The Big Discovery [by David, former Presbyterian]

Journeyof ImperfectSaint.blogspot.com ^ | October 4, 2009 | David

[Salvation]

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Big Discovery

        I made some good friends outside my church and found out that they were all Catholics.  Now, I did not know much about Catholicism at the time.  By the way, the Mass did seem somewhat mysterious to me externally.  In fact, what little I had heard from other church members was all negative.  There was a Mrs. J at my church, who had just retired from her missionary post in China.  She was such a kind and endearing soul to all.  One day she got back from visiting someone at a hospital and looked extremely sad and disturbed.  It turned out that when she got to the hospital room, she saw that a Catholic priest was already there with the patient.  Now the question was if the patient would ever get to heaven. 

 

        Nevertheless, my Catholic friends all looked quite normal and happy.  Then could the Catholic Church, the largest church in the the world, be in error?  It so happened that at that time I was also beginning to question my Protestant faith.  The fact that there were numerous different denominations around the world bothered me.  Also, as a Protestant, whether you're a minister or lay person, you are free to marry and divorce any number of times.  It's hard to see that Jesus would be happy with these two facts.  Since I am the kind of person who always likes to find the answer to any question that's important, I decided to look into Catholicism.

 

        I made up my mind not to talk to anyone about my investigation.  I was single then and had a lot of free time to myself.  The local public library housed an excellent collection of books on Catholicism, so I started borrowing books on the subject.  I read every weekend, even taking notes as I read.  The went on for over a year.  I read all those books that viciously attack the Catholic Church too, but somehow they did not affect me much because I sensed that these attacks could not have been prompted by the Holy Spirit.  The books that really helped me were the ones on early Church history.  I could see that the continuity was there and the beliefs and practices of the early Church had been preserved to this day in the Catholic Church.  The only conclusion I could come to was that the Catholic Church was indeed the church Jesus had come and established.  Like Christ himself, the Church, being his body, must be accepted (or rejected) totally, with no middle ground. 

 

        Here's some advice for those who seek the truth.  Your chances of success will greatly improve if, first, you start out with a completely open mind and secondly, go to the source(s) directly to get the facts.  Many who misunderstand the Catholic Church today have already made up their mind that the Church is wrong, thus never bothering to pick up a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to find out what the Church really teaches.  This is being close-minded. 

[boatbums]

I have the latest in Norton Anti-virus software and I have no problem nor warnings when I go there. I would never intentionally direct anyone to a site that was not safe. I can copy the entire article and FRmail it to you. Let me know.

[boatbums]

Why don't you post Iscool's response when you guys turned the thread into a personal attack on him? He said in post #102:

Certainly you don't think I was serious...I asked a Baptist if they allowed drinking alcohol at his Baptist church...The implication was that being a Catholic, I wanted a new church where drinking booze was acceptable...

Guess that wasn't so funny since it's hard to find a sober Catholic on a Saturday night...No wonder you thought I was serious...

There, he said he was not being serious and making a joke. Can we expect to see this kind of attack stopped now???

[count-your-change]

No reply. Again.

[boatbums]

Praise God! Thanks for your testimony.

[Natural Law]

"No reply. Again."

Keep thinking and praying. With God's help maybe you will overcome that writers block.

Peace be with you.

[Iscool]

Thank you for coming to my defense...

[Natural Law]

"Utter rot."

If it is OK to say all Catholics are fools and and deceitful would it be OK to say all Ukrainians are are fools and deceitful, or would that be making it personal?

Pokój niech będzie z wami

[dfwgator]

I bet it’s going to be a very tense day there in Warsaw with the big game tomorrow.

[Jvette]

I have norton too so I don’t know why I got that message.

It said, “STOP” Attack site.

At first, I thought it was an ad, so I tried through both the links you had and they both said the same.

You can send it FReep mail, I will read it.

Thanks

[Jvette]

As I read it, it seemed they always used both Scripture and tradition to try to trip Him up. AS IF, lol.

But, the way I see it is that it was not so much the tradition or even that they used their authority, but their intent that caused Jesus to call them hypocrites.

****However, Mark 7:9 gets to the heart of the matter.... “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!*****

And in this example, it is not the tradition, but the rejection of God’s commandments. So, again, I know “tradition” is a buzz word, but Jesus never condemns the tradition or their authority, He condemns their intentions.

In today’s language, we would call what they did “loopholes” in the law.

[Jvette]

?

[CynicalBear]

Wasn’t it Lubomyr Cardinal Husar of the UGCC that made the statement “We were told: If you want to be a real Catholic, you have to be Latin. And they pushed us into it.”? Seems to me that the discussion about the struggles between the Byzantine-Slavic and Latin culture with the UGCC sort of in between is something you wouldn’t want to get into since most Catholics don’t want to admit that there is any schism within the Catholic churches.

[boatbums]

Thank you for coming to my defense...

Gladly. I believe that INTEGRITY means more than just talking about it and accusing others of lacking it.

[boatbums]

You have no basis for telling me that what I heard was not true.

Yes, I do. It's absolutely not true, and I've post evidence to that effect.

I really do not see how you, Titanites, can make such a statement that what Metmom's experiences have been are "absolutely not true". She is speaking of PERSONAL, family experiences and, although there may be an official Church stance about those who are not "Roman" Catholic, there is absolutely NO way you can tell someone else what they have or have not experienced. Why the entire argument could not just have been left with "those may be your personal experiences but the Church has nothing but good things to say about them", I don't know. But I think you are WAY out of line accusing someone of lying because they have been critical of your church. It only plays into the narrative that keeps being proved true around here that some Catholics will tolerate NO negatives at all about their chosen religion. It starts to sound desperate after all this time. Why not just drop it?

[boatbums]

Okay, it’s been sent.

[Titanites]

I really do not see how you, Titanites, can make such a statement that what Metmom's experiences have been are "absolutely not true".

I really don't care what her experiences have been. What she heard is not true.

But I think you are WAY out of line accusing someone of lying because they have been critical of your church.

I haven't accused anyone of lying, so take a step back.

It only plays into the narrative that keeps being proved true around here that some Catholics will tolerate NO negatives at all about their chosen religion.

No such thing has been proved.

Why not just drop it?

Because people like you keep bringing it up.

[metmom]

your “experience” is incorrect as i said above — there is no such thing as Catholics in the Ukraine doubting the “legit” of each other.

My experience can't be incorrect. It was what it was. Whether it was *rght* for those Catholics to feel that way and talk that was is a different issue, but it's simply not possible for someone's experinece to be incorrect.

Unless you’ve been to the Ukraine, whatever you have stated is hearsay or less..

Likewise what you've had to say about UC and RC relations is also hearsay.

Why should we accept what you have to say over what I have to say. The criteria is not what makes the church look good or bad, as in if it makes the RCC look bad, then it's not true but if it makes the RCC looks good then it is.

Sometimes the truth hurts. Live with it.

[metmom]

Luther was trying to correct the excesses and immorality he saw in the Catholic church. He wasn’t planning on leaving the Catholic church and didn’t want to from all I’ve read.

The RCC ex-communicated him.

And all for wanting to get back to the authority of the Scripture the Church claims it wrote.

Go figure.

[metmom]

That’s so obvious.

[boatbums]

I really don't care what her experiences have been. What she heard is not true.

Well, since she was talking about her experiences, then you have shown that truth is a relative term for you.

Because people like you keep bringing it up.

Hey, I'm not the one sending accusatory posts to someone else for the last two days. Why not admit that you cannot possibly know what someone else has heard and seen among their own relatives and leave it at that? It appears that, even with the added links about experiences of OTHER Ukrainian Catholics, like I said, some people cannot tolerate ANY negative criticism about their church. As long as you keep it up, you only continue to prove it.