Posted on 07/15/2011 5:01:33 AM PDT by tcg
....some of my colleagues in the world of Catholic media, journalism and the Press have attributed the positions of this Church and Bachmanns past membership to just "being a Protestant." As someone who has worked ecumenically for decades I reject that dismissal. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod does not represent many Protestants. It is an Anti-Catholic body.
....I have worked with, prayed with and collaborated with MANY Protestant Christians, for over three decades, who would NEVER call the successor of Peter the Antichrist. The colleagues to which I refer go further, they seemingly accept the notion that if Protestant Christians felt otherwise they would no longer be Protestant. That is not only overly simplistic, it fails to recognize the substantial issues which divide the broken Body of Christ.
....Some of the other articles I have read ...attempt to dismiss it by pointing to the authors purported political leanings. So, let me speak to that for a moment. I have political leanings. I like Michele Bachmann's positions on the issues which matter most to this Catholic voter. She is pro-Life and defends marriage and the family and society founded upon it.
I appreciate her pledge to reign in the ever expanding size of the Federal government, which I fear threatens the principle of subsidiarity. Finally, I had been impressed with her intelligence, her oratorical skills, her background and her presence. All of this made her my second favorite possible candidate, until now. My first choice is obvious to anyone who reads my ongoing political commentary.
However, her political and policy positions were not the point of Joshua Green's article and focusing upon them may be a form of deflection. Green raised the issue of Michele Bachmann's long standing identification with a Church body which is clearly Anti-Catholic....
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
But the Romans have put on top of biblical statements (whose manuscripts date at latest to the first century AD, questions of the date of official recognition aside) stipulations that certain earthly artifacts not mentioned in those statements are a must for incorporation into a valid faith. We’re expected to believe that the apostles were either written a blank check from the bible with no closure of doctrine, or that they were talking about this stuff from the word go and nobody bothered to record it till much later.
The article that originated this also grudgingly says that Michele disavows this and that she is no longer a member of the WELS church.
Deacon Fournier fell for a leftist media trick, just as the "let's hang some Catholics today" freepers are doing on this thread.
Thank you SoftballMominVA again for giving us the facts from the ground.
Yo, Keith. Uhhhhhhh....why don’t you tell us a little about your views of Protestantism?
I am a product of your era, and a small town of many faiths and some vestiges of old world schism (socially) between protestants and catholics
however
why do I smell BS in this story and believe those kids would have beat you up regardless of any religious affiliations?
Hmm, didn’t know that thanks. I don’t read his stuff very often.
Yeah, some of those third-way types become so doctrinaire in equal opportunity criticism that they become more rigid than the partisans they condemn.
I’m not even all that much a fan of Bachmann (for President anyway). But she’s definitely getting a bum wrap in this piece.
The discussion brings back memories of my youth, and my brothers, spent in a German Lutheran grade school. My church and school were USA oriented but also very anti catholic which had two grade schools in my city. My brother and I were very much into sports like basketball, baseball,and softball. We could barely field a school basketball team for city tournaments, giving up an extra free throw when any one had the fifth or more fouls. For softball my older brother and I joined in with boys from the other two catholic schools because we knew them and played baseball as teammates. The public schools didn’t like the parochial schools. The year our mixed softball team won the city wide tournament the city newspaper covering the games gave particular notice to my brother (he was a very good player) and me. When the principal of our school read about us playing on a team under a Catholic schools name he called us in for a lecture about the wrongs and dangers of our actions. If it had not been for influence by our godparents and others in the church we might have been expelled. Such was the religious relations/differences at the time.
Yo, Keith. Why don’t you give us a little taste of what Catholics think of Mormonism.
Instead it's pure divide and conquer. And our freepers are falling for it.
Amen.
and THAT is bogus -- this discussion has nothing to do with Bachman but is a ploy to get conservatives to fight and perhaps then associate Michele with divisiveness.
Your inlaws are Feeneyites. It is true that among the sede-vacantists and extreme “Traditionalists” you will find this asserted. It’s one reason a lot of them reject Vatican II, saying Vatican II changed Catholic teaching from “all non-Catholics go to hell.”
But that’s false. Not even Unam Sanctam says that. When Fr. Feeney started teaching it in the 1940s, he was disciplined.
If you in-laws truly believe this, they are rejecting the express magisterial teaching of the Church.
But first you need to be sure you have not misunderstood their position. The Catholic teaching is that those who KNOWINGLY reject the Catholic faith are damned. But with all the confusion for centuries following the great schisms, most people don’t knowingly reject the Church but unknowingly reject it. If your inlaws truly believe that all non-Catholics go to hell, they are rejecting Catholic teaching but may be doing so out of invincible ignorance.
Or they may be knowingly doing so. You can’t know for sure, I can’t know for sure, only God knows for sure just who is culpable for holding false positions.
All I can do is state what the teaching is—as others have posted, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Dominus Iesus etc. If your inlaws look at the CCC and say, “I reject that because it’s tained by modernist doctrine,” then they MIGHT be knowingly rejecting Catholic teaching.
Or they might be doing so out of misinformation from their anti-Vatican-II circles. Only they can examine their conscience and decide which is the case.
But various people on this thread have cited abundantly the actual teaching of the Church. You can deny it, reject it, think you know better. And it may or may not be your fault. It all depends on what you in your heart of heart know—whether you have honestly sought to find out the truth about Catholicism or Mormonism or Marxism or Ayn Randianism or . . . . We are judged by God on whether we knew the truth and rejected it and whether we honestly tried to find the truth, whether not-knowing the truth was our fault or the fault of snake-oil salesmen we should have smoked out.
The author is in the attack mode. I am in the sad mode watching the of him and you dividing Christians into warring camp. I pray God can let you see that.
I’m WELS too. Just wait until “they” find out only men can vote in congregational meetings!
WELS has it on their website: Statement on the Antichrist.
They go through the history with Luther, various Synods views and then affirm as a current doctrinal view that the Roman Catholic Papacy is the antichrist.
That few evangelicals take it seriously shows where her church exists on the continuum.
Membership in a divisive church would only add to the Bachmann-candidate Obama parallels of holding a law degree, having no executive experience and no effective legislative record.
Considering the Pope is not just a religious leader but head of state, her beliefs in this regard could make diplomatic relations difficult. She may also support efforts to marginalize the Holy See at the UN.
So you were beat up by bullies as a kid. Those bullies happened to be catholic. Those same bullies told you the priest said they were justified. And you believed them? This argument is so rediculous It’s down right pathetic. The entire catholic church is bad because some catholic kids were jerks. Ok....
And, the 'really digging' has just begun. The reason is. the left knows that the right will fall for this tactic time after time after time. Ron White is correct. 'You can't fix stupid'.
You have this author (probably an atheist, definitely a leftist)pegged exactly. Using ancient religious fights to drive wedges between conservative Christians.
Truly despicable, and disheartening to see Christians falling for it.
I’m thinking that we need to get denomination-specific religion out of the discussion.
John Leland (1754-1841), a friend of James Madison, led the Baptists in Virginia in the struggle for true religious freedom. “After the Constitution was adopted, Leland rejoiced that it would be possible for a ‘Pagan, Turk, Jew or Christian’ to be eligible for any post or office in the government.” (The Writings of John Leland, ed. L.F. Greene. New York: Arno Press, 1969, p. 191.)
Let’s elect a president who LOVES and defends the Constitution and the ideal of true liberty and freedom of religion. If the ideals of the Constitution are the #1 passion of a president, then every American’s equal freedom to worship will endure. If we lose that — and we are losing that — we (Christians) are screwed.
As a Baptist for 60+ years raised in a parsonage, and a conservative, a selfish goal would be for everyone in America to be evangelical Christian. But that would be so wrong under our Constitution. Everyone should be able to worship the way they want to — or not worship at all. By the same token, everyone should recognize others’ rights and not stifle them. Christians are being stifled now, and that’s because the Constitution isn’t being recognized.
Obama hates the Constitution. He hates America. He needs to be defeated if we’re to keep our freedoms.
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