Posted on 07/04/2015 12:23:13 PM PDT by Morgana
This is a tough Vortex to speak. I’m as patriotic as the next guy. I remember being a young lad of 15 as my country celebrated its bicentennial back in 1976.
I watched TV that day from six in the morning until well past midnight as the non-stop, commercial-free, wall-to-wall coverage on the giant national birthday party was broadcast from sea to shining sea.
I watched the tall ships sail into New York harbor, saw the explosive fireworks show over D.C. I listened and sang my lungs out with a lump in my throat as Arthur Fielder conducted the Boston Pops on the Esplanade playing one stirring American hymn after another. I watched Walter Cronkite move effortlessly from one sprawling scene of Americana to another. There was no other place I would have rather been on that glorious Fourth of July all those years ago.
But that is all gone now.
What I did not know in my innocent youthful naïveté was the seeds for America’s self-destruction had been in place from the beginning. See, America at her core has always been at war with the Catholic Church.
Few know that it was illegal to be Catholic in 10 of the original 13 colonies. Even after the War of Independence, hostility to Catholicism remained intense. But more importantly, it is the philosophical underpinnings of America that are the very heart of the problem.
America was born from the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Those philosophers were driven by their hatred of scholastic philosophy — the mind of Aquinas, you might say. Aquinas expounded a philosophy as solid as rock: that God is the center of the Universe and man is bound to certain codes and creeds in face of that reality.
In order to break away from those codes and creeds, Enlightenment philosophers set out to change the perception of reality. What sprang up in place of Aquinas and the Catholic Church was a new system of thought: that MAN was the center of the universe — or at least the functional center.
Sure there may have been a God of Nature, but that God had little to do in reality with man’s day-to-day life. So man was free to set course to develop his own religions, moral codes, even separate truths, when the time was right to pull that trigger. All of this social philosophy came to a legal, formal construct in the birth of the American nation.
As an aside, a few years later, this same philosophy would be responsible for the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror where thousands and thousands of Catholics were beheaded.
Here in America, a new nation emerged from the Age of Enlightenment, and although it was decidedly divorced from the past politically, it still took a couple of centuries to shake off the morality it had learned from the Catholic Church. The PEOPLE were now the arbiters of truth. No longer crushed underfoot by kings and monarchs, power would be derived from the consent of the governed.
And THERE is the problem, the decidedly anti-Catholic proposition. What happens when the consent of the governed now agrees with contraception, abortion and sodomy? What happens when the majority of the governed accept no-fault divorce, cohabitation, pornography, single parenthood, explicit sex education in schools and a host of other evils?
In America, these are all allowed because the majority of the governed accept them — and that places faithful Catholics on the outside looking in. America says man gets to decide. The Church says God gets to decide. Those two principles cannot co-exist. Either America will be converted by the Church, or the Church will be converted by America. We know how that turned out.
Too many Americans who are also Catholic have twisted themselves into theological pretzels to insist a person can be a good Catholic while also being a good American. As long as America remained essentially Catholic in its morality, that tightrope could be walked, however gingerly.
But once Protestant-majority America — with all the diversity that description contains — realized it was living Catholic morality, without adhering to the underlying Catholic theology, it threw off the morality and turned secular. Catholic Americans took more pride in their country than they did their Church, always struggling for a place at the table, always ready to compromise or accommodate their Protestant neighbors.
Even John F. Kennedy in 1960 was willing to sell out his faith in front of an audience of protestant preachers to be accepted and win the White House. He learned that groveling act from a succession of bishops in the American hierarchy stretching back more than a couple hundred years, and who the present crop for the most part continues in that sad tradition.
The silly appeals to so-called religious liberty will fall flat. What Catholics in America have not understood is that the will of the governed could be turned on them at any point — and now has.
This is one of the topics Church Militant was able to discuss with Bp. Athanasius Schneider when we were in Rome recently when he sat down with us and granted us an exclusive far-reaching interview.
We’ll be presenting that to you soon, so look for it.
“They have been cleaned up.”
Please. There was an article yesterday about the HEAD of THEOLOGY at Fordham Seminary marrying his gay partner.
Not on faith and morals.
Especially on faith and morals...Who are you trying to kid??? Would your current pope, or one of the popular bishops in the U.S. give communion to Nancy Pelosi??? Of course they would...Peddle this morals stuff somewhere else where people can really be duped...
Faith??? HaHa...Faith in your religion as opposed to faith in Jesus Christ...I don't think so...
*It was founded by Jesus Christ Himself in Mt 16:18.
Christ founded a gathering.
*It would be built on Simon Peter, Mt 16:18.
No.
*It would be defended by GOD Himself, Mt 16:18-19.
Always is - church meaning local expression of believers.
*It would have authority given by Jesus Christ, Mt 16:19,18:17-18.
Yup. Every believing church.
*It would be guided by the Holy Spirit who will dwell within it, Jn 14:15-17, Act 15:28,16:6.
Yup. Every believing church and believer.
*It would be one and undivided, Mk 3:24-25.
His universal church will always be one.
*It would have one fold and one shepherd, Jn 10:16.
Yup. Always true of every believing church.
*It would have Priests, Bishops, and Deacons, 1Tim 3:1-13.
Sorry, no priests in the NT Church.
*It must have the Holy Eucharist celebration, Jn 6:42-70, Acts 2:42.
No, the memorial of the Lord’s Supper.
*It must be found in all nations, Mt 28:19.
Yup. Protestant churches all over. I must point out that this will happen by the end of the age.
*It must be found in all centuries, Mt 28:20.
Whoa. You should have read that Scripture before you posted. It says CHRIST will be with us until the end of the ages. He has been and will be.
*Jesus Christ said He would be with His Church every day, in every year, until the end of the world, Mt 28:20.
It doesn’t mean Rome. It means He will be with believing churches, which make up His church until the end of the age.
Joh 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
Joh 17:18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.
Joh 17:19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.
The Truth is/are the words that God preserved for us in his scriptures...We know God thru his words, not some failed, corrupt institution which calls itself the Catholic religion...
Amen.
Is there still a problem in the priesthood??
That’s not what this thread is about.
Are you saying you don’t believe in the Bible?
“Are you saying you don’t believe in the Bible?”
I’m saying the Bible doesn’t say what your copy and paste claims.
That’s not what this thread is about.
when you say the catholic church stands for the truth it opens up the conversation to examine the catholic church.
One does not have to be Catholic to recognize this and to see where this ideology has paved the way to our current situation.
It is now...
“Sadly, throughout American history...some Catholics caved to truth to ‘get along’”
Sadly, throughout American history...some protestants caved to truth to “get along”.
I can think of Jim Jones, John Wayne Gacy, Pee Wee Haskins, Wayne Williams, Jeffrey Dahmer. Mass murderers all. Homosexual all. Protestants all. I can also think of con artists like Joel the Grinning Horse Osteen, and slew of other TV “evangelists” that have made a fortune by milking their followers out of their life savings.
Amen!
If you accept the 27 books of the NT you accept the teaching authority of the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church determined what books would go in the NT and a Catholic Pope canonized the Bible you read. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Deny it till hell freezes over but it’s fact.
“If you accept the 27 books of the NT you accept the teaching authority of the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church determined what books would go in the NT and a Catholic Pope canonized the Bible you read. Now put that in your pipe and smoke...”
It’s been re examined and errors corrected since those days.
.....”Your ancestors, unless they were Muslims or Buddists, were Catholic, so yes protestants got their faith from the Catholic Church. End of story.”......
Wrong....
We as Gentiles are grafted into the Vine (Christ) as a result of the promise and not as a result of the law which catholicism teaches....... We are ‘heirs’ according to the promise given to Abraham and ‘made his offspring of faith’ because we belong to Christ..... As is written.....”Christ is become of no effect to you, whoever of you are justified by the law; you are fallen from grace.”..... Galatians 5:4
Jesus is the Head, foundation, and chief shepherd of the church.... (Eph. 1:22,23; Col. 1:18; Matt. 28:18; I Cor. 3:11; Acts 4:10,11; I Pet. 2:3-8; John 10:11,14; I Pet. 5:4; Heb. 13:20)....... For the church to have two heads (Jesus and the Pope) would be spiritual adultery, like a woman having two husbands.
So despite its claims, the Catholic church is not the true, original church since it does not follow the teaching and practice of the original church.
These are just a few of the teachings of the catholic church Jeus did not ask of us nor are they Biblical.....(the Pope, church councils, tradition, church law, the Mass or eucharist, transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgences, abstinence, celibacy, Lent, confession to priests, communion, immaculate conception, the perpetual virginity of Mary, and prayer to saints and Mary) Which are all man made.
“So despite its claims, the Catholic church is not the true, original church since it does not follow the teaching and practice of the original church”.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.
My parents believed in a false plan of salvation. I can't live with a works based plan of salvation. So, as a result, NO, I am no longer a catholic, no matter how much you want me to be. I know you are sincere in your belief about that. Well, I am also extremely sincere, and totally, super confident about it too. Also, I saw all your ideas in your post 37. I, along with AMPU, definitely believe in the Bible, we just don't believe in your interpretations of those verses, not even one of them. Sorry, that is how I feel. Others can feel free to believe whatever they like. That's on them. I am glad I am going to the good place when I croak, but possibly the rapture will come first. When it does, those who remain, can have everything I own. I won't be needing anything after that, right, MHG? They can even have my prized Canadian made Graf hockey skates. Hate to let them go, but maybe someone else can use them.
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