Posted on 04/16/2018 6:11:58 PM PDT by marshmallow
Francis wants to rewrite the church in his own image.
Well actually you couldn’t be more wrong. I returned after 10 years when I concluded that Sola Scriptura is an absolute fraud. The Tradition of the Church cannot be dismissed and replaced by the personal interpretations of scripture pedalled by 10’s of thousands of individual ministers. Try reading Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, and Papias of Hierapolis, Augustine and John Chrysostom, many of whom lived at the time of the Apostles and were not products of a wealthy, Emperor supported Church.
Pope Francis has done to attendance at Sunday services what Colin Kaepernick has done to Sunday NFL attendance.
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Another more encompassing example would be Pope Francis has done to the Catholic Church what Obozo did to America. Neither will perish, but the wounds are very deep and will take years to heal.
Experience.
Talking to members of the churches I visited and attended and virtually every person there converted from Catholicism.
I suspect that you don’t realize what a heavily Catholic community Buffalo is and just how many people there are raised Catholic.
https://www.bestplaces.net/religion/city/new_york/buffalo
The Catholic Church has decided to ignore morals cause they want the freaks donations.
That never works out; in the end they close parishes and schools. The large mainline Protestant denominations tried this (moving with the secular culture) and are a fraction of their size now. In my town their buildings are being bought or rented by Hispanic evangelicals; the imported “catholics” aren’t very catholic at all.
“More traditional” than Catholics? Orthodox? Jewish?
Seriously... I’d be happy if you were correct, but as LAST I looked (about 2 years ago), even the once-booming evangelical denominations were collapsing.
Pope Francis managed to kill off a mini-revival among Catholics, though.
For many years I attended a very laege, active and growing nondenominational evangelical church. Once a month a big baptismal service was held for all the new members. Before being baptized, each would give their testimony. Without fail, every single time, between half and two-thirds of the new members had been raised Catholic. Those were some of the most joyous and thankful testimonies of all.
John 4:
19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
23 But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Red Frank is having the intended effect..
Doubt they will ever come back. They want to go where they can be fed on the spiritual level.
Pope Francis is NOT my Pope.
Plus they don't have to get out of their jammies and drop a couple of quarters in the collection plate. I don't understand why that is so d@mn hard to figure out.
Our church is growing so fast our pastor has had to go to 4 services and still over 1500 per service. Course he is a conservative who preaches homosexuality is a sin.
Well, I’m a former Catholic but I’m not anti-Catholic.
But there is not one true church as you claim. And the actual first church was not the ancient Catholic Church but was the Church of Jerusalem, administered by Jesus’ brother James, established long before there was a church in Rome. Just read Acts, it’s there in black and white.
The Catholic Church is no more the “one true church” than the thousands of underground house churches sprouting everywhere in China. The Catholic Church is one of many, and most certainly the oldest, largest, and wealthiest, which aren’t necessarily its best attributes. It’s also the church that, in my opinion, has strayed the furthest in its doctrine over the millennia, excepting perhaps the Mormons. Honestly, “one true church” is a claim and perhaps a marketing line but is nothing more than that.
If I’ve learned anything in 30 years as an evangelical Christian it’s that Jesus’ church is not contained in any particular set of four walls; also, that any one man or doctrine is not superior to another as long as the essential teachings in the gospels and Book of Romans are adhered to. The notion that the Pope is closer to God is not Biblical and, just looking at Francis, is laughable. Francis is just another man who won an election to lead an organization which is hugely rich with a billion followers. And I expect that a lot of those Cardinals are still doing facepalms over that whopper of a decision.
The writings of Catholic Church leaders like Polycarp, Augustine and Clement over the years, while interesting and perhaps intriguing, do not alter these very important Biblical points.
FYI, we evangelical Christians read and quote the source document itself, e.g., the Bible, rather than church leaders who lived hundreds of years later. Always better that way. And the more intelligent among us recognize that preachers are not necessarily right so we follow the advice of the Bereans, as stated in the Book of Acts, to receive the Word with gladness of heart, but search the Scriptures daily to prove that it is so. That’s how we avoid the silliness that comes from the evangelical community like the prosperity gospel.
Frankly, that is why I left the Catholic Church. Once I read the Bible itself, I saw the huge doctrinal errors of the Catholic Church and never looked back.
“The notion that the Pope is closer to God is not Biblical and, just looking at Francis, is laughable.”
Yet the firm faith of an RC saint is not laughable. I was once instructed many years ago on the strength of adoration, took it seriously, and sought out a chapel in which to adore.
This link is good, but there are so many others just like it; the saints are powerful teachers: http://www.divinemercyadoration.org/whatisadoration/saints-of-the-blessed-sacrament.php
From the link: “Her immaculate womb became the first perpetual adoration chapel, the first true tabernacle and for nine months the New Adam was adored and loved in that little paradise with a love beyond all telling.”
In our adoration chapel hung a letter written to us from Mother Teresa and in it she said: “Each one of us is a co-worker of Christ – we must labour hard to carry Him to the hearts where He has not yet been known and loved. But, unless we have Jesus, we cannot give Him; that is why we need the Eucharist. Spend as much time as possible in front of the Blessed Sacrament and He will fill you with His strength and His power. Tell Him, ‘Come to our hearts Lord and stay with us.’ Then you will become the instruments of His love, peace and joy.” ~Mother Teresa http://adorationrocks.com/letter.html
I’ve been an usher for a decade and a half, and truth is, it was falling rapidly before he became Pope.
We lose ten a day via the obituary column, and the young have stopped coming.
Also, the Ethiopian Church and Emperor Haile Selassie supported the most definitely extreme left wing "civil rights movement." You'd think if anyone could de-leftify civil rights it would be one of the oldest and most conservative churches in the world. But nope.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Ethiopian Church is one of the largest in the world. It is the largest of all the non-Chalcaedonian churches and the second largest church to use the term "orthodox" in its name (only the Russian is larger).
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