“I see you haven’t been around FR long...check the Religion Forum for the last month, and count the anti-Catholic articles.
I didn’t dream this up out of nowhere.”
Actually I’ve been on FR for years, just on a different account.
And I’ve seen plenty of insults of Protestants, too. Just yesterday I was reading a thread insulting Martin Luther, a commenter talked about how he ripped six books out of the Bible and tried to take out more, etc.
Anyway, you didn’t respond to the list of many non-Catholics who are assumed guilty around here. Don’t you see that there are plenty of them who are assumed guilty, too?
I personally believe that the vast majority of priests are good men who are trying to do good. And that the RC church members have done a lot of good in this world. So I am not on a hunt.
It’s the issue of child molestation/abuse, not the issue of Catholicism, that gets most of us riled up. That’s my opinion.
Yes, when someone presents himself as particularly holy or set apart, as in a priest OR a minister OR a teacher, it rankles even more. Because of the hypocrisy.
But I think you are assuming an agenda too intensely. Debates about Catholicism/Protestantism will occur, particularly in the religion forum. Both sides can get accusatory and ugly. The child molestation issue is largely separate as I see it.
Oh, really? How "riled up" are "most of you" about protestant or presbyterian child sexual abuse? You KNOW it takes place as often in other churches. Why do I never see you start one of those threads, and face the problems in your own church?
But I think you are assuming an agenda too intensely.
Yes, how DARE I get upset about insults to my Church? Where do I come off defending my beliefs, my Church's priests, my fellow Catholics?
Under what name? Why do you have another account?
Who is the current leader of the Lutheran Church? Shall we have a microscopic look at his background? At Lutheran pastors? At Lutheran pastor child molesters? At Lutheran pastor homosexuals? At the Lutheran COVER-UP of this reprehensible abuse? Because YOU KNOW it took place, and yet WHERE IS THE SELF EXAMINATION? Where are the FR articles, so we can see if it's being done right?
Maybe you could give us a link so we could read the context.
Secondly, he did take seven (not six) books out of the Bible: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, I and II Maccabees, and Esther. Those books were accepted as canonical in both the East and the West, up until the point in time that Fr. Luther relegated them to a status of apocrypha.
Third, he did denigrate several of the books of the NT in his writings.
For example, on the Epistle of James, he did say:
In a word, St. John’s Gospel and his first Epistle, St. Paul’s Epistles—especially Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians—and St. Peter’s first Epistle are the books that show you Christ and teach you all that it is necessary and good for you to know—even though you were never to see or hear any other book or doctrine. Therefore St. James’ Epistle is really an epistle of straw, compared to them. For it has nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it.
Preface to the New Testament (1524 ed)
In the introduction to the Epistles of James and Jude, he said (about Jude):
Concerning the epistle of St. Jude, no one can deny that it is an extract or copy of St. Peter's second epistle, so very like it are all the words. He also speaks of the apostles like a disciple who comes long after them [Jude 17] and cites sayings and incidents that are found nowhere else in the Scriptures [Jude 9, 14]. This moved the ancient Fathers to exclude this epistle from the main body of the Scriptures. Moreover the Apostle Jude did not go to Greek-speaking lands, but to Persia, as it is said, so that he did not write Greek. Therefore, although I value this book, it is an epistle that need not be counted among the chief books which are supposed to lay the foundations of faith.
In regards to the book of Revelation, Luther said:
Finally, let everyone think of it as his own spirit leads him. My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book. For me this is reason enough not to think highly of it: Christ is neither taught nor known in it. But to teach Christ, this is the thing which an apostle is bound above all else to do; as Christ says in Acts 1, "You shall be my witnesses." Therefore I stick to the books which present Christ to me clearly and purely.
So what is a person supposed to think about Luther's attitude to much of the Scriptures? I'm not trying to be insulting to you or Lutherans; but those are Luther's own words.