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To: meandog
Apparently, your idea of straying from Christ has to do with the Roman catholic Church maintaining objective rules as to sexual behavior which you find incoonvenient as did Henry the Serial Adulterer. You are at least a traditionalist in that respect.

You are missing some nuances here. Henry the Adulterous died believing himself Catholic, hilarious though that particular pretension may be. He simply imagined himself the "head" of the Catholic Church of England.

Bear in mind that he had been deemed a "Defender of the Faith" by a pope for his published refutation of Martin Luther and of Luther's published views. This award was temporary and limited to the specifics of Henry's published religious views (as a laymen) as to Lutheranism prior to his remarkably enthusiastic dive into the pool of serial and quite public adulteries and murders. Nonetheless, his successors have assumed (in comic opera fashion: Where are Gilbert and Sullivan when we really need them?) that Defender of the Faith (Defensor Fidei) is some sort of hereditary title granted by the papacy which it is not. Right down to Lizzie II, the Brits pathetically mint their coins with the abbreviation D. F. under the constitutionally limited monarchical countenance.

Thus, such madmen as George III were regarded (despite being Germans) as "Head" of the Church of England but also defenders of the faith!!!! Hence do not libel actual Protestantism, honest "reformed" churches, by identifying Anglicanism with the reformation. The reformation was not built upon adultery, thievery and murder.

As far as our dashing your hopes that Catholicism would become a heretical faith (which will not occur because Christ Himself guaranteed that it would not) so that you could cynically say: See: We are all made of the same clay, you know!, I'm not going to apologize for the election of the very Catholic Karol Wojtlywa as Pope John Paul II, an ecclesiastical Matt Dillon to clean up the prudential (not doctrinal) mistakes of his predecessors twice and three times removed.

You can keep on reposting this business of married popes and popes who were sons of other popes until the cows come home and it won't be one whit morew valid as a criticism. The celibacy rule of the Roman rite was not imposed until the twelfth century long after the popes in question. Clerical celibacy is a changeable discipline which may be bound or loosed by Peter or his successors as they deem prudenbt. It is not dogma. It is not doctrine. It is governance. If JPII declares tomorrow that priests may marry, that is fine by me. This question has to do with OBEDIENCE to papal authority, but you already knew that, didn't you? You just want to make believe that it is permissible for Catholics, and even "Catholic" priests, to defy papal authority, just like Luther and Henry the Lecherous did. No surprise here. Move along now.

I am still waiting to hear the names of each wife of each apostle and the Scriptural reference as to each and the Scriptural evidence that any marriages that survived the call by Christ to apostlehood continued to involve sexual relations. It might well be that each and every one was married and it would be dogmatically irrelevant as well, but the burden of proof is on those who make the assertion that the apostles were married and sexually involved with wives DURING their respective ministries.

As to Peter's mother-in-law, just as a widower or a divorced man (quite permissible under Jewish law for the pre-Christian Simon bar Jonah) would still be the father of any of his children in spite of the cessation of his marriage, so too he would continue to be his mother-in-law's son-in-law. This is a lot easier to decipher than murderer Henry the Insatiable's status as murderess Lizzie I's father AND grandfather.

As to Queen Mary Tudor, she was not the "Head" of the Church of England, whatever the ignorant Parliament that had previously ordered the execution of St. Thomas More might think. If she had been the "Head" of the Church of England, you should have no trouble with her execution of the heretic Cranmer and a handful of other miscreants. Actually, she was the head of the English government. In that capacity, she executed the civil laws of the land including the execution of Cranmer after he was judged by competent ecclesiastical authority. She died with so much work undone and particularly failed to perceive the dishonesty of Lizzie I.

As to Pope Leo XIII, as pope, he and, in his time as pope, only he had the authority to determine whether the Anglicans retained legitimate apostolic succession, which flows only within or through the "Mother Church" of Rome. We do not deny and, in fact, we confirm the apostolic succession enjoyed by the Eastern Orthodox Churches which probably were not waiting on our opinion due to the 1,000 years of schism. In most respects, our contention with the Eastern Orthodox and theirs with us has usually been more bitter in its expressions than any contentions with the self-created "Church of England." This is not a matter of bias but of the truth of apostolic succession. The Eastern Orthodox have it. Your church does not, will not and cannot.

You have insisted that I should not rely on St. Paul but on one of the other 11. Apostles? Then there would be twelve, not counting Judas. Matthew was an apostle but, if you don't recognize the authority of the papacy over you, then perforce you reject Matthew. Eight of them did not participate in the divinely inspired authorship of Scripture. Peter, James and John seem not to have addressed the matter. Are there any other books of the New Testament that you reject in addition to Acts and the many Epistles of St. Paul? Has Anglicanism come to this?

Roman Catholicism is apparently not convenient to your sexual desires. It is not convenient to the sexual desires of many people. Then again, it never claimed to be convenient to the sexual desires of many although it is to many others: the ones who would be married to one person of the opposite sex until death do them part.

We are still not drafting anyone, and a good thing too since we seem to have no trouble generating Rembert Weakland types as vipers within at least in AmChurch leftist circles. May the day come when you look back fondly at JP II as much more tolerant than his successors. Read the actual documents of Vatican II and you will find considerably less encouragement for your hopes of the Protestantization of the Roman Catholic Church than you apparently imagine based upon dishonest hype by the tiny rump caucus of the faithless liberals who insist upon calling themselves Catholics.

154 posted on 07/02/2002 8:54:14 AM PDT by BlackElk
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To: BlackElk
You are missing some nuances here. Henry the Adulterous died believing himself Catholic, hilarious though that particular pretension may be. He simply imagined himself the "head" of the Catholic Church of England...You can keep on reposting this business of married popes and popes who were sons of other popes until the cows come home and it won't be one whit morew valid as a criticism. The celibacy rule of the Roman rite was not imposed until the twelfth century long after the popes in question. Clerical celibacy is a changeable discipline which may be bound or loosed by Peter or his successors as they deem prudenbt... dogma. It is not doctrine. It is governance. If JPII declares tomorrow that priests may marry, that is fine by me. This question has to do with OBEDIENCE to papal authority, but you already knew that, didn't you? You just want to make believe that it is permissible for Catholics, and even "Catholic" priests, to defy papal authority, just like Luther and Henry the Lecherous did. No surprise here. Move along now. I am still waiting to hear the names of each wife of each apostle and the Scriptural reference as to each and the Scriptural evidence that any marriages that survived the call by Christ to apostlehood continued to involve sexual relations. It might well be that each and every one was married and it would be dogmatically irrelevant as well, but the burden of proof is on those who make the assertion that the apostles were married and sexually involved with wives DURING their respective ministries... As to Peter's mother-in-law, just as a widower or a divorced man (quite permissible under Jewish law for the pre-Christian Simon bar Jonah) would still be the father of any of his children in spite of the cessation of his marriage, so too he would continue to be his mother-in-law's son-in-law. This is a lot easier to decipher than murderer Henry the Insatiable's status as murderess Lizzie I's father AND grandfather. Roman Catholicism is apparently not convenient to your sexual desires. It is not convenient to the sexual desires of many people. Then again, it never claimed to be convenient to the sexual desires of many although it is to many others: the ones who would be married to one person of the opposite sex until death do them part....

Firstly, Blackie, check out some history facts: Henry was first betrothed to Catherine of Aragon way back in 1503--a contract he denounced in 1505 long before his divorce. As I stated previously, he was more or less forced into the marriage by his nobels when brother Eddie kicked the bucket and ugly little Cathy was left without a hubby...and though wedded to little Cathy for nearly 20 years, it was far from a happy situation for Henry, hence enter eager Anne Boyelyn (among countless earlier others) in the court. But let's take a look at what was happening in one-religion Europe about the same time: When he wasn't demanding war and excommunicating EVERYONE in the Venetian Republic (or, later, his ally France afer he formed the Holy League) Pope Julius II was busy diddling just about anything resembling female...(incidentally, Julius did invite Henry VIII into his Holy League so the rumors adultry must not have mattered too much to this randy pope). Much of what was going on the the church then--forking a life's savings to get a loved one out of purgatory, the tortuous Inquisition, etc., was what sparked a little known monk in Worms Germany to nail his protest to the door of the church...oh, but there were some good points to old Julius such as the rebuilding of your great St. Peter's Church which was begun during his reign (1506)...
Later, about the time of Leo X, that great Catholic, Holy Roman Emperor Charles, was establishing an adultry record that more than eclipsed Henry VIII--that is if you consider five bastard children ('course Henry's Mary, Lizzie and Eddie were all legit.)

But enough about history of adultry in the 16th Century. On to some other points you made. Of course I cannot name the wives of some of the apostles, I can't name any of the wives of the prophets either, nor the wives and concubines of Kings David and Solomon. But I know they had them because it was (still is in orthodox versions) an absolute bedrock requirement in Judaism that Jewish men marry. Roman Catholicism has nothing to do with my sexuality, nor should it have anything to do with anyone else's. All I am hoping (praying) that the church will regale celibacy to the monestaries and convents (where the Anglicans have put it) and let hetrosexual married priests do their jobs (50 percent of that job is, according to their very own lips, involved with marriage counseling).

157 posted on 07/02/2002 11:32:03 AM PDT by meandog
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