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Why Every Christian, Not Just Catholics, Should Be Very Worried About The Catholic Sex Scandal
The Federalist ^ | 09/17/2018 | By Willis L. Krumholz and Robert Delahunty

Posted on 09/17/2018 11:01:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

The rapidly unfolding crisis in the Roman Catholic Church is not a matter of concern to Catholics alone. Its true dimensions have yet to be measured, but we think it will prove to be a crisis on the scale of the Protestant Reformation, which began just over 500 years ago — an earthquake of 9.5 on the Richter scale. If so, resolution of the crisis will take decades to work through.

Resolution and absolution will require serious effort, and most likely require deep, structural reforms. Even if we are mistaken, the Catholic crisis is of such a magnitude that Christians of all denominations must take a serious interest in it.

We are both evangelical Christians with strong ties to the Catholic Church and deep respect for it. One of us was raised as a Catholic, was educated at Catholic primary and secondary schools, and has taught for the past 14 years at a Catholic law school; the other is a graduate of the law school and the business school of that Catholic university, and has many Catholic family members.

We also care deeply about our many Catholic friends, and the health of the Roman Catholic Church, which is an enormous force for good in this world. We also believe that what happens with the Catholic Church will affect Christianity worldwide. In other words, we have a stake in the matter.

Non-Catholics Should Pay Attention

Some Catholics may regard the crisis in their church as a purely internal matter, and consider outside commentary unwelcome and intrusive, even if it is well-meant. Likewise, many non-Catholic Christians may assume the Catholic crisis does not affect them at all, and perhaps even find in that crisis confirmation for their darkest views of Catholicism.

We do not accept that position. Non-Catholic Christians should take an active part in the conversation about the Catholic crisis. While they must be unfailingly tactful and sympathetic, they should also be as critical as is necessary given what is at stake. The well-known writer Rod Dreher, formerly a Catholic and now Eastern Orthodox, has posted frequently on the Catholic crisis, and is a magnificent model for other non-Catholic Christians to follow.

Among many reasons for non-Catholic interventions, three stand out in our minds.

1. The Victims

First, every Christian has a compelling obligation to protect the weak and vulnerable to the greatest extent possible. The victims of clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church (as elsewhere) have often been children. While many victims have been compensated — if “compensation” for such injuries is really possible — and the Catholic Church in many places has instituted practices to guard against future abuse, it remains necessary to speak on behalf of those who have been victimized and those who may still be at risk.

All Christians, especially Catholics, should be angry. It is unbearable to think of what has been done “to the least of these” by those claiming to speak in the name of Christ. Many of the children targeted and abused came from broken and dysfunctional homes. Many are fatherless.

The church is charged with mending the emptiness that a broken family brings, not violently shattering a child’s world. God is the father to the fatherless. What would Christ, who overturned tables at the temple and chased out the moneychangers with a whip, do to those who sexually molest his children?

Far too many in the church hierarchy, including the pope, are not sufficiently angry. For example, this coming January, Cardinal Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyons in France, will be standing trial for allegedly covering up the crimes of a local priest who, in the 1980s, sexually abused Boy Scouts. A local priest has gathered more than 100,000 signatures to petition the pope to remove this cardinal.

Thus far, however, Pope Francis seems not to have responded to that petition. However, in 2016, despite knowing of the allegations against the cardinal, and apparently without meeting or hearing the victims of the priest’s abuse, Pope Francis praised Barbarin as “brave.” He also has not ordered a canonical proceeding against him.

We are not prejudging Barbarin’s guilt or innocence: that depends on the outcome of his case in January. But we think it is fair to say that Pope Francis’ handling of the affair indicates that he is — at best — over-eager to defend his hierarchy and insufficiently attentive to those who have suffered at their hands.

The pope is not the only member of the Catholic hierarchy who seems simply unable to register the severity of the injuries they cause to their victims, and others at risk from them. Recently, on a visit to a seminary, Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, a Francis appointee, answered one anguished young candidate for the priesthood by saying, “While the church’s ‘agenda’ certainly involves protecting kids from harm, ‘we have a bigger agenda than to be distracted by all of this.’” His audience was reportedly dumbfounded: Surely the problem of sexual abuse of seminaries and children is more than a “distraction?”

In a similar vein, Cardinal Oscar Maradiaga of Honduras has excoriated a group of 50 Honduran seminarians for petitioning the Vatican to correct homosexual abuses going on in their seminary. We apparently are to believe that 50 seminaries are spreading malicious lies, while Madariaga, whose top aide resigned last July in the wake of charges of sexual and financial misconduct, is only speaking the truth.

Moreover, the victims of clerical abuse and the hierarchical concealment of them are not limited to those who have personally suffered sexual affronts. The financial costs to the Catholic Church of litigating and settling abuse cases have been staggering, and are now likely to escalate much higher. In 2015, the National Catholic Reporter found that the church had incurred $4 billion since 1950 in costs related to clerical sex abuse.

Research has also found that the church lost about $2.3 billion annually over the last 30 years due to scandal-related consequences, in the form of lost membership, and diverted giving. Specifically, there is a notable drop in giving in areas rocked by abuse. This makes sense. Why should good people give to pay for bad things?

Abuse litigation in the Los Angeles Archdiocese alone cost $740 million. Yet the former archbishop of Los Angeles, Cardinal Roger Mahony, under whose tenure (1985-2011) there were 500 alleged victims, is still considered a “priest in good standing” and has not been demoted by the pope.

These amounts will likely rise significantly in the wake of the recent report by a Pennsylvania grand jury detailing abuse in most (but not all) of that state’s Catholic dioceses, the overwhelming likelihood that similar investigations will occur in other states, and the risk that statutes of limitations will be amended to expose the Catholic Church to greater liability.

That means the American Catholic Church has had, and will have, far fewer resources to help the poor, to care for the sick, to shelter the homeless, and to educate children. These are victims too.

2. Concern for Fellow Christians

Second, even if you happen not to be a Catholic, surely you have Catholic family members, spouses, close friends, or colleagues who are Catholics. Almost half of the U.S. population has a “strong” connection to the Catholic Church. We have often found the Catholics closest to us to be dismayed by the situation in their church — angry, stunned, confused, or even in denial. Fellow Christians should share their agony.

The other Christian churches should want a healthy, robust Catholic Church, not the gravely weakened one of the present. American Catholicism was losing members alarmingly even before the current phase of the Catholic crisis. It is said that the second largest American denomination, after the Catholic Church, is ex-Catholics.

Not all of that decline is due to the clerical scandals; the general re-paganization of American society has surely played its part. But it seems likely that many former Catholics have abandoned their church (or at least are boycotting it) because of the scandals. The abuse scandals may also be playing a role in this re-paganization — after all, abuse of young boys was a pagan practice that early Christianity condemned and sought to stamp out.

In light of all this, non-Catholic Christians may be increasingly tempted to view Catholicism as a kind of pariah church within global Christianity. But that would not only be uncharitable; it would be unwise. To a great extent, the reputation of the Christian faith itself is besmirched when a large Christian denomination is engulfed in continuing scandals.

3. The Risk to Religious Liberty

When a large corporate body proves unable to govern itself, the chances are high that the government will step in. We saw this when financial institutions considered “too big to fail” were either shuttered by the government or subjected to deeply intrusive government regulation. The Catholic Church is heading towards the same predicament. Unless it can prove, very rapidly, that it is capable of managing its own affairs, it will come under increasing governmental scrutiny and control. Thereby it will pose a danger to the religious liberties of us all.

Already, the American Catholic Church is under the regulatory microscope. We’ve mentioned the stunning grand jury report from Pennsylvania. Attorneys general in five other states — Illinois, New York, Nebraska, New Mexico, Missouri, and now Kentucky — have been quick to take the cue.

These investigations may well reveal problems as deep, intractable, and serious as those discovered in Pennsylvania. That is, the systematic abuse of children was known to be occurring, and no one did anything about it.

Federal and state courts have already been involved, e.g., in diocesan bankruptcy cases. They are now likely to be trying larger numbers of criminal cases related to the abuse scandals, including some against ranking Catholic prelates. There is even a possibility that the Department of Justice may launch an anti-racketeering suit against the American Catholic Church.

Yes, there is a sturdy tradition of religious liberty in this country, and it enjoys constitutional protection in the First Amendment. But in the past several years, that tradition has been weakening, and government has asserted broader power to control decisions that churches once considered their own.

The Obama administration’s “contraception mandate” is a case in point. Given that growing numbers of Americans have severed their affiliations to any religion or church, the public (and the courts) may grow increasingly indifferent to arguments of behalf of religious liberty, and come to regard governmental regulation of all churches with greater acceptance. These trends will be aggravated if the largest American denomination seems scandal-ridden and unable to right itself. That makes the problems of the Catholic Church a matter of the highest concern for us all.

Gazing Into the Abyss

It is absolutely essential that Catholics grasp the depth of this crisis. As we have said, we think it will become as severe and as comprehensive as the crisis of the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago. With remarkable swiftness, Catholicism simply collapsed in what had been Catholic strongholds — most of Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and very nearly France. In recent decades, Catholicism has likewise lost its grip in what had been bastions — like French Canada, Spain, Ireland, and Brazil.

Forty years ago, virtually the entire population of southern Ireland turned out to welcome Pope John Paul II. A few weeks ago, the Irish population essentially shunned the visiting Pope Francis, and the Irish prime minister gave him a stern lecture on his church’s reduced place in that country. What would St. Patrick, who, despite just escaping from slavery in pagan Ireland, returned to the island after hearing the screams of the damned in his dreams, think of the church today?

As goes Ireland, so will go the rest of Roman Catholic Christendom. The church in Germany has been rocked by scandal and there are thousands of known-victims. Already, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is under judgment in Chile, the United States, Australia, France, and Honduras. The crisis has long since gone global.

In fact, as the Catholic scholar Benjamin Wiker has argued, the current crisis is more threatening for the Catholic Church than the Protestant Reformation 500 years ago. For one thing, the Reformation began in a society that was still overwhelmingly Christian. Some historians of the pre-Reformation period even argue that Christian piety was deepening and broadening in the run-up to the Reformation, and that the Christian laity was already assuming a more prominent role in managing church affairs (a development greatly accelerated by Lutherans and Calvinists). But the contemporary Western world seems rapidly to be losing whatever residual Christianity was left in it. That makes a Catholic recovery more problematic.

Second, the internet spreads news of the Catholic crisis within seconds into every house. Everyone knows everything. Pope Francis, who seems to prefer talking about plastics in our oceans over the systemic problem of child abuse, may count on a friendly and collaborative media to ignore or downplay the charges Archbishop Vigano recently brought personally against him. But even if information leaks out drip by drip, the Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican can no longer safely rely on secrecy and on silence to cover their misdeeds.

Just as the printing press was a major force in the spread of the Reformation in Martin Luther’s Germany, so internet journalism (and, who knows, even the mainstream media when the pope is no longer useful to their agenda) will sooner or later force the disclosure of the facts. So it will not do for Catholics simply to say, “We have been through this before. We will make it through again.” In the end, that belief may be vindicated. We sincerely hope it is. But in the meanwhile, they must be energetically fashioning responses that are truly commensurate to this crisis.

Willis L. Krumholz lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is a JD/MBA graduate from the University of St. Thomas, and works in the financial services industry. Robert J. Delahunty is a professor of law at the University of St Thomas and has taught Constitutional Law there for a decade.


TOPICS: Catholic; Evangelical Christian; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: catholics; catholicsexscandal; popesexscandal; sexscandal; sexualabuse
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To: metmom
I've posted pictures of Nazis and quotes from Nazis.


Have folks taken them personally?

Maybe...

221 posted on 09/19/2018 4:16:51 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Al Hitan
I won't post links here.

Why not?

Perhaps we have some interested lurkers; who've nothing better to do than to watch us fuss at one another.

222 posted on 09/19/2018 4:19:02 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Twink
... don’t really care much about other “churches” …

Some of us here might take this the wrong way.

223 posted on 09/19/2018 4:20:52 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Twink
I have never seen a Catholic on here say any Protestant (other than mormon or scientology) isn’t a Christian.

You're in this game a bit late.

By the time you've read up to reply #200; perhaps things will have become a bit more clear.

224 posted on 09/19/2018 4:22:36 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Twink
Make no mistake, it is rampant there as it is in every institution in our society.

INDEED!!!

Just LOOK at how screwed up the kids in this Catholic school in Indianapolis are!!

They are SUPPORTING a LESBIAN 'counselor'!!


https://www.google.com/search?q=indystar+roncalli&ie=&oe=


Makes me wonder what OTHER biblical principals are being untaught there as well...



225 posted on 09/19/2018 4:28:41 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: RegulatorCountry

yup


226 posted on 09/19/2018 4:29:50 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Twink
The last people I worry about (even though I may think they’re wrong, or weird,etc.) are the fundamentalist Christians, Evangelicals, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses (theyre really weird), Amish, etc. I don’t worry about them.

Really??

Is 'worry' the correct word to be using here??


1 Timothy 1:3-4
 3.  As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer
 4.  nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work--which is by faith.
 
 
1 Timothy 1:7
  They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.
 
 
1 Timothy 6:3-5
 3.  If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching,
 4.  he is conceited and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 
 5.  and constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.
 
 
Titus 1:11
   They must be silenced, because they are ruining whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach--and that for the sake of dishonest gain.
 

227 posted on 09/19/2018 4:35:00 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Twink
Do you know what Mormons think of us 'gentiles'?
 
 
 
Orson Pratt proclaimed: "Both Catholics and Protestants are nothing less than the 'whore of Babylon' whom the Lord denounces by the mouth of John the Revelator as having corrupted all the earth by their fornications and wickedness. Any person who shall be so corrupt as to receive a holy ordinance of the Gospel from the ministers of any of these apostate churches will be sent down to hell with them, unless they repent" (The Seer, p. 255).
 
 

228 posted on 09/19/2018 4:37:01 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Twink
Do you know what we think about Mormonism?
 
 
 
Mormonism is not Christianity. FYI -->
    Christian churches teach belief in God as an eternal, self-existent, immortal being, unfettered by corporeal limitations and unchanging in both character and nature. In recent years, several Christian denominations have made studies of Mormon teaching and come to the conclusion that there are irreconcilable differences between LDS doctrine and Christian beliefs based on the Bible.

Some Mormons undoubtedly become Christians, and evidently leave the Mormon sect they were members of behind.

(Thanks to delacort for compiling this list)

 
 

229 posted on 09/19/2018 4:38:43 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Twink
Seriously, you people fight all this nonsense when liberalism and Islam is taking over the world and is in every aspect of our culture.

I get the feeling that the WORLD is somehow more important to you than Man's eternal destiny.

230 posted on 09/19/2018 4:40:12 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Twink

That’s a BIG jump from reply #57 to reply #203!


231 posted on 09/19/2018 4:41:14 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: ravenwolf
Christ said call no man father.

That is exactly right, i think the Catholics are right about many things but talk about straining on a knat and swallowing a camel.

Each individual has the God given right to 'think' and believe whatever floats their boat. That is what a pastor is suppose to teach, not some veil of covering just because one belongs to some man made tradition, they are 'saved'. Christ is the only Savior, and every individual will get to individually account for what they choose to think or believe.

Peter says the 'preacher/priest' profession gets to get judgment first. IF you are accusing me of straining, at Christ's command, then that is on you. HIS WORDS are the only WORDS that count when all is said and done.

As Christ warned it would be those coming in His name that would be responsible for the mass deception... in case you have never read.

232 posted on 09/19/2018 5:21:23 AM PDT by Just mythoughts
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To: FreshPrince
(Titus 1:4); “I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment” (Philem. 10). For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (1 Cor. 4:14–15). “She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark” (1 Pet. 5:13). (Peter is thus Marks spiritual Father)

None of the Scriptures you cited changed Christ's command... It was long after Peter when 'man' decided they were to be called 'holy father'... There will be a long line of souls on judgment day, getting to explain the claim Paul and Peter rescinded Christ's command.

That miracle while Christ was upon the Cross, gave access to Him, to any who would without the need of any flesh man. Matthew 27:50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

233 posted on 09/19/2018 5:32:00 AM PDT by Just mythoughts
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To: Elsie
"Call no man father" is not to be applied literally, and how do we know this? Because it doesn't apply that way in the Bible, neither OT nor NT. So I advise taking the Bible as your model here.

Your interpretation of that text cannot be correct. An attentive New Testament perspective shows that men upon this earth are frequently called "father" ---

including, explicitly, men who were their religious leaders --- and there is no offense.

This is not to "explain away" the "call no man Father (or Master or Teacher" )text, but to call for a deeper application, a more thorough absolutizing of the Messiah as the ultimate Father, Master and Teacher.

This is what God's Word says:

Matthew 1:2
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers

Matthew 4:21
As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee

Matthew 15:4
For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’

Mark 15:21
They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus

Luke 1:67
Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit

Luke 2:33
And the child’s father and mother were amazed

Luke 8:51
...He did not allow anyone to enter with him, except Peter, John, and James, and the child’s father and mother


Luke 15:20
So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him

Acts 7:2
And Stephen replied: “Brothers and father, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham

Acts 7:4
Then he left the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God had him move

Acts 7:8
Then he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac became the father of Jacob

Acts 22:1
“Brothers and father, listen to the defense that I now make before you.”

Romans 4:16
...those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”)

1 Corinthians 4:15
Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

Ephesians 6:4
And, father do not provoke your children to anger

Philemon 1:10
I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.

1 John 2:13
I am writing to you, father, because you know him who is from the beginning.

The Church has always understood this to be proper.

Think this was wordy? Only because of the multiple times men are called "father", without objection, in the NT.

Multiply that for the times when men are called "Master" and "Teacher" --- points I never see addressed along with "Father" -- and you have undeniable proof that Jesus' injunction had a much deeper significance. It's superficial to think that the point is whether we call men fathers, masters or teachers. The real point is maximizing the authority of the Messiah.

234 posted on 09/19/2018 7:13:46 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (What does the LORD require of you: to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God)
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Matthew 23

1 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,

2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:

3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

4 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

5 But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,

6 And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,

7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.

********8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.********

********9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.**********

*******10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ.******

11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant.

12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!

17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?

18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty.

19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?

20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon.

21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.

22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.

23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.

27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,

30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.

32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

235 posted on 09/19/2018 7:27:25 AM PDT by Just mythoughts
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To: metmom; BillyBoy
The antecedent for *them* (in "tons of them") is in the previous sentence is the protestant Freepers he was referring to in the first sentence.

That's correct. This is the first sentence::

So, when he said "tons", Billyboy was referring to those who he didn't recall saying they liked or admired or respected Pope Benedict XVI.

But what you wrote in response is:

All I'm taking exception to is that Billyboy did not claim tons called him the Nazi Pope, contrary to what you posted. Your post misconstrued what Billyboy said.
236 posted on 09/19/2018 7:29:58 AM PDT by Al Hitan
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To: BillyBoy

In post 157, I see that I referred to you but did not ping you. My apologies.


237 posted on 09/19/2018 7:34:44 AM PDT by Al Hitan
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To: Elsie
Why not?

Are you looking for new material to repeatedly spam on the RF?

238 posted on 09/19/2018 7:41:47 AM PDT by Al Hitan
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To: Elsie
"Call no man father" is not to be applied literally, and how do we know this? Because it doesn't apply that way in the Bible, neither OT nor NT. So I advise taking the Bible as your model here.

Your interpretation of that text cannot be correct. An attentive New Testament perspective shows that men upon this earth are frequently called "father" ---

including, explicitly, men who were their religious leaders --- and there is no offense.

This is not to "explain away" the "call no man Father (or Master or Teacher" )text, but to call for a deeper application, a more thorough absolutizing of the Messiah as the ultimate Father, Master and Teacher.

This is what God's Word says:

Matthew 1:2
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers

Matthew 4:21
As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee

Matthew 15:4
For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’

Mark 15:21
They compelled a passer-by, who was coming in from the country, to carry his cross; it was Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus

Luke 1:67
Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit

Luke 2:33
And the child’s father and mother were amazed

Luke 8:51
...He did not allow anyone to enter with him, except Peter, John, and James, and the child’s father and mother


Luke 15:20
So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him

Acts 7:2
And Stephen replied: “Brothers and father, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham

Acts 7:4
Then he left the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God had him move

Acts 7:8
Then he gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac became the father of Jacob

Acts 22:1
“Brothers and father, listen to the defense that I now make before you.”

Romans 4:16
...those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us,as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”)

1 Corinthians 4:15
Indeed, in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

Ephesians 6:4
And, father do not provoke your children to anger

Philemon 1:10
I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.

1 John 2:13
I am writing to you, father, because you know him who is from the beginning.

The Church has always understood this to be proper.

Think this was wordy? Only because of the multiple times men are called "father", without objection, in the NT.

Multiply that for the times when men are called "Master" and "Teacher" --- points I never see addressed along with "Father" -- and you have undeniable proof that Jesus' injunction had a much deeper significance. It's superficial to think that the point is whether we call men fathers, masters or teachers. The real point is maximizing the authority of the Messiah.

239 posted on 09/19/2018 8:01:58 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (What does the LORD require of you: to act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with your God)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

The context is TO the disciples about addressing religious leaders by titles.

It in NO way refers to people recognizing the fatherhood of their own dads or calling them *Dad* of *Father*.

All that twisting and turning and spinning in the wind is just rationalization to avoid obeying the clear, specific, concise command of Jesus to His followers about certain religious titles.

Catholicism was and is wrong in its use of the title for its clergy and no amount of excuses, rationalization or justification can change that.


240 posted on 09/19/2018 12:20:05 PM PDT by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith......)
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