Posted on 01/30/2006 7:43:33 AM PST by NYer
As usual, you dodge the question by setting up a straw man.
It's pretty easy to see that a faith and believes in confession to a man doesn't understand God.
And with the Catholic's church grand record of providing the best for the people we should continue to blindly believe they are right?
Hardly.. which is why many have choosen to discern for themselves what Christ was teaching.
Which record are you referring to?
Perhaps it was the "Peasants' Revolt" in Germany in 1524-25 in which over 70,000 people were murdered -- oops, that was done by Lutherans and Anabaptists.
Or was it Henry VIII destroying all of the English monasteries -- nope, I guess it wasn't that one either. Okay, I'm confused which "grand record" are you talking about?
Well, then many, many folks are under a huge misconception and have been misled. Because the image of a congregant standing up in front of his Christian Preacher and fellow worshippers and repenting of his sins to all of them has long been seen portrayed live on TV and in movies, and, of course, in person. Hmmmmm. If indeed he can go straight to God, and we all can, why does he need to stand up and testify? Of course, it's because we are human. We need to 'get it off our chests'. And a key element with any public or private confession is that there is purpose of amendment, that we 'go and sin no more'.
And Catholics aren't the only ones who have a sacrament of Confession. The Orthodox and Episcopal churches also have a rite of Confession, where a penitent confesses privately to a Priest. Have you, then, forgotten to include them in your thoughts on whom you feel does or doesn't understand God? Again, your bias seems to be only for Catholics. We approach Jesus through the Priest privately (as opposed to publicly in front of the entire group) to express our sorrow for our sins and purpose of amendment and be cleansed of them. Just as the New Testament is filled with stories of people approaching Jesus and asking for help. And, remember John 20:22-23 - When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.
The Church is made up of human beings. If you believe that Christ did not intend for the Church to be comprised of human beings who commit sins, then how do you explain:
1) Jesus freely choosing the betrayer Judas to be an Apostle.
2) Jesus freely choosing the betrayer Peter to be an Apostle AND the shepherd of His flock.
By virtue of Judas and Peter's betrayals, Christianity would have died in the cradle if scandal were proof of bad fruit. The Church has always been peopled by sinful human beings. The teachings of faith and morals, however, are iron-clad protected by the Wisdom and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Church will not fall before the gates of hell. It has not, and it will not. 2006 years and counting...
BTTT!
BTW.....GO STEELERS!
GO STEELERS!
In what context is Jesus only talking to the Apostles with regard to Apostolic authority, but NOT talking only to the Jews and Gentiles of Galilee when He gives the Sermon on the Mount? Please provide a cogent response.
If, and that is stretching for me, he interceeded, all he did was ask. God performed the miracle. Not the pope. I don't understand how the deceased pope can be credited with a miracle that he isn't capable of performing alive or dead no more than you or me. Only God performs miracles.
Yes. The author of the book calls himself John (Rev 1:1, 4, 9; 22:8), who because of his Christian faith has been exiled to the rocky island of Patmos, a Roman penal colony.
As far as I know, the Protestants haven't decided to remove the First Epistle of Saint John from their translations of the Bible. So, if it's still there, perhaps you should read it because the first three chapters are basically devoted to the necessity of confession.
And this is a good idea because everyone receives Wisdom from the Holy Spirit infallibly? Why then so many divisions of Protestantism?
Does not compute. No controlling authority, no guarantor of Truth. Anyone up for craps?
Sure about that?
Acts 4:16
"Saying: What shall we do to these men? for indeed a known miracle hath been done by them, to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: it is manifest, and we cannot deny it."
It's true; only God performs miracles. The pope gets credit for the intercession, without which, the woman might not have been healed. Look at it this way. If you want a raise, you could go straight to the corporate CEO or you could approach your boss. It is through the boss's 'intervention' (request on your behalf) that the raise is given. Does that make it clearer?
My, but this is getting tiresome! I'll respond to this post as emblematic of many others here and elsewhere on the FR religion forum.
First, I note that *yet again*, a Catholic thread that is of absolutely *no* interest to non-Catholics has been *hijacked* to create a maelstrom of discordant jaw-flapping about subjects discussed a multiplicity of times already. I also wish to note the OBJECTIVELY true fact that threads of distinctly non-Catholic interest are virtually NEVER hijacked by Catholics. These facts do not put our non-Catholic friends in a good light, and most definitely do NOT put Christianity in general in a good light among the atheists, agnostics, and non-Christians who may, for whatever reason, be led to dabble in these threads. What great witness all of this must be to them!
Second, it is clear to me that many of the hijackers of such threads as this one, and non-Catholic participants in threads where it is legitimate to "debate" the subject of the thread at hand, have no intention of understanding the Catholic position on various topics. They simply like to argue for argument's sake. Again and again, the same people show up with the same canards against this-or-that Catholic teaching, totally ignoring the Catholic explanations for them that they have seen, in other threads, many times over. Newbies are excused, of course, as they have, by definition, not seen responses to their objections before. But it is either obtuseness or a willfully hostile spirit that prompts the "usual suspects," here for months or years, to raise silly objections to Catholic teaching as if they had never heard our responses before. The post I'm responding to here is a case-in-point. The poster has been here for five months, and has seen the Catholic response to the "bishops must be the husband of one wife" verse in 1Timothy 3:2 many times. How many times can we say that the verse is proven as NOT "requiring" marriage by the fact that the very AUTHOR, St. Paul, was NOT married (1Corinthians 7:8)! Yet he was an Apostle and therefore a bishop himself. Sheesh! It would be nice if people would actually READ the Catholic position on this subject that we are forced to put up on this forum somewhere on a nearly daily basis.
Third, by way of global disclaimer, could the non-Catholics out there please understand that we consider the witness of the early Church's practices and understanding (the Fathers of the Church) to have some weight and historical significance in our interpretation of Scripture? If, as even this poster unwittingly concedes, the papacy goes back to the second century (well, of course, it goes back to St. Peter, but that's not the point here), then the *witness* of the early Christians that this issue has importance that far back is certainly worth considering. That even the teachings and opinions of 2nd Century Christians are dismissed out-of-hand by some as being extra-biblical is most instructive. If all teachings and practices of the early Church are similarly dismissed, then the Church HAS, evidently, bastardized the Word almost from the beginning, and perhaps the Mormons are right afterall!
It is understood that we are going to have many fundamental disgreements here. But can we have a few common-sense groundrules, please? First, can *everyone* adopt a non-hijacking policy for the sake of peace and for the sake of our non-Christian readership? Can we ALL let threads go that do not concern our confessional allegiances in the slightest? If issues come up in such threads that we find fundamentally wrong, can we NOT crash in and wreck them, but, rather, create a debate thread on the issue instead? Can we all try to provide evidence, in such threads, that we have *read and understand* the opposing viewpoint BEFORE we run off at the mouth on each other? Can we all try to be "civil" in our discourse with each other? Again, for the sake of our non-Christian friends, at least. At the very least, it will save all of us YEARS of time not having to repeat the same arguments and counter arguments on a daily basis.
Rant Mode "OFF"
Thank you. Have a blessed day.
You need to spend more time studying the Bible and less time being indoncrinated by the Catholic church
Thanks for the advice. But studying the Bible IS studying the Catholic Church.
I'll tell you what would be a REAL miracle for John Paul II or any other potential saint: Getting this board to stop all these flame wars! I've never seen so many verbal tomatoes. Compared to getting you guys to KEEP IT DOWN herding cats is a snap.
Does Pope Benedict get the last word on this honor for his old friend? Just curious, this Presbyterian doesn't know anything about the Faith.
Now you're talking. :-)
SD
The Pope makes the ultimate decision, after all the evidence has been weighed. There's nothing that says it has to be this particular Pope. The decision is not supposed to be emotional or based upon personal knowledge of the person. Hence the requirement (in normal cases) of a "waiting period" before a person could even be considered.
SD
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