Posted on 06/14/2002 10:21:48 AM PDT by Polycarp
First of all, why do you consider this a "curious idea" in the light of Christian history? Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, and Augustine all believed and argued that the scriptures were the only infallible source for discerning Christian doctrine. Check it for yourself or I'll provide you with quotes and, in most cases, linked citations. For example, in The City of God, Augustine wrote that "[God] also inspired the scripture, which is regarded as canonical and of supreme authority (emphasis mine) and to which we give credence concerning all the truths we ought to know and yet, of ourselves, are unable to learn." In his Reply to Faustus, he wrote that "in the innumerable books that have been written lately we may sometimes find the same truth as scripture, but there is not the same authority. Scripture has a sacredness peculiar to itself."
It sounds to me like if Augustine were on this thread he would be arguing forcefully for sola scriptura! I don't know where you get the idea that considering scripture as the final authority just appeared out of nowhere some 500 years ago. In actuality, you ought to be asking yourself why the doctrine was held by the early church, then managed to get lost in the Dark Ages until Luther resurrected it.
I think that you are operating under a misunderstanding of what sola scriptura really is. I'm not against tradition and neither are most Protestants. Sola scriptura simply means that scripture is the final arbiter of doctrine. We can use tradition, the writings of others, and even secular history to illuminate scritpures, but if a tradition violates the clear meaning of scripture, then it must be tossed out. The early church called scriptures the canon, which means a measuring rod. The name was no accident as the early church absolutely considered it the standard by which all doctrine is to be judged. Somehow along the way that idea became lost.
Next, look in your Bible and see how often Jesus and the apostles appealed to scripture as the final rule. The words "it is written" appear around 90 times! Jesus appeals to scripture 3 times in his dispute with Satan. Jesus didn't have to do that because he could appeal to his own authority. However, he appealed to scripture in order to teach us how to do the same. Jesus rebuked the pharisees in Matthew 15 for "[nullifying] the Word of God for the sake of [their] tradition." Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians to "not go beyond what is written."
Further, take a look at how many times in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus confronted what the Jewish leaders of the day said and contrasted to what is written in the scriptures. Remember that the Jewish leaders of the day had their own doctrine of infallibility and had a habit of piling on traditions that had no scriptural basis.
Jesus said in Matthew 22: "You do err in not knowing the scriptures." That's a good rule to go by.
I assume that you were using hyperbole because that's a gross overestimation of the number of Protestant churches. My point though is that the Catholic church is just as splintered as Protestant churches. The Franciscans, Jesuits, etc. are no more closer together or further apart than, say, Baptists and Pentecostals. Go to a Hispanic Catholic church in a southwestern state and, I promise, you'll be shocked. Most of them are one part Christianity and two parts indigenous Latin American folk religion. The priests garner the same kind and amount of respect as the local bruja or curandero. Just because a church is called Catholic doesn't mean that it's in lockstep with Rome. We won't even talk about the divergence from traditional beliefs held by liberal Protestant and liberal Catholic churches!
Matt. 18:6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7 Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!
I think Jesus was pretty far sighted, God ordained and blessed marriage, God does not preclude married men from serving in the Church as heads of the Church under strict guidelines. I think it is better to follow God's way, than man's way.
FACT ONE: You have a lot of history misrepresented--Henry VIII was forced into marriage by his nobility to his dead brother's wife (Catherine) at 19 years old...yes, he was an adulterous king (later marrying the very pregnant Anne Boyelyn) but he is also regarded as one of the strongest monarch in English history--setting the beginning of the British Empire.
FACT TWO: There is a tremendous historical error regarding Catholicism and priestly celibacy--because it was not a condition of the Church until after the 10th Century. In fact, two popes fathered two sons who succeeded them on the throne of Peter and ALL FOUR TODAY are regarded as saints by YOUR church and also by mine! Celibacy, IMHO, should be confined to the monasteries and convents (where it is in the Episcopal church) but have no place in the priesthood where things such as marriage counseling often comes up. FACT THREE: I know of no lesbians being considered for bishop in my church...however, I also know of no New Testament scripture prohibiting such; the ordination of women, IMHO, is scripturally sound based upon the APOSTLE Mary Magdaline role with Christ!
I'm posting in response to the original post entitled "How to Refute Arguments Against Priestly Celibacy." If you don't want to learn anything, then no one's forcing you to read my posts.
There is also contemporary evidence in The History of the Anglican Schism (by Nicholas Sandler) during the reign of Henry's illegitimate daughter/grandaughter (his family relationships are so confusing that one can probably prove as in the old song that Henry was his own grandpa) that Anne Boleyn was Henry's illegitimate daughter. England, as you are no doubt aware, is nearly faithless today and Catholic Church attendance (3% of the English are Catholic) well outsrips Anglican attendance, even though Catholicism there is no better than here.
BTW, do you have any apostolic equivalents of your Bishop of Durham whose cathedral was struck by lightning and burned within a few weeks of his solemn pronouncement that Jesus Christ was and is not God. When did St. Mary Magdelen say Mass or hear confessions? I think you will have to do better than asserting that two anonymous pope/saints fathered two other anonymous pope/saints if you expect to be taken seriously. This may well have happened but, if it did, it does not necessarily imply what you imagine. Pious widower popes, ordained as late vocations, having previously fathered their offspring, who were ordained and became popes, as well? I note that, if your church regards them as saints (do you recognize Cranmer, as well?) you must not think too poorly of them, although, if my Church did not also regard them as saints, I would be very skeptical of their disposition after death.
Certainly no one will claim that primogeniture (with the attendant probability of having to put up with rank idiots as monarchs with some regularity Lizzie I and II, George III come immediately to mind) is the normal rule for succession to the papacy as it is in the curiously (but necessary to Henry) erected claim that the monarch of England is the head of its Church. No one has ever fried eggs on Lizzie II's forehead or been able to do so.
Maybe you can explain another historical question about Anglicanism or Episcopalianism as it is known on this side of the pond. If the head of state is the head of the church, does this mean that the Arkansas Antichrist was, for eight years, head of your church here? That would explain much. Inquiring minds want to know.
Your Scriptural basis for Mary Magdelen as an Apostle (priest/bishop) rather than as a disciple (every Tom, Dick and Harriet).
BTW, although I am as English by blood as I am Irish, I confess major sympathy for Ireland in all controversies with perfidious Albion. You may also wish to give your rationalizations for the rape, loot and pillage of Church property by Henry VIII prior to his death from syphilis (what else) in order to enrich his friends, buy off his nobles and further his illicit amorous ambitions. Or the martyrdom of St. Thomas More? Or the martyrdom of St. John Fisher? Or the martyrdom of St. Edmund Campion?
Other authors whom I would recommend would include an early 19th Century Protestant Member of Parliament Thomas Cobbett, and his magnificent work on the The History of the (misnamed) "Reformation" in England and Ireland (reformed nothing and constituted grand theft ecclesiastical) in which he accuses Henry of being responsible for looting Church hospitals, schools, churches and other property, thereby impoverishing the Roman Catholic Church in his unfortunate land and making it impossible for the Church (the actual Church not Henry's self-serving fantasy) to continue to provide medical care and education to the common people of England as previously without charge and thereby occasioning the beginning of taxation of ordinary folk as we know it. You would also do well to study John Henry Cardinal Newman, Belloc and Chesterton.
Chesterton wisely observed that many believe that those who reject the Truth will believe in nothing but that they were wrong. Actually, those who reject the Truth will believe anything. Your rendition of Henry's history is certainly proof of Chesterton's wisdom.
Do I remember correctly that the United States of America was the result of a revolution overthrowing the power of the then "head" of your Church in America?
One hundred years ago, your church, along with the rest of Christianity regarded divorce, homosexuality, abortion, and birth control as abominations. Your Lambeth Conference of 1930 opened the floodgates on divorce and remarriage and birth control. The rest of the results are now obvious. What do you expect of moral doctrine determined democratically?
Feel free to contact Fr. Carleton Jones, the Dominican and now Catholic pastor of St. Mary's Church in New Haven. He is the former pastor of St. Luke's Episcopal Church in New Haven. He is also a direct descendant of the justifiably famed Jonathan Edwards. Fr. Jones is a graduate of Yale University and of Berkeley Divinity School (not in California) which has since merged with Yale Divinity School. As an Episcopalian priest, Fr. Jones was troubled by the "morality" of the Episcopalian Church. Doctrinal approval of divorce and remarriage, birth control, homosexuality, women priests, and abortion had become hallmarks of Episcopalianism. According to an interview in the New Haven Register shortly after he returned to New Haven as a Catholic priest after resigning St. Luke's whose people he loved, Fr. Jones explained that he had gone to a Benedictine retreat house and prayed and pondered the fact that the Episcopalian Church had now proven beyond doubt that it is surely not the Church of Jesus Christ and so he became a Catholic priest. Welcome home, Father Jones.
Of course, even Parliament was so traumatized by Henry's philandering ways that, with his body not cold in the grave, within days of his death, the Parliament passed legislation secularly prohibiting divorce and remarriage and also prohibiting anyone from the throne who is divorced or married to one who is divorced (see Edward VIII who abdicated to marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson, thus giving up his undoubted brtilliance in the religious firmament for the woman he loved, as the saying goes, and the current reluctance of Prince Charles to marry the divorced Rotweiler).
Stalin was one of the strongest rulers in Russian history and Mao in Chinese history and Hitler in German history which absolves none of them of their crimes either. Henry married Catherine, the ostensible widow of his dead brother Arthur who NEVER consummated that marriage and never "sealed" it therefore under Canon Law, such was the argument of Henry VIII as a 19 year-old and of his Catholic father who wanted to facilitate dynastic interests by marrying a son to the daughter of the Spanish monarchs. Henry, not the nobles and not his father said "I do" and he previously petitioned th Vatican for annulment of his dead brother's marriage to Catherine of Aragon on exactly the grounds stated. Later in life after more than twenty years of marriage and, as, in the natural order of things, Catherine's fertility was drawing to a close without providing his imperial egotism with a male heir (probably God had more to do with this result than Catherine), he belatedly discovered an unnecessary and unseemly scrupulosity over what he now claimed had been an invalid marriage. This was analogous to your purchase of a new automobile, driving it for 2.5 million miles (driving many other cars secretly on the side, wink, wink) and then deciding you want your money back for the full purchase price plus interest, with a straight face. Except that Catherine was a woman and his wife and not a mere car.
I only mention these matters because of your insistence that the governance of the Roman Catholic Church is somehow your business although you cannot credibly claim membership in it. In that event, then the history and governance of your church are fair game.
Fully conceding that government has every right (and even duty) to prosecute and punish the perverts in the priesthood and their protective bishops and pervert bishops according to the laws enacted in the relevant jurisdictions and consistent with the constitution, and, in fact, encouraging the government to do exactly that (since it will facilitate the return of badly needed Catholicism to America), it is none of the government's business or yours to stick its or your uninvited nose into internal CHURCH decisions. Says so right in the First Amendment, adopted right after we booted the king or church leader or whaever George III was in addition to being insane. MYOB.
No one denies that Peter had a mother-in-law and therefore must have been married at some point in his life. I personally think it would have been rather rude of Peter's wife if he still had one and, as would then seem likely, she was home when her mother was delivered from a great fever, to have left it to her mother to serve the guests including Jesus Christ Who had cured her mother and including her own husband. If she was home on her own deathbed, one would think that someone would have asked Jesus to deliver her as well. Likewise, if she was crippled. But Luke 4:40-44 and Mark 1:32-39 clearly indicate that, after Jesus had delivered Peter's mother-in-law from that great fever, many others were brought to Him and cured and some were exorcised of demons by Him. No direct mention whatsoever is made of Peter's wife as though she were living. That is not conclusive but it is very strong circumstantial evidence that Peter's wife was at least not present and pretty decent evidence that she was no longer his wife aince two evangelists did not see fit to even explain her absence and they both would have known the truth as would their contemporaries.
All that having been said, and you having achieved the triumph (I am not being sarcastic here, honest!) of making a Roman Catholic curmudgeon read some Scripture, and conceding, for example, that if membership in the Sanhedrin required marriage (I personally have no idea of that; feel free to point to a Scriptural reference and I will read it), may well suggest that Paul was OR had been married IF he was a member of the Sanhedrin and not merely its enforcer. Does available evidence indicate that a member of the Sanhedrin who was widowed or abandoned by a faithless wife or whose wife was stoned to death for adultery would be expelled from the Sanhedrin as an additional misfortune? Or that exceptions were never made. On the other hand, the suggestion that "many" of the other apostles were "probably" married is weak and not supported even by circumstantial evidence. Could be. After all, none of us have real evidence on this (such as Scripture or even secular histories such as that of Flavius Josephus worthy of respect if not disagreeing with Scripture.) None of us are really sure. God certainly knows but He did not see fit to tell us.
It is a pleasure corresponding with you since you are serious and respectful and have actually taken up the challenge that both of us recognized as difficult at the outset of trying to prove by Scripture the marital status of the Apostles. We may come to differing conclusions but yours and, I hope, mine are advanced in good faith. I would also agree that, whether or not any apostles were married after being called by Christ, will not matter one iota to your salvation or mine.
I certainly accept the obvious fact that Jesus Christ was and is my personal Lord and Savior. Since our sins are crimes against God Himself, we are entirely incapable of making adequate restitution or undergoing adequate punishment to be able to require salvation. I also celebrate the infinite magnificence of God, as displayed in John 3:16 and in so many other places in Scripture. I do not believe that my mere acceptance is in and of itself a guaranteed path to salvation. I do believe with the Epistle of James that faith, without works is dead. My works do not save me but they evidence my Faith.
I have elsewhere described my understanding of the views of other Christians who are evangelical or Pentecostal or otherwise "born again" as the 95-yard pass play that might win the game. That is not disrespectful whatever it may sound like. I just do not agree that a one-shot acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior as a fifteen year-old, let's say, is a guarantee of salvation regardless of future behavior. We are, after all, sinners, Catholic, Protestant and everyone else.
The Catholic view is of a lifelong struggle against those powers and principalities, armed by the actual graces which flow from God through His Sacraments, but still requiring militant resistance to evil and to Lucifer and, that when we fall, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again with a redoubled hatred for evil and love of God. This would be the Woody Hayes/Ohio State theory of seeking salvation with mostly undramatic 3 yard running play after three yard running play after four yard running play, none of it possible without God and none of it likely unless we are determined, until death is the means by which God calls us home. If I should die without unrepented mortal sins on my soul, God will keep His promises. He is no liar.
In any event, it has never been claimed to the best of my knowledge that no priest was ever married at all, or that no priest was ever married during his priesthood. Quite the contrary. History will easily reveal numerous instances, particularly in the First Millenium after Christ, in which priests were married and, very likely bishops, as well. It may well be that there were married popes. We know their identities prior to Constantine's good relations with Pope St. Sylvester I and have a good idea of how they died (mostly martyred by Roman persecutions) and something of the religious controversies decided by them and where many of them are buried but we have very little information on who was ever married among them. This is not unusual. We do not know a lot about some very important secular figures in the ancient world because of the horrendously tragic fire which destroyed the Library of Alexandria and its collections. We have lost great literary works although we are certain that they existed because of references to them in surviving works of others.
Please understand that, as to this matter of married Catholic clergy, we are talking about a changeable discipline, a practical rule, prudential judgment and not an unchangeable dogma or doctrine. If the rule were changed by the pope tomorrow, I have no problem with that and will lead where he follows. We already have marriued clergy in the Eastern rites (which are fully Catholic and not of the ancient Eastern Orthodox faith) which allow what the Eastern Orthodox Churches still allow. We even have exceptions within the Catholic clergy of the Roman rite who have converted as married clergymen from Anglicanism or Lutheranism. They are not allowed to marry again after the death of the wife to whom they were married at the time of ordination.
As to the Blackhawks, I have only lived in Illinois for two years. I used to root for them in my New England youth because I liked their name and their uniforms and eventually Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita. Their management is like Carl Pohlad of the Minnesota Twins or Bud Selig in thinking that franchise owner is a status that entitles one to income, earned or otherwise.
My great sports passion has been, for more than fifty years, the New York Yankees (hides behind computer to avoid tin cans and rotten tomatoes). You have to admit that their management is pretty good. Steinbrenner and friends bought the ranchise for $8 million with an m in 1972 or 1973. The latest estiamte of value is $1 billion with a b. Not bad for a guy who ran his ancestral shipbuilding firm into the ground and was dumb enough to contribute to Ted Kennedy. God bless you and yours.
The article posted spoke of refuting arguments against priestly celibacy. I haven't seen much rational refutation but I have seen a whole lot of name-calling and a determined refusal to address sound reasoning and documented facts. Are my facts wrong? If so, point 'em out. If you can't refute my arguments, then how are you going to refute the same arguments when they're made by non-Christians? Are you going to tell them to get lost and then whine about "drive-by psudo-theological shootings?" Yeah, that'll show 'em.
Unfortunately, this is not just a Catholic problem -- all Christians have been hurt by these events. So yes, it is my business.
If you regard yourself, as a sola Scriptura Christian and imagine that your post reflects Scripture, please name each apostle, the wife of each apostle, the proof that each marriage persisted after Jesus called each such apostle to His service and, most importantly the Scriptural reference backing up each of your assertions. Do you suppose that Mother Teresa was acting contrary to Scripture in devoting her life to God's service as a nun serving the most wretched refuse of secular society and finding in each one of them the spark of their divine Creator? Neither Christ nor Scripture nor tradition required Mother Teresa to marry or to refrain from marriage even though God created marriage.
St. Francis Xavier went, ummm, forth to India, Macao and Japan and, umm, taught those nations and baptized 600,000 of their residents in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost but it didn't mean much. He had been a raaaather successful and wealthy playboy at the University of Paris when he met and roomed with St. Ignatius Loyola. Loyola had, as a layman, worked his way through the ladies of Spain as Xavier worked his way through the ladies of Navarre and then Paris as a layman (no pun intended). In the time of his laity, St. Thomas a Becket was quite an, er, swordsman as well, as Henry II, his fellow adventurer well knew. No one whatsoever suspected Ignatius, Francis or Thomas of lavender inclinations. No one ever doubted their sanctity and none of them ever married even if God did invent marriage which He did.
He created Mount Everest but He did not require me to try to climb it. Given my level of skills at mountain-climbing, my advancing age and less than perfect health, He probably does reuire that I refrain from attempting to climb Mount Everest since we Catholics regard suicide as a violation of the Fifth Commandment, or whatever number your translation may assign: Thou Shalt not Kill, and, of course, we are right.
You certainly do know (if you are married) that your husband, if straight, is not casting covetous glances at the hindquarters of the nearest ten-year-old boy when you are out of town and away from hubby. That proves nothing as to the desireability of a married priesthood. I'm married. Trust me that men are not inclined toward whever charm may be found in the anal regions of children unless they are disordered faggots in the first place. Lavender men may feign an interest in women. Straight men do not feign or have, much less indulge, any interest in boys' backsides.
It is too much to expect people outside the Church to look to AmChurch liberal heresies as the source of this problem as Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz wisely suggested during the recent conference. There is a fifth column within the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, dedicated to disobedience, defiance and outright heresies and, as Bruskewitz has asked, it ought to be investigated and acted upon by purging, purging and more purging.
Americans, even those who imagine themselves Catholic, simply cannot resist putting their two cents' worth into these controversies as though they were authorities. Rule #1: The pope is right. Rule #2: If the pope ever seems to be wrong on a matter of faith and morals or Church discipline, refer bback to Rule #1. It is just that simple. You are free to disagree and not be Catholic. We are then free to tell you to mind your own business. It's just that simple. MYOB. Bye, bye, etc.....
I am almost ashamed to admit I was a Blackhawks fan when they last won the cup in 1961, with Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita. It has been a long dry spell since then. I also must admit I am a Minn Twins fan, so I have the worst of both worlds here, but at least the Twins have won 2 world series. One of my friends here, was born and raised in Detroit, so I have to listen to him talk about those darn Detroit Red Wings. I hate it. Oh well, hang in there. Nice talking to you.
Your "FACT TWO": I take it you are referring to St. Peter, the first Pope and the Apostle (never served as king of England to the best of my knowledge but never mind) who was crucified upside down by Nero at a garden party in about 67 AD and to Pope St. Felix I whose papacy was from January 3, 269 to December 30, 274, the 1st and 26th popes, according to the decidedly non-Catholic Oxford Dictionary of the Popes. Since you assert the marriages of most of them, please to inform this ignorant Catholic, the Mother Church of the actual English Church from which yours went into schism because Henry would not accept the judgment of God, the burden is on you. According to Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican's official yearbook, you will be expected to provide the marital details of the following canonized pope/saints (dates of reign in parentheses): names of wives, dates of marriage and scholarly source. You need not limit yourself to Scripture since your Church has neither a pope nor a claim of sola Scriptura. Enjoy, back up your claim or abandon it. I have already given you sources here and previously. Let's see your details and scholarly citations. In oher words, put up or shut up about a Church that is none of your business.
Pope St. Linus (67-76) Pope St. Anacletus (76-88) Pope St. Clement (88-97) Pope St. Evaristus (97-105) Pope St. Alexander I (105-115) Pope St. Sixtus I (115-125) Pope St. Telesphorus (125-136) Pope St. Hyginius (136-140) Pope St. Pius I (140-155) Pope St. Anicetus (155-166) Pope St. Soter (166-175) Pope St. Eleutherus (175-189) Pope St. Victor (189-199) Pope St. Zephyrinus (199-217) Pope St. Callistus I (217-222) Pope St. Urban I (222-230) Pope St. Pontianus (230-235) Pope St. Anterus (235-236) Pope St. Fabian (236-250) Pope St. Cornelius (251-253) Pope St. Lucius I (253-254) Pope St. Stephen I (254-257) Pope St. Sixtus II (257-258) Pope St. Dionysius (260-268) and Pope St. Felix I (269-274)
When you have finished your homework, please tell me why it matters whether these popes were ever married even during their papacies on a discipline, not a dogma, not in force during the lifetimes of any of them
Your "FACT THREE": St. Thomas More (does even your Church dare canonize your royal serial adulterer) responded to his condemnation by the Parliamentary kangaroo court: "I die the king's good servant but God's first which ought to be the appropriate posture for any Christian even if serving under Henry the Lecher so long as service does not interfere with obligations to God (an even Higher Authority than the Brit chief gangster and usurper du jour). Will you be canonizing Edward VIII for marrying second-hand Rose. There is even a contemporary Canadian song that could be played at Eddie's canonization: Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Mrs. Simpson's got our king! No self-control but passions vile, this will make the Irish smile.... OK, I made it up after "king!" but the first part is authentic and I could not resist the rest. Eddie's pal Hitler was also a do your own thing kind of guy. Was Hitler the head of the Church of Germany? (Yes, if it was an obscure occult group of neo-pagan murderers.) By the way, I take it that you believe that Queen Mary, the fairest flower to grace the throne of such a benighted land, who died after only five years on the throne with only 100 executions to her credit and so much work left undone like the contemplated execution of Lizzie I, was entitled to execute Cranmer and Lizzie I for that matter since Mary was the head of the soi-disant "Church of England" else there would be no legitimate succession there either. Lizzie I lied her way under oath to extend her life and then murdered Mary Queen of Scots, but was succeeded by the sainted Stuarts anyway.
Your FIRST "FACT FOUR": How you talk about about the descendant of Ferdinand and Isabella, their most Catholic majesties and each by far the superior of any Brit monarch who ever lived. Do you receive what purports to be the Eucharist with that mouth? Mary, the only legitimate survivor of Henry the Insatiable, is a vicious anti-protestant monarch???? But her dad is some sort of hero. OK, have you read Henry the Love Bug's published refutation of Luther and the reformation? Did not think so, but isn't Luther, as a Protestant, what Coca Cola is to soft drinks: the Real Thing? Today's pretentious local German nobles from Saxe who pose as Brit monarchs have also presumably rejected the reformation which had been their only basis for being chosen as Brit monarchs in the first place other than their track record for fertility. Hmmmm, Lizzie II is getting up in years and cannot last forever. If the Rotweiler succeeds in making an honest man out of Charles, he will be disqualified. Randy Andy is already divorced. Edward is still eligible until caught with his actual lover(s), but don't bet on any progeny from him. Anne is already multiply disqualified. Well, a bit of bad luck, eh what? Change the laws or formalize the socialist regime without monarchy. What other choices are there? As to the bishops, after you killed John Fisher, what was left? Spineless toadies and heretics, that's what.
Your SECOND "FACT FOUR": There is no proof that the marriage of Arthur to Catherine WAS ever consummated and the Tudor claims to the pope of the time claimed that there was no consummation, did they not, which would be an admission by the Tudors and their flunkies as well as by the sainted Catherine of Aragon. Who cares whether Henry the Omnivore fell out of love with catherine He was married to her and this was not the "Dating Game" or "Survivor" but a Catholic marriage. The pope had every right to waive any Church law having to do with the technical incest of marrying the widow of one's brother, as the Tudors understood when they petitioned the Vatican. They got what they wanted when Henry was young. He did not get a male heir and he dveloped a Hall of Fame roving eye (among other organs) that finally landed him in his grave after a period as the Mad Hatter on his way to the grave. That's a nice touch that you claim not to condone adultery when you belong to a "church" which powes itrs very existence to adultery and larceny in support of adultery and, likely, a much worse form of incest than marrying one's brother's widow which was, after all, commanded in the Old Testament which never commanded Henry the Satyr or anyone else to marry his daughter and in fact forbade such behavior. By the way, whatever I may say about Henry the Ravenous, I regard him as a positive Mother Teresa in comparison to the devil's spawn known as Lizzie I. May God bless you and conform your conscience to His Truth and his plan.
You may think that our clergy in their relation to our Church are somehow your business. Saying so does not make it so. I am old enough to have been brought up in the laudable tradition of separatist Catholicism and to understand that the opinion of those outside the Roman Catholic Church makes no difference whatsoever. In fact, we pride ourselves on that and heve every right to.
Scholarly or otherwise, you are self-interpreting Scripture. Wisely, you reject the notion that history is irrelevant because that has always been one of the must cultlike aspects of sola Scriptura. You may be that wise but, if I had a nickel for every Protestant who has defended himself in argument with the idea that only Scripture counts and that facts not in Scripture are not part of the argument, I would be rich.
I must go grocery shopping for my wife (I am neither a priest nor an apostle). While I am gone, perhaps you would like to explain the Protestant view of The Gospel of John 6: 22-67 with particular emphasis on 67. Are you not still walking away if you deny the Real Presence in the Eucharist?
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