[George W. Bush]

Pray for John Paul II

Can I pray for him to become a Baptist, dignan3? ; )

wideawake, like I said, the pope's opinion didn't bother me much one way or the other and I was more interested in some of the other comments made. Maybe it's time to let the thread die. It probably didn't merit quite this much discussion to begin with. I generally save my disagreements with Rome for serious doctrinal isues or claims I find inflated. Like the "one billion served" business.

[wideawake]

Well, GWB, I'm a little sick and tired of people who profess to be suspicious of the lamestream media:

(1) Taking the lamestream media's paraphrase (not even selective quotation! paraphrase!) of the Pope's public statements as faithful, verbatim accounts of everything he said on a particular occasion.

(2) Using that unreliable source's paraphrase as a stick with which to beat Catholics. Example: I don't know how many times the media has quoted two sentences or so from a half-hour sermon delivered at St. Peter's. As soon as these sentences are quoted, someone with an axe to grind posts them with a comment like: "See he doesn't even mention Jesus! He completely ignores Scripture!" when in the actual sermon he has spoken abundantly of the teaching and the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus and quoted the Scriptures voluminously.

(3) Whenever this twisting and misrepresentation is pointed out, the antiCatholic posters who reveled in the lie never do the Christian thing and apologize for their slander and falsehood. They simply say stuff like: "Oh, is that what he really said? Well, who cares what he says anyway?" Well, they seemed to care quite a bit what he said before the truth of what he actually said became known. It only becomes inconsequential when it turns out not to be an antiCatholic weapon.

What some have said about the Pope on this thread is actually false, slanderous and uncharitable. But instead of owning up to the fact that they have gratuitously slandered a man who has never done anything to them and who, in point of fact, prays for them every day - they pretend that they've done nothing wrong and nothing worth apologizing for.

What a shining witness is exampled in their conduct.

[roughrider]

I voluntarily joined the Roman Catholic Church when I was twenty years old, and attending a Calvinist college. They were scandalized, but put up with it. I joined the Roman Catholic Church because the Protestant denominations had been thoroughly compromised by liberalism, and remain so today. You may not like what the Pope reportedly said, even though he in no way ruled out military action. You Protestants have your own messes to clean up in the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches, and PC thinking is running rampant in many denominations.