Posted on 05/23/2018 11:32:48 AM PDT by C19fan
Reports that Pope Francis told a sex-abuse victim that God made him gay have drawn headlines this week, with many observers inferring a new level of acceptance of homosexuality, which the catechism of the Catholic Church describes as “objectively disordered.”
The Vatican spokesman declined to confirm or deny the statement, citing a policy of not commenting on the pope’s private conversations.
But no aspect of Pope Francis’ five-year reign has been better known or more controversial than his conciliatory approach to gay people, most famously expressed in his 2013 words about gay priests: “Who am I to judge?”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
The last battle will be over marriage and the family...
Here's the sequence:
As per sister Lucia. Western civilization is doomed. The end of the world is upon us.
Should be on the list:
Pedophilia encouraged.
It seems very clear that the ‘priesthood’ abandoned Christ decades ago, to pursue and institutionalize their perversions. Beginning with abusing young boys.
Christ is due to return. He must, if the human race is to survive. God help us.
Fight? Pfft. Progressives have this idiotic tendency to think history ends at them.
The liberal Church is dying as it stands, contracepting itself out of existence. Its churches are graying and shuttering one after another. Meanwhile the traditional orders are booming with vocations and large families.
We need a few more decades to lay the demographic and intellectual groundwork, and then wham.
Anathemas against the heresies of Sodomism.
This goes nowhere.
I am not Catholic.
I am praying for my brothers and sisters. A very hard choice of doctrine is on the horizon.
I gave this some thought recently and came to the conclusion the end of the world is not likely near. We are farther than ever from the one world religion, false prophet, and beast indicated in Revelation. Also still waiting for Jerusalem temple construction to start.
This is a pet peeve of mine but pedophila implies pre-pubesent victims of either sex. However most of the church scandals with underage kids are with young teenage boys - i.e. boys after puberty. In these instances the priests are looking for gay sex with someone who is underage - very underage - but not with little kids. It's a pet peeve because gays try to distance themselves from it by saying that pedophilia has nothing to do with gay (and that's essentially true, it's a different thing) and thus shifting attention away from the truth that men having sex with teen boys is totally a gay thing. And that's what's really been bringing down the church.
And yet somehow, the response to all these gay scandals rocking the church has evolved into the gays taking over the de facto leadership of the church. This is not going to end well.
You're taking the words of an apparition over Scripture??
From gotquestions.org regarding the apparition at Fatima:
"Our Lady stressed the importance of praying the Rosary in each of Her apparitions, asking the children to pray the Rosary every day for peace. Another principal part of the Message of Fatima is devotion to Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart, which is terribly outraged and offended by the sins of humanity, and we are lovingly urged to console Her by making reparation. She showed Her Heart, surrounded by piercing thorns (which represented the sins against Her Immaculate Heart), to the children, who understood that their sacrifices could help to console Her.
"The children also saw that God is terribly offended by the sins of humanity, and that He desires each of us and all mankind to abandon sin and make reparation for their crimes through prayer and sacrifice. Our Lady sadly pleaded: 'Do not offend the Lord our God any more, for He is already too much offended!'
"The children were also told to pray and sacrifice themselves for sinners, in order to save them from hell. The children were briefly shown a vision of hell, after which Our Lady told them: 'You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to My Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace.'
"The two means for saving the world are prayer and sacrifice. [Regarding the Holy Rosary, Sister Lucy said:] Look, Father, the Most Holy Virgin, in these last times in which we live, has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families, of the families of the world or of the religious communities, or even of the life of peoples and nations, that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary. With the Holy Rosary we will sanctify ourselves. We will console Our Lord and obtain the salvation of many souls. "Finally, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our Most Holy Mother, consists in considering Her as the seat of mercy, of goodness and of pardon, and as the sure door of entering Heaven."
For a Christian, the "content of faith" ought to be the Bible and what it teaches (Isaiah 8:20; 2 Timothy 3:16). And while Catholics may argue that the "Lady of Fatima" is not calling on us to worship "strange gods" but to worship the true God, the idea of venerating Mary to such an extent that her "Immaculate Heart" is put on the same level of devotion as Jesus' "Sacred Heart" is undeniably the exaltation of a woman to a position never given to her in Scripture—equality with God. To honor her as one would honor Christ is to exalt her. Likewise, to focus on Mary to such an extent that we spend more time praying to her than to God is also idolatrous, especially in light of the direct commands of Scripture to pray to God and the complete silence in Scripture concerning any exaltation of, or prayer to, Mary.
Was the "Miracle of the Sun" a lying wonder? Based on biblical teaching, it would certainly seem so. Satan has no problem mixing enough truth to make a teaching seem right with just enough error to damn souls to hell. Where is the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Christ—the message repeated throughout the whole of the New Testament—ever mentioned in the whole message of Fatima? Where is it ever mentioned that salvation is only through faith in Christ's finished work on Calvary and that our works have no merit apart from Him (Ephesians 2:8-9)? Penance and making offerings for reparation of our sins are antithetical to Christ's finished work on Calvary and of our need for salvation by grace alone through faith in Him alone. Calling upon Mary and her “Immaculate Heart” and viewing the Rosary as the ultimate means of saving souls fly in the face of such biblical truths as Acts 4:12 and 1 Timothy 2:5. "To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isaiah 8:20).
https://www.gotquestions.org/lady-fatima.html
Please. No Catholics here should really think you're merely trying to be helpful.
Gotquestions begins with the premise that "Roman Catholicism is a false religion." (I checked... direct quote from the site.) It is literally an anti-Catholic website. And even then you can't even be bothered to do more than to parrot it.
A cursory reading of your post history tells me that there is no point in trying to debate you, since you have already decided that everything about Catholicism is contrary to Scripture -- in spite of the fact that it was Catholics who wrote and discerned the Canon of the New Testament, they only completed that discernment after that "awful" Constantine mixed his "pagan deities" in (he actually didn't), and the whole unbiblical idea of "Sola Scriptura" would have been bizarre to the Christians of the first centuries.
I don't really have an interest to debate you (so don't waste much time trying to respond) -- some years ago I might have been up for it. My suspicion is that I would be wasting my time to do so.
Instead, I will only post to note to other Catholics who might read this particular article that you not only have nothing useful to say on the apparitions of Fatima, but also you have nothing useful to say about Catholicism in general.
Let's address this one first.
The quotes provided from gotquestions regarding Fatima are available from other sources.
Most Roman Catholics don't bother to research what these apparitions say. And that is sad because I believe if they did they would see the false statements of the apparitions.
But to your point....there is nothing useful said by the apparition as it is false. If you can square away the following comment from the apparition with Scripture you may have something. To date, no Roman Catholic has been able to.
When confronted with this the usual reply is, "well, we don't have to believe this".
If that is the case I call upon the Roman Catholic to denounce the apparition's message as false. To date none have done so.
Perhaps you would be the first.
The message of Fatima:
"In order to move ever closer to Her, and therefore to Her Son, Our Lady stressed the importance of praying at least five decades of the Rosary daily. She asked us to wear the Brown Scapular. And we must make sacrifices, especially the sacrifice of doing our daily duty, in reparation for the sins committed against Our Lord and Our Lady. She also stressed the necessity of prayers and sacrifices to save poor sinners from hell. The Message of Fatima, to individual souls, is summarized in these things."
I also offer the same from another website titled, "The National Shrine of our Lady of Czestochowa."
In order to move ever closer to Her, and therefore to Her Son, Our Lady stressed the importance of praying at least five decades of the Rosary daily. She asked us to wear the Brown Scapular. And we must make sacrifices, especially the sacrifice of doing our daily duty, in reparation for the sins committed against Our Lord and Our Lady. She also stressed the necessity of prayers and sacrifices to save poor sinners from hell. The Message of Fatima, to individual souls, is summarized in these things.http://czestochowa.us/content/view/1329/
The apparition also said this:
Our Lady said, "My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way that will lead you to God." If we wish to go to God, we have a sure way to Him through true devotion to the Immaculate Heart of His Mother.http://czestochowa.us/content/view/1329/
If we compare this with Scripture we find a huge glaring contradiction.
1“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2“In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3“If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. 4“And you know the way where I am going.” 5Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” 6Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. John 14:1-6 NASB
John clearly states the only way to the Father is through Christ.
The czestochowa.us website concludes the article on Fatima with the following:
Holy Mother of Czestochowa, you are full of grace, goodness and mercy. I consecrated to you all my thoughts, words and actions - my soul and body. I beseech your blessings and especially prayers for my salvation.
Today I consecrate myself to you, good Mother, totally - with body and soul amid joy and sufferings, to obtain for myself and others your blessings on this earth and eternal life in heaven. Amen
Our Lady of Czestochowa, Queen of Poland, pray for us.
http://czestochowa.us/content/view/1318/
Scripture says we are to love the Lord God with all our heart, soul, mind and body.
The contrast is clear between the false prayer of this church and the clear truthful teaching of Scripture.
But perhaps you are not familiar with the statements of the apparitions. I find most Roman Catholics are not.
Now, to address gotquestions.org and their overall ministry.
Gotquestions begins with the premise that "Roman Catholicism is a false religion." (I checked... direct quote from the site.) It is literally an anti-Catholic website. And even then you can't even be bothered to do more than to parrot it.
I quoted gotquestions.org and referenced the website. That's what we do here on Free Republic. I don't claim other people's work as my own as some of your fellow Roman Catholics do.
If you bothered to search, and I doubt you did....you would find articles on the following:
Mormons
Jehovah Witnesses
Hinduism
Vajrayana Buddhism
Satanism
There are a whole bunch more topic they cover in addition to those.
Gotquestions defines itself as:
Gotquestions is an apologetics website for Christianity. From their website.
"Got Questions Ministries seeks to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by providing biblical, applicable, and timely answers to spiritually related questions through an internet presence."
Regarding your inaccurate portrayal of gotquestions as "literally an anti-Catholic website:
We receive quite a few questions from Catholics and about Catholicism. Let us be abundantly clear, GotQuestions.org is not a Catholic ministry. We strongly believe that the Bible is to be our guide for faith and practice. While we recognize the value of church traditions, we refuse to accept any tradition that is not clearly supported by the Word of God. Our "conflict" with Catholicism is in regards to the proper interpretation of the Bible. Listed below are the most frequent questions we receive from Catholics and about Catholicism.
We receive many "complaints" from Catholics that our articles about the Roman Catholic Church do not accurately present what the Catholic Church truly teaches and practices. We also receive many compliments from former Catholics stating that our articles about the Roman Catholic Church are absolutely true. For examples, please click here or scroll to the bottom of this page. All of our articles on Catholic topics were written by former Catholics who left the Catholic Church after comparing what the Catholic Church teaches and practices with the Bible, or by individuals with extensive experience with/knowledge of Roman Catholicism. The articles are thoroughly researched. We strongly believe them to accurately represent the doctrines of the Catholic Church. You may disagree with our conclusions, but they are the results of years of being Catholic, being taught Catholic doctrine, practicing Catholicism, studying Catholic theology, and conversing with Catholics. We are not bashing the Catholic Church, and we do not hate Catholics. We simply believe there are some serious doctrinal problems with the Catholic Church that need to be addressed Biblically.
There is also the issue that the practices of many Catholics depart from the "official traditions" of the Roman Catholic Church. For example, the Roman Catholic Church does not "officially" teach Catholics to worship Mary, but rather to honor and revere her. However, through observation, it is abundantly clear that many Catholics do in fact worship Mary. This is the result of the Roman Catholic Church not doing a good job of teaching and explaining its doctrines. Many Catholics are completely ignorant of what Catholic doctrines and practices truly mean and signify. Some of our Catholic-related articles may be responding more to the unbiblical practices of some (or most) Catholics, and not necessarily the "official positions" of the Roman Catholic Church.
Please note - GotQuestions.org is not a Christian debate site. Our ministry is to present what the Bible teaches on various topics. It is not our purpose to attempt to persuade you that all of our views are correct. We have presented what we believe to be the truth. If you have genuine questions about something we have said, we will be happy to answer them. However, if you only want to engage in debate, we will refrain from responding to your emails. Again, our ministry is to answer questions as Biblically as we can. We would much rather answer the genuine questions of people who are seeking for answers than engage in a fruitless discussion with someone whose mind is already made up. Thank you for understanding!
https://www.gotquestions.org/Catholic-questions.html
I've noticed in these forums over the years that Roman Catholics do not like their dogmas compared to Scripture and discussed in public.
In my discussions with Roman Catholics I try to use Roman Catholic sources and contrast those with Scripture to highlight the discrepancies....of which there are many.
I await your denunciation of the false statements of the apparitions.
Impossible. Apparitions can never contradict the faith handed down by the Apostles.
Perfect fidelity to Scripture and Tradition is required for apparitions to be approved. If any apparition is found to contradict an established doctrine of the faith, that is taken as prima facie evidence that the apparition was not from God.
Fatima was approved because there were no such contradictions.
Now, whether it contradicts some dopey heretical view of Scripture or of tradition, that's another story. But as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, it is 100% consonant with what has always been taught.
From Fatima:
"Finally, devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, our Most Holy Mother, consists in considering Her as the seat of mercy, of goodness and of pardon, and as the sure door of entering Heaven."
You show me where this is in the New Testament.
Which part of it? The title of Immaculate? Our Most Holy Mother? The intercession of the saints? The mediatrix of grace?
There's a lot there.
Title of Immaculate for $100 please, Alex.
Luke 1:28. “Hail, FULL of grace”.
Nope. Try again.
Another bad translation of the Greek which has again resulted in bad theology.
The proper rendering is, "Greetings, favored one. The Lord is with you." NASB
But that aside, the verb used in the passage does not say what Rome claims it says.
Cognate: 5487 xaritóō (from 5486 /xárisma, "grace," see there) – properly, highly-favored because receptive to God's grace. 5487 (xaritóō) is used twice in the NT (Lk 1:28 and Eph 1:6), both times of God extending Himself to freely bestow grace (favor).http://biblehub.com/greek/5487.htm
Let's take mediatrix of grace next for $200 please, Alex.
You picked the weakest possible translation and completely missed the tense. It’s KE-charitomene. Perfect tense—the tense of completed action with effects still continuing into the present. So it’s literally “having been given grace” unto completion.
“It is permissible, on Greek grammatical and linguistic grounds, to paraphrase kecharitomene; as completely, perfectly, enduringly endowed with grace.” - Blass and Debrunner, Greek Grammar of the New Testament.
Don’t believe it, go ask the Greeks...the ones who call Our Lady “Pan-agia” = “All Holy.” Go tell them you know their language better than they do.
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