Posted on 07/15/2005 11:29:25 AM PDT by nypokerface
JACKSON, Miss. - A Christian adoption agency that receives money from Choose Life license plate fees said it does not place children with Roman Catholic couples because their religion conflicts with the agency's "Statement of Faith."
Bethany Christian Services stated the policy in a letter to a Jackson couple this month, and another Mississippi couple said they were rejected for the same reason last year.
"It has been our understanding that Catholicism does not agree with our Statement of Faith," Bethany director Karen Stewart wrote. "Our practice to not accept applications from Catholics was an effort to be good stewards of an adoptive applicant's time, money and emotional energy."
Sandy and Robert Steadman, who learned of Bethany's decision in a July 8 letter, said their priest told them the faith statement did not conflict with Catholic teaching.
Loria Williams of nearby Ridgeland said she and her husband, Wes, had a similar experience when they started to pursue an adoption in September 2004.
"I can't believe an agency that's nationwide would act like this," Loria Williams said. "There was an agency who was Christian based but wasn't willing to help people across the board."
The agency is based in Grand Rapids, Mich., and has offices in 30 states, including three in Mississippi. Its Web site does not refer to any specific branch of Christianity.
Stewart told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger that the board will review its policy, but she didn't specify which aspects will be addressed.
The Web site says all Bethany staff and adoptive applicants personally agree with the faith statement, which describes belief in the Christian Church and the Scripture.
"As the Savior, Jesus takes away the sins of the world," the statement says in part. "Jesus is the one in whom we are called to put our hope, our only hope for forgiveness of sin and for reconciliation with God and with one another."
Sandy Steadman said she was hurt and disappointed that Bethany received funds from the Choose Life car license plates. "I know of a lot of Catholics who get those tags," she said.
She added: "If it's OK to accept our money, it should be OK to open your home to us as a family."
Bethany is one of 24 adoption and pregnancy counseling centers in Mississippi that receives money from the sale of Choose Life tags, a special plate that motorists can obtain with an extra fee.
Of $244,000 generated by the sale of the tags in 2004, Bethany received $7,053, said Geraldine Gray, treasurer of Choose Life Mississippi, which distributes the money.
"It is troubling to me if they are discriminating based on only the Catholics," Gray said.
Exactly..but she can't say it on it's own. Everything is by rote.
never said they were. If I opened a catholic church, would you expect a lutheran congregation?
>>Why would I need to pray for humility now? Concerning my discussion with you? <<
Ask Him, He will enlighten you.
Whenever I ask what religion a person is, a non-Catholic will usually simply say Christian. They don't consider their denomination the real descriptor of their religion.
If they are Catholic, they NEVER say Christian. They always make a point to say Catholic....because the institution and the denomination matters more than the ultimate religion, Chrisianity, and following Jesus Christ's teachings rather than an institution of man.
Please note that I am simply saying that if you want to be called Christian, you need to call yourself one first.
LOL. Did you get your humility yet?
I have issues with the group's statement of faith myself based on putting reconciliation with others equal with reconciliation with God.
Reconciliation with others is not the purpose of salvation.
It is one of the lamest statement of faith's I have seen, for that matter.
I'm not going to get into a discussion with you since whatever I say about someone I have known for over 30 years would not be enough for you. As a former member of the Legion of Mary, I also am acquainted with what they teach. And it isn't what these ladies believe. Have a nice day, I have to get back to work.
Well, let me give it a try.
First of all, I always wish that both Catholics and non-Catholics would go to some authoritative source (such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church) before sounding off on "Catholic dogma." It would spare us a lot of useless huffing and puffing. And it's easy in this age of Google and Search Engines.
For instance, take a glance at what the Church actually teaches about Jesus and Redemption:
http://ccc.scborromeo.org.master.com/texis/master/search/?sufs=0&q=Jesus+redemption&xsubmit=Search&s=SS
OK? Nothing there about Mary being Redeemer of the World. (Whew.)
The Catholic Church believes that Jesus Christ is the sole redeemer of the world. Jesus Christ is also the Head of His Body, the Church; and thus the Church is part of His redemptive work, and through her prayers, works, and sacraments, labors with Christ her Head to spread the full benefits of salvation to the whole human race. (That's why He founded the Church.)
Mary was the first disciple, and represents the Church in a unique way, since she was given the name "Full of Grace" (in Greek, Panagia) --- and as you know, when God names somebody (Abram --> Abraham; Jacob --> Israel; Simon --> Peter) He's telling you something important about them.
The important thing about Mary, as I said, is her perfect discipleship: that she heard the Word of God, and kept it. She was radically receptive to the Word; "with love beyond all telling" she kept the Word within her; nine months later, she gave birth to the Word made flesh.
This shows her extraordinary intimacy with God.
Now the amazing thing is, we are all called to participate in the salvation of the world, in this way: by intimate union with Christ. Or as St. Paul said, "I live: yet, not 'I', but Christ lives in me."
There is no Catholic doctrine of Mary with the title of "Co-Redemptrix." But there is this sense that when we are "in Christ," we are part of His work of salvation: as Christ says, "Take up your cross and follow me." In that sense, the Church, Christ's Body is a cooperator with redemption. And Mary is the most intimately united to Him of all; so she shares His work, just as we share His work when we are in Christ.
We're ALL called to be cooperators in spreading the full benefits of salvation to the very ends of the earth. The key thing is not that we're "adding" to Christ's sacrifice, but that we're united with it. We're a part of it, because we're a part of Him.
And that is more true of Mary than of any other human creature. She was (and is) so, so close to him in love and humility and obedience, body, mind, heart and soul. And that's what holiness is.
I would presume that Scripture would have a little something to say about it if theologically Mary is the Queen of Heaven.
Fact is, she simply isn't. She never was and never will be in the future.
She is somebody we should look up to......she brought the Savior into the world! Too often Protestants ignore her almost.
But, she isn't the Queen of Heaven.
I have talked to plenty of Catholics who say Mary is a co-redeemer and co-mediator.
If that is not in line with Church doctrine, you should get those people IN LINE with what the doctrine really is.
The RCC takes a lot of pride so to speak in having one authoritative doctrine, but that doesn't do much good if you don't enforce it.
Ohioans gave Michigan its nickname, "The Wolverine State", because they thought Michiganders were vicious and bloodthirsty during the Toledo War (also known as the Ohio-Michigan War, the Battle of Phillip's Crossing, the Ohio-Michigan Boundary War and the Michigan-Ohio War) in 1835-36.
Read this for more details.
"The books of the Apocrypha, Jewish in origin, were not considered Scripture by any rabbinical authority. The Jews themselves have never viewed the books as inspired... Thus, their rejection as Holy Scripture by Protestants."
This is the claim, but it is not true. The Jews at the time of Christ did not have the modern Protestant understanding of a canon. There was the Law (the Pentateuch, or the Torah), which all Jews believed was divine in origin. Than there were the writings of the Prophets (the Nevi'im), including the book of Psalms, and the books of Samuel and of Kings, but not including some "Prophetic books" such as Daniel. These were held to be sacred by the Pharisees, but not the Saducees. But they were the books which the Jews brought back from Babylon, and were part of the Temple worship when it was re-established, so their contents were very precisely defined.
Lastly, there were the Khetuvim, a poorly defined class of literature. At the time of Christ, there was no authority on which of the Khetuvim were divinely inspired. It was only a generation AFTER Christ, and AFTER The Jewish leaders rejected Christ that anything resembling a "canon" came into being. Several books of the Khetuvim were found by the Pharisees and Sadducees to have caused the Christians to have "gone astray," and so they were left out the Tanakh PRECISELY BECAUSE THEY WERE SO PLAINLY POINTING TO CHRIST.
By then, the Christian church had taken to using the Septuagint as its canon. The Septuagint was the result of a Jewish project to translate the scriptures into Greek, for the benefit of the Gree-speaking Jews living in exile, at the request of Ptolemy. It was started THREE CENTURIES before the "Palestinian Canon," which I described in the preceding paragraph, and SIX centuries before the Masoretic text, which is the basis for most Western translations of the Old Testament.
The Septuagint is far more similar to the Essene texts found at Qumran (John the Baptist, and several of the disciples were Essene), than the Masoretic text. And like the Essene texts, it includes the entire Catholic bible. (The Essene text actually lacks Esther and Daniel 12, but that is probably because those books had not been completed.)
The early Christian church simply regarded the Septuagint as the Old Testament Although it is fair to say that the Septuagint was not perfectly defined, the books of the Catholic bible were uniformly accepted, except that some churches used a shortened version of Ezra-Nehemiah, which has become known as 3 Esdras, or "Greek Ezra." There were some Greek writings of the Hebrews which were not universally accepted by the ancient Church, and these are not found in Catholic bibles, although some Orthodox churches refer to them. There were also many books which were deemed legendary, not inspired.
Hence, when refering to which books Catholics accept but Protestants do not, "Apocrypha" is not a useful term, since the term has for almost two millennia included books which Catholics did not accept as scripture. The Catholic church regards all Old-Testament books in its bible as equally scriptural, but recommends Protestants refer to the Catholic books which they reject as "deuterocanonical" (secondary canon), for the purpose of making this distinction. Oddly, several "Catholic versions" of Protestant bibles include books of the apocrypha which have been rejected by the Catholic church
>>LOL. Did you get your humility yet?<<
Has He spoken to you yet?
We have friends, Baptist preacher and his wife, who are awaiting their bundle of joy as I type.....from Catholic Charities.
They said Catholic Charities was the most positive and supportive of all the agencies they contacted.
"Catholic is my first name, Christian is my surname." -- St. Pacian, Bishop of Barcelona, around AD 390.
God Bless! Truly.
Bump for later browse and comment..
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