That is right, in order to be a [particular] Church, it must have the Eucharist. But Protestants lack the Eucharist because they lack Apostolic succession.
I’m personally convinced that AT BEST he sees us as 2nd or 3rd class Christians...dhimmitude, if you will, to reuse that concept.
I don't know what it means to be a 2nd or 3rd class Christian. If a person has believed in Christ, but never been baptized, that person's spiritual condition is deficient. (Since Protestants are baptized, that is just a hypothetical example.) Likewise, if a person has been baptized, but never received the filling of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 8:14-17), then that person's spiritual condition is deficient. Protestants are in that condition, because this filling of the Spirit comes through the sacrament of confirmation/chrismation, which Protestants don't have, again because they lack Apostolic succession (notice that Philip the deacon could not do it; the Apostles had to come to Samaria and do it). Likewise, if a person has been baptized, but never received the Body and Blood of Christ, then this person's spiritual condition is deficient. Protestantism, however, lacks Apostolic succession, and therefore lacks persons with the authority to transform bread and wine into the Body and Blood.
Hyper-denominationalism exudes the insistence that one’s group is the only one or the only “real” one.
Implicit in your criticism is an assumption that no existing institution is the one Christ founded. And implicit in that belief is the notion that either Christ did not found an institution, or if He did, the gates of hell prevailed against it. But since the first century the Catholic Church has held that Christ founded an institution (not merely some invisible abstract entity), and that the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
To repeat Jesus’ words to his own disciples: those who are not against us are for us.
That is true, and the Pope agrees with it. But to the extent that you reject Apostolic succession, and reject the Eucharist, and reject the other sacraments, you are against us. And we shouldn't pretend otherwise.
-A8
It is interesting to run your accurate relating of your church's position on this subject of the Spirit up alongside the bible's words: "Those who don't have the Spirit are none of His..." In saying that we don't have the Eucharist, the fundamentalist Catholic code is affirming that we don't have the Spirit. Of course, those without the Spirit can be called into question on everything. (And they will be. Again....dhimmitude at best.) In short, you have demonstrated with your lines the exact point I was making. It is a fact that when fundamentalist Catholicism leads -- and it is now in the lead under this pope -- it engages in the rankest form of hyper-denominationalism. Those of us who've studied theology know the code words that hyper-denominationalists use. What they mean is that those not like them "aren't really" or "perhaps might be" or "could be in the end" authentic Christians. You all don't see that you do it even in your own posts. Pope Benedict Ratzinger is an anti-protestant, fundamentalistic, hyper-denominational Catholic pope and a throwback to the middle ages. He certainly is no JPII.
It is interesting to run your accurate relating of your church's position on this subject of the Spirit up alongside the bible's words: "Those who don't have the Spirit are none of His..." In saying that we don't have the Eucharist, the fundamentalist Catholic code is affirming that we don't have the Spirit. Of course, those without the Spirit can be called into question on everything. (And they will be. Again....dhimmitude at best.)
In short, you have demonstrated with your lines the exact point I was making. It is a fact that when fundamentalist Catholicism leads -- and it is now in the lead under this pope -- it engages in the rankest form of hyper-denominationalism.
Those of us who've studied theology know the code words that hyper-denominationalists use. What they mean is that those not like them "aren't really" or "perhaps might be" or "could be in the end" authentic Christians.
You all don't see that you do it even in your own posts. Pope Benedict Ratzinger is an anti-protestant, fundamentalistic, hyper-denominational Catholic pope and a throwback to the middle ages. He certainly is no JPII.