Posted on 08/27/2010 11:45:13 AM PDT by Hank Kerchief
The ultimate intention of Catholicism is the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire. That has always been the ambition, at least covertly, but now it is being promoted overtly and openly.
The purpose of this article is only to make that intention clear. It is not a criticism of Catholics or Catholicism (unless you happen to think a Catholic dictatorship is not a good thing).
The most important point is to understand that when a Catholic talks about liberty or freedom, it is not individual liberty that is meant, not the freedom to live one's life as a responsible individual with the freedom to believe as one chooses, not the freedom to pursue happiness, not the freedom to produce and keep what one has produced as their property. What Catholicism means by freedom, is freedom to be a Catholic, in obedience to the dictates of Rome.
The Intentions Made Plain
The following is from the book Revolution and Counter-Revolution:
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"B. Catholic Culture and Civilization
"Therefore, the ideal of the Counter-Revolution is to restore and promote Catholic culture and civilization. This theme would not be sufficiently enunciated if it did not contain a definition of what we understand by Catholic culture and Catholic civilization. We realize that the terms civilization and culture are used in many different senses. Obviously, it is not our intention here to take a position on a question of terminology. We limit ourselves to using these words as relatively precise labels to indicate certain realities. We are more concerned with providing a sound idea of these realities than with debating terminology.
"A soul in the state of grace possesses all virtues to a greater or lesser degree. Illuminated by faith, it has the elements to form the only true vision of the universe.
"The fundamental element of Catholic culture is the vision of the universe elaborated according to the doctrine of the Church. This culture includes not only the learning, that is, the possession of the information needed for such an elaboration, but also the analysis and coordination of this information according to Catholic doctrine. This culture is not restricted to the theological, philosophical, or scientific field, but encompasses the breadth of human knowledge; it is reflected in the arts and implies the affirmation of values that permeate all aspects of life.
"Catholic civilization is the structuring of all human relations, of all human institutions, and of the State itself according to the doctrine of the Church.
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Got that? "Catholic civilization is the structuring of all human relations, of all human institutions, and of the State itself according to the doctrine of the Church." The other name for this is called "totalitarianism," the complete rule of every aspect of life.
This book and WEB sites like that where it is found are spreading like wildfire. These people do not believe the hope of America is the restoration of the liberties the founders sought to guarantee, these people believe the only hope for America is Fatima. Really!
In Their Own Words
The following is from the site, "RealCatholicTV." It is a plain call for a "benevolent dictatorship, a Catholic monarch;" their own words. They even suggest that when the "Lord's Payer," is recited, it is just such a Catholic dictatorship that is being prayed for.
[View video in original here or on Youtube. Will not show in FR.]
Two Comments
First, in this country, freedom of speech means that anyone may express any view no matter how much anyone else disagrees with that view, or is offended by it. I totally defend that meaning of freedom of speech.
This is what Catholics believe, and quite frankly, I do not see how any consistent Catholic could disagree with it, though I suspect some may. I have no objection to their promoting those views, because it is what they believe. Quite frankly I am delighted they are expressing them openly. For one thing, it makes it much easier to understand Catholic dialog, and what they mean by the words they use.
Secondly, I think if their views were actually implemented, it would mean the end true freedom, of course, but I do not believe there is any such danger.
First read, THEN snipe. Make sure of your target and of what is behind it, as we say in the NRA.The pope in question says, through the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ. and I'm guessing he said so on purpose.
I guess the devil is in the details. While sounding orthodox to some extent, the unpacked meaning reveals details not quite biblical.
I was actually looking for a more theoretical personal repsonse to the Lord's question of why one should be let into heaven.
It seems to me there are real differences worthy of discussion. I could mock the very proposition that Scripture teaches that heaven lies in this or that direction AND the interesting exegesis adduced to support the conjecture.
But what would be the point? The real issue would be the very different approaches to Scripture and to thought (what does it mean for heaven to be in some direction? is heaven a place in the Universe?, up north? do I have to be a Yankee to get to heaven? etc.)
I don't know how many years I have been doing apologetics for my, ahem, faith tradition (isn't that the latest correct phrase?) but I have RARELY seen my opponents display a real understanding of our teaching and maybe once has somebody stumped me with a really good argument. Once! If that.
What I HAVE seen is mostly astonishing ignorance of what is being attacked. Rarely has anyone attacking our teaching on the Eucharist been able to give a coherent account of what that teaching is. They don't understand it but they know it's wrong.
People talk about idols, and repeat the same verses of Scripture over and over again (as though we'd never heard them) but not one can give an account of the iconoclastic controversy and of John Damascene's thought. And when I attempt an account, it is largely ignored.
This, once again, leads me to wonder what exactly is this about, what's the purpose? Even if I'm desperately wrong, I am not the kind of person whose opinion will be changed by mockery.
It was a combination of experience and argument that led me to believe that my, 'faith tradition' had the right take and was the right response to the 'basic' data of Scripture. The experience of being mocked (before my surgery my feet were 10.5 EEEE by the way, no Pradas or even Tony Lamas for me) only strengthens my resolve. The confrontations with arguments that totally miss our point just tries my patience. The conjecture that maybe I, moiself, am different from "them" only makes me want to say, "Yeah, I'm a greater sinner, in need of saving grace second by second."
So I guess I am left wondering what this is all for. If we meet in front of Planned Parenthood to pray for Justice and Life, will saying that I believe in alchemy draw us closer to one another or to God? If we resolve to feed the hungry, will the mutual exchange of sneers make us more efficient or charitable?
'Tis a puzzle.
Yes, we think works are on the way to the perfection or consummation of Justification, Sanctification, Salvation, Redemption, etc.
But we also think the good works we may perform, to the extent that they are good (if any) are gifts. My good works (again, if any) are not mine, "... for God is at work in [me] both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
Further, as I read Paul, I can't even pray properly by myself, but the Holy Spirit prays in me.
The poverty of our monks, nuns, friars, etc. is not just an added discipline, it's making external what is internal in everyone in whom God acts. I have nothing to plead before God but the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Son. Not one thing, not even orthodoxy. THEREFORE I am Catholic.
For some , maybe unpacked meaning has to exist to be made subject to private interpretation thus justifying the flights of illusion and fancy.
Theoretical personal responses have no credibility only the message of Jesus.The Lord was very clear on who enters but it takes one with an indwelling of the Holy Spirit to discern His message not reliance on sinful prideful interpretations.
LOL.
SOME things are relative.
We have plenty of jerks in Proddydom.
I think you’re being quite over-generous toward the Pope about his Muslim comments.
The satanic moon god stuff founding Islam is dreadful.
Mad Dawg wrote:
“Wait! You’re saying a Dominican corrupted an Augustinian?”
Hardly. Luther read Eckhart, and while appreciating some parts of his spirituality, rejected that which did not agree with the Holy Scriptures.
And:
“I’m guessing Luther missed the obedience part.”
I’m guessing he didn’t. But obedience misplaced is obedience not given.
We don’t believe it when we say it. Or we don’t believe it right. Or something.
I'm serious about this. That prayer covers all the bases. "O my God, I believe in Thee", "All my hopes are in Thee", "I love Thee with my whole heart", "I am sorry that I have offended Thee", "Grant that I may...obtain Heaven, through the merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ". Whatever happened to all that "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved" business?
So does that mean the pope or any Catholic would reply to the Lord like I would (see below) ?
Lord Jesus, you suffered and died to save sinners and i am a great sinner. There is nothing good in me Lord, I deserve your justice, but I beg your mercy Lord. My only plea before you is that I trust you only to save me. I believe you are God, you suffered, died and rose to pay my penalty for sin and for those who would by Faith trust in you for salvation. You mercifully gave me the Faith to believe in You and my only hope is trusting in what you did for me which I could never do. I believe you are the Son of God and the Savior of the World for those who look to you only.
Lord, You said in John's book "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; 15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. 16"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17"For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 18"He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Lord, I trust in You only. You are my only hope.
Now, is that what "thru the merits of the Lord Jesus Crhist" means?
I was blessed to read your prayer.
And, like Mad Dawg, I have a confidence in my spirit that I can call you an authentic Christian Brother.
Nevertheless, many of your cohorts hereon could pray that prayer ever other half hour . . .
and because of all their other UNCHRISTIAN FOCUS so seemingly MORE INTENSE, I’d think they were just mouthing those words and their priorities were otherwise.
God looks on the heart.
God sees the actions.
Sometimes the words are dreadfully inconsequential comparatively.
SOME
DON’T, MD.
FROM WHERE MOST PRODDYS SIT—MOST DON’T.
In many Proddy congregations it’s probably 20% authentic Christians to 80% inauthentic Christians, too.
However, with all the INSTITUTIONALIZED Marian hogwash, it APPEARS to be much easier to be askew in the Vatican SYSTEM.
Such systems are designed from hell to obfuscate, complicate and otherwise fornicate the proper focus on God and God alone.
Yup.
I find the whole "merits" analogy is sometimes a problem. But yup.
I think if you're looking for some place to disagree, I'd suggest looking at the "blessed assurance" question.
You guys are so black and white. I think that it would depend on what led to the misplacing.
INDEED. WELL PUT.
Hilaire Belloc included muslims in "The Great Heresies": "It began as a heresy, not as a new religion. It was not a pagan contrast with the Church; it was not an alien enemy. It was a perversion of Christian doctrine. It vitality and endurance soon gave it the appearance of a new religion, but those who were contemporary with its rise saw it for what it was_not a denial, but an adaptation and a misuse, of the Christian thing."
Belloc goes on to write: "He [mo] gave to Our Lord the highest reverence, and to Our Lady also, for that matter. On the day of judgment (another Catholic idea which he taught) it was Our Lord, according to Mohammed, who would be the judge of mankind, not he, Mohammed."
There's an extended excerpt that needs to be here now that I think about it: But the central point where this new heresy struck home with a mortal blow against Catholic tradition was a full denial of the Incarnation.
Mohammed did not merely take the first steps toward that denial, as the Arians and their followers had done; he advanced a clear affirmation, full and complete, against the whole doctrine of an incarnate God. He taught that Our Lord was the greatest of all the prophets, but still only a prophet: a man like other men. He eliminated the Trinity altogether.
With that denial of the Incarnation went the whole sacramental structure. He refused to know anything of the Eucharist, with its Real Presence; he stopped the sacrifice of the Mass, and therefore the institution of a special priesthood. In other words, he, like so many other lesser heresiarchs, founded his heresy on simplification.
Catholic doctrine was true (he seemed to say), but it had become encumbered with false accretions; it had become complicated by needless man-made additions, including the idea that its founder was Divine, and the growth of a parasitical caste of priests who battened on a late, imagined, system of Sacraments which they alone could administer. All those corrupt accretions must be swept away.
Sound familiar? In Belloc's analysis islam is the most successful form of Protestantism run wild.
As an aside Belloc noticed something else: Vienna, as we saw, was almost taken and only saved by the Christian army under the command of the King of Poland on a date that ought to be among the most famous in history-September 11, 1683.
We forgot it... they didn't.
Then he goes on to write (in the 1930s) something that should chill us to our bones: It has always seemed to me possible, and even probable, that there would be a resurrection of Islam and that our sons or our grandsons would see the renewal of that tremendous struggle between the Christian culture and what has been for more than a thousand years its greatest opponent.
At any rate, understanding mohammadism as a heresy, puts it in a different relation to Christianity than hinduism for example.
The poverty of our monks, nuns, friars, etc. is not just an added discipline, it’s making external what is internal in everyone in whom God acts. I have nothing to plead before God but the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of the Son. Not one thing, not even orthodoxy. THEREFORE I am Catholic.
I would say that for the Mary Knoll Sister I lived next to in China . . . that was likely true.
God sees the heart.
Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks and certainly actions are visible. So it’s not like there’s no clue to the heart. Still, God alone sees the heart 100% accurately.
And Scripture and life observations indicate to me that far more Proddys AND RC’S go through the motions
than
HEART-FELT-LY FOCUS ON CHRIST/FATHER/SPIRIT ALONE.
Yup. I find the whole "merits" analogy is sometimes a problem. But yup. I think if you're looking for some place to disagree, I'd suggest looking at the "blessed assurance" question.
Great, so believing protestants, who are saved by Grace(unmerited favor) alone, thru Faith (trust, reliance) alone, in Christ alone (His finished work), WILL be in heaven.
If that is what you believe, that is basically the biblical Gospel.
If we are accepted by Christ Thru Faith and not works, how can the RCC say we are lacking?
Mad Dawg wrote:
“I think that it would depend on what led to the misplacing.”
You are over-thinking this. Try to think as a child. It isn’t that difficult. To refuse to accept the un- or anti-Scriptural teaching of, say, a bishop (even of Rome) is the same thing as a soldier refusing to carry out an illegal order. To carry it out is to disobey. Just ask any court martial. It doesn’t depend at all on what led to what. Wrong is wrong is wrong. Why one thing led to another is an interesting and, perhaps, useful subsequent exercise for the historian and his readers. But it finally is no justification for accepting as right that which is wrong.
As far as mocking, mock away if you have the need. The location of Heaven is neither here not there in the Finished Work of Christ. I don't think there will be a geography test at the judgement seat of Christ. There are people who don't believe Heaven is a real place. Just a spiritual realm. I don't believe that. But you see, that doesn't make up my "stand back and mock" approach or "talk it over approach" to the Gospel of the Grace of God. If I were to say you must believe that Heaven is north for your salvation then it would be worthy of mocking and serious talking over. In the scheme of salvation, it means nothing, except an interesting discussion point over a glass of brandy, maybe.
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