Posted on 04/05/2005 10:01:52 PM PDT by Coleus
For the last quarter of a century, this non-Catholic has had a pope. Now that John Paul II is gone, I am even more of an orphan than the Christians in the Roman church. For they will surely have another pope, but that one may not be mine, since I haven't converted.
I am sure I am reflecting the views of many Protestants. Who else but John Paul II gave voice to my faith and my values in 130 countries? Who else posited personal holiness and theological clarity against postmodern self-deception and egotism? Who else preached the gospel as tirelessly as this man?
What other clergyman played any comparable role in bringing down communism, a godless system? What other world leader—spiritual or secular—understood so profoundly how hollow and bankrupt the Soviet empire was, so much so that this tireless writer never bothered to pen an encyclical against Marxism-Leninism because he knew it was moribund?
Has there been a more powerful defender of the sanctity of life than this Pole, in whose pontificate nearly 40 million unborn babies wound up in trashcans and furnaces in the United States alone? What more fitting insight than John Paul II's definition of our culture as a culture of death—an insight that is now clearly sinking in, to wit the declining abortion rates in the United States?
In Europe some time ago, a debate occurred in Protestant churches: Should John Paul II be considered the world's spokesman for all of Christianity? This was an absurd question. Of course he spoke for all believers. Who else had such global appeal and credibility, even to non-Christians and non-believers?
Of course, there was the inveterate Billy Graham. There were many faithful Orthodox and Protestant bishops, pastors and evangelists.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianitytoday.com ...
Are the saints in heaven alive? Why would it be wrong to apologize to them for sins committed against them? (Particularly offenses committed against the mother of God?)
Offering atonement? Please!
thanks.
Wow...that's pretty blatant isn't it? Not all Catholics would be so bold as to say that, but there are many who would.
John 19:26-2726When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” 27and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.”
And she now reigns as Queen of Heaven:
Revelation 12:1A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
they've got all the South americans worshipping Mary. there's even an odd circumstance where a black idol of a woman was pulled up out of a pond, and the pope himself, told them to venerate it!
Matthew 7:1 - "Judge not, that ye be not judged"
Consider this a polite request to stop bashing my faith.
Cheers,
CSG
What's wrong with atoning or making amends for sins?
You seem to be uncomfortable with the practice for some reason. What is it that bothers you?
Yuk. Mary was a good woman who obeyed God like many in the Bible. The Catholics have gone waaaaaay overboard.
.And that pretty much sums it up
I meant "Yuk" to the prayer BTW.
To atone for sins to Mary by offering a rosary...well...that's what we're talking about.
To atone for sins to Mary by offering a rosary...well...that's what we're talking about.
If you're looking for Church dogma, you'll have to consult sources of official teaching, like the Catechism, Church Councils, papal encyclicals, etc.
>Jan Jarboe Russell
>New York Times News Service
>Saturday, January 6, 2001
>
>
>"The world of today is in desperate need of a mother," whispered Prof. Mark
>Miravalle as he sat behind his desk at Franciscan University in
>Steubenville, Ohio, carefully fingering a string of rosary beads.
>
>Half a world away, inside the Vatican, yet another enormous box arrived
>filled with petitions asking Pope John Paul II to exercise his absolute
>power to proclaim a new and highly debated dogma: that the Virgin Mary is a
>co-redeemer with Jesus and cooperates fully with her son in the redemption
>of mankind.
>
>Miravalle, 41, began the petition drive four years ago from his obscure
>position as a professor of Mariology -- the study of Mary -- at one of the
>most conservative Catholic universities in the nation. Since then the pope
>has received more than 6 million signatures from 148 countries asking him
>to give the Virgin Mary the ultimate promotion.
>
>In addition to ordinary Catholics, Miravalle has received support from 550
>bishops and 42 cardinals, as well as from Cardinal John O'Connor and Mother
>Teresa. Along the way, his movement has laid bare a deep-seated conflict
>between wildly popular devotion to the Virgin Mary and the efforts of the
>established church to keep that devotion in check.
>
>If Miravalle's campaign succeeds and John Paul proclaims the Virgin Mary as
>a co-redeemer, she would be a vastly more powerful figure, something close
>to a fourth member of the Holy Trinity and the primary female face through
>which Christians experience the divine. Specifically, Roman Catholics would
>be required to accept three new spiritual truths: that Mary is
>co-redemptrix and participates in people's redemption, that Mary is
>mediatrix and has the power to grant all graces and that Mary is "the
>advocate for the people of God," in Miravalle's words, and has the
>authority to influence God's judgments.
>
>For the millions of Virgin Mary devotees who have signed Miravalle's
>petitions, these are an accepted part of their daily spiritual lives. They
>represent what theologians call popular piety, practices that are widely
>accepted by ordinary religious people over the learned objections of the
>establishment. Indeed the idea has been present in Catholicism at least as
>far back as the 14th century. There is also historic precedent for petition
>campaigns like Miravalle's. Two other Marian dogmas -- the dogma of the
>Assumption in 1950, which declared that Mary was taken up, body and soul,
>to heaven after her death, and the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of
>1854, which established that Mary was preserved from original sin -- were
>both preceded by floods of petitions. Yet within the Vatican, the dogma
>that Miravalle advocates has touched off a private holy war.
>
>Although it has the support of at least 12 cardinals in Rome, others fear
>that its acceptance would cause a major schism among Catholics and set back
>all efforts at ecumenism. Because the dogma would be an infallible
>proclamation by the pope, it would trigger a renewed debate over the role
>of the pope's power in modern society.
>
>"It seems to put her on an equal footing with Christ," said the Rev. John
>Roten, director of the International Marian Library in Dayton, articulating
>the primary reason for opposition. "That just won't do." The Rev. Rene
>Laurentin, a French monk and a leading Mary scholar, agrees. In a fax,
>Laurentin said that the proposed dogma would be the equivalent of launching
>"bombs" at the Protestants and would deepen the breach between the Vatican
>and the Eastern Orthodox church. "Mary is the model of our faith, but she
>is not divine," he said. "There is no mediation or co-redemption except in
>Christ. He alone is God."
>
>'Totus tuus'
>
>Pope John Paul has made no secret of his devotion to Mary. He has the
>phrase "totus tuus" (which in Latin means "totally hers") as his papal
>motto and credits the Virgin Mary with saving his life during a 1981
>assassination attempt and for the fall of communism. He has used the phrase
>"co-redemptrix" six times in his papacy to describe Mary, which has led
>Miravalle and his petitioners to hope that during his lifetime the pope
>will proclaim her co-redeemer.
>
>
Perhaps if the RCC were to get off its high-horse and actually recind the excommunication of those men whose crime was to actually read and believe the Bible (many long before Luther) and condemn those within its ranks who condemned them, we might. But so long as you continue to obfuscate and deny history, so long as you continue to try to white-wash the truth and spin everything in the favor of Rome instead of admitting that the Magisterium was dead wrong at times (and may well still be on certain issues, which would open the way for honest theological discussion), why shouldn't we continue to champion the truth of history and remind you of the blood of the saints that was spilled in the name of the papacy?
Thanks for the info.
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