Posted on 11/18/2014 5:19:32 AM PST by Gamecock
There is no way that someone could follow scripture and be a Catholic.
That would be correct.
Here is where the conflict came. Seeing people depend upon such false and deceiving beliefs for their salvation was heart wrenching to me. I felt that maybe God could use me to change things in the Catholic Church. I even had prayer sessions with people who felt the same way. We prayed that God would change the Roman Catholic Church so that we could remain Catholics. But to remain Catholic, I now see, is to be living a compromised life.
I'm reminded of the conversion story of the FReeper AlaninSA. He used to be one of the more vocal Catholics on this board, incl. maintaining the Knights of Columbus pinglist. He left Catholicism's corruption behind and began attending an evangelical protestant church in the summer of 2009. He stopped posting in 2010. I wish him well.
Let’s just agree to not agree then, okay.
ph
Kind of a long story just for some one to say they do not agree with Catholic doctrine.
John 14
12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
Rev 20
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
What are the works?
Matthew 25:31-46
The sheep and the goats.
In the Church as Jesus founded it, were the leaders called priests, and were they either required or forbidden to marry?
Right, no Saint of the Church has ever fed, clothed, or helped the poor because they love Our Lord.
I'll pray that God opens your eyes to the paganism of Catholicism.
Well Mother Theresa is an interesting case study in that.
With the catholic belief you can lose your salvation for mortal sins, and enough venial sins, what happens to the individual who committs enough of these, or whatever the requirement is, and that individual dies before the priest makes it around.
Does this individual go to Heaven or Hell? Catholic teaching says one has lost salvation if committing these sins without confession and forgiveness of the priest.
Heaven or Hell....what say you?
Not enough information.
Does the person trust Christ alone for his salvation?
The leaders appointed by Jesus were called apostles. Their successors in the fullness of the ministry were called episcopoi (bishops). The Apostles themselves would establish the offices of presbuteroi (from which the English term "priest" is derived) and deaconoi (deacons) who would share in only part of the apostolic authority. As for celibacy, this is only a church discipline neither required nor forbidden in Scripture.
A person who trusts in Christ alone would also accept the church that he himself established and to which he gave the authority to teach in his name.
“The leaders appointed by Jesus were called apostles. Their successors in the fullness of the ministry were called episcopoi (bishops). The Apostles themselves would establish the offices of presbuteroi (from which the English term “priest” is derived) and deaconoi (deacons) who would share in only part of the apostolic authority. As for celibacy, this is only a church discipline neither required nor forbidden in Scripture.”
I don’t have time to reply on the first part tonight, but on the second, to say it’s a “discipline” doesn’t make it God’s will. “Discipline” can sound good in a religious sort of way, as Paul wrote at one point about self-denial. And as you said, Scripture doesn’t forbid marriage among the leaders. As this is the way that Jesus Himself established the Church, wouldn’t there be good reasons for that? And one other point I’ll briefly mention is that Scripture also says to remove heretics from the Church and not even to greet false teachers as to do so is to approve of their wickedness. So how is it that the Catholic Church allows heretics to stay, including at the highest levels of leadership. A large percentage of these leaders just voted to approve of homosexuality. That’s blatant heresy.
Since it is only discipline no one said that it was God's will. Indeed married priests are allowed in the Eastern Rites. On the other hand, it cannot be shown that it is against God's will either. Jesus gave Peter the power to bind and loose, thus the Church possesses the authority to regulate its internal life.
I’ll briefly mention is that Scripture also says to remove heretics from the Church and not even to greet false teachers as to do so is to approve of their wickedness.
For this to be operative there must be a recognized and visible leadership in the Church with the authority to do so. This only exists in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. You cannot point to any Protestant church since their first leaders were removed as heretics. They then just set up their own churches and removed those who disagreed with them, who then just set up their own churches and removed those who disagreed with them, who then just set up their own churches and removed those who disagreed with them … ad infinitum. Thus the multitude of various Protestant churches we see today.
So how is it that the Catholic Church allows heretics to stay, including at the highest levels of leadership. A large percentage of these leaders just voted to approve of homosexuality. That’s blatant heresy.
As scandalous as their action was it was not the outright approval of homosexual activity. (This is not in any way to be seen as approval on my part of the vote of those bishops.) The inference might be made but a more explicit and unambiguous statement would need to be made for the a charge of heresy to be leveled. A sad event all around but in the end the Catholic teaching on human sexuality still stands.
Wrongly.
Does presbyter or elder mean priest?
In her effort to conform NT pastors to her erroneous understanding of the Lord's Supper (“Eucharist”), Catholicism came to render presbuteros” as “priests” (which the RC Douay Rheims Bible inconsistently does: Acts 20:17; Titus 1:5), and sometimes “episkopos,” in order to support a distinctive NT sacerdotal priesthood in the church, but which the Holy Spirit never does. For the word which the Holy Spirit distinctively uses for priests*, is “hiereus” or “archiereus.” (Heb. 4:15; 10:11) and which is never used for NT pastors, nor does the words presbuteros (senior/elder) or episkopos (superintendent/overseer) which He does use for NT pastors mean "priest." Presbuteros or episkopos do not denote a unique sacrificial function, and hiereus (as archiereus=chief priests) is used in distinction to elders in such places as Lk. 22:66; Acts 22:5.
Jewish elders as a body existed before the priesthood, most likely as heads of household or clans, and being an elder did not necessarily make one a Levitical priest (Ex. 3:16,18, 18:12; 19:7; 24:1; Num. 11:6; Dt. 21:2; 22:5-7; 31:9,28; 32:7; Josh. 23:2; 2Chron. 5:4; Lam. 1:9; cf. Mt. 21:13; 26:47) or a high priest, offering both gifts and sacrifices for sins. (Heb. 5:1) A priest could be an elder, and could elders exercise some priestly functions such as praying and laying hands on sacrifices, but unlike presbuteros and episkopos, the two were not the same in language or in function, as one could be a elder without formally being a priest. It is also understood that even the Latin word (sacerdos) which corresponds to priest has no morphological or lingual relationship with the Latin word for “presbyter.”
The Catholic titular use of hiereus/priest for presbyteros/elder is defended by the use of an etymological fallacy , since "priest" etymologically is derived from presbyteros due to imposed functional equivalence.
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and evolving changes in form and meaning. over time, however, etymologies are not definitions. The etymological fallacy here is a linguistic misconception, a genetic fallacy that erroneously holds that the present-day meaning of a word or phrase should necessarily be similar to its original or historical meaning. However, the idea of the NT being a distintive class titled "priests" was a later development. Catholic writer Greg Dues in "Catholic Customs & Traditions, a popular guide," states, "Priesthood as we know it in the Catholic church was unheard of during the first generation of Christianity, because at that time priesthood was still associated with animal sacrifices in both the Jewish and pagan religions." "When the Eucharist came to be regarded as a sacrifice [after Rome's theology], the role of the bishop took on a priestly dimension. By the third century bishops were considered priests. Presbyters or elders sometimes substituted for the bishop at the Eucharist. By the end of the third century people all over were using the title 'priest' (hierus in Greek and sacerdos in Latin) for whoever presided at the Eucharist." (http://books.google.com/books?id=ajZ_aR-VXn8C&source=gbs_navlinks_s) And R. J. Grigaitis (O.F.S.) (while yet trying to defend the use of priest), reveals, "The Greek word for this office is ‘?e?e?? (hiereus), which can be literally translated into Latin as sacerdos. First century Christians [such as the inspired writers] felt that their special type of hiereus (sacerdos) was so removed from the original that they gave it a new name, presbuteros (presbyter). Unfortunately, sacerdos didn't evolve into an English word, but the word priest took on its definition." (http://grigaitis.net/weekly/2007/2007-04-27.html) In response to a query on this issue, the web site of International Standard Version (not my preferred translation) states, No Greek lexicons or other scholarly sources suggest that "presbyteros" means "priest" instead of "elder". The Greek word is equivalent to the Hebrew ZAQEN, which means "elder", and not priest. You can see the ZAQENIM described in Exodus 18:21-22 using some of the same equivalent Hebrew terms as Paul uses in the GK of 1&2 Timothy and Titus. Note that the ZAQENIM are NOT priests (i.e., from the tribe of Levi) but are rather men of distinctive maturity that qualifies them for ministerial roles among the people. Therefore the NT equivalent of the ZAQENIM cannot be the Levitical priests. The Greek "presbyteros" (literally, the comparative of the Greek word for "old" and therefore translated as "one who is older") thus describes the character qualities of the "episkopos". The term "elder" would therefore appear to describe the character, while the term "overseer" (for that is the literal rendering of "episkopos") connotes the job description. To sum up, far from obfuscating the meaning of "presbyteros", our rendering of "elder" most closely associates the original Greek term with its OT counterpart, the ZAQENIM. ...we would also question the fundamental assumption that you bring up in your last observation, i.e., that "the church has always had priests among its ordained clergy". We can find no documentation of that claim. ( http://isvbible.com/catacombs/elders.htm) Thus despite the Scriptural distinctions in titles, Rome made the word “presbyteros” (elders) to mean “priest” by way of functional equivalence, reading into Scripture her own theology, supposing that the presbyters engaged in a unique and primary sacrificial function of turning bread and wine into the physical body and blood of Christ as an expiation for sins, and which is then physically consumed to gain spiritual and eternal life. However, the elements used in the commemoration of the Lord death (“the Lord's supper,” and called the “Eucharist” by Catholics) symbolically represent Christ death (see here), just as David figuratively called drinking water the "blood" of men and poured it out on the ground as an ofering unto the Lord, as it represented the lives of those who risked their own blood. (2Sam. 23:15-17) And in contrast to Catholicism in which the Lord's Supper is the "source and summit" of the Chirstian faith, in which "our redemption is accomplished," nowhere is literally eating anything physical the means of this, nor is any NT pastor shown even dispensing bread as part of their ordained function. Nor is the church shown making this Catholic eucharist an atonement for sin and the practice around which all else revolves, and instead the only teaching in Acts and onward (which interprets the gospels) that manifestly describes the Lord's supper to any real extent is that of 1 Cor. 11:20-34, and in which the church is the body of Christ, which is to show (declare, proclaim) the Lord's death by how they take part in the communal "feast of charity," (cf. Jude. 1:12) showing their unity with Him and each other with unselfish love, which Christ supremely showed in purchasing the church with His sinless shed blood. (cf. Acts 20:28) Thus the nature of the elements was not the focus, nor was the sin a failure to recognize them as the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ, but the focus was that of the coporate body of Christ, and the sin of some was not effectualy recognizing others as part of that body for whom Christ died. (See here). And instead of dispensing bread as part of their ordained function, the primary work of NT pastors is to "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine." (2 Timothy 4:2) And which is what is said to "nourish" the souls of believers, and believing it is how the lost obtain life in themselves. (1 Timothy 4:6; Psalms 19:7;Acts 15:7-9) Thus formally identifying a distinctive class of Christian clergy as “priests” rather than “presbyters” (elders) is not only grammatically incorrect by it is functionally unwarranted and unscriptural.
But how much would you agree with Dollinger's critical summation:
“The Pope’s authority is unlimited, incalculable; it can strike, as Innocent III says, wherever sin is; it can punish every one; it allows no appeal and is itself Sovereign Caprice; for the Pope carries, according to the expression of Boniface VIII, all rights in the Shrine of his breast...No right can stand against him, no personal or corporate liberty; or as the Canonists put it -- 'The tribunal of God and of the pope is one and the same.'” - Ignaz von Dollinger, in “A Letter Addressed to the Archbishop of Munich”, 1871 (quoted in The Acton Newman Relations, by MacDougall, pp. 119 120)
For this to be operative there must be a recognized and visible leadership in the Church with the authority to do so. This only exists in the Catholic and Orthodox churches. You cannot point to any Protestant church since their first leaders were removed as heretics.
But which premise of an supreme perpetual infallible magisterium must be based upon certain presuppositions. It seems that the RC argument is that an assuredly (if conditionally) infallible magisterium is essential for determination, transmission, preservation and assurance of Truth (including which writings and men being of God).
And to fulfill promises of Divine presence, providence of Truth, and preservation of faith, and authority.
And thus that being the historical instruments and stewards of Divine revelation (oral and written) means that such is that assuredly infallible magisterium. Thus of course, those whom it rejects as heretics have no authority.
Maybe your reasoning is different, but this mainly what i see.
Others do that, too. Most with no public recognition. I got an email from the SB Mission board. They are still helping the people of NY hit by Sandy and are asking students to volunteer during Christmas vacation or this coming spring and summer. I had no idea they were still up there. In fact, I had not heard of their still helping those in need.
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