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Pope Francis says most marriages today are ‘invalid’. This is a disaster for the Catholic Church
The Spectator ^ | June 17, 2016 | Damian Thompson

Posted on 06/16/2016 9:22:17 PM PDT by ebb tide

Pope Francis, spiritual leader of a billion people, has just informed them that ‘the great majority’ of sacramental marriages are invalid because couples don’t go into them with the right intentions. He was speaking at a press conference in Rome. Here’s the context, from the Catholic News Agency (my emphases):

‘I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said “I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years”. It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life,’ he said.

‘It’s provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say “yes, for the rest of my life!” but they don’t know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know.’

Uh? You can read the full report here but you won’t be much the wiser. The Pope, thinking aloud in the manner of some maverick parish priest after a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, has just told millions of his flock that they are not really married.

Did he mean to say that? What does he really think? What authority do his words carry?

And why should Catholics even have to ask these questions? Francis’s off-the-cuff ramblings on matters of extreme pastoral sensitivity are wreaking havoc in the Catholic Church, as I’ve written here.

Ross Douthat of the New York Times has just tweeted this response:

Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 23.54.41

I suspect that even the Pope’s most liberal admirers will have difficulty extricating him from this mess.


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Moral Issues
KEYWORDS: francischurch
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To: ebb tide

Bad theology from a bad translation on this text. The Greek does not translate it as the DR version does. Nor does the Greek allow what catholicism claims is happening in this verse. In fact, IIRC the catholic encyclopedia online admits there is no Scriptural support for the immaculate conception.


161 posted on 06/19/2016 5:33:44 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: MHGinTN
Pardon me if this is some kind of misunderstanding, but what I have from you is this:

1. "We cannot make an inference that GOD used Mary's chromosomes to create the body for Jesus." Of course we can, if Mary is His mother--- that is the usual understanding of natural motherhood, unless it is stated otherwise, e.g. heterologous donated embryo. IN which case, the offspring is the genetic descendant f some other woman --- but still genetically human.

The Bible tells us that Jesus is related to Mary's family tree (genealogy), and that happens genetically.

It is genetics which defines natural kinship. If Jesus is not genetically related to Mary, He is not genetically related to the human race.

2. "the Savior will be "her seed." Seed = offspring, a new generation via procreation, genetic descendant." The woman referred to was Eve, and it is one of her descendants who would be mother to the Seed!"

Yes! Note that Jesus is Eve's descendant only through Mary. It is impossible to explain how the chain of the transmission of life could proceed through the generations from Eve to Mary (seed to seed to seed, that is, a chain of descendants) and then stop at Mary without Jesus being her seed, i.e. her genetic descendant.

3. Conception is not different from fertilization; in fact, the words are synonyms, and that fact is reflected in the word "conceptus":

Conceptus (Latin: conceptio, meaning derivatives of zygote) denotes the embryo and its adnexa (appendages or adjunct parts) or associated membranes (i.e. the products of conception). The conceptus includes all structures that develop from the zygote, both embryonic and extraembryonic.

A zygote is a conceptus, and yet a zygote is not yet implanted, because the new embryo does not implant until the blastocyst stage.

This whole attempt to make a distinction between fertilization and conception is a distraction. No such distinction was made in any of the ancient languages, nor could it have been. To this day, in English, conception is a synonym for fertilization.

This video, created by Nucleus Medical Media, shows human fertilization, also known as conception. Shown at a cellular level magnification, sperm struggle through many obstacles in the female reproductive tract to reach the egg.Jul 11, 2012
Fehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFrVmDgh4v4

I can't believe I'm arguing with you about this. Jesus shared our human nature. He couldn't do so if he didn't fit genetically into the human family tree.*** Why should any person assume that Jesus didn't share his mother's DNA? It's like saying we don't now if Jesus had elbows, because the Bible does not say so, and thus to say He had elbows is just an outrageous unsupported opinion.

***If Jesus was not actually Mary's genetic son, then He was created, or "made," not begotten "according to the flesh". That is the Muslim doctrine. It is not the Christian doctrine.

162 posted on 06/19/2016 5:34:03 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (God swore to David that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ.)
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To: metmom
Then why is he still in office? Why doesn't the leadership of the Catholic church do something about him instead of letting it continue?

The problem is, as you probably already surmised, is that they are the same as Bergoglio, namely apostates, heretics and schismatics - thus NONE of them are Catholic as well.

If they hold to the heresies of the false council of Vatican-2, then they have defected from the Faith and thus the Church by their own act.

Let me employ the following analogy. To make the New World Order victorious globally, in the military and political realm one would either have to totally subvert or take the United States off the board first as it would be the only real obstacle.. In the religious realm the same thing applies to subverting or taking out the Roman Catholic Church.

0bama and Bergoglio are merely the worst examples of a rot that has been going on for some time. Expecting the corrupt Anti-American U.S. Congress to impeach and convict 0bama is the same as expecting the now non-Catholic Vatican to declare the papal See vacant due to pre-existing or post-electoral heresy.

Almost all the people who think of themselves as "Catholic" on this forum think things would be just dandy if they could only go back to Ratzinger. The problem is that is exactly the same as stating in the political realm that everything would just be fine if we could impeach 0bama and go back to Bill Clinton.

NO ON BOTH COUNTS!

In the U.S. the problem has been there at least since Wilson was put into office and clearly owned by the puppet-masters - but the Deep State did not take total national control until JFK was taken out.

In the Roman Catholic Church although the plotting and infiltration happened much earlier, the line of demarcation is 1958 and the death of Pope Pius XII and the election of the heretical Marxist Roncalli, aka non-pope john23 who called Vatican-2 to overthrow the existing order.

The infiltration of agents by the puppet masters began a couple hundred years ago. The puppet-masters brag they took control of the Vatican finances in the 1840's 'to offer their assistance' and got some control in that fashion. The last really sound pope in matters of faith and prudential action was Pope Saint Pius X who died in 1914. During his reign he warned that "the Enemy is now within". He was only elected because fortunately the puppet-masters' heretical candidate, Rampolla, was blocked by the veto of the Emperor of Austria. Unfortunately Pius X did away with the protective veto granted to three monarchs for future conclaves.

The next three, Benedict XV, Pius XI, and Pius XII while still completely Catholic and thus still the pope were not always prudent in their actions and were liberal proteges of Rampolla.

Before the present day takeover, the college of Cardinals who elect the pope was limited to a maximum of 70 and at times it could be considerably less. In 1958 those who were able to travel to Rome, because some were behind the Iron Curtain, was only 53. Two of them while in Rome before the Conclave began died suspiciouly of heart attacks so the number voting was only 51. The truly Catholic favorite before the conclave started was Cardinal Agagianian, Primate of Armenia but a few people who had sniffed out the plot warned that Roncalli would be the eventual choice. A successful candidate needed 2/3rds plus 1 to win so all they needed to do was for the heretical members to block Agagianian while threats and blackmail was employed against other susceptible Cardinals not in the plot which eventually resulted in Roncalli the heretical Marxist.

Since he was a pre-existing heretic his election was "null, void and worthless as mentioned in this linked comment and the ones that follow.

The real Roman Catholic Church is all who are baptized who hold whole and entire all the tenets of the Faith, so while these characters have totally taken over the real estate and the physical structure, NONE of them are Catholic. To go back to the real Church, the heretical Council called by Roncalli was be totally renounced and all of his successors recognized as heretics and non-popes.

NOTHING ELSE WILL DO.

There is a provision in the material I cited that the laity may call in secular powers to remove heretics who refuse to pack their bags and vacate:

Cum Ex Apostolatus Officio of Pope Paul IV, 1559:

7.....(ii) the laity;

shall be permitted at any time to withdraw with impunity from obedience and devotion to those thus promoted or elevated and to avoid them as warlocks, heathens, publicans, and heresiarchs

To the greater confusion, moreover, of those thus promoted or elevated, if these shall have wished to prolong their government and authority, they shall be permitted to request the assistance of the secular arm against these same individuals thus promoted or elevated;

Something tells me ZERO would not be of much help in this matter, but after January, after Trump is in office, depending on how things break in the world, perhaps things could get interesting and he could rid of the Church, 'of this meddlesome pest'.

At least I hope someone out there would alert Trump to this very interesting possibility if Bergogolio continues to push the New World Order line.

I also want to mention that the conspirators want to do away with the Office of the Papacy itself and replace it with a commission whose members would rotate as chair for say a six month term. this was announced by 'cardinal' [sic] Gottfried Daneels in 2003, one of the ones responsible for giving the world Bergoglio.

163 posted on 06/19/2016 5:50:57 PM PDT by SGNA
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To: Albion Wilde
Who saw the Godfather Part 3? Somebody made the pope a nice cup of tea.

In real life it was applied to the pages of the book Luciani read in bed. he used to bring his fingers to his lips at times to wet them to turn the pages.

They had to do it that way because they had already attempted the tea bit one week to the day before that but had blown it by instead giving the poisoned cup of tea to the person they were attempting to pin it on as the fall guy, the KGB Russian Orthodox Metropolitan (one of two) from Leningrad who died instantly from a heart attack while drinking tea with Luciani in the papal apartments at the Vatican.

164 posted on 06/19/2016 5:58:46 PM PDT by SGNA
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To: ealgeone

Check out the historicity of the Douay-Rheims Bible and compare it to your own.


165 posted on 06/19/2016 6:21:24 PM PDT by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome.)
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To: metmom

Do you realize your post makes no sense? Initially you infer there are many “churches”, yet later you quote “members of it”.

“It” or “them”? Which is it?


166 posted on 06/19/2016 6:26:27 PM PDT by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome.)
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Comment #167 Removed by Moderator

To: MHGinTN
The Apostles' Creed:

...I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary...

168 posted on 06/19/2016 6:34:56 PM PDT by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome.)
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To: MHGinTN
Conceive is to implant in the body of the one who will give life support to the new life in her body. If conception was at union of oocyte and spermatozoon then more than one individual could be in the pregnancy, so conception of the One is when He implanted in Mary's womb.

So once again, you're reading outside the Bible. How convenient!

169 posted on 06/19/2016 6:41:07 PM PDT by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome.)
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To: ebb tide

Already have. That’s why I posted the comment.


170 posted on 06/19/2016 6:47:00 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: Mrs. Don-o
'There isn't a Martian I know who has made that distinction' ... Since you are such a vehement last worder, I will end my exchanges with you with this post. (Your imperious nature is not to my tastes in females, either, so exchanging posts with you is ... a chore I don't need at my age).

You start your post with 'Pardon me' ... but you don't want pardoning you want to have the last word. Then you post assertions as axiomatic yet what you are trying to prove. That is planned twisting.

Your 'of course we can' is an example of this making what you want to prove axiomatic to your argument. In vitro fertilization allows a woman totally unrelated biologically to the life which implants in her womb, to be the gestating Mother and even raise the child as the mother. You know that yet you ignore it.

Until in vitro fertilization came along this was not possible, so this alternate understanding of "conceived in" not "conceive of" was not even likely to occur to anyone. least of all the catholic hierarchy wanting to elevate mary from Mother of Jesus to mother of god!

Then you spittle out this commandment according to Mrs Don-o: "If Jesus is not genetically related to Mary, He is not genetically related to the human race." How utterly blind of you! Do you believe God is not capable of bringing a gamete from Eve together with a spermatozoon of David, then placing HIS Holy Spirit in that new body of human origins? Does the Bible say this is how God did the marvelous incarnation? NO, and it does not say that God used the gamete of Mary either. Where do you suppose the haploid for Jesus derived, if you believe the one haploid is from Mary? You command us to believe as you do, without showing proof of your cathol8ic mind's assertion! If half of Jesus chromosomes came from Mary, and you believe that is 'the only way Jesus can be related to the human race', where did the other half of His chromosome come from? Is the God of catholiciism a possessor of sperm, chromosomes and DNA, etcetera, before Jesus is conceived/implanted in Mary's womb? Did God have sex with Mary? God forbid that you would even imagine such a thing!

The Bible tells us plainly that Jesus was conceived in Mary's body and gestated there until birth. Your specious religion commands that we believe God used the DNA from Mary to make Jesus's physical body. But there is no Bible proof of that assertion and in fact God could have used the ovum of Eve and the sperm of David to create the embryo implanted in Mary's womb. We DO KNOW from whence comes the Spirit that is in Jesus. Do you have some strange notion that somehow Mary had a hand in the Spirit that is in Jesus?

As to your 'lessons on embryology', read the book I wrote on stem cells and cloning. You can find the link to it on my profile page.

And finally the commandment from Mrs Don-o is: "I can't believe I'm arguing with you about this. Jesus shared our human nature. [ I absolutely agree with this, He was fully human ... but I am not required to believe how He is fully Human on the assertion of catholiciism!] He couldn't do so if he didn't fit genetically into the human family tree.*** Why should any person assume that Jesus didn't share his mother's DNA? [Why your religion wants to command that we believe Jesus shared Mary's DNA is plain; catholiciism demands that Mary be genetically direct contributor to Jesus's DNA. It is vital to the blasphemous dogmas of Mary as mediatrix and co-redemtrix. You believe these traditions on mary the Mother of Jesus, because you have chosen to believe Mary is 'the mother of God'. You necessary link is His DNA coming from Mary 'to conceive Him'.

Now, I leave you with the Mulberry bush you demand to possess. You have not proven your axiom, but you have exposed a whole nother level of catholic dogma which supports the Maridolatry of your religion. You assume GOD used Mary's DNA because you assume Mary to be the genetic donor to the body of Jesus. There is no proof int he Bible of that assertion. But you can continue to try and twist your axiom to prove your axiom ... if this were not so serious, you would be amusing.

171 posted on 06/19/2016 6:56:10 PM PDT by MHGinTN (Democrats bait then switch; their fishy voters buy it every time.)
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To: metmom
Consider this: in Luke 1:43, Elizabeth identifies Mary as "the Mother of my Lord".

Elizabeth is identifying Mary as the Mother of the Lord her God.

When we call Mary "Mother of God," we are not saying she is the mother of the Trinity. We are saying, like Elizabeth, that the is the mother of our Lord God.

If anybody thinks that this is clouding the issue, I would ask them to review the facts.

If we say that Mary is the "Mother of Jesus," that's true and very clear as far as it goes (it's usually fairly obvious who a baby's mother is) but it does not answer the question of whether Jesus is a Divine Person.

Jesus has two natures: a human nature and a divine nature, but is one Divine Person, not just a ramped-up man. Thus Jesus is God and Mary is the Mother of God.

The description "Mother of God" is clear if you know what question you are answering. Answering the question "Is Jesus a Divine Person?" was the point of the Council of Ephesus.

Mary is of course not the source of the Supreme Being, Who pre-exists all things and Who is without beginning and uncreated, and subsists as a Trinity of Father, Son (Logos, "The Word"), and Holy Spirit. Because Jesus is the son of Mary, he is the son of David, son of Abraham, son of Adam, according to the flesh. Mary is the one who links Jesus, the Word-made-Flesh, to His family tree, the human race.

Instead of "Mother of God" one could make the same point by saying "The-woman-who-links-God-to-the-human-race-through-the-Incarnation-which-took-place-via-her-motherhood." But "Mother of God" is shorter and simpler.

172 posted on 06/19/2016 6:59:19 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (God swore to David that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ.)
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To: All

Good night, all! And thanks be to God!


173 posted on 06/19/2016 7:03:47 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (God swore to David that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ.)
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To: Mrs. Don-o
Why not just rely upon how the texts describe Mary?

The catholic position elevates Mary to something not suggested by the text. It has further led to the titles of advocate, mediatrix and coredemtrix none of which are even hinted at in Scripture.

174 posted on 06/19/2016 7:09:22 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: ealgeone

So what’s your particular flavor of “bible”?


175 posted on 06/19/2016 7:17:23 PM PDT by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome.)
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To: ebb tide

NASB along with the Greek.


176 posted on 06/19/2016 7:18:17 PM PDT by ealgeone
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To: ealgeone

NASB - New and American. Thanks for making my point.


177 posted on 06/19/2016 7:20:32 PM PDT by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome.)
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To: ebb tide
Mary was (and still is) a virgin and engaged before the Annunciation.

The consummation was not what made their betrothal a legally binding marriage.

In the Jewish culture, what Mary and Joseph had was a legally binding marriage.

Joseph was considering DIVORCING her. You don't divorce someone who you are not married to.

And if you are not legally married, there's no reason to divorce. You just break off the engagement.

You guys really cherry-pick your multiple bibles, don't you?

Wow. There's a wild accusation flung out hoping something will stick.

178 posted on 06/19/2016 7:24:14 PM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: ealgeone
I explained that at #172. The question being debated was, is Jesus a Divine Person? The dogma of Mary, Mother of God, is about Jesus. It isn't about her "person" and "nature," but about His.

I just finished reading "The Apostasy that Wasn't," by Rod Bennett, which is an account of the run-up, event, and aftermath of the Council of Nicaea.. It puts a big emphasis on the sheer apostolic obstinacy of Athanasius

Athanasius Contra Mundum!

Usually the trouble was fomented by heretical bishops. Rich and powerful ones. Athanasius was just a deacon at Nicaea, practically the youngest (and poorest) person there!

If it were not for heretics, i.e. "wayward bishops with creative new ideas," doctrine would remain undeveloped because there wouldn't have been questions that urgently needed answering.

I mention this because it is amazing how every detail of true Christology had to be hammered out, not because folks didn't have anything else to do, or enjoyed splitting hairs and minting new words (homoouisos? dang) but because they were being massively challenged by people in high places (emperors, archbishops of major sees, etc) who denied the full divinity of Christ, the full humanity of Christ, Christ as possessing two natures, or Christ as being one undivided Person.

The history of the Council of Ephesus will show you why a clarification like "Mother of God" was needed, because it will show what question was being answered.

179 posted on 06/19/2016 7:26:48 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (God swore to David that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ.)
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To: ebb tide

Widely considered to be the most literal of all the translations and based on the best Greek we have available. Not sure how this is a problem.


180 posted on 06/19/2016 7:31:21 PM PDT by ealgeone
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