Evangelicals Hail Pope's Caserta Visit and Apologise to Catholics

Vatican Radio ^ | 7/30/14

[marshmallow]

The head of the World Evangelical Alliance has hailed Pope Francis’ meeting with Pentecostals in Caserta and apologised for discrimination of Catholics by Evangelicals in the past. After an encounter with the Catholic community in the southern Italian city on Saturday, the Pope returned to Caserta on Monday where he was welcomed by over 200 members of the Pentecostal Church of Reconciliation.

Commenting on the impact of that historic meeting, the Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance, Rev. Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe said while the official conversations between Catholics and Evangelicals are an essential part of the ecumenical journey, the building up of trust and friendship leads to a deepening of those theological dialogues. He also talked about the importance of a meeting that he and other Christian leaders had in June with Pope Francis in the Vatican and about the legacy of Evangelical leader Tony Palmer who died ten days ago…..

[vladimir998]

“But RC doctrine include praying to Mary to “intercede” for us with “her son”.”

So Mary praying for us is us worshiping Mary? If I ask you to pray for my cancer stricken wife, am I worshiping you? If I ask you to mow my lawn am I acknowledging you as Creator of the universe?

[vladimir998]

“Once art is called “religious” art one is ascribing holiness to the art.”

No. That’s like saying sports art is athletic rather than it represents athletic people and acts of athleticism.

“As I said above, would one toss the art in the garbage without giving it a second thought ?”

Would you throw pictures of your family in the trash without giving it a second thought? Would you throw away a baseball card collection without at least considering its worth? What you’re saying makes no sense.

[MayflowerMadam]

“If Catholics would stop their heretical Mary worship, then I would consider calling them Christians.”

And if they’d stop believing that baptizing a baby ensures his future in Heaven. And if they’d stop believing that giving Last Rights to a dying person actually has any effect on entering Heaven. And if they’d stop lighting candles for dead folk, believing it’s effective. And if they’d stop confessing their sins to mortal men. And if... and if... then I would consider calling them Christians.

[PieterCasparzen]

Vlad, it’s not like sports at all.

Holiness is not sportiness.

Things are either Holy or they are not.

A statue is either Holy or it’s not.

The Bible tells us there are no Holy statues.

The Lord’s Day, Sunday, is a Holy Day. But statues are not Holy at all. They are simply objects. The second commandment forbids us to ascribe any special religious character to any object.

As you can see from the Vatican website quotes I posted above, the Vatican contradicts - quite obviously - from Scripture in their teachings on this subject.

Regarding tossing away pictures of my family - such pictures are not Holy. So doing so would be a decision based on how to dispose of an OBJECT. I may have old pictures that I have replaced with new ones that are much better pictures that I want to keep. In that case, I’d dump the old ones without worrying about it at all - they would be refuse to me. If such a picture gets lost or misplaced, I might be bothered a bit as if I misplaced my car keys, but it would not be like I lost a Holy relic, because they are just OBJECTS. Mere physical things. Earthly things. Wordly things. As long as I desire or require objects, I keep them, when they are no longer useful, they can be disgarded like a worn-out shoe.

Every single object I’ve owned or ever owned is nothing to me relative to the importance to me of God the Father and Son.

And I’m sentimental and have old things from when I was a kid, things from grandparents, etc. But I realize that ultimately those things are just things. I can’t take them beyond the grave - they are useless to me in terms of my salvation, and they provide me nothing in terms of my Christian faith. My faith in Jesus Christ is independent of physical objects, completely.

This subject always brings to mind the movie Memphis Belle when the one gunner pretended to throw the other gunner’s “medal” of some saint out the window of the plane on their last mission, and the guy completely freaked out. That is superstition, plain and simple, and all too common. That medal had NO USE WHATSOEVER to protecting the fellow - and his thinking that it afforded him any safety at all is - superstition - and contrary to Scripture.

[PieterCasparzen]

Christ is the ONE mediator between us and God the Father.

There are no Scripture verses which instruct us to pray to dead people and ask them to pray for us.

There are no Scripture verses which afford Mary any unique intercessory position in relation to Jesus Christ.

There are multiple verses which tell us that Christ is the ONE mediator between God and man.

[vladimir998]

“Vlad, it’s not like sports at all.”

The analogy still holds. To say that calling some art “religious art” means “one is ascribing holiness to the art” is not only wrong but stupidly wrong. That’s all there is to it.

“As you can see from the Vatican website quotes I posted above, the Vatican contradicts - quite obviously - from Scripture in their teachings on this subject.”

That’s false. You disagree with the Church. The Church does not disagree with Scripture. The fault lies with your understanding, not Christ’s Church or His Scriptures.

Again, what the Bible prohibited was worshiping idols. We don’t worship idols. We worship God. Also, I realize you’re a Protestant and therefore naturally not very knowledgeable about Christianity or its history, but you make a typical error that so many Protestant anti-Catholics make:

“Note carefully how the second commandment is not mentioned in the section labeled “Idolatry”.”

It is mentioned with other forms of denial of the one true God. First of all, most Protestants number the commandments differently than Catholics and Lutherans do. What most Protestants call the Second Commandment, about graven images, is part of the First Commandment for Catholics and Lutherans. If you actually look at the Catechism, which I seriously doubt that you did, you would have seen that the prohibition against worshiping graven images is in section iv of “Article 1:
THE FIRST COMMANDMENT” which begins at paragraph 2084. Section iv begins at 2129-2032. The whole section is about the First Commandment and it discusses a number of forms of denial of the one true God. Idolatry is one of them, but not the only one.

And none of this changes that fact that Protestant anti-Catholics are hypocrites.

[vladimir998]

“Christ is the ONE mediator between us and God the Father.”

So you never ask anyone to pray for you? I bet you do. Does the fact that you asked someone to do that mean he isn’t working through Christ? Nope. Christ shares His offices with His people - such as the office of judge for the saints will judge fallen angels. Our God is a generous God.

“There are no Scripture verses which instruct us to pray to dead people and ask them to pray for us.”

There is no verse that says all truths are in Scripture either. Show me the verse that says Matthew wrote a Gospel. Show me where in that Gospel it says that the Gospel is inspired. Can you?

“There are no Scripture verses which afford Mary any unique intercessory position in relation to Jesus Christ.”

I would say there is - the wedding of Cana, but in any case your opinion is irrelevant.

“There are multiple verses which tell us that Christ is the ONE mediator between God and man.”

I don’t disagree with any of them. Christ shares His office with His brothers and sisters who call upon the Father as Abba. Hence you can pray for someone and so can I. Our God is a generous God.

[PieterCasparzen]

Here’s the quote from the Vatican, following my comments.

2130, “Neverthless”, points out objects that were specific to ancient Israel through direct revelation of God. There’s no direct revelation from God concerning statues of Mary or Jesus Christ.

2131 - the RC Church declares that there is a new “economy” of images. Now really, how ridiculous a statement is that, with zero Scriptural support. They simply decided that hey, since Christ became incarnate - we can now make pictures and statues of him ! And we are NOT worshipping the image. It’s an image of Christ - (now I’m all confused, because Christ IS due worship) - but we are not going to worship the “image”.

2132 clears it all up for the lost sheeple - comforting them right off the bat that they are ok on the 1st/2nd commandment. No need to worry. “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” - Wow, that was clever wording. So it is “honor”, not “worship”. And our ... “honor” of this idol.. er... image.. .... ok.... it “passes through” ( I don’t think there is a theological term “passes through” ) to the objects “prototype”. So if we honor a “statue of Jesus Christ”, the “honor” we “honor” it with “passes through” to Jesus Christ himself. Whew ! That was some explanation. If we “honor” a statue of Mary, we are just having our “honor” of her statue “pass through” to Mary. We are honoring Mary. And we can bank on it being true even if you can’t find that “honor passing through” in a Bible verse.

This is amazing in it’s audacity, word games, and lack of Scriptural support.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a1.htm

* IV. “YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A GRAVEN IMAGE . . .”

2129 The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: “Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure. . . . “66 It is the absolutely transcendent God who revealed himself to Israel. “He is the all,” but at the same time “he is greater than all his works.”67 He is “the author of beauty.”68

2130 Nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim.69

2131 Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons - of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new “economy” of images.

2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,” and “whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it.”70 The honor paid to sacred images is a “respectful veneration,” not the adoration due to God alone:

Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.71

[narses]

[PieterCasparzen]

So you never ask anyone to pray for you? I bet you do. Does the fact that you asked someone to do that mean he isn’t working through Christ? Nope. Christ shares His offices with His people - such as the office of judge for the saints will judge fallen angels. Our God is a generous God.

Yes, but people who are alive. I pray for others, who are alive, not the dead, for whom prayers are too late.

“There are no Scripture verses which instruct us to pray to dead people and ask them to pray for us.”

There is no verse that says all truths are in Scripture either. Show me the verse that says Matthew wrote a Gospel. Show me where in that Gospel it says that the Gospel is inspired. Can you?

Come now, we should know the basics of interpreting Scripture.

“There are no Scripture verses which afford Mary any unique intercessory position in relation to Jesus Christ.”

I would say there is - the wedding of Cana, but in any case your opinion is irrelevant.

Quite the opposite; from Jesus' wording in those very brief exchanges we can only infer that she indeed had no such special place. Of course, your phrase saying that my opinion is irrelevant is invalid, it's an ad hominem argument.

John 2

"1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.
3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine.
4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.
5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it."

The only other mention of Mary in that chapter was:

"12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days."

Commentary on this account:

1) We can infer from Mary advising Jesus they were out of wine that she knew that he had the power to address the issue, as she did not pose a question, and his response implies that he understood her words to be a request for him to address the issue. She simply advised him they were out of wine, she did not speak in familiar "jocular" manner one could expect of a mother and son who tended to have a "kidding", etc., relationship, she did not "nag", she did not try to "convince" Jesus to do something; she spoke to him as one speaks to one in authority.

2) In verse 4 Jesus addresses Mary his mother as Woman, and his response is not that of an earthly son who would graciously do what his mother asks in such a case, but instead Jesus makes a point of speaking from a position of authority.

3) Not knowing what Jesus was going to do, her command to the servants to do whatever Jesus commanded indicates that she fully trusted that he would successfully address the situation. Not only did her words in verse 5 demonstrate that she submitted to Jesus' authority, but she also exhorted the servers at the party to obey Jesus.

There clearly is nothing in this chapter to suggest that Mary was afforded a special intercessory position, because there is no basis upon which to infer that that anyone at the wedding asked Mary to ask Jesus about the wine shortage. This is Christ's first miracle, so no one would have any reason to look to Christ to somehow produce wine where there was none. How Mary found out is left out; was she helping serve at the wedding, did she simply overhear, did someone mention it to her ? Scripture does not say. To create such a major doctrine as Mary having an intercessory role from the hereafter based on what is left out of such a short account makes no sense.

Such an idea is completely contrary to the doctrine Christ preached elsewhere, notably:

Mark 3

"31 There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him.
32 And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.
33 And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren?
34 And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
35 For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother."

That passage clearly contradicts the idea that Mary had any special role so important as an intercessor.

[PieterCasparzen]

“There are multiple verses which tell us that Christ is the ONE mediator between God and man.”

I don’t disagree with any of them. Christ shares His office with His brothers and sisters who call upon the Father as Abba. Hence you can pray for someone and so can I. Our God is a generous God.

We pray directly to God in the name of Jesus Christ, as our mediator.

Christ does not share his role as mediator; we can not pray to God in any name other than Jesus' name.

Prayer instructions were specifically asked for by the disciples and specifically given by Christ himself. With that specificity, proper Biblical interpretation would require us to infer that Christ gave sufficient and thorough instruction to the point of being perfect instructions that are recorded in Scripture. There is no valid way to from that text conclude that Christ "should have" or "intended to but did not" say that we could also pray to Mary and she would convey our requests on to him. If that were indeed the case, the place in Scripture where that would be included would be in the instructions for prayer uttered by Jesus himself when he was asked specifically for instruction regarding prayer.

[Cronos]

There are no anathemas against you. There were anathemas against Luther etc. but not for those centuries later like yourself.

[vladimir998]

“We pray directly to God in the name of Jesus Christ, as our mediator.”

So do we.

“Christ does not share his role as mediator; we can not pray to God in any name other than Jesus’ name.”

If He doesn’t share His role, then you can’t pray for anyone.

[vladimir998]

“Yes, but people who are alive. I pray for others, who are alive, not the dead, for whom prayers are too late.”

Saints are alive in Christ whether their bodies are alive or not.

[vladimir998]

We don’t worship idols. Case closed. You can post all the assertions you want, but none of them will change the fact that we don’t worship idols.

[tbpiper]

There were anathemas against Luther etc. but not for those centuries later like yourself.

From a quick search I found this:

CANON IX. If any one shall say, that by faith alone the impious is justified.....

The 'if anyone' part seems to include a lot more folks than just Luther. I am certainly no expert on this subject and perhaps the Catholic church has limited the anathema in some official document. I just haven't heard of it.

[PieterCasparzen]

So you’re proving that RC doctrine does not include idolatry because you assert that RC doctrine does not include idolatry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_assertion

Case closed ?

Could we be at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_nauseam ?

[PieterCasparzen]

“We pray directly to God in the name of Jesus Christ, as our mediator.”

So do we.

“Christ does not share his role as mediator; we can not pray to God in any name other than Jesus’ name.”

If He doesn’t share His role, then you can’t pray for anyone.

I am alive, not dead. So when I pray for someone else, I am praying to God in the name of Christ but I am not a heavenly mediator interceding with Christ on behalf of the person I am praying for. I am offering my own prayer, not an intercession, because I have no power to intercede with Christ on someone's behalf. I can only offer a prayer, and whether or not God hears my prayer would be subject to what Holy Scripture declares in various verses where it says that God hears or does not hear prayers. Some examples of these verses:

Isaiah 1:15 "And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood."

Psalm 10:17 "17 Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear:"

There are, of course, many verses on the topic.

I have no special access to God hearing my prayers than any other person; therefore, I am not a God-man mediator.

Of course, Christ's position as mediator is completely unique, as no one is worthy to be in the presence of God without the one-time, perfect atoning sacrifice of Christ, thus Christ is the the one mediator between God and man, and we must pray to God in the name of Jesus Christ. This is taught in the Bible and it is clearly taught.

If a person has died and has gone to be with the Lord, and then we pray to that person that they would intercede with Christ for us, we are attributing to them a mediatorial role and we are believing in a heresy, since this is a significant concept that would need to be clearly stated in Scripture in order for it to be Scriptural, yet it is not mentioned at all, and it stands clearly contradictory to the many verses which teach a doctrine that Christ is the only mediator between God and man. While scripture does exhort living believers to pray for each other, it simply does not teach that we should pray to dead believers.

[vladimir998]

“I am alive, not dead.”

The saints are alive in Christ. God is the God of the living, not the dead. Mark 12:27

[vladimir998]

“So you’re proving that RC doctrine does not include idolatry because you assert that RC doctrine does not include idolatry.”

No, I am simply stating an undeniable fact: The Catholic has never and will never approve of idolatry. The Catholic Church denounces idolatry.

“Case closed?”

Yes, it is.