Posted on 09/12/2013 5:58:16 AM PDT by armydoc
As letters to the editor go, it was certainly out of the ordinary, stretching to more than 2,500 words and not one of them veering on the irate or indignant. But the missive received by Eugenio Scalfari, co-founder and former editor of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, nonetheless made it into print on Wednesday – on the front page and under the impressively brief byline of "Francesco".
Sorry, Guardian articles must be excerpted
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Christ taught ONE truth and gave The Great Commission to TEACH to Peter and his successors and He assured His Church that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it. Neophyte interpretations of Scripture (a la Robert Schuller, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen etc etc) are not necessary here. This is all part of the curse of the Reformation. I’ll take Aquinas, Augustine, Benedict XVI (who has been called the theological Einstein of our times) any time, any day of the week.
“Neophyte interpretations of Scripture (a la Robert Schuller, Billy Graham, Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen etc etc) are not necessary here.... I’ll take Aquinas, AUGUSTINE, Benedict XVI”
Ironically, I’ve been giving Augustine’s interpretation of scripture the whole time! Probably not even Aquinas held to your doctrines on atheists either. As for the modern Popes. Well, after John Paul the II kissed a Koran, received the mark of Shiva on his forehead, received blessings from Pagans and took part in their services, and sat by as the Dahli Lama put a statue of Buddha on a Christian altar, all acts condemned by name by your previous Popes... Well, I can’t take you seriously when you cite them. Maybe less than a hundred years ago even, you would have been excommunicated and condemned to hell.
Augustine?
The Roman Catholic Church is Pelagian and you want to claim Augustine?!?
If you really want to claim Augustine, come to the Reformed Churches, where his doctrines are still cherished and taught.
Seriously? Augustine was a bishop in the First Baptist Church of Hippo?
That would be strange, since in 388 he wrote "On the Holiness of the Catholic Church."
I don't know how to break this to you, but Augustine was the Bishop of Carthage (396 A.D.).
Who said anything about Baptists?
He was a strict predestinarian. Roem has settled into Pelagianism.
Just the way it is.
“Seriously? Augustine was a bishop in the First Baptist Church of Hippo?
That would be strange, since in 388 he wrote “On the Holiness of the Catholic Church.”
I don’t know how to break this to you, but Augustine was the Bishop of Carthage (396 A.D.).”
I hate to break it to you, but there were no Baptists or Presbyterians back then, or even Roman Catholics. The people in Rome still hadn’t even worked out that there was a Pope yet who had sole absolute authority over the entire church until after Gregory. Until that time, opinions like these were perfectly acceptable:
“I have said in a certain passage respecting the apostle Peter, that the church is founded upon him as upon a rock... But I know that I have frequently afterwards so expressed myself, that the phrase “Upon this rock,” should be understood to be the rock which Peter confessed. For it was not said to him, Thou art Petra, but, Thou art Petrus, for the rock, was Christ. Let the reader select which of these two opinions he deems the most probable.” (Augustine, The first book of his Retractions)
This is the foolishness of people who look to form. Christ condemned this very practice of looking at outwards act and not in the heart of man. You render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Koran, etc are pagan stuff and just like the early church incorporated certain pagan forms into worship, a certain acculturation takes place without sacrificing core beliefs. To the extent the Koran confirms the God of Abraham, in the heart of Pope JP II, he was acknowledging this fact but we wouldn’t know that, would we? So even sitting by the Dalai Lama is idol worship to you! No wonder you cannot see the difference between the Good Samaritan and Hitler. By your lights with nothing to Guide you, you condemn both as undeserving of paradise. By the teachings of our Church, unless you believe in the Holy Eucharist as the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Living Christ, you are no less a pagan than Mormons or any other sects. But yet God has mercy on your foolishness and ignorance in the hope that you will examine your conscience, use what intelligence God has given you and embrace the one TRUE Church. All the rest, is just that. All the rest.
“This is the foolishness of people who look to form. Christ condemned this very practice of looking at outwards act and not in the heart of man.”
Well then, what is in the heart of man? Let’s ask God! “There is none good but one, that is, God” (Mar 10:18). “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Again, “for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Again, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” and again, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Gen 6:5, 8:21, Ps 51:5, Jer 17:9)
“So even sitting by the Dalai Lama is idol worship to you! “
Well, putting up his idol of Buddha on a Christian (errrm, I mean a ‘Roman Catholic’) altar is certainly idol worship to me. I mean, it fits the definition. Unless Rome has done away with the sin of Idolatry too?
” No wonder you cannot see the difference between the Good Samaritan and Hitler. By your lights with nothing to Guide you, you condemn both as undeserving of paradise.”
Well, of course I reject your position, because “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt” (Rom 4:4). And again, “by grace ye are saved” (Eph 2:5). So how is the good Samaritan saved by his works, when works do not save you by grace?
This is more of a rhetorical question. I don’t expect you to actually engage anything I say. I could be talking to a wall right now, you know.
“This is a serious misunderstanding of Scriptural quotations when you write “Christ who says that “no man can come unto the Father, but by me.” Citations like this amount to sophomoric quotations of scripture.
“By Me” is to act Christ-like. The Good Samaritan was a non-believer but he did God’s will.”
So, just to clarify your statement, you think that someone who rejects the grace that Christ offers can still enter the Kingdom if they do enough good works?
I pray that your name be written inshalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach
the book of life which is sealed tonight.
To which my only reply is what Jesus Himself said:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And, parting out his garments, they cast lots.”
Your problem is that you cannot and never will be able to authoritatively quote Scripture because this authority was given exclusively to Peter and his successors. “Upon This Rock, I will found My Church.” For over 2000 years, the greatest of theologians, councils, saints, and scholars have informed the teachings of the Church. Sacred Tradition, Holy Scripture, and Revelation have all been a part of it. It was the Church that sorted out the various Biblical texts and compiled what we now call the Holy Bible. It did not drop from the skies.
The Church and its first Popes existed before the New Testament was written. Much of what was said and done by Christ was not written and these were the beliefs, rituals, teachings and practices that were carried out. Your interpretation of Scripture is no more salient than those of David Koresh.
Those who do not believe in the central act of Catholic Worship, the Holy Eucharist and in the belief of trans-substatiation at the Catholic Mass deny the Christ no less than the Mormons or Muhammed and his followers. In a sense these are all non-believers.
To which my only reply is what Jesus Himself said:
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And, parting out his garments, they cast lots.”
Your argument is basically that you are correct, because you have the authority to be a denier of Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures. And this you say upon the basis of a “2000 year” history. But does the Roman Pagan church have a 2,000 year old tradition of a Papacy?
In the case of the Papacy, one won’t find any theology on the Primacy of Rome in the early church. Though the Romanists often claim that Peter founded the church in Rome and reigned in it. In fact, the testimony of the Fathers on where Peter even was and when is quite divided amongst them, and contradictory to the scripture account.
“We read in the Chronicle of Eusebius, at the year 43, that Peter, after founding the Church of Antioch, was sent to Rome, where he preached the Gospel for twenty-five years, and was Bishop of that city. But this part of the Chronicle does not exist in the Greek, nor in the Armenian, and it is supposed to have been one of the additions made by Jerome. Eusebius does not say the same in any other part of his writings, though he mentions St. Peter’s going to Rome in the reign of Claudius: but Jerome tells us that he came in the second year of this emperor, and held the See twenty-five years. On the other hand, Origen, who is quoted by Eusebius himself, says that Peter went to Rome towards the end of his life: and Lactantius places it in the reign of Nero, and adds that he suffered martyrdom not long after.”
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/07/did-eusebius-say-peter-was-bishop-of.html
Now it does not appear that either Peter or Paul founded the church in Rome at all, since all the Biblical evidence points to believers already being in Rome, without any mention of their founding pastor. If it were an Apostle who had founded the church in Rome, it is illogical that Paul would not have at least mentioned him or wrote to him if he were the head of all the churches. This is what the Roman Catholic Joseph Fitzmyer concedes here:
“…Paul never hints in Romans that he knows that Peter has worked in Rome or founded the Christian church there before his planned visit (cf. 15:20-23). If he refers indirectly to Peter as among the “superfine apostles” who worked in Corinth (2 Cor 11:4-5), he says nothing like that about Rome in this letter. Hence the beginnings of the Roman Christian community remain shrouded in mystery. Compare 1 Thess 3:2-5; 1 Cor 3:5-9; and Col 1:7 and 4:12-13 for more or less clear references to founding apostles of other locales. Hence there is no reason to think that Peter spent any major portion of time in Rome before Paul wrote his letter, or that he was the founder of the Roman church or the missionary who first brought Christianity to Rome. For it seems highly unlikely that Luke, if he knew that Peter had gone to Rome and evangelized that city, would have omitted all mention of it in Acts.” [Source: Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., Romans, A New Translation with introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Bible Series (New York: Doubleday, 1993), p. 30].
If what Jerome wrote of Eusebius is correct, then Peter would have been in Rome when Paul had written the epistle to the Romans, which is reckoned to have been written around 58AD. When Paul does write to them, he writes only to the members of the church, some by name, but none about its reigning pastor who was supposedly the head of the church.
Not even the supposed successor of Peter, Clement (or the epistle that has his name) is any reference made either to the primacy of Peter (he is instead listed with the other Apostles as fellow workers) or to his own primacy as Pope over the church!
Ingatius, in his letter to Polycarp, writes to his fellow Bishop greeting him thus: “to Polycarp, Bishop of the Church of the Smyrnæans, or rather, who has, as his own bishop, God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Ignatius, Epistle to Polycarp).
Now this cannot be so if the Pope is the “perpetual” head of the church, whom all local Bishops must submit to. In Ignatius’ letter to the Romans, he does not even write to or mention its Bishop, even though he had written to the Bishop of every church he had before written to.
In Irenaeus, deeper into the second century, builds the church of Rome on Peter and Paul, whom he writes ordained Bishops of their own, and not founded upon the authority of only one of them.
Even into the 6th or 7th centuries, when the idea of the Primacy of Peter was more developed, was it even defined in the same way that Rome does today.
According to the Catechism, the Roman Bishop is:
882 ... the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful.”402 “For the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.”403
883 “The college or body of bishops has no authority unless united with the Roman Pontiff, Peter’s successor, as its head.” As such, this college has “supreme and full authority over the universal Church; but this power cannot be exercised without the agreement of the Roman Pontiff.”404
It was this same idea of “General Father” or a ‘Universal Bishop” that Gregory condemned in the then Bishop of Constantinople who had taken the title Universal Bishop:
“Consider, I pray you, that in this rash presumption the peace of the whole Church is disturbed, and that it is in contradiction to the grace that is poured out on all in common; in which grace doubtless you yourself wilt have power to grow so far as you determine with yourself to do so. And you will become by so much the greater as you restrain yourself from the usurpation of a proud and foolish title: and you will make advance in proportion as you are not bent on arrogation by derogation of your brethren. Wherefore, dearest brother, with all your heart love humility, through which the concord of all the brethren and the unity of the holy universal Church may be preserved. Certainly the apostle Paul, when he heard some say, I am of Paul, I of Apollos, but I of Christ 1 Corinthians 1:13, regarded with the utmost horror such dilaceration of the Lord’s body, whereby they were joining themselves, as it were, to other heads, and exclaimed, saying, Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul (ib.)? If then he shunned the subjecting of the members of Christ partially to certain heads, as if beside Christ, though this were to the apostles themselves, what will you say to Christ, who is the Head of the universal Church, in the scrutiny of the last judgment, having attempted to put all his members under yourself by the appellation of Universal? Who, I ask, is proposed for imitation in this wrongful title but he who, despising the legions of angels constituted socially with himself, attempted to start up to an eminence of singularity, that he might seem to be under none and to be alone above all? Who even said, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven: I will sit upon the mount of the testament, in the sides of the North: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High Isaiah 14:13.”
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360205018.htm
It wasn’t until one of Gregory’s successors, Boniface III, that the Roman Bishop petitioned the emperor for the title of Universal that they enjoy today.
Some Catholics can read this letter and say that Gregory only condemned the title, but not the power they claim he still possessed. However, there are other instances where Gregory could have embraced his power as “universal” Bishop of the entire church. While at this time the idea of the “Primacy of Peter” was in vogue, yet this same primacy was not translated to a supremacy over the entire church. And, in fact, there wasn’t just one person who held the “throne” of Peter; according to Gregory, it was held by one Apostolic see ruled by divine authority by THREE separate Bishops, which is that of Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. Here is the letter in full, but first I am going to quote the RCC abuse of it:
The link to the whole letter first
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360207040.htm
Now here are the Roman quotations of this letter, wherein they assert that Gregory is a champion of the Primacy of Rome. Take special note of the clever use of ellipses:
Pope Gregory I
“Your most sweet holiness, [Bishop Eulogius of Alexandria], has spoken much in your letter to me about the chair of Saint Peter, prince of the apostles, saying that he himself now sits on it in the persons of his successors. And indeed I acknowledge myself to be unworthy . . . I gladly accepted all that has been said, in that he has spoken to me about Peter’s chair, who occupies Peter’s chair. And, though special honor to myself in no wise delights me . . . who can be ignorant that holy Church has been made firm in the solidity of the prince of the apostles, who derived his name from the firmness of his mind, so as to be called Peter from petra. And to him it is said by the voice of the Truth, ‘To you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven’ [Matt. 16:19]. And again it is said to him, ‘And when you are converted, strengthen your brethren’ [Luke 22:32]. And once more, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my sheep’ [John 21:17]” (Letters 40 [A.D. 597]).
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-authority-of-the-pope-part-ii
“Who does not know that the holy Church is founded on the solidity of the Chief Apostle, whose name expressed his firmness, being called Peter from Petra (Rock)?...Though there were many Apostles, only the See of the Prince of the Apostles...received supreme authority in virtue of its very principate.” (Letter to the Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria, Ep. 7)
http://credo.stormloader.com/Ecumenic/gregory.htm
I provide their versions of the quotations only to highlight for you the parts they omit. And, really, there is no reason for them to omit them. The lines they remove are small sentences, and then they continue quoting right after they finish. It’s quite an embarrassing display!
In this letter, Gregory is specifically attributing to the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch the “Chair of Peter” and its authority that they bestowed upon him. In the first quotation, the Romans omit the sentence which says: “And, though special honour to myself in no wise delights me, [they omit here] yet I greatly rejoiced because you, most holy ones, have given to yourselves what you have bestowed upon me. [They rebegin here]” After telling them about the “special honor” that is respectively given to both parties, Gregory immediately goes into a discussion on what that special honor is... which is the authority of Peter they all enjoy:
“Wherefore though there are many apostles, yet with regard to the principality itself the See of the Prince of the apostles alone has grown strong in authority, which in three places is the See of one. For he himself exalted the See in which he deigned even to rest and end the present life. He himself adorned the See to which he sent his disciple as evangelist. He himself established the See in which, though he was to leave it, he sat for seven years. Since then it is the See of one, and one See, over which by Divine authority three bishops now preside, whatever good I hear of you, this I impute to myself. If you believe anything good of me, impute this to your merits, since we are one in Him Who says, That they all may be one, as You, Father, art in me, and I in you that they also may be one in us John 17:21.”
Notice how different this reads when one does not omit what the Romans omit! Gregory declares that the See of Peter is one see... but in THREE places, over which THREE Bishops preside, which is Rome, Antioch and Alexandria, the latter of which he was now writing to.
So while the Romans insist that the Primacy of Peter refers to the Bishop of Rome, Gregory applies the Primacy of Peter to ALL the major Bishops of the See. They are, in effect, ALL the Church of Peter, having received the succession from him and possess his chair and authority.
And Gregory, of course, isn’t alone in this. Theodoret references the same belief when he places the “throne of Peter” under the Bishop of Antioch:
“Dioscorus, however, refuses to abide by these decisions; he is turning the See of the blessed Mark upside down; and these things he does though he perfectly well knows that the Antiochene (of Antioch) metropolis possesses the throne of the great Peter, who was teacher of the blessed Mark, and first and coryphæus (head of the choir) of the chorus of the apostles.” Theodoret - Letter LXXXVI - To Flavianus, Bishop of Constantinople.
In fact, what I have presented here are the principle arguments of the Eastern Orthodox, the other guys who claim to be the One true Holy and Apostolic church of God on Earth.
Well, that’s a pretty impertinent reply to the question that was asked.
“Your problem is that you cannot and never will be able to authoritatively quote Scripture because this authority was given exclusively to Peter and his successors.”
Well, unless this is Pope Francis’ FReep account, by your own argument YOU can’t authoritatively quote Scripture either, since you consider the Popes to be the successors of Peter, correct?
So, why are you quoting Scripture in your posts? You can’t claim the authority to interpret it without making yourself a hypocrite.
Conscience, in Catholic theology, does not mean what the NYT thinks it means, in fact, it's almost the opposite.
I am quoting Scripture as authoritatively interpreted by the Catholic Church founded by Peter and his successors. That’s the difference.
Really? Do you have a reference for their authoritative interpretations of the verses you quoted, or are we just supposed to take your word for that?
Wondering and wise and true comments.
Yes. Try the Catholic Catechism, and the following books by Pope Benedict XVI may help:
1. Jesus of Nazareth
2. Jesus, the Apostles &The Early Church
3. On The Way to Jesus Christ
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