Posted on 11/11/2023 8:03:13 AM PST by ebb tide
The Holy See Press Office announced today that Pope Francis has removed Bishop Strickland as Bishop of Tyler and replaced him in the interim with Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin.
This is total war. Francis is a clear and present danger not only to Catholics the world over but also to the whole world itself. It appears now that he is actively trying to bury fidelity to the Church of Jesus Christ. If this is so, let him be anathema.
God bless you, Your Excellency. We stand with you now and, please God, for all eternity.
Ping
We are all Catholics, now.
I believe it should read “the tenets of Man.”
The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again (Shepperton Studios / 1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDfAdHBtK_Q
Thank you.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is permitting persecution for His Holy reasons ... let us all remain faithful to Him in spite of all the devils and their persecutions.
May Jesus Christ be praised, now and forever.
Yes it should have, though I do not know why my comment was removed. Is Catholism so perfect it is beyond criticism? BTW I was raised a devout catholic but when other catholics told me I should stop reading the bible becuase I ask to many questions (started at the age of 15), that I just should accept what I am told, was a huge red flag to me.
Look at what this pope is telling the faithful.
I would like to ask you - what are the reasons you are not Catholic?
Simply put I was told I must believe what a priest states regardless what I may read and seek in prayer in my search for a personal relationship with Christ. Catholicism requires I put an earthly man in between me and Christ.
This is important, as we chat on this board your pope has taken a position on homosexual marriages very much in opposition of scripture and your pope’s current protector of the faith writes sexually explicit literature, so egregious as to cause many Cardinals to take an active stand against the appointment.
All to many Catholics take as absolute truth that the institution and not the actual body (believers) is the Church. It is the misplaced faith in the institution above God’s word that is leading many to Hell, much like the Bishop did in Dante’s Inferno.
I know there are those who know better than me and can help me understand scripture, but when a contradiction exists I believe we must seek the truth in a prayerful resolution, not accept as an apodictic truth the utterance of someone in a robe with the institution substituted in place of the actual body of Christ.
Christ Himself pointed out some traditions actually violate God’s Commandments (Matthew 15:3). I will ask again, how do you verify the truth of a tradition if not through Scripture? If Scripture cannot challenge tradition how do you know it is from God?
You can also stop with the semantics of direct prophets, if you can not infer my intent as those as directed by our Lord, in which the written word passes the tests for the inspired word, then you are plainly arguing in bad faith
I am sorry you were told that, but that is not what:
for me what is interesting and inspiring about Catholicism is that it is only dependent on ONE man - Jesus. It has ONE priest at each mass - Jesus who is both Priest and Sacrifice
18 years of Catholicism and that is not my experience across 2 Catholic Churches. I have also had to seek other protestant Churches until one was found to be spirit filled and earnest in the desire to align with Scripture and not the current culture.
However it was in Protestantism that I found a Church focused on Christ. A Christ centered mass based solely in God’s word and those traditions born out in Scripture, and where tradition is not a direct result of Scripture a judicious use of said tradition to inform Scripture, not reinterpret Scripture.
How is Catholicism dependent on only Jesus given the structure of the Pope? Seriously you are not being forthright, the Pope within Catholicism is imbued as a go between and final emissary between the Body and Christ himself.
You may disagree but a countless mass of Catholics follow the pope with a near spiritual blindness to their own personal relationship with Christ and Catholicism does not dissuade such a fervent following.
You asked me, I answered and gave contemporary examples, Why have you not directly addressed the pope’s current proclamations and his selection of protector of the faith? Christ calls us to have unwavering faith in Him, not an institution. I am not dismissing the need for some form of corporate worship, just the blind rigor that prevents followers from calling out and acting in a way to escape those “churches” who are not faithful to Christ.
I can fully understand your position now — there are lots of priests who are pretty pathetic at being examples of the faith.
There are priests who aren’t as well - they are human after all with human frailties.
When I was in my late teens the parish priest at my Aunt’s parish was not a good pastor - I mean not a paedo but just bad as the priest who spoke to you. This was an opportunity for, I believe, Assemblies of God pastors to come and many Catholics left (after 10 to 20 years nearly all came back - each for different reasons, some for dogmatic reasons after reasons what AoG meant, others after wandering from AoG to JW to etc. etc. before coming back, others who just tired of the splits and resplits) and I went for a couple of meetings and then wandered around before reading a bit.
Anyway, my point is that “the Church” is not the bishops or priests, but the entire community of faithful right from the Apostles onwards.
I learnt this from a priest who was really poor at sermons, was very shy and introverted and really, really struggled at interpersonal relations. But he persevered in other areas and I learnt that we need to look beyond the stuttering priest and focus on the High Priest behind him - Jesus.
To the point, it means if a priest says “x y z”, I look up the consensus of the Church, firstly through the Bible and Catechism and then for more detail through the Church writings from Thomas Aquinas to Irenaeus.
To your question -> “Christ Himself pointed out some traditions actually violate God’s Commandments (Matthew 15:3). I will ask again, how do you verify the truth of a tradition if not through Scripture? If Scripture cannot challenge tradition how do you know it is from God?”
—> Matthew 15:3 - we need to start in the previous chapter
Matthew 14: 35 And when the men of that place had knowledge of him, they sent into all that country, and brought to him all that were diseased.
36 And they besought him that they might touch but the hem of his garment. And as many as touched, were made whole.
Matthew 15:1 Then came to him from Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees, saying: 2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the ancients? For they wash not their hands when they eat bread. 3 But he answering, said to them: Why do you also transgress the commandment of God for your tradition? For God said: 4 Honour thy father and mother: And: He that shall curse father or mother, let him die the death. 5 But you say: Whosoever shall say to father or mother, The gift whatsoever proceedeth from me, shall profit thee.
6 And he shall not honour his father or his mother: and you have made void the commandment of God for your tradition. 7 Hypocrites, well hath Isaias prophesied of you, saying: 8 This people honoureth me with their lips: but their heart is far from me. 9 And in vain do they worship me, teaching doctrines and commandments of men.
The doctrines and commandments here reprehended are such as are either contrary to the law of God, (as that of neglecting parents, under pretense of giving to God,) or frivolous as washing hands, etc., without regard to the purity of the heart.
You are correct in saying to verify the truth of a tradition through scripture - and I’m saying that the reverse was also used to answer the question that I posed YOU i.e. “how do you know the books you have in the Bible are inspired?” - and the answer is that one of the ways in which the canon of the New Testament was selected was to verify it (in the 3rd and 4th centuries) against the Apostolic Tradition i.e. Apostolic teachings handed down - any proposed scripture which contradicts apostolic Tradition is a false scripture and must be rejected, which is why we reject the book of Mormon.
From the Gnostic gospels (such as the Gospel of Thomas) and Marcion’s edited version of Luke’s Gospel and Paul’s epistles, there were a lot of heretical writings proposed by different groups for inclusion in the New Testament. But the Fathers said, “No, this contradicts the faith that was handed down to us from the apostles. Thus it must be a forged or otherwise non-inspired writing.”
Matthew 15:3 condemns erroneous human traditions, not truths which were handed down orally and entrusted to the Church by the apostles. These latter truths are part of what is known as apostolic tradition, which is to be distinguished from human traditions or customs.
Consider Matthew 15:6–9 and look at what Jesus said.
He was not condemning all traditions. He condemned only those that made God’s word void. In this case, it was a matter of the Pharisees feigning the dedication of their goods to the Temple so they could avoid using them to support their aged parents. By doing this, they dodged the commandment to “Honor your father and your mother” (Ex. 20:12).
Elsewhere, Jesus instructed his followers to abide by traditions that are not contrary to God’s commandments. “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice” (Matt. 23:2–3).
“However it was in Protestantism that I found a Church focused on Christ. “
Well, in which “Protestantism”? - there are many flavors. The ones that I have attended have either been too focused on the pastor or too focused on excerpts.
“Why have you not directly addressed the pope’s current proclamations and his selection of protector of the faith?”
Because you didn’t ask. I consider the current Pope a disgrace and am only thankful to God that the Holy Spirit prevents Francis from making any changes to the core dogma and doctrine of the faith.
I bring you back again to my theme — as Catholics our High Priest is Jesus who is there at every mass. Our scriptural interpretation is what the entire body of the Church - from the Apostles to today - have consensus about
Thank you for the very well thought out reply, I apologize I have only a few quick moments this morning to respond and hopefully can come back to this later.
If I may say, I think we align on much. Quite literally I have no issue aligning with those things that are not doctrinal and also not against the Word of God.
I would say, in our discussions, I have presumed it centers on those issues I would find outside and in contradiction to the word of God.
I prefer to not make this about any of those distinctions as that would derail the intent of our discussions, suffice it to say the current pope’s attitude on blessing those actively celebrating homosexuality is a good example.
In such an example I do not think Scripturally we are to continue to worship under the rule of such a person and need to remember what the Body of Christ actually is and seek true worship in a personal relationship with Christ (not to the exclusion of corporate worship, we must have that also). Christ called us to worship him and obey His commandments, not to follow those who corrupt His Word.
There is much in the traditions of Catholicism that I do not find Scriptural support for and some, that in my prayerful and on some, years of consideration, do contradict Scripture.
Yes, Tradition has a part in informing Scripture but again from my point of view it cannot contradict Scripture.
I’ll answer about the “blessings for ss couples” in the next post, but will write a shorter one about “worship under the rule of..”
We are under the rule of Jesus. The Pope is the one who holds the office of deputy Prime Minister :)
As I’m trying to get to - the Church is dependent on only ONE man - Jesus, not on a Pope or a priest. While there are holy men like Bishop Barron etc. they shouldn’t be the sole reason to convert to Catholicism, nor should putzes like Francis be reason to leave.
I agree that this is a complete pigs breakfast of a document that in the end says absolutely nothing but confuses everyone. But that's the point - it says nothing except two points:
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