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Can Catholics Be Christians?
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church ^

Posted on 12/08/2009 11:41:52 AM PST by Gamecock

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To: Sir_Ed
People in Heaven can’t hear us...

That is your own personal interpretation of Scripture, and you are welcome to it.

Again, Jesus replied “Our Father, who art in Heaven”...

If you are that literal about how to pray, I'm quite sure you never say any prayer accept the Our Father, and further that you exclude the doxology "for thine is the power..." often glued on to the end.

241 posted on 12/08/2009 5:02:54 PM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: Iscool

Mary is also the “savior” of Rome according to the current pope.

“The Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of the Apostles and savior of the people of Rome, intercede to God for us so that the face of his blessed Son may be shown to our Pope and comfort the Church with the light of the resurrection.”


242 posted on 12/08/2009 5:06:09 PM PST by bonfire
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To: markomalley
I can imagine, though, that the Tudors might have felt somewhat threatened by them, as well (thus causing a lot of the English anti-Catholicism...from whence ours originated, I'm sure).

Absolutely.

While not condoning his actions, it's often overlooked that King Henry VIII had very understandable reasons for wanting that initial divorce which led the English Church to schism from the Catholic Church. England had not long prior just finished up the bloody War of the Roses and stability was just beginning to be restored. If King Henry VIII did not produce a suitable heir to his throne, the country was likely to be plunged again into yet another war and he did not want to see that happen. Catharine of Aragorn was not providing toward that end. A good case could be made that Henry VIII really should have received an annulment of that marriage due to the circumstances under which it had taken place. It was irrelevant, however, considering that her nephew was the Holy Roman Emperor and was holding the pope captive at the time. One could say that, from the beginning, King Henry VIII and the Church of England had a vested interest in being opposed to the Catholic Church.

Fast forward to Queen Elizabeth I and the vested interest in anti-Catholicism becomes absolutely clear. Queen Elizabeth I owed her life and her thrown to the fact that England had broken away from the Catholic Church and she knew it. I'd imagine that there was a deep resentment and, in maintaining her thrown, the unity of England, and a continued cause for war against Spain, probably found it in her interest to stoke the flames of fear regarding "Rome." It isn't difficult to see how Puritan and anti-Catholic attitudes could have arisen within that context.

None of that was to say it was right, of course, but such attitudes do often find their reasons within the politics of a particular time.

243 posted on 12/08/2009 5:07:05 PM PST by MWS
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To: Lorica
With an incendiary title like the one heading this thread, why would you suppose anything different?

It happens whenever someone decides the religion forum beehive needs a kick.

I think that it also happens when their consciences start to kick in and their doubts start to arise; usually it happens at a particularly significant time of year, when Christians need to be celebrating and worshiping Christ. When you are without the fullness of grace, and you see somebody with it, some will investigate and join in the holiness, as many converts do. Others merely get petty and jealous.

244 posted on 12/08/2009 5:08:54 PM PST by MarkBsnr ( I would not believe in the Gospel if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)
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To: Repealthe17thAmendment

I agree that we have much in common.

One of the most gifted and powerful women I know is a woman named Myrna here in Grants Pass

She’s built our local Right to Life into one of the largest RTL organizations in Oregon and we are blessed beyond words to have her.

I consider her a good friend, and she is a devout Catholic, I expect when we get to heaven I will see her far above me in the pantheon of Saints.

We just have what I consider to be minor disagreements...even though some like Petronski and Salvation may consider our differences to be more dire than that.

Ed

Ed


245 posted on 12/08/2009 5:09:20 PM PST by Sir_Ed
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To: SnakeDoctor
The infallibility of the Bible is not rendered useless by the fallibility of its interpreters any more than the Bible’s moral code is rendered useless by the fallibility of its practitioners.

Yes, it is. Perhaps not in everything, since some parts of the moral law or other aspects of Scripture are quite simple and perfectly plain. But not everything is, and St. Peter warns against the presumption, as one finds in 2 Peter 3:16. Scripture, then, is not as "perspicuous" as some allege. Yet, regardless, it is both inspired and infallible. To that end, its infallibility is only rendered useful in the "difficult" cases, through the agency of an infallible authority. Since Jesus Himself does not instruct each of us personally, that authority is through a human agency that He established, as Scripture makes clear enough in the passages I cited earlier. That agency is the Church. Specifically, that Church which has existed throughout the entire span of the Christian Era, and has kept the Deposit of Faith delivered to it from the Apostles, through the working of the Holy Spirit. There is only one such Church that can claim both the historic continuity required and the intact Deposit of Faith at issue.

246 posted on 12/08/2009 5:14:43 PM PST by magisterium
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To: Sir_Ed
If God could have chosen one born and made them sinless He wouldn’t have needed Jesus’ sacrifice, He could have made us all sinless if He made Mary sinless.

So God does not have the power to choose one to be born without sin?

Or is it that He can choose to create us without sin, but only on an all-or-none basis?

Are you saying God needed Jesus' sacrifice to redeem us? He didn't have the power to redeem us by whatever method He chose?

Whither God's omnipotence?

247 posted on 12/08/2009 5:15:44 PM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: Iscool
Protestants don't blindly make these accusations that you worship Mary and your saints...

Perhaps not blindly. Falsely, though.

Maliciously maybe.

248 posted on 12/08/2009 5:18:08 PM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: Sir_Ed
Either "all" means "all" or it doesn't, in which case it probably means "darn near all," but it's hard to argue that it specifically means "All minus 1, no more no less."

Jesus was a human. He was born without sin. So it does not mean all. nowhere does it explicitly say in so many words, "When we say all are born in sin we mean all but Jesus." So there is room for us to say Mary was born without sin. It's another circular argument. And thus it fails, I think, to be conclusive.

249 posted on 12/08/2009 5:18:47 PM PST by Mad Dawg
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To: MWS

That is a very well reasoned post. Of course it may seem like worship to some other sorts of Christians.

But not one Catholic Freeper has said they worship Mary in this thread. Very much the opposite has happened. And there are Catholics on FR who openly don’t recognize the current Pope as valid!! If there were millions of Catholics who worship Mary we would surely have one or two on FR. Catholics have no reason not to admit worshipping Mary if they really did so, especially on an anonymous message board (because worshipping Mary gets you kicked out of the Church). The only folks who seem to think that Catholics worship Mary are some other types of Christians, despite the simple fact that Catholics say they don’t and would have no reason not to admit to it if they did.

Freegards, God bless


250 posted on 12/08/2009 5:19:53 PM PST by Ransomed (Son of Ransomed Says Keep the Faith!)
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To: Iscool
.In fact, I have yet to see one of these tubs with a statue of Jesus in it...Not a single one...

Oh, well if YOU haven't seen one, they simply CAN'T exist.

251 posted on 12/08/2009 5:20:16 PM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: Petronski

No, I use different words to pray, but they are always directed to my creator, not to my Mother, Father, Uncle Bob, Mary, Peter or anyone else who is not part of the Godhead.

What’s wrong with going straight to the One who made us, and paid a dear price for our souls?

Ed


252 posted on 12/08/2009 5:21:14 PM PST by Sir_Ed
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To: Sir_Ed
No, I use different words to pray...

That violates Christ's commandment. Or are you only literal in places?

What’s wrong with going straight to the One who made us, and paid a dear price for our souls?

Absolutely nothing. Thus, you never ask anyone to pray for you, correct?

253 posted on 12/08/2009 5:24:22 PM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: Theo
And I thank God for His Reformation of His Church, to correct all the heresies smuggled in during the previous centuries of biblical illiteracy.

Problem with that is that we see the results of that played out in hundreds, if not thousands of competing denominations, many of which espouse doctrine that contradict each other. All of them claim Biblical support.

It's confusion. Is God the author of confusion?

254 posted on 12/08/2009 5:25:12 PM PST by don-o (My son, Ben - Marine Lance Corporal is in Iraq.)
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To: raygunfan
These people WALKED AND TALKED WITH THE APOSTLES, AND THEIR RIGHTFUL SUCCESSORS, and aligned with Rome on all matters in dispute....showing no inclination toward sola scriptura (those that leaned that way were those who came up with the heresies the papacy had to put down)

Irenaeus
"We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith."

Cyril of Jerusalem
"This seal have thou ever on thy mind; which now by way of summary has been touched on in its heads, and if the Lord grant, shall hereafter be set forth according to our power, with Scripture proofs. For concerning the divine and sacred Mysteries of the Faith, we ought not to deliver even the most casual remark without the Holy Scriptures: nor be drawn aside by mere probabilities and the artifices of argument. Do not then believe me because I tell thee these things, unless thou receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of what is set forth: for this salvation, which is of our faith, is not by ingenious reasonings, but by proof from the Holy Scriptures."

Gregory of Nyssa
"The generality of men still fluctuate in their opinions about this, which are as erroneous as they are numerous. As for ourselves, if the Gentile philosophy, which deals methodically with all these points, were really adequate for a demonstration, it would certainly be superfluous to add a discussion on the soul to those speculations. But while the latter proceeded, on the subject of the soul, as far in the direction of supposed consequences as the thinker pleased, we are not entitled to such license, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings."

These are just a few...There's many early church Fathers who would disagree with you...You'll notice there is not one mention of oral tradition, except from the gnostics...

255 posted on 12/08/2009 5:27:20 PM PST by Iscool (I don't understand all that I know...)
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To: Sir_Ed; Pyro7480

>>If God could have chosen one born and made them sinless He wouldn’t have needed Jesus’ sacrifice<<

Are you saying God couldn’t?
God is limitless. He can do anything.


256 posted on 12/08/2009 5:31:14 PM PST by netmilsmom (I am Ilk)
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To: bonfire

Sometimes this gets silly.

Those who think Christianity is a kind of system of thought will, I suppose have difficulty understanding that especially in personal relationships, the same word, phrase or clause can be used to mean different things depending on the person saying it or them and the person to whom it or they are said.

To listen to some folks, I should repent for ever saying to my daughter, “You are the most wonderful girl in the world!” because I don’t really know that to be true. Somewhere there is a girl who may be more wonderful than my daughter, so I should have said that.

If PapaBenXVI really thought Mary was savior in the same way that he thinks Jesus is savior, I wonder why he would ask her to pray to God for some kind of manifestation of the Son. If he thought she was savior, why not ask her to show her face and comfort the Church and the rest? Why bother with God and the Son and so forth?

The reasonable conclusion is that the term savior is used of Mary and Jesus equivocally.

(And they call US legalistic!)


257 posted on 12/08/2009 5:31:31 PM PST by Mad Dawg
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To: Iscool

you ignored my post that notes THERE WAS NO BIBLE IN THE FIRST CENTURY, or second, or third....i can post equally, in fact, more, showing the church, along with sacred tradition and eventually, the whole of the bible were on equal footing.

so, you are left again, with my original point, during the time of no bible, and only the apotles and their successors were there, WHAT ENTITY WAS IN CHARGE?????? it was the ‘pillar and foundation of the truth’, the visible church. and again, you miss the point, the fathers of the church, studied the scriptures directly from the sources i just mentioned and all all were catholics, subjecting themselves to the roman pontiff, sacred tradition and the church....


258 posted on 12/08/2009 5:32:13 PM PST by raygunfan
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To: Iscool
None of that is Scripture. Why do you quote it?

"We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith."

St. Irenaeus speaks of an oral gospel later written down. In much the same way, his oral teachings are available to us now because he wrote them down. In the absence of a Roman-era Dictaphone, we will only know of oral traditions because they are written down.

If you are opposed to using the Traditions of the Church, you really ought not be quoting the writings of Sts. Irenaeus or Cyril or Gregory, or any of the other fathers of the Catholic Church.

259 posted on 12/08/2009 5:33:32 PM PST by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: don-o
"It's confusion. Is God the author of confusion?"...

Interesting question...here's my take...G-d gave us the the knowledge we need in the Torah and the other early Jewish writings...those writings, misinterpreted by man in the Messianic fervor of the Roman years of occupation, have led to a totally man-based confusion of the Word that continues to this day...magritte (ducking)
260 posted on 12/08/2009 5:33:42 PM PST by magritte ("I will give this monkey for lunch to Mr Sata,")
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