Posted on 06/23/2005 9:06:58 AM PDT by murphE
New York's massive Roman Catholic population will sit out this weekend's Billy Graham crusade in Queens because its parishes are too busy, spokesmen for the two closest dioceses say.
The 413 parishes in the Archdiocese of New York, representing 2.5 million Catholics, are too involved with school graduations, confirmations and the Vatican's emphasis on the Eucharist during 2005, spokesman Joseph Zwilling said yesterday.
The Graham crusade "asked if it would be possible for our churches to invite their people to come," he said, but "given everything happening in our parishes, especially it being the Year of the Eucharist, we didn't feel it'd be possible to ask our parishes to take on any additional activities."
Across the East River in the Diocese of Brooklyn, which lists 1.8 million Catholics, church leaders have also declined involvement, although the crusade will take place there in Flushing Meadows' Corona Park. Spokesman Frank DeRosa cited Year of the Eucharist preparations as a key reason.
Thus, none of that diocese's 217 parishes is among the 1,300 sponsoring congregations for the crusade, which is expected to draw up to 70,000 people a night for what's been billed as the evangelist's last American crusade. Neither are Catholics officially among the 15,000 volunteers amassed for the event.
The Rev. A.R. Bernard, crusade chairman, professed some puzzlement over the archdiocese's reasoning, noting Catholic involvement in other crusades.
"Those who were touched by the Catholic charismatic renewal will be there," he predicted. "You cannot judge by the leadership's protests because the lay people will come anyway."
Catholics are still welcome to attend, but the lack of official involvement amazed Graham biographer Bill Martin, who characterized the archdiocese's reasoning as a "change in policy" from Mr. Graham's 1991 Central Park crusade. Back then, he said, 630 Catholic churches cooperated with the crusade and information on the meetings was handed out at St. Patrick's Cathedral.
That 1991 stance had been a huge shift from Mr. Graham's first New York crusade in 1957, he said, when Catholics boycotted the event and Catholic clergy were instructed on how to counter Mr. Graham's preaching.
"So maybe something's come down from above saying not to be involved in this," Mr. Martin added.
Mr. Zwilling said he didn't remember any such cooperation from churches back then, but Catholic clergy in 1991 did receive names of Catholics who answered Mr. Graham's altar calls at the Central Park event.
In a column to be released Saturday in the diocesan newspaper the Tablet, Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio outlined the significant divide over how Catholics and Protestants understand salvation.
The bishop said he welcomed Mr. Graham into the area and promised to follow up on any names given to them by crusade organizers.
To forestall objections of "sheep stealing," crusade policy is that all Catholics attending the event who sign a card signifying a desire for salvation are referred to the diocese.
Another Graham biographer, David Aikman, said Mr. Graham had a "good relationship" with many Catholic prelates, such as the late Boston Cardinal Richard Cushing, who in 1964 praised the evangelist's talent for converting non-Christians, adding, "I only wish we had half a dozen men of his caliber to go forth and do likewise."
In 1997, Mr. Graham told New Man magazine, an evangelical publication, that "through the years I have made many friends within the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, when we hold a crusade in a city now, nearly all the Roman Catholic churches support it.
"And when we went to Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, for the crusade [last year], we saw St. Paul, which is largely Catholic, and Minneapolis, which is largely Lutheran, both supporting the crusade. That wouldn't have happened 25 years ago."
It would be the most charitable thing be for the Cardinal to address Dr. Graham and ask him to convert to the one true Church as he nears his end. Being a nice guy, and sincere isn't enough. Error and untruth will not save one.
Visiting Churches in NYC's outer boroughs and many of its suburbs is like visiting an all-female geriatric ward.
Ah, the Lefebvre Cult is out and about today.
The highest form of prayer in the Catholic faith is the Mass, which is offered to the Father through the Son. The idea that faithful Catholics don't pray to God is quit wrong.
Ah, those that want to start flame wars are out and about today. You get the prize for being first on this thread.
OK. =D
Nobody goes to confession daily.
However I do have a friend who is a Youth minister who has told me of his expierences in the PHILIPPINES talking to catholics there.
So, in other words, you have real live Catholics right here on this thread. Rather than talking to them and asking politely about what they believe, you prefer to make generalizations about all Catholics based on second hand information from a Protestant youth minister talking to Catholics in another country 15,000 miles away.
Whenever someone accuses me -- a 44-yo layman who has been a Catholic since he was baptized at the age of 6 weeks -- of not praying to Jesus, but only to Mary, I always respond by praying for them, directly. Online.
Lord Jesus Christ, my King and my God, I ask you humbly to send down your graces upon 'Little_shoe', that he or she may be moved by an inspired spirit of truth to seek and find the True Faith, where you feed your sheep on Your word of truth, Your Body, and Your Blood. I ask this in Your gracious name, You Who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, One God, forever and ever. Amen.
So tell me. I'm not RC and never will be. Am I going to hell? Yes or no?
Where there's breath there is hope. If you die in a state of sanctifying grace, you will got to heaven. If you do not, you cannot.
This is certainly an odd move by the Pope and the Catholics involved.. Hm.
I doubt that the Pope had anything to do with it.
I think this issue reveals my deepest difference with the Catholic belief system.
Regardless of what any human says, my salvation is assured. Per the Word and the indwelling Holy Spirit. :-)
Excellent! You and the Catholics agree on that.
1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it.
Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself. 2 Cor 5:17-18
2007 With regard to God, there is no strict right to any merit on the part of man. Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.
2011 The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God. Grace, by uniting us to Christ in active love, ensures the supernatural quality of our acts and consequently their merit before God and before men.
23 posts without a thread-derailment attempt. I was beginning to hope...
We don't believe in any "assured salvation," if by that you are arguing for an antinomian system. ("I can commit any sin I want to and go to heaven without repenting; I'm infallibly saved.")
Most "assured salvation" Protestants aren't antinomians, however. They say that someone who seems saved and then sins grievously and dies without repentance was never saved to begin with. That seems like a dodge to me; did they know they were never really saved at the time they were telling people that they were infallibly saved? If they did, then any "assurance" you think you have is sitting on sand, because they thought they had the same assurance.
In the end, it's really quite simple. "He who confesses me before men, I will confess before my heavenly Father. He who denies me before men, I will deny before my heavenly Father." (Mt 10:32-33) "Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." (Mt 7:21)
Make sure your actions (not just your words) confess Christ and do not deny him before men.
The pot's right. It's not as if the Reformers were just bored. Ecumenism stinks.
Boy, talk about Big Christianity, or Big Religion.
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