Posted on 06/17/2004 11:04:06 PM PDT by DominusMah
Lately what has happened to the Our Lady of Fatima at Portugal is FULL OF HERESY !!!! To place a hindu god in our Catholic Sanctuary!! worst part is Rome agree upOn this!!! wait and see one of this day or may be very soon that the ISlam is going to ask for a place at St Peter Basilica,,,never suprised Rome will allow that!!
Some how the Post Concilliar Catholic Church us playing with fire. IT IS A MATTER OF TIME THAT ROME IS GOING TO BE BURN BY ETERNAL FIRE!!!
Your suspicions are incorrect, as I adhere to no religion. I just have a firm belief in one, all-knowing and all-powerful God, creator of all.
It would seem that you also, are incapable of offering even a reasonable explanation as to why God allows that which we perceive as good and evil, to exist.
If that's what you're saying, believe me, the problem of evil has baffled finer minds than ours. In Christian theology, it is explained by the Fall, where man used his will to disobey and do evil. The Law was God's first attempt at remedying this; the Incarnation was His second and final. But remember, at all times, God respects human free will; God is, in a sense, faithful to the laws of the creation he made. God allows man to have free will and exercise it. And the result of this is that the evil of this world does not just "happen," but is almost always the fault of some human sin or evil.
Interestingly enough, many of the natural evils (that is, not caused by man) that would have been faced by the Jews were avoided by those who followed the Law, which was full of ritual proscriptions and prescriptions (in addition to the Ten Commandments). But the result was that things like not eating pork probably prevented many health problems among Jews, since parasite infestations are common in pigs and easily transferred to human beings who eat their meat - particularly millenia ago, when nothing was known about parasites, sanitation, etc. Even ritual handwashing is thought to have helped, since this was long before the germ theory of disease and people did not routinely think of washing their hands simply for the purpose of cleanliness before eating.
So I suppose you could argue that following the law, that is, once again turning our wills to do good, has a profound impact on society. This is much more so in the case of the New Testament, when God saw that many people unfortunately clung to the ritual law of the Old Testament but neglected its genuine purpose, and sent His Son to renew all things.
Here one could argue that if people lived genuinely moral lives, much "accidental" suffering would not happen, either - I am reminded of the corporate heads of Ford Motors, who decided that it would cost them more to fix the fuel tank on a particular model of car than to pay out insurance claims for people killed and hideously injured by the car's tendency to explode - hence, one could say that greed was responsible for these deaths, as much as anything else.
But suffering is still a mystery, and the mystery of the suffering of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is also a mystery - but we know that the God behind it is good, wills only good, and that someday we will see all things clearly. And we also believe, of course, in the Resurrection, which is our pledge that all things will be made whole again.
I thought you were saying that God is all-powerful and therefore His acts have no pattern and can be whatever he decides at a particular moment (good, evil, etc.). This is very close to the Islamic belief, and it certainly does seem that the result is a deadly fatalism. Christianity, however, gives one the ability to press on and trust in God and His goodness, although certainly, at times it is very difficult.
Easy, it AIN'T the true Church - it is the unholy church foretold by Anne Catherine Emmerich - among many others.
If anyone should employ such daring as, like Photius and Dioscorus, in writings or without writings, to rouse certain inquires against the See of Peter, the chief of the Apostles, let him receive the same condemnation as those; but if, when the ecumenical synod has met, any doubt arises even about the church of the Romans, it is possible to make an investigation reverently and with fitting respect concerning the question at hand, and to accept the solution either to be assisted or to assist, but not boldly to deliver (an opinion) contrary to the Supreme Pontiffs of senior Rome. (Constantinople IV, DZ 341)
You are said to have condemned publicly in a strange presumption and incredible boldness the Apostolic and Latin Church, neither heard nor refuted ... Behold your incautious reprehension, behold your evil boasting, when "you put your mouth into heaven. When your tongue passing on to the earth" [Ps. 72:9], by human arguments and conjectures attempts to uproot and overturn the ancient faith ... The holy Church built upon a rock, that is Christ, and upon Peter or Cephas ... by the gates of Hell, that is, by the disputations of heretics which lead the vain to destruction, it would never be overcome ... Therefore, will there be anyone so foolish as to dare to regard His prayer as in anyway vain ... By the See of the chief of the Apostles, namely by the Roman Church, through the same Peter ... have not the comments of all the heretics been disapproved, rejected, and overcome ... By passing a preceding judgment on the great See, concerning which it is not permitted any man to pass judgment, you have received anathema from all the Fathers of all the venerable Councils. ... Peter and his successors have free judgment over all the Church, since no one should remove their status because "the highest See is judged by no one." (Letter of St. Leo IX to Michael Cerularius, Patriarch of Constantinople, DZ 350-352)
Aren't you tired of constantly diverting the focus on this thread, and on every other thread, from the real issue - the heresies of the purported occupant and his partners in crime?
Let's play a different game, one more to the point, let us begin listing the various heresies of the purported occupant, which are completely opposed to the teachings of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
For starters:
Modernist error: Sacraments, as with all religious externals, are mere symbols which are adapted properly to the spirit of the age.
JPII presides over an era of unprecedented change in sacramental rites. For a Catholic, whose religion is essentially traditional, this is enough to know that it is false and that JPII is not Pope. But we can analyse it further. JPII's teaching is in full agreement with this spirit of change: "Since it effects the forgiveness of sins, the Faith should find in Baptism its own sacramental expression, so that man may share in the gift of the Holy Spirit."
L'Osservatore Romano, Nov. 20, 1989
Note how the concept is confused but that the idea expressed is that "Faith should FIND in Baptism" its EXPRESSION. The idea is clearly one of the sacrament symbolising the "faith". Of course, in Catholic teaching Baptism does not symbolise the Faith, it symbolises and effects cleansing from sin, but the Modernist holds that ALL externals are mere "expressions" of "religious consciousness" or "faith."
The Orthodox thought that too - the Roman Pontiff had added the "heresy" of the filioque, the azymes in the Eucharist, etc. They were wrong.
Modernist error: Sacraments, as with all religious externals, are mere symbols which are adapted properly to the spirit of the age.
I cannot understand how you can spout such nonsense. The Pope's catechism clearly teaches the true catholic doctrine of the Sacraments, as you very well know. Your argument consists of an out of context sentence which you then horribly distort contrary to the very same Pope's teaching. Actually though, Trent calls baptism the "Sacrament of Faith", and this is of course what the Pope means.
"To prevent a schism."
No--that is the lie given by his enablers to cover papal follies. The idea that bishops will "create a schism" if the Pope refuses to let Hindus worship their gods at our shrines is ridiculous. That is what popes are expected to do--if they are any good! It insults our intelligence to argue otherwise. The truth is far simpler: the Pope wants Fatima to be used by Hindus and others.
Does God mind? Yes. He does not bless the conciliar Church which has been rocked by scandals and widespread loss of faith. I would say God minds. He is, after all, a jealous God. By their fruits you will know them...
"How do you know what bothers God?"
His revelation to us tells us.
Because evil is an absence of good. It is a negative concept. God is pure Being Itself. He cannot contain an absence.
The Pope is not the Church. He can most certainly err--except when divinely protected under certain limited conditions.
Trent used the present tense concerning Rome's doctrine regarding Baptism, not the future tense. Rome herself has changed.
"The Vatican got rid of Weakland."
Only after the media picked up on his love affair with a man and confiscated a half million dollars of diocesan funds to use as hush money to keep his lover quiet. Rome had actually refused to accept his resignation when he reached retirement age, despite the pleas of long-suffering laity. It only got rid of him once the crap hit the fan and scandal broke loose. I think the money bothered Rome more than the love affair. Weakland's radical policies bothered it not at all.
What makes you think God's morality is ours? Read the Book of Job. It is the most complete and compelling examination of the problem of evil ever written. In it, Job asks the questions you ask of God. He himself is furious with God because he has suffered calamity after calamity. His children are killed, his wealth is lost, and finally his own health is destroyed. So he is sore as hell.
Job's friends are religious men who are shocked by Job's attitude. They try to defend God's actions, blaming Job himself for what has happened, saying they are punishments for something he did or didn't do. This only infuriates Job more, because he is just telling the truth: the innocent often suffer; the evil often prosper. That is just the truth.
Then God speaks to Job, coming to Him as a Voice from a Whirlwind. He doesn't answer Job's questions, but He doesn't side with the friends either. In fact, He rebukes the pious friends and calls them untruthful, "Because you haven't spoken the truth about Me as has my servant Job." What he does besides, is ask Job a series of penetrating questions about creation which are designed to show the infinite gap in terms of Being between Himself as Creator and Job as creature.
Job's response is informative. Just before he lapses into silence he says this: "I have said enough already. My mind has tried to use reason to grasp the infinite. But I know that I am dust--and I am comforted." What comforts him is the knowledge that God has deigned to speak with him, that He exists--and this in itself has confirmed his faith. Because even in his anger, Job never gave up his faith. Job's friends, on the other hand, were terrified of Job's attitude--not because it offended God, but because their own faith was too weak to withstand Job's challenge.
So the answer is faith. Even Jesus in his humanity did not want to suffer the Passion and asked his Father if it were possible to remove the evil cup from him. But God the Father insisted. So the Passion happened, just as the Holocaust happened, just as abortions happen, etc. etc., etc. That is all we understand about evil--that it exists and that God exists and that God wants us to do good and avoid evil. More than this we can't grasp.
You are looking at JPII from the wrong end of the telescope. It is not that he wants to prevent a modernist schism. It is that he wants to prevent any return to the Church of the past. He is a modernist. He agrees with these men. If he does on occasion appoint someone more to the center, it is only because he must now and then throw Catholic Tradition a bone. But in fact his pontificate has leaned dangerously leftward for twenty-five years. It was not a fear of a phony schism that brought about Assisi I and II. The Pope himself insisted on these venues which flew in the face of perennial Catholic teachings. So forget about "fear of schism" as the reason he does things. It more likely fear of traditionalists that holds him somewhat in check.
I remain convinced that it was the Vatican, after Weakland defied them, that set the whole affair in motion. The Vatcan always knew about his lover, and the money. It's an Old Boy's Club - there are no secrets.
According to everything I have read, that is exactly how they operate. There is a name for it that I can't recall at the moment.
You don't spit into the wind, and you don't tug on Supermans cape. And a Bishop doesn't defy the Vatican.
Don't agree. The bishops defy the Vatican routinely. Besides, look at the timeline. As soon as that letter hit the newstands, Weakland was out within twenty-four hours. It was the publicity that bothered Rome, not the malfeasance and not the gay relationship. And therein lies the problem. Rome expects far less of its prelates than the faithful do. If such losers are going to be our spiritual shepherds, we have a perfect right to ask the Vatican: where the hell are you going with all this?
"the innocent often suffer; the evil often prosper"
I think it is necessary for some purpose of God's that we live in a world where this is true.
I think what you say is true. In some mysterious way evil strengthens its opposite. People who have come through bad times are often profoundly changed for the better. Not always--but maybe that's the point, it's up to us to know what to do with the evil that befalls us. Our faith can be strengthened--or it can collapse into bitterness.
Re #54. Outstanding explanation. Thanks.
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