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By now everyone in San Diego has surely heard of Joe Biden's well-publicized remark to President Obama after the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 3962, The Affordable Health Care for America Act, when Biden turned to embrace Barack and said "This is a big (expletive) deal!" Joe Biden, known for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, is also known as a practicing Catholic - recently seen with a smudge of ash on his forehead from Ash Wednesday. So far Joe Biden, the cussing Catholic, has yet to apologize to the American people, or, as far as we...

Stop adding keywords to articles to slam others, e.g. catholicbashing, agendadrivenfreepers, moapc, catholicwhiners.

Question: How can all these denominations claim to follow the bible yet all come to different conclusions? How can I possibly know which one of those above teach the truth when they can't even agree on what the Bible says? Protestants believe a variety of doctrines and all claim to take their doctrines from the Bible. That doesn't really sound like perspicuity to me. 'Bible alone' has created so much havoc in this world. Answer: You rashly attribute the differences of opinions among Christians to 'Sola Sciptura' - namely, the Protestant belief that the Holy Scripture is the only infallible...

Question: "Catholic vs. Protestant - why is there so much animosity?" Answer: This is a simple question with a complicated answer, because there are varying degrees of, and reasons for, animosity between any two religious groups. This particular battle is rooted in history. Degrees of reaction have ranged from friendly disagreement (as reflected in the numerous ecumenical dialogues produced between the two groups), to outright persecution and murder of Protestants at the hands of Rome. Reformation teachings that identify the Pope as the Beast of Revelation and / or Roman Catholicism as Mystery Babylon are still common among Protestants. Clearly,...

The fundamental dispute between Protestants and Catholics on Salvation was and is due mostly to a "misunderstanding", because the key terms are used in different senses. A First Similarity: Faith and Works: Apparently Catholics and Protestants disagree about the relationship between faith and works on salvation, however, both agree in two important facts: 1- That faith is absolutely necessary for salvation. 2- That we are absolutely commanded by God to do good works. Both these two points are unmistakably clear in Scripture, and both Protestants and Catholics give to faith in Christ a unique rule on salvation, and both try...

The argument is often made that the Catholic Church gave us the Bible, but this could not be further from the truth. Only God could give us the Bible. It was originally authored by Him (II Tim. 3:16) and then preserved by Him (Psalm 12:6-7). The confusion, however, comes from the two streams of Scripture that came out of the Middle East after the time of Christ. The Christians were first called Christians at Antioch, where they diligently copied the Scriptures, and spread them throughout the world. However, Alexandria was the home of “scholars” who gloried in their knowledge (Jer....

The prayer life of the Roman Catholic is quite different from the Bible believing Christian. The predominant prayer in the life of almost any catholic is the "Hail Mary." It goes like this: "HAIL MARY FULL OF GRACE, THE LORD IS WITH THEE. BLESSED ART THOU AMONG WOMEN AND BLESSED IS THE FRUIT OF THY WOMB, JESUS. HOLY MARY, MOTHER OF GOD, PRAY FOR US SINNERS, NOW AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATH. AMEN." The statements made in this prayer are quite significant. Allow us to look at them one at a time and compare them with the word...

Born Irish, in a family of eight, my early childhood was fulfilled and happy. My father was a colonel in the Irish Army until he retired when I was about nine. As a family, we loved to play, sing, and act, all within a military camp in Dublin. We were a typical Irish Roman Catholic family. My father sometimes knelt down to pray at his bedside in a solemn manner. Most evenings we would kneel in the living room to say the Rosary together. No one ever missed Mass on Sundays unless he was seriously ill. By the time I...

You can tell a lot about a man’s moral or spiritual compass by what offends him. For example, many Catholics are oddly thin-skinned when it comes to criticism of their own denomination. At say that’s odd for a couple of reasons. For one thing, their hypersensitivity is strikingly lopsided. After all, a number of Catholic epologists are hardly paragons of decorum in their characterization of the Protestant faith. And, of course, it’s not as if their denomination was conspicuous for its tender treatment of theological opponents in the past. I suppose we could chalk this up to standard issue hypocrisy....

Roman Catholic theology often parallels Mary the mother of Jesus with Jesus Himself in His work of redemption. For example, Jesus is born without the stain of original sin, and so is Mary. Jesus lives a sinless life; so does Mary. Jesus remains a virgin all His life; Mary is Ever-Virgin. Jesus is the Redeemer; Mary is Co-Redemptress. Jesus is the one Mediator between man and God, yet Mary, too, is Mediatrix. Jesus is bodily assumed into heaven; so is Mary. Ascribing Christological attributes such as these to Mary historically has been a source of contention between Protestants (who see...

n a strongly worded appeal that will test their political influence, especially with their pro-life and Republican allies, the Catholic bishops of the United States have told Congress to put politics aside and focus on the "moral imperative" of passing universal health care. "The health care debate, with all its political and ideological conflict, seems to have lost its central moral focus and policy priority, which is to ensure that affordable, quality, life-giving care is available to all," the three bishops who are leading the lobbying effort for the Catholic hierarchy write in a letter sent Tuesday to all 535...

I just witnessed a couple of Orthodox posters get kicked off a "Catholic Caucus" thread. I thought, despite their differences, they had a mutual understanding that each sect was considered "Catholic". Are not the Orthodox considered Catholic? Why do the Romanists get to monopolize the term "Catholic"? I consider myself to be Catholic being a part of the universal church of Christ. Why should one sect be able to use a universal concept to identify themselves in a caucus thread while other Christian denominations need to use specific qualifiers to identify themselves in a caucus thread?

THE MEANING OF THE ROMISH MASS. by H. W. It was a Saturday afternoon in the autumn of 1904, that I entered the Roman Cathedral at Westminster. For some time previous I had been revolving in thought a crucial question. A suspicion had arisen in my mind relative to the real meaning and significance, the true inwardness of that central right and institution of Romanism----the Mass. I had resolved to bring the question to an issue whenever I might find myself in contact with any authorized exponent of the doctrine of transubstantiation. Upon entering the Cathedral, almost the first person...

WAS PETER EVER AT IN ROME? As to the question whether Peter was ever at Rome, the Roman claim is that he suffered martyrdom there with Paul, after a Pontificate of twenty-five years. This would be from A.D. 41 to 66. But note:---- 1. In 44 he was imprisoned in Jerusalem (Acts 12). 2. In 52 he was at the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15). 3. In 53 Paul joined him at Antioch (Galatians 2). 4. In 58 Paul wrote to the Romans, but does not mention Peter. In 1:11, he wants to impart special gifts; and in 1:15 he...

ctor Sam Elliott claims that the Catholic Church prevented Hollywood from proceeding with the next two film’s in the His Dark Materials trilogy based on Philip Pullman’s books. “The Catholic Church ... lambasted them,” said Elliott. “I think it scared New Line off.” The film...angered Catholics who accused it of promoting atheism. In the book trilogy, set in a series of parallel worlds, heroine Lyra fights the Magisterium, an evil organisation some have interpreted as being based on the Catholic Church. Pullman, 63, told the Western Mail: "If Sam is right then I am very disappointed because it obviously would...

Folks, this according to the Thomas More Law Center: ANN ARBOR, MI – Tomorrow, December 16, 2009, at 10 AM PST, a panel of eleven judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in San Francisco will hear oral arguments concerning the constitutionality of San Francisco Board of Supervisor’s virulent resolution attacking the Catholic Church for its teachings against homosexual adoptions. The en banc panel will review the earlier opinion of a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit that upheld the resolution. Thomas More Law Center attorney Robert Muise will argue the case on behalf of the plaintiffs in...

The calendar has been produced by the Madrid Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transsexual collective COGAM Controversy in Madrid with the launch of a 2010 lay calendar which shows images of ‘transsexual virgins’ recreating religious scenes decorated with crowns, condoms and phallic symbols. The lay calendar takes the religion out of the dates of the year, so Christmas Day becomes the day you eat the traditional Spanish turron to mark International Democracy Day, for example. The images are all based on famous Catholic images and iconography. The Venezuelan photographer who assembled the calendar, Juan Antinoo, had been commissioned by COGAM, the...

The Pope has called for the world economy to be restructured in line with the principles of "love, truth and charity" in a new encyclical issued today. He urges the reformation of the United Nations and economic institutions to address the global economic crisis, which he links to relativism, globalisation and the abuse of modern technologies. The encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, interpreted variously throughout the document as charity or love in truth, is Pope Benedict XVI's third but his first on social issues. It is timed to coincide with the G8 in Italy and is intended to bring objective moral...

Editor's Note: The movie "Angels and Demons" is considered a financial flop in the United States. It must be noted 70% of revenue generated by Hollywood films derives from foreign viewership. See: http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/ -- JMZ Disparaging the Catholic Church is the real purpose of the latest Dan Brown/Ron "Opie" Howard movie “Angels and Demons.” Bill Donohue, President of the anti-defamation Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights www.catholicleague.org is demanding a disclaimer as the team who produced "The DaVinci Code" uses the same confusing mix of "fact and fiction" to spin a suspenseful conspiracy tale revolving around a secret ...

DUBLIN – A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation. Nine years in the making, Wednesday's 2,600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions. It concluded that church officials always shielded their orders' pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial...