Posted on 09/06/2009 3:50:15 PM PDT by NYer
And in a big way. A lot of you have seen the great ads produced by a group called Catholics Come Home. The ads, evidently, are working. And spreading.
From the Los Angeles Times:
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento is home to nearly 1 million Catholics. On a typical Sunday, less than 137,000 can be found in church.Curious to see what all the fuss is about? Check out the videos below. And you can find more at the Catholics Come Home link.
Now, using a strategy straight from the secular playbook, its leaders hope to lure back those who have drifted.
The diocese and nearly a dozen others across the country are preparing to air several thousand prime-time TV commercials in English and Spanish, inviting inactive Catholics to return to their religious roots.
In addition to Sacramento, dioceses in Chicago, Omaha, Providence, R.I., and four other cities will launch the “Catholics Come Home” advertising blitz during Advent, the period before Christmas.
Four more dioceses will follow during Lent next spring. Los Angeles is not among the initial group but could be part of a nationwide campaign slated for December 2010.
"I'm hoping that a significant number of people will give us another look," Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto said of the campaign. "Many Catholics have a sense of believing but not always a sense of belonging."
The potential audience is huge.
Only about one-quarter of U.S. Catholics say they attend Mass every week, and a majority go to religious services a few times a year or less, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, which conducts social science research about the Catholic church.
Researchers there also found that two-thirds of Catholics believe they can be good members of their faith without attending Mass regularly.
Inactive Catholics cite a number of reasons for their absence. Many do not believe that missing Mass is a sin, the center reported. Others say they are too busy with family or work, or, as other analysts point out, are more interested in material happiness than spiritual fulfillment.
"There is a strange pattern of people who aren't practicing but still have beliefs and pick up parts of the faith," said Mark Gray, a research associate with the center. "They may give up meat on Fridays during Lent or attend Ash Wednesday services."
Exactly. It is a first hand account by G-d Himself. As a matter of fact, the Torah was written 974 generations before the world was created.
It is certainly open to allegory
Of course it is. But it is still literally and historically true.
since a scientific explanation of Creation would be of absolutely no efficacy to an uneducated people wandering in the desert. The equivalent would be a modern revelation to people like us, using string theory.
There is no such thing as a "scientific explanation of Creation," since Creation is a matter of theology and history, not "science."
That said, it certainly COULD have been a six-day creation. I don't deny that.
Just because G-d said something happened doesn't mean it did. Right. Got it.
But it wasn't certainly a six-day creation, given that science - which is given to us from the Divine knowledge, for our implementation (good or bad) - indicates the world to be much older than a few thousand years.
Do you know how silly and meaningless it is for you to say that the universe "looks" such-and-such an age? When Adam was created, by our standards, he looked like an adult, yet he had never been a child since he was created with an adult body. That being the case how can science possibly pronounce on the age of the universe?
The miracles you cite, which are not proven by science, are, by definition, unprovable by science, since they are SUPER-natural.
Yes, just like the creation of the universe from nothing has described in Genesis.
The age of the earth is not a supernatural subject. It's all about nature. And so, good science can verify.
Gynecology also isn't a scientific subject, so I guess J*sus couldn't have possibly been born of a virgin, could he?
But, what is good science? Carbon dating COULD be completely wrong. It could be completely right. But guess what - it's irrelevant to our salvation what happens in the course of nature. Those miracles - the supernatural - the thumbprints of God - those are absolutely relevant to our salvation.
The fact that you think G-d is all about something you call "salvation" is your problem. The Torah is not about salvation. It is the blueprint, the DNA, the genetic code of everything. It's what you Notzerim call the "Logos." More proof that chr*stianity is inherently flawed by nature.
And who determines what is literal and what is allegory? The ancient popes? The church fathers? The councils? No sirree. "Science" determines what is literal and what is allegory. Except that "science" dare not do the same thing to the "new testament" that it does to the "old" our you'll tell it where to get off.
The Church has only defined a few instances in Scripture which must be taken only literally.
And I bet they're all in the "new testament," correct?
And as I mentioned above, science can't touch the New Testament because science cannot explain or contradict something that is supernatural.
Gotcha. "Science" can tear the Holy Torah to shreds but daren't open its mouth about your precious "superior" chr*stian "miracles." Your religion is better. G-d never did anything supernatural until two thousand years ago. Up until then nobody knew anything. Got it. Um--why don't you people just throw the "old testament" out since its literal truth is so dangerous to your religion?
So, science has effectively "no comment" on the New Testament miracles you speak of.
See above.
The creation of the world out of nothing is a miracle that science cannot explain. But science can certainly explain how long its been around.
Science looks at a universe fully formed 5769 years ago and pronounces it "old" based on how it "looks" based on modern conditions. Just like it would have looked at newly-created Adam and said he had been born some twenty years previously.
You folks are a work.
You know, it isn't just Genesis you people don't believe in. There's the whole thing about the Book of Daniel being a pseudepigraph from the Maccabeean period disguised as a prophecy of the future from the past. You want to take a break and defend that little gem?
Get it wherever you want, but attribute it so others might judge its credibility...unless you're ashamed of the source. LOL
...it is pro Christian...
There's nothing pro-Christian in denying the Christian faith of others.
It should be to anyone trying to toe the literal line. If you're going to be literal about the time line, your answer shouldn't be much higher than 7000 years or so.
When God says there is no evolution, I believe Him...
Such is your interpretation of what God says.
Yes I do.
Petronski, that is your only and never ending defense...I try not to interpret the scripture...I just believe what it says...
When God says the sky is blue, I don't have to dig into philosophy and then ask your religion if that's how they see it...I look up into the sky...
It's your religion that constantly adds it's private interpretation to scripture...
IIRC, you were once Catholic and then ceased being Catholic for whatever reason (no, I do not need to know why because that is your business and not mine). When you ceased being Catholic, you forfeited the standing to be part of any debate on what Catholics ought to believe. Outsiders view Catholics as arrogant but there is really no reason for any Catholic to engage in such debates with non-Catholics (which is why you should not be infuriated, absolutely or otherwise) and, if non-Catholics were as convinced of their. At best, non-Catholics rely on Scripture (as they respectively interpret it, every man or woman being his or her own pope). Now, non-Catholics cannot very well rely on any pope because they have never had one. Oh, bereft of the ability to rely on the office of Peter created by Jesus Christ to wield the keys of authority, it is understandable that non-Catholics simply MUST have something theoretically outside themselves to which they may point to try and convince others.
Since there are so many disputes among the reformed themselves as to the meaning of Scripture on so many points, and no reformed pope to whom they may turn to resolve the squabbling in a manner satisfactory to the reformation, it necessarily follows that non-Catholic Christians have to settle for do-it-yourself theology. A book, some reading lessons and a good heart are generally enough because what else could there be without violating the reformation?
If the actual Martin Luther were alive today, he would be busily torching the buildings of the Evangelical Lutheran "Church" in America on the heels of their approval of active lavenders openly practicing their ministries as, well, active lavenders. Likewise Jean Cauvin and Zwingli would be giving the same treatment to the worst of their alleged heirs. Or in response to the acceptance of abortion by so many of their alleged heirs. Killer Tiller was gunned down while serving as an usher at a Wichita ELCA church. Standards are not a high priority among such people.
Now to the failings of the Roman Catholic Church because no dereliction, failure, negligence or active evil among the reformed, however great in magnitude, excuses a single failure of the people or leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. All too slowly, the Vatican is cleansing the ranks of AmChurch liberal bishops. Most of the Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas dioceses have been reclaimed for the actual Faith. Likewise, California (although Roger Cardinal McPhony still has a few years before retirement. The National Conference of "Catholic" Bishops is closing in on having an actually Catholic majority for the first time in a verrrry long time. Law of Boston is gone (replaced by the verrrry marginally better O'Malley) and so is Weakland of Milwaukee, Untener of Saginaw, O'Brien of Phoenix, Flores of Galveston-Houston (imagine those poor Galveston folks who had Flores as Archbishop and Al Qaeda plaything paleoPaulie as their Congresscritter), Cardinal McCarrick is gone even if he was replaced by Archbishop Wuerl. Baltimore has an actually Catholic Archbishop for the first time in a long time. There is a serious Vatican investigation of the convents and nuns in the US.
While Catholicism teaches the inerrancy of Scripture (Pascendi Domenici Gregis) whatever more modernist souls within may imagine, Catholics typically do not obsess on Scripture as do non-Catholics. We have no ambition to become do-it-yourself theologians when we have actual popes. So, if some da*ned fool or other, posing (or being sincerely convinced of being) Catholic thinks that he/she may have "descended" from apes which clearly is NOT what Genesis and G-d through Moses say (although it may be evidence that evos may be descended from apes while the rest of us are of the line of Adam and Eve), I lose less sleep than I would over the enthusiastically pro-abortion voting records of such "catholics" as Ted the Swimmer, Chris Dodd, John F'n Kerry (who served in Vietnam if you have not heard), Rosa DeLauro, Kathleen Sebelius, Tiny Tom Daschle, Patty Murray, Mary Landrieu, Susan Collins, Bulldyke Mikulski, or Tricky Dick Durbin or so many, many others, SCOTUS Justice dead William Brennan included.
Personally, I would concede that G-d COULD have used evolution to bring about mankind, but He did not say so and He did seem to say that he brought about mankind on His own by breathing a soul into clay. Darwin? G-d? Hmmmmmm. I'm going with G-d on that one.
One may reasonably have Faith in G-d. Who, in his or her right mind, would venture to have "faith" in "science" much less allow it to judge G-d?
I understand that Hebrew has a confusing word for periods of time. Written without a "breathing" mark, it may mean almost any period of time: hour, day, week, month, year, era or whatever. In spoken Hebrew, the meaning was clear. The breathing has been lost (as I understand it) and the common translation of this word as "day" as in the six days of Creation is not without controversy. To me, the issue is resolved by the fact that God created the world and all within, not the specific meaning of this troublesome and ambiguous term for periods of time. There is the potential for confusion in any use of language. Our faith is in G-d and not in His translators.
There ought be no distinction between the treatment of the words of G-d in the Old Testament and His words in the New. Miracles have occurred in Christianity. Mary really did appear to three children at Fatima in 1917, to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, to St. Juan Diego near Guadalupe, an executed and resurrected Jesus Christ to a man named Saul on the road to Damascus, Christ's healing of lepers and casting out devils from those possessed, etc., etc. Except for the last three items which are Scriptural, no Catholic is required to believe the rest although many do.
Certainly, Scripture is theologically inerrant. I believe that Scripture is also factually inerrant and inerrant on all subjects whatsoever. People who venerate "science" and genuflect before it seem to violate the First Commandment. Anything that disagrees with G-d is a verrrry strange "god" indeed.
I enjoy the peace with which God has blessed me. I disagree with others and I well understand that others will disagree with me. Free will and all that.
The ultra-traditionalists are not necessarily very traditionalist at all. Defiance of the pope while claiming Catholic status is NOT a Catholic tradition. Nor is offended liturgical taste. They know their prejudices and little else. Hence, their silence and disinterest in the things that matter to actual Catholic traditionalists.
G-d bless you and yours.
If I may intrude with a technical point: If anyone posted anything in #320 to the effect that "the pope enjoys personal perfection", it must have been you since #320 is your post. From your posting history, I had suspected you not to be a Catholic. What was the meaning of "one of your own" in this context?
Perhaps your understanding of papal infallibility is hazy. Infallibility belongs in a special way to the pope as head of the bishops (Matt. 16:17–19; John 21:15–17). As Vatican II remarked, it is a charism the pope "enjoys in virtue of his office, when, as the supreme shepherd and teacher of all the faithful, who confirms his brethren in their faith (Luke 22:32), he proclaims by a definitive act some doctrine of faith or morals. Therefore his definitions, of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, are justly held irreformable, for they are pronounced with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, an assistance promised to him in blessed Peter." Christ instructed the Church to preach everything he taught (Matt. 28:19–20) and promised the protection of the Holy Spirit to "guide you into all the truth" (John 16:13). That mandate and that promise guarantee the Church will never fall away from his teachings (Matt. 16:18, 1 Tim. 3:15), even if individual Catholics might. You can read a more indepth description of papal infallibility here along with examples.
Since you claim this doctrine is false, please provide an example of a document or doctrine, infallibly taught, that is erroneous.
The “rock” is not the person of Peter, but his confession.
Do you have a scriptural reference for this?
Dear friend, you are confusing infallibility with inpeccability. See the post above with more details on infallibility.
Do you think Mary enjoyed it when Jesus looked at her and called her, “Woman”? Judging from the mothers I’ve known, it stabbed her heart every time - and I believe Jesus HAD to do it to counter the worship of the “Queen of Heaven, Spouse of the Holy Spirit” that would arise in the Catholic Church.
Well, FWIW, back when I was a protestant they taught me that "γυναι" was a respectful form of address. I always wondered how they knew that, but that's what those who enthusiastically repudiate the Catholic dogmata on Mary said.
I'm intrigued with the suggestion that IHS would be cruel to his mother in order to lay a predicate to argue against future theological errors. That's kind of a mariological statement.
When one stops calling Mary blessed by God, and starts calling her Mrs God, one crosses from respect to worship.
"bride of Christ".here and here. Or is it only blasphemous when applied to Mary?
How is not erring in matters of faith or morals equivalent or identical to enjoying personal perfection? They seem very different to me, as different as the clear water and the rusty and cracked conduit which brings it to me.
By Whom and on what?
Are you suggesting that humans are simply robots and NEVER had any free will?
More proof that chr*stianity is inherently flawed by nature.
"Science" can tear the Holy Torah to shreds but daren't open its mouth about your precious "superior" chr*stian "miracles." Your religion is better. G-d never did anything supernatural until two thousand years ago. Up until then nobody knew anything. Got it. Um--why don't you people just throw the "old testament" out since its literal truth is so dangerous to your religion?
I'm curious, do you also spread your hatred on Protestant or Evangelical threads or is it just confined to Catholic threads? Has it ever once occurred to you that non-Catholic Christians agree with Catholics on nearly everything?
Can you show me ANYWHERE that you have gone into a Calvinist or Evangelical thread and stated that Christianity "is inherently flawed by nature"?
I dare not even ponder what the reaction would be if someone were to state that Judaism "is inherently flawed by nature"
Now, now, it's far easier to attack the reprehensible personal natures of a small group of popes than it is to find any error taught. The irony is that the corrupt popes typically didn't teach ANYTHING because they weren't really concerned with such matters.
Some find it difficult to differentiate what a pope TAUGHT with what he actually did in his personal life.
Perhaps this illustration will make it easier:
Jimmy Swaggart certainly taught that it was sinful to go to prostitutes and commit adultery. The fact that he was later caught frequenting prostitutes and committing adultery DOES NOT make what he taught any less valid.
It's not my only defense, but with you, it's the only one I need. Your interpretation of Scripture is not Scripture. Only Scripture is Scripture.
Anything that is not a direct quote from Scripture is . . . wait for it . . . NOT Scripture.
And if it is overcast that day, or nighttime, your method makes God a liar.
A fine bit of wisdom to keep in mind when reading your posts.
Since there are so many disputes among the reformed themselves as to the meaning of Scripture on so many points, and no reformed pope to whom they may turn to resolve the squabbling in a manner satisfactory to the reformation, it necessarily follows that non-Catholic Christians have to settle for do-it-yourself theology. A book, some reading lessons and a good heart are generally enough because what else could there be without violating the reformation?
I am not responsible for what Protestant chr*stians believe or don't believe. I have argued with them many times on this forum, though I've never had to argue with them about the historical accuracy of the Hebrew Bible. But before I started scolding Protestants for interpreting the Bible on their own, I'd take a good look at your own church's (and the other ancient churches') rejection of the immemorial Sinaitic interpretation which comes from the very Mouth of G-d, declaring it the "doctrine and commandments of men." And you wonder where Protestants got that idea? Look in the mirror. Martin Luther did no more than J*sus and Paul himself in rejecting a religion founded publicly, before some three million people, by the very uncreated, unincarnate G-d Himself (not someone claiming to have spoken to G-d or someone claiming to be G-d). Having done that, it ill behooves any Catholic, Orthodox, or other liturgical chr*stian to poke fun at the short histories and human founders of their religions. As I said to another poster on this thread, pot, meet kettle.
Now to the failings of the Roman Catholic Church because no dereliction, failure, negligence or active evil among the reformed, however great in magnitude, excuses a single failure of the people or leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. All too slowly, the Vatican is cleansing the ranks of AmChurch liberal bishops. Most of the Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas dioceses have been reclaimed for the actual Faith.
If you're including your beliefs in the total historical inerrancy of Scripture, then I doubt very seriously that the "actual faith" is being restored anywhere. The Vatican is not going to appoint any total inerrantists because 1) there are no total inerrantists to appoint, and 2) no one at today's Vatican believes in total inerrancy--and certainly not the current Pope, for all his alleged "fundamentalism."
While Catholicism teaches the inerrancy of Scripture (Pascendi Domenici Gregis) whatever more modernist souls within may imagine, Catholics typically do not obsess on Scripture as do non-Catholics. We have no ambition to become do-it-yourself theologians
But I thought Catholics were intellectuals and Fundamentalist Protestants were imbeciles! Guess that shows what I know.
BTW, while I doubt you will understand this, my obsession with the Bible is for the sake of history as much as it is theology. Since most Catholics are members of ethnic groups who trace their ancestry all the way back to a primordial microscopic globule (and are constantly boasting of the nobility of their heritage), some of us have no historical memory at all. Some of us have no idea where we came from, or when, or why, or how (we're called "rednecks"). In fact, some of us don't even know when all our grandparents were born. Now I'm sure that's no problem for Irish or Poles or Hispanics or descendants of the holy French royal family, but the ancestors recorded in Genesis are the only ancestors I know anything about. Anyone who wants to take that away from me because he doesn't need it is in for a world of trouble.
So, if some da*ned fool or other, posing (or being sincerely convinced of being) Catholic thinks that he/she may have "descended" from apes which clearly is NOT what Genesis and G-d through Moses say (although it may be evidence that evos may be descended from apes while the rest of us are of the line of Adam and Eve), I lose less sleep than I would over the enthusiastically pro-abortion voting records of such "catholics" as Ted the Swimmer, Chris Dodd, John F'n Kerry (who served in Vietnam if you have not heard), Rosa DeLauro, Kathleen Sebelius, Tiny Tom Daschle, Patty Murray, Mary Landrieu, Susan Collins, Bulldyke Mikulski, or Tricky Dick Durbin or so many, many others, SCOTUS Justice dead William Brennan included.
And yet it is the change in the church's teaching in inerrancy that has emboldened the radicals to believe that all change is possible and that no dogma is permanent and inviolate. Can you imagine the message it would send the feminists and "gays" if the Vatican were to reiterate total historical accuracy in the Bible? But those days are over. The church has changed, and the radicals know that it will change again.
There ought be no distinction between the treatment of the words of G-d in the Old Testament and His words in the New.
And yet there always seems to be. Wonder why?
Miracles have occurred in Christianity. Mary really did appear to three children at Fatima in 1917, to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes, to St. Juan Diego near Guadalupe, an executed and resurrected Jesus Christ to a man named Saul on the road to Damascus, Christ's healing of lepers and casting out devils from those possessed, etc., etc. Except for the last three items which are Scriptural, no Catholic is required to believe the rest although many do.
Certainly many more Catholics believe in the post-scriptural miracles than those "Protestant" ones in the "old testament."
Thank you again.
Exactly. It is a first hand account by G-d Himself. As a matter of fact, the Torah was written 974 generations before the world was created.
By Whom and on what?
By G-d Himself, in "letters of Black Fire upon a scroll of White Fire."
Are you suggesting that humans are simply robots and NEVER had any free will?
Where did I say that? I suppose though that to an incarnationist the idea of something being the pure, actual, and verbatim Words of G-d means that "man has no free will," since your philosophy demands that Divinity always be adulterated.
I'm curious, do you also spread your hatred on Protestant or Evangelical threads or is it just confined to Catholic threads? Has it ever once occurred to you that non-Catholic Christians agree with Catholics on nearly everything?
Obviously they don't agree that much. And the extent they do is because they are an exploited colony of historical chr*stianity by which they are so blinded that they can't think critically about it at all. And their thanks from people like you is to be labeled "extremists," "religious fanatics," and "ignorant and uneducated" (because they don't agree with Catholicism's nineteenth century liberal German Protestant heroes). Thanks for the swell job you've done on them. The more you kick them, the more loyal to you they become.
Can you show me ANYWHERE that you have gone into a Calvinist or Evangelical thread and stated that Christianity "is inherently flawed by nature"?
Let's see . . . their was this Jewish convert to Fundamentalist Protestantism who made a real pest of himself a while back (though he did do his homework). Then there was that little quarrel with topcat54. And there was some other FReeper (name not now remembered) who "proved" chr*stianity by quoting the "new testament" over and over and over and over and over (that's how chr*stians "prove" something), no matter how much I explained to him that I was asking for proof from the Hebrew Bible since quoting the "new testament" was of no more use than quoting the "book of mormon." And he just kept on quoting the "new testament" as his only "proof" of anything and everything.
So yes, I do quarrel with Protestants. However, their hypocrisy is not quite on the level of a Church that boasts of its unchanging antiquity as it continues to modify its beliefs to keep up with current "science," scolds Protestants for discarding "apostolic tradition" when it began its life by rejecting G-d's Sinaitic Tradition (spoken by the Mouth of G-d, not by the mouth of a human being claiming to be G-d), and which ridicules "new" religions with human founders after rejecting the eternal Torah spoken by the Invisible G-d to three million people at Sinai. I'll take G-d in place of any human being any day and any time, whether he claims he has spoken to G-d or claims to be G-d (a capital offense, punishable in Jewish Law by strangulation, which curiously enough . . . but never mind).
I dare not even ponder what the reaction would be if someone were to state that Judaism "is inherently flawed by nature"
Topcat54 did just that. And I asked him to prove it. And . . . do you know what he did? That's right, he quoted the "new testament!" I feel sorry for what awaits him for rejecting the holy word of Joseph Smith, don't you?
A lot of gibberish from someone who is suggesting that 974 generations before mankind it was already written PRECISELY what would happen.
Obviously they don't agree that much. And the extent they do is because they are an exploited colony of historical chr*stianity by which they are so blinded that they can't think critically about it at all. And their thanks from people like you is to be labeled "extremists," "religious fanatics," and "ignorant and uneducated" (because they don't agree with Catholicism's nineteenth century liberal German Protestant heroes). Thanks for the swell job you've done on them. The more you kick them, the more loyal to you they become.
Not quite sure what this gibberish is about. Most Christians acknowledge that the Nicene Creed contains the fundemantal tenets of the Christian faith and this is believed by Catholic AND non-Catholic Christians.
So yes, I do quarrel with Protestants. However, their hypocrisy is not quite on the level of a Church that boasts of its unchanging antiquity as it continues to modify its beliefs to keep up with current "science," scolds Protestants for discarding "apostolic tradition" when it began its life by rejecting G-d's Sinaitic Tradition (spoken by the Mouth of G-d, not by the mouth of a human being claiming to be G-d), and which ridicules "new" religions with human founders after rejecting the eternal Torah spoken by the Invisible G-d to three million people at Sinai.
Good, then it won't be a problem to give me a link showing where you went onto one of their threads and said that Christianity is "inherently flawed by nature".
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