Posted on 09/01/2006 12:57:40 PM PDT by Teófilo
The Church will withstand every challenge from without and from within; for nothing will ever separate us from the love of Christ; because in Christ we have overcome the world, and because the powers of hell and death will not prevail against the Church.
Folks, according to AFP/YahooNews:
Catholic Church will survive all tests: PopeCommentary. Allow me to gloat a little: we're not going anywhere, people. We've survived persecutions by every tyrants from every continent and age. We've survive an onslaught of new ideas, some religious, some philosophical, some secular, keen on burying the Church "soon." Instead, we have buried them, as we will bury those we face today and that we'll face tomorrow.ROME (AFP) - The Roman Catholic Church will overcome any ordeals encountered, just as it weathered Muslim invasions, Nazism, communism and Enlightenment philosophy,
Pope Benedict XVI has said.
The Church lives and will continue to live, just as it has survived "two thousand years of history ... despite its suffering and its weaknesses," he said at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo outside Rome.
Speaking with priests from the nearby Albano diocese, the pope reached as far back as the first Christian communities in Asia Minor (present-day western Turkey) and North Africa, and talked of "Muslim invasions."
"The Church seemed finished then," the pope said, quoted by the ANSA news agency, adding that numerous saints had revitalised the religion.
The Roman Catholic religion also overcome 18th century philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, such as Rousseau and Voltaire, and also Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler "who wanted to destroy Catholicism ... and had all the means to do so," the German said.
"Faith is stronger than currents that come and go," the pope stressed. "We must therefore be courageous (as the church) represents never ending hope."
Why is this so?
First, there is a promise:
Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.(St. Matthew 16:15-19, Douay-Rheims)Then, there is this certainty:
For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39, ibid.)Which is also a certainty shared by St. John the Apostle, as he wrote:
You are of God, little children, and have overcome him. Because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.(1 John 4:4; ibid)Sure, we will all be wounded in this process; some of these wounds will be self-inflicted. We will fall, but then, we will rise, like Christ on the way to Golgotha
Yet, with all her faults, the Church is the bride of Christ, and she who is "the assembly of those who have been called"--that's what "church" or ekklesia means in Greek, will be restored.
I draw great comfort from these certainties. That's why very few things faze me any more; for I confident in ultimate victory of the Lamb and of his Bride. In fact, we have already overcome the world.
So, let us glory in the Lord for his infinite love and praise and thank Him for having made us participants of His infinite bounty.
PING!
"The Church is the anvil upon which the hammers of heresy are blunted." I don't know where that came from and I probably got it wrong, but I like it.
It also helps to own a lot of prime real estate outright. It makes the religious schools cheaper to run and keep running.
I note with interest how the Pope mentioned the Muslim invasions as an attempt to destroy the Church.
His predecessor was more concerned about apologizing for the Crusades than acknowledging the historic roots of Islam's maleficence.
Happy for Catholics, but I personally don't care. Just glad I only seem to have to worry about the RoP (Islam) trying to kill me.
Well said. Our Lord's assurances that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against [the Church]" should especially be remembered by the ultra-traditionalist schismatics who want nothing to do with the post-Vatican II Church.
How have you made it a month pretending to be a sterotypical fundie bigot. I bet you and your friends at DU are having a good laugh that you haven't been booted yet
. I mean you got to be a disruptor, you are too cartoonish to be real.
Yes, Hitler WAS Catholic, maybe until he was about 18. Lots of people leave the Catholic Church, he was one of them.
Your post is so simple mindedly moronic that I can only conclude that you are either a simple minded moron or a troll. Which is it?
Yeah, right. "Religious schools" that have huge fund drives every year - beacuse they are giving inner city blacks the only decent education any of them have a chance of getting. But I guess maybe you work for the teachers' unioin, which hates the Church.
I agree - I noticed that too.
Godwin's Law meets historical fiction.
Hitler lost his faith around age 16. His various crimes while dictator of Germany, especially killing priests and religious, caused him to be automatically excommunicated hundreds of times over.
Well, how 'bout that. Another Jack T. Chick happy customer.
Don't believe everything you read in comic books, pal.
-Theo
Dear NoFoxholeAthiests,
It's interesting that Hitler, who was excommunicated latae sententiae, actually DID come out of the Catholic Church.
Perhaps that's the caliber of folks who do that? Who leave the Catholic Church?
;-)
sitetest
Don't mess with Catholics, they're a little touchy. (if you haven't figured this out by the time you read my post)
I notice you are a fairly new person to FR and you are really off to a bad start.
What I would like to know, do Catholics have to continue to put up with this lie on a daily basis on FR? It's relentless here. Hitler was a godless devil by the time he gained power. He believed in nothing but himself and his lust for power. No Catholic Christian would have conducted himself that way.
Your tag line also says "Mother of Harlots." It's quite obvious what you are about. Thank you for smearing our faces in the scandals of the Church, as if there has never, ever been a Protestant minister that has molested a child or done wrong.
Actually, IIRC, Hitler left the Church at least in part because he had been kicked out of the Catholic school (may have been a Jesuit school, I'm nost sure) he had attended.
Hitler regarded Christianity as a "slave religion" and later tried to set up his own religion, just as Napoleon had done before him. It didn't work in either case.
Unfortunately, he's not too cartoonish to be real. I've met people like him face to face. I think even the DUers would be frightened of an individual who holds such prejudices.
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