Posted on 12/03/2013 6:11:20 AM PST by marshmallow
What sort of religion keeps dead people’s bones, puts them on display, and expects people to kiss them? Catholicism - and it's awesome.
What sort of religion keeps dead people’s bones, puts them on display, and expects people to kiss them? This weekend’s news reminds the world that the veneration of relics is still very much part of the Catholic faith. As a fitting climax to the Year of Faith, Pope Francis put on display for the first time the bones of St. Peter, the first Pope.
The news headlines focused on the sensational, and many journalists asked the obvious questions, often missing the point and skimming over the facts to report superficially. There are some excellent questions that arise from the reports of St. Peter’s bones being produced: What are relics and why are they important to Catholics? Why do Catholics kiss the bones of dead people? Are Catholics really so gullible as to believe in the authenticity of relics (we know they’re fake, right)? Could those bone fragments really be the remains of Peter the Apostle?
A relic is anything associated with a person who has been canonized as a saint or beatified as blessed. There are three categories of relics: a first class relic is some part of the person’s mortal remains. The relic could be a fragment of bone, hair, skin, or blood. The relic is taken when the body of the saint is exhumed as part of the canonization process.
A second class relic is some object or part of an object which was regularly used or worn by the saint during their earthly life. There are many second class relics. These might include the saint’s belongings, clothing, furniture or a part of these things. Second class relics of Pope John Paul II, for example, include.......
(Excerpt) Read more at aleteia.org ...
I will pray that the Holy Spirit come into your heart and removes the scales from your eyes.
Koine (New Testament Greek) did not use Capital letters, or punctuation for that matter.
Let us put aside what Ignatius meant by “Catholic”. If you put what he believed side by side to what Catholics and Protestants believe today he would be Catholic. This is true of the other early Church Fathers who are witnesses of what the early Christians believed.
What idol did St. Peter believe in?
There was no capitalization at all in the 2 Century. If you read the letter, you will know that St. Ignatius calls Catholics to obey their bishop and stay away from heretics that don't recognize the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. (Proof).
St Ignatius who?
Some guy who wrote an opinion piece about Christianity?
Imagine that. Someone forgot to include something as important as that in Scripture so Catholics are left to resorting to opinion pieces.
Not just an opinion piece but, with the other Church Fathers, a witness to what all early Christians believed. Too bad the historical facts of Christianity do not match your ideology.
We have the bible to put beside Protestants and Catholics today...The bible clearly sides with the Protestants...
What you are saying is akin to saying because the Sunnis more resemble Mohammed than the Shiites, the Sunnis are the true Christians...
Your entire church history is made up of forgeries...
The claim at your link that all of the letters of Ignatius are forgeries is based solely on the fact that they witness to an early Catholic understanding of the hierarchical nature of the church. This is pure rationalization not reason. Even if, as the author suggests, we postpone these letters to AD 250, they show that the pre-Constantinian Christians were Catholic. Nor is there any explanation given for the universal change in Christian thinking and practice or how it came about without controversy. Other than a prejudicial view that Christianity could not have been Catholic at such an early time, there is not reason to reject these letters as forgeries.
I do not concede this. Do not mistake your interpretation of the Bible with the Bible itself. The Bible clearly supports Catholic teaching. Only by ignoring or rationalizing away the clear words of the Bible can Protestantism claim support from the Bible. Do we really have to list the disputed verses?
There aren't any verses in dispute...God condemns your religion in the scriptures...That's why you have to have your made up tradition, for cover against the scriptures...
Of Antioch, early Christian bishop and martyr, an important witness to the Early Church. No, Cool, there is no evidence whatever that To Smyrneans is any kind of forgery. Besides, you brought him up, not me.
Hello, friend. For those who may not know..
From Wikipedia:
Ignatius of Loyola (Basque: Ignazio Loiolakoa, Spanish: Ignacio de Loyola) (ca. October 27, 1491– July 31, 1556) was a Spanish knight from a local Basque noble family, hermit, priest since 1537, and theologian, who founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and, on 19 April 1541, became its first Superior General. Ignatius emerged as a religious leader during the Counter-Reformation. Loyola’s devotion to the Catholic Church was characterized by absolute obedience to the Pope.
After being seriously wounded in the Battle of Pamplona in 1521, he underwent a spiritual conversion while in recovery. De Vita Christi by Ludolph of Saxony purportedly inspired Loyola to abandon his previous military life and devote himself to labour for God, following the example of spiritual leaders such as Francis of Assisi. After claiming to experience a vision of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus at the shrine of Our Lady of Montserrat in March 1522, he went to Manresa, where he began praying for seven hours a day, often in a nearby cave, and formulating the fundamentals of the Spiritual Exercises. In September 1523, Loyola reached the Holy Land to settle there, but was sent back to Europe by the Franciscans.
I know what you mean and might have been inclined to agree with you back in my younger days. However, more recent experiences have shown me otherwise. We had a relic at our Church of St. Gianna Beretta Molla (back when she was Blessed Gianna and needed another miracle) and I tell you the place was like Lourdes. People were coming from all over in wheelchairs, on crutches, being carried in, the whole nine yards. There was hope. And it was beautiful. And so a couple of years ago, my wife and I travelled to NYC to St. Patrick’s to see a piece of Juan Diego’s tilma. Not quite the same experience, but very reverent nonetheless. NOthing creepy about it.
Wrong Ignatius.
Then educate us, friend.
Also called Theophorus (ho Theophoros); born in Syria, around the year 50; died at Rome between 98 and 117.More than one of the earliest ecclesiastical writers have given credence, though apparently without good reason, to the legend that Ignatius was the child whom the Savior took up in His arms, as described in Mark 9:35. It is also believed, and with great probability, that, with his friend Polycarp, he was among the auditors of the Apostle St. John. If we include St. Peter, Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch and the immediate successor of Evodius (Eusebius, Church History II.3.22). Theodoret ("Dial. Immutab.", I, iv, 33a, Paris, 1642) is the authority for the statement that St. Peter appointed Ignatius to the See of Antioch. St. John Chrysostom lays special emphasis on the honor conferred upon the martyr in receiving his episcopal consecration at the hands of the Apostles themselves ("Hom. in St. Ig.", IV. 587). Natalis Alexander quotes Theodoret to the same effect (III, xii, art. xvi, p. 53).
...
This is the letter in question, remarkable for the first documented use of the word "catholic". Note the context, -- not how today various ecumenists try to spin the term.
Chapter 6. Unbelievers in the blood of Christ shall be condemnedLet no man deceive himself. Both the things which are in heaven, and the glorious angels, and rulers, both visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ, shall, in consequence, incur condemnation. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Matthew 19:12 Let not [high] place puff any one up: for that which is worth all is faith and love, to which nothing is to be preferred. But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty.
[...]
Chapter 8. Let nothing be done without the bishop
See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [administered] either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude [of the people] also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate a love-feast; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.
Also see Wikipedia
Other than a prejudicial view that Christianity could not have been Catholic at such an early time, there is not reason to reject these letters as forgeries.
Except for the inconvenient fact that there are two sets of the same letters...One is pro Catholic and one is not...
The forger not only forged the letters much later than Ignatius lived and died, he added things Ignatius never wrote...
Forgeries abound thru out and within the history of your religion...You can't refute the charges just by denying them...
It's a long read but worth it for those who want to know who the one, true church is, or isn't
I decided to look at the writings of the Bible and some recognized Catholic scholars to see whether those statements about the early bishops of Rome were true or are in error.
There Were No Bishops of Rome Who Titled Themselves Pontifex Maximus Until the Late Fourth Century
Catholic scholars understand that the pagan sun cult of Mithraism maintained that it had a type of pope in Rome before the Church of Rome had one:
Mithraism...reached its zenith during the third century, and vanished under the repressive regulations of Theodosius at the end of the fourth century...There were seven degrees of initiation into the mithraic mysteries…The fathers conducted the worship. The chief of the fathers, a sort of pope, who always lived at Rome, was called "Pater Patrum" or Pater Patratus." (Arendzen, J.P. Mithraism.)
It was about the time that Theodosius helped eliminate the cult of Mithraism that the Bishop of Rome took the title Pope.
Catholic scholar Duffy observed a shift in how the Roman Bishops acted:
The Romanisation of the papacy was more than a matter of external decoration. Self-consciously, the popes began to model their actions and their style as Christian leaders on the procedures of the Roman state (Duffy, p. 40).
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