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4 Books That Made a Priest Leave the Church
CCC Discover ^ | May 24, 2017 | Nicholas Davis

Posted on 06/30/2017 4:43:54 PM PDT by Gamecock

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To: Gamecock

Celebrating the Bible is great.

But remember that Luther didn’t come on the church scene until the 1500s.

It was only Catholicism until then. In fact, Luther had been educated as a Catholic.

But then he fell into disobedience and apostasy.


41 posted on 06/30/2017 6:58:31 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Salvation

Being so stuck on an ISM ... well, it isn’t spiritual health, though it soothes the pride in self.


42 posted on 06/30/2017 7:00:22 PM PDT by MHGinTN (A dispensational perspective is a powerful tool for discernment)
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To: Salvation

“It was only Catholicism until then. In fact, Luther had been educated as a Catholic.”

It was not. I’ve given you links before that demonstrate your claim is false.

“But then he fell into disobedience and apostasy.”

Following God’s specific Word isn’t apostasy except to those who have strayed far from what God declared as true.


43 posted on 06/30/2017 7:13:51 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: aMorePerfectUnion
Amazing, isn't it, how totally unteachable some folks are?
44 posted on 06/30/2017 7:19:55 PM PDT by boatbums (The Law is a storm which wrecks your hopes of self-salvation, but washes you upon the Rock of Ages.)
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To: boatbums
Didn’t Henry VIII threaten to kill Martin Luther? I know he was not a fan. The way some people think they were in cahoots with each other is a riot!

I don't know about a death threat but I do know that there was no love lost between the Church of England and the Lutheran Church for many, many years. That's why this garbled history certain people keep blurting out, that Martin Luther had something to do with the KJV, is to me somewhere between annoying and hilarious. I've yet to get an answer when I ask about it, and I'm going to keep asking every time it comes up until I do. Must be in the Catholic Encyclopedia or something.

45 posted on 06/30/2017 7:26:26 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Salvation
The largest Lutheran denomination in America is the "Evangelical Lutheran Church in America". Their denomination is currently presided over by Bishop Elizabeth Eaton (see photo below). Among other rather surprising teachings, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America officially supports homosexuality and homosexual behaviors, and they do not see those as sins, when practiced by either the laity or the clergy.

Bishop Eaton has disagreed strongly with President Trump and verbally attacked him on a number of serious issues currently facing our country. Here's a photo of Bishop Eaton.


Bishop Elizabeth Eaton
Presiding Bishop - Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

(It is interesting to do a Google search (without quotes) on these two words -- ELCA homosexuality.)
46 posted on 06/30/2017 7:27:46 PM PDT by Songcraft
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To: Golden Oldie Song Qigong

Yes, and I GAG every time I hear of the ELCA.

Try the LCMS; we remain faithful.

So, if was your intent, please try not to use guilt by association, especially because the Romans and the ELCA have been trying to re-merge for a long time.


47 posted on 06/30/2017 7:29:36 PM PDT by Luircin
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To: boatbums
"Amazing, isn't it, how totally unteachable some folks are?

It at times comes across as willful ignorance in the posts.

48 posted on 06/30/2017 7:29:46 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: boatbums

If you have noticed, Pope F is disagreed with by other Bishops. That disagreement need be settled with the authority of the authentic and historical, teaching of the Church through the Councils and what is called the ordinary Magisterium.

Lots of us lay Catholics understand this nowdays, but it has been historically misunderstood.

Pope’s who have taught against that history are set aright in various ways.

The confusion over Communion for divorced, and re-marriage will finally, even if years from now, be settled that way.

Dogma always develops. Dogma NEVER changes to the opposite.


49 posted on 06/30/2017 7:32:14 PM PDT by amihow (.size)
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To: Golden Oldie Song Qigong
It is interesting to do a Google search (without quotes) on these two words -- ELCA homosexuality.

Or GAY vatican mafia.

BOTH wrong and sinful.

Best to separate from BOTH.

50 posted on 06/30/2017 7:32:46 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: boatbums

Lots of Catholics have incredible credentials and spout heresy. Credentials are not the issue. Constant teaching and non-contradicting development os same are issue.


51 posted on 06/30/2017 7:37:56 PM PDT by amihow (.size)
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To: Golden Oldie Song Qigong
Let Me Google that for You
52 posted on 06/30/2017 7:38:00 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: amihow

Oh bless your heart.

I ask you not to give me an argument from tradition fallacy and you go into “because I say so,” followed by an ad hoc.

Incidentally, in regards to your ad hoc fallacy, the Lutherans you’re talking about are the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual ELCA. Real nice catch you got there. Take ‘em, we don’t want ‘em. They’ll go well with your Scripture denying ways.

Argue from Scripture the teachings of the Romanists and I may take you seriously. Specifically on salvation, since that’s the sticking point and all. Tell me how you’re supposed to gain eternal life and support your argument.

Then I’ll argue back.

Then we can talk.

I don’t care to spend my Friday evening pointing out logical fallacies this time around.


53 posted on 06/30/2017 7:38:27 PM PDT by Luircin
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To: Salvation; Gamecock; MHGinTN; daniel1212
But remember that Luther didn’t come on the church scene until the 1500s. It was only Catholicism until then. In fact, Luther had been educated as a Catholic. But then he fell into disobedience and apostasy.

Yeah, about that church "scene":

    History relevant to the context of the Reformation:

    • Cardinal Bellarmine:
     "Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- Colon 1617, in “A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,) p>  • The Avignon Papacy (1309-76) relocated the throne to France and was followed by the Western Schism (1378-1417), with three rival popes excommunicating each other and their sees. Referring to the schism of the 14th and 15th centuries, Cardinal Ratzinger observed:

      "For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.

      "It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196). http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/06/13/whos-in-charge-here-the-illusions-of-church-infallibility/)

    • Joseph Lortz, German Roman Catholic theologian:
    “The real significance of the Western Schism rests in the fact that for decades there was an almost universal uncertainty about where the true pope and the true Church were to be found. For several decades, both popes had excommunicated each other and his followers; thus all Christendom found itself under sentence of excommunication by at least one of the contenders. Both popes referred to their rival claimant as the Antichrist, and to the Masses celebrated by them as idolatry. It seemed impossible to do anything about this scandalous situation, despite sharp protests from all sides, and despite the radical impossibility of having two valid popes at the same time. Time and time again, the petty selfishness of the contenders blocked any solution...”

    “The significance of the break-up of medieval unity in the thirteenth century, but even more during the Avignon period, is evident in the most distinctive historical consequence of the Avignon Papacy: the Great Western Schism. The real meaning of this event may not be immediately apparent. It can be somewhat superficially described as a period when there were two popes, each with his own Curia, one residing in Rome, the other in Avignon.” “When Luther asserted that the pope of Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in their essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined.” ("The Reformation: A Problem for Today” (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), “The Causes of the Reformation," pp. 35-37; (http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/10/roman-catholic-scholar-look-at-causes.html)

    • Catholic Encyclopedia> Council of Constance:
    “The Western Schism was thus at an end, after nearly forty years of disastrous life; one pope (Gregory XII) had voluntarily abdicated; another (John XXIII) had been suspended and then deposed, but had submitted in canonical form; the third claimant (Benedict XIII) was cut off from the body of the Church, "a pope without a Church, a shepherd without a flock" (Hergenröther-Kirsch). It had come about that, whichever of the three claimants of the papacy was the legitimate successor of Peter, there reigned throughout the Church a universal uncertainty and an intolerable confusion, so that saints and scholars and upright souls were to be found in all three obediences. On the principle that a doubtful pope is no pope, the Apostolic See appeared really vacant, and under the circumstances could not possibly be otherwise filled than by the action of a general council.”  (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04288a.htm)

    • Erasmus, in his new edition of the “Enchiridion:
    “What man of real piety does not perceive with sighs that this is far the most corrupt of all ages? When did iniquity abound with more licentiousness? When was charity so cold?” (“The Evolution of the English Bible: A Historical Sketch of the Successive,” p. 132 by Henry William Hamilton-Hoare)

    • Catholic historian Paul Johnson additionally described the existing social situation among the clergy during this period leading up to the Refomation: 
    “Probably as many as half the men in orders had ‘wives’ and families. Behind all the New Learning and the theological debates, clerical celibacy was, in its own way, the biggest single issue at the Reformation. It was a great social problem and, other factors being equal, it tended to tip the balance in favour of reform. As a rule, the only hope for a child of a priest was to go into the Church himself, thus unwillingly or with no great enthusiasm, taking vows which he might subsequently regret: the evil tended to perpetuate itself.” (History of Christianity, pgs 269-270)

    • Maurice W. Sheehan: In this lecture I want to talk about the causes of the Reformation. This is a rather standard approach to the Reformation because it is admitted by all that the Reformation did not just happen or come like a bolt from the blue...Part of the tragedy of the Reformation is that the Church before 1517 was unable to reform itself or to set in motion events or changes that would have led to a reform in the Church that would have satisfied its members and really affected change.... It is possible to go back deep into the Middle Ages when enumerating or toting up the causes of the Reformation. I would like to start simply with the fourteenth century.... The first thing to note is that in the fourteenth century there was a period of approximately seventy years, from 1309 to 1377, when the pope was not living or residing in Rome...In the midst of the pope living outside of the Italian peninsula, outside of Rome, there occurred one of those events in European history that mark an age forever, and that was the infamous Black Death...Not too long after the Black Death there occurred something that was far worse than the popes living in Avignon... they proceeded to elect a counter-pope in 1378 to the pope who was then living in Rome. This counter-pope was French. He went back to Avignon. The man already resident now in Rome stayed in Rome, and Christendom now had the spectacle of not one pope living where he shouldn't have been, but of two popes each claiming to be the rightful pope, one living in Avignon, the other in Rome. To...Boniface IX, goes the unenviable distinction of probably having begun the papal sale of offices... 1447 is usually taken as the year that began or marked the appearance of what we call the Renaissance Papacy, or the Renaissance Popes. The Italian Renaissance was in full swing at this time, and when we speak of the Renaissance Popes what we mean more than anything else is that these popes were more men of culture or rulers than popes...Sixtus IV was completely a worldling. He is best known perhaps for the chapel that he built which was later decorated by Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel. His successor Innocent VIII had an illegitimate family. Alexander VI, who was Spanish, was perhaps the worst of them all. He had many illegitimate children, but he was a good political candidate. But his reign as pope did more to weaken the moral prestige of the papacy than almost anything imaginable... And if we go to the clergy, to what we can call the lower clergy or the ordinary priests, we can say that one vice that many of them had was immorality. Many of them had women that they kept in their rectories by whom they had children, so they had families to support. — Maurice W. Sheehan, O.F.M. Cap., Lecture 2: Prelude-Causes, Attempts at Reform to 1537; International Catholic University http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c01802.htm

    • Dickens: In the summer of 1536, Pope Paul III appointed Cardinals Contarini and Cafara and a commission to study church Reform. The report of this commission, the Consilium de emendanda ecclesiae, was completed in March 1537.  The final paragraphs deal with the corruptions of Renaissance Rome itself:
    “the swarm of sordid and ignorant priests in the city, the harlots who are followed around by clerics and by the noble members of the cardinals’ households …” 

    “The immediate effects of the Consilium fell far below the hopes of its authors and its very frankness hampered its public use. … the more noticeably pious prelates [note: this the “noticeably pious” clergy] had no longer to tolerate the open cynicism of the Medicean period, and when moral lapses by clerics came to light, pains were now taken to hush them up as matters of grievous scandal.” (G. Dickens, “The Counter Reformation,” pp. 100,102)

    • In the same frank spirit is the following statement of de Mézeray, the historiographer of France: [Abrege’ Chronol. VIII. 691, seqq. a Paris, 1681]
    “As the heads of the Church paid no regard to the maintenance of discipline, the vices and excesses of the ecclesiastics grew up to the highest pitch, and were so public and universally exposed as to excite against them the hatred and contempt of the people. We cannot repeat without a blush the usury, the avarice, the gluttony, the universal dissoluteness of the priests of this period, the license and debauchery of the monks, the pride and extravagance of the prelates, and the shameful indolence, ignorance and superstition pervading the whole body... These were not, I confess, new scandals: I should rather say that the barbarism and ignorance of preceding centuries, in some sort, concealed such vices; but,, on the subsequent revival of the light of learning, the spots which I have pointed out became more manifest, and as the unlearned who were corrupt could not endure the light through the pain which it caused to their eyes, so neither did the learned spare them, turning them to ridicule and delighting to expose their turpitude and to decry their superstitions.”

    Bossuet* in the opening statements of his “Histoire des Variations,” admits the frightful corruptions of the Church for centuries before the Reformation; and he has been followed in our own times by Frederic von Schlegel [Philosophy of History, 400, 401, 410, Engl. Transl. 1847.] and Möhler. [Symbolik, II. 31, 32, Engl. Transl.]

    While all of them are most anxious to prove that the Lutheran movement was revolutionary and subversive of the ancient faith, they are constrained to admit the universality of the abuses, which, in the language of Schlegel, “lay deep, and were ulcerated in their very roots.” — Charles Hardwick A History of the Articles of Religion; http://www.anglicanbooksrevitalized.us/Oldies/Thirty-Nine/hardwick39.htm

    • Jaroslav Pelikan (Lutheran, later Eastern Orthodox), The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959), also found:
    "Recent research on the Reformation entitles us to sharpen it and say that the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity..." 
    “The reformers were catholic because they were spokesmen for an evangelical tradition in medieval catholicism, what Luther called "the succession of the faithful." The fountainhead of that tradition was Augustine (d. 430). His complex and far-reaching system of thought incorporated the catholic ideal of identity plus universality, and by its emphasis upon sin and grace it became the ancestor of Reformation theology. … All the reformers relied heavily upon Augustine. They pitted his evangelical theology against the authority of later church fathers and scholastics, and they used him to prove that they were not introducing novelties into the church, but defending the true faith of the church.”
    “...To prepare books like the Magdeburg Centuries they combed the libraries and came up with a remarkable catalogue of protesting catholics and evangelical catholics, all to lend support to the insistence that the Protestant position was, in the best sense, a catholic position.

    Additional support for this insistence comes from the attitude of the reformers toward the creeds and dogmas of the ancient catholic church. The reformers retained and cherished the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures in Christ which had developed in the first five centuries of the church….” 
    “If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers' claim to catholicity becomes clear. (Pelikan, pp. 46-47) "Substantiation for this understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures, but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable." (Pelikan 48-49).

More HERE

54 posted on 06/30/2017 7:38:53 PM PDT by boatbums (The Law is a storm which wrecks your hopes of self-salvation, but washes you upon the Rock of Ages.)
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To: amihow

Lots of Catholics have incredible credentials and spout heresy. Credentials are not the issue. Constant teaching and non-contradicting development os same are issue.

***

Then WHY did you start this whole conversation by attacking Dr. Luther’s credentials?

Wait, don’t answer that; I’m pretty sure I know.


55 posted on 06/30/2017 7:39:41 PM PDT by Luircin
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To: Golden Oldie Song Qigong
Even worse, it is on video...
56 posted on 06/30/2017 7:40:55 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: boatbums; Salvation

If you’re going to make an argument from age, why aren’t you a Moloch worshipper? That came into being LONG before Catholicism.


57 posted on 06/30/2017 7:41:56 PM PDT by Luircin
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To: Luircin
Then WHY did you start this whole conversation by attacking Dr. Luther’s credentials? Wait, don’t answer that; I’m pretty sure I know.

I've concluded that it's due to moon phases. "Luther BAD" now, but wait a week or two and he'll be good again, I promise, having watched it on here for over a decade. Round and round it goes with poor ol' Martin Luther. Makes your head spin.

58 posted on 06/30/2017 7:43:20 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Luircin

Or Hindu
Or many, many other false religions.


59 posted on 06/30/2017 7:43:42 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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Comment #60 Removed by Moderator


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