Posted on 08/17/2013 2:06:44 AM PDT by NYer
The Church's most prominent outreach today, the New Evangelization, aims at reviving the spiritual lives of those who have drifted from Christ. While these people may have been baptized and perhaps catechized, while they may attend Church semi-regularly, they have never been truly evangelized. They have never experienced a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ or real transformation through his Church.
A couple weeks ago, Pope Francis delivered a powerful message to the Brazilian bishops in the midst of his World Youth Day celebrations. Unfortunately, it didn't get nearly the attention it deserved.
Speaking on the New Evangelization, and using the Emmaus Journey as a framework, the Pope encouraged his listeners to reflect on why people reject the Church today—why, like the Emmaus disciples, they decide to walk the other way. To bring people back to Christ and his Church, we must understand why they leave in the first place.
To that end, Pope Francis offered ten specific reasons:
1. The Church no longer offers anything meaningful or important.
2. The Church appears too weak.
3. The Church appears too distant from their needs.
4. The Church appears too poor to respond to their concerns.
5. The Church appears too cold.
6. The Church appears too caught up with itself.
7. The Church appears to be a prisoner of its own rigid formulas.
8. The world seems to have made the Church a relic of the past.
9. The Church appears unfit to answer the world's new questions.
10. The Church speaks to people in their infancy but not when they come of age.
Read the excerpt below for more context:
"The two disciples have left Jerusalem. They are leaving behind the 'nakedness' of God. They are scandalized by the failure of the Messiah in whom they had hoped and who now appeared utterly vanquished, humiliated, even after the third day.
Here we have to face the difficult mystery of those people who leave the Church, who, under the illusion of alternative ideas, now think that the Church—their Jerusalem—can no longer offer them anything meaningful and important. So they set off on the road alone, with their disappointment. Perhaps the Church appeared too weak, perhaps too distant from their needs, perhaps too poor to respond to their concerns, perhaps too cold, perhaps too caught up with itself, perhaps a prisoner of its own rigid formulas, perhaps the world seems to have made the Church a relic of the past, unfit for new questions; perhaps the Church could speak to people in their infancy but not to those come of age.
It is a fact that nowadays there are many people like the two disciples of Emmaus; not only those looking for answers in the new religious groups that are sprouting up, but also those who already seem godless, both in theory and in practice.
Faced with this situation, what are we to do?
We need a Church unafraid of going forth into their night. We need a Church capable of meeting them on their way. We need a Church capable of entering into their conversation. We need a Church able to dialogue with those disciples who, having left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone, with their own disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of generating meaning.”
(HT: Thomas Doran at Catholic World Report)
Then why is the canon at Trent *exactly* identical to the Vulgate? Coincidence?
This borders on insolence. Not only would this not equate to an infallible indisputable decree on the canon, for as you have already been shown with substantiation, doubts and debate regarding apocryphal books continued right into Trent, nor would a general consensus reflected in the Vulgate containing them equate to an infallible decree, but like as i stated the last time you tried this, the Vulgate had various editions, and not all matched the canon Trent affirmed, or upheld all the apocryphal books as Scripture proper (the Vulgate Codex Amiatinus contains the pesky "Prologus Galeatus" of Jerome to the Books of the Kings and other prefaces which reminds us of the distinction between Scripture and the apocryphal books.)
Trent did not even settle the question as to which version of the varying Vulgate editions it affirmed, though it would have to have the same books it affirmed, thus requiring a thorough revision, as there was no single authoritative edition at that time, and resulting in the embarrassing Sistine Vulgate .
But here this is simply a diversion away from the fact that there was no infallible, and thus indisputable decree on the canon until Trent. If you want to deny that go ahead, but it make a mockery of what an infallible, and thus indisputable decree effects.
Later .
There’s a confusion here too, I believe.
The scripture says that the faith was given once for all to the saints.
That I believe.
What I disagree with our Catholic brethren about, is what stores the perfect faith thus given. They say their earthly books and earthly church and earthly offices. I say, on biblical argument, the Holy Spirit, which lives in the heart of all believers. God won’t give His glory to another. At best He carries others along in His own glory. God is too jealous of His glory to cede the tail to wag the dog. The Holy Spirit stores the perfect faith.
You got ahold of some misinformation in my opinion. Care to source that? Did it come from a website, a tract?
That Rome has been sending the signal that the she is NOT the one true church for much much longer than 50 years is, as i assumed would be obvious, a judgment, and which came from a former weekly attending RC (me) who prayerfully left 6 years after becoming manifestly born again (and then went to an evangelical church), who sees both the doctrinal and empirical data as testifying to that.
You said it, not me. Keep it honest, my post is there and it doesn't say that. I find it laughable for catholics to give a rip because God's WORD is not their final authority. He didn't mutilate man made teachings - so what is your beef? LOL!!
But you must be surprised how Luther had such great power with your accusation of him to 'mulitate a book in the bible'!! Meanwhile catholics bow at the altar of 'man made teachings' which OPPOSE God's Word! How hypocritical!
I have Daniel in my bible - you have bad teaching and the darts thrown at Luther is hysterical!! Meanwhile he's walking on streets of gold! Reaping the reward for his obedience to the will of The Father in spite of Rome wanting to kill him. I 'high five' Luther. Pagans killed Stephan, Peter, Paul - something about speaking TRUTH makes the pagans wild!
Trouble is - catholics are STILL unteachable. Fortunately, there are former catholics. The rest can stay put - they have no use for Truth anyway with their bowing to 'man' and their teachings! What's wrong, afraid Rome will hunt you down like they did Luther?
“Are you claiming that the translator of the Vulgate, Jerome, who declared the apocrypha out of the canon, actually wrote the Old and New Testament scriptures?”
Let’s follow up then.
1. “Someone took a book they didn’t make”.
This is referring to Luther. The bible existed before Luther, so he didn’t make it.
2. “A book that had been around for a long, long time”,
This is referring to extant evidence for the existence of a full bible back to the 4th century, some 11k years prior to Luther.
3. “changed it and took stuff out”. Look at Luther’s list and the prior Vulgate list. They are not the same.
4. “claimed it was theres”. Again Luther.
I made four claims here - 3 which apply to Luther and one of which applies to the Vulgate.
“I find it laughable for catholics to give a rip because God’s WORD is not their final authority”
Is this what the catechism of the Catholic church teaches? The catechism is very clear. Scripture AND Tradition.
“He didn’t mutilate man made teachings”
Oh. So you’re saying, in effect, the Book of Daniel is full of ‘man made teachings’, that a good Christian is not bound to follow. Is this true?
“I have Daniel in my bible”
Do you have all of it? If not, why not? Which parts do you have?
“What’s wrong, afraid Rome will hunt you down like they did Luther?”
A spectacularly terrible argument.
If I was not afraid of Luther’s persecution of anabaptists, why would I be afraid of the Roman Catholic Church?
“This is referring to Luther. The bible existed before Luther, so he didn’t make it.”
You started out talking about the Vulgate as the oldest and most reliable, and then started talking about people taking a book they didn’t make and doing what they want with it. When, in reality, Luther made the same pronouncements as Jerome did with the apocrypha who actually translated the Vulgate, and didn’t actually remove them. He just put them in their own section as Catholics had done in their own versions of the Latin Vulgate for centuries up to before Trent.
Furthermore, I don’t see why you would even make a statement like this, since not all Bible translations are based on the Latin Vulgate. There is no copyright on the vulgate or a ban on them, but even if there was, we still wouldn’t lose access to the scripture, which wasn’t written in Latin anyway. So unless you are trying to claim that Jerome wrote the Old and New Testament, or that the Apostles did not really write the New Testament, then your post is nonsensical and irrelevant.
Human, I think what JCB is getting at here is the idea that the Vulgate is authoritative. It’s the King James debate, in the Roman Catholic flavor, except the Roman Catholics have a more impressive looking framework for it. How many Protestants have you come across who complain that what you just read from the NIV or NASB “doesn’t match the King James”? Same fundamental issue here.
An appeal to the Vulgate is silly though, since it actually doesn’t have tremendously different readings from translations today, save perhaps in a few instances, but a lot better than the Greek LXX which removes important Messianic prophecies. Thus I could still find “ye are saved by grace, through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast,” in Latin just as easily as I would in English or Spanish, and the Catholics would still hate us for saying it.
Eph 2:8 gratia enim estis salvati per fidem et hoc non ex vobis Dei enim donum est
To the extent they put their trust in the church model rather than the Holy Spirit, yes.
The Holy Spirit has me in a humongous squeeze right now. I'm seeing miracles, I'm praising the Lord, and yet I'm not in a looney bin. And I am loving Christians both in the Roman Catholic and Protestant (and Orthodox) earthly segments of the church... and seeking to make peace... under the impetus of the Holy Spirit... to me God has proven it. Remember that song "They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love"? I say to it, Amen. One would have to multiply spiritual conspiracy theories to say I'm under the devil's dominion here. And what got this going was I simply trusted that God was bigger than Satan and gave Him glory for it... well, I lie. It was the Holy Spirit that got it going. That's how I reacted.
Well, I attempt to avoid pejoratives with overtones towards people... that’s an important lesson the Lord has taught me. The less blaming (which is a synonym for blasphemy) the better the Lord will shine through. Try it, it works! Our enemy is not flesh and blood, it is Satan. And let our conversation be seasoned with grace. Grace. Not just unmerited favor, but the content of that favor. Also the warning that we shouldn’t be making railing accusations at Satan (and if not at Satan, then how much the more so the ‘puny’ humans). Basically the Lord takes care of damning. We might rebuke, we might even tell someone to get hence, but we don’t damn, we always hope for someone’s salvation till it’s too late. We are on one heavy duty salvation mission. Shine the light from God. It is more powerful than our military’s meanest laser weapons (to put it in modern terms).
Verbal sleight of hand going on here. We’re anchored in the early church through its witness which is blessed by God to be a conduit of the Holy Spirit. It’s a time tunneling thang, if we can say it in light hearted terms.
Verbal sleight of hand going on here... I mean in the argument referenced at the link of course.
Don’t feel too bad, nothing personal to the one who did it (they are forgiven) — the longing for earthly artifacts is very common and happens across all earthly segments of the Christian church. We do have one we can count on, it’s the Word of God, done robustly enough to withstand some dings and dents and still carry on. (The other is the entire creation.)
“If you are Catholic, you know that your religion was founded in the year 33 by Jesus Christ the Son of God, and it is still the same Church.”
If you are a Christian, salvation was purposed in the counsels of God before time began.
“I thought you were a Catholic to begin with. Come home.
Coming Home Network”
Not only did I come home to Christ, but, Peter let me borrow his barque to cross the Tiber and find salvation in Christ alone - as Peter himself did. For that I’m eternally grateful.
LOl! Little fibs get you nowhere.
Luther, persecuting the Anabaptists the Catholics would have killed.
Admittedly Peter had no barque or seat and no one swims he Tiber to Rome.
But I was blind and now I see. I was lost but now am found. And where I ended up, seated in the heavenlies with Christ via His death, is certainly somewhere.
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