Posted on 04/20/2011 12:07:28 PM PDT by AnalogReigns
My point is that people are smearing him-not refuting the statistics. It's like a liberal saying the jobless rate is over 8% and the solution is to spend more money. No one would quibble with the stats. However the solution is all wrong.
Catholics here have admitted the Church has "been weaken". Is anyone going to refute the stats? Yet I don't hear they trying to do anything about it.
My Jewish mother-in-law visited my evangelical church a few times and said “the people are very warm.”
Then she visited my catholic relatives church, and she said “Nobody even said hello to me! I’ll never go there again.”
And she hasn’t. Take it for what it’s worth.
Why would I refute the statistics? If they've left the Church, they've left the Church. Why are you looking for a refutation of the numbers? On the other hand It's very instructive to identify the author and what he proposes to fix the problem. To us, at least.
No one would quibble with the stats. However the solution is all wrong.
Exactly what I just said.
Catholics here have admitted the Church has "been weaken". Is anyone going to refute the stats? Yet I don't hear they trying to do anything about it.
Again, why are you looking for us to refute the stats? And what would you have us do?
St. Augustine:
“If you wish to be a Catholic, do not venture to believe, to say, or to teach that “they whom the Lord has predestinated for baptism can be snatched away from his predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them which the Almighty has predestined.” There is in such a dogma more power than I can tell assigned to chances in opposition to the power of God, by the occurrence of which casualties that which He has predestinated is not permitted to come to pass. It is hardly necessary to spend time or earnest words in cautioning the man who takes up with this error against the absolute vortex of confusion into which it will absorb him, when I shall sufficiently meet the case if I briefly warn the prudent man who is ready to receive correction against the threatening mischief.” (On the Soul and Its Origin 3, 13)
Excellent illustration of the superficiality and egocentrism that leads folks to choose a church that makes them feel “warm.”
There isn't much you can do is there? That is, if you believe this is the way the Holy Spirit is leading and protecting the Church, you may be opposing that will. This Jesuit priest has been appointed by the Pope and given the authority of the Church. So even though Catholics may disagree with him, they must submit to his calling. Why gripe?
Then again, perhaps the people who left to go to an evangelical Protestant church were actually the ones to see God's will.
You should study "Catholicism" sometime.
No individual priest is owed this type of mindless submission.
Are you afraid that like so many, an honest investigation will lead you to cross the Tiber?
Oh I heard “This is My Body, which will be given up for you,” but was unfamiliar with “we have all sinned and all fall short of the glory of God” and if we repent and trust in Jesus Christ, we can be justified and made righteous in the eyes of God. I went to confession and was told to pray 50 hail marys to make up for my sins, when Jesus did it all. I was told to be a good person, when that’s impossible. I was told that if I wasn’t good enough in this life, that I could work it off in purgatory. All these things are false. I will be justified by the blood of Jesus Christ. His work was enough to cover all sins. He, who knew no sin became sin so that we might become His righteousness. And yes it is sad that in 12 years, nobody told me the whole story.
The most powerful weapon we have is prayer.
This Jesuit priest has been appointed by the Pope and given the authority of the Church. So even though Catholics may disagree with him, they must submit to his calling.
This Jesuit has no jurisdiction over me, so there is no obligation to "submit to his calling." And yes, I would submit that you may very well know we can disagree with him, as we do disagree all the time here with various liberal/heretical/heterodox voices.
Why gripe?
Sheesh... We get grief for griping, we get grief for not griping...
You thought that Catholics taught the sacraments because we were all free from sin?
Superficial.
“....or swim the Tiber.”
You can swim both directions of the Tiber. Frankly, I’m happy no matter which way folks are swimming, if they find what they think they are looking for.
This thread pegs my piety detector meter, so I can’t even tell who is going to hell.
As opposed to the true belief that you folks can say "the sinners prayer" and go about happily sinning the rest of your life with no repercussions.
At least try to pretend you have some inteleldctual understanding of the Catholic doctrine
Shhhh your ignorance is showing. Virtually every bit of the Mass is taken directly from scripture.
http://www.wctc.net/~mudndirt/Scripture%20in%20mass.htm
I will be looking forward to you publicly correcting yourself. I won't get it, but now we all know that you don't know what you are talking about.
Okay here is what I take from your cute little anecdote is that you want want fellowship and warm fuzzies go to an evangeklical church, but if you really want the truth go to the Catholic Church, that is what you are saying correct?
My point was that Catholics don’t teach what the Bible says. Catholics also do not teach saved by grace through faith alone.
The Bible doesn't teach that either.
saved by grace through faith
Acts 15:11, Ephesians 2:5, Ephesians 2:8, 2 Timothy 1:9
HarleyD/ Campion/ Lorica:
Actually, as this article notes, none of those who left ever stated they went to Protestantism because they embraced Mainline Protestantism’s Doctrine of Justification, which tends to be Arminian in some cases {Methodist and Anglicans to some degree] or Luthers view or the heretical Calvinist penal substitution system of Justification.
This author’s describtion called eccesial consumerism says it all:
http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/04/ecclesial-consumerism-redux/
But in some sense, all of those who left are defaco liberals in that they have elevated their own personal tastes to dogma and doctrine. The 81% statistic is striking in that they like a worship service that is more creative or fits their personal tastes. In other words, it is all about them!!
Pope Benedict in his great work “Spirit of the Liturgy [pp. 159-170]” lays out why this whole notion of worshiping as I see fit is actually heretical. Orthodoxy, as he notes actually has its roots in meaning the right way to glorify God, i.e. worship Him. Thus, the Liturgy of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are ultimately right worship of God. Everything else is less than that. How do we glorify God, by praying the Liturgy and living in communion with Christ’s paschal mystery, by participating in his Eucharist a [Thanksgiving to the Father] in which Incarnation leads to Resurrection.
The Pope notes that Liturgical Rite means the practical arrangements made by the community in time and space for the basic type of worship received from God in faith. So what are Rites and where do they come from, the Pope notes [p. 160] that Canon 6 of the Council of Nicea is a good starting point in that it notes “Three Primatial Sees”, Rome, Alexandria and Antioch and then shortly after Nicea in 325, Constantinople emerges as major center of Liturgical life as well.
All of the major Rites grew organically and had some uniformity over time. However, recently, as the Pope Notes, Rite has experienced dissolution and is now replaced by “CREATIVITY” of the community.
Before going into the “CREATIVITY” issue, the Pope makes several major points. First, it is important that the individual Rites have relation to the places “Christianity originated and the place the Apostles preached” [and it ain’t in evangelical protestant America]: they are anchored in the time and place of the event of divine revelation. Thus, the Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events from the “choice made by God”, who wanted to speak to us and become man in a particular time and place. Second, the Church can’t forsake her roots, she recognizes the true utterances of God in the context of history in time and place to where God ties us, and thus we are all tied together. Thus, Rites are not just products of inculturation, they are forms of Apostolic tradition.
Second, the Rites are not fenced off from each other but enrich each other [Rome and Byzantine had liturgical exchanges in the 1st millennium]. However, as the Pope notes, they elude the control of any individual, local community or regional Church. Unspontaneity is of their essence. In these Rites, the Pope notes, I discover that something is approaching me here that I did not create myself, which ultimately derives from Divine Revelation. As the Pope continues, he beautifully notes that this is the reason the Christian East calls the Liturgy the “Divine Liturgy” which expresses thereby Liturgies independence from human control
As the Pope continues, he points out that even the Pope can’t change the Liturgy by himself he is bound to the Tradition of Faith and that also means the Liturgy. So, Rite as he now more fully defines [p. 166] is the expression that has become form, of eccesiality and of the Church’s identity as a historically transcendent of liturgical prayer and action. Thus, Rite makes concrete Liturgy’s bond with that living subject, which is the Church, who then is characterized by adherence to the form of faith that has developed from Apostolic Tradition The Pope notes that legitimate development can occur but Rite “precludes spontaneous improvisation”.
The Pope then refers to Luther and notes that despite his “radicalization and reversion to Scripture alone”, Luther did not contest the ancient Creeds [which are fixed symbola of the faith expressed in Liturgy] and thus left Protestantism and inner tension that became the fundamental problem of Protestantism. With the move a more rigid sola scriptura and the influence of the various radicalization of the critical methods of scripture study, sola scriptura can’t provide a foundation for the Church and a commonality of faith. Scripture is Scripture only when it lives within the living subject which is the Church.
The Pope then notes in very strong words, that is why it is absurd that a not insignificant number of people today are trying to reconstruct the Liturgy afresh on the basis of sola scriptura. In these reconstructions, they identify Scripture with the prevailing exegetical opinions thus confusing faith with opinion. Liturgy manufactured this way is based on human words and opinions. It is a house built on sand and remains totally empty, however much human artistry adorns it [i.e. popular music, charismatic preaching style, auditorium style worship space with modern technology, etc.]
Only respect for the Liturgies fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture but receive as gift. This means that “CREATIVITY” cannot be an authentic category for matters Liturgical. In any case, this is a word that developed within a Marxist world view. Creativity means that in a universe that in itself is meaningless and came into existence through blind evolution, man can creatively fashion and a new and better world
Thus the life of Liturgy does not come from what dawns upon the minds of individuals and planning groups. On the contrary, it is God’s descent upon our world, the source of real liberation. The more priests and the faithful humbly surrender themselves to the descent of God, the more “new” the Liturgy will constantly be and the truer and personal it becomes. Yes, the Liturgy becomes personal; true and new not through “tomfoolery and banal experiments with words”, but through the courageous entry into the great reality that through Rite is always ahead of
In closing, Pope Benedict documented this issue years ago and the fact that 81% of the folks who went Protestant went because the worship fits their personal tastes and creativity, etc, is basically heresy. It is all about them and how they “feel”
I disagree that they become protestants. Every lapsed catholic I know is a non-practicing, fallen-away catholic - and nothing else.
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