Posted on 10/25/2007 9:24:05 AM PDT by NYer
The Other Christ: Padre Pio and 19th Century Italy, by the historian Sergio Luzzatto, draws on a document found in the Vatican's archive.
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The document reveals the testimony of a pharmacist who said that the young Padre Pio bought four grams of carbolic acid in 1919.
"I was an admirer of Padre Pio and I met him for the first time on 31 July 1919," wrote Maria De Vito.
She claimed to have spent a month with the priest in the southern town of San Giovanni Rotondo, seeing him often.
"Padre Pio called me to him in complete secrecy and telling me not to tell his fellow brothers, he gave me personally an empty bottle, and asked if I would act as a chauffeur to transport it back from Foggia to San Giovanni Rotondo with four grams of pure carbolic acid.
"He explained that the acid was for disinfecting syringes for injections. He also asked for other things, such as Valda pastilles."
The testimony was originally presented to the Vatican by the Archbishop of Manfredonia, Pasquale Gagliardi, as proof that Padre Pio caused his own stigmata with acid.
It was examined by the Holy See during the beatification process of Padre Pio and apparently dismissed.
Padre Pio, whose real name was Francesco Forgione, died in 1968. He was made a saint in 2002. A recent survey in Italy showed that more people prayed to him than to Jesus or the Virgin Mary. He exhibited stigmata throughout his life, starting in 1911.
The new allegations were greeted with an instant dismissal from his supporters. The Catholic Anti-Defamation League said Mr Luzzatto was a liar and was "spreading anti-Catholic libels".
Pietro Siffi, the president of the League, said: "We would like to remind Mr Luzzatto that according to Catholic doctrine, canonisation carries with it papal infallibility.
"We would like to suggest to Mr Luzzatto that he dedicates his energies to studying religion properly."
What do Protestants call it when someone or some group says something over and over again, DESPITE the agreement of the persons to whom he is saying it?
Newsflash: If a Protestant interested in knowing what the people he's talking to really think were to look past the florid language to the hard, careful, plodding theology, he'd find that even if the words "co-redemptrix" or "co-mediatrix" are used, that Catholic teaching is that only God saves and no one comes to Him except through the work of Christ, that no one is saved except by Christ.
We have said this over and over again for centuries. It is so clear in Aquinas, in Eckhardt, in Newman, in Merton, in Dominic, ... the list is huge.
The Catholics martyred in Poland, Germany, Mexico, by the Iroquois, by others, were martyrs to Christ.
Yet an interesting typological presentation is introduced by the hundredth charge of idolatry, laced with charges of heresy and suggestions that we don't read the Bible (hey! There's a new charge - haven't heard that one for, let me see, thirty or forty seconds!), and capped with the information, presented as an instruction, correction, and admonition, to look for our Salvation in Christ.
Did you read the creed that Kolo put up? It's essentially our creed. I cannot speak for ignorant or superstitious Catholics more than I expect you to excuse ignorant and superstitious protestants. But I know what I believe and what my Church teaches.
I never said Mary saved. The Bible tells of Covenants that God makes with his people and the growing His Family. It starts with Adam and Eve, to Noah and ends with David in the New God plan is full filled with Jesus. Who authority do you interpret the Bible? You seem to limit God’s power. I say Jesus is so powerful He can share His Glory and He willingly does. By what reason is the ark Jesus? The Ark carried the Covenant. That it is the Ark OF THE Covenant.
If I were to tell you the story of a terrible King who ordered the first born killed and in in order to save the child the parents hid him in Egypt. Out of the Desert He is called by God to free His People. The first miracle he performed was the transform water.
Who would I be talking about? That is Typology.
If I would ask you where is the teaching of the Trinity in the Bible could you show it to me?
You seem so exercised to prove stuff we all agree on, as if to say, "The sun is warm. Warm! Do you hear me? Warm! Following are 2.5 metric tons of proofs. Deny this if you can!" (Undeniably interesting, though.)
Look For Christ not His mother, she does not save.
Well, yes. The sun is warm, all right. Or, as the Church (the undivided Orthodox/Catholic Church) put it in the Liturgy maybe 17 or 18 centuries ago and continues to say to this day:
The underlined refers to our one and only Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord.
For a little more background on this, look here and along the thread thereafter, to see how your fellow Christians prayed in the early centuries, and continue to this day.
Point of infoirmation: do you believe in the Apostles Creed? The Nicene Creed? And/or the Communion of Saints?
And: will you pray for me--- I pray you?
“Look For Christ not His mother , she does not save.”
She doesn’t save you are right.
You can go to Christ directly but I’ll go with His Mom to get to Christ and will see who gets their first. She can’t save, but she can stay His fury because of my sins. She can take my requests and prayers to him just as the Queen Mothers brought the requests of the people to the Juda Kings. She is my helper. Jesus time was not yet but He did what His Mother asked at the wedding of Cana.
None of this was dispute in the early Church even Martin Luther believed it.
I would like to invite you to pray to Jesus. Most Christians would agree that it is completely safe to pray to Jesus about anything. I would like to invite you to pray to Jesus about Mary. Simply ask Jesus to show you the truth about his mother. Ask Him to direct your thinking about her. Ask Jesus if his mother is alive with Him. Ask Him if Mary is praying for us. Just pray to Jesus about her. Try this every night for six weeks. I am thoroughly convinced that He will bring you to the truth about his mother. What harm could it do?
It was a very nice epitome of OT typology of Christ, though.
“The Catholic church thinks that sex is sinful, rather like the Jews....” and so on.
What a ridiculous statement. If I didn’t absolutely abhor that LOL thing I would type out LOL regarding this statement of yours.
It would take a 10,000 word doctrinal essay post to cover all the aspects of why you wrote is not true. It’s a good thing that I don’t have the time or inclination.
So I’ll condense it down to seven words “What you have written is not truth”.
My girlfriend, thank God, no longer believes in doing that...
You must be so proud!
Seriously: do you have any objections to THIS?
Seriously. Yes, certainly. But you shouldn't care about my objections. It's God's word that admonishes those kinds of errors.
If Exodus 20 isn't enough, there's plenty more. Not once does God say to us in Scripture that we should pray to anyone other than to Him.
Protestants see a degradation of Christ in the Catholic practice of praying to anyone but the Triune God...
"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." -- Matthew 28:18
Read Colossians 1. "All things were created by Him and for Him." Christ is all you need and the ONLY hope of salvation.
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." -- Hebrews 7:24-25"But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.
Christ, our ONLY intercessor, according to the will of God.
But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils." -- 1 Corinthians 10:19-20"What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing?
There's a recurrent theme here which is that men fool themselves if they imagine they can get around the rules by fudging the names of the players. Your mom and my dad are happily glorifying God as we speak. That's what they're supposed to be doing right now.
And the same goes for us, which does not include taking our eyes off the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
"Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men" -- Mark 7:7-8"Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God." -- Leviticus 26:1
No matter how pious a man is or was, no matter the good fruit of his life nor the extent of his saintliness, it is still a sin to pray to a human being because it is nothing less than worship of the creature and not the Creator.
"Vanity, definitely my favorite sin" -- Al Pacino as Satan in "The Devil's Advocate."
I have a lot of stuff to do today and I just can't do the dialog/trialog/creedal-crowd-scene justice, so I'm dropping out at this point.
I thank you all for your magisterial contributions (!) which are great, bookmarkable, and easily plagiarizable, a feature which I appreciate...
Goin' shape-note singing tomorrow with my Don-o. I particularly crave theology you can sing. (Can I have a witness here?)
Bless you'uns.
No, I don't think that's right. The Catholic Church thinks fallen humans are sinful. Consequently, as I believe Calvin would say, there is a sinful aspect to anything we do that doesn't come entirely from grace. Consequently there are sinful aspects to sex among humans, even chaste or licit sex, as there are sinful aspects to eating, or almost any activity which involves the passions and the will.
(You wanna see sin? watch me doing my taxes. You got your passion and your will, right there!)
There still are married Catholic priests, albeit not many. I am unaware of any canon that forbids them to have sex with their wives before they celebrate Mass. Can you direct me to one?
Since the first sentence of your post is false, and the "in the days of married priests sentence" is also false in its suggestion that we are not currently "in the days of married priests, the argument proceeding from those statements is also false.
See mine at 744 and 750. God bless.
See mine at 744 and 750. God bless you.
The "harm" is that Jesus has already told us who His mother is. You may have missed it. And no one needs six weeks of prayer to understand this. A few minutes, the Bible and the Holy Spirit will show you the truth.
And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." -- Matthew 12:48-50
"And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." -- Mark 3:33-35
And he answered and said unto them, my mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it." -- Luke 8:21"But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
Just think of all the time I've saved you -- weeks and weeks that now can be put to good use in reading the Scriptures further.
So even the great pleasure of sex is not sinful. An in case secundum rationem ordinatosounds like too great a stricture, Aquinas says that it can be reasonable to do something which inhibits reason, otherwise sleep would be a sin.
From Paul VI's encyclical, Humanae Vitae:“The sexual activity, in which husband and wife are intimately and chastely united with one another, through which human life is transmitted, is, as the recent Council [Vatican II] recalled, ‘noble and worthy.’”
No sin is "noble and worthy". Virtue is not sinful. But the conciliar statements of the Church, the most famous writing of her most famous theologian, and a Papal encyclical say that sex does not contradict virtue and is "noble and worthy". So the Catholic Church does not think sex is sinful.
No offense intended but that could be considered similar to asking someone to use a Ouiji Board for 6 weeks to see if you receive an answer. What kind of answer do you expect or what is the end result?
Everything we need to know is written in scripture. We don't go upon feelings but faith through the word. Someone recently directed me to a site that said:
A more bald faced lie I have not seen on this board.
“St. Paul says ‘God sent his Son born of a woman, These words which I hold for true, really sustain quite firmly that Mary is the Mother of God.” (Martin Luther, Martin Luther’s Works, vol 7, pg 592)
“Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk 1:43)
“Is not this the carpenter, the Son of Mary?”
Gospel of Mark 6:3
My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant;
For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. Luke 1:46-49
When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him,
“They have no wine.”
And Jesus said to her,
“O woman, what have you to do with me?
My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.
She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and his throne. The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God, that there she might be taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days.
Mary the Mother of God. The New Ark. The first true believer.
For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”
Why do you limit Christ? Can He not share His Glory with others? I believe He is powerful enough to just do that.
Just as Samson was granted great strength. Or when God worked through Moses to part the Red Sea. Or as Jesus gave the apostles the power to forgive sin. God holds Mary in a special place prepared for her in His Kingdom.
Here’s a new one for you. Did you know John the Baptist never committed a sin in his entire life?
Check out post 10.
And this site which was offered in post 5.
The denials and assertions are all so confusing.
(I like your tag.)
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