Who are the Catholics: The Orthodox or The Romanists, or both?

Me

[the_conscience]

I just witnessed a couple of Orthodox posters get kicked off a "Catholic Caucus" thread. I thought, despite their differences, they had a mutual understanding that each sect was considered "Catholic". Are not the Orthodox considered Catholic? Why do the Romanists get to monopolize the term "Catholic"?

I consider myself to be Catholic being a part of the universal church of Christ. Why should one sect be able to use a universal concept to identify themselves in a caucus thread while other Christian denominations need to use specific qualifiers to identify themselves in a caucus thread?

[Iscool]

Just who do you thing the "earliest Church fathers" were? You don't get much earlier than Peter who was the first Pope and there is a clear (Apostolic) succession right up to today.

Ha...There is NO apostolic succession...Peter wasn't even heard from again after the middle of Acts...If I was going to go against God's word and follow a single man like you guys do, it would have been Paul...Paul was the apostle to the Gentile church...Your's is a Gentile church...

[Cronos]

the good doctor is a She, part of the OPC (Orthodox (supposedly) Prebyterian C)

[Cronos]

I have no spiritual roots

Ok, if you say so..

[wagglebee]

The cross was a shame and a curse to God...You think He wants to be reminded of the pain and shame He went thru???

What bizarre sect taught you this?

Do you somehow think that the Lord was forced against His Will to be crucified?

And if He considers the Cross "a shame and a curse" why did He say this:

Then Jesus said to his disciples: If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (Matthew 16:24)

[Iscool]

One of the sources for the KJV was the Vulgate and the translators of the KJV used the Douay-Rheims to double-check their translations of the New Testament.

Obviously you are misinformed...The fact that the KJV doesn't agee with the Douay Rheims in numerous places proves you wrong...

[Cronos]

Ha...There is NO apostolic succession...Peter wasn't even heard from again after the middle of Acts...If I was going to go against God's word and follow a single man like you guys do, it would have been Paul...Paul was the apostle to the Gentile church...Your's is a Gentile church...

NL -- don't you follow the logic? Since there was no mention of the US in the Bible, it doesn't exist. And +Paul ,as per +Iscool, was the first Pope!

[wagglebee]

I have no spiritual roots in any church, or religion...

That is quite obvious.

Were there no non-Catholic Christians prior to the 15th Century, 14th Century???

Of course there were. Among others there were the Orthodox. What DID NOT was any sort of YOPIOS crowd.

[wagglebee]

The fact that the KJV doesn't agee with the Douay Rheims in numerous places proves you wrong...

If you think that is true than you can provide a verse in the KJV that is demonstrably different in the Douay-Rheims.

[sitetest]

Dear Iscool,

“Ha...There is NO apostolic succession...Peter wasn't even heard from again after the middle of Acts...”

I suppose you got this from the same "history" book that said that St. Jerome translated the Vulgate for Constantine.

ROTFLMAO.

sitetest

[Cronos]

And there were lots of Copts, Armenians, Assyrians etc. -- though, theoretically all are Apostolics, so belong to the same tradition. We don't consider heretic groups like Gnostics or Paulicians as Christians -- unless your group derives from these.

Besides, this deviates from Natural law's post: "Even if your church broke away from the Catholic Church in the 15th century your spiritual roots and history are in the Catholic Church. " --> the only groups that do not have their spiritual roots in the Apostolic Church are the Gnostics, Sabateans, MAndaens etc. -- all others: Catholics, Orthodox, Orientals, Assyrians, Protestatns, have the spiritual roots at the base, the same.

[AnAmericanMother]

I agree -- this has devolved to the level of farce.

You can't have any sort of reasonable discussion with people who just make up their own facts as they go along.

[Mad Dawg]

The secondary point then becomes that while Catholicism maintains that it is monolithic, and Protestants are (in the words of another poster here) ‘fractured,’ neither is clearly the case.

I liked it better when you were writing "in all fairness." You've forsaken fairness after trying it for only one paragraph ! I guess it does make it harder to find a stick to beat us with.

... Catholicism maintains that it is monolithic, ...

We ARE monolithic. Every single one of our orders wear exactly the same habit and have exactly the same rule. All our Church buildings are cookie-cutter copies. All our poets write precisely the same verses over and over again. There is no appreciable difference between Augustine and Bonaventure. And we're all right-handed. You can't even tell the men from the women. Yessir. Monolithic, that's us.

Our monos lithos, our one rock on earth is communion with the Holy See and all that that implies. But we are awesomely, mind-bogglingly diverse in other respects, from the married priests of the Byzantine Catholics, to the ordered worship of Anglican use parishes, from the extravagant piety of some Philippine worshippers to the cool simplicity of the Trappist offices, from the careful distinguo of the Dominican thinker to the enthusiasm of the celebrations of Corpus Christi.

As I already said, if one's rhetorical excesses led one to say that because God is faithful to His promises we can dare to say that in a way He submits to us, that would not be a rejection of God's sovereignty. It WOULD be an unfortunate rhetorical excess, for which I am now vicariously suffering.

Because the devil lies crouching at the door, waiting to spin rhetorical self-indulgence into a Genevan Inquisition, and because we never give up hope that out there is some non-Catholic who would like to understand our teaching BEFORE denouncing it, we have tried to moderate our language to avoid needless and bogus distractions.

Oh heck. I confess. We think that God hovers around us, waiting for our orders almost as much as we think Calvin hated babies. Make the most of it. I have work to do.

[TradicalRC]

Take it up with St. Paul:

1 Corinthians 1:23
-But we preach Christ crucified: unto the Jews indeed a stumblingblock, and unto the Gentiles foolishness:

Galatians 6:14
-But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.

[wagglebee]

For the record, some on this thread AGREE with the Nestorian heresy.

[ArrogantBustard]

people who just make up their own facts as they go along.

Right ... it reminds me of dealing with the anti-gun crowd, the pro-abortion crowd, the socialist medicine crowd. Truth is irrelevant ... they just throw muck around, apparently hoping that some of it will stick ... or at least apparently hoping that folks will fall for the logical absurdity "where there's smoke, there's fire".

[Hegewisch Dupa]

You can't even tell the men from the women

If you'd ever see me in a Catholic School girl's outfit, you'd never say that again. Of course you'd never see anything again either, what for the clawing your own eyes out and all...

[wagglebee]

Very true.

[Petronski]

The cross was a shame and a curse to God...

That bit of theology is profoundly defective.

[Hegewisch Dupa]

I would think with no spiritual roots there could be no opinion on this so-called cross