[HarleyD]

Your error is that you conflated “atonement” with “justification.” Based on the fact that you believe in only one kind of atonement, ...because they don’t understand it, you disparage the portions of God’s Word that you reject, because you don’t understand it.

I would point out that the Church no longer follow the doctrine of atonement as laid out by the early church fathers. This is from the Catholic encyclopedia on the atonement:

Thus the Greek Fathers, who delight in speculating on the Mystical Redemption by the Incarnation, do not omit to speak also of our salvation by the shedding of blood. Origen, who lays most stress on the deliverance by payment of a ransom, does not forget to dwell on the need of a sacrifice for sin. St. Anselm again, in his "Meditations", supplements the teaching set forth in his "Cur Deus Homo?" Abelard, who might seem to make the Atonement consist in nothing more than the constraining example of Divine Love has spoken also of our salvation by the Sacrifice of the Cross, in passages to which his critics do not attach sufficient importance. And, as we have seen his great opponent, St. Bernard, teaches all that is really true and valuable in the theory which he condemned. Most, if not all, of these theories had perils of their own, if they were isolated and exaggerated. But in the Catholic Church there was ever a safeguard against these dangers of distortion.

That great doctrine has been faintly set forth in figures taken from man's laws and customs. It is represented as the payment of a price, or a ransom, or as the offering of satisfaction for a debt. But we can never rest in these material figures as though they were literal and adequate. As both Abelard and Bernard remind us, the Atonement is the work of love. It is essentially a sacrifice, the one supreme sacrifice of which the rest were but types and figures.

New Advent on Atonement

There you have it. Hidden within all the gooblygook. The atonement is simply a work of love that we are to mirror. Not only does this view throw out all the "mystical" teachings of the early fathers, and the teachings of medieval fathers like Anselm, and denies the Nicene Creed, but it has no base in scripture.

The truth of the matter is that Catholics no longer believe in the atonement of Christ (His death being a substitution for our sins to abate the wrath of God). Even though this is what was taught by the early fathers, according to the Catholic Church they had a distorted view. I suppose it's like the Pope stated, just follow your conscience. Everyone can get to heaven if we just sacrifice ourselves like Christ. Many Catholics are trying to back peddle from the Pope's remarks yesterday but this is the true belief of the Catholic Church. Live a good life and everything will be fine.

If you can't understand the wrath of God you will never be able to understand the love of God. They are one in the same.

[dangus]

Once again, you insist on quoting New Advent as if it were the canons of the ecumenical councils. It's the work of an American layman in 1913 Protestant-dominated America, made famous only because it could be put on the internet for free because no-one ever bothered to renew its copyright, just like the cheesy movies that they used for Mystery Science Theater 3000.

But what's hilarious is you stick to your reading of it, even though in the very article you're citing, the author attempts to make clear precisely that he's not saying precisely what you otherwise could reasonable misread his sloppy explanation for saying:

The Catholic doctrine on this subject is set forth in the sixth Session of the Council of Trent, chapter ii. Having shown the insufficiency of Nature, and of Mosaic Law the Council continues:

Whence it came to pass, that the Heavenly Father, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1, 3), when that blessed fullness of the time was come (Galatians 4:4) sent unto men Jesus Christ, His own Son who had been, both before the Law and during the time of the Law, to many of the holy fathers announced and promised, that He might both redeem the Jews, who were under the Law and that the Gentiles who followed not after justice might attain to justice and that all men might receive the adoption of sons. Him God had proposed as a propitiator, through faith in His blood (Romans 3:25), for our sins, and not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world (I John ii, 2).

[CynicalBear]

Amen and Amen!