* Those faithful catholics acted like Christians in defending their father, the Pope. You might recconsider and imitate their actions as your arrogant and unjust accusations are the antithesis of Christian Catholic action.
*Now, who the hell are you to describe the Pope's actions as apostasy?
"It is also useful to note that the Pope was not offering incense or engaging in any liturgical action when he kissed the Koran."
So would you kiss the Qu'ran or let your children see you kiss it outside a liturgy? If not, why not?
*Sure. If it meant I was exhibiting towards them a respect for their religiosity which mught further a dialogue which might head-off a bloodbath.
"121 The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked.... That the CCC uses the word "covenant" where, in context, it really means to say "testament", is an appalling gaff.
.* Yes, I am sure they rue the day they wrote it without your imput.
It was deliberately placed there as a "timebomb" ...
*Yes, that is the purpose of the Catechcism. To trick us.
BUT EVEN THE DOCUMENTS OF VATICAN II DO NOT ATTEMPT TO TEACH THAT THE OLD "COVENANT" HAS NOT BEEN "REVOKED".
The Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans
Chapter 11
God hath not cast off all Israel. The Gentiles must not be proud but stand in faith and fear.
1 I say then: Hath God cast away his people? God forbid! For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.
2 God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Know you not what the scripture saith of Elias, how he calleth on God against Israel?
3 Lord, they have slain thy prophets, they have dug down thy altars. And I am left alone: and they seek my life.
4 But what saith the divine answer to him? I have left me seven thousand men that have not bowed their knees to Baal.
5 Even so then, at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.
6 And if by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace.
7 What then? That which Israel sought, he hath not obtained: but the election hath obtained it. And the rest have been blinded.
8 As it is written: God hath given them the spirit of insensibility; eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, until this present day.
9 And David saith: Let their table be made a snare and a trap and a stumbling block and a recompense unto them.
10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see: and bow down their back always.
11 I say then: Have they so stumbled, that they should fall? God forbid! But by their offence salvation is come to the Gentiles, that they may be emulous of them.
12 Now if the offence of them be the riches of the world and the diminution of them the riches of the Gentiles: how much more the fulness of them?
13 For I say to you, Gentiles: As long indeed as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I will honour my ministry,
14 If, by any means, I may provoke to emulation them who are my flesh and may save some of them.
15 For if the loss of them be the reconciliation of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
16 For if the firstfruit be holy, so is the lump also: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches be broken and thou, being a wild olive, art ingrafted in them and art made partaker of the root and of the fatness of the olive tree:
18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root: but the root thee.
19 Thou wilt say then: The branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.
20 Well: because of unbelief they were broken off. But thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear.
21 For if God hath not spared the natural branches, fear lest perhaps also he spare not thee.
22 See then the goodness and the severity of God: towards them indeed that are fallen, the severity; but towards thee, the goodness of God, if thou abide in goodness. Otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.
24 For if thou were cut out of the wild olive tree, which is natural to thee; and, contrary to nature, wert grafted into the good olive tree: how much more shall they that are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree?
25 For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery (lest you should be wise in your own conceits) that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in.
26 And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
27 And this is to them my covenant: when I shall take away their sins.
28 As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake: but as touching the election, they are most dear for the sake of the fathers.
29 For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.
30 For as you also in times past did not believe God, but now have obtained mercy, through their unbelief:
31 So these also now have not believed, for your mercy, that they also may obtain mercy.
32 For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that he may have mercy on all.
33 O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways!
34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor?
35 Or who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him?
36 For of him, and by him, and in him, are all things: to him be glory for ever. Amen.
* I don't read a covenant being revoked.
...a naive reading of the CCC - a reading that you fell for, hook, line and sinker!
* Yeah, I am in love with the Catechism and therefore blind to its sly and devious heresies.
. This is why I said earlier that the Pope was probably set up, and specifically did not ascribe an heretical intent to him!
*So what? You said he spoke/wrote heresies. That means, in the real world where I live, you think him a heretic.
One of his major failings has always been that he trusts the people around him too much and has poor judgement in appointments.
* Yeah, poor old dufus. What does he know? He is only a brilliant theologian who has a Doctorate in Theology, has writen volumes of brilliant theology and who is generally acknowledged as a personally holy man. If only he was receiving instructions from Free Republic's stable of traditionalist theologians....
Why don't you answer the points made rather than responding with your personal attacks of "schismatic" and "protestant", when you don't even understand what these words mean?
I know what those words mean and my use of them was accurate. As for "personal attacks" the Pope is subjected to them in these pages daily.
My Pastor warned me against going online and he made me promise I would not use his name. He told me the internet forums like these are filled with nutjobs who think they are well-informed and more Catholic than the Pope who are quick to attack him.
Boy oh boy, was he ever correct.
I'll post something from "The Catholic Legate" (Although, he is just probably just another Pope-worshipping idiot too) re this issue
"There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
27 And this is to them my covenant: when I shall take away their sins."
Here St. Paul is talking about the promise of THE NEW COVENANT to Israel - not the Old Covenant!
"28 As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake: but as touching the election, they are most dear for the sake of the fathers.
29 For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance."
The gift and calling to the NEW COVENANT is what is at issue here - no-one denies that the Jews are called to the New Covenant - Jesus came for them first. Its only people who claim that the Old Covenant is still in force that would deny them their need for the New.
Are you Stephen Hand? You have confessed that you would kiss the Qu'ran and you have totally dodged the main question - do you accept the inerrancy of these Scriptures?:
" Eph. 2,14 "For he is our peace, he who made both one (Jew & Gentile) and broke down the dividing wall of enmity, through his flesh, (15) ABOLISHING THE LAW WITH ITS COMMANDMENTS AND ORDINANCES, that he might create in himself one new person IN PLACE OF THE TWO, thus establishing peace, (16) and might reconcile both with God, IN ONE BODY, through the cross, putting that enmity to death by it."
Heb 7,12 "When there is a change of the priesthood, there is necessarily a change of the law as well."
Heb 7,18 "There is, on the one hand, THE ABROGATION OF AN EARLIER COMMANDMENT because it was weak and ineffectual (for the law made nothing perfect); there is, on the other hand, the introduction of a better hope, through which we approach God."
Heb 8,9 "...not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt; FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT, AND SO I HAD NO CONCERN FOR THEM, says the Lord."
Heb 8,13 "In speaking of a "new covenant", he has made the first one OBSOLETE. And what is obsolete and growing old is close to DESTRUCTION." "
"* Yeah, I am in love with the Catechism and therefore blind to its sly and devious heresies."
Do you believe it is infallible?