Posted on 06/16/2016 9:22:17 PM PDT by ebb tide
Pope Francis, spiritual leader of a billion people, has just informed them that ‘the great majority’ of sacramental marriages are invalid because couples don’t go into them with the right intentions. He was speaking at a press conference in Rome. Here’s the context, from the Catholic News Agency (my emphases):
‘I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said “I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years”. It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life,’ he said.
‘It’s provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say “yes, for the rest of my life!” but they don’t know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know.’
Uh? You can read the full report here but you won’t be much the wiser. The Pope, thinking aloud in the manner of some maverick parish priest after a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, has just told millions of his flock that they are not really married.
Did he mean to say that? What does he really think? What authority do his words carry?
And why should Catholics even have to ask these questions? Francis’s off-the-cuff ramblings on matters of extreme pastoral sensitivity are wreaking havoc in the Catholic Church, as I’ve written here.
Ross Douthat of the New York Times has just tweeted this response:
Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 23.54.41
I suspect that even the Pope’s most liberal admirers will have difficulty extricating him from this mess.
If Mary were married and God impregnating her would have been adultery, then if Mary were single, God impregnating her would have been fornication on God’s part.
You cannot weasel or rationalize your way out of that one.
And there is no such thing as a woman consecrated to God therefore she was going to be in an invalid, sexless marriage so it’s OK for God to impregnate her.
OK. Explain to me again, just WHY the Catholic church demands that Mary be perpetually virgin.
The prophecy was that a virgin would conceive and bear a son. She did that. There is absolutely NOTHING that references her continuing in that state.
Her perpetual virginity is not required in the least and has no bearing on the divinity of Jesus.
It does not make Mary any less special, or holy or consecrated. Her having sex does not make her a sinner either.
I do not fathom why it blows the minds of Catholics so much to think that Mary enjoyed a normal marriage relationship with Joseph.
While Catholics continue to deny that they think this way, the clear implication is that sex is somehow sinful or dirty or beneath someone who is so holy. And that truly holy people don’t want or need sex. Again, implying that sex is somehow sinful or dirty, even within the marriage relationship.
And then you throw inn blaspheme such as "He would not just randomly pick up some married woman and commit adultery against Joseph"
There is no reason for comments like that except to grieve God.
All your mindreading about what I know or don't know, giving you "reason" to direct me to Catholic text is not relevant one bit.
I have studied Catholicism for decades and am familiar with it's error with un-Biblical and un-Biblical teachings which draw people into branches of paths that causes them to not see and understand Jesus and what he taught.
the entire depth of Catholic Biblical beliefs.
in that area, I find Catholicism in the shallow part of the Bible.
Which causes the Word to drown in a sea of rosaries, the Catholic Mary (different from the Biblical Mary) purgatory and a morass of other teachings which keeps followers of the pope in many cases from looking directly at Jesus as the source of all wisdom and knowledge.
“Please do not attempt to read my mind”
How ironic after your last post to me was full of mindreading.
The second un-Biblical was supposed to be “extra-Biblical”
By their fruits you shall know them.
Your premise and reasoning are clearly in error. That Mary and Joseph knew she was not married married to him "understood in the normal sense" is simply not Scriptural, as the "normal sense" Scripturally is that being betrothed mean that sexual relations with someone else was the capital crime of adultery, and thus Joseph sought to put Mary away privately. How can you contradict Scripture to support Rome?
The penalty for consensual relations with a betrothed women:
23 If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; 24 Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. (Matthew 1:18-19)
However, God never even said He was married to Mary, nor had any sexual relations with her, but her impregnation was purely was spiritual means, thus the whole adultery charge, which is based upon laws of physical relations, is invalid, and in a word, bogus. . God can also talk to a women in private, behind her husband's back or consent if He wanted to, without any impropriety.
Moreover can marry a command the killing of innocents, and marry a wife again who was put away, contrary to the law, (Jeremiah 3:1) as He can violate certain laws given to man, since being omniscient and almighty, then He alone can make such work out for the greater good, which is consistent with the intent of the Law, which man cannot presume to be able to do an unjust
They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? shall not that land be greatly polluted? but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to me, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 3:1)
Moreover, according to OT law, a vow that a women took was subject to the binding or loosing of her husband, or if not married, to her father. (Num. 30)
This is why the Muslims do not believe in the Gospel account of the Incarnation. They say it casts God as an adulterer.
Nonsense for the above reasons, but they make God after their own image. As do Mormons.
Not to worry: that is only a valid basis for annulment if the pope did not grant a dispensation, who is as God, and thus since Mary had God's sanction then it was as good as the pope's. But David and Abishag the Shunammite is another case, married or not.
The Catholic's problem is that if placing Jesus in Mary's womb were enough for a charge against God of adultery, they you have a god who committed adultery. Why? Because Mary was already betrothed to Joseph when the angel came. She was already legally and technically married to him. God KNEW that. He knew that Mary was technically and legally a man's wife. God had two choices. Impregnate a single woman or impregnate a married woman. IN EITHER CASE, then, God, by Catholic reasoning, could be charged with sexual sin. And this nonsense about a *special* marriage arrangement is total assumption and speculation without a shred of support for it anywhere. On the contrary, the more Catholic push it and rationalize, they worse their position becomes because it can be refuted on so many levels. Your arguments just. don't. work.
No they do not.
That's ok.
The other audience does.
The ONLY people I've ever seen dismissing the fake 'promises' are Catholics: with a wave of the Imperial Hasnd.
Good point.
Do you REALLY want yet another 'answer' based on speculation from Rome?
I seem to not be able to see your pint.
But not; quite; good; enough.
This is a nice try; but not quite nice enough.
Even a lurker knows 'what we are saying' is that ROME has stated that It's Mary is such a superb human being that she DESERVES a MUCH better 'title' than merely mother of Jesus.
Always gets a chuckle from me!
You REALLY think you've done this here?
Listed ALL the 'impossible' things your GOD will or will not do?
Tell me; in which part of the CCC are these things listed?
We know; you have stated your case over and over.
So could you possibly tell us just WHY Rome failed to include so many NECESSARY things in the BIBLE when she compiled it?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.