Posted on 09/06/2007 3:27:02 PM PDT by annalex
This isn’t a caucus thread, and I didn’t post it. I just noticed the summoning of the homies, and it amused me.
(Psst! I don't know who sets the norm, but to us the Roman Catholic Church is a subset of the churches in communion with the See of Rome. Maronite, are Catholic, but not Roman Catholic, fer example.
MD the pedant)
And your last paragraph is the basis for our disagreement with what looks to us like do-it-yourself apostolic succession among most Protestants.
I never doubted that people of good will could believe in Marianism. There are several Catholic writers who I read on occassion, who I fully respect as Brothers in Christ (though I may not agree with all their views).
I think I’m talking to you more than I am to my wife right now. This may have to be addressed in some type of future therapy.
What exactly is a Protestant? If you mean non-Roman Catholics, then what you are saying is virtually all believers outside of your own church disagree with you, which might be a pretty strong case for re-evaluation.
Overall I agree with you though, although I would phrase the division in a different way. As I see it, Roman Catholics ascribe God’s powers, roles, and authority to men (though the RC would say that these men are appointed by the Spirit). In essence creating gods or mediators who stand between God and man.
(Mad Dawg wrote) And your last paragraph is the basis for our disagreement with what looks to us like do-it-yourself apostolic succession among most Protestants.
Absolutely, yet it is also what the Catholic Church also affirms, though with one caveat... that the Holy Spirit only (?) works and resides through members of the RC church, and especially with a ‘special’ charism which only the Pope possesses. Please correct me if I’m misinformed here.
It is precisely these later points that both limit the Spirit of God, and which assign special and unbiblical powers to the Catholic clergy with which I have the greatest personal difficulty.
I just noticed your tagline (Those who support the troops will pray for them to WIN!).
I thought this might be interesting to you, as it offers a slightly different perspective.
The island of Tonga is a devoutly Christian state. Their National Anthem is the Hymn ‘O Mighty God’, and their national rugby team, which is one of the prides of their nation has 3 scripture readings and numerous prayer and praise times each day as part of their regular training regimen.
They do not pray for victory though, but rather that God protect them from injuries and help them to do the best that they can.
Thank you for some good to have background info.
I think I’m talking to you more than I am to my wife right now. This may have to be addressed in some type of future therapy.
LOL! Well, you see, Doc: I can always turn off my computer.....
What exactly is a Protestant?
SUCH an interesting question! In the old days I would have thought a Protestant was somebody who thought the Pope wasn't catholic (note the lower case 'c'.) But on FR some who think the Pope is wrong claim that they aren't Protestant and some who call themselves Protestants seem, as far as I can discern, to think that a "real" Protestant is mostly Calvinist, though some traces or Arminianism seem to be allowed.
I guess my 'natural' use of the term would be most elegantly defined as those who do not believe in the tactile apostolic succession. Just for convenience. It's a diagnostic rather than an essential definition, if you take my alleged meaning.
If you mean non-Roman Catholics, then what you are saying is virtually all believers outside of your own church disagree with you, which might be a pretty strong case for re-evaluation.
If I understand you, it could work both ways. I mean that IF ecclesiology is "of the essence", then one could expect that placing oneself in an adversarial relationship with 'the one true Church' (this is for the sake of argument right now; humor me and stipulate it, please) would lead to a decline in sound doctrine.
On the other hand, if one maintains that the Bible is like a jewel passed through the filthy hands of filthier men, then it would be part of that notion that the men and everything they have except the Bible is filthy. So it depends on how one reads and understands the ecclesiological parts of the NT and whether or not one thinks the historical patriarchates are organically related to the so-called 'primitive church'. It's all a package either way, as far as I can see.
As I see it, Roman Catholics ascribe God’s powers, roles, and authority to men (though the RC would say that these men are appointed by the Spirit). In essence creating gods or mediators who stand between God and man.
To get away from the spatial imagery of "between", I'd like to submit "Catalysts". For example, in priestly absolution, I, graced by God, have to "supply" the knowledge of my sins and the contrition and intention to cut them out. Without my (grace-filled) presenting of those things, the forgiveness mojo does not happen. And, of course, if no priest were around, and a tree fell on me, while Dante suggests there might be consequences, we would hesitate to say that fer shur I was shut out of forgiveness. Crudely put, the absence of priestly absolution does not mean fer shur that one is NOT forgiven. It's presence, along with the other stuff I said, means one is fer shur forgiven. That's how I think of it anyway. I'll submit to an inquisition on this (or on anything I say, now that I mention it.)
And, of course, not ALL powers, roles, and authority are entrusted (for reasons best known to Himself - I sure wouldn't have done it like that) to men. God still gets to work the weather and stuff. But, incomprehensibly, He seems to have deputized some authority and to have agreed to be in some way bound by the acts of His agents.
Absolutely, yet it is also what the Catholic Church also affirms, though with one caveat... that the Holy Spirit only (?) works and resides through members of the RC church, and especially with a ‘special’ charism which only the Pope possesses. Please correct me if I’m misinformed here. The "only' is the only (heh heh) debatable part. I am currently arguing with a priest about this, thus: I maintain that when I presided at the Eucharist as a Pepsicola priest, there was no GUARANTEE that Jesus was sacramentally present. But (I maintain) God is generous and people sincerely trusting in the validity of my orders and sincerely believing in the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, surely were not shut out of ALL the graces, uh, thereunto appertaining. The very excellent priest with whom I am arguing this, in a leisurely fashion, is not prepared to commit himself on either side.
And, as to the charism of 'Infallibility' it's more like a dead-man's switch, in my diseased imagination. I think one way to say it is that God won't let the Holy Father rear back and "declare and define" something that ain't so.
As to limiting the Spirit of God, just as I take some comfort in thinking that God is sometimes laughing at me, so I take comfort, knowing that I am wicked, in the line in the Psalms about "with the crooked you are wily."I mean that it seems to me the word of our Lord on Easter afternoon is precisely (and astonishingly) a limiting of the Spirit, at least "formally". God says what you bind on earth is bound in heaven. That there is limiting.
But, He is wily, and maybe can and does work around our crookedness.
....I have the greatest personal difficulty.
You and me both. And I KNOW (and love) some of these guys. (And most assuredly do NOT love some other of these guys! Many of us still refer to our former bishop as "Walter the Pink".)
As I said somewhere recently, being Catholic SEEMS to outsiders like it piles all sorts of stuff between us and God. But my experience is that it strips stuff away and forces me (precisely because I know some clergy and possess the common knowledge about how authority can twist men and their intentions) to trust that God will keep what I take to be His promises to the Church.
Back to confession. We all agree that in Christ our sins are put behind us, that though we were scarlet we can be whiter than snow. We agree that when the trumpet sounds, for the faithful their sins will be forgotten, unimportant, and that the most important thing about me is not me at all, but Jesus.
Still when itch comes to scratch, we find it very hard to take that confidence with us as we go to confide in someone else, even in a dark closet through an anonymity-assisting partition. We SAY we believe that the forgiveness of Christ makes our pasts unimportant, but we DO "These sins are embarrassing, and this embarrassment is so powerful, that I would just die if anyone knew them."
So, for me at any rate, the custom of going to a priest and admitting that I know, oh, what some movie star looks like with her shirt off, and enjoyed acquiring the knowledge, that's a real rubber meets the road moment about living into what I profess about the grace of Christ.
It's one thing to know the rope is strong and your knots are good. It's quite another to back off a 50 yard high cliff. But when you've rappelled to the bottom, then you really know the rope was strong enough and the knots good enough.
Sometime you ought to see how much blather I can type when I'm actually awake! Thanks for the conversation. It's a blessing.
You are completely wrong because you don’t seem to know what the word rather means.
[Origin: 1615–25; < L venerātus, ptp. of venerārī to solicit the goodwill of (a god), worship, revere, v. deriv. of vener-, s. of venus, presumably in its original sense “desire”; see Venus)]
He did no such thing!!!!!!!!!!!!
If God changed it, it was no longer just her flesh.
SO I wouldn't say it's obvious that God created the flesh of Jesus any more than he did the flesh of any child.
Well, the bible does say He knit us together in our mother's womb, so. . .
I guess I was thinking in terms of creation ex nihilo.
No, it doesn't because the meaning of the term is affected by the context in which it is used. When I speak of a venerable old man, I do not mean that I am paying him divine honors or intending to solicit his good will as though he were a God. I may never even speak to the old codger.
Similarly, when theologians use the word "venerate" the do so, generally to distinguish it from the word "worship", which in the shift in context of years of usage has come to mean to pay honors as though to the supreme God. Though it used to mean something like "of worth", so that a cemetery is described as havng graves of many "of honor and of worship" meaning, I am told, noble men and rich men.
In de Montfort's writings Mary is called "divine". But then again the Anglican clergy of The middle 17th century are called "divines" as well. The degree I hold is that of a "Master of Divinity", but nobody thinks I am God's master, and no one thinks Anglican clergy or our Lady are divine. (well, okay, I have over heard one Anglican saying, "Darling, you look diVINE in those vestments ....)(Or as Tallulah Bankhead is reputed to have said to an acolyte with an incense burner,"Darling your dress is lovely but your handbag is on fire!"
If you want to use our language to show that we pay Mary honors appropriate to God, no amount of reason will stop you, any more than I can stop you from seeing what you see in an inkblot.
But what you see may not be what you get.
Oh oh! Teacher Me me! I know!
mendacious news reader.
Do I win?
Of course I do, -- why shouldn't I? This is why I go to Church every Sunday; this is also why the Reformation was such a horror visited on Christianity.
No, that is not what the verse says, both looking at the Greek original and the context.
Transfer of holy relics will be first for region
Obviously, God created the flesh of Jesus in Mary's womb.
True, -- and we can speculate how it was accomplished genetically, -- but that does not invalidate Al's point: that one and only human actor in this was Mary herself, and therefore it is clearly logical that she'd be pure from all corruption, just like Jesus was.
You have a unique ability to pack several errors in one terse statement.
First, he admits no such thing. He says:
The Marian dogmas were big problems. I still thought [around 1984] the Catholic claims on Mary were outrageous. I went back and read some essays, and concluded that the Bible alone wouldn't compel acceptance of the Marian dogmas; the Bible alone wouldn't lead you to them, yet sustained theological reflection on Jesus' relationship to His mother; if you take the humanity of Jesus with the utmost seriousness, and you take Mary as a real mother, not just a "conduit," and you begin to think about motherhood and sonship, and you think about what it means to receive a body from your mother: flesh . . . God didn't make Jesus' flesh in Mary's womb; He got Mary's flesh. If God had wanted to, He could have made Jesus as He made Adam: from the dust of the earth. But He didn't. He decided He would use a human being to give Jesus His humanity. And so what kind of flesh is Jesus gonna get? If He's gonna be perfect humanity, He'd better have perfect human flesh untainted by sin. To me the Immaculate Conception, seen in that light, made sense. The Assumption also seemed to me to make a great deal of sense. There were precedents to it: Enoch and Elijah, those who rose from the dead at the time of the rending of the veil of the Temple. And if Jesus is going to give anybodye priority; if He's going to truly honor His mother and father, wouldn't He give Mary, whose flesh He received, priority in the Resurrection? So I think that's what the doctrine of the Assumption preserves. I could go on and talk forever on the distinctive doctrines of the Church.
What he perhaps admits here is that if one reads the Bible without reflection, then such unreflecting man would not find the Marian dogmas there. Not exactly the same thing.
Second, your post reflects the Protestant superstition that every doctrine has to be found in the Bible. That is itself not "biblical".
Third, the entire purpose of Al talking about it is that his view on the Marian dogmas changed and came in alignment with Catholicism. You make his sound like someone who continues to think that Catholic Mariology is "outrageous" yet goes to Catholic Church ... why exactly?
LOL. True.
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