Testimony of a Former Irish Priest

BereanBeacon.Org ^ | Richard Peter Bennett

[Mad Dawg]

I am intrigued by the quote about tradition as a vehicle for revelation and I wonder if you could source it more particularly. But that is the only one which I take as questioning what I said about revelation ending with the Apostles, including Paul.

So Mary's Assumption lay dormant for centuries, until it somehow springs to life in modern times through pious and infallible contemplation?

May I say, "ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!

Thank you. I feel better.

I say again: Councils, since the council of Jerusalem, are called to deal with problems. Their statements address problems which have arisen and reached a point where some resolution is considered necessary. They, and most papal declarations or definitions are essentially occasional -- that is, responding to situations.

The Church does not tend to write list of stuff, like the Westminster Confession or the Articles of Religion, that you hafta gotta believe without some prompting.

There is at least one flat contradiction in the catechism. (I can't remember exactly what it is.) ONLY if somebody starts a movement based on the contradiction will "the Vatican" rear back and resolve it. Actually they will rear back and appoint a committee which sometime later will make a recommendation which will be sent back for a re-write, which will be provisionally approved and then forgotten and then somebody will say, "Hey, what about that thing, you know, the one about the contradiction?" and something will be decided.

The Dominicans took something like 23 years to get from the proposed new "rule" for the Dominican Laity (folks like your humble servant -- okay, arrogant servant) to the version which reached my hands a few months ago.

When we say treasure in earthen vessels, we KNOW what we're talking about.

So, the idea that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven (before or after she died is not decided) has been around for more than 1500 years (I am told. I don't research this stuff.) There's a story of some king who converted and asked for a relic of Mary, and there was some foot shuffling and whatnot and they told him, "Uh, Well, um, Your Majesty, y'see, we ain't got none, uh, cause, we don't have the body ...." I don't know if it's true, but that's the story.

Now before I go further I ought to point out that what we're saying about Mary is that she "now" enjoys what all the blessed "will" enjoy at the end of the age when soul is reunited to body for eternal bliss (in her case) or for the other thing. It is an essentially eschatologically related notion.

ANYWay, nobody cared enough about it to make it a de Fide thing. I couldn't say if most people believed it or not. But it seems that from http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post#helpthe time of the definition of the Immaculate Conception there was increasing popular pressure for a definition of the Assumption. So finally the Pope got on the case.

And that meant asking for opinions from all over the Catholic world and running the matter by hordes of theologians. An encyclical, Deiparae Virginis Mariae, was sent out asking for the bishops to give their opinions. All this material was prayerfully considered and examined, and re-considered and re-examined.

Then when it had been talked to death and looked at from every possible angle, the Pope reared back and wrote MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS which you can read. I recommend it if you're having trouble falling asleep. Here's the defining section:

44. For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: 

that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.

Much of the material before this section, indeed most of the Encylical, reviews the procedures and the arguments and scholarship leading to the definition.

So it wasn't a matter of it's lying dormant at all. It was a matter of the Church, in a way from the bottom up, stirring things up in a desire to end such debate as there might have been.

I hope this is clear about the process and about how we think (or, at least, how Pius XII thought) about the exercise of "infallibility."

[Jvette]

I read your post about the faith OF Christ and then did a little research, as I admitted quite freely yesterday that I had never heard of it.

I found only a few things about it and it seems there is quite a bit of debate as to whether it is valid theology. It seems to be another case of differing interpretations of the original word used in early copies of Scripture.

I can’t even hope to begin to debate that so I won’t even try.

I speak now for myself, not trying to explain a formal Catholic teaching, so bear with me as I explain how I see this.

At first it seemed rather harmless and it didn’t seem so odd to make the claim that it is the faith OF Christ and not faith IN Christ that saves.

But, then I thought of a couple of passages that seem to contradict the claim that Christ had to have faith that God would raise Him up again.

John 10:17-18, Jesus says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. no one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

John 2:10, Jesus says, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

Jesus, was God and therefore had the power to raise Himself up after death. He did not need faith that God would do so, as He knew, as one of the three persons in God, that He would raise Himself up.

I further looked into the definition of, of and found that under certain definitions and usages, one can be OF the faith of Christ in that one belongs to, is comprised of or adhering to or well many other things. I will include the link I used. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/OF I think you get my point.

There is also many verses in the NT which quite clearly state that to be saved one must have faith, repent, be baptized etc....

But, that we are saved because Jesus had faith in God seems a little far fetched as Jesus is God and knew that He could and would raise Himself. Remember, we were talking about the miracle of the Resurrection and since it was an Act of God, how could Jesus not know that He, as God, was capable of this act?

Now, Jesus did ask for the cup to pass from Him, in the garden. But, remember, as a human, Jesus endured all the pain that a human suffers. And it was the anticipation of that suffering that caused Jesus to say those words. It is a strong will indeed that knew what was coming and yet faced it. Jesus knew the outcome, for, it was what He was commanded to do and He always did that which pleased the Father. Praise be to God for it.

[OLD REGGIE]

There has not been one single post addressing the numerous and powerful points made in the Patrick Madrid article on 1 Cor 4:6, in which he demolishes the Protestant tenet of sola scriptura. The only reply was a muddled attempt to take issue with his use of two prepositions in one sentence of the article.

Well here's one. Patrick Madrid is a professional Catholic Answers Apologist. There is not an objective bone in his body and he is an expert debater who knows all the tricks of "blowing smoke".

With you he is preaching to the choir. With me he is preaching to a skeptic who is aware that every single word he says must be parsed in order to find the truth.

[Mad Dawg]

This post is not an argument, it’s a position statement, except for the info about the LXX.

[Mad Dawg]

Gal 1:18

I hate proof-texting. One just ignores the texts of one’s adversary, and plops one’s own text down as if it were the ace of trumps. I saw the pooh-poohing over the number of times Peter is mentioned. It would be more useful to argue why that’s meaningless than merely to scoff. But scoffing seems related to proof-texting.

[metmom]

And what exactly is the point of making statues in the first place?

Especially statues of people who you don’t even know what they looked like?

And why put them in churches and place candles to burn in front of them?

[OLD REGGIE]

It seems to me the term "denomination" as applied to those 'rites' that are all in communion with the Holy See and all agree on the basic articles (whatever THOSE might be) of the Catholic faith is applied differently to the different non-Catholic, non-Orthodox groups, where there are differences about articles of faith -- as I believe.

I know the new Anglican Rite will have to make declarations of conformity and have its rites and ceremonials approved and all that sort of thing. And the clergy will have to be ordained.

So I think the term is ambiguous.

No my friend. The whole exercise was an ameteur "gotcha".

[metmom]

And, in the end, what kind of leadership did Joseph have over his brothers? More a first among equals, which is Peter's position among the disciples

A first among equals?!?!?!?

Oh please......

[Quix]

INDEED.

However, PLEASE, on the links/URL’s.

PLEASE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LAST CHARACTER IN THE LINK, PUT AN “ENTER”

That will usually make it clickable

IF you are in NON html mode.

http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/canon.html

If you are in html mode, you will have to use

< A HREF=”PUT LINK HERE” > I USUALLY PUT LINK HERE, TOO BUT YOU CAN PUT WHATEVER YOU WANT REFERRING TO THE LINK HERE THEN < /A >

TO MAKE THE ABOVE WORK, TAKE OUT THE SPACES NEXT TO THE CARETS

[OLD REGGIE]

Madrid does not appear to understand what Sola Scriptura is and is not and for such a well known name is kinda surprising. It could be he is just torching a straw man.

When you understand that he is a professional Catholic Answers apologist you will also understand his "straw man" tactics.

He does fool some of the people some of the time.

[Quix]

Frequently enough, I get embarrassed for you . . .

watching all the elaborate convoluted explanations you have to go through justifying, elaborating, clarifying, documenting etc. the incredible layers of STUFF to support a lot of the Vatican dogma.

If nothing else, that kind of RELIGION would be far too

tiresome and wearying, for me. Particularly on top of the refiner’s fires God has periodically scheduled for all of us anyway.

Sheesh.

[Quix]

And what exactly is the point of making statues in the first place?

Especially statues of people who you don’t even know what they looked like?

And why put them in churches and place candles to burn in front of them?

---

INDEED TO THE SUPREME DEGREE.

[bkaycee]

When Jerome published the Vulgate in 406, it contained ALL of the Deuterocanonical books that the Church holds to be Canon today.

Some bibles have commentary along side the scripture, it doesnt make the commentary = scripture.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia actually affirms the fact that the Canon was not officially and authoritatively established for the Western Church until the Council of Trent in the 16th century and that even such an authority as Pope Gregory the Great rejected the Apocrypha as canonical:

"St. Jerome distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical books. The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good spiritual reading but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries...For example, John of Damascus, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicolas of Lyra and Tostado continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church.

This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Chruch at the Council of Trent. The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Canon)."

Some have suggested that Jerome later changed his opinion and included the Apocrypha in the canon of the Vulgate. However, there is no evidence to support this. Jerome continued to write commentaries on the Old Testament books until his death. There is no record that he ever retracted his original statements about the Apocrypha. In his work, Against Rufinus, written in AD 401-402, he reiterated and defended his earlier position on the Apocrypha. Again, his comments come after the North African councils. Though he did not consider the Apocryphal books to be canonical in the strict sense, Jerome quoted from them in accordance with his own convictions, for the purposes of edification. http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/Apocryphapart2.html

[OLD REGGIE]

It is pitiful that the conversion of one man, because of his fame, has become a cause celeb worthy of Catholics lies.

[Lera]

There could have been no “anti Catholic” anything in 60AD

---

Yeah certainly no Catholics at that time .

The Romans at that time were busy killing Christians and worshiping the gods/goddesses they collected from all over their empire.
Like apollo who they thought carried the sun across the sky
(the Romans were sun worshipers) and diana who they called the mother and queen of heaven (this one goes way back to the tower of Babel I think but by a different name)

[metmom]

Details, details.....

Facts are such pesky things, aren’t they?

[metmom]

I suppose that the Inquisition wasn’t much like islam, was it?

[metmom]

I see the Catholic church standard of proof hasn’t changed much.

[Mad Dawg]

Nope. I did my best last night to point out the wide gap between our understandings. Evidently considering that interferes with taking potshots and making conjectures that make us look bad.

Good for you for spotting the Deipara encyclical though.

Here's KIND of an example: Do you consider Euclid's 1:47, the proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, to be an invention or a discovery? I'd go with discovery. I think the proof is implicit in the very notions of line, plane, angle, parallelism, and so forth.

I think the doctrine of the Trinity is implicit in Scripture and the Christological definitions of Ephesus and Chalcedon are the same, as is the theological (as opposed to disciplinary) decision of the Council of Jerusalem.

BUT the nature of Scripture and of argument from Scripture is that sooner or later an umpire is needed.

I do not think Euclid's proof is an evolution, I think it is a development, what I am calling an "unfolding."

A lot of decisions are fundamentally Christological. You could say Nicea and Constantinople were about HOW we can say Jesus is truly God and make sense of it in the context of monotheism?

Even Jerusalem can be seen as exploring what it means to say the Jesus is THE Anointed: Are the prophecies about Gentiles clutching the robe of a Jew fulfilled in Him?

So the Marian dogmata are clearly about Mary, but -- despite what you read and hear -- Mary is about Jesus, and the dogmata are, as I dare coarsely to put it, what happens when you give yourself, your body, your life completely to Jesus and as a result conceive Him and are in the most ineffably intimate contact with Him, having already (by the grace of God) given yourself utterly to Him.

And the short answer is: wonders almost beyond imagining, and certainly beyond comprehension or expectation.

Somebody might think that was an invention or a new revelation. I think it's not so very off the wall to present it as an unfolding, a discovery of something implicit in information we already had.

[Jvette]

Yes, all ignored. Not one addressed or refuted. Rather you focused on one word, and now use that word to proffer a ridiculous argument for something that no one has ever considered, at least not to my knowledge.

The truth is that many, many theologians have contemplated the Assumption of Mary in light of Scripture and Tradition and written far more complex and enlightened treatises on it that I, an autodidact, could never attempt.

The few verses and the simple explanation I gave were meant to show that the doctrine can be fully supported from what we know to be true in Scripture.

I have never understood the hostility to the doctrines of Mary that so many protestants embrace. That she was born without the stain of original sin, remained a virgin and was assumed into heaven is not a threat to any other Christian. In fact she ought to be an inspiration as the one who has received in full the promises Christ has made to all who believe in Him.

There is only one plausible reason, not a good one to me, but a reason none the less and that is that the rejection of Mary is merely a result of the hostile rejection of the authority of Rome brought about by the reformation.

What is truly funny about that, though, is that Luther loved the Blessed Mother and defended her quite vehemently. He also never gave up his belief in the Eucharist.

Do you truly feel that the doctrines of Mary are harmful to your salvation? Do you truly feel that to believe these things about her could cause you to go to hell or to not have eternal life with Christ? Do you think that if you stand before Jesus after praying the rosary, or having a statue of His mother in your home, or singing her praises, He will look at you and say, “I never knew you, depart from me.”?

I don’t believe that. Does that make me demonic? Does that mean I love Jesus less or that I think that I can be saved by any other than Him? I know that Mary is Mary because Jesus is God. Like me, she is nothing without Him. All she is is due to Him. All we believe, we believe because of Him. I do not envy what she was given as it is no more than what I receive as a Christian and that is grace and eternal life in heaven.