Posted on 05/31/2013 2:44:05 PM PDT by NYer
Do our Catholic children and most adults know what these images teach?
All of us know one of the elephants in the room of the Catholic Church. Our religious education programs are not handing on the essence of our Catholic Faith, our parents are befuddled about their role in handing on the faith and the materials we use are vapid or if good do not make an impression on young minds. We are afraid of asking for memorization and thus most don't remember anything they've learned about God and Church other than some niceties and feel good emotions.
I teach each class of our grades 1-6 (we don't have 7th or 8th) each Thursday, rotating classes from week to week. For the last two years I have used Baltimore Catechism #1 as my text book. It is wonderful to use with children and it is so simple yet has so much content. If Catholics, all Catholics, simply studied Baltimore Catechism #1, we would have very knowledgeable Catholics.
These past two years I've used Baltimore Catechism #2 with our adult religious program which we call Coffee and Conversation following our 9:30 AM Sunday Mass, which coincides with our CCD program which we call PREP (Parish Religious Education Program).
This #2 book has more content and is for middle school, but upper elementary school children must have been more capable of more serious content back when this book was formulated and used through the mid 1960's because it is a great book to use with adults and not childish at all. We all use this same book as a supplemental book for the RCIA because it is so clear, nobly simple and chocked full of content!
Yes, there are some adjustments that need to be made to some chapters, but not that many, in light of Vatican II and the new emphasis we have on certain aspects of Church that are not present in the Baltimore Catechism. But these are really minor.
What is more important though is that when the Baltimore Catechism was used through the mid 1960's it was basically the only book that was used for children in elementary and junior high school. It was used across the board in the USA thus uniting all Catholics in learning the same content. There was not, in other words, a cottage industry of competing publishing houses selling new books and different content each year.
The same thing has occurred with liturgical music, a cottage industry of big bucks has developed around the sale of new hymnals, missalettes and new music put on the open market for parishes to purchase. It is a money making scheme.
Why do our bishop allow this to happen in both liturgical music and parish catechesis? The business of selling stuff to parishes and making mega bucks off of it is a scandal that has not be addressed.
In the meantime, our liturgies suffer and become fragmented because every parish uses a different resource for liturgical music and the same is true of religious formation, everyone uses something different of differing quality or no quality at all.
Isn't it time to wake up and move forward with tried and true practices that were tossed out in favor of a consumerist's approach to our faith that has weakened our liturgies, our parishes and our individual Catholics?
A reasonable person would ask that since you didn't bother to read Spe Salvi how could you possibly have concluded that Pope BXVI's writings were contrary to St. Paul? In any event, thank you for the evidence proving what we have always known. Those who hate or reject the Church do not need a reason and knowledge in a subject matter is not a requirement to opine, criticize and complain.
Is Spe Salvi an "infallible" teaching? Does this mean every encyclical composed by popes in the past are also???
You may choose, a priori, to reject the encyclicals. I choose, a priori, to accept them. Encyclicals of themselves not infallible documents, but by their nature generally do contain pronouncements on faith and morals that are de facto infallible because they express the teaching of the ordinary Maginserium. Didn't they teach you that in Freshman Anti-Catholicism at that fancy Bible college?
Well thank God for God, he answered that question just a couple of verses away from where your pope dropped onto the page...
Rom 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
Rom 8:15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
Rom 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
Rom 8:17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.
Now if you nor your pope have that confirmation from the Holy Spirit, You'd probably ought to do some soul searching...WE, have that confidence and confirmation...
You may ask, how can we have that confirmation and you don't??? Forget about Tradition and:
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
We ARE, right now, children of God...Heirs of God...Not will be, or hope that some day we will be...ARE...Right Now...
Heb 6:18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
Heb 6:19 Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;
Our hope is not a wishy-washy, maybe, if I'm good enough, someday, dangle the carrot kind of hope...Our hope is an anchor...It is sure and it's steadfast...
Now we haven't seen the end result even tho we know what it is...So we have confident, assured hope...
Like if you pick the car of your dreams off the showroom floor...You have a good job, a great credit history and a friend of yours put down a hefty down-payment for you...The salesman even hands you the keys and you put them in your pocket...
Now, you have to sit there and wait for the loan to clear the bank...
You sit there and think to yourself; 'I sure hope the loan clears...I hope the fax machine doesn't break...You know the loan will go thru...The car dealer knows it...The bank manager knows it...But until you actually see it, it's a confident expectation, HOPE...
"SPE SALVI facti sumus”—in hope we were saved
The actual verse says,
Rom 8:24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
Rom 8:25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
We were not saved in hope...We ARE saved BY hope...
Did you forget that it was you who claimed: "There is no difference. Since it is the same Holy Spirit speaking through them both."? How then does your new assertion that encyclicals can be fallible jibe with your claim that there is no difference between what a Pope says and the Holy Spirit says?
Though I didn't have a class called "Anti-Catholicism" (some parts were discussed in a "Cults and World Religions" class), I didn't need one to tell me what I already learned in Catechism classes as a Catholic. What I learned in Bible College was what the Word of God said, in context and in toto, and as I told you earlier, was a solid foundation upon which a lifetime of knowing God could be built. I've never regretted my following the Lord's leading to go there.
Then simple logic says that we do not need what the Pope said.
Likewise; how could YOU 'conclude' that Boatbums came to the 'conclusion' you claimed?
I suppose one could also say...
Those who hate or reject the folks who are NOT part of the Church do not need a reason and knowledge in a subject matter is not a requirement to opine, criticize and complain.
That's interesting; for you just said that part of an encyclical is ERROR!
Encyclicals of themselves not infallible documents, but by their nature generally do contain pronouncements on faith and morals that are de facto infallible because they express the teaching of the ordinary Maginserium.
“Pete: It’s a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart.”
My two cents.
It is obvious on this thread the faith the Romanists have in Apostolic succession, and the “Magisterium” (the “majestic ones” - we have you to thank for that one). One Romanist on this thread even put it like this: “Some people I never believe, but I always believe the Magisterium.”
Take note of what he said, I always BELIEVE the Magisterium. Seems to me, the Romanists have a very different take on “faith” from the rest of Christianity. The Romanists come into this world in non-faith, sprinkled (which they falsely call baptism) as a baby into the RCC.
Once they come to years they go through the motions all Romanists do in their sacerdotal religion of works: the Roman Mass, rosary beads, the “veneration” of Mary, and so on. They really BELIEVE all that stuff.
And why? Their Magisterium says so, case closed, the Magisterium cannot possibly be wrong. If the Magisterium says purgatory is true, that’s it, case closed, “I always BELIEVE the magisterium,” our poster says.
A Romanist is born a Romanist, born into a system of misplaced faith, into a religion of works. His faith is not in what he sees revealed in scripture, his faith is in the Roman magisterium, whether it can be found in the scripture or not makes no difference, “I always BELIEVE the Magisterium.”
The crux of the issue then, between Romanists and the rest of Christianity, is FAITH. What one believes. The rest of Christianity doesn’t find the Roman Mass, rosary beads, Mariolatry, purgatory, and many other such like things, in the scripture. Their faith is individual faith, faith in scriptural revealed truth. The Roman system, on the other hand, is Magisterium-based faith.
Which, in truth, is not true faith, the kind we see in the Bible, it is much more akin to collectivism, a kind of religious socialism. Not individual faith, like the collectivists who place their faith in the state, their faith is in the Pope and the Magisterium.
As to the Pope, who allegedly sits in the “seat of Peter,” Apostolic succession. If a Romanist BELIEVES the magisterium, he certainly, and especially, is going to BELIEVE in the Pope, who has the last word in the magisterium. But when we exercise true faith, individual faith, faith in the revealed word of God, Roman Apostolic succession instantly goes down the tube, loses all credibility.
Anybody who can read, and with half a brain, can see that Peter (nor the “Magisterium,” the apostles) did not teach Mariolatry, rosary beads, purgatory, etc.
In the political side of things, Americanism is an individualist system, as opposed to forms of statism/collectivism. Romanism is thus the very antithesis of what America is all about. Romanism is not based on one’s individual faith in scripture, it is a form of religious statism and collectivism, faith in the Pope and the Magisterium.
This reply is worth TWO Beasts!
That sums it up pretty well.
LC, I made no such statement. Think of the assurance of infallibility as warranty. There is a significant difference between being not being assured as infallible and actually being in error. Where you may presume error I do not.
Peace be with you
I find it more than ironic that when a non-Catholic Christian says that the Holy Spirit shows them something, the Catholic challenge is whether we are to take it on the same level as Scripture, and yet here we have Catholics saying that when the Holy Spirit shows their magisterium, it’s settled in stone.
Mockery and derision for non-Catholics claiming the same thing they laud for Catholics.
The double standard shines forth in all it’s blazing might.
Hypocrisy defined.
Only to a thoroughly brainwashed Catholic mind.
To the rest of the world, it's blatantly obvious
The indwelling spirit tells me that by "brainwashed" you mean cleansed in the Blood of the Lamb so I would thank you for the compliment. I will also leave you with something to ponder:
Every drop of blood Jesus shed on Calvary He got from Mary.
Peace be with you
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