Posted on 09/03/2019 9:28:46 AM PDT by Salvation
Numerous surveys have documented the steady decline of religious belief in the U.S. and the rest of the Western world. The category of people known as “nones” consists of atheists, agnostics, and those who state that they are not affiliated with any particular religious denomination. There is little that unites them other than this lack of belief. In trying to bring others to the Catholic faith, we are not facing people with a single mindset but rather a bewildering and complex hodgepodge of stances and ideas; the “nones” disagree with one another as much as they do with us Catholics.
There is a simplistic perception that believers are losing ground to a united group of non-believers; this is not the case. We are losing ground, but to a host of disconnected groups/trends: atheists, agnostics, and the “spiritual but not religious,” as well as those who embrace Eastern religions, yoga, reiki, Wicca, Santeria, Wicca, Santa Muerte, and Satanism. There are also people who follow a syncretic religion, incorporating aspects of two or more different religions into a unique new one. The people we are trying to convert represent a mishmash of confusing and self-referential “movements,” some of which have a single member! Some who abandoned the Catholic faith did so in anger over a specific issue or teaching; others just drifted. Some oppose us intensely while others are merely indifferent. Almost nothing unites these groups except that none of them accept our faith.
This can be consoling, but it can also make our task more difficult. The consolation comes from the fact that is this not some strong, united force arrayed against us. If anyone in this non-believing “group” boasts, “We now outnumber you,” I would point out that there isn’t a lot of “we” going on in their supposed movement! Little if anything unites them besides unbelief.
Melanie McDonagh, writing in the Catholic Herald, describes a recent secular movement in England centered around the “Sunday Assembly.” In many ways this assembly mimics Sunday religious services: people sing songs, listen to a secular talk, and share coffee and fellowship afterwards. It turns out, though, that even this group is seeing a substantial decline in attendance. McDonagh writes,
Yet now, it would seem, the difficulties in maintaining attendance turn out to be common to believers and unbelievers alike. According to Faith Hill, writing in The Atlantic, “Sunday Assembly has reported a significant loss in total attendees over the past few years—from about 5,000 monthly attendees in 2016 to about 3,500 in 2018. … After a promising start, attendance declined, and nearly half the chapters have fizzled out ….” If it’s hard getting people to come to Mass when there’s the Body and Blood of Christ on offer, it must be far harder when you’ve got an unanchored community with nearly nothing in common. In fact, some Assembly members are agnostics and others are atheists, so even the absence of religion doesn’t mean unity.
So, it is not really a case of “us versus them.” Rather, it is more that we are against something no more cohesive than a morning mist as the sun rises.
While this may be consoling it also illustrates the difficulty of our response or strategy. Apologetics has always been multi-faceted: Catholic vs. Atheist, Catholic vs. Agnostic, Catholic vs. Mainline Protestant, Catholic vs. Evangelical, and so on. In the current quagmire of highly subjective denominations, the decline in belief resembles more a death by a thousand cuts. While certain commonalities may exist among the myriad varieties of unbelief and designer deities, it has become clear to me that the best thing we can do in response is to be the Church, clearly and unambiguously; we must be clear in our doctrine and identify ourselves as Catholics to others. St. Paul says,
We do not lose heart …. We do not practice deceit, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by open proclamation of the truth, we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God (2 Cor 4:1-2).
What we certainly do not want to do is to follow the example of the mainline Protestant denominations, who have comprised nearly every doctrine and moral teaching to please the world rather than God. In the same article, Ms. McDonagh memorably describes some Protestant sects
… [they] slid from non-conformity to Unitarianism and eventually to mere political activism. Unitarianism, in fact, strikes me as the American way of doing agnosticism, or at least deism—a way of being religiously observant without having anything in particular to observe.
What could be more useless than to become the very thing we set out to convert? How can we convert the world by becoming the world? What distinguishes the Protestant denominations and their teachings on moral issues like sexuality, marriage, and the value of life? One might argue that they stand against greed and for social justice. Those are not controversial stands in the liberal West, which loves to trot out such things as a form of virtue signaling.
No, I think that the best and only way forward is being fully, faithfully, and joyfully Catholic. There is still a place for arguments and apologetics, but in the era of competitive atheism and consumerized belief, being “happy customers” of the Lord Jesus and insisting on no cheap substitutes or imitation brands is our best way forward. This may seem bold or hard in an age of never-ending scandal and disappointment with our leaders. However, those are examples of not being Catholic enough or of living in outright contradiction to the Catholic faith. Be Catholic, joyfully. St. Teresa of Calcutta is purported to have said, “Joy is a net of love in which you can catch souls.”
Your comment.
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Which wasn’t my figure but a reply in response to a figure Joe fonebone made.
Do you then suggest this figure was something I brought up, when I was commenting on a post by someone else?
“They did not also know that he was a traitor. That’s the problem with traitors.”
We KNOW there are pedophiles and communists in the clergy. You’re saying: Let Judas stay!
You can say, “get rid of all sinners” all you want...”
Nonsense. I never said any such thing.
You can say, “let’s have communists and pedophiles run the church” all you want...
” but you’re dealing with people and an organization.”
No you’re dealing with subversives and criminals.
“Its not as simple as finding and removing the obvious.”
No, but it’s a good start.
“Faith alone” is something Luther added to the Bible. It is not true.
LOL! What version of Scripture is that in??
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Correction
I’m referencing Matt 5:32
“But I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”
New American Bible (Washington, DC Revised Edition 2011) Mt 5:32
Here it is in Luke:
“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and the one who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery
New American Bible Lk 16:18.
The teaching is repeated again by the Apostle Paul.
To the married, however, I give this instruction (not I, but the Lord): A wife should not separate from her husband 11 —and if she does separate she must either remain single or become reconciled to her husband—and a husband should not divorce his wife.
New American Bible 1 Co 7:10-11.
Still not finding that part about unlawful in Scripture. Keep trying to add Rome’s beliefs to Scripture.
So... you are now claiming something has to be in the Bible to be true??
Pope Benedict XVI:"Before Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven was defined, all theological faculties in the world were consulted for their opinion. Our teachers' answer was emphatically negative... Altaner, the patrologist from Wurzburg…had proven in a scientifically persuasive manner that the doctrine of Mary’s bodily Assumption into heaven was unknown before the 5C; this doctrine, therefore, he argued, could not belong to the “apostolic tradition. And this was his conclusion, which my teachers at Munich shared."
We KNOW there are pedophiles and communists in the clergy.
“Its not as simple as finding and removing the obvious.”
No, but it’s a good start.
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Which ones? Do you have proof and can you make the case clearly? Its one thing to hurl accusations, its totally another thing to build a clear case. Loads of people walk free as criminals in the US simply because there is not enough evidence to prosecute.
I’m sure you might cite several Bishops who have said many things, and done x y. But that’s not always as clear as it is presented in a press release. And yes there are clear cases where the Church has removed from ministry clergy that should be removed, including Bishops. There has also been loads of cases where Bishops should have acted and did not. Why? Probably because they were cowards, or because they didn’t believe they could simply remove someone without more proof.
Atm the Dallas charter is written in such a way that its stupidly easy for Bishops to remove priests now. Loads of them have been removed on accusations. So there’s progress there. But again, you still the nature of traitors is that you don’t know who a traitor is until they do something.
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You’re saying: Let Judas stay!
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I never said that. If you know a Judas report him. He should be gone.
I’m merely saying that Judas remained an Apostle until he hung himself. Its a total mystery to me why Jesus would have even have allowed someone in his presence who he knew to be a thief (Jn 12:6) and a traitor. But Jesus is God, and the other Apostles did not know the nature of Judas until after his betrayal.
Which version of scripture do you use?
One that doesn’t add to the verse like you’ve posted. I use the NASB and Greek.
You said 5K.
Not a high five figure, but 5k. Bolded emphasis in your post mine.
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To: joe fonebone
You obviously don’t know anything about Catholic teaching and annulments.
The Catholic Church doesn’t charge for annulments. Originally the cost was to defray the expenses to investigate your matrimony. Now its free, so you have no excuse not to go get one.
Although, five thousand is pitifully cheap to be saved. I don’t see why you would complain about the price when the treasure of following Jesus is worth more than any price.
40 posted on 9/3/2019, 5:43:00 PM by Bayard
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Ah yes...one of the ongoing fabrications of Roman Catholicism which has been refuted so many time but will be once again.
For the Roman Catholics who continue to post this fabrication have no entered what Rome calls a "mortal sin".
They are no without benefit of Heaven if they were to die unless they can get to a priest, confess, do penance and go to Mass.
Fortunately, the NT teaches otherwise.
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Luther Added The Word "Alone" to Romans 3:28?
Luther offers another line of reasoning in his “Open Letter on Translating” that many of the current Cyber-Roman Catholics ignore (and most Protestants are not aware of):
“Furthermore, I am not the only one, nor the first, to say that faith alone makes one righteous. There was Ambrose, Augustine and many others who said it before me.”
Now here comes the fun part in this discussion.
The Roman Catholic writer Joseph A. Fitzmyer points out that Luther was not the only one to translate Romans 3:28 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] with the word “alone.”
At 3:28 Luther introduced the adv. “only” into his translation of Romans (1522), “alleyn durch den Glauben” (WAusg 7.38); cf. Aus der Bibel 1546, “alleine durch den Glauben” (WAusg, DB 7.39); also 7.3-27 (Pref. to the Epistle). See further his Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen, of 8 Sept. 1530 (WAusg 30.2 [1909], 627-49; “On Translating: An Open Letter” [LuthW 35.175-202]). Although “alleyn/alleine” finds no corresponding adverb in the Greek text, two of the points that Luther made in his defense of the added adverb were that it was demanded by the context and that sola was used in the theological tradition before him.
Robert Bellarmine listed eight earlier authors who used sola (Disputatio de controversiis: De justificatione 1.25 [Naples: G. Giuliano, 1856], 4.501-3):
Origen, Commentarius in Ep. ad Romanos, cap. 3 (PG 14.952).
Hilary, Commentarius in Matthaeum 8:6 (PL 9.961).
Basil, Hom. de humilitate 20.3 (PG 31.529C).
Ambrosiaster, In Ep. ad Romanos 3.24 (CSEL 81.1.119): “sola fide justificati sunt dono Dei,” through faith alone they have been justified by a gift of God; 4.5 (CSEL 81.1.130).
John Chrysostom, Hom. in Ep. ad Titum 3.3 (PG 62.679 [not in Greek text]).
Cyril of Alexandria, In Joannis Evangelium 10.15.7 (PG 74.368 [but alludes to Jas 2:19 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] ]).
Bernard, In Canticum serm. 22.8 (PL 183.881): “solam justificatur per fidem,” is justified by faith alone.
Theophylact, Expositio in ep. ad Galatas 3.12-13 (PG 124.988).
To these eight Lyonnet added two others (Quaestiones, 114-18):
Theodoret, Affectionum curatio 7 (PG 93.100; ed. J. Raeder [Teubner], 189.20-24).
Thomas Aquinas, Expositio in Ep. I ad Timotheum cap. 1, lect. 3 (Parma ed., 13.588): “Non est ergo in eis [moralibus et caeremonialibus legis] spes iustificationis, sed in sola fide, Rom. 3:28 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] : Arbitramur justificari hominem per fidem, sine operibus legis” (Therefore the hope of justification is not found in them [the moral and ceremonial requirements of the law], but in faith alone, Rom 3:28 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] : We consider a human being to be justified by faith, without the works of the law). Cf. In ep. ad Romanos 4.1 (Parma ed., 13.42a): “reputabitur fides eius, scilicet sola sine operibus exterioribus, ad iustitiam”; In ep. ad Galatas 2.4 (Parma ed., 13.397b): “solum ex fide Christi” [Opera 20.437, b41]).
See further:
Theodore of Mopsuestia, In ep. ad Galatas (ed. H. B. Swete), 1.31.15.
Marius Victorinus (ep. Pauli ad Galatas (ed. A. Locher), ad 2.15-16: “Ipsa enim fides sola iustificationem dat-et sanctificationem” (For faith itself alone gives justification and sanctification); In ep. Pauli Ephesios (ed. A. Locher), ad 2.15: “Sed sola fides in Christum nobis salus est” (But only faith in Christ is salvation for us).
Augustine, De fide et operibus, 22.40 (CSEL 41.84-85): “licet recte dici possit ad solam fidem pertinere dei mandata, si non mortua, sed viva illa intellegatur fides, quae per dilectionem operatur” (Although it can be said that God’s commandments pertain to faith alone, if it is not dead [faith], but rather understood as that live faith, which works through love”). Migne Latin Text: Venire quippe debet etiam illud in mentem, quod scriptum est, In hoc cognoscimus eum, si mandata ejus servemus. Qui dicit, Quia cognovi eum, et mandata ejus non servat, mendax est, et in hoc veritas non est (I Joan. II, 3, 4). Et ne quisquam existimet mandata ejus ad solam fidem pertinere: quanquam dicere hoc nullus est ausus, praesertim quia mandata dixit, quae ne multitudine cogitationem spargerent [Note: [Col. 0223] Sic Mss. Editi vero, cogitationes parerent.], In illis duobus tota Lex pendet et Prophetae (Matth. XXII, 40): licet recte dici possit ad solam fidem pertinere Dei mandata, si non mortua, sed viva illa intelligatur fides, quae per dilectionem operatur; tamen postea Joannes ipse aperuit quid diceret, cum ait: Hoc est mandatum ejus, ut credamus nomini Filii ejus Jesu Christi, et diligamns invicem (I Joan. III, 23) See De fide et operibus, Cap. XXII, §40, PL 40:223.
Source: Joseph A. Fitzmyer Romans, A New Translation with introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Bible Series (New York: Doubleday, 1993) 360-361.
Even some Catholic versions of the New Testament also translated Romans 3:28 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] as did Luther. The Nuremberg Bible (1483), “nur durch den glauben” and the Italian Bibles of Geneva (1476) and of Venice (1538) say “per sola fede.” [source]
More at the link.
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2006/02/luther-added-word-alone-to-romans-328.html
Do not lie.
The annulment process can be done on a sliding scale or even free. How dare you say such a thing.
Then you might or might not know that Porneias translated as "unchastitiy" in the NASB from Greek means more then simply "unchastity." It includes a range of sexual immorality such as incest ect, which are expressly forbidden in Lev 20:11-17 and elsewhere.
Illicit sexual practice might be a better translation but we're up against a problem with the meaning of the Greek translated into English.
However the word appears again in other parts of scripture to mean more then mere unchastity. Paul uses the word in reference to incest 1 cor 5:1, but it can mean any kind of sexual immorality.
Reference: Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament: based on semantic domains 1, 770.
I apologise.....I was unsure of the cost and just assumed.....I was married for 32 years, I probably should look at it.... problem is my ex’s uncle is a Catholic priest....
Thanks.
See Post 17.
Sure I may have low balled a “five-figure” claim by misreading it into, that’s a mistake.
What is the point of this again? Beyond jumping down my throat for a figure that doesn’t exist except as an illustration of something that doesn’t exist?
Go to another priest.
Yes, πορνεία, meaning pornography, pornographic"; cf. 4205 /pórnos) which is derived from pernaō, "to sell off") – properly, a selling off (surrendering) of sexual purity; promiscuity of any (every) type.
However, that is not the meaning of the Roman Catholic usage.
Rome expands that definition.
But the term is used properly within the confines of a marriage whereby one partner is cheating on another.
Rome has said an "unlawful" marriage includes things such as no intention of having children (which would really complicate Joseph and Mary's marriage), among others.
Some of these other "unlawful" reasons include:
too young (which again would raise problems for Joseph and Mary)
no intention of being faithful(after the marriage act)
lack of form
previously married
None of those reasons are provided for in Scripture.
However the word appears again in other parts of scripture to mean more then mere unchastity. Paul uses the word in reference to incest 1 cor 5:1, but it can mean any kind of sexual immorality.
Yes, that would be what we'd call "cheating" or unfaithfulness today.
From one of Msgr Pope's articles( https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/jesus-rejected-unlawful-and-unchaste-marriages-in-his-own-day-heres-why-and).
Now the phrases, “unless the marriage is unlawful” and “except for unchastity,” are translations of the Greek phrase μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ (me epi porneia).
The Msgr may know his Latin, but he doesn't know his Greek.
The phrase would be properly translated "except for sexual immorality."
There is nothing in the verse to support the claim of "unless the marriage is unlawful".
Using biblegateway and a search of all English translation of Matthew 19:9 shows the NABRE is the only translation to render the passage in this manner.
The NABRE has added something to scripture not supported in the Greek texts.
Well, it does exist. If it didn’t then there would be a canon law or some other official statement that there are NO charges for an unbiblical annulment.
Sexual immorality of every type is a broad reference. That means every type of unlawful sexual union prescribed elsewhere in scripture.
However, that is not the meaning of the Roman Catholic usage.
Rome expands that definition.
But the term is used properly within the confines of a marriage whereby one partner is cheating on another.
Note in the context of "Porneia" which is a broad definition of the sense of "cheating." It includes rape and incest and prostitution. Basically any type of unlawful sexual union prescribed elsewhere in other passages of sacred scripture.
Rome has said an "unlawful" marriage includes things such as no intention of having children (which would really complicate Joseph and Mary's marriage), among others.
You're mistaking the teaching of "no intention of having children." This is a mistake especially as it applies to Joseph and Mary since they clearly had one child, even though Joseph was not the biological father. We both would agree that Jesus is the Son of God the Father. We both would also believe that He is also the Son of Mary. Their example would clearly be allowed in Canon Law. Unless you have a specific Canon that says otherwise?
Some of these other "unlawful" reasons include: too young (which again would raise problems for Joseph and Mary)
What ages would you be describing Joseph and Mary? Is there scripture on how old Mary was?
Also, Canon Law has a given age, but it does not stipulate that requirement to be a matter of divine law. What would be prescribed is if the youth of that partner was such that they had not had the faculty of reason.
The Msgr may know his Latin, but he doesn't know his Greek.
The phrase would be properly translated "except for sexual immorality."
There is nothing in the verse to support the claim of "unless the marriage is unlawful".
While I'm not Msgnr Pope. I do agree with his definition though, since Sexual Immorality described in scripture is also the same thing as saying Unlawful sexual practice. Biblically speaking, there is no real difference between the two, since sexual immorality is a sin, hence it is also unlawful in God's eyes to engage in it.
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