Posted on 10/11/2006 9:29:49 AM PDT by Antioch
Before criticizing Pentecostal churches that draw Catholics as members, Catholic leaders should ask why their own parishes aren't meeting the needs of those who leave, the Vatican's top ecumenical representative said yesterday at Duquesne University. "Our response cannot be in the form of a polemical approach, leaving ourselves to condemn the activities of other groups," said Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Such an approach "is not constructive and could even be counter-productive," he said. While Cardinal Kasper is known for outreach to traditional Protestant and Orthodox churches, he said it is crucial to be engaged with a diverse global Pentecostal movement that now claims 600 million adherents. He spoke to an audience of about 225, including Bishop Paul Bradley, administrator of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, Metropolitan Basil Schott of the Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh, Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh and Metropolitan Nicholas of the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church of Johnstown.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
My point, rather, is that seeking them, demanding them, is a bad thing.
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Demanding things from God can certainly be hazardous . . . though sometimes I think He wants us to get quite earnest and serious in our prayers vs mild or glib.
But seeking miraculous answers from Him has been applauded by Him through the ages in both the Old and New Testaments.
HE DECLARES . . . ask big things of me.
I forget the precise wording.
He has our hairs numbered but delights to show His majesty and glory in behalf of His kids.
Claiming that their seemingly obvious presence in Community A and their seemingly obvious absence in Community B is proof or even evidence of the superiority of A over B is a bad thing. Our Lord (Yes, ZC, even yours) condemned such thinking.
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Yes, haughty one upsmanship is not very Christ-like . . . about anything . . . including miracles etc.
I pray The Lord gives you or someone else a big opening to allow The Lord to make Himself real to both of them.
Blessed are they who have not seen, and have believed.
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True, and I sometimes think God withholds some super natural affirmations, answers to prayer because He wants for the individual(s) that they BEAR A GREATER WEIGHT OF GLORY throughout eternity via their suffering without such.
Yes, a silent fool is much wiser than a loud one.
And that sobering awesome Scripture about giving an account for every idle word should give all of us much more pause every day, than it seems to.
--Mat 12:36
Thanks.
I'm still just learning to decrease my contentiousness and avoid it in others.
If you want to avoid contentions, I would suggest that you don't call others Pharisees when they ask you to give Scriptural support to why you believe the way you do. I'm thinking of a verse right now from Scripture myself, "always be ready to satsify everyone that asketh a reason for the hope that is in you."
LOL, obviously not a lot. It used to be the argument that Catholcis were mostly illiterate poor people who just did what the Church told them to do, now we're too intellectual, with no active belief in the supernatural.
I will grant that the Catholic Church IS intellectual, it holds all the truth left to us by Jesus and sustained by the Holy Spirit. It holds 2000 years of Christianity. Our faith is filled with the supernatural, Jesus is available to us, body and blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist and all we have to do to avail ourselves of His Presence is to meet Him at the altar. We pray for miracles and we receive them and we recognize them. Some know a lot of doctrine and theology and some don't, some take our religion for granted but most don't.
I don't know what to say, as a former, church-going Methodist who also attended Pentecostal and Baptist services from time to time, I have never found anything so beautiful as to worship God in the Catholic Mass. I have never seen so much faith in all my religious life. I have never seen so many people who take the words, "Thy will be done" more seriously. They believe through the wonders and the miracles and through the hardships of this life. They understand that emotions come into play but aren't the pinnacle of their faith. As I tell my Catechism kids, it's as easy and simple as "Jesus loves you" and as hard as all the world and beyond.
That's very beautiful, and I respect your experience. However, the scriptural modernism ruins whatever supernaturalism Catholicism possesses. The whole point of some of my criticisms is that Catholics accept "Catholic miracles" (eg, Fatima), but evaluate the claims of the Bible by science. That is at best hypocrisy, at worst theological anti-Semitism.
Thanks, Quix. MY knees are hurting...smile.
I'm sure you are. Christians should always do that.
Knee calouses are 'haloed badges of courage' in my world.
LOL.
LUB
Not according to Protestant doctrine. True, their baptisms are valid in the Catholic church, but the act is not regarded as having sacramental power. Most Protestestants regard baptism as an ordinance which symbolizes outwardly to the operation of God's power, which is invisible, internal, and completely separate from the rite itself. For Catholics, the rite itself has actual spiritual and salvific effects, the first of which is the remission of sin, both original sin and actual sin—only original sin in the case of infants and young children, since they are incapable of actual sin; and both original and actual sin in the case of older persons.
Grace and validity are not interchangable in Catholic theology. In the case of baptism, sacramental grace is not conferred by mere validity. If a Catholic is baptized who does not have a full theological understanding of baptism (let's say he does not know that it is for the forgiveness of sins), the baptism is still a valid one. Even for those who obstinately reject what the Church teaches regarding the sacrament or for those who are attached to their sins and do not ask forgiveness for them before baptism, still have a valid baptism.
The reason this is so is found in a key point in Catholic doctrine, which is that Baptism impresses an ineffaceable and indelible mark of Character on the Soul which, once validly conferred, can never be repeated AND baptism also confers an infusion of Supernatural Grace, Gifts, and Virtues upon the person which renders men the adopted sons of God and confers the right to heavenly glory.
A valid baptism outside the Church (or in the above cases) indeed imprints the MARK of baptism upon the soul, but not the Grace. Thus, the one who is baptized is not sanctified. "Not unto salvation" as Aquinas says. To receive the sanctifying grace, the person who is baptized in such a state must go to confession with a priest in the apostolic succession—that is, ordained by bishops who are spiritual successors of Christ's first followers.
Of course it does
If a Catholic ADULT is baptized who does not have a full theological understanding of baptism (let's say he does not know that it is for the forgiveness of sins), the baptism is still a valid one.
Is that more understandable?
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