The Big Discovery [by David, former Presbyterian]

Journeyof ImperfectSaint.blogspot.com ^ | October 4, 2009 | David

[Salvation]

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Big Discovery

        I made some good friends outside my church and found out that they were all Catholics.  Now, I did not know much about Catholicism at the time.  By the way, the Mass did seem somewhat mysterious to me externally.  In fact, what little I had heard from other church members was all negative.  There was a Mrs. J at my church, who had just retired from her missionary post in China.  She was such a kind and endearing soul to all.  One day she got back from visiting someone at a hospital and looked extremely sad and disturbed.  It turned out that when she got to the hospital room, she saw that a Catholic priest was already there with the patient.  Now the question was if the patient would ever get to heaven. 

 

        Nevertheless, my Catholic friends all looked quite normal and happy.  Then could the Catholic Church, the largest church in the the world, be in error?  It so happened that at that time I was also beginning to question my Protestant faith.  The fact that there were numerous different denominations around the world bothered me.  Also, as a Protestant, whether you're a minister or lay person, you are free to marry and divorce any number of times.  It's hard to see that Jesus would be happy with these two facts.  Since I am the kind of person who always likes to find the answer to any question that's important, I decided to look into Catholicism.

 

        I made up my mind not to talk to anyone about my investigation.  I was single then and had a lot of free time to myself.  The local public library housed an excellent collection of books on Catholicism, so I started borrowing books on the subject.  I read every weekend, even taking notes as I read.  The went on for over a year.  I read all those books that viciously attack the Catholic Church too, but somehow they did not affect me much because I sensed that these attacks could not have been prompted by the Holy Spirit.  The books that really helped me were the ones on early Church history.  I could see that the continuity was there and the beliefs and practices of the early Church had been preserved to this day in the Catholic Church.  The only conclusion I could come to was that the Catholic Church was indeed the church Jesus had come and established.  Like Christ himself, the Church, being his body, must be accepted (or rejected) totally, with no middle ground. 

 

        Here's some advice for those who seek the truth.  Your chances of success will greatly improve if, first, you start out with a completely open mind and secondly, go to the source(s) directly to get the facts.  Many who misunderstand the Catholic Church today have already made up their mind that the Church is wrong, thus never bothering to pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to find out what the Church really teaches.  This is being close-minded. 

[Cronos]

Nah, just pointing out the incomplete statements in your posts. This is the basis of bad theology, politics and everything else. No wonder folks take a half-truth like in your posts and build false philosophies....

[daniel1212]

Off the subject, but does Poland get a lot of medical tourism, like in dentistry, and do you think it is worth it? Not that i plan to be traveling...

[daniel1212]

“Rome” is simply refers to the Roman Catholic church by its primary magisterial seat, like as “Washington” can be used to refer to America. I also use “Prots” sometimes for ourselves, and (so-called) “JW’s for you know who, or (so-called) LDS for the another entity, which should also be acceptable.

And besides sometimes saving these stiff fingers some typing, it is often necessary to differentiate btwn RCs and the Orthodox due to the various and significant things they disagree on.

Perhaps we could use “the Roman church” or “the church of Rome” as these should not be offensive, but referring to the Roman Catholic church by its primary headquarters should also not be offensive.

[Titanites]

Perhaps we could use “the Roman church” or “the church of Rome” as these should not be offensive, but referring to the Roman Catholic church by its primary headquarters should also not be offensive.

Perhaps not. The Vatican is the seat of the Catholic Church, Eastern and Western.

[Cronos]

Would you care to show where I ever denied the Trinity???

Nice trick. it's against FR to link to direct posts, but I have a nice link to the article on my profile where a certain someone claimed to be catholic...

[Jvette]

Sorry for the delay in replying, Sunday is taken with other things.

I will make this brief and to the point since I have to head off to work soon.

Thank you for taking the time to give me an actual answer, I do appreciate that.

However, I disagree with the your conclusions or interpretations of what Jesus is saying in these passages, and that they show the traditions that prevented the leaders from knowing Jesus.

When reading the passages, I can’t help but note what Jesus does not say. He does not rebuke them for the traditions themselves, nor does He say anything to indicate that they do not have authority. What Jesus rebukes them for is using tradition as a way around the Word of God, in a way, making that word void. Also, Jesus rebukes them for the reasons they have done this which was not out of love for the people or even love for God, but love of self.

Later in Matthew 23, Jesus says that they DO have authority and that the people should do as they say, but He condemns their example and their hypocrisy and warn the people not to follow what they do.

So, it is not the tradition that kept them from knowing Jesus, but the hardness of their heart and their own selfish desires, along with a heaping dose of pride.

[Cronos]

I didn't know that. I wonder why -- the dentists here are passable, though there are stomatologia on nearly every corner. The better medical tourism I know of is to India.

I've been sick once (flu) and just been to the dentist for regular half-yearly tooth cleaning, so I don't know a lot about the medical base here -- I know a few doctors though and I know that medicine doesn't pay as much in Poland as, say, in the States.

There are quite a few people who have or had cancer -- I think the fallout from Chernobyl.

[Jvette]

Thank you also for your input.

It is my understanding that we were discussing traditions that were extra Biblical.

I will have to reread John 7 later and get back to you on that. Work today:(

[Jvette]

To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. Cardinal John Newman, former Anglican priest.

He also wrote, “On the Development of Doctrine.”

[Jvette]

bb, following your link, I got a warning about the site. Is there another that is not a site that is used to compromise computer security?

[Jvette]

What of Scripture saying that “whole households” were baptized?

[Iscool]

Nice trick. it's against FR to link to direct posts, but I have a nice link to the article on my profile where a certain someone claimed to be catholic...

No trick to it...You're making stuff up again...You nor anyone else in a million years could come up with an iota of evidence that I ever denied the Trinity...

As far as being a catholic, sure I'm a catholic...I belong to the universal Body of Jesus Christ...

Am I correct in understanding that your religion teaches that the Trinity is one God with three natures???

[Jvette]

I guess if you can’t refute the comments, denigrate the person posting, or deny the evidence backing them up, you can just ignore it, plugging your ears, singing *La, la, la, la, laaaaaa...... I can’t hear you.* and ignore it.

You are in my prayers, metmom.

[Cronos]

err.. Jv —> that’s not even a Protestant....

[Cronos]

.

Iscool: I’m a Catholic but I’m leaving to join a Baptist church...Hey, do they let you drink alcohol at those Baptist churches???

[Cronos]

Yup, we Christians -- whether Catholic or Presbyterian or Pentecostal or Bapstist or Lutheran etc. believe in One God -- Father, Son and Holy Spirit

i don't know what your philosophy is about - yes I know there are those who say that to believe in the Trinity is polytheism. Yes, those who say that Jesus never died on the cross. But they are not Christians

Come to Christ, Iscool, leave behind your profit etc.

[metmom]

I said what you claimed is not true and I backed it up with evidence, which is more than can be said for you.

You have no basis for telling me that what I heard was not true. The source you gave just shows other thinking in the area. It certainly goes nowhere in refuting what I heard.

Interesting. I'm actually a "grassroots" lay Catholic, which is something you can't claim. I know of no lay Catholics who don't think of the Ukrainians as real Catholics. And as I've stated, there are lay Catholics on FR who regularly attend Eastern Catholic liturgies.

Every Catholic who's not clergy is grassroots Catholic. It doesn't set you apart as special nor does it refute what other grassroots Catholics have said.

All it does is show that the opinions I heard are not held universally.

I'm not calling YOU a liar because you can't provide evidence to back up what other Catholics you've talked to have said or not said.

All you have is rumor.

No, it's not rumor because it's not something I heard ABOUT, it's stuff I heard.

[daniel1212]

“Nah, just pointing out the incomplete statements in your posts. This is the basis of bad theology, politics and everything else. No wonder folks take a half-truth like in your posts and build false philosophies....”

That was not the case here, and if anything they worked against a false impression as regards official status, while providing testimony to the problems.

And actually, i think an objective reader of my posts will see that they sometimes correct portrayals of Roman Catholic teaching, often with substantiation, amidst extremes on both sides, and even in refuting claims of Rome i have excluded many things others offer which i cannot substantiate, while i usually provide links to what i have provided so that all the source may be read, and which is my practice in order to verify the source and apprehend the context. If someone thinks any such is misleading, then they need to show how that was.

Nor is it reasonable nor necessary to post an entire article or chapter in substantiation of things, but it is right to reference such, expecting others who examining it.

However, what i have often seen is a knee-jerk reaction by RCs in disallowing any evidence that impugns Rome, sometimes by engaging in the genesis fallacy, or trying to change the issue or use other tactics, even resorting to asserting what i posted was fallacious, only to be proved wrong.

And both sides do post misrepresentations, not only lay apologists but published works, resulting in Prot. claims being made for the number of people killed by the Inquisitions that are more than the populations would provide, to things like the RC Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals.

And as for your assertion here, what is only half-true that the UCs are in full communion but that there are issues, mainly due to historical issues between them and Orthodox churches?,” unless i should have provided more on the full communion aspect, which perhaps i should have, though i was careful to affirm that in correction of any inference of official (versus historical cultural) strife, while what was also inferred was that there were no real problems, and as i recall no one affirmed there were both.

If you find what i briefly provided was wanting, then instead of cursing the darkness, you could have provided more on the communion side, esp. as relates to balanced view of historical cultural harmony, as that was the issue which metmom’s anecdotal claims pertained to.

[metmom]

Not really — I live in the place where the treaty of Brest happened, I know Ukrainians, I’ve travelled in western Ukraine. Catholics whether Eastern or Western are on-par. Anyone who is from a Catholic family with Eastern Catholics in it would know that intermarriage, inter-relations were normal and your post about “not considering the other legit” is bad fiction.

OK. So your experience is different than mine.

It still proves nothing and still does not refute what I said, nor does it make it a lie.