Posted on 11/23/2004 9:07:40 AM PST by Stubborn
Father Michael Muller was one of the most widely read theologians of the 19th Century. He ranks as one of the greatest defenders of the dogma “Outside the Church there is no salvation” in modern times. Father Muller always submitted his works to two Redemptorist theologians and to his religious superiors before publication, thus we are sure of the doctrinal soundness of his teachings. This article, first published in 1875, is one of the finest treatments of the doctrinal truth that Our Lord founded one true Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation. Father Muller’s firm writings are desperately needed in our time when this doctrine is denied by those who are the most influential members of our Holy Church. We publish Father Muller’s excellent little Catechism as an antidote to the prevalent religious indifferentism — an indifferentism that is the direct result of what Blessed Pius IX denounced as “Liberal Catholicism”.
If it makes you feel any better, I trust God more than I do me too - but I trust the Church He established to safeguard the Bible and ALL its books, as well as the teachings within it.
God Bless
Whats the fourth commandment?
ROFL!
When you say the Lord's prayer- give us our daily bread. It was always understood as give us a share of Jesus the bread of heaven this day in the Eucharist.
Hallelulia and amen too brother!
Yes, I would be very interested in joining that discussion -how about starting it off based off of kosta50's post #52 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1223778/posts?q=1&&page=51
As I ithink it might serve as a good spring board to focus right in on the pertinant differences. Perhaps disect them one by one. Yes? No? Opinions? Shut up and go sit back down?
I hope we didn't misrepresent you. We see that as we are bound to listen to our earthly parents till we are of age (what new born doesn't need to listen to others!)
so we are bound to listen to the wisdom of the church which is the mother of us all. It is not that we do not think critically sometimes about her judgment but let's face it without an authority- an arche in Gk- we have anarche- no rule. That is so contrary to nature and the spiritual realm is no different.
Any how I agree absolutely with you about listening to the indwelling of the HS read Simeon the Theologian he would say amen to you! And It is our responsibility to individually work out our own salvation but God keeps us from going to ditches by travelling the well trodden path.
God bless you as you seek Him and feel after Him for He is not far from every one of us (Acts. 17)
ohh it's a possibility. Could be a lively discussion. But what new ground could be covered in light of the breadth of the posts of that thread- it was fairly expansive.
I wish you would offer some concrete reasons, facts, to back your claims. Thus far, you have offered none. But your ignorance is glaringly obvious: Jesus was an observant Jew Who fulfilled the Law, not someone Who rejected it.
Our Lord's teachings show that God's revelation was gradual and it is His interpretation of it that is more complete. The OT is not corrupt; it is obsolete (Heb 8:13).
People are corrupt by nature and they will corrupt everything, including the faith. That corruption is even in the translations of the Bible you read. Show me one church whose memebrs are not corrupt or else find a better argument.
Confession is as old as the faith itself: original Christians who were much closer to the spirit of the faith then some offshoots 1,500 years later in a completely alien culture would profess their sin in front of everyone publicly, because confessions were to be witnessed. When the churches grew and new members came in, some of whom were not koown an unorthodox in their belief, the older church members began to feel uncomfortable professing their sins to everyone, so the confessionals were reduced to a priest, who is your witness.
Like everything esle about Protestants, even the burden of sin and confession of that sin is made easy -- the minimalist approach to salvation.
Your ignorance of the Bible where the power to loose and bind is explicitly given to Apostles is obvious.
That is the ultimate in arrogance! Are the Protestants free of corruption? Who are they to judge others and claim their own personal (uncorrupt?) interpretation is that of the Holy Spirit?
No. We worship God. Do you respect the cloth of the flag or the Nation which that flag represents? Why do you stand up when the National Anthem is played? Because you respect the sound or the Nation the music represents? When you look at your parent's picture, do you think of the paper or the person whose image is on that paper?
Worship is a manner that is subject to culutre and artistic expression and is therefore not part of the teachings of Christ. His teachings are about Truth that we worship.
I hope you learned something as I have. I respect your disagreements, but you need to look where the teaching (theology) of the Church is wrong. How we are organized and how we worship is not the issue. Show me where the church is corrupt in its grasp of God's truth and then we can have a discussion.
So? Is the same not true today -- and why just of leaders, why not of everyone?
I have also never said that the OT was corrupt
"If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it" (Heb 8:7)
Seems to me the Bible says the Old Covenant was corrupt (not without fault, not immaculate), and the New Covenant was not simply "added" to it -- the New Covenant replaced it!
The fault, of course, came from the people of Israel who corrupted it, just as every one of us corrupts the New One. That's why we need combined wisdom and not rely on our own prejudices and faulty or incomplete translations, but hope that the combined wisdom and experience leads to somewhat more complete understanding than being a one-man pope.
Fine with me, especially in light of the news that dialogue will be resumed upon the return tomorrow of the relics of Sts. John Chrysostonos and Gregory Nazianen from Rome to Constantinople. Stubborn, your job now is to get the RC trads to join in. Our Church, East and West, is specifically calling on us to do this as "... a more spiritual ecumenism, namely, a grass-roots ecumenism. Now, peoples, priests and parishes and individuals must talk among themselves. It is necessary to become friends and not to speak as diplomats, but as brothers."
"From Zenit News Agency
Date: 2004-11-25
Return of Relics to Rekindle Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue
Event Will Help Bridge the Gap, Says Archimandrite
VATICAN CITY, NOV. 25, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Theological dialogue between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches is expected to resume after the relics of Sts. Gregory Nazianzen and John Chrysostom are returned to the patriarch of Constantinople.
On Saturday, John Paul II is scheduled to turn over the relics of the doctors of the Eastern Church to Patriarch Bartholomew I, in an ecumenical ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica. The ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, "first among equals" among the Orthodox, will be in Rome for a two-day visit.
"For us, the significance of this event is very great," said Archimandrite Ignatios Sotiriadis of the Greek Orthodox Church, in statements today to Vatican Radio.
"The return of these relics means that one more bridge is created between the sister Churches of Constantinople and Rome, between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox," he said. The Patriarch of Constantinople is in Istanbul, Turkey.
According to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, when Patriarch Bartholomew I met John Paul II in Rome last June 29, he invited the Pope to Istanbul and asked if the relics of the saints could be returned from the Vatican to the See of Constantinople. The relics have been kept in St. Peter's Basilica.
An exchange of letters between the Pope and the patriarch followed, and this week's meeting will be a result of that correspondence.
"The handing over of the relics," the pontifical council said in a statement, "is a profound encouragement to walk the path of unity: the mortal remains of the two saints, patriarchs of Constantinople, who did everything possible to safeguard unity between East and West, venerated in their land of origin, welcomed with great honors in the Church of Rome, which for many centuries has preserved and venerated them, walk once again on the path to the East, thanks to this gesture of spiritual sharing which nourishes and fortifies communion between the Sees of Peter and Constantinople."
John Paul II has asked that the relics be enclosed in precious alabaster reliquaries.
When they arrive in Istanbul later on Saturday, they will be stored in a chapel of the patriarchate and, on the feast of St. Andrew, Nov. 30, they will be permanently placed in the patriarchal Church of St. George.
Accompanying the patriarch on the plane from Turkey will be Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, and Archbishop Edmond Farhat, apostolic nuncio in Turkey.
On the return trip to Istanbul, to celebrate next Tuesday's feast of St. Andrew, patron of the ecumenical patriarchate, Bartholomew I will be accompanied by a Holy See delegation that will include Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
Regarding Catholic-Orthodox relations, Archimandrite Sotiriadis said: "The problem that remains to be surmounted is 'Uniatism.'" This expression refers to Eastern-rite Catholics who live in Eastern European lands of Orthodox majority.
"This problem must be surmounted, but it has been decided that ecumenical dialogue, like theological dialogue, will be resumed after the handing over of these famous relics to the ecumenical patriarch and after the feast of St. Andrew," the archimandrite said.
"Discussions will begin with the Petrine ministry and then the other questions will be addressed," he added. "I believe that our religious leaders, ecclesiastics, our superiors of the Churches have yet to sit down at a round table, perhaps behind closed doors, to discuss a speedy process of rapprochement of the Churches.
"From my point of view, there have been important gestures, photographs have been taken, and gifts have been exchanged. Now, there is need for assessment and also for a more spiritual ecumenism, namely, a grass-roots ecumenism. Now, peoples, priests and parishes and individuals must talk among themselves. It is necessary to become friends and not to speak as diplomats, but as brothers."
The archimandrite said he believes that a future of unity passes through the path traced "by all our Orthodox theologians and all our historians, as well as by famous theologians of the West, of the Catholic Church, such as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who speaks about a unity or reunification according to the historical models of the first millennium."
Lets do it!
The Roman Catholic Church established the canon of scripture...it did not drop out of the sky.
Luke4:17 'And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,' Wow, so when Jesus read these words from Esaias in the synagogue, I wonder which copyrighted edition of the 'Roman-Catholic-Church's-established-canon-of-scripture-that-did-not-drop-out-of-the-sky' he was reading from, eh? LOL And here I've operating all these years under the impression that some Jews and Greeks had something to do with it! Now I may be a little rusty on my history of how all the manuscripts came together but I seem to remember the Septuagint being around long before Pope Damascus commissioned St. Jerome to bring about the Vulgate in say about 400 A.D. And wasn't the Vulgate a revision of the the Old Latin Version which came from the Septuagint? A revision of a version of a copy of a document which was a Greek translation of the original Hebrew (in the case of the Old Testament)? I wonder what Jerome would think - would he be happy if he knew that the Book which was translated for the common people had been made an infallible standard only to be understood and interpreted by the ecclesiastic? And what was happening in the intervening years after Christ was on earth? My goodness, there were people reading a Book then for which there was no hierarchy telling them that they could read it but not try to figure out what it meant!
...the Pope is a successor of Peter whom Christ appointed as head.
Do you honestly believe that this is a historically supported position? I challenge you to prove it. Where do you suggest I go to examine original evidence that the Roman Catholic Church's roots can be traced back to Jesus Christ, Peter or any of the other apostles? For that matter where is the Scriptural support? The true Church of Jesus Christ was not founded upon Peter but on Peter's recognition and confession of who Christ really was - Matthew 16:16 'Simon Peter answered, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' And that 'Rock' referred to in the following verse? That Rock is Jesus Christ himself - Matthew 21:42 'Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?' If Peter was the first pope, where is the scriptural justification laid out such an office? Peter himself would appear to have a different perspective of his position - See 1 Peter 5:1-4 with verse 3 following 'Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock.' And in case there is any doubt, doesn't he state further in 2 Peter 1:1 that he is 'a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ....'? Does your church history confirm an unbroken line of popes in the early church of the first few hundred years after Christ's death?
I've seen it phrased that the righteousness of Christ is reckoned upon us by grace moreso than the sinfulness of Adam, and this being only one of some forty or so things which we receive at salvation.
I'll admit I also find far more significance in Romans 5:12-21 in regards to spiritual death than physical death, but I have also seen where this one set of Scripture seems to discern between many denominations and doctrinal perspectives. Some perhaps more in error than others, but all might give more testimony to the richness of His grace.
Dear Kolokotronis,
Thanks for the ping.
I'll watch the conversations as they unfold.
sitetest
The Archimandrite makes a number of curious statements.
"The return of these relics means that one more bridge is created between the sister Churches of Constantinople and Rome, between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox..."
The former does not equal the latter, and statements like this may not inspire confidence in Orthodox Christians who are not under the Patriarch of Constantinople (the vast majority.)
You as an Orthodox Christian understand that in the Orthodox Church, a bishop is a bishop is a bishop, and while different honor is given to different bishops, the authority of each bishop only extends to the limits of his own diocese. But most non-Orthodox do not understand this, particularly Roman Catholics who are used to a system of organization where the Pope has the authority to act unilaterally throughout the entire Roman Church worldwide.
There are large segments of the Orthodox Church who feel that we are a very long way from being able to "discuss a speedy process of rapprochement of the Churches" for a variety of reasons of theology and praxis. I would also find that many of us would see as misleading the statment that "The problem that remains to be surmounted is 'Uniatism.'" I understand that what is meant is that 'Uniatism' is an impediment to even being able to talk at all -- but the casual observer would imagine that what is meant is that this is the only problem remaining to be surmounted for union to occur! If and when the Romans renounce Uniatism, and the discovery is made that union won't immediately follow, Orthodox are going to be accused of false advertising by Roman Catholics who thought that this was the hurdle.
The problems that remain to be surmounted are not found in the rarified airs of official dialogues, but rather are most strikingly seen in most cities by attending a few services and hearing a few sermons at local Orthodox parishes and then doing the same in the very liberal Roman Catholic parishes found throughout most of America, at least. We have Roman Catholics who occasionally attend our Orthodox parish and are visibly shaken by the differences between what they encounter here compared to what they are being offered "back home"...
This is why your recommendation for grass-roots contacts are so very important. I welcome them. And in all of our dialogues we must be Christian, civil, and completely truthful -- there is no room for inflammatory talk, but neither is there room for implying that we are closer to union than we really are just because it is what we think others want to hear.
Thanks again for the ping to this interesting thread. I'll stick around to lurk and see how things proceed.
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