Posted on 04/19/2015 6:26:38 AM PDT by 9thLife
Even in this Easter season, there are those who would nervously employ the secular convention of saying that they want Christ but not his Church, and that they can confess their sins to God without confessing to a priest. This ignores what Jesus did when he rose from the dead: he constructed the Church through his teaching during the forty days before the Ascension, and the first thing he did when he appeared to the apostles was to give them authority to forgive sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
Saint John wrote that not all the books in the world could contain what Christ did in those forty days, but the Gospel accounts tell all that he wants us to know. The power of what he taught the apostles in that brief time, with the wounds still in his body, is clear in the fact that all of them, save John himself, died brave deaths proclaiming the Resurrection.
Such dying, predicted by Christ, has perdured through all subsequent ages in one way or another. Last week, Pope Francis marked the one hundredth anniversary of the massacre of about 1.5 million Armenian Christians by the Turks, abetted by Imperial German staff officers serving with the Ottoman Empire. The Pope said that “it is necessary, and indeed a duty” to “recall the centenary of that tragic event . . . Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it.” The greatest number of killings occurred on appalling death marches of hundreds of miles where the Turks drove women, children and old people (most of the young men had already been massacred) into the Syrian desert. There was no food or water given to the victims along the way—and this was done by design.
Saint Paul, converted by the risen Christ, had evangelized his Turkish homeland. Despite centuries of persecution by Muslims, in 1914 some 15% of the Turkish population was Christian. Today the Christian community is practically non-existent. Persisting in its denial of the persecution, the Turkish government condemned the honesty of Pope Francis by withdrawing its ambassador to the Holy See. That exercise in denial was not singular. In 2010, a declaration was introduced in the House of Representatives calling the systematic eradication of the Armenians a genocide. The Obama administration blocked it.
The mentality that denies the Resurrection, also denies the consequences of such denial. The Resurrection is not about spring flowers and butterflies, and Jesus made that clear by retaining the wounds in his glorified body. Christ triumphed over Satan, and to deny that is to give Satan a leg up in the governance of nations and the attitudes of people. The dominant religion of Turkey maintains that Jesus was not crucified. If not crucified, then not risen. And if not risen, then mankind has license to sink to its lowest depths by crushing life and spreading death.
Please mark this a Catholic Caucus thread.
Wonderful article from Father Rutler. Thanks for posting.
Heb_4:16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
So there's your religion and then there's the Christianity of the scriptures...And I'm not at all a bit nervous about it...
A good thread.
We do need to take into consideration that Jesus said in
Matthew 7
6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
Rend means they will tear you apart, destroy.
If Christians are trying to Govern the world they are giving that which is holy to the dogs and casting their pearls before the swine.
Catholic Caucus. Thanks.
The article does not qualify for a Catholic Caucus because it contrasts been Catholic and non-Catholic belief.
So, you do not want the truth to be known? Just a question.
Thank-you for this excellent posting. This posting is truly in keeping with the Bible.
Which is another example of typical extrapolative eisegesis, anachronistically reading NT presbuteros distinctively being titled "priest" (“hiereus”), which is nowhere seen in the NT, nor that of the basis for it, that their primary and unique function was that of sacrificing transubstantiated flesh and blood as a sin offering, to be consumed to obtain spiritual life.
In addiction, the power of binding and loosing was not a new function, but one which was given to the OT magisterium, and while the spiritual (nor only judicial) aspect of that was realized more fully in the NT (and God has regard to intercessory prayer, which can obtain mercy in the case of chastisement for sin) primarily thru presbuteros (not hiereus), yet this spiritual power is also provided for all righteous believers. (Mt. 18:19,20; Ja. 5:16-18))
When a RC asserts such it usually can be counted on to mean it is truly not in keeping with the Bible, but examples the careless reading into the Scriptures what RCs want it to say, but does not, as the weight of Scripture is not the basis for their traditions, but Scripture is compelled as a servant to support Rome.
Rom. Catholics love to claim Scripture for about 3 or so self-serving reasons. The rest of the time Scripture is seen as the crazy uncle they keep locked in the attic.
Does the RCC believe that when Christ returns Rome will be the place where His feet will touch down first?
Tell you what, Religion Moderator, I'll just post my Catholic posting on another forum. Pearls before swine is a waste of time.
Just simply going to ignore those who call themselves Christian and yet bash another Christian Church in the name of the same Bible we honor.
....”the first thing he did when he appeared to the apostles was to give them authority to forgive sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation”....
What utter nonsense....The Apostles were never given authority to forgive sins....ONLY Jesus is worthy of such an Authority. It’s his blood pored out for the forgiveness of men...not theirs.
No interpretation should be placed on that scripture that would place it in direct conflict with numerous other clear texts..... The fact is, though all Christians are to forgive one another, ultimately, only God can bestow absolute pardon The Lord did not grant that right to the apostles or anyone else.
On Pentecost the apostles, in harmony with the Spirit’s guidance, did not personally forgive the sins of anyone rather, they merely announced the conditions of pardon.
John 20:23 does not sanction the catholic clergy procedure of granting “absolution” from sin.
If you’re going to engage in anti-Prot postings, do you really, seriously expect “Prots” to just roll over and play dead for you?
Who is Father Charles Rutler? Just another former protestant, with a genius IQ I might add, who converted to the One, True Faith. I’ll put his knowledge of scripture up against anyone on FR.
“When a RC asserts such it usually can be counted on to mean it is truly not in keeping with the Bible”
You mean the same Catholic document that Catholics compiled, codified, and safeguarded for centuries so protestants and everyone else could know the Word of God. Or is there another Bible I’m not familiar with? Just as God worked through men to write individual books of inspired Scripture, He worked through the authority of the Catholic Church’s Bishops to determine for us what books belong in the Bible.
All Christians must admit that their confidence that the Bible is Sacred Scripture – the inerrant and divinely inspired Word of God – stems from the authority of the Catholic Church. God made Scripture holy…but we know this because He revealed it to us through the Catholic Church.
If you’re so interested in what a former protestant who converted to Catholicism has to say; indeed one who became a Catholic priest, email him. If he emails you back, please share with with the rest of us. Make sure you ask him why he became a Catholic.
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