[DeaconBenjamin]

I tried, but couldn't get through it.

[Brian Kopp DPM]

Bumping (I don't have my ping list on this computer, I'll bump to the rest of it later.)

[.45MAN]

Ping.

[.45MAN]

Thanks for posting this. It took a while but it is well worth reading. And I must say well worth passing on....

[Ol' Sox]

Bump for later reading.

[Dynamo]

Utter hogwash.

Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the light. None shall come to the Father but through me."

No pennance, no "Hail Mary's", no confession to a priest behind a curtain, just prayerful confession to God in the name of Jesus Christ is all the Bible says will work to free us of sin.

Christ warned against repeating prayers over and over, and referred to those who do so as "pagans." So much for "Say 3 'Our fathers' and 6 'Hail Marys'."

Any "religion" that contradicts or denies Christ is the work of other than Christ, who said: "You are either with me, or against me..."

[crystalk]

Too long and too profound, for this venue and day, but if you are saying that Catholicism and Protestantism need each other, and the coexistence of both are in God's plan for today, you are right.

Just as the coexistence of both Church and Israel has served God's plan.

[muawiyah]

I got through it, but the guy starts with the 16th Century, and he ought to start with the 15th Century.

That way he can carve his way through the various French Cardinals who had one or more wives, often simultaneously, along with official concubines (for breeding purposes only).

These fellows, intriguingly, seem to be the Fathers and Grandfathers of the guys who started the Protestant Reformation in France!

Presumably the same situation prevailed in Germany, France and Spain.

Hey, even Isabella of Spain had a grandpa who was a Cardinal! You'd have never known it from the way she acted - always discussing "their Catholic Majesties", etc. Probably some sort of reaction to grandpa's bad behavior, eh?!

[LarryLied]

While keeping Sola Gratia New England Protestant elites ditched Sola Fide and eventually Sola Scriptura. With Harvard leading the charge, Congregationalist/Unitarians were building a kingdom of God on earth. As the article mentions, Catholics are truer to true Protestantism than many Protestants are.

[Cicero]

There's a bit of a problem here. Luther didn't say "sola gratia," he said "sola fide" (and also "sola scriptura"). "Sola fide" causes problems that "sola gratia" does not. The recent statement, "Catholics and Evangelicals Together" needed a kind of footnote on this very point of "sola fide."

The Council of Trent clearly states that without grace, no one can be saved. No one can earn salvation, and grace is gratuitous, not earned. But that wasn't quite what Luther said. The Council of Trent also said, in effect, in response to Luther, that faith without works is empty. Many Protestants actually agree, as in Milton's phrase in "Paradise Lost," "Faith and Faithful Works." But the basic position on which Luther stood goes beyond that to "sola fide," and that is a problem.

[firebrand]

The assertion that conscience is supreme, which came out of Vatican II, united us Catholics and Protestants, whether we like it or not. That is the great truth that lies hidden in all the liturgy and clothing changes that everyone seems to have focused on. This truth will eventually bring us together.

I have been thinking about the matters discussed above in terms of Islam and Christianity. Just as Catholicism guaranteed the development of Protestantism, as a rebellion against Catholic error and corruption, so Islam had to emerge as the jealous brother of Christianity---the martyr and the martyror, the flowering of our headlong rush to overpopulation and its insanities of mass death. (I know I lost a lot of you there, if not immediately.)

[RaceBannon]

The RC Church teaches that Infants baptised are removed from the stain of sin, that infant baptism 'saves' a child, that a child that dies WITHOUT baptism must go to purgatory or limbo because the stain of sin is upon them. That is not a Biblical doctrine at all.

[PaulKersey]

MARTIN LUTHER

[oldvike]

*sel-ping* for later read. Can't wait to see what the "frothing at the mouth" anti-Catholics have to say this evening. I'm sure they'll all make complete a**es out of themselves though.

[sinkspur]

Sorry, Doctor Kopp.

Your interesting and valuable article devolved into the usual Catholic-bashing.

It happens EVERY TIME!

[Torie]

the rejection of a definitive Church teaching authority and Tradition

That is the sticking point. Many folks aren't in the market for that. They want to make up their own minds, particularly when the ethos of individualism is in the ascendency. There is a bunch of other stuff too, like marriage in the priesthood, birth control etc., but maybe that is not central.

This might sound heretical, but I suspect under the pressures of the marketplace, the two strains are becoming less distinctive. That is certainly true as a practical cultural/matter in the US.

[D-fendr]

An well-written and interesting framework of theology and history during and since. Thanks for posting it.

[grumpster-dumpster]

bump

[rwfromkansas]

This is the stupidest piece of lies and trash...

[don-o]

bump for post Nativity (Orthodox) reading. Christ is Born!