Posted on 04/05/2009 4:11:27 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
Congressional Quarterly has posted a transcript of “Fox News Sunday,” including this exchange between Chris Wallace and Newt Gingrich about the former House speaker’s conversion to Catholicism:
WALLACE: Mr. Gingrich, you have been a Baptist most of your life, and last Sunday you converted to Catholicism. Why, sir?GINGRICH: I’m not talking about this much publicly, but let me just say that I found over the course of the last decade, attending the basilica, meeting with Monsignor Rossi, reading the literature, that there was a peace in my soul and a sense of well being in the Catholic Church, and I found the mass of conversion last Sunday one of the most powerful moments of my life.
WALLACE: You have — it’s no secret — been married and divorced twice. Will you be able to participate fully in communion and all the other rites of the Catholic Church?
GINGRICH: Yes, we have done everything within the law of the church, following all of the rules of the church over the last 10 years. And it’s been a process. It’s been a very long process and something which was deeply affected, in part, by Pope Benedict XVI’s visit and the opportunity I had to sit in — as you know, my wife, Calista, sings at the basilica every Sunday, and I was allowed as a spouse to be there as part of the vespers program when the pope came. It’s been a long process.
WALLACE: And if I might ask, just briefly, what is it about the pope’s visit that led to this?
GINGRICH: I really believe, first of all, seeing the joy in his eyes, listening to his message, and I really believe that his basic statement, Christ our hope, is right. And I think much of what’s wrong with our country and with the western world is a function of looking inside ourselves, not just looking at money or looking at our wallets.
let’s see...newt sinned ( not really because his divorces and remarriages were not forbidden in the Baptist denomination....all he had to do to come home to Catholocism was to have the church determine that his previous marriages were not valid....in fact he needn’t even need to do that much....if one of his marriages were determined to be valid, he would merely not be able to remarry. The sacrament of reconciliation , faithfully entered into, enables Christ to forgive you of even the most heinous sins....that’s who Jesus is.....He told you that....please listen.......whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven, whose sins you retain, they are retained....I thought you were a bible believer......almost all of the bible doesn’t count.....you knew that!!!
It is sad to think that devout followers of the original and True Christian Church, the Catholic Church - who are unshakable in their Faith can't be coaxed into leaving their Faith with a few select out of context uses of scripture to bash the Faith they hold dear? You think that's sad? I think it is wonderful that there are many people who understand and live their Faith so strongly that they can't be conned out of it. Nothing sad about that.
Newt has a lot of failings, one of which is effort to be liked by both sides and to tailor his remarks accordingly. My prayer is that frequent confession will grant him a bit more courage in such situations and make him less enamored of publicity.
And I am one of them. But if you follow the entire discussion, you will see I was referring to the so-called born agains who attack the Catholic Church. My point was that no good Catholic who understands his Faith will fall for their mis-characterizations of what the Church teaches. Of all the "former Catholics" I have met who left to join one of those corner-store churches, not a single one of them had an understanding of what the Church truly teaches.
Good prayer!
bumpus ad summum
Thank you- withdrawn- you sound correct here.
I’m pretty lame on validity of marriages as such are rife everywhere and I can’t admit it, can I, for almost all co-workers and guests to my parent’s house would be sleeping together illegally- so I choose to stay blind!
There fixed it. You see that is what the Jesus actually said was "Born from above." Only someone smart enough to actually read the NT in Greek would know that, not someone that sat in the pews taking a fundie pastors word for it.
And I think much of what’s wrong with our country and with the western world is a function of looking inside ourselves, not just looking at money or looking at our wallets.
Newt, Newt, Newt. Where were you when RR said, "There is nothing wrong with this country that cannot be cured by what is right with this country."
“As a traditionalist Catholic I find it impossible NG be married three times and be allowed full Communion.”
This subject has been hashed over and over on FR! Newt’s first wife is now deceased, so that marriage has no bearing on the matter of his marital status. It’s my understanding that Marianne, Newt’s second wife, was divorced when they married, and that puts into doubt the validity of his second marriage in the eyes of the church.
None of us really knows the entire story of Newt’s marriages as to whether they are obstacles for his receiving the sacraments of the Catholic Church. So, I think we should lay this subject to rest.
This is yet another place we differ from the institutional religion of Rome. You folks require the membership into the group, then go through all kinds of gyrations with these ridiculous pronouncements to hold the club together. The believers in Christ alone have no “religion” and are made members by Him alone. If He doesn’t make a member, then they cannot be part of Him. We have no rosters, we have no rolls, we have no gyrations. We let Christ sort out the sheep from the goats. And we have no co-redemptrix.
Yes. I recall two years ago seeing the canard about how unlikely it would be for anyone to go from the Senate to the white house, then the top three candidates were all senators...
The GOP is nothing more than the democratic party of 40 years ago. Times have changed. BTW, I do not care for Newt and probably would not vote for him.
No one can be born again as an infant. They may be consecrated to God but to ber born again demands a human choice. Will you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour or not?
No, Ann, it really isn’t. Being born again demands a choice, do I want the Lord Jesus Christ in my life or don’t I? Baptism may seal it but it’s not salvational.
We are all born of water. The mother’s placenta is water. First we are born naturally and then, hopefully, we are born of the Spirit when we receive Christ into our lives. IMHO, of course. Baptism is not a born again experience. We must first be saved and THEN baptized. It is necessary but not until we’ve been born of the Spirit.
Amen, Brilliant. Faith and then works that God has planned for you to do since the foundations of the world were laid. It’s never the other way around.
The Church that Christ established is His body, the Body of Christ, which means all of us who have believed on Him for our salvation. It’s not a denominational thing, it’s a people in Christ thing.
How do you know if someone is truly born again or is a ‘so-called’ born again? Only God knows the heart, Dan.
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