How John Calvin Made me a Catholic

This is a guest post by Dr. David Anders. David and his wife completed their undergraduate degrees at Wheaton College in 1992. He subsequently earned an M.A. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1995, and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 2002, in Reformation history and historical theology. He was received into the Catholic Church in 2003. He will be on EWTN Live on June 23rd, 7:00 pm Central (8 EST), and may be discussing some of the material from this article.

Portrait of Young John Calvin
Unknown Flemish artist
Espace Ami Lullin of the Bibliothèque de Genève

I once heard a Protestant pastor preach a “Church History” sermon. He began with Christ and the apostles, dashed through the book of Acts, skipped over the Catholic Middle Ages and leaped directly to Wittenberg, 1517. From Luther he hopped to the English revivalist John Wesley, crossed the Atlantic to the American revivals and slid home to his own Church, Birmingham, Alabama, early 1990s. Cheers and singing followed him to the plate. The congregation loved it.

I loved it, too. I grew up in an Evangelical Church in the 1970s immersed in the myth of the Reformation. I was sure that my Church preached the gospel, which we received, unsullied, from the Reformers. After college, I earned a doctorate in Church history so I could flesh out the story and prove to all the poor Catholics that they were in the wrong Church. I never imagined my own founder, the Protestant Reformer John Calvin, would point me to the Catholic faith.

I was raised a Presbyterian, the Church that prides itself on Calvinist origins, but I didn’t care much about denominations. My Church practiced a pared-down, Bible-focused, born-again spirituality shared by most Evangelicals. I went to a Christian college and then a seminary where I found the same attitude. Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Charismatics worshiped and studied side-by-side, all committed to the Bible but at odds on how to interpret it. But our differences didn’t bother us. Disagreements over sacraments, Church structures, and authority were less important to us than a personal relationship with Christ and fighting the Catholic Church. This is how we understood our common debt to the Reformation.

When I finished seminary, I moved on to Ph.D. studies in Reformation history. My focus was on John Calvin (1509-1564), the French Reformer who made Geneva, Switzerland into a model Protestant city. I chose Calvin not just because of my Presbyterian background, but because most American Protestants have some relationship to him. The English Puritans, the Pilgrim Fathers, Jonathan Edwards and the “Great Awakening” – all drew on Calvin and then strongly influenced American religion. My college and seminary professors portrayed Calvin as a master theologian, our theologian. I thought that if I could master Calvin, I would really know the faith.

Strangely, mastering Calvin didn’t lead me anywhere I expected. To begin with, I decided that I really didn’t like Calvin. I found him proud, judgmental and unyielding. But more importantly, I discovered that Calvin upset my Evangelical view of history. I had always assumed a perfect continuity between the Early Church, the Reformation and my Church. The more I studied Calvin, however, the more foreign he seemed, the less like Protestants today. This, in turn, caused me to question the whole Evangelical storyline: Early Church – Reformation – Evangelical Christianity, with one seamless thread running straight from one to the other. But what if Evangelicals really weren’t faithful to Calvin and the Reformation? The seamless thread breaks. And if it could break once, between the Reformation and today, why not sooner, between the Early Church and the Reformation? Was I really sure the thread had held even that far?

Calvin shocked me by rejecting key elements of my Evangelical tradition. Born-again spirituality, private interpretation of Scripture, a broad-minded approach to denominations – Calvin opposed them all. I discovered that his concerns were vastly different, more institutional, even more Catholic. Although he rejected the authority of Rome, there were things about the Catholic faith he never thought about leaving. He took for granted that the Church should have an interpretive authority, a sacramental liturgy and a single, unified faith.

These discoveries faced me with important questions. Why should Calvin treat these “Catholic things” with such seriousness? Was he right in thinking them so important? And if so, was he justified in leaving the Catholic Church? What did these discoveries teach me about Protestantism? How could my Church claim Calvin as a founder, and yet stray so far from his views? Was the whole Protestant way of doing theology doomed to confusion and inconsistency?

Calvin was a second-generation Reformer, twenty-six years younger than Martin Luther (1483-1546). This meant that by the time he encountered the Reformation, it had already split into factions. In Calvin’s native France, there was no royal support for Protestantism and no unified leadership. Lawyers, humanists, intellectuals, artisans and craftsman read Luther’s writings, as well as the Scriptures, and adapted whatever they liked.

This variety struck Calvin as a recipe for disaster. He was a lawyer by training, and always hated any kind of social disorder. In 1549, he wrote a short work (Advertissement contre l’astrologie) in which he complained about this Protestant diversity:

I began to grasp the difference between Calvin and his descendants when I discovered his hatred of this theological diversity. Calvin was drawn to Luther’s theology, but he complained about the “crass multitude” and the “vulgar plebs” who turned Luther’s doctrine into an excuse for disorder. He wrote his first major work, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), in part to address this problem.

Calvin got an opportunity to put his plans into action when he moved to Geneva, Switzerland. He first joined the Reformation in Geneva in 1537, when the city had only recently embraced Protestantism. Calvin, who had already begun to write and publish on theology, was unsatisfied with their work. Geneva had abolished the Mass, kicked out the Catholic clergy, and professed loyalty to the Bible, but Calvin wanted to go further. His first request to the city council was to impose a common confession of faith (written by Calvin) and to force all citizens to affirm it.

Calvin’s most important contribution to Geneva was the establishment of the Consistory – a sort of ecclesiastical court- to judge the moral and theological purity of his parishioners. He also persuaded the council to enforce a set of “Ecclesiastical Ordinances” that defined the authority of the Church, stated the religious obligations of the laity, and imposed an official liturgy. Church attendance was mandatory. Contradicting the ministers was outlawed as blasphemy. Calvin’s Institutes would eventually be declared official doctrine.

Calvin’s lifelong goal was to gain the right to excommunicate “unworthy” Church members. The city council finally granted this power in 1555 when French immigration and local scandal tipped the electorate in his favor. Calvin wielded it frequently. According to historian William Monter, one in fifteen citizens was summoned before the Consistory between 1559 and 1569, and up to one in twenty five was actually excommunicated.¹ Calvin used this power to enforce his single vision of Christianity and to punish dissent.

I studied Calvin for years before the real significance of what I was learning began to sink in. But I finally realized that Calvin, with his passion for order and authority, was fundamentally at odds with the individualist spirit of my Evangelical tradition. Nothing brought this home to me with more clarity than his fight with the former Carmelite monk, Jerome Bolsec.

In 1551, Bolsec, a physician and convert to Protestantism, entered Geneva and attended a lecture on theology. The topic was Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, the teaching that God predetermines the eternal fate of every soul. Bolsec, who believed firmly in “Scripture alone” and “faith alone,” did not like what he heard. He thought it made God into a tyrant. When he stood up to challenge Calvin’s views, he was arrested and imprisoned.

What makes Bolsec’s case interesting is that it quickly evolved into a referendum on Church authority and the interpretation of Scripture. Bolsec, just like most Evangelicals today, argued that he was a Christian, that he had the Holy Spirit and that, therefore, he had as much right as Calvin to interpret the Bible. He promised to recant if Calvin would only prove his doctrine from the Scriptures. But Calvin would have none of it. He ridiculed Bolsec as a trouble maker (Bolsec generated a fair amount of public sympathy), rejected his appeal to Scripture, and called on the council to be harsh. He wrote privately to a friend that he wished Bolsec were “rotting in a ditch.”²

What most Evangelicals today don’t realize is that Calvin never endorsed private or lay interpretation of the Bible. While he rejected Rome’s claim to authority, he made striking claims for his own authority. He taught that the “Reformed” pastors were successors to the prophets and apostles, entrusted with the task of authoritative interpretation of the Scriptures. He insisted that laypeople should suspend judgment on difficult matters and “hold unity with the Church.”³

Calvin took very seriously the obligation of the laity to submit and obey. “Contradicting the ministers” was one of the most common reasons to be called before the Consistory and penalties could be severe. One image in particular sticks in my mind. April, 1546. Pierre Ameaux, a citizen of Geneva, was forced to crawl to the door of the Bishop’s residence, with his head uncovered and a torch in his hand. He begged the forgiveness of God, of the ministers and of the city council. His crime? He contradicted the preaching of Calvin. The council, at Calvin’s urging, had decreed Ameaux’s public humiliation as punishment.

Ameaux was not alone. Throughout the 1540s and 1550s, Geneva’s city council repeatedly outlawed speaking against the ministers or their theology. Furthermore, when Calvin gained the right to excommunicate, he did not hesitate to use it against this “blasphemy.” Evangelicals today, unaccustomed to the use of excommunication, may underestimate the severity of the penalty, but Calvin understood it in the most severe terms. He repeatedly taught that the excommunicated were “estranged from the Church, and thus, from Christ.”⁴

If Calvin’s ideas on Church authority were a surprise to me, his thoughts on the sacraments were shocking. Unlike Evangelicals, who treat the theology of the sacraments as one of the “non-essentials,” Calvin thought they were of the utmost importance. In fact, he taught that a proper understanding of the Eucharist was necessary for salvation. This was the thesis of his very first theological treatise in French (Petit traicté de la Sainte Cène, 1541). Frustrated by Protestant disagreement over the Eucharist, Calvin wrote the text in an attempt to unify the movement around one single doctrine.

Evangelicals are used to finding assurance in their “personal relationship with Christ,” and not through membership in any Church or participation in any ritual. Calvin, however, taught that the Eucharist provides “undoubted assurance of eternal life.”⁵ And while Calvin stopped short of the Catholic, or even the Lutheran, understanding of the Eucharist, he still retained a doctrine of the Real Presence. He taught that the Eucharist provides a “true and substantial partaking of the body and blood of the Lord” and he rejected the notion that communicants receive “the Spirit only, omitting flesh and blood.”⁶.

Calvin understood baptism in much the same way. He never taught the Evangelical doctrine that one is “born again” through personal conversion. Instead, he associated regeneration with baptism and taught that to neglect baptism was to refuse salvation. He also allowed no diversity over the manner of its reception. Anabaptists in Geneva (those who practiced adult baptism) were jailed and forced to repent. Calvin taught that Anabaptists, by refusing the sacrament to their children, had placed themselves outside the faith.

Calvin once persuaded an Anabaptist named Herman to enter the Reformed Church. His description of the event leaves no doubt about the difference between Calvin and the modern Evangelical. Calvin wrote:

Evangelicals don’t understand this type of language. They are accustomed to treating “the Church” as a purely spiritual reality, represented across denominations or wherever “true believers” are gathered. This was not Calvin’s view. His was “the true Church,” marked off by infant baptism, outside of which there was no salvation.

Studying Calvin raised important questions about my Evangelical identity. How could I reject as unimportant issues that my own founder considered essential? I had blithely and confidently dismissed baptism, Eucharist, and the Church itself as “merely symbolic,” “purely spiritual” or, ultimately, unnecessary. In seminary, too, I found an environment where professors disagreed entirely over these issues and no one cared! With no final court of appeal, we had devolved into a “lowest common denominator” theology.

Church history taught me that this attitude was a recent development. John Calvin had high expectations for the unity and catholicity of the faith, and for the centrality of Church and sacrament. But Calvinism couldn’t deliver it. Outside of Geneva, without the force of the state to impose one version, Calvinism itself splintered into factions. In her book Orthodoxies in Massachusetts: Rereading American Puritanism, historian Janice Knight details how the process unfolded very early in American Calvinism. ⁸

It is not surprising that by the eighteenth century, leading Calvinist Churchmen on both sides of the Atlantic had given up on the quest for complete unity. One new approach was to stress the subjective experience of “new birth” (itself a novel doctrine of Puritan origins) as the only necessary concern. The famous revivalist George Whitefield typified this view, going so far as to insist that Christ did not want agreement in other matters. He said:

Since the eighteenth century, Calvinism has devolved more and more into a narrow set of questions about the nature of salvation. Indeed, in most people’s minds the word Calvinism implies only the doctrine of predestination. Calvin himself has become mainly a shadowy symbol, a myth that Evangelicals call upon only to support a spurious claim to historical continuity.

The greatest irony in my historical research was realizing that Evangelicalism, far from being the direct descendant of Calvin, actually represents the failure of Calvinism. Whereas Calvin spent his life in the quest for doctrinal unity, modern Evangelicalism is rooted in the rejection of that quest. Historian Alister McGrath notes that the term “Evangelical,” which has circulated in Christianity for centuries, took on its peculiar modern sense only in the twentieth century, with the founding of the National Association of Evangelicals (1942). This society was formed to allow coordinated public action on the part of disparate groups that agreed on “the new birth,” but disagreed on just about everything else.¹⁰

I grew up believing that Evangelicalism was “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” I learned from Protestant Church history that it was hardly older than Whitefield, and certainly not the faith of the Protestant Reformers. What to do? Should I go back to the sixteenth century and become an authentic Calvinist? I already knew that Calvin himself, for all his insistence on unity and authority, had been unable to deliver the goods. His own followers descended into anarchy and individualism.

I realized instead that Calvin was part of the problem. He had insisted on the importance of unity and authority, but had rejected any rational or consistent basis for that authority. He knew that Scripture totally alone, Scripture interpreted by each individual conscience, was a recipe for disaster. But his own claim to authority was perfectly arbitrary. Whenever he was challenged, he simply appealed to his own conscience, or to his subjective experience, but he denied that right to Bolsec and others. As a result, Calvin became proud and censorious, brutal with his enemies, and intolerant of dissent. In all my reading of Calvin, I don’t recall him ever apologizing for a mistake or admitting an error.

It eventually occurred to me that Calvin’s attitude contrasted sharply with what I had found in the greatest Catholic theologians. Many of them were saints, recognized for their heroic charity and humility. Furthermore, I knew from reading them, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Francis de Sales, that they denied any personal authority to define doctrine. They deferred willingly, even joyfully, to the authority of Pope and council. They could maintain the biblical ideal of doctrinal unity (1 Corinthians 1:10), without claiming to be the source of that unity.

These saints also challenged the stereotypes about Catholics that I had grown up with. Evangelicals frequently assert that they are the only ones to have “a personal relationship with Christ.” Catholics, with their rituals and institutions, are supposed to be alienated from Christ and Scripture. I found instead men and women who were single-minded in their devotion to Christ and inebriated with His grace.

The Catholic theologian who had the greatest impact on me was undoubtedly St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430). All of my life, I heard the claim that “the Early Church” had been Protestant and Evangelical. My seminary professors and even Calvin and Luther always pointed to St. Augustine as their great Early Church hero. When I finally dug into Augustine, however, I discovered a thorough-going Catholicism. Augustine loved Scripture and spoke profoundly about God’s grace, but he understood these in the fully Catholic sense. Augustine destroyed the final piece of my Evangelical view of history.

In the end, I began to see that everything good about Evangelicalism was already present in the Catholic Church – the warmth and devotion of Evangelical spirituality, the love of Scripture and even, to some extent, the Evangelical tolerance for diversity. Catholicism has always tolerated schools of thought, various theologies and different liturgies. But unlike Evangelicalism, the Catholic Church has a logical and consistent way to distinguish the essential from the non-essential. The Church’s Magisterium, established by Christ (Matthew 16:18; Matthew 28:18-20), has provided that source of unity that Calvin sought to replace.

One of the most satisfying things about my discovery of the Catholic Church is that it fully satisfied my desire for historical rootedness. I began to study history believing in that continuity of faith and trying desperately to find it. Even when I thought I had found it in the Reformation, I still had to contend with the enormous gulf of the Catholic Middle Ages. Now, thanks to what Calvin taught me, there are no more missing links. On November 16, 2003 I finally embraced the faith “once for all delivered to the Saints.” I entered the Catholic Church.

“The Consistory of Geneva, 1559-1569,” Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance 38 (1976): 467-484. [↩]

Letter to Madame de Cany, 1552. [↩]

Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J. T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960: 3.2.3, 4.3.4. [↩]

Institutes 4.12.9. [↩]

Institutes 4.17.32. [↩]

Institutes 4.17.17; 4.17.19. [↩]

Letters of John Calvin, trans. M. Gilchrist, ed. J.Bonnet, New York: Burt Franklin, 1972, I: 110-111. [↩]

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. [↩]

Cited in Mark A. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys. Downers Grove: IVP, 2003, 14. [↩]

Evangelicalism and the Future of Christianity. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995, 17-23. [↩]

You better call all the Diocene Archbishops that have approved "Feeneyite" St. Benedict Centers offering masses daily (some even Novus Ordo), and call the Vatican too, inform them that they are dealing with heretics.

Name one of these centers.

Shows how much you know. You call Catholics heretics, the so-called Orthodox just like catholics.

I am not calling you Catholic.

What religion are you anyways?

Catholic.

What a mess is your knowledge of Catholicism! The "Feeneyites" as you call them, are 99% not sedevacantes, that's two different things.

Feeneyism is ruled heretical by the Church. So was Feeney. Do you have more?

The pope is the supreme pontiff that is Catholic Dogma,

Name the current Pope.

the Orthodox bishops are schismatic and heretical

Not according to the Vatican.

I am not a sedevacates.

Then what are you?

What religion are you anyways

Catholic, still, and always.

you know very little about Catholicism

When you speak about Catholicism, try to prove your points from websites like Vatican.va and USCCB.org. Not multicoloured and hysterical cartoonish websites.

it looks like you are not a source to ask any questions to about the schismatic Orthodox?

I am not an expert, qualified to testify in court, no.

But not the Latin Church?

The Church as a whole generally opposed remarriage more than divorce. Divorce for reasons of adultery was always acceptable to the Church, but by the 9th century in western Europe divorces pretty much ceased. Rome also had civil divorce laws. As a Christian-only country, obviously divorces in the Roman Empire were not handled by the Church. That means the Church did accept civil divorces and apparently did so until the 9th century.

The Orthodox limit of two divorces and three marriages is an arbitrary one. There was a case in the 9th century when a Roman Emperor was widowed three times and asked for the 4th marriage and the Bishop of Constantinople refused. For that he was sacked by the Emperor. The other four Patriarch (one being the Pope) approved his fourth marriage because apparently only the Greek Church was opposed to more than three marriages for any reason, even if legitimate. Contrary to Leoni's It's not biblical but canonical. It's not dogma but economy.

I dont think you understand the Reformed belief. The believer MUST repent and believe He is given the ability to CHOSE God, He is given the Faith as a gift. Salvation is a gift.

If he must repent and believe BEFORE he is saved, then his salvation is not a gift; it is earned, right? It sounds like you are saying that salvation is conditional upon belief. That is not Reformed belief at all. I give you the Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter III:

III. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.

IV. These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it can not be either increased or diminished.

V. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his free grace and love alone, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.

VI. As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.

This little except says that salvation is an unearned gift from God, predestined before the foundations of the universe for each elite individual, and there is nothing that anyone can do to change the status to salvation from damnation in any way whatsoever. Or the opposite. Once determined for salvation, the Reformed belief is that one cannot be damned.

Therefore, changing churches, as Kosta alluded to, has no effect on Reformed salvation. Your move away from the Catholic Church has no effect and is, ultimately, entirely useless from a Reformed point of view.

This is not new for Catholics, The Thomist view believes in uncondition election.

The Thomist and Molinist views both teach unconditional election for some, but do not extend that view to all men. No Catholic believes that God predetermines men to hell.

"We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema.

Council of Orange (529 AD)"

"God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end."

Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1037

Because God predestines no one to hell, all Catholics believe that God gives His Grace to everyone (John 1:16, Titus 2:11) and calls every one, through Christ, to salvation.

"For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men."

Titus 2:11"

"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive

1 Corinthians 15:22"

The Catholic versus the Reformed belief. Scripture is clear.

If he must repent and believe BEFORE he is saved, then his salvation is not a gift; it is earned, right?

No, it is a gift. Faith Is given as a Gift so the elect MAY believe.

This little except says that salvation is an unearned gift from God, predestined before the foundations of the universe for each elite individual, and there is nothing that anyone can do to change the status to salvation from damnation in any way whatsoever. Or the opposite. Once determined for salvation, the Reformed belief is that one cannot be damned.

You missed this in chapt 3 Section VI "Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season"

Christ gives us the FAITH as a gift and we believe. Christ gave me the FAITH TO believe.

Chapt 14:1 The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word, by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened

Therefore, changing churches, as Kosta alluded to, has no effect on Reformed salvation. Your move away from the Catholic Church has no effect and is, ultimately, entirely useless from a Reformed point of view.

I agree, I never said it DID have an effect. I just said what was the point in staying.

Should the early Christians in Rome have continued to frequent the pagan temples and pray to the Roman Gods?

Leoni wrote: Granting three marriages inside the (Orthodox)church while the first two spouses are still alive, is a heretical soul killing doctrine, a doctrine of Orthodox church authorized adultery.

MarkBsnr answered: But not the Latin Church? I am unable to find the maximum number of marriages that the Latin Church will grant - there are no guidelines that I can find - so theoretically the number of marriages that the Latin Church will allow is virtually infinite - to the lifespan of the individual. There are no limits to the number of annulments that the Latin Church will grant either, according my research.

I commented in another posting "What a mess is your knowledge of Catholicism!" What religion are you anyways?" AND you answer "Catholic".

I find it hard to believe that you are Catholic. In all sincerity, you should not be posting anything. You don't know your own Faith.

I am unable to find the maximum number of marriages that the Latin Church will grant - there are no guidelines that I can find - so theoretically the number of marriages that the Latin Church will allow is virtually infinite - to the lifespan of the individual.

So, because you can't find "the maximum number of marriages that the Latin Church will grant", " THEN YOU conclude that "the number of marriages that the Latin Church will allow is virtually infinite - to the lifespan of the individual"?

How many minutes did you use of your time to do that "research"?

Any Catholic knows marriage is for life. The couple marry "till death do us part". Were you not married in the Church? A married Catholic who marries another, while his spouse is still alive is excommunicated from the Catholic Church, they can't go to communion, because he is living in adultery, a MORTAL SIN. That is why I said "Granting three marriages inside the (Orthodox)church while the first two spouses are still alive, is a heretical soul killing doctrine, a doctrine of Orthodox church authorized adultery.

There are no limits to the number of annulments that the Latin Church will grant either, according my research.

Come on! How many minutes did you spend with this "research". What is an annulment? What does it mean? I'd suggest you read a definition made prior to 1960. (Prior to 1960's and going back to the early Church, it was likely no different with the number of worldwide annulments as in the 1930' to 1950's, years for which I have statistics, and they are that there were an average of like 35-50 annulments granted WORLDWIDE by the Catholic Church. In the 1970 to 1990's the USA bishops alone granted 50,000 to 90,000 annulments!. Obviously, they changed something. Rome has overturned like 90% of all the annulments granted by the USA bishops when they have been appealed by one of the spouses, nevertheless, very few have been appealed comparitively speaking. IT IS AN ABERATION from Catholic history, by rebelious, USA Bishops who have lost all fear of God, and either lost the Faith or their marbles.

The Orthodox Church as a matter of doctrine allows a person to marry three times while their first two spouses still live.The aberrant USA "Catholic "bishops grant annulments in rebelion to the Faith, not as a practice of the Church. BIG DIFFERENCE! One is wrong by doctrine, the other accomplishes the same by rebelion.

Any Catholic that has a USA annulment is likely fooloing themselves. 35 annulments WORLD WIDE per year in the 1930's, 50,000 to 90,000 per year in the USA in the post-Vatican II era. What are the chances of any of these 50,000 to 90,000 per year annulments eing valid in the eyes of God. Slim and none!

Leoni responds: I commented in another posting "What a mess is your knowledge of Catholicism!" What religion are you anyways?" AND you answer "Catholic".

I find it hard to believe that you are Catholic. In all sincerity, you should not be posting anything. You don't know your own Faith.

How many minutes did you use of your time to do that "research"?

There are no limits to the number of annulments that the Latin Church will grant either, according my research.

Come on! How many minutes did you spend with this "research". What is an annulment? What does it mean? I'd suggest you read a definition made prior to 1960. (Prior to 1960's and going back to the early Church, it was likely no different with the number of worldwide annulments as in the 1930' to 1950's, years for which I have statistics, and they are that there were an average of like 35-50 annulments granted WORLDWIDE by the Catholic Church. In the 1970 to 1990's the USA bishops alone granted 50,000 to 90,000 annulments!. Obviously, they changed something. Rome has overturned like 90% of all the annulments granted by the USA bishops when they have been appealed by one of the spouses, nevertheless, very few have been appealed comparatively speaking. IT IS AN ABERATION from Catholic history, by rebellious, USA Bishops who have lost all fear of God, and either lost the Faith or their marbles.

The Orthodox Church as a matter of doctrine allows a person to marry three times while their first two spouses still live.The aberrant USA "Catholic "bishops grant annulments in rebellion to the Faith, not as a practice of the Church. BIG DIFFERENCE! One is wrong by doctrine, the other accomplishes the same by rebellion.

Any Catholic that has a USA annulment is likely fooling themselves. 35 annulments WORLD WIDE per year in the 1930's, 50,000 to 90,000 per year in the USA in the post-Vatican II era. What are the chances of any of these 50,000 to 90,000 per year annulments being valid in the eyes of God. Slim and none!

STRAWMAN! I am not talking about divorce. You and MarkBsnr keep focusing on divorce, why? It is not a sin to divorce, I've made it quite clear the problem is remmariage while the original spouse or spouses are still alive!

A Catholic can separate from their spouse and as long as they don't remarry there is no sin, there is NO PROBLEM! This is basic elementary school Catholicism, my 8 year old knows this, COME ON!

I thank you for your long winded admission that you are not Catholic, but rather the follower of a heretical and excommunicated group. That clears the air for further discussion.

I find it hard to believe that you are Catholic.

I am not interested your beliefs about me; rather, your beliefs about Christianity.

In all sincerity, you should not be posting anything.

Oh, I trust that you are very sincere. However I do not take or eschew action from the likes of you.

You don't know your own Faith.

I stick to Vatican.va and USCCB.org webpages and find that they are fairly complete, thank you.

Yes. Do you have anything else to offer?

Any Catholic knows marriage is for life. The couple marry "till death do us part". Were you not married in the Church? A married Catholic who marries another, while his spouse is still alive is excommunicated from the Catholic Church, they can't go to communion, because he is living in adultery, a MORTAL SIN. That is why I said "Granting three marriages inside the (Orthodox)church while the first two spouses are still alive, is a heretical soul killing doctrine, a doctrine of Orthodox church authorized adultery.

I know several people with two annulments who are married for the third time in the Church. Are their souls dead?

IT IS AN ABERATION from Catholic history, by rebellious, USA Bishops who have lost all fear of God, and either lost the Faith or their marbles.

You haven't answered my question as to who you believe the current Pope is.

Speaking for God, now? I should introduce you to a whole slew of my Protestant friends who have the same claim. Perhaps you could hold a Haldol party.

The thing is, that I can find no guideline published in the Latin Church on the subject of quantity

The Church never had a ceiling on the number of marriages. That is something only the Greek Church (Ecumenical Patriarchate) placed a limit on.

A divorce is another matter. The Church was pretty much opposed to divorce under any circumstances except adultery. However, Christian Roman Emperors all the way up to Justinian enacted very detailed and extensive state divorce laws and Roman citizens were granted divorces in the west all the way up to the 9th century, more or less. Obviously the Church had no say in this matter.

The only early Church apologist who had a more "Orthodox" like attitude towards divorce (meaning allowing re-marriage) was Origen, who is the single most influential Christian apologist (before his heresy) as far as the Greek Church is concerned. He even mentions that certain bishops grant divorces and permission to remarry (while the ex-wife is still alive).

Clearly, both particular Churches had to deal with the reality of human brekaups and both Churches found a way to grand permanent separations that would allow the innocent party to marry in Church if he or she so chooses.

I mean calling one of Kennedy's marriages 'null and void' after a decade or so and pretending nothing ever happened is dishonest if for no other reason than for the sake of the children who were born in that marriage that "never existed." What are those children? Bastards? Nonentities? Ridiculous.

Here's the thing. If the Reformed elite cannot influence their salvation no matter what they do, then they are responsible for doing nothing. They can fornicate a thousand times a day and not influence their salvation whatsoever. They can rape and murder and cause widescale human misery and their status is never capable of changing. What reason do they to behave in a civilized, Christian manner? None.

If the Reformed reprobate cannot influence their salvation no matter what they do, then they are responsible for doing nothing. They can be a Mother Teresa and daily save thousands of suffering people from dying; they can alleviate world hunger and bring the peace of God to the world and their status is never capable of changing. What reason do they to behave in a civilized, Christian manner? None.

Well?

It is not a sin to divorce, I've made it quite clear the problem is remmariage while the original spouse or spouses are still alive!

Yes, that was a dilemma the Church dealt with from the beginning. nevertheless, both particular Churches had to find a way to deal with the reality of this world and to find ways to allow the innocent party to marry (again) if for no other reason than to prevent them from fornicating.

Thus, the Orthodox Church may grant second and possibly third marriages but that doesn't mean the previous spouse iss till alive. Third marriage for soeone who has twice divorced previously with previous spouses still living is unheard of. Three mariages ieven if the perosn in question is widowed twice before. Any remarriage goes with the understanding of the risks and sin involved and extensive consleing, but the dirving force behind the desire to grant someone seocnd amrriage is out of concern ofr his soul, so that the innocent party desiring to amrry agian would not falal in to deeper sin by fornicating.

Now you may consider their second marriage fornication, but I think theChurch owuld rtaher have that than the individual running around.

That's why it is an act of mercy, an act of apostolic economy, and why the second marriage ceremony is more like a funeral than marriage. The alternative is for the Church to simply abandon her flock and not care if they fornicate. In doing so, the Church would betray her own mission.

Perhaps you don't care what happens to people who are weak and broken, but the Church does. Perhaps you live a sinless life, but most people don't. They need guidance and they need spiritual help. If they are going to give in to their natural needs, the least the Church can do is try to prevent them from fornicating.

The real straw man you mention is your insistence that this praxis of the Orthodox Church is some kind of "dogma." The Eastern Chrch never taugh such a "dogma." No one takes pleasure or sees anything other than a lesser evil in a subsequent marriages.

The Catholic Church took on a more legalistic approach (not surprisingly) and stipulates that marriage in the eyes of God never took place. The Orthodox Church actually takes the same position, recognizing that what is known to God is not always known to man.

A priest cannot know if a confession is true and when he grants absolution in Gods' name he cannot possibly know if that absolution is valid or not. He goes on faith that what he heard is true, but there is not way for him to know for certain. But God would know and God would not absolve lies. Thus mnaybe you can fool the Churhc but not God. A marriage that was going to fail was know to God before it took place and was never blessed by God.

Thus, only God knows which sacrament is efficacious. The Church only does her part and leaves the rest to God. Remarriage is granted out of mercy to the innocent party, and out of mercy only, and God is implored to forgive if possible.

In granting an annulment the CC essentially states that the marriage never took place and provides avenue for the innocent party to have an efficacious sacramental marriage and not fornicate.

The number of annulments granted is a Catholic matter and I can't comment on that, but you seem to be in open revolt with the Vatican. The fact that fewer annulments were granted prior to 1970 doesn't mean that marriages were sin-free or that fornication outside of marriage did not exist.

The question is what is better for the health of the soul, being stuck in a loveless marriage and fornicate or separate and marry someone you love? We all make mistakes. Those who do understand. Do you?

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