Posted on 02/03/2005 7:10:07 AM PST by Servant of the 9
Future popes will be required to retire at a fixed age, according to secret plans being discussed because of the recurring health woes of John Paul II, it was reported today. Senior Roman Catholic Church sources said cardinals who will select the next pontiff have discussed the need to choose a successor who is open to a retirement age, most likely 80. They said the cardinals want to avoid a repeat of recent years in which John Paul's ailments forced him to turn decision-making over to a small group of senior aides, The Times of London reported. The creation of a retirement age would end a tradition that has lasted 2,000 years — that a pope serves until death. Disclosure of the secret plan comes as officials said John Paul II's health had stabilized following his emergency hospitalization. The 84-year-old pontiff will remain at a Rome hospital for "a few more days," mainly as a precaution against complications, such as pneumonia, the Vatican said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Our priest had an interesting view on this at mass a few months ago...he noted that the Pope is a wonderful example for the dignity of life/pro-life crowd....a living breathing example of what seems like, should be, a used up life and body (in the opinion of many) still doing so much good...
He is a daily reminder of the sick, elderly, and poor of body in this world...
"Traditionalist" is the term that is usually used to categorize these groups by both their supporters and detractors. It's a subjective term and you could argue that John Paul II is a traditionalist. It's a matter of semantics. For example, I personally hate the word "neoconservative" and refuse to use it and I tend to agree with conservatives who have that label attached to them. To each his own. Whatever word you like better, I think most observers would agree that John Paul II is to the left of Pius XII whether they love or hate the current pope.
As I said earlier, it was Pius XII who started permitting exceptions to the celibacy rule in the Latin rite and John Paul II expanded upon it. New York's late Cardinal O'Connor, who is popularly acclaimed by conservative Catholics, actually said at the ordination of a married Episcopal priest who converted that those people who say that the Church can never change the celibacy rule are wrong.
I would agree with that in that God who is outside of time and dimensions. But, there is no biblical foundation for an eternal sacrifice.
This is your first error. There is no biblical foundation for a need for a biblical foundation. The Catholic Church verifies the authenticity of the Scriptures. Not the other way around.
These all can't take place at the same "moment" if that "moment" is not defined by time. By His definition of the sacrifices, He dictates demands a timeline. And that means it must be (must have been) within creation and not suspended somewhere outside of creation. And, there are no "moments" outside of time - there can't be an "eternal moment" because time and so, moments don't occur if time does not exist. It seems to be to be an oxymoron at best.
Not an oxymoron, a paradox. God enjoys giving us paradoxes. God generates himself into man, a virgin birth, victory through apparent defeat, God dying, Time and Eternity meet at the Cross.
But, scripture itself shows this to have occured, once and for all. The tenses of the verbs used show this to be the case and elimates what you are trying to say.
No. It doesn't eliminate what I'm saying. The event happened roughly 1976 years ago. But that event is brought to the present at Mass. Eternity is opened up in time at the Mass. The supernatural is penetrating the natural.
on the tenses:
Heb 1:3 who being(P) the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding(P) all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged(A) our sins, sat down (A) at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
The Douay-Rheims is in the present tense: 3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the figure of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power, making purgation of sins, sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high.
This shows He is continually being and upholding, but one time action of purged and sat down.
That doesn't fit logically since an infinite cannot literally "sit" since he is infinite he has no motion.
10:12 But this Man, after He had offered (A) one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, 13 from that time waiting (P) till His enemies are made (A)His footstool.
The Douay-Rheims: 12 But this man offering one sacrifice for sins, for ever sitteth on the right hand of God, 13 From henceforth expecting, until his enemies be made his footstool. 14 For by one oblation he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. 15 And the Holy Ghost also doth testify this to us. For after that he said:
16 And this is the testament which I will make unto them after those days, saith the Lord. I will give my laws in their hearts, and on their minds will I write them: 17 And their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. 18 Now where there is a remission of these, there is no more an oblation for sin. 19 Having therefore, brethren, a confidence in the entering into the holies by the blood of Christ; 20 A new and living way which he hath dedicated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh,
Mark 16:19 So then, after the Lord had spoken (A) to them, He was received (A) up into heaven, and sat down (A) down at the right hand of God.
The Ascension is not a part of the Sacrifice on Calvary. It is not part of that Eternal moment brought forth in the Mass. It is a historical event.
1 John 4: 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses (P) that Jesus Christ has come (PP) in the flesh is (P) of God.
The Douay-Rheims: 2 By this is the spirit of God known. Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is of God:
Therefore, unless you can show why these uses of tenses, the details in the sacrifice, etc can support your theory,
Matt 28: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and BEHOLD I AM WITH YOU ALL DAYS, even to the consummation of the world.
then it appears that the Word refutes what you are trying to say.
My copy of the Word does no such thing. That's the trouble with relying too heavily on Sola Scriptura. Unless you have the assurance of the Church, you can never be sure whether your edition is reliable or not. And going to earlier manuscripts also becomes a guessing game since no originals exist.
Your error is that you assume temporal 'tenses' are applicable to the supernatural realm. -'tenses' only apply to the temporal...
The Roman Catholic Church is and ought to be a mark of contradiction against secular society. The celibacy rule is a big part of that mark and ought to be retained unless it is ever proven that it is more albatross than blessing.
Whether general permission for priests to marry is a good idea is an entirely different question from that as to whether it is allowable. That something is allowable does not make that something automatically good. There is some Scriptural backing for the state of celibacy being a higher state of life than that of marriage but Paul noted then and there that it was better to marry than to burn. Given the applicable rules of celibacy in the Roman rite, the corollary would be: If you must marry lest you burn, find another career other than the Roman Rite priesthood. Priests coming in from the Episcopalian and/or Lutheran churches as married clergy of those churches are allowed to be priests while remaining married as a charity to their wives who married in good faith. In such situations, those priests ordained from the Protestant clergy will, if subsequently widowed, NOT be allowed to remarry. It would seem that it is the wife and not the priest who is being accommodated.
"Traditionalist" is indeed a subjective term. Your view as to the term "neoconservative" is precisely my own.
It may also be said that Pius XII was located in some ways to the left of Pope Sixtus V. It may also be said that every pope subsequent to Pope St. Pius X was to that saint's left since his anti-Modernist program was abrogated promptly by Benedict XV and never restored by Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, JP I (in his very brief pontificate) or JP II. If I were more knowledgeable as to popes, I could probably establish much earlier demarcation lines after which subsequent popes were more liberal than some predecessor who died at such a demarcation line.
Then do we just throw out all the tenses throughout all of scripture that describe God? That doesn't make sense, does it? You assume it is an error because you don't agree with what it says. That is ok - that is up to you, I don't expect to change what you think. But you do have to remember that He gave us His Word - both written and in the flesh so that we can know Him. To not make it apply would mean that He is the author of confusion - and we know that He isn't.
It's either Heb 9 or 10 which speaks of Christ as entering the heavenly holy of holies "not with the blood of bulls and goats, but with his own blood," and says that he *will* appear a second time (that is, at the Second Coming). This is a direct reference to the Temple liturgy for Yom Kippur, in which the High Priest entered the holy of holies (the only time he was permitted to do that).
This means that Christ is an eternal priest ("you are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek"). Priests offer sacrifices, eternal priests offer eternal sacrifices.
Plenty of references in the Church Fathers to the Eucharist as a "sacrifice," going back all the way to Apostolic times. Christ's suffering ended at Calvary, but his priesthood did not.
That is circular logic. For what "validates" the existence of the church? Scripture. You can't have it both ways. I am not here to argue sola scriptura with you. That is not my intent. You have to decide yourself to trust in man or in God - who is the Word.
I think you misunderstood and I realize that I was not clear enough in my post. The tenses that I gave are the tenses in the original language - the Greek tenses. English only has 3 tenses - past, present and future, but the Greek has a few more - that was what I was giving. So your posting another version really did nothing to refute the scriptures given. Neither does your comment about not having the original manuscripts. By comparing all the copies, having an idea of what level they are from the original and with as many of the old manuscripts that they have, there is really relatively little discrepancy. So by extrapolation we really have a reliabe "original" manuscript. So then, the tenses DO show the point I was making.
Not an oxymoron, a paradox. God enjoys giving us paradoxes. God generates himself into man, a virgin birth, victory through apparent defeat, God dying, Time and Eternity meet at the Cross.
Yes..it is an oxymoron. Why do I say that? Because the examples you gave - all the paradoxes - and there are many more, are all clearly shown in scripture. It talks many times about His Kingship yet His being a servant, His deity yet His humanity, free will and sovereignty and the list goes on and on. But.. there is simply no place in scripture that says He is hanging on the cross out there somewhere outside of creation and at the same "time, He is SITTING at the right hand of the Father outside of Creation.
And it isn't about God "enjoying" giving us paradoxes - it is about Him revealing Himself to us. And our desire to want Him to, or to rely on our own (or others).
So, you still have yet to refute the points made by the tenses.
Agreed. That is what I said earlier. Don't get hung up on the verb tenses in Hebrews; they're essentially metaphorical. The point of Christ "sitting down" at God's right hand is that he is equal to God, not a servant.
Oh, I am not "hung up" on the verb tenses. They are just one way the Word refutes what was said earlier. Jesus said that every stroke of every letter will remain until all has been fulfilled. It hasn't, and so the tenses are not just metaphorical. They are there for a reason - His reason!
Sitting down is not just about being equal to God the Father. You have missed a lot of what scripture says metaphorically if you think that is all it is about. It has to do with the fact that His work as High Priest - to atone for sins is now finished, as He said on the cross.
This means that Christ is an eternal priest ("you are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek"). Priests offer sacrifices, eternal priests offer eternal sacrifices.
Absolutely. He is our High Priest. He always has been, He always will be. He "stepped into" time to perform His sacrifice, once for all with eternal results. However, again, the tenses show that the sacrifice is not eternally happening but that it happened once and the results are eternal. Now I know that you don't believe that and I doubt I will convince you - that is the job of the Holy Spirit - if you so desire. I have no desire to change your mind, and I am steadfastly firm so you won't change mine either. I am not interested in debates. That isn't why I stepped in here. But the reasons I did are likely finished. We will see.
For the purposes of applying a penance, degrees are usually made.
That is circular logic. For what "validates" the existence of the church? Scripture. You can't have it both ways. I am not here to argue sola scriptura with you. That is not my intent. You have to decide yourself to trust in man or in God - who is the Word.
The Catholic Church doesn't claim that Scripture validates it any more than your birth certificate verifies that you were born. The Church predates the New Testament by a number of years. The WORD became flesh, not Book.
You're going to have to argue Sola Scriptura with me because your rationale for not demanding a Scriptural account or support for Catholic teaching is insufficient. I reject the need for Scriptural support in Theological matters. It's as simple as that.
The tenses that I gave are the tenses in the original language - the Greek tenses.
First, You don't know that for sure. The Epistle to the Hebrews is argued by scholars that it was written in Syrio-Chaldaic or even Hebrew itself and later translated into Greek.
So your posting another version really did nothing to refute the scriptures given.
The Scriptures you gave did nothing to convince me that they are the actual scriptures.
Neither does your comment about not having the original manuscripts. By comparing all the copies, having an idea of what level they are from the original and with as many of the old manuscripts that they have, there is really relatively little discrepancy. So by extrapolation we really have a reliabe "original" manuscript.
Not at all. You have an "idea" of what might be a reliable manuscript. You are relying on Men and not God. The Church has pronounced that only the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome is declared free from error.
I grabbed this from the traditional Catholic website Traditio.com
The Latin Vulgate Bible was compiled by St. Jerome (342-420) at the request of Pope St. Damasus I (r. 366-384). It is important to know that the original manuscripts (autographs) of the Bible no longer exist. However, St. Jerome in the fourth century had access to manuscripts for his Latin Vulgate that are no longer available to us, manuscripts much closer in both time and text to the original autographs of the inspired writers than the Greek manuscripts available to us now. Moreover, the Latin Vulgate is more pure than the Hebrew or Greek now extant and has been far better conserved from textual corruptions. These circumstances make the Latin Vulgate of St. Jerome our best modern reference for biblical accuracy.
The Latin Vulgate is the only version of the Bible that the Church has ever declared to be (by decree of the Council of Trent) to be error-free. The Latin Vulgate has been dogmatically declared to be in conformity with the original text in all that concerns faith and morals.
The Douay-Rheims Bible is a scrupulously faithful, word-for-word translation into English of the Latin Vulgate Bible. The New Testament was published at Rheims in 1582, and the Old Testament, at Douay in 1609, two years before the King James Version. In 1749-1752 Bishop Richard Challoner revised the Douay-Rheims version and modernized the language. This revision is sometimes called the Douay-Rheims-Challoner version and is the one most commonly found.
The Douay-Rheims translators took great pains to translate the text exactly. Contrary to the procedure of the modern Bible translators, when a passage seemed strange and unintelligible, they left it alone, even if obscure. The modern Bible translators, on the other hand, will often look at an obscure passage, decide what they think it means, then translate it in words that bring out that meaning.
The result is that the contemporary English translations are usually easier to understand, but do not necessarily reflect accurately and completely what the Bible says. Rather, they reflect the biased interpretation and understanding of what particular contemporary translators think that the Bible says."
Not an oxymoron, a paradox. God enjoys giving us paradoxes. God generates himself into man, a virgin birth, victory through apparent defeat, God dying, Time and Eternity meet at the Cross.
Yes..it is an oxymoron. Why do I say that? Because the examples you gave - all the paradoxes - and there are many more, are all clearly shown in scripture.
That is not an answer as to why you say it is an oxymoron. An oxymoron is contradictory statements appearing to be true. Paradoxes are true statements appearing to be contradictory. You are saying that Scripture is the sole source for paradox and all not mentioned in Scripture is oxymoronic. That is a non-sequitur.
But.. there is simply no place in scripture that says He is hanging on the cross out there somewhere outside of creation and at the same "time, He is SITTING at the right hand of the Father outside of Creation.
You are thinking too linearly. It's not at the same "time" where there is no time. Jesus didn't "leave" Heaven in order to come to Earth. He is eternally with the Father. Eternally begotten of the Father, not made. He is consubstantial with the Father. The Father's "name" is Jesus. Remember the words in Isaias 55 "8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 9 For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts."
You sound like the Jews to Our Lord in John 8: Abraham your father rejoiced that he might see my day: he saw it, and was glad. 57 The Jews therefore said to him: Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? 58 Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say to you, BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS MADE, I AM. 59 They took up stones therefore to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.
The event of the Passion, Death and Resurrection occurred at a particular span of time roughly 1976 years ago. We are both agreed on that. What I'm stating is: at the Catholic Mass, that salvific action from the Passion and "It is consummated. And bowing his head, he gave up the ghost, to the empty tomb. " is made present to those witnessing and participating.
And it isn't about God "enjoying" giving us paradoxes - it is about Him revealing Himself to us.
And who are you to say God doesn't "enjoy" revealing himself or redeeming us with paradoxes?
And our desire to want Him to, or to rely on our own (or others).So, you still have yet to refute the points made by the tenses.
I have yet to see where you think the issue of tenses alters the metaphysical reality of the Eternal Sacrifice of the Mass. When you've reconciled time, space and Eternity coinciding, you won't have a problem with the tenses.
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