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The Pope: We are Christians because we belong to the Church, "can't love God outside of the Church"
http://www.asianews.it ^ | June 25, 2014 | The Vatican

Posted on 07/03/2014 4:10:21 PM PDT by NKP_Vet

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "We are not isolated and we are not Christians individually, each on his or her own". Instead, we are all part of the Church, "a large family, where one is welcomed," where "one learns to live as believers and disciples of the Lord Jesus," Pope Francis said.

Speaking in the last general audience before the July break, the Holy Father devoted his catechesis to the Church before a crowd of 35,000 in St Peter's Square. Despite a few drops of rain, he walked extensively among the assembled faithful.

In his address, he warned against those who "think they can have a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside of the communion and the mediation of the Church."

In the Church, he noted, there is no "do it yourself", no "free agents." For him, "Our Christian identity is belonging! We are Christians because we belong to the Church. It is like a surname. If the name is 'I am a Christian', the surname is 'I belong to the Church'." Such sense of belonging was born from the alliance between God and Abraham, to whom he donated a great people for his loyalty.

"God's relationship to his people comes before all of us, it comes from that time," and thus, "in this sense, our thoughts go first, with gratitude, to those who have gone before us and who welcomed us into the Church. No one becomes a Christian by himself! Is this clear? Nobody becomes a Christian by himself. Christians are not made in a lab.

(Excerpt) Read more at asianews.it ...


TOPICS: Apologetics; Moral Issues; Theology; Worship
KEYWORDS: catholicsonly; christianity; exclusionary; noheaven4you; pope
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To: GeronL

“I have never separated myself from Jesus.”

You have if you have separated yourself from His Body - the Church.


41 posted on 07/03/2014 5:20:22 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: Salvation

True.


42 posted on 07/03/2014 5:22:17 PM PDT by Karl Spooner
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To: CynicalBear

“That’s a fact. And a pagan one at that.”

Name for me all the pagan cults you know who believe in the following:

The Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all Divine Persons. These divine Persons are the only deity in the universe. There are no other gods. Second Person of the Trinity took on flesh and walked the earth as a man, born of virgin Jewish girl named Mary, just so He could suffer, die on a cross, and be resurrected for our salvation.

Put up or shut up.


43 posted on 07/03/2014 5:24:25 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: vladimir998
You have if you have separated yourself from His Body - the Church.

Do you know how Charlie Manson you all sound?

44 posted on 07/03/2014 5:26:54 PM PDT by Karl Spooner
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To: Karl Spooner; NKP_Vet
Who belongs to the Catholic Church?

836 "All men are called to this catholic unity of the People of God. . . . And to it, in different ways, belong or are ordered: the Catholic faithful, others who believe in Christ, and finally all mankind, called by God's grace to salvation."320

837 "Fully incorporated into the society of the Church are those who, possessing the Spirit of Christ, accept all the means of salvation given to the Church together with her entire organization, and who - by the bonds constituted by the profession of faith, the sacraments, ecclesiastical government, and communion - are joined in the visible structure of the Church of Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. Even though incorporated into the Church, one who does not however persevere in charity is not saved. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but 'in body' not 'in heart.'"321

838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter."322 Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church."323


The protestants are said to be in some sense, albeit incomplete, united with the Church.
45 posted on 07/03/2014 5:29:09 PM PDT by wonkowasright (Wonko from outside the asylum)
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To: vladimir998

The people who believe in HIM are the church.


46 posted on 07/03/2014 5:30:17 PM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: Karl Spooner

“Do you know how Charlie Manson you all sound?”

Do you know how Harry Reid you sound?


47 posted on 07/03/2014 5:32:10 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: GeronL

If the Holy Father said what is being reported, then he is in error if he is saying the Church is Only the Roman Church he heads.


48 posted on 07/03/2014 5:33:57 PM PDT by MHGinTN
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To: GeronL

“The people who believe in HIM are the church.”

Not necessarily. Don’t assume. Matthew 7:21


49 posted on 07/03/2014 5:34:19 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: vladimir998
God says don’t incorporate pagan practices in worship of Him.

Deuteronomy 12:30 Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. 31 Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God

But the Catholic Church says.

“We need not shrink from admitting that candles, like incense and lustral water, were commonly employed in pagan worship and the rites paid to the dead. But the Church from a very early period took them into her service, just as she adopted many other things indifferent in themselves, which seemed proper to enhance the splendor of religious ceremonial. We must not forget that most of these adjuncts to worship, like music, lights, perfumes, ablutions, floral decorations, canopies, fans, screens, bells, vestments etc. were not identified with any idolatrous cult in particular; but they were common to almost all cults” (Catholic Encyclopedia, III, 246.)

“When we give or receive Christmas gifts; or hang green wreaths in our homes and churches, how many of us know that we are probably observing pagan customs...the god, Woden, in Norse Mythology, descends upon the earth yearly between December 25th and January 6th to bless mankind...But pagan though they be, they are beautiful customs. They help inspire us with the spirit of 'good will to men', even as the sublime service of our Church reminds us of the ‘peace on earth’ which the babe of Bethlehem came to bestow” (Externals of the Catholic Church, 140).

Catholics can’t deny that the RCC has incorporated pagan practices into its practices. The RCC itself admits that it does. The RCC refuses to hear the words of the Lord.

Jer.44:16-17 “As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.”

The RCC will, just as Israel did, experience the wrath of God for disobeying His word. The admonition in Revelation to “come out of her my people” is for those who truly want to listen to God.

Then one only needs to see the list designating a cult and compare it to the claims by the Catholic Church to see it’s a cult.

50 posted on 07/03/2014 5:38:10 PM PDT by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ)
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To: Salvation

The Catholic Church admits that it incorporates pagan practices and one only needs look at the lists that make an organization a cult to see they apply to the Catholic Church.


51 posted on 07/03/2014 5:41:42 PM PDT by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ)
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To: fish hawk

Sad, isn’t it?


52 posted on 07/03/2014 5:42:58 PM PDT by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
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To: chae

He has spent so much time kissing up to Muslims he wouldn’t dare wreck it now by standing up for a fellow Christian.


53 posted on 07/03/2014 5:43:44 PM PDT by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
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To: Karl Spooner
>> You can see how they are trying to pollute the scenery with lies instead of making the truth be known by the scriptures.<<

To Catholics scripture is trumped by their “traditions”. The apostles said that anyone who teaches something they didn’t should be considered “accursed”. The Catholic Church teaches many things the apostles didn’t.

54 posted on 07/03/2014 5:44:05 PM PDT by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ)
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To: CynicalBear

All we can do is pray for Catholics. They are completely lost.


55 posted on 07/03/2014 5:44:06 PM PDT by Karl Spooner
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To: shalom aleichem

All baptized Christians belong to the ‘church’, the ‘mystical body of Christ.’

I believe in this context he is referring to the entire Christian population.


56 posted on 07/03/2014 5:46:45 PM PDT by Gumdrop (~)
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To: CynicalBear
The RCC will, just as Israel did, experience the wrath of God for disobeying His word.

I'm willing to bet eternity that you're wrong.

57 posted on 07/03/2014 5:47:37 PM PDT by Last Dakotan
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To: Karl Spooner

I feel genuinely sorry for those who have been duped by the Catholic Church. God will call those He chooses out of that organization. I agree, we must pray for those.


58 posted on 07/03/2014 5:48:06 PM PDT by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ)
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To: CynicalBear

They don’t see that and they don’t want to see that. That’s why they dance around God’s scriptures here.


59 posted on 07/03/2014 5:48:43 PM PDT by Karl Spooner
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To: Last Dakotan
>> I'm willing to bet eternity that you're wrong.<<

If you are a Catholic you already did.

60 posted on 07/03/2014 5:49:39 PM PDT by CynicalBear (For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ)
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