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To: Blogger Doctrine does not contradict scripture. You may not like how they've interpreted the Scriptures but there is no contradiction.
I am afraid you are wrong there. You just don't see it because you don't wish to. The Bible forbids contacting dead people. The church proclaims we should pray to saints who have died. (It is a false distinction to say that the dead people in the Old Testament were any different than those in the New for the soul never dies. It either goes to Heaven (or in the Old Testament Paradise), or Hell. We aren't supposed to contact them. The Bible gives no examples of people contacting them in the NT (and the Old Testament example was cursed). It is a contradiction. Christ paid the full price for our sins. So why do penance? Christ's payment wasn't apparently good enough for the church. The Bible says that all but Jesus sinned. Yet, the church proclaims Mary a non-sinner. Such is NOT Scriptural and not even all church fathers agreed upon that but it became dogma so we aren't allowed to even question it. Now she has been given the titles which belong to God alone Mediator and Advocate. Plus she has been made a Co-Redeemer. The RCC pushes people into worship of Mary - but RCs do not want to see that so they call it "Veneration." There are MANY more examples, I am sad to say. But you, being a good Catholic, will not see it so I'll let it sit at this.

I don't see these holy men of God as being "puffed up". I see them as they are, humble servants.
How much do you know of your church's history. Many if not most were in positions of high authority in the Middle ages when these things were being hammered out because it was a power position. They were the second sons of European aristocracy and that is what second sons did. There were a number of unfortunate Popes that were elected to the holy see by this same church. Some having mistress. Some having illegitimate children. And at least one having been said to have had an orgy in the vatican. That same church you trust to tell you right from wrong has produced scandal after scandal in this century with very little done to the perps.

Going back to Scripture to determine scripture seems a bit circular to me.
Of course it is. But so is your reasoning. You go back to the church because the church says that that is where the final decision making resides. It tells you that Christ set it up as the be-all and end all of discourse on matters and you believe it, because the church says so.

Here is my simple view of how this works. Jesus set up the Church on the Rock of Peter. Peter and the apostles went out to spread God's word. As they went along, they ran into contradictions and confusion. In order to settle those problems that arose, they were settled among themselves and written down. This knowledge was passed on to their replacements or those they put in charge in new areas. Doctrine was formed as needed. The main tenets/beliefs of the church have not changed. Why would I not go to the those that have had first hand knowledge passed on to them.
Unfortunately, a lot of doctrines got added and the effect was that the main tenets did change. Paul wanted to know one thing, Christ and Him crucified. Now, there is much more that has been added to that. Unfortunately, I don't have time to finish my answer, but I'll get to it later tonight if you are interested in a response to the rest.

Some of what you say is, I think, untrue, some is distorted, some is pretty good.

ONE reason for the shuffling around of perverts 20-30 years ago was that that is what shrinks were saying to do. The first several cases of sexual misbehavior including predation on the young that I had to deal with one way or another, some professionally, were in Protestant outfits. They never fit the press and one in which I was involved was swept under the rug by two protestant Bishops.

Whenever any serious statistical work is done on ephebephilia and sexual misbehavior on he part of clergy, the RCs do NOT significantly distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack. (However, being as aware as I am of how everybody was sweeping stuff under the rug, I have to doubt these data.) What IS clear is that the idea of clerical celibacy, heck the idea of ordinary chastity, is held by the LameStreamMedia to be risible and probably neurotic. We all know that their technique is to write the story and then find the data. We should not be surprised that they come after the RCs. They hate us.

It is at least debatable whether the OT blessed before the Nativity were in the same place as the virtuous and holy dead after the Resurrection. I don't see that that's a slam dunk.

Instead of drawing conclusions that we hold that Christ's redemption was insufficient (while finessing St. Paul's saying that he made up what was lacking in the suffering of Christ - or words to that effect) you might work the argument like this. Christ's passion is sufficient. Why go to Church, why read Scripture, why do anything? Then see if your answers or something similar MIGHT work for why we do penance. Do you get that the main mood of Dante's Purgatorio is joyful hope? Can you understand why? I LIKE getting stronger, even though it hurts soemtimes.

What the Bible says is that ALL have sinned, there is none righteous, no not one. So by strict interpretation of Scripture, Jesus Sinned. Who holds that? Not holding it cracks the wall though and then I think we can hold that the Virgin was sinless. In any event it's all propleptic eschatology based, IMHO.

SURE we're allowed to question, in the sense of examine, probe, "Try" the de fide matters. In the case of the two controversial Marian issues, I tend to go with more than 1750 years being a pretty good amount of time for examination and questioning. I am reassured, rather than otherwise, that many held otherwise. It is in Buddhism, not Christianity that the Dharma is said to decay is we move away in time from the Appearing of he Silent Sagte of the Shakyas.

So there is room for query. There is NOW not room for saying it ain't so. But I don't think we were excessively hasty on these things.

Has Mary indeed been officially declared Co-redemptrix? Can you direct me to the official declaration? That, I believe, is the one thing you said that just isn't true. I could be wrong. As for the others - a person on this thread asked me to pray for the son of a friend. I was asked to advocate, to interevene, to mediate. I have been asked to pray for others by Baptists! And I have asked Baptists to pray for me or my "intentions". No one involved in these interactions thought we were thereby chipping away at Christ's role as supreme Advocate (along with the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete). I resist the titles for the reasons you have said earlier, they might confuse Protestants (or something like that), but I know the difference between God and a creature. So do most of the Catholics I know. I am sponsoring someone in Enquirer's class I have heard what they're teaching. Not only do we NOT worship Our Lady, but we, in frustration at the pesistence of this slander in the face of more than 1,500 of patiently saying,"NO we don't," we now mock those who make it. What else can you do. I remember a nice Monnoite lady telling me in sereiousness, "They Worship Mary, you know." I didn't know where to look.

You've found a couple of web sites representing a mocked and derided minority who say that in some bizarre sense they want to say that Mary is God. Are there no bizarre Protestants? I'll take that poor wacko if you'll get the Jehovah's witnesses to stay off my porch and stop letting their babies die when they need transfusions. Can we make a deal? Hasn't Sola Scriptura led to some pretty outre stuff?

We PUSH people into Mariolatry? PUSH? I have been Catholic for 12 years. That's 36 major Marian feasts - Conception, Anunciation, Assumption. In EVERY ONE WITHOUT FAIL the preacher has taken PAINS to distinguish between the blessed creature Mary, qua creature, and the Creator. We push people into Mariolatry the way you push people to ignore their Bibles.

What I don't get about the Protestant attitude toward Holy Tradition is the distinction made between the early days and the days right after the early days. Peter, speaking for the Council in Acts, presumes to say,"It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us ..." As far as I can tell, that's a precedent for the Apostles and their successors to bank on the truth and reliability of Jesus's word about the Paraclete leading the Church into Truth and so forth. Despite the Post Ascension, Post Pentecost turmoil, testified to in Acts and the Pauline letters, among those who called themselves Christians, Protestants look back on that period as a golden age, essentially different from what happened after, say, Peter, Paul, and John fell asleep. On what Scriptural basis, I wonder. It's as though the doctrine is that the Spirit weakens over time - and the "sell-by date" was around 95 A.D.

I think a case can be made that Jesus authorized the Church to develop doctrine and praxis and that Acts and Paul bear witness to that process; that Jesus also promised that the Church would be guided by the Holy Spirit, and Peter and Paul banked on that, as do we. It is the sola scriptura side which seems to suggest that the promises are misunderstood, were not meant in their plain senses, have an expiration date, and that the precedent of Acts is a one-time deal.

I dealt with Church scandals above, but here I'll say that - I would have thought you would have liked this - Peter remained a sinner after Pentecost. But when the Church gathered, prayed, and deliberated, hearing arguments from all sides, they decided that despite Peter's withdrawing from fellowship with gentiles, ... and you know the rest. In other words, YEAH, the guys were jerks and are jerks still many of them. We're ALL jerks! This is supposed to be news? While I greatly admire JPII, I don't agree with everything he said or did, nor do I feel I am less of a splendid fellow (stop gagging) or obedient Catholic for disagreeeing with him on some matters. And While I suspect he was a very holy guy, my confidence in the excellence of Fides et Ratio or Veritatis Splendor would not be shaken by knowing that he occasionally cussed. (My confidence in my ability to guesstimate character WOULD be shaken -- he didn't strike me as a cusser.)

It tells you that Christ set it up as the be-all and end all of discourse on matters and you believe it, because the church says so.

Actually I believe it becasue it seems Scriptural, it makes sense, and I think not only in spite of but in a way because of their grievous faults the RC and EO leadership have done a better job at preaching the Gospel and at living it, and most importantly at helping everyone from the ignorant and superstitious to guys like John Cardinal Newman live faithful and sometimes even holy lives.

In a less one-sided way, I'd suggest that each party to the dispute can make a plausible "probable cause" type argument for cherry-picking by thowse on the other side. My favorite example is the repeated use of one or the other half of the great line from Phillipians, Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling, for it is Christ that worketh in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

I will think that we have achieved something wonderful when no one quotes just one half of this line. There is CLEARLY a mystery here, it's not a slam-dunk either way. Devout Predestination Fans will have moments of profound spiritual anxiety or trial, and devout works people will feel born up on Eagle's wings from time to time. We fear, we tremble, we work out as best we can, and it is Christ working in us, both to will and to do.

I guess I was set on what some here would consider the downward path in 1970 when I wrote a long essay (my college required one major anxiety producing essay per year -- a BIG one in the Senior year) comparing Calvin and Aquinas on merit and grace. What I came away with was that Calvin was all neat and tidy -- and that I thought that reality and truth are rarely neat and tidy.

I hold that the Bblical revelation says that God Almighty is AT LEAST personal - certainly not LESS than personal -- and that it is licit and profitable to use personal language and thought about Him: love, wrath, yearning, etc.. There isn't a person on earth whom I understand. I don't expect to have an understanding of God and His ways. What looks like a comprehensive systematic account -- say, The Summa -- is, when all the parsing and dissecting and synthesizing is done, a collection of inadequate glimpses.