanted, as long as he presented it as a hypothesis supported by mathematical evidence; he was not to make claims of absolute philosophic truth.
Since Galileo was teaching that the sun was the center of the Universe (not just of our solar system, but of the Universe) and that the ocean tides were caused by the rotation of the earth on its axis (tides are in fact caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon).
Bellarmine knew, and said --- as did others in the Roman Cauria -- that the Church actually didn't have a "dogma" on the relative positions of the sun, the moon, the earth, and the planets, and therefore it was just a matter of getting Galileo to stick to the scientific method with its necessarily modest and limited claims. Bellarmine actually had the better of the argument, from a scientific point of view.
Unfortunately, Bellarmine died, and new Roman authorities, and a weak pope (Urban VIII) nevertheless permitted a verdict that Galileo was "vehemently suspected" of heresy. (This was a stupid conclusion and unjust ruling, very much the product of academic rivalries and clerical factions, plus the fact that Galileo and Urban were both "vehemently" cranky.) The result was that Galileo was put under "house arrest" and permitted to stay in the houses of friends, always comfortable and usually luxurious.
Galileo continued both his work and his correspondence, enjoying both popularity and notoriety, and eventually Urban VIII sent Galileo his special blessing, a reconciliation of the two old men. When he passed away just before his 80 birthday, Galileo was interred not only in consecrated ground, but within the church of Santa Croce at Florence.
Not exactly canonization (for either Urban or Galileo!) but neither was it the melodramatic myth of "dogma" vs "science" as distorted by people who don't know jack chick about either.
“Beat the poop out of him” is evidently unsourced. Who really controlled what history recorded then anyways? The Church. And if Galileos teaching wasn’t 100% correct, it was ahead of what man knew before him. This is a prime example of why the powers of Churches (or politicians for that matter) should be curbed. It leads to excesses. The CC had no business curtailing scientific discovery, conjectures or hypotheses. Yeah and the “luxuries” Galileo had are (I’m sure) embellishment of the CC to mitigate their shameful past.
The actual history is really interesting (I'm not speaking of the comic book version.)
Galileo did not start Heliocentrism; Copernicus did. There were several scientific objections raised by scientists. One is that the moon goes around the Earth; if the Earth were to go around the Sun, the moon could not go around the Earth. Another was parallax, that the apparent position of the stars should shift. There were others.
Galileo was able to disprove the first objection, by noting that Jupiter had moons. He was not able to answer the second objection. He like many others at the time assumed that the stars were not as far away as they actually are. He was able to answer the other objections. However, Galileo could provide no ACTUAL evidence that he was right. He could only provide evidence that he might be right. Cardinal Bellarmine said that if there were proof that the Earth revolved around the Sun, Scripture passages to the contrary would need careful explanation. Galileo continued to teach the idea as fact and not a hypothesis as demanded by the RC Church. Because he repeatedly taught it as fact, when he had no proof, he was convicted on SUSPICION of heresy. He was not convicted of heresy.
Sola Scriptura is a doctrine promoted by Protestantism. At the time the Reformation was in high gear, with Protestants accusing the Catholic Church (which they still do today) of not paying enough attention to the Bible. The RC Church was willing to consider science that appeared to contradict scripture; however, there needed to be proof to teach it as fact, not as a hypothesis.
It has survived worse, it will survive any trouble coming from Obama and company.
Is your argument that we should not put all of our faith in a single document?
Remember that it was Jesus who said to Peter, “you are rock and on this rock I will build my church.”
I’m not sure I get your drift. The Bible is a compilation of different writers from different ages. It is the Word of God. My faith is in God and His Word.
-— At the time the Reformation was in high gear, with Protestants accusing the Catholic Church (which they still do today) of not paying enough attention to the Bible. The RC Church was willing to consider science that appeared to contradict scripture; however, there needed to be proof to teach it as fact, not as a hypothesis. -—
In fact, Copernicus dedicated his book on heliocentrism to the pope, whose protection he sought from Protestant leaders:
Nicolaus Copernicus dedicated his most famous work, On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs, in which he gave an excellent account of heliocentricity, to Pope Paul III. Copernicus entrusted this work to Andreas Osiander, a Lutheran clergyman who knew that Protestant reaction to it would be negative, since Martin Luther seemed to have condemned the new theory, and, as a result, the book would be condemned. Osiander wrote a preface to the book, in which heliocentrism was presented only as a theory that would account for the movements of the planets more simply than geocentrism did—something Copernicus did not intend.
Oh noes ronnierocket. She’s done pulled the “race card” equivalent about Peter being the rock. Protestants have no choice but to cower in fear when they pull that one out.
The tyrannical persecution did not happen in Rome, where the Church would have no temporal difficulty. Why did it not happen in Rome?
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