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Bishop Schneider: Martin Luther is Not a Witness to the Gospel (on Vatican Document)
Catholic Family News ^ | 2/17/17 | John Vennari

Posted on 02/18/2017 6:28:09 AM PST by marshmallow

CFN Intro: On February 16 Rorate Caeli and Adelante la Fe posted a comprehensive video interview with the well-known conservative Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakistan that runs about 48 minutes. The interview covered a myriad of topics, but CFN is spotlighting Bishop Schneider’s magnificent response regarding a recent Vatican document that names the heresiarch Martin Luther as a witness to the Gospel. We know you will benefit from Bishop Schneider’s forthright commentary (JV).

Question: A controversial document from the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity equates Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francis of Borgia with Martin Luther, calling him a witness to the Gospel. We as Catholics are aware of the serious damage Luther caused to the Church, what should be our position if our ecclesiastical authorities invite us to consider Luther as a witness to the Gospel?

Bishop Schneider. Well, this document is issued by the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, this Council has no doctrinal authority. We have no need to take seriously this document, which is objectively wrong. It is against the evidence. We cannot put on the same level Luther and Saint Ignatius. This is a contradiction. Luther cannot be a witness to the Gospel, and the Church will not ask us to accept this because it is only a statement from the pontifical Council so it need not be taken seriously.

When we examine in sincerity and honesty Luther and his work, he caused immense damage to the entire Christianity. He divided Christianity. He is not a witness of the Gospel.He denied almost the entire previous tradition from 1500 years. This cannot be a witness to the Gospel who puts himself as the authority to interpret the Word of God. This is against the Faith which Christ gave us and which the apostles transmitted to us in a basic manner – to reject the Holy Tradition as really a fount of revelation and the entire thinking of the Church which the Holy Ghost guided in the dogmatic and doctrinal issues, and this is the case. Luther did not reject [merely] the disciplinary tradition, the pastoral tradition, but he rejected the fundamental doctrinal tradition of the Church. And the doctrinal tradition of the Church is the Gospel. This is Gospel. And when I reject the substance of the entire Apostolic and immutable constant tradition of the Church (in the case of Luther, 1500 years) I am rejecting the Gospel.

For example, in Kazakistan where I am living there was a holy martyr priest who was beatified, Blessed Oleksa Zarytsky whom my parents had known personally, he blessed me when I was a child. This priest was from the Byzantine Rite, but Catholic. And the Communist asked them not to deny Christ, not to deny the sacraments, but only to deny one point of the Gospel: the primacy of Peter, the papacy (which is in the Gospel). Blessed Oleksa told the tribunal, “If I would deny this point on the primacy of Peter, I will deny entire Gospel. I will be the anti-witness of the entire Gospel.” This is in our time, he died in 1963.

So, in the case of Luther, he rejected the heart of the Church, which is the Eucharist. He rejected the sacrificial essence and substance of the Eucharistic celebration, and this is the heart of the Church – the Eucharist. This is just one example. So how could one be a witness to the Gospel when he rejects the heart of the Church, the sacrificial nature of the Mass itself?

Luther called the Mass an invention of the devil, a blasphemy. He called the papacy an invention of satan. How can we name this person as a witness? When we do this, we don’t believe in the sacrificial character of the Mass, or we don’t believe in the primacy of Peter, or we don’t believe in the Catholic manner of the unchangeable doctrinal tradition of the Church, or we are committing a lie and playing only a game of political correctness. This is very dishonest. Or we have an intellectual position of relativism, that truth and untruth are the same. And so in this case when this document from the Pontifical Council states that Luther is more or less the same level as St. Ignatius, they are putting truth and error at the same level. This is the position of philosophical and theological relativism. And this is very dangerous.

So I think we need not take this document seriously, because it has no doctrinal authority. It is in itself contradictory and completely wrong. This document will not last for many years. Because the Church is more powerful, the unchangeable truth is more powerful than this weak and very wrong document. It will pass away with time.


TOPICS: Catholic; Ecumenism; History; Mainline Protestant
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To: Zuriel

At Cana, Mary asked her Son to help.

Before Jesus performed the miracle Mary instructed the servants to “do whatever He tells you.”

It is significant that these are her last words in Scripture.


41 posted on 02/18/2017 12:50:33 PM PST by G Larry (There is no great virtue in bargaining with the Devil)
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To: piusv

I don’t expect to change minds.

Only to let them know Catholics have a reason for their Doctrine.

I’ve been dealing with most of this crowd for decades.


42 posted on 02/18/2017 12:53:52 PM PST by G Larry (There is no great virtue in bargaining with the Devil)
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To: G Larry

Do do not misrepresent what I said, for those passages do not confirm your point. How can you ask the dead in Christ to pray for you? Do you see them in person, or call them on the phone/text/email?

The texts say to pray for, not pray to. While those in Heaven are present with the Lord, they are absent from their earthly bodies. Can they hear you with out you praying to them?

Why pray to Mary, a created being, for her help, when you can pray directly to the Father? Is your faith so weak that you do not believe that God will hear you if you don’t ask Mary first? We need only one Intercessor and one Advocate to God, which is Jesus Christ, our Lord. Or do you believe that Christ is so distant that you need a patron to pray for you to get His attention? Is that distant God we serve? Or is Jesus omnipresent?

Do you see Paul, or Peter, or any of the other NT writers asking the dead in Christ to pray for them? No, you see only them ask only those who were living? Do you see them telling people to pray to the dead in Christ to aid their prayers? No.

In fact, talking to the dead was a violation of the OT law. When the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:3–25) conjured up Samuel, was he dead, or living? Do you think that Samuel was not one of God’s elect? And was it not considered wrong for Saul to consult Samuel in this matter?


43 posted on 02/18/2017 1:12:53 PM PST by kosciusko51
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To: Right Brother

Again forgot to include you. Sorry again.


44 posted on 02/18/2017 1:15:03 PM PST by kosciusko51
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To: G Larry

“oh...so you don’t pray for family and friends?

God wants each of us to pray only for our own selfish interests?”

I pray for others to the one true God in Christ Jesus’s name. Mary is sleeping awaiting the return of Christ as God holds her spirit, so why would I ask her to pray for me?

John 3:13 -

“No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.”

Job 14:12 -

“So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.”


45 posted on 02/18/2017 2:13:32 PM PST by ScottfromNJ
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To: G Larry
I should?

What makes you think I have not read about the list of accusations (hundreds of times over by now -- the basic charges rarely change other than to be inflated yet further) having also studied the matters myself further (further then mere declaration of the accusations) in order to see what the hubbub was about?

I know what went on, and you should know by now, after all the years I've been posting on this forum, that I do know already.

So spare me the worthless little comments whereby you seek to instruct, steering me to sources which (if this were any other subject matter) would be disqualified on grounds of self-interest.

This isn't Groundhog Day. Let's not replay each item over and over.

But if you insist, I can. In detail. And you will lose. Again. Try me.

46 posted on 02/18/2017 2:41:52 PM PST by BlueDragon (my kinfolk had to fight off wagon burnin' scalp taking Comanches, reckon we could take on a few more)
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To: G Larry
Only to let them know Catholics have a reason for their Doctrine. I’ve been dealing with most of this crowd for decades.

If you mean the same people, shouldn't they know by now that "Catholics have a reason for their Doctrine"?

47 posted on 02/18/2017 2:55:40 PM PST by piusv (Pray for a return to the pre-Vatican II (Catholic) Faith)
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To: piusv; G Larry; BlueDragon
If you mean the same people, shouldn't they know by now that "Catholics have a reason for their Doctrine"?

And shouldn't y'all know by now that those who differ with your doctrines have reasons as well? Face it, threads like this are intentionally provocative towards non-Catholic Christians in their not-so-subtle condemnation of those deemed "children of Martin Luther". Trash him, trash us, right? I'd say expect to be challenged and don't whine when it happens.

48 posted on 02/18/2017 5:19:46 PM PST by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: kosciusko51

Hint: We’re under the New Covenant.

What means “dead”?

Were Moses and Elijah “dead” when they appeared with Christ in front of Peter?

Those passages very much confirm my point.


49 posted on 02/18/2017 5:31:48 PM PST by G Larry (There is no great virtue in bargaining with the Devil)
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To: ScottfromNJ

You misquote John 3:13.

It does NOT say “gone”.

It reads “ascended”, which refers to “under their own power”.

You will note that Mary was “Assumed”, not of her own power.

Reconcile your Job citation with Moses and Elijah appearing with Christ in front of Peter.
If they had not been in heaven, where do you propose they were following their departure from earth?


50 posted on 02/18/2017 5:40:07 PM PST by G Larry (There is no great virtue in bargaining with the Devil)
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To: boatbums

I was going to say the same thing, but as usual you said it must ‘shorter’. lol (at myself)


51 posted on 02/18/2017 5:41:53 PM PST by BlueDragon (my kinfolk had to fight off wagon burnin' scalp taking Comanches, reckon we could take on a few more)
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To: boatbums

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.


52 posted on 02/18/2017 5:52:06 PM PST by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome)
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To: ebb tide

Don’t have to.


53 posted on 02/18/2017 6:29:52 PM PST by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: G Larry

**Before Jesus performed the miracle Mary instructed the servants to “do whatever He tells you.”**

And before he performs the miracle, he practically rebukes her, saying, “Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come.”

Do you pray to the Syrophenician woman? A woman that not only wasn’t mother to the Son of God, but was likened to a dog by him, yet by her request found deliverance for her daughter, so great was her faith.

**It is significant that these are her last words in Scripture.**

So your organization takes that to be the bedrock for praying to an omnipresent Mary?

It would be great if your same organization would be scripturally focused when defining Jesus Christ as he defined himself: the Son of God. Neither he, nor his apostles ever used the phrase “God the Son”.

If you think those phrases mean the same thing, then G Larry of Free Republic, means the same thing as Free Republic the G Larry, right?


54 posted on 02/18/2017 6:35:06 PM PST by Zuriel (Acts 2:38,39....Do you believe it?)
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To: boatbums

Why do you do so?


55 posted on 02/18/2017 6:48:55 PM PST by ebb tide (We have a rogue curia in Rome)
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To: G Larry

**Were Moses and Elijah “dead” when they appeared with Christ in front of Peter?**

And what did Peter do?.....he got the idea to worship, venerate (or whatever you choose to call it) all three equally, in suggesting that he, James, and John, build tabernacles for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. But in short order, Moses and Elijah disappeared, leaving only the Son for them to focus on.


56 posted on 02/18/2017 6:52:43 PM PST by Zuriel (Acts 2:38,39....Do you believe it?)
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To: G Larry

“You misquote John 3:13.

It does NOT say “gone”.

It reads “ascended”, which refers to “under their own power”.”

Actually, the Greek term that “ascended” was derived from “anabaino” is not limited exclusively to “under their own power”, its primary usage is to arise, to go up, with no real emphasis on the force behind the movement.

“You will note that Mary was “Assumed”, not of her own power.”

Really? What book, chapter and verse?

“Reconcile your Job citation with Moses and Elijah appearing with Christ in front of Peter.

If they had not been in heaven, where do you propose they were following their departure from earth?”

Already stated the passage that Moses and Elijah’s appearance was actually a vision God created for the apostles.


57 posted on 02/18/2017 7:19:49 PM PST by ScottfromNJ
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To: marshmallow; redleghunter; Springfield Reformer; kinsman redeemer; BlueDragon; metmom; boatbums; ...
When we examine in sincerity and honesty Luther and his work, he caused immense damage to the entire Christianity.

Rather, Rome already did and does that. Before Luther even was born, we have some of the corruption of Rome which necessitated a reformation, besides the doctrinal deformation of Catholicism .

Referring to the schism of the 14th and 15th centuries, Cardinal Ratzinger observed,

"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.

"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196)

Cardinal Bellarmine:

 "Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- Colon 1617, in “A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,)

Catholic historian Paul Johnson additionally described the existing social situation among the clergy during this period leading up to the Refomation: 

Probably as many as half the men in orders had ‘wives’ and families. Behind all the New Learning and the theological debates, clerical celibacy was, in its own way, the biggest single issue at the Reformation. It was a great social problem and, other factors being equal, it tended to tip the balance in favour of reform. As a rule, the only hope for a child of a priest was to go into the Church himself, thus unwillingly or with no great enthusiasm, taking vows which he might subsequently regret: the evil tended to perpetuate itself.” (History of Christianity, pgs 269-270)

So, in the case of Luther, he rejected the heart of the Church, which is the Eucharist. He rejected the sacrificial essence and substance of the Eucharistic celebration, and this is the heart of the Church – the Eucharist.

WRONG! While what the Lord's supper is to show, the sacrificial death of Christ is the heart of the church, the Biblical Lord's supper is not the Catholic Eucharist.

And rather than being the supreme centerpiece practice of the NT church, it is only manifestly described in one epistle (besides Jude's mention of the feast of charity), and in which the Catholic Eucharist is not evident, but the church is the focus as the "one bread" and the body of Christ, purchased with the sinless shed blood of Christ, whose death, and the love behind it is what the church is supposed to declare by sharing food in that communal meal. (1Co. 11:17-34) .

And rather than a distinct, normatively celibate class of believers distinctively titled "priests" offering up the "real" body and blood of Christ as a sacrifice for sins, and to be consumed in order to obtain spiritual life; instead no leadership is ever distinctively titled "priests" (and presbuteros or episkopos does not mean priest), and are not even described as officiating at the Lord's supper and dispensing the elements, much less offering them as a sacrifice for sins.

Nor is this Catholic function taught as being a primary or unique function of the clergy, who instead are exhorted to preach the word, (2Tim. 4:2) feeding the flock (Acts 20:28; 1Pt. 5:2) with the word of God, which is what is called "milk" and "meat" (1Co. 3:2; Heb. 5:13; 1Pt. 2:2) by believing which souls obtain spiritual life within themselves, (Acts 10:43-47; 15;7-9; Eph. 1:13) and then they are "nourished" (1Tim. 4:6) and built up. (Acts 20:32)

58 posted on 02/18/2017 7:30:07 PM PST by daniel1212 ( Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned and destitute sinner+ trust Him to save you, then follow Him!)
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To: Right Brother; G Larry
Are you unaware that the prayers to Mary are simply asking here to pray for us, as she is in the presence of Christ?

Please cite the Scripture that requires Mary to pray on our behalf.

Better yet, ask them to cite even one prayer out of the appox. 200 in Scripture addressed to any one else but God . Only pagans did so.

59 posted on 02/18/2017 7:34:54 PM PST by daniel1212 ( Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned and destitute sinner+ trust Him to save you, then follow Him!)
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To: kosciusko51; G Larry; Right Brother
Commanded to pray for each other:

Out of which you simply cannot extrapolate support for praying to created beings in Heaven, which is nowhere recorded by the Holy Spirit, except as done by pagans, among the approx. 200 prayers in Scripture.

And even in the OT believers had plenty of created beings to pray to in Heaven.

Nor do we ever see communication btwn created beings from Heaven and those on earth unless they both were somehow in the same realm, while only God is shown able to hear all prayer in Heaven. And angels and elders offering up prayers as memorial before judgment happens will not help you.

Simply put, you can only wish Scripture taught prayer to created beings in Heaven.

60 posted on 02/18/2017 7:43:19 PM PST by daniel1212 ( Turn to the Lord Jesus as a damned and destitute sinner+ trust Him to save you, then follow Him!)
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