Posted on 12/30/2013 9:35:20 AM PST by RnMomof7
......"The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life has put hard numbers on the anecdotal evidence: One out of every 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic. If they were a separate denomination, they would be the third-largest denomination in the United States, after Catholics and Baptists. One of three people who were raised Catholic no longer identifies as Catholic.........
"Thankfully, although the U.S. bishops have not supported research on people who have left the church, the Pew Center has.
Pew’s data shows that those leaving the church are not homogenous. They can be divided into two major groups: those who become unaffiliated and those who become Protestant. Almost half of those leaving the church become unaffiliated and almost half become Protestant. Only about 10 percent of ex-Catholics join non-Christian religions.
This article will focus on Catholics who have become Protestant. I am not saying that those who become unaffiliated are not important; I am leaving that discussion to another time."................
"Nor are the people becoming Protestants lazy or lax Christians. In fact, they attend worship services at a higher rate than those who remain Catholic. While 42 percent of Catholics who stay attend services weekly, 63 percent of Catholics who become Protestants go to church every week. That is a 21 percentage-point difference.
" Seventy-one percent say their faith is “very strong,” while only 35 percent and 22 percent reported that their faith was very strong when they were children and teenagers, respectively. On the other hand, only 46 percent of those who are still Catholic report their faith as “very strong” today as an adult.
(Excerpt) Read more at ncronline.org ...
I attended Villanova University in the early 70s. I, too, expected to read the works of the early theologians and philosophers of the Catholic Church. Nope! In our mandatory religion and philosophy courses we were fed non-stop Liberation Theology.
Day of the Day
^^^^^^^^
Sorry! That should read Day of the Dead.
Certainly i understand there is one church, and affirm in the apostles creed, "the holy catholic Church," as the only real church of Scripture is universal, and consists of only born again believers, that being the body the Spirit baptizes believers into (1Cor. 12:13) in regeneration.
V2 actually affirms many baptized Prots are part of that body, even if "DOMINUS IESUS disallows that the overall most committed, conservative ones exist in proper churches. Yet when it states "This unity is so deep that the Church can say with Saint Paul: ‘You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are saints and members of the household of God'" (Eph 2:19) that verse is actually referring to the body of Christ, not organizational unity.
Ideally there should be one visible church organizationally, but Rome's declension and impudence made division necessary because of Truth.And Rome is just one of many sola ecclesia churches that claims to be OTC, and in reality much teaches different than what is professed, and exists as informal sects, while you engage in spurious comparisons btwn one church and many others.
Even you and the Eastern Orthodox argue that they are the OTC in particular, and have substantial disagreements (want a list?), even from both sides are warning against getting too cozy with each others (want some? ).
The only valid way you can appeal to those such as myself, is on the basis of Scriptural substantiation, Scripture being the supreme authority, upon which the church began, in word and in power. But you cannot do so because Scripture is not even your basis for assurance of Truth, and Scripture will not support a church that makes itself the perpetual supreme assuredly infallible (when speaking according to her infallible criteria) authority, thus believers are not to objectively examine the Scripture to ascertain the veracity of her official teachings. .
You write:
“This unity is so deep that the Church can say with Saint Paul: ‘You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are saints and members of the household of God’” (Eph 2:19) that verse is actually referring to the body of Christ, not organizational unity.
The Body of Christ- Yes! That is the those who believe His Body, His Blood, as part of ONE True, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. We call that the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist, also known as the Catholic Mass. The “organizational” unity you speak of goes back to the early Church and its authoritative structure to insure that the deposit of faith handed down by Christ to Peter and His disciples is uncorrupted until the end of time and the gates of hell shall never prevail against her.
The Body of Christ is not some means for a Joel Osteen-type kumbaya where every one is encouraged to gather around a fireplace at Easter Sunrise services organized by your local Foursquare Church and call themselves part of the Body of Christ by a cacophony of Alleluias. That would be an out and out heresy.
Hence this explains why leading non-Catholic theologians from every “Christian” denomination have seen the light and converted to the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, just like our low-information voters, the heresies of Protestantism so ably explained in Hillaire Belloc’s masterpiece “The Great Heresies” allows for the new megaChurches inhabited by such folk who enrich their founders and their families.
Is that an AMC series?
Here is a link to explain it:
“We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church”.
Any faith that includes the above sentence in the Niceed Creed is defaulting to the Catholic Church as the one true Church. It is the only one with an unbroken line of apostolic secession from Peter, the first Pope.
Great link. Thank you!
The body of Christ is an organism, not an organization.
It is comprised of believers across space and time, regardless of the denominational label they wear if any.
No one church can lay claim to be the OTC because there are believers and unbelievers in each and every denomination.
Wave them away, or show where the CHURCH has condemned their words. Your choice.
I guess them 70 got on board after Pete became the boss; right?
Luke 10:17-19
Mark 9:38-41
“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.
Mary is dead; awaiting the Last Trump.
It’s kinda like our Memorial Day (which used to be Decoration Day)
Well then, this requires more questions i expect you will want to avoid answering. If the Body of Christ only consists of those who believe in the "Real Presence," then you must conclude that those who do not subscribe to this unScriptural view (while remembering that Scripture is not your real basis for assurance of Truth) are not part of the Body, and do not have eternal life. Affirm or deny.
The “organizational” unity you speak of goes back to the early Church..
You are simply repeating a fantasy. Which places you in division with the EOs and other sola ecclesia groups.
The Body of Christ is not some means for a Joel Osteen-type kumbaya
Which is why the modern evangelical movement arose, based on shared contention of core truths, as said, such as by liberals, cults and Rome, and which as said, is why both Rome an liberals treated them as the greatest threat to their domination.
Meanwhile, as said, under the Roman model of sola ecclesia, which is not the premise that the church began under, you also have formal and informal divisions, as well as shared contention of core truths and varying degrees of communion. And Rome is only one church, and is not necessarily more unified than any other particular church. And actually Rome abounds with disagreements, and her unity is largely on paper,as what she does is what testifes to what she really believes.
Thus under both sola ecclesia and the SS type model you can have both significant concord as well as divisions, and pointing out the latter does not invalidate either, nor is unity itself the goal, thus the question is which model did the church begin under? Did it begin under the premise that the stewards of Scripture were the assuredly correct interpreters of it, and neither writings or men had authority if the magisterium rejected them?
Which also means the magisteriums own assertion of their assured veracity is assuredly true. And it is under this premise that the members have real assurance of truth.
And which discourages objective examination of the Scriptures in order to ascertain the veracity of its truth claims, but instead is foster and requires a very high level or implicit assent of faith in its leadership when teaching officially. But which also leads to competing claims among SE type groups.
Or did it begin under the basis of Scriptural substantiation, even if that also allows for competing claims, with its being manifest in word and in power what truth is, and resulting in a spiritual unity among the elect that is greater than divisions.
It is obvious that you have not understood the specious nature of your argumentation, and thus i have had to reiterate too much. Go back and read .
You don’t need my interpretation to “affirm or deny” whether someone may have eternal life who denies the core teaching of the Catholic Church founded on Scripture, Tradition, Revelation, and Ritual that the consecrated Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Risen Christ. As to who enters eternal life is a judgment for God. But Christ has told us “how” we may so enter. He has taught ONE truth and established ONE Church for this purpose.
All deviations from this are heresies unworthy of serious contemplation as have countless theologians and converts to Catholicism so ably attested. Many of countless wild mushroom varieties of Protestantism that have grown around the mustard tree have withered and died.
This is not the proper forum to engage you in an exegetical discussion of the validity of Scriptural support for Catholic teaching. Augustine and Aquinas (whose book Summa Theologica is placed side-by-side with the Bible in Oxford’s Bordelein library) ably explain this. As does the German born theological Einstein, Benedict XVI
But if you wish a fuller introductory explanation you may feel free to consult:
http://www.catholicbasictraining.com/apologetics/coursetexts/2e.htm
Two thousand years of unbroken scriptural practice and tradition cannot and will not be superseded by the third rate Rev. Moons; Rev. Schullers; Billy Grahams; Joel Osteens; David Koresh’s, Bishop TD Jakes,’ Jeremish Wrights and similar clowns like him..
Have a good night.
I affirmed the one in the apostles creed, and defined it, as being the universal body of Christ, which the verse (Eph 2:19) DOMINUS IESUS invokes actually referred to, and for which Christ died. (Acts 20:28)
Yet your logic is that affirming the truthfulness of a basic non-specific statement made by someone else means you are defaulting to whatever they mean by it. Thus Paul's affirmation of a pagan poet's basic statement about God (Acts 17:28) signified assent to whatever he meant by God.
Come back when you actually have an argument.
I know what the Creed says and you do to. The Church is not an invisible body of believers. It is a real institution, and it’s called the Catholic Church, headquartered in Rome, Italy. Protestants are not part of it. The heretic Martin Luther seen to that.
Protestant faiths are ecclesiastical communities, not churches. They have no sacraments, no doctrine, no theology. It’s every man for himself.
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