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."
The books of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) were relayed with an oral tradition passed on by the scholarly and other religious leaders of each generation, and according to classical Rabbinic interpretation, the teachings of the Oral Law are a guide to that interpretation of the Written Law which is considered the authoritative reading. Jewish law and tradition thus is not based on a strictly literal reading of the Tanakh, but on combined oral and written traditions.
Let me repeat that last part for you.
Jewish law and tradition thus is not based on a strictly literal reading of the Tanakh, but on combined oral and written traditions.
And yet the different sects of Jews still debated what was scripture and what they believed. The Jews also added other pagan derived sources such as the Talmud and the Kaballa.
And still the Jewish Priests quoted from Sirach and Tobit
And btw research shows that Council of Jamnia didn’t even happen.
Oh and I will quote again since you ignored it before.
...Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. [2 Peter 3:15-16]
Oh and I will quote again since you ignored it before.
...Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. [2 Peter 3:15-16]
I am comforted knowing they are in the presence of the Lord.
I also know, DrE, that God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
“6:9 ...I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. 10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” 11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed.”
“7:9 After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. “
“7:13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” 14 I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. 16 Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Quick research shows that the early Christians used the Septuagint. The books found in the Tanach plus the deuterocanonical books.
Welcome to FR
WHY . . .
i GUESS they HAD to trust . . . drum roll . . .
THE HOLY SPIRIT!
What a novel idea!
They had NO MAGICSTERICAL of the looming heavy handed political sort monopolizing on all the power mongering they could . . . increasingly with added doctrines of men; doctrines of demons . . . one brazen political ploy after another . . .
Just them and Holy Spirit and servant hearted, often itinerate leaders . . .
And God was with them.
PTL.
What an excellent screen name for a retread. I hope he’s not.
I hope you weren’t talking about another poster without posting their name also. FR manners, you know. LOL!
So clear, but yet some don't see it.
Were the saints slain?
“6:9 ...I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.
Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; [there is] none that doeth good, no, not one. – Psalms 53:3
But we are all as an unclean [thing], and all our righteousnesses [are] as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. – Isaiah 64:6
As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. – Romans 3:10-12
He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose. – John 1:27
I think there's very little said about the saints in heaven because we're not supposed to be concerned with their lives in heaven. It's enough to know they glorify God every minute in Paradise, and that one day we will join them.
"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." -- 1 Corinthians 2:9
So, you believe in “soul sleep?”
Is that what you are telling me?
Personally, I believe the Bible teaches that all who die in Christ Jesus are in the same situation as the Apostle Paul who said that he longed to depart and be with the Lord.
The passages in Revelation demonstrate that the dead in Christ are aware, in heaven, and with the Lord.
About the alleged sinlessness of John the Babdiss (Local pronunciation - the 't' is silent)(hereinafter "J the B"):
Actually, to get all technical, the contention is not that J the B was without sin his entire life. It’s that, since he gave his life to Jesus at the Visitation, we, or some of us, believe that before he was BORN (but after he was conceived - therefore NOT all his life) grace began to dominate his life.
So he was not conceived w/o sin, but he was, the contention is, born in a state of grace. I don’t think this is de fide, but I could be wrong.
As for “to God be glory, not man”: if that is meant as a criticism of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception or of this claim about J the B, I’m astonished. You know, or should know, that we think these things are entirely by God’s power and grace, and not man’s doing at all. It’s not, in the first consideration, that Mary and J the B are such swell people. It’s that God is a remarkably and always surprisingly swell (to use the theological term) God, and they are recipients of remarkably swell gifts. That Mary and J the B are swell afterwards is God’s doing.
And that’s why on “their” days, we don’t have services "to" them, but praise and thank God for His mighty acts.
All I see at Fatima is this nonsense of Mary giving three direct orders. It is rather dangerous practice in my mind of listening to someone who is dead even if she made the sun danced.
Unless I misread this paragraph it sounds as if you trust and believe in Him more and more because of all the miracles around you. You seem to confirm this with your statement:
I'm going to have to do some personal inventorying before I give a confident answer, but my off the top of my head answer is that I view miracles and emotional experiences as "lollipops". They're not nutritious, but they're fun. In my uncharitable moments (like, when I'm awake) I have been known to disparage what I call "consolation junkies", people whose entire focus seems to be on "special" stuff, and not on the normal day to day wonder that God loves us. But, y'know, every once in a while, I REALLY need a pat on the back, and I'm grateful when I get it.
While miracles do happen, it is dangerous practice to place too much emphasis on them one way or another.
No argument there. Do we love God for who He is, or for the lollipops? (But when He gives me a lollipop, I'm not only not going to throw it away, I'm going to say, Woah! Looky THAT!"
And it occurs to me that it's those exclamations that lead people to think that it's ALL - or too much of -- our discourse. It's funny, what gets the press and sort of dominates the popular discourse is the face of Mary in the grill cheese sammich. But, I spent about half an hour this AM going over an article about "porneia" as used in the LXX, in secular Greek literature, in the NT, and the words in the MT that the LXX use of porneia translates.
If it weren't for the pornographic side of it, that wouldn't be newsworthy at all. When I did the same thing, years ago, about mysterion, who would have cared? (Some guy was saying there's not much evidence of the word outside religious lit so we can't know what it means, so I was checking his assertion. It's not that I (blush) have any, special interst, koff koff, ahem, in, ah porneia, you understand ....) (But I have some Greek vases you really should see .....)(or maybe not.)
Back to my Oxford Eddumicated god-mother: In the Church of England they sing hymns by John Newman. He is known (If lamentend, for kissing the Pope's toe) as an intelligent and learned man. His Apologia pro Vita Sua, is not an enthusiastic simple-minded work.
Yet Godmother Dora characterized RCs as superstitious. This is, I think a result of "the sensational press" which is more fun and diverting than the reality of a 59 year old drinking coffee with some big fat books open in front of him, hoping that his failing memory will be able to retain some of what he reads.
So while Fatima gets the press, and a lot of serious, thoughtful RC are very involved with it (J2P2 sent the bullet which wounded him to the chapel there), it's really not as official as the long, verbose, technical, rarely lovely documents of Vatican II which are our bread and butter (as opposed to lollipops).
Even the inclusion of the so-called Fatima Prayer ("Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of Hell. Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy.") after each decade in the Rosary,is merely the popular alteration of what is a popular devotion - admittedly VERY popular. It's a perfectly good Rosary without the Fatima prayer, and when someone says, "But our Lady ASKED us to say it," that's more from enthusiasm than officialdom.
Why should we pray that God reveals to us something new about Mary? What is written in scripture is written and there isn't a whole lot of information in scripture about Mary.Well, how about this? There is a disagreement between, as it were, two courts, as I said above. So it's time for an appeal. You say, as if it were conclusive, that we already have Scripture (and that what we're asserting is "something new". But we have a different understanding of the role of Scripture in establishing doctrine (and also of the newness of the question.) If one wee to stand back, as if not already in one or the other camp, and pray, that's going to the final authority -- and in my comparison with the court system, an appeal to a higher court for a resolution of conflicting decisions.
One court's saying, "But we're right," is, at this point, sort of irrelevant. We already knew you think you're right.
But look. I say again: A RC says, "Pray to God," and you are saying, "No! Don't! It's dangerous!" And yet we are the ones said to be deficient in trusting God.
“But look. I say again: A RC says, “Pray to God,” and you are saying, “No! Don’t! It’s dangerous!” And yet we are the ones said to be deficient in trusting God.”
Actually someone said praying to Jesus about Mary was like asking an Ouija Board for an answer.
blasphemy anyone?
That was HarleyD and what I think he said was the praying to Mary for ... was .... .
I guess we can just rear back and call each other nasty names, or we can try to work our way through it, at least to the point where something resembling communication is happening. On those rare occasions when I manage to keep my cool, I prefer working toward communication. I don't think there's the mens rea< for blasphemy here because HarleyD and many of the others, are doing what looks to them like defending God's honor against li'l ol' us.
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