Fact:
Bergoglio Vatican celebrates Protestant Revolt with a stamp
Posted on 11/17/2017 3:03:09 PM PST by ebb tide
As an outsider, I can’t help but wonder whether the pope and the USCCB were particularly provoked by Weinandy’s suggestion that Jesus had allowed this controversy in order “to manifest just how weak is the faith of many within the Church, even among too many of her bishops.” Catholics will have to make up their own minds—but I’ll admit I have questions about the faith of Pope Francis, which seems, if not weak, at least different from that of the Catholic tradition.
Even before the release of Amoris Laetitia in March 2016, Francis had caused many to question his fidelity to that tradition. In 2014, the midterm report of the Extraordinary Synod on the Family recommended that pastors emphasize the “positive aspects” of cohabitation and civil remarriage after divorce. He said that Jesus’s multiplication of bread and fish was really a miracle of sharing, not of multiplying (2013); told a woman in an invalid marriage that she could take Holy Communion (2014); claimed that lost souls do not go to hell (2015); and said that Jesus had begged his parents for forgiveness (2015). In 2016, he said that God had been “unjust with his son,” announced his prayer intention to build a society “that places the human person at the center,” and declared that inequality is “the greatest evil that exists.” In 2017, he joked that “inside the Holy Trinity they’re all arguing behind closed doors, but on the outside they give the picture of unity.” Jesus Christ, he said, “made himself the devil.” “No war is just,” he pronounced. At the end of history, “everything will be saved. Everything.”
Weinandy and other Catholic critics have pointed to alarming statements and suggestions in Amoris Laetitia itself. The exhortation declares, “No one can be condemned for ever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” In December 2016, the Catholic philosophers John Finnis and Germain Grisez argued in their “Misuse of Amoris Laetitia” that though this statement reflects a trend among Catholic thinkers stemming from Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, it contradicts the gospels’ clear statements and the Catholic tradition’s teaching that there is “unending punishment” in hell. Finnis and Grisez charge that, according to the logic of Amoris Laetitia, some of the faithful are too weak to keep God’s commandments, and can live in grace while committing ongoing and habitual sins “in grave matter.” Like (Episcopalian) Joseph Fletcher, who taught Situation Ethics in the 1960s, the exhortation suggests that there are exceptions to every moral rule and that there is no such thing as an intrinsically evil act.
I take no pleasure in Rome’s travails. For decades, orthodox Anglicans and other Protestants seeking to resist the apostasies of liberal Christianity have looked to Rome for moral and theological support. Most of us recognized that we were really fighting the sexual revolution, which had coopted and corrupted the Episcopal Church and its parent across the pond. First it was the sanctity of life and euthanasia. Then it was homosexual practice. Now it is gay marriage and transgender ideology. During the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, we non-Catholics arguing moral theology could point to learned and compelling arguments coming out of Rome and say, in effect, “The oldest and largest part of the Body of Christ agrees with us, and it does so with remarkable sophistication.”
Those of us who continue to fight for orthodoxy, in dogmatic as well as moral theology, miss those days when there was a clear beacon shining from across the Tiber. For now, it seems, Rome itself has been infiltrated by the sexual revolution. The center is not holding.
Though we are dismayed, we must not despair. For the brave and principled stand made by Tom Weinandy reminds us that God raises up prophetic lights when dark days come to his Church.
Gerald McDermott holds the Anglican Chair of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School.
“Why did Jesus select Judas as one of His twelve apostles?
That Scripture and the will of God would be fulfilled.
So says someone a bit more attuned to the logical consequence of your own statements than yourself, apparently.
“Is Pope Francis a Liberal Protestant”?
More like just a Liberal. You Catholics have my sincere sympathy.
Absolutely. But the real point I was trying to make is that there well may be, and here comes that word again!, 'collusion', between the two (Pope Francis and the Russians), with the Communist-loving World Council of Churches the organizing go-between, especially considering the Marxist leanings of this current pope.
Yeah...because you see so many articles from all of us non-Catholics calling out the pope. /sarc
You on the other hand have made it a daily habit is seems.
You and verga would have a heck of a chess match.
Sure he is (n.b. there are no false teachings in the Catholic Church). He's trying to do it now, but the Holy Ghost will never allow him to succeed.
Luther tried to do the same thing; and now the Francis is celebrating the heretic's revolution with a Vatican stamp.
Only a protestant would issue a Vatican stamp celebrating Luther's revolt.
True, and this state-run church is run by the KGB/FSB Putin government. It's no mystery why they want to shut down any and all competition.
I think he is a communist supporter without an ounce of belief in God.
“Only a protestant would issue a Vatican stamp celebrating Luther’s revolt.”
Just an assertion of yours. No facts.
I’ve never met a Roman more rebellious toward his leader than you.
It seems you are more like a Protestant than Francis!
Luther only posted 95 statements. You’ve posted thousands.
Every man, his own pope!
Well....we could have a whole separate thread on that.
He's trying to do it now, but the Holy Ghost will never allow him to succeed.
So to metmom's question to you....was the selection of the pope guided by men or the Holy Spirit?
Chuckle. Only in your own mind would any utterance by Steelfish be deemed “rambling”.
Steelfish just ash canned your entire premise, but you wholly and comically missed it when it whizzed by.
Scripture also says that Christ founded His Church on St. Peter which the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
Post of the thread thus far!
“Scripture also says that Christ founded His Church on St. Peter which the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
Again, an assertion with no facts ebb.
Not in Greek.
Just in Rome.
Even the orthodox churches know your statement is false.
The Catholic church has opposed Marxism in authority. Many priests and bishops disagree. This pope is a global marxist.
Take a look at “liberation theology” to see where he comes from.
Fact:
Bergoglio Vatican celebrates Protestant Revolt with a stamp
“He’s not Catholic. He’s not Christian. What he is the false pope.”
Sounds like a PCUSA preacher.
“However, when the Pope speaks ex cathedra, his formal pronouncement of Catholic teachings and taken in conjunction with the Bishops and the College of Cardinals, he speaks on behalf of the Church founded by Christ. The one and only true Church.
Christ founded an assembly. Not a church.
Your claim is Not found in Scripture.
Your claim is not believed by any church outside Rome.
South America is loaded with the liberation theology communist crap.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.