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.
Holy means set apart from the world.
...
And no, you cannot pray effectively to the Father, because you do not have the authority granted by the Son yet.
E-S, I must say that it is not often that the mouthpiece of God speaks to us directly from Him. May I ask if He has gotten past emailing and is now texting?
Kosta, I do think that we have a severe case of 2 Peter 2 on our hands. Verse 19 is most applicable here, wouldn't you say?
Not an angry God for sure.
May I offer something to this conversation? Satan was expecting the ransom.
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that THROUGH DEATH HE MIGHT DESTROY HIM THE HAD THE POWER OF DEATH, THAT IS, THE DEVIL." Heb. 2:14.
Satan's rights are recognized in Scripture..He is the god and prince of the world who had the power of death and hell before his defeat by atonement.
We all know that the wages of sin is death, and sin is the failure to keep the law. Satan kept mankind sentenced to death, as no one could fulfill the law perfectly. Until Jesus Christ. Yet Christ's death on the cross was Satan's finest hour. He did not know the reason that Christ had to die. Why?
"But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory; Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would NOT HAVE CRUCIFIED THE LORD OF GLORY." 1 Cor. 2:7,8.
Had Satan realized that the death of Christ would pay our ransom, he would have never conspired to have Christ killed. So the question is, how do we know the blood of Christ paid our ransom in full?
"Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in ONCE into the holy place, having obtained ETERNAL REDEMPTION FOR US." Heb. 9:12.
The fact that God the Father raised Jesus Christ from the dead tells us that the ransom was paid in full. If there had been a single sin not paid for at Calvary, God in his justice, could NOT have raised Him. The empty tomb says it all.
All of God’s elect are made Holy when they are justified. This is both an instantaneous and an on going thing. We are set apart at the instant of justification, and we continue to be set apart until either we die, or the Lord returns.
AMEN.
Here's a great little essay on this very topic...
We think this way because the covenant of works is etched on our conscience since creation. It is unnatural to think that someone else has accomplished our standing before God and it still offends our pride, even as Christians. But I believe the Scriptures affirm that the more we grow in grace, the more we despair of ourselves and recognize our need for Jesus Christ. At the time of salvation the Holy Spirit made us lose all self-confidence so we might trust in Christ alone. So I would argue that the first principle of our growth in grace is likewise, to dispair of all hope in self and, as Paul said, to have "no confidence in the flesh"... Our sanctification is a fruit of the Spirit as we lose ourselves in the wonder of Christ and His work for us. We can never separate the spiritual benefit of sanctification from Christ Himself, the Benefactor. So true Christianity is not a religion about focusing on our own spirituality but rather a focus on our union with Christ, apart from whom, the Scriptures declare, we can do nothing. The degree that we focus on our own spirituality and spiritual ability to please God is the degree that we exhaust ourselves by trying to draw from our own natural resources.... As Christians, God indeed gives us demands to obey His law, but He works through us via the gospel to sanctify us that we might love His Law. If one reads the Sermon on the Mount we recognize that the law's demands on all of us are more difficult than imagined, not less than the Old Testament. But as a result, many think that we begin in the Spirit and are perfected by the flesh, as if the Law could give us the power to sanctify ourselves. Our sanctification, rather, is no more grounded on our ability than justification. The law commands us to live a certain way, but does not give us the power to do it. The fault is not with the law but with us. But thanks be to God, this obedience that is required of us by the Law has already been rendered by Christ. Because of what Christ has accomplished, the Spirit now works in us the life that the Law was unable to accomplish... "...In his letter to the Galatians Paul asks Christians who were in danger of thinking they could add to Christ's work or make themselves acceptable by some other way, "Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" (Gal 3:3) No, this is folly, because what God still wants from us as Christians is a broken Spirit, one which still recognizes its own moral and spiritual inability and complete need of God's grace to move on. One that says, "have mercy on me, I am insufficient for the task." Anyone who thinks, therefore, that they can approach the Lord's table with a pure undefiled heart are really missing the point of the gospel...
Preach it.....
Well, she would not see this as being contrary to her claim not to change, and also understands unanimous consent to means something less than that. But i think looking more at the issue of 1 Esdras may show something else problematic, if confusing due to naming conventions. It appears that that Carthage affirmed the LXX 1 Esdras as part of the canon, while Trent rejected it. Below is a table i made taken from the information here, the best i understand it.
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Source |
Book (name changes) |
Status |
Book (name changes) |
Status |
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Hebrew |
Ezra/Nehemiah |
Scripture |
|
|
|
Early Septuagint (LXX) |
2 Esdras (Esdras B'; Ezra/Nehemiah) |
Scripture |
1 Esdras (Esdras A'; First of Ezra; apocryphal additions to Ezra + Nehemiah) |
Scripture |
|
Hippo & Carthage |
2 Esdras (Nehemiah/Nehemiah) |
Scripture |
1 Esdras (LXX 1 Esdras) |
Scripture |
|
Vulgate |
1 Esdras (Ezra; replaces LXX 1 Esdras) 2 Esdras (Nehemiah) |
Scripture |
3 Esdras (LXX 1 Esdras) 4 Esdras (additional apocryphal book, formerly called 3 Esdras) |
Scripture |
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Trent |
1 Esdras (Ezra) (declares LXX 1 Esdras non-canonical) 2 Esdras (Nehemiah) |
Scripture |
4 Esdras (3 Esdras; LXX 1 Esdras) |
non-canonical |
Galatians 3:1-6 (The Message)
1 You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it's obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough. 2-4Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God's Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren't smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!
5-6Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don't these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.
Assuming it's all Paul, which I doubt. Most poeple are internally and linguistically consistent.
"Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you?"
Amen!
But it's not "across". There is no Bethany across (the) Jordan.
The content of the Faith was being developed at a furious rate during these times. Your source says that John was written to try to calm down distressed Jewish Christians (converts) who weren't liking the way things were going in the temporal realm...
Jewish Christians didn't like what was happening because the rabbis at Jamnia basically kicked them out of the synagogues and labeled them as the minim (usurpers, heretics). Christianity had to be Hellenized in order to survive. All of a sudden, we have a Platonic deity enter the stage, a concept alien and blasphemous to a Jew. John's Gospel was written (at the end of the first century) to show Jewish Christians that Jesus is the same Jewish God they believed in all along.
Without it, Christianity, suddenly finding itself outside Judaism, had no divine authority, and John's Gospel clearly tries to establish that Jesus is not only God but the same God Jews believed all along, and not the Jewish messiah the Nazarene Christians believed him to be.
Most Jewish Christians could not accept a Hellenized Jesus, because it violated the basic principles of Judaism, and the Faith became decidedly Gentile as it attained more and more a Hellenic character.
Most of the work of "harmonizing" the Jewish mystical spiritualism with Hellenic Platonism of the late 1st century was based on the works of Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher, whose contribution to Hellenized Christianity and the concept of a Logos was of such importance that the first Church historian, Eusebius, Bishop of Cesarea in the late 3rd century, refers to him as "St. Philo!"
Death is used as a personalized concept by Paul when he combines the controversial Isaiah 25:8, with Hosea 13:14, namely "death is swallowed up in victory, o death where is thy victory? Where is thy sting?" (1 Cor 15:54-55).
More specifically, lytron was the price paid for slaves or captives.
I really don't care to characterize anyone as a false prophet, Mark. E-S only tosses petty insults with no substance. All vector, no force.
Well, he didn't render the devil powerless because that would make the whole book of revelation pointless, right? Why do you think the east and West feuded so long over the Books of Hebrews and Revelation?
The Eastern Church never specifically says that Christ offered himself to the devil, or that he destoryed the devil; only the stingof death, which Paul defines as "sin." He also does not define the power of sin as being satan but the law! (1 Cor 15:56)
Had Satan realized that the death of Christ would pay our ransom, he would have never conspired to have Christ killed. So the question is, how do we know the blood of Christ paid our ransom in full?
But he didn't pay the ransom, for once death released mankind it realized it could not hold Christ (because he is God) and was rendered powerless. Death got cheated, not paid.
The fact that God the Father raised Jesus Christ from the dead tells us that the ransom was paid in full.
If God the Father had to raise Jesus from the dead, then Jesus was no God. The Church corrects Paul in the Creed where it says that Christ "rose on the third day" not that he was "raised on the third day".
The problem is that this was never declared as an infallible doctrine. The change occurred in silence, with only a minorty of bishops in favor of the change (if I remember correctly only four). In other words it was never approved! Yet Trent also talks about preserving the holy canon of Carthage.
All I am saying is that it's not as simple as some people like it to be. There was no vote. It was slipped under the table and included. The East was not present. The canon does not reflect the canon of Carthage, and much much more.
By changing the canon without a vote, Trent basically annulled Carthage and a thousand years of Church tradition, and contradicted Pope Boniface I.
Who said that Christ offered himself to the devil, or that He destroyed the devil? Satan had kidnapped man and made him a slave to sin and a subject of eternal death. That is how we were held ransom by him. God decided that through the atonement and the substitution of an innocent victim to take the place of the guilty kidnapped race He would free it from Satan, legally evicting him, and restoring man's dominion, as to carry on God's eternal purpose for mankind. Christ's death on our behalf paid our ransom in full, and Satan had no more claim on us. (The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord).
Satan is alive and well and deceiving as many as possible before his time is up. Christ's finished work on our behalf is only available to THOSE WHO WILL CLAIM IT FOR THEMSELVES. If one refuses that, then the wages of sin is death. Satan will be destroyed after the 1000year reign of Christ, but as of now, he is roaming about, seeking those who he can destroy..
If God the Father had to raise Jesus from the dead, then Jesus was no God. The Church corrects Paul in the Creed where it says that Christ "rose on the third day" not that he was "raised on the third day".
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and shalt believe in thine heart that GOD HATH RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD, thou shalt be saved." (Rom. 10:13).
That what my Bible says...
If you were paying any attention, you too would know that Kosta has declared himself an unbeliever, thus I need only rely on his own honesty. (IOW, you fail again in your absurd accusations)
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Kosta has never declared himself an unbliever. Kosta has confessed himself an agnostic. But I don't expect simple minds to discern the difference between atheist and agnostic.
AMEN!!
Here Paul is describing there is a relationship between positional sanctification and progressive sanctification,
The Greek root of the word sanctified and holy is the same word.. We are seen by God as holy and called to be holy
Through Christ we are positionally Holy, seen as being Holy in Christ. We are called to live out in our lives (progressively, what we already are positionally)
I am seen as holy by God, but it is not MY holiness that God sees, it is Christ.. The work of God in me leads me to grow in personal holiness as I live out the Christian life..
AMEN, RnMom! Great Scriptural teaching on this thread.
We are saved by Christ's righteousness freely imputed to us by our merciful God who loved us before we loved Him.
KOSTA50: But she doesn't think so. She says it's a life-long process of "improvement". :)
If we type slower, perhaps it will help.
God's will is to sanctify His family through a life-long process of teaching, refining and guiding by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
That is basic Christianity, and I wouldn't expect an agnostic to understand it.
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