Kiss on!
Posted on 05/18/2015 6:05:47 PM PDT by Old Yeller
For years, growing up as a Roman Catholic, we were taught that we were members of the one true church. It was impressed upon us regularly by the parish priest during Mass while giving his homily; by the nuns all throughout my Catholic parochial school years of second through seventh grade.
It was impressed upon us during our preparation to receive for the first time the sacraments of Penance, Communion and Confirmation. And while attending CCD classes all the way through high school. (CCD is the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, an association established at Rome in 1562 for the purpose of giving religious education, normally designed for children.)
It was an established fact that we understood and we never questioned the validity of it. And to be honest, it was a matter of pride, that we were privileged enough to be members of the correct church, while all others had belonged to something else that didn’t quite measure up to the status of the Roman Catholic Church.
After all, how could it be possible that Roman Catholicism is not the one true church?
Look at what Rome has to offer: It has the priests, the nuns; the bishops; the cardinals; and of course, the Pope. They have the Sacraments; the statues; the holy water; the incense; the Stations of the Cross; the Eucharist - in which Chris supposedly physically manifests Himself into the wafer after the consecration by the priest during the Mass; the Marian apparitions—which appear mainly to Roman Catholics.
And they have the Vatican, where the Vicar of Christ (who they believe is Christ’s representative on earth), governs the faithful and makes infallible proclamations and doctrine. How can this not be the one true church? No other organization on the face of the earth comes close to offering to its flock what Rome provides for its faithful.
But, of course, to be true, one must adhere to what has been established as truth and not teach or practice what is contrary to the truth. We read in Scripture a few passages that declare what is truth and what is not. Jesus proclaimed in John 14:6:
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me.”
Do you mean like...
Matthew 12:43-45 King James Version (KJV)
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.
Kiss on!
Only True Catholics should answer the question.
One will; won't they???
AAAHHHhhh...
This is a start.
Then correct our problems.
We, the People, await your tutelage.
(I hope it works out better than the CCC stuff you Catholics get taught so poorly it seems.)
Just like MormonISM!!
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1979/08/the-debate-is-over?lang=eng
Yup......
Only True Catholics should answer the question.
Hey folks, the Els meister will not accept the words of ex Catholics, er, I mean lapsed Catholics. 😊 I know there are some here who think once a catholic, always a catholic. I believe the Muzzies say the same thing. 😎 Els, I can't believe you lost faith in us ex Catholics, er, I mean lapsed Catholics. Somehow I will try to carry on. I feel like I am back in the wilderness, like I was when I was a catholic, but I will try my best. 😂 BTW, feel free to congratulate me, as my Chicago Blackhawks were victorious, as they hung a whuppin on those Anaheim Ducks. 🏈🏀⚽️⚾️🇨🇦🇺🇸 Go Hawks.
Ducks in Anaheim?
Are you sure that you didn’t mean Buzzards?
.
Thinking for yourself is not encouraged in ANY cult. If people actually start thinking for themselves, they cease being cult members. Oops, sorry, I forgot, you don't take the word of ex Catholics, er, I mean lapsed Catholics. 😂😇😎😱
Are you sure that you didn’t mean Buzzards?
Their fans might be thinking more along the lines of turkeys. Three straight years, they have lost a game 7 at home. Go Blackhawks. Actually, I don't think they have a snow balls chance, but we shall see.
Don’t underestimate a turkey!
We have about 50 wild turkeys that hang around our place, and they are tough and resourceful birds..
I am sure turkeys are very good at being turkeys, but I don't think you can teach them to play hockey. 😂
DEPROGRAMLIBERALISM and aMOREPERFECTUNION continue to paddle in the shallow waters of “Bible Christianity” and here’s why.
They want a list of traditions. This is the kind of sophomoric demand that is beyond absurd. Tradition is “source” of information. It is source that informs and clarifies. This is what Catholics refer to as the “sacred tradition” which serves as a clarifier and authenticator of the written text. Apparently, these Bible Christians seem to think the books in the Bible fell from the skies and re-assembled themselves in the manner in which we find them. The written texts and traditions are both complementary since they reinforce each other as the true Word of God.
The Bible Itself states that their are “oral” teachings and traditions that are to be carried on to the present-day (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 11:2; 2 Timothy 2:2; Romans 10:17; 1 Peter 1:24-25). These teachings are what the Catholic Church considers “Sacred Apostolic Tradition.” This type of “Tradition” never changes. It is the Word of God passed down by the Apostles themselves. If oral tradition is not to be followed, why then did St. Paul write that Christ said something that is not recorded in the Gospels (Acts 20:35)?
St. Paul must have “heard” this saying, not read it from any Gospel or “Scripture,” thereby, proving that some things Christ said were not recorded in the Gospels (John 21:25) and were passed on orally among His disciples. They are just as valid as anything written since St. Paul himself used one of these oral passages in one of his own epistles.
No serious historian disputes the fact that the Bible as a whole was not compiled until the late 4th century. It was compiled by a Catholic saint (St. Jerome) at the request of a Catholic pope (St. Damasus I) after some three hundred years of careful study that establishes the written Word of God. This was through Divine Revelation based on Petrine authority. This is no different than Christ’s affirmation to Peter that his recognition of Jesus as the Son of God was not by earthly flesh and blood. The written Word of God was in the end “revealed” to the early Church Fathers (theologians) acting under authority of the successors of Peter to affirm these texts as the true Word of God.
So how were the early Christians saved if they did not possess the entire written “Word of God” to follow His teachings? Well, naturally, they were the Body of Christ and were taught through “oral” teachings by the Church, not by writings.
Central to this belief is presence of the resurrected Christ in the Eucharist. A belief at the very core the early Church fathers, the saints and martyrs.
Is the Bible to be taken literally – “word for word?” NO!
Even a rudimentary understanding of apologetics will inform that the Bible was written by different authors with different literary styles at different times in history and in different languages. Therefore, the writings should be interpreted with these circumstances in mind and hence without the benefit of traditions the written text is worse than incomplete, it is useless.
Protestant historian J.N.D. Kelly, an authority on early Christian beliefs affirms when he answers his own question.
“[W]here in practice was [the] apostolic testimony or tradition to be found? . . . The most obvious answer was that the apostles had committed it orally to the Church, where it had been handed down from generation to generation. . . . (Early Christian Doctrines, 37).
Does the Bible state it is the sole or final authority of Christianity? NO. In fact, Christ said that the Church is to resolve disputes among Christians, not Scripture as recorded by Matthew 18:17: “And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.”
This is the Catholic Church with Petrine authority. This is why leading Protestant and Evangelical theologians who converted to Catholicism have uniformly concluded, to paraphrase them, that Protestantism is a mass of contradictions and amounts to nothing more than unadulterated rot that is fed by bottom-feeding fish in the shallow waters.
This indeed is the swirl of heresies that spin around mega-congregations from Joel Osteen, Jim Jones, David Koresh, to Billy Graham. They all gulp the same Bible Christianity Kool-Aid some by the gallons (Jim Jones); others by the quart (Joel Osteen) and some live off its aerated froth (Billy Graham).
You will now know why renowned essayist Hillaire Belloc was so right when he wrote in his book ‘The Great Heresies,” that unlike other heresies Protestantism spawned a “cluster of heresies.”
The incomparable Catholic intellectual tradition from Augustine to Aquinas to Newman and Benedict would regard all of Bible Christianity as a sad caricature from the snake handlers who use Mark 16:18 ( – “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them”) as the scriptural basis of their belief to the utterly vapid corner street Foursquare Church pastors who use Matthew 18:20 (“For where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them.”) for their kumbaya in their “coffee and doughnut” halls for Sunday Services.
This is old Grandma’s recipe for “Christianity Light.” No need for the Mass, the sacraments, an acceptance of the Eucharist, Marian dogmas, and liturgical practices like Ash Wednesday or the Catholic Stations of the Cross.
They completely ignore the royal “unto my name” which means unto “all what I have commanded you to do.” We thus come back full circle to the Great Commission given to Peter: “Go forth and teach….whatsoever thou shall bind…whatsoever thou shall loosen.” This is first and foremost a teaching AUTHORITY.
Not every Jack and Jill and corner street Billy Graham-type or Moonies-type soapbox preacher gets this authority. We have One Truth, One Church, for all peoples, and for all time.
This brings us to DANIEL 1212.
DANIEL 1212 brilliantly encapsulates in a single sentence all what is so wrong with Bible Christianity and why we have some 30,000 different varieties of Protestant heresy when he writes that Catholics follow their “pastors as docile sheep.”
This now gives “him” the warrant to expostulate upon another stock of scriptural quotes he keeps pulling out to allow him play the role of “internet” theologian.
In essence he is really offering us “his” version of God’s Word or shall we say sect number 30,001.
Someone needs to gently tap him on the shoulder and remind him of the stellar list of Catholic converts from mathematicians and philosophers and from every religion and stripe, atheists and agnostics included who converted to Catholicism. “Docile sheep”? Among these “docile sheep” are automobile executive Henry Ford Jr., the diplomat Clare Booth Luce, wife of Time/Life publisher Henry Luce, and Louis Budenz, editor of the Communist Party USA’s newspaper, The Daily Worker.
COMMERCECOMET gives us a truly stunning display of his erudition worthy of a Nobel Laureate by labeling fellow Catholic FReepers as having a “giant blind spot when it comes to Catholicism.” It must follow the same applies to those Lutheran theologians who after years of study converted to Catholicism. Some “giant blind spot?” Like Jupiter’s Dark Spot that has lasted for hundreds of years?
EDITOR-SURVEYOR disputes the contention that Torah means “law” Maybe he should take this up with a former Chief Rabbi of Britain, Lord Jonathan Sachs, who in his blog “Orthodox Union,” (www.ou.org) writes: “the primary meaning of the word Torah – namely law.” (Apologies, Sir, I did not mean to embarrass you.)
To end this post let us all agree with Daneil 1212 who quotes with seeming approval Benedict’s superb treatise “Dominus Iesus” when in referring to non-Catholic Christians, Benedict says: “those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church.”
The obvious corollary of this is that the Church is indeed perfect and non-Catholic Christians are imperfect. And the degree of this imperfection.? Well, let’s see what the Christ says:
“Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.”
This again is why we must again echo the reasons why America’s pre-eminent Lutheran, Rev. Richard Neuhaus on his conversion to Catholicism wrote that he found “the fullest expression of Christ in the Catholic Church.”
Britain’s famous (and perhaps one of the world’s renowned) convert to Catholicism, Cardinal Henry Newman could not have put it better:
“To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”
Enough said.
Never! :)
Thank you so much, dearest Steelfish.
God bless and keep you and everyone you hold precious.
Feel free to ping me whenever you have some item or another which has not been well refuted more times than I can immediately recall.
The repetition (of the same old errors) is snooze-fest worthy .
Yep, work makes free. I have touched the doors of the ovens of Dachau. It wasn't the biggest, and probably not even the worst, but it was the first. It was chilling, but outside, was the sign, written in 4 languages, "Never Again" I have a feeling, that in the end times, it will happen again on a scale such as the world has never seen.
That's laughable.
I suppose if one is fond of ornate, and even blatant inaccuracies, then this imagined elegance could be a thing to cherish...
Even when corrected and shown irrefutable proof to the contrary of what is being asserted in this alleged 'elegance', what is the pattern which has been repeating here, but for there to be re-asserting of that which has been disproved, or else a silent scurrying away, to then again have the same elements of overall thesis (which were just shown to not be true, as presented) resurface later on some other thread, with it all bundled up with generalized insults aimed towards those who make the effort to bring and show what the real truth of some matter or another is?
I do take note of just what it is that is being praised.
Are you sure, Rita, that you wish to support those efforts without reservation, and effusively so?
The man made erroneous claims aimed at myself, regardless of my own having provided the source link which refutes claims he made (as for my own comment made toward himself).
I come across your own comment (Rita) as something of a slap in the face.
I don't care much at all for being falsely accused, which your own comments somewhat by default, join in and support, thus sharing in with all which he has said. In this instance, on this thread, Steelfish's error-filled remarks, as for my own comments, do not deserve support, unless one desires to cling to what has been proved wrong -- which doesn't make much sense to do, all-in-all.
One of the individuals which he trotted out as some example of being allegedly 'smart', is on record for making comments contrary to Steelfish's overall position, which position (more or less) is that "Protestants", whoever those people are, are all ignorant, or else just stupid, etc., and if they were not so ignorant and stupid, they would convert to Roman Catholicism --- all of which is as extremely rude as it is in error, particularly when that is attempted to be applied to all Protestants, included educated theologians (of which there are many thousands of which that do not convert to Roman Catholicism, regardless of all the efforts made in RCC camp to amend their own past theological errors, while still attempting to assert they have not ever made any).
Contrary to one of Steelfish's attempted rebuttals (made at comment #690, which is the comment which you praised so much), the comments which I quoted from Beckwith were not made before Beckwith reverted back to Roman Catholicism, but after he had done so.
See for yourself, here --->http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/2772
...which means Steelfish continues to make inaccurate statements, regardless of proof available to the contrary of those statements. You may call that "elegant" or think it masterful -- but the question begs -- masterful of what?
Regardless of my own attempt to steer things more towards truth here;
came the error-filled characterization of my own remarks in his own comment # 690 which you praised so much.
As for the rest of #690, I myself simply by-passed, rather dismissed out-of-hand the portions not pertaining to my own comments, having good reason for doing so, being that there was lack of accuracy in regard to my own comments ---- there was no compulsion for myself to need (once again) address whatever other remaining errors in his discourse there were likely to be...admittedly also, it would have taken considerable time and effort to dig back through whatever series of back-and-forth commentary was being made, keeping close tabs on it all,then attempting to address whatever it was which was central-most, instead of merely relying upon lopsided commentary from one perspective (Steelfish's own) and then allow that one-sided sort of thing to set and guide the narrative. I refuse to play along as dictated towards (and have good enough reasons for choosing not to do so).
Is it any surprise that Catholics are often not taken seriously on these pages, save perhaps by other Catholics who are not paying close enough attention to detail?
It's too bad, for not all [Roman] Catholics are wrong, or else simply mistaken all of the time as frequently as as deeply as is Steelfish quite often is when he wades into the religion forum portion of this website.
And of course many others are often mistaken about something or another too, at times, at the least. Myself even included --- for I'm not infallible, nor claim to be so.
Beckwith also did not step down from his prior position at a theological seminary solely due to reverting/converting back to [Roman] Catholicism (as Steelfish appears to be claiming, although that is brought out as the "biggy") but for other reasons also.
All of that sort of thing is rather time consuming story to retrace, for there are dribs and drabes of it scattered through various interviews and articles --- but why bother?
It's not like he did so chiefly for theological & historical reasons with himself being something of a professor of those things...
There had been a tenure controversy in the years prior (which Beckwith eventually won tenure for, so to speak, but it's a long, and involved story with a few twists and turns) including Beckwith being a Discovery Institute contributing member.
He advocated pressing for ID (Intelligent Design) be promoted in the classroom. That went against a founding family contributor of the seminary where he was president for a while, since the seminary was not to engage in politicizing of religious issues (if I'm recalling the initial controversy correctly enough...).
Though I tend to agree with ID as hypothesis -- and believe in it's tenets more or less -- it's still not exactly science.
But then again, many of the presuppositions deeply embedded within evolutionary theory are not all that actually scientific either. Like -- how the various hypothesis of how life first began, as something of self organizing cosmic accident, or else life coming to earth from some guessed-at process of Panspermia which is not exactly "science" other than being far from well supported hypothesis, as it also virtually kicks the can down the (cosmic) road, so to speak, in regard to just how life itself initially "self-organized" from and by strictly materialistic processes. But I digress...
Also Beckwith's expertise is (even according to his own descriptions) not "theology" per se, but is philosophy (including the philosophy of religion) and ethics, instead. So in this too, in previous comment, Steelfish rather misrepresented the man...
AND there is the thing about Beckwith's own wife converting to Roman Catholicism (was it reverting for herself, also? I really don't know, but it is a possibility I suppose) almost right before before he himself eventually reverted back -- which factor is not mentioned very much by those whom once wrote about his conversion reverting back to Roman Catholicism, but cannot but be a significant factor, yet one likely impossible to accurately weigh & evaluate.
Shortly AFTER resigning the position, Beckwith then announced his going back to the ecclesiastical association of his own childhood, although Beckwith in some interview or another remarked he had been considering doing so for some time (a couple of years or so, perhaps).
Should I prove this to yourself? I could provide a long list of links. (should I even bother?)
Does it really matter all that much? Again, the man was not a Ph.D theologian, but held doctorate in Philosophy, and specialized in interaction with the wider culture at large in those areas where faith, reason & ethics could be seen to publicly interact (which sort of interaction drives the secular portion of society bonkers, and the secularists would like to, and are attempting to silence & ban). So more power to Beckwith in those efforts, I would guess...
If not searching the matter yourself --- why take Steelfish's word for anything concerning this? I've already proved him to be in error, at least to some extent -- and that extent be much of what his own polemic strongly relies upon.
But go ahead. If you so desire to support inaccuracy and error, then support away.
Just don't whine, if or when it doesn't in the end, work out as one may prefer.
One must at least attempt to neutrally weigh competing evidences.
It's called intellectual integrity.
I'm not finding much trace of that in the remarks of "Steelfish".
Considering the note you sent to me, please don’t ping me.
I’m not reading your post.
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