>> I believe in God, and the proof is right here. <<
Note, of course, that the witness did not say, “I believe in the magical power of writing prayers on pills.” No, the witness is fully aware that the healing came from God.
>> “That was no miracle,” said Roberto Focaccia, an infectious disease expert at the hospital where Daniela was treated. “Statistics show that an average of 50 percent of these patients die and the other 50 percent recover completely. She was lucky to be among the 50 percent who survive. “It worries me,” he added, “that so many people think that these small pieces of paper can replace the treatment available in any decent hospital in Brazil.” <<
Several points to be made to this idiot:
1. The Church is not alleging the case he refers to is necessarily a miracle. Out of 5,000 attributed miracles, the Church officially recognized two of them.
2. The Church plainly urges all people seeking miraculous cures that the ordinary action of God’s work is through man, and that the rejection of modern medicine is of no spiritual benefit. The Catholic Church firmly opposes Christian Science.
3. His assertion (or “accusation”) of the witnesses’ attribution of the “miracle” to the mere matter of the pills is plainly rebutted.
4. Can anyone truly fault someone for being thankful to God for being one of the “lucky ones,” so long as she does NOT encourage others to forego other means of cures?
So, if you "return home" to Rome, you get the whole ball of wax, including the beatification of saints who give out Tic-Tac size rice-paper pills which supposedly heal. And Pope Benedict XVI will be there to bless it all.
Ah, but at least the Catholic Church is too intellectual and sophisticated to believe in all those phony Biblical events like creation in six days or Noah's Ark or the Tower of Babel or Jonah's Fish. Can't you see the profundity of post-Biblical, non-Biblical, and anti-Biblical supernaturalism? [/sarcasm]
This is very biblical, actually. In Acts 19:11-12 we read, “And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul.
So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.” If God can work miracles of healing through pieces of cloth that had touched the hands of a holy apostle, why should He not work miracles through pieces of paper that had touched the hands of another holy man? Indeed we read also in Acts that people would be cured if Peter’s shadow passed over them.
I don’t get it: what is so unbiblical about miracles? Or is it just “Roman” miracles? By the bye, the word “Roman” if used to mean Catholic is a pejorative term, just like “Romish”, “Romanist”, “papist”, “papistical”, etc. That kind of epithet is best left back in the times of the religious wars. The official name of the Church is “Catholic Church”, not “Roman Catholic Church”. Anglicans say “Roman Catholic”, because they regard themselves as catholic too, and for that reason the term is sometimes used even by Catholics of themselves. In Catholic parlance the term “Roman Church” is sometimes used, but when it is it does NOT refer to the whole Catholic Church but rather to the Church of the city or diocese of Rome. That is why Cardinals are called “cardinals of the Holy Roman Church”, they are in theory officials of the church of the city of Rome, which is why they elect the bishop of that city (the pope). Let’s stop the insulting use of “Romanism”, etc., please. If you mean Catholic say Catholic.
Still on the subject of miracles: why is it that no miracle was ever done by the hands of Luther, Calvin or the other Reformers? Miracles were done through Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and holy men throughout history. The apostles, you say, were special because they were founders of churches? Well wouldn’t someone who supposedly brought back the pure unadulterated gospel after it had been lost for 1,500 years be a pretty important fellow in God’s plan? Important enough to have a miracle or two worked through him? Miracles, whether done through Moses, or a prophet, or an apostle, or a great missionary saint or confessor of the faith are manifestations of divine favor -— of the fact that God is with that man. That no miracles were done through Luther or Calvin is interesting. As Erasmus said, Luther had not even a cure of a sick cow to show. I see supposed cures by protestant ministers all the time on TV. Why would God do miracles through Oral Roberts etc. and never once through the great Reformers? Could it be that the miracles I see on TV are fake? Well, we wouldn’t know, would we? Because umlike the “Romanists”, the Protestant miracles are never subjected to rigorous scrutiny by medical people and scientists. The Church does not accept as genuine any but a tiny fraction of all reported miracles, and that only after painstaking investigation. Moreover, no Catholic is required to believe in ANY particular miracle, except those recorded in Scripture. If Beckwith does not want to believe in these Brazilian miracles, he doesn’t have to. Nor does he have to believe in the appearances at Lourdes or Fatima. So he is not in any sense “stuck” with any such miracles. But he is also not stuck with having to repudiate the first 1,500 years of Christianity.
When it comes to religion, people are always "stuck with" something or other, so there's not need for the snideness.
Since there’s a placebo effect, I guess we better have a few placebo saints.
They’re not really effective, but the recipient thinks they are, so who gives a rip.
They are in the same class as “near beer.”
For the record, though, 2 out of 200 is pretty low even for the placebo effect.
You may recall that in Acts, people in Ephesus sought healing by touching articles of clothing belonging to Paul. Protestants are obsessed by the idea that divine power must be conveyed from a distance. But even hearing the sound of a person’s voice is a physical event. I can “touch” your eardrums by creating (with my bodily organs) sound waves that touch your ear drums.
Be sure to place the Tic Tac next to the sliver of the True Cross, by the St. Christopher medal, directly perpendicular with the statue of St. Joseph buried upside down in your lawn, and behind the garden stature of MaryBlessedVirgin. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to put a Jesus bobblehead across from it.
That ought cure your arthritis and keep the bogeyman away!
What is the point of posting this kind of anti-Catholic screed? Whom will this persuade except those who already hate the Church? If the best argument you can make to support Protestantism is to attack some aspect of Catholic belief or practice, then your arguments in favor of Protestantism are weak, indeed. Moreover, the further Protestants distance themselves from the Church, the more practices and beliefs they disavow, the less content they have to their own religion, which just boils down to people believing and doing whatever they want. You will never persuade anyone to embrace your empty religion by tearing down the Catholic Church (the one true Church founded by Christ).