Posted on 09/02/2013 9:07:37 AM PDT by bkaycee
All right fair enough. I suppose I could start with the “Six Books” and “Mary’s Repose” you mentioned previously.
With regards to those works, is it your experience that they were relied upon when Pope Pius XIIth made his dogmatic decree in 1950?
I agree with the entirety of your post wholeheartedly! And it bears mention that 'The Assumption of Mary' as a concept is a perfect example of how the Roman church is based upon forgery and fairy tale. Their tradition's entire collective memory on the subject can be found primarily in two psuedepigraphical works (the Six Books, and Mary's Repose), which anyone honest enough to research the matter will soon find out. No matter what authority and fame may author, invariably, the root is to be found in these two strains.
The significance of theses forgeries is monumental.
It calls into question the "Code of Canon Law", The writings of Aquinas, The Marian docrines and the Infallibility of Pope.
It also appears that these forgeries were in great part responsible for the East-West Schism!
I have no idea what He relied upon - but I can imagine that he relied upon centuries of tradition, all of which boil down to these two works.
If that is the track record of *tradition*, then the concept of accepting tradition on par with Scripture is also invalid.
Oral tradition, or even what is called *sacred* tradition in an attempt to preclude that criticism, is inherently unreliable, and this is the proof.
Scripture is TRUTH and unchangeable. Having been written down, it can always be referred back to, so there is not the risk of this kind of fraud.
It's a slap in the face of God and His word to claim that their tradition is equal in authority or greater in authority to His Word.
Essentially, that is saying that their forgeries and deception trump the truth of the word of God itself.
Not a place wise to go.
Do you want to blow your mind? The Jewish tradition does the same thing. The similarities are astounding. If there is ever a true indictment of tradition, it can be found in the result and comparison between Jewish and Christian traditions. There can be no better defense for sola-scriptura.
Why not let her prove she exists with some sort of document before she talks about other supposed phony documents. Why should what she writes be taken seriously when her very existence is shadowy and dubious? This is a joke that writes itself.
The papacy is an historical institution. Historical in one sense like the First Baptist Church is historical. It is some sense separate from the office of the pope, which is also, in another sense, historical as well. You may have noticed that Pope Francis, like Pope Benedict, Pope John Paul II and even Paul Vi, has taken pains to emphasize his primary job, his first hat so to say, bishop of Rome. The pope is also the successor of Peter, which is perhaps the role most personal to the man. Since 1970 he has made his quarters in the buildings attached to the chief shrine to Peter. This remains true even though Francis has chosen, for obvious reasons, not to occupy the papal apartments, but he is still close to St.Peter’s.
The Orthodox speak of Tradition, which is useful because it is short for the authority of the Church. The right to say what is Scripture and in case of dispute, what Scripture says and in the case of disputed teachings, what right teachings is. You also believe in tradition, written and oral, only you dispute the right of the bishops to say what the true faith is. On the other hand, you claim this right for yourself.
Holding tradition above the written word is nothing more than idolatry.
Holding tradition up above the written word when it totally goes against the written word is nothing more than calling God a liar .
My own view necessitates looking at the Bible as a series of legal contracts (covenants) wherein the party of the first part (YHWH) declares to the party of the second part (Man), what He (YHWH) will do. And what He will do is not dependent upon whether the party of the second part (Man) abides by the terms of the contract or not.
It would thereby be the height of idiocy for the party of the first part to allow the party of the second part to change the terms (and in fact, the wording sets the contracts in stone, none can change it). In that, the original contract must of a necessity hold more authority than anything following thereafter.
Try the article at this thread's heading, for starters?
Here's link to discussion of what is being referred to now as "dodgy papers" but more accurately could be called fraudulent, (a mix of truth and false representations) which article itself was made mention of in one of the footnotes of the subject matter of this thread --- which was a (partial?) listing of the "frauds" being discussed ---> Forgeries and the Papacy.
Now someone may quibble over Webster's pointing towards these documents, for reason that "singular" papal authority over all other known bishops, far beyond a much earlier idea or principle of "patriarchate" of which there were once five, then seemingly only three written about (at least in the Western church) had already been claimed by bishops of Rome, in effect making all patriarchates in affect that of primarily Rome's own -- so even as the fraud he points to was not precisely the original "source" of the idea of there being a singular bishop over all, but as he explains in *some* detail and example, the fraudulent works were much employed as buttress for the claim that the Roman Pontiff was Supreme with pretense and {erroneous) justification being said to have existed from earliest times, when it was not.
Some years later, this helped lead to the schism of 1054. which many Roman Catholics to this day blame the Orthodox for, calling them the "schismatics" when the reverse is more true.
What does the RC church teach young children and neophytes concerning "the pope", to this day, but that there was always "a" pope, and if it noticed there were other "popes" in earliest ages of "the church", presentation made that the one in Rome being the sole and singular one which always had counted the most?
Thus it is not protestants per se, whommust always be liars or tell lies, but even if unwittingly believing the error & fraud that singular Romanist papacy to have "always been the truth", then that leaves them needing repeat error & lies, which lies were later buttressed by even more later "lies" would it not?
Would you accept it?
Why should what she writes be taken seriously when her very existence is shadowy and dubious?
How about because the facts are the facts and if they can be historically documented, it doesn't matter if she's using a pseudonym or not?
She did not make up the documents to which she is referring. She is just presenting them.
How about addressing them?
This is a joke that writes itself.
No, it's not a joke at all, no matter how much y'all would like it to be. Impugning the character of the person who is presenting the facts does not change the facts.
Catholics and Catholicism would gain far more credibility than they realize if they would stop attacking the messenger and diverting attention from the topic, and instead address the topic at hand. And that topic is that the Catholic church used forged documents to establish itself and its power.
If you'd like to contest that point, we're all ears.
That’s good. Thanks.
The raping of children by priests threads is a good example. If only the evil Prods had stopped talking about this issue it would have all been OK.
Lift up your heads for your redemption draweth nigh.....
woops, sorry. I see now the question had been answered, leaving my own (unasked for) assistance unnecessary.
But timely and to the point, all the same... : )
"I guess, when you think about it, we shouldn’t be shocked at the dishonesty, my goodness, everything hangs on the Roman church’s claim that the Popes reign over Christianity is historically valid (the rest of Christianity - yea, the entire world - must be in subservience to the Pope). As the lead article brings out, they have used dishonest means to establish the primacy. The institution of the Papacy is simply a lie, the fact that they use lying forged documents to establish it, proves it. And the lying tradition continues on."
Myself at #37--Challenged this and got no response.
"No matter how many references you post, no matter how many Catholic sources you cite, it will not be believed and our Catholic friends will 1) ignore it, or 2) claim your a pagan heretic."This despite the fact that I did not ignore anything, I addressed the false decretals issue, nor did I call anybody a "pagan heretic" --- words I have never written, and I've been posting here for 14 years.
“When the church is shown to have operated in deceit, the reactions on this thread are the result. It pushes the Catholics right over the edge. They just can’t handle it.”That’s an inexcusably broad statement. The “False Decretals” were not committed by “The Church.” they were committed: by some Frankish monks, the original forgers who knowingly cooked up false papers to beef up their local bishop Rothad’s appeal – in other words,to mislead Pope Nicholas I; and by the unscrupulous Papal librarian Anastasius (I quoted Warren Carroll on this in my post #67 to the effect that Anastasius not only represented the documents as being from the papal archives, but even probably composed, or at least, sourced, the letter written to reinstate the deposed Bishop Rothad. This is a substantive, researched post which was nobody has commented on or refuted.
Certainly the Catholic Church dropped the false documents which were intermixed in the Decretals, when the original subterfuge was exposed. The most adequate summary of the whole mess is still the Catholic Encyclopedia!
So “the Church operating in deceit” is not accurate: it should be “Pope Nicholas being scammed by clever forgeries, which weren’t even suspected as such until centuries later --- when a Catholic scholar Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa blew the whistle.” (A lot more words, I know, and doesn’t fit the template as well as "the Church operating in deceit".) And Catholics “can’t handle it”? Not one single Catholic on this forum defended the forgers or the forgeries; and none of the fraudulent material makes its way into any contemporary ecumenical discussions of the papacy.
"They [Catholics] simply cannot tolerate dissent or critiquing, or holding their beliefs up to the light of Scripture for comparison to see if they align with Scripture or not."
False. This is a broad-brush type charge which simply closes its eyes to, or writes off, the pages and pages of Scriptural and historical discussions, with meaty contributions from both sides, which continually enrich the pages of the Religion Forum.
You're quoting somebody, I don’t know who, -- the entire cut and-paste is one long insinuation that honest differences in scholarly opinion and errors in judgment can be subsumed under the label of deceit. (Just so we can look it up and make our own evaluations, what is your source there, bkaycee?)Moreover,the assertion that “It could now no longer be denied that with this forgery disappeared the whole historical foundation of the papal system is just a rhetorical swagger: as Warren Carroll and other historians have noted [Schrörs, "Papst Nikolaus I. und Pseudo-Isidor" in Historisches Jahrbuch, XXV (1904), 1 sqq.; Idem, "Die pseudoisidorische 'Exceptio spolii' bei Papst Nikolaus I" in Historisches Jahrbuch, XXVI (1905), 275 sqq.] --- the Church did not then, and does not now, base its apologia of the papacy on these documents alone, or even principally; and now, not at all.
Anyone actually interested in the status questionis should really try to follow the discussions between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, which have only intensified metmom at #42 since the universal repudiation of the False Decretals.
If the whole support for the Western Church's ideas about the Petrine Ministry were dependent on the False Decretals, the whole discussion would have collapsed two or three centuries ago. Whomever you are quoting, bkaycee, as saying the repudiated document collection is "the whole historical foundation of the papal system" is pumping up a very poorly sourced opinion and presenting it as a fact.
There have been quite a few arguments made which have been entirely apt and valid (grateful tip ‘o the hat especially, but not only, to metmom and sasportas), but the whole discussion is undermined if there is a constant insinuation (on both sides) that the other side is deceitful, acting in bad faith.
That kills truth-seeking at the root, by repelling people and draining out their motivation even to participate.
To the measure that I have done this myself, I am truly sorry.
If there's anyone else I left off the ping list who would'a been on there, it was inadvertent and I apologize
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