Posted on 09/30/2003 9:32:47 AM PDT by Fifthmark
Protestantism is founded on many lies: (1) That Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did not create a visible, hierarchical Church. (2) That there is no authority given by Our Lord to the Pope and his bishops and priests to govern and to sanctify the faithful. (3) That each believer has an immediate and personal relationship with the Savior as soon as he makes a profession of faith on his lips and in his heart, therefore being perpetually justified before God. (4) Having been justified by faith alone, a believer has no need of an intermediary from a non-existent hierarchical priesthood to forgive him his sins. He is forgiven by God immediately when he asks forgiveness. (5) This state of justification is not earned by good works. While good works are laudable, especially to help unbelievers convert, they do not impute unto salvation. Salvation is the result of the profession of faith that justifies the sinner. (6) That grace is merely, in the words of Martin Luther, the snowflakes that cover up the "dungheap" that is man. (7) That there is only one source of Divine Revelation, Sacred Scripture. (8) That each individual is his own interpreter of Sacred Scripture. (9) That there is a strict separation of Church and State. Princes, to draw from Luther himself, may be Christians but it is not as a Christian that they ought to rule. These lies have permutated in thousands of different directions. However, they have sewn the fabric of the modern state and popular culture for nearly 500 years (I shudder to think how the Vatican is going to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Luther's posting his 95 theses on the church doors in Wittenberg fourteen years from now).
Here below are explanations of these lies and their multifaceted implications for the world in which we live:
(1-2) The contention that Our Lord did not create a visible, hierarchical church vitiates the need for a hierarchical, sacerdotal priesthood for the administration of the sacraments. It is a rejection of the entirety of the history of Christianity prior to the Sixteenth Century. It is a denial of the lesson taught us by Our Lord by means of His submission to His own creatures, Saint Joseph and the Blessed Mother, in the Holy Family of Nazareth that each of us is to live our entire lives under authority, starting with the authority of the Vicar of Christ and those bishops who are in full communion with him. The rejection of the visible, hierarchical church is founded on the prideful belief that we are able to govern ourselves without being directed by anyone else on earth. This contention would lead in due course to the rejection of any and all religious belief as necessary for individuals and for societies. Luther and Calvin paved the way for Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the French Revolution that followed so closely the latter's deification of man.
(3-6) Baptism is merely symbolic of the Christian's desire to be associated with the Savior in the amorphous body known as the Church. What is determinative of the believer's relationship with Christ is his profession of faith. As the believer remains a reprobate sinner, all he can do is to seek forgiveness by confessing his sins privately to God. This gives the Protestant of the Lutheran strain the presumptuous sense that there is almost nothing he can do to lose his salvation once he has made his profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. There is thus no belief that a person can scale the heights of personal sanctity by means of sanctifying grace. It is impossible, as Luther projected from his own unwillingness to cooperate with sanctifying grace to overcome his battles with lust, for the believer to be anything other than a dungheap. Thus a Protestant can sin freely without for once considering that he has killed the life of sanctifying grace in his soul, thereby darkening his intellect and weakening the will and inclining himself all the more to sin-and all the more a vessel of disorder and injustice in the larger life of society.
(7-8) The rejection of a visible, hierarchical Church and the rejection of Apostolic Tradition as a source of Divine Revelation protected by that Church leads in both instances to theological relativism. Without an authoritative guide to interpret Divine Revelation, including Sacred Scripture, individual believers can come to mutually contradictory conclusions about the meaning of passages, the precise thing that has given rise to literally thousands of Protestant sects. And if a believer can reduce the Bible, which he believes is the sole source of Divine Revelation, to the level of individual interpretation, then there is nothing to prevent anyone from doing the same with all written documents, including the documents of a nation's founding. If the plain words of Scripture can be deconstructed of their meaning, it is easy to do so, say, with the words of a governmental constitution. Theological relativism paved the way for moral relativism. Moral relativism paved the way for the triumph of positivism and deconstructionism as normative in the realm of theology and that of law and popular culture.
(9) The overthrow of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ as it was exercised by His true Church in the Middle Ages by the Protestant concept of the separation of Church and State is what gave rise to royal absolutism in Europe in the immediate aftermath of Luther's handiwork. Indeed, as I have noted any number of times before, it is arguably the case that the conditions that bred resentment on the part of colonists in English America prior to 1776 might never have developed if England had remained a Catholic nation. The monarchy would have been subject in the Eighteenth Century to same constraints as it had in the Tenth or Eleventh Centuries, namely, that kings and queens would have continued to understand that the Church reserved unto herself the right to interpose herself in the event that rulers had done things-or proposed to do things-that were contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law and/or were injurious of the cause of the sanctification and salvation of the souls of their subjects. The overthrow of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ deposited power first of all in the hands of monarchs eager to be rid of the "interference" of the Church and ultimately in the hands of whoever happened to hold the reins of governmental power in the modern "democratic" state. Despotism has been the result in both cases
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlecatholic.com ...
She's dead.
Christians are promissed eternal life, no? How is the Mother of God DEAD if she LIVES life eternal?
She has no role on earth at this point.
The living saints in heaven, the Church Triumphant, have NO ROLE? What authority have you for such a claim? How do you square that with the following?
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven
and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy *catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and life everlasting.
Amen.
No; but, such a nonsense charge isn't beneath one playing verbal gymnastics to avoid the truth as you are. Tell me, what purpose does it serve you to lie to yourself. When others can see the truth of it, who is it you are serving to lie to yourself? A house divided against itself cannot stand. And the liar has a specific place...
Recall that insincerity is a form of lying, which is what started this string in the first place.
I wasn't being insincere. I was being sarcastic. I thought that you would understand that.
Catholics, being more inclusive, claim our faith began with Adam and Eve in the Garden and include all the just afterwards from Abel on down.
"Saints before the law, saints under the law, saints under grace, all these, making up the Body of the Lord, are constituted among the members of the Church." (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Letter to John, Patriarch of Constantinople, 1 June 595, 5.44)
"And yet, from the beginning of the human race, He never ceased to speak by His prophets, at one time more obscurely, at another time more plainly, as seemed to divine wisdom best adapted to the time nor were there ever wanting men who believed in Him, from Adam to Moses, and among the people of Israel itself, which was by a special mysterious appointment a prophetic nation, and among other nations before He came in the flesh. For seeing that in the sacred Hebrew books some are mentioned, even from Abraham's time, not belonging to his natural posterity nor to the people of Israel, and not proselytes added to that people, who were nevertheless partakers of this holy mystery? why may we not believe that in other nations also, here and there, some more were found, although we do not read their names in these authoritative records? Thus the salvation provided by this religion, by which alone, as alone true, true salvation is truly promised, was never wanting to any one who was worthy of it, and he to whom it was wanting was not worthy of it. And from the beginning of the human family, even to the end of time, it is preached, to some for their advantage, to some for their condemnation." (St. Augustine, Letter to Deogratias, AD 409, 102.15)
Christians are promised eternal life - spiritually. I can't believe how ignorant of scripture and reality you all are. Hebrews says your body WILL die. That has zero to do with whether your spirit dies or not. It is merely the 'come to Jesus' moment. At the point your spirit leaves your body for the last time, your life decision has sealed your eternal fate. Paul said flesh and blood will in no wise inherit the kingdom of heaven. Doesn't mean you're spiritually dead if you can't take your body with you.
Don't believe me, go dig up a dead relative and take them to dinner. But I'll advise that it will be a stinky, messy and repulsive afair. And you'll probably be arrested; but, rest assured, you can explain to the cops how they are christian and they are really alive. By the time you're done, I'm sure the community will know just how bonkers you are. But you guys are pushing it to that absurdity.
The living saints in heaven, the Church Triumphant, have NO ROLE? What authority have you for such a claim? How do you square that with the following?
Scripture proclaims it. And I'd ask you the opposite, who are you to ammend your philosophies to God's sealed Covenant and try to sell it as having the same weight. Ecclesiastes says the bodily dead are done with any involvements with the living here. Doesn't mean you'll never see or hear from them again- just not here. Saul was put to death for trying to communicate with the dead. A dead prophet as it were. You want to try and convince anyone here that a prophet of God who's body died was damned and spiritually dead. These are the gymnastics you are trying to accomplish. You can quote all the philosophy you want. Christ's body died and he couldn't set foot among the living again until he was raised. Go read it. Lazarus was dead and gone, Christ brought his body back to life and he was able to interact here again. Lazarus currently is dust. His spirit lives on; but, that's no different than what is discussed in Ecclesiastes. Your communion of saints may be a cute philosophy; but it's nowhere in scripture. It rather belies scripture and that's called blasphemy. Something the authors of your philosophy seem to have excelled at.
Actually, he is a good and gentle man, I'm sure he probably would be if he was not burdened with the duties of a Bishop.
Citation - You did check the background sourcing for these quotations right.. lol. Do tell me it's not a cut and paste as it appears to be. Do you know where these come from?
You haven't established that. You've merely tossed out a couple of cut and pastes and want us to go gaga over them. Give us the original texts from which these quotes come. I'll be waiting; but, you probably won't like what you find.
They were saints, and if they dared say or think anything that wasn't kosher, the church would have censured them and their writings would be forgotten.
St. Catherine of Sienna suffered and died too young for her rigorous aceticism. I can't deal with that any more. St. Teresa of Avila was probably schizophrenic according to Time magazine. I roiled at that and asked a priest about it. "What do they know?", he said. To this day I don't understand her and since I was never graced with the interior illuminations (oh now I remember). She wrote something to the effect that depressed people aren't (can't remember what but it was negative) Since I suffer from chronic depression, I knew I could never hope to reach her exalted state. St. Therese of Lisieux was the sweetest little thing which is why everybody loved her but she succumbed early to victim mentality. I don't find fault with her little way, but I don't want to follow in her footsteps. She had few options being a single woman in that time so I don't know what she could have been if she had stayed in the world and her life had not been cut short. St. Edith Stein has been questioned about some of her writings not exactly squaring with orthodoxy but she was a martyr so she is cut some slack. Maybe I would like her because she was a convert from Judaism.
In short, they are all catholic propagandists through and through, the way I was for awhile because I thought I was pleasing God by defending the church no matter what. I would rather be honest with myself. There are things I believe. There are things I don't believe, but may come to believe. There are most things I don't really know for sure and know that I never will know for sure in this life.
I suspect anybody who pushes any version of religion because they have a vested interest in having to justify to themselves why they made the choice they did.
Right now the woman writers who do the most good for the cause are those who stick up for women and try to get men to see how their attitudes have hurt women. I found a Hartford Courant article about three women who left the church because they were unwed mothers in the catholic church/social structure and the church sold them out, their families sold them out because of pride, and the nuns sold their babies to adoptive parents. I want to read women writers who stick up for those poor souls. Why? Because it makes me feel better and makes me think somebody is on my side. I wanted to post the article but wasn't in the mood for any more personal attacks (most catholics ignore me now and that is ok, probably better for me) and I figured, probably rightfully, that the women were tramps according to conservative catholic thought and deserved what they got.
But that's the kind of stuff I want to read right now. People who stay in the church because they believe most of it but know how it really is for a lot of people that others don't want to deal with because because, why I don't know.
St. Therese said she wanted to spend her heaven sending roses to earth. I want to spend my heaven helping those women getting their babies and dignity back.
You were sincere in your sarcasm, ...
Now that's more like it.
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