Posted on 05/19/2008 11:09:17 AM PDT by Between the Lines
Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that the Roman Catholic Church has the indisputable right and duty to convert anyone to Christianity.
The Church’s central mission is evangelism, the pope firmly told a Vatican body responsible for encouraging Catholic missionary activity, according to Agence France-Presse.
Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, called on the conversion of “all nations,” Benedict said,” and this commission remains “an obligatory mandate for the entire Church and for every believer in Christ.”
"This apostolic commitment is both a duty and an inalienable right, the very expression of religious freedom with its moral, social and political dimensions," the pontiff said.
Benedict’s address comes two months after he baptized a prominent Muslim author into the Catholic Church during an Easter service that was broadcasted worldwide. The baptism of Egyptian-born, Italian writer Magni Allam infuriated some Muslims who saw the act as an assault on Islam.
But the Vatican had said no hostility was intended in baptizing Allam during a broadcasted Easter ceremony, according to The Associated Press.
While Benedict may assert the right of Christians to convert non-believers to the faith, he has also been ramping up efforts to reach out to moderate Muslims for interfaith dialogues.
The Vatican will host a meeting in Rome with leading Muslim religious leaders and scholars in November to encourage more dialogue between Catholics and Muslims.
Many believe the pope’s increased effort on holding interfaith conversations resulted from Muslim anger towards him after he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who linked Islam with violence in a 2006 speech at Germany’s Regensburg University.
That same year, Benedict traveled to Turkey, visiting Istanbul’s famous Blue Mosque, in an effort to show tolerance of other religions and to demonstrate a spirit of cooperation for peace in light of the rise in Muslim-Christian clashes worldwide.
But Benedict, like his predecessors, remains enthusiastic about promoting missionary zeal among Catholics.
The Vatican published in December a doctrinal note reaffirming the mission of all Catholics to pursue conversion of non-Catholics, including other Christian denominations.
What would Jesus say about that?
"...if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." --Jesus
"I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?" Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him."
Also, we do not "re-sacrifice" Christ - His death did that for all eternity. The Mass re-presents (notice the dash) the same sacrifice, as it is one for eternity, and not constrained by the linear progession of time as we know it.
Ah. Well, hanged if that ain't just what a preacher's supposed to do.
We Christians are so dadblasted thick that even the obvious is tough to accept sometimes. Always good to restate it once in a while in my opinion.
It was a choice. To stay in Spain you had to join up.
About 60,000 Jews left Spain. (This is out of a population of less than a quarter million).
When it came to Moslems there were already laws in place that'd built up over centuries to accommodate shifting political situations involving Moslem princes with Christian subjects, and vice versa.
Rather than "force" conversion, which had been the prior standard, with some folks having been Catholic or Moslem several times over their livespan, the Spanish government offered the Moslems the opportunity to leave as well.
Sure, it was pretty authoritarian, but at the end it was less brutal than it had been in earlier centuries. For the Jews it was a new thing ~ no one wanted to convert the Jews until 1492 ~ they were, as it turned out, the entirity of the industrial capacity of Spain and dominated the intellectual classes.
No one ever accused Ferdinand nor Isabella of being very smart though.
...Therefore, the work of ecumenism does not remove the right or take away the responsibility of proclaiming in fullness the Catholic faith to other Christians, who freely wish to receive it." Key words freely wish to receive it.
Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.If you find that language ambiguous, consider the words of St. Paul:
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep [i.e.,died].
Our church believes there are way too many unsaved out there that belong to no church to worry about those that do. We do not accept new members from any other church unless they have tried to reconcile their differences with that church first.
When everyone claims to be some type of a Christian we will try to sort that out then.
A lot of those Jewish people (mainly from Germany)-—where the Reform Movement was founded anyway(not in America) came here as individual families and really didn’t have a ready made Jewish community to receive them. Now, I can’t say how heavy the pressure to convert was on them. Probably each family or indivdual had their own story. The same thing happened to Irish Catholics who came here before the Revolution and even after—where there weren’t large groups of Irish Catholics. Many became Episcopalian in Colonial days, and many joined some Protestant groups, maybe because of bigotry, maybe because of some expediency, maybe because of intermarriage. If you know your history, the Reform Movement in Germany (middle 1800’s) was to make Jews blend in more with modern society, thus they could partake to a greater extent in society with less bigotry. No German was going to say to a guy in peyes, a full beard, tzitzis, and a caftan “Glad to see ya”. But the Reform Movement to the Orthodox is still anathema.
Eucharist: "Comes from the Greek word meaning "Thanksgiving". It is based on the events that happened at the last supper. All Christian groups perform this service except Salvationists and Quakers."
Hope you were not under the impression that only catholics participate in the Lord's supper.
I am most certain you will. ; )
Actually Ferdy was the real SOB. Isabella was just pretty religious, and did what the Grand Inquisitor told her to do.
In the United States the Catholic Church's central mission is screaming bloody murder every time some poor hapless Protestant sticks a tract under somebody's windshield.
Still, 1492 is not understandable without a grounding in previous Spanish history. Once the Moslems lost all their holdings in Spain, there was no more Mr. Nice Guy!
This is even debatable? I mean, are people in the Catholic Church actually wondering about this?
The complaints come across as the whines of an agrieved aristocrat.
Not that Catholics shouldn't complain if they feel they really have to, but they should always keep in mind how it looks ~ appearances being all in this sort of dispute.
Who said they didn’t have the right and why would they listen to them?
LOL
It’s a different ecclesiology and concept of sin at the root of it. Ecclesiology in that we believe in a visible institutional Church which one can leave. Sin in the sense that one mortal sin can damn one forever—and obstinant heresy is certainly a mortal sin.
Reformed Christians just don’t think that way. First of all, the concept of “mortal sin” that makes you lose your salvation really isn’t there. And the church is invisible anyway, so you can’t really leave it by changing denominations.
Let me say one thing though. A bad Catholic is probably going to hell if they don’t shape up. If said bad Catholic left the Church, and really and truly found Jesus in a Protestant denomination, I’d have to say that person just infinitely increased his chances of getting to heaven from zero to maybe.
He could increase his odds to “most assuredly” if he just became a good Catholic, but that’s for another thread. :)
The complaints come across as the whines of an agrieved aristocrat.
Just as most Jews have forgotten Joshua the Conqueror and redefined themselves as a helpless victimized minority, so American Catholics have traded El Cid, the Crusades, and the Spanish Inquisition for the image of poor, helpless peasants bullied by ee-vil American nativists in the nineteenth century. Just remember, the American Church of that era was identified with labor unions, the Democrat party, and socialism.
The American Catholic Church's attitude towards "NASCAR nation" is identical to that of Hussein Obama.
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