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.
Hebrews 9:14-20
14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!
15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
16 In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, 17 because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. 18 This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. 19 When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. 20 He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.”
Who do the RCs think Christ paid our ransom to?
Do they even consider the Scriptures when they talk about their faith?
Sigh, probably not. You already knew that.
First, thank you. The Epistle does indeed say that Christ offered himself unblemished to God. In the meantime, I found also this
"and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma." [Eph 5:2]
These two, Hebrews and Ephesians, seme to play in tandem the same tune which is, curiously, never repeated by the Gospels written a couple of decades later.
Of course the idea that God purchased our freedom with his own divine blood (cf Acts 20:28) makes you wonder why would God pay hismelf for anything when it wasn't God who was holding mankind enslaved by sin (death)!
Depends. The Calvinists would disagree. If everything is doubly predestined, then the answer is no. It is God who pulls all the strings, right?
The OT atonement had to do with blood. Sin being death could only be paid (atoned, ransomed) by death of an innocent. But not all instances of sin offerings involved the death of an innocent, nor did the death of an innocent always atone for sins.
The Yom Kippur goat is usually not sacrificed. Rather, the atoning individual places his hands on the goats head and "transfers" his sins on the poor animal, which is then allowed to run away (thus physically carrying away the sins of the individual in question).
Similarly, the Passover lamb was slaughtered so that its blood can be used as a marker for the Spirit of God to spare the household, rather than to atone for any particular sins. In this case, the innocent died so that others may live, sparing them from death by liberating them from the bondage of slavery, and destroying the enemy who held them.
The early Church, as well as the Orthodox Church to this day, saw Jesus as the Passover Lamb, who died so that God's people can "cross over" from the bondage of death to the freedom of life. In the eyes of the Church, Christ's death liberated mankind from the bondage of sin, and bestowed life, while destroying the enemy who held them hostage. It was a re-enactment of the Passover. That's why in the East tot his day the "Easter" is called Pascha, the Passover rather than "Easter" (which is a pagan word).
Thus, the focus of the early Church as regards Christ's death is on Christ delivering his people from slavery to sin, by destroying death by his own death. In the East, the Church is founded on the Incarnation and Resurrection, rather than on the Temple sacrifice model of atonement.
Resurrection is so central to the Church that without it there is nothing left of Christianity. Paul states "If Christ has not been raised from the dead, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe." (1 Cor 15:14). The focus was not on appeasing, atoning, paying off some angry, insulted, God, or satisfying Divine Justice, but on the belief that by dying and resurrecting Christ cheated and defeated death.
On the Paschal Sunday morning, Eastern Orthodox Christians chant "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life." There is no mention of atonement, there is no mention of satisfying divine justice, angry God, etc. The victory of Christ is seen in the fact that the devil could not enslave him, and was defeated, and the victorious Christ leads the formerly dead and hopeless but now resurrected ("born-again") believers into live everlasting.
The early Church never formalized or dogmatized its belief of atonement. The focus was on the life-giving victory over the "pit' (grave) and into immortality. because it was not a dogma, some early Church fathers teach differently (i.e. Athanasius of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, etc.) than the Church late 2nd century formulation of Origen, who is credited with the idea that Christ offered himself as ransom to the devil. This hypothesis states that the devil accepted Christ's offer, releasing all who were held by him since Adam and Eve "sold" their souls to him, only to find that he could not enslave Christ by sin and was rendered powerless to hold him.
With his power sapped, Christ rose from the dead leaving Hell emptied of all the Old Testament righteous, and death effectively destroyed. Christ, being the High Priest of the Church, then, presents his work of defeating death as an offering (sacrifice, Gr. anaphora) to the power of God ("in the eternal Spirit") to the Father.
Clearly Christ was not slaughtered like a lamb on the altar dedicated to God, and offered as a righteous and meet sacrifice, but was unjustly murdered. Comparing Christ's death to a Temple sacrifice to satisfy injustice done to God is comparing apples and oranges. Christ had to die in order to fulfill the prophesy, but his death was not a religious sacrifice but rather the will of God, for how else would have God descended into hell?
The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, by all accounts an Alexandrian Jew, however looks at Christ's death as a Temple sacrifice, and a sin offering, to God, and Paul seems to share that view (Eph. 5:2). Clearly, this was not the view of the Hellenized Church by the end of the 1st century, or of the Gospels. Rather, these books as well as Paul's pastoral to Timothy speak of Chest as ransom for many/all.
The Church believed in this ransom doctrine of atonement for one thousand years until, when the east and the West were all but separated, St. Anselm, in England, invented the satisfaction doctrine which came to dominate the Christian West, both Catholic and Protestant.
With his power sapped = With Satan’s power sapped
But there is still one thing that puzzles me. The Orthodox always speak of death having been "annihilated," "destroyed," etc. And this makes no sense because it simply isn't so. The implication is that people no longer die, and this is absurd on its face. An Orthodox friend once explained to me that in Orthodoxy it isn't sin that causes death but death that causes sin (it's not that everyone dies because everyone sins but everyone sins because everyone's afraid to die), but now that death no longer exists there is no longer any reason to fear it and thus no reason to sin. I'm sorry, but this simply doesn't make any sense.
This whole conversation illustrates one thing very well: there is no such thing as a "chr*stian religion." There are a plethora of religions, theologies, and beliefs that go by the name of "chr*stianity." And that's not taking into account the violent ideological disagreements between "co-religionists" of different ethnicities!
“If everything is doubly predestined, then the answer is no. It is God who pulls all the strings, right?”
In a sense that is right. However God’s predetermination and providence is compatible with voluntary choice. Human choices are believed to be exercised voluntarily but the desires and circumstances that bring about these choices about occur through divine determinism.
When Peter says (1 Pet. 1:15-16, “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” what he is saying is “be what you are” or as K said to me “act your age”.
The reason men are atheists' and agnostics is because they resent having someone greater than themselves.. they like being their own god...they love the lie...
Thanks for the historical account of this ,dear Kosta
I like the answer from Saint Aquinas regarding the subject when he says...
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/
“only in so far as we are informed by the authority of the saints, through whom God has revealed His will.” Christ alone knows the right answer to this question: “The truth of the matter only He can know, Who was born and Who was offerred up, because He so willed.-”Aquinas ( Summa theol, 3a, qu. 1, art. 3; in 3 Sentent., dist. 1, qu. 1, art. 3.)
..And Zionest C, it might do you well to read Cardinal Ratzinger’s(Pope Benedict XVI) “RECONCILING GOSPEL AND TORAH” for an excellent understanding
http://www.ewtn.com/library/catechsm/gostorah.htm
Excerts
.. theology of the New Testament the cross cannot simply be viewed as an accident which actually could have been avoided nor as the sin of Israel with which Israel becomes eternally stained in contrast to the pagans for whom the cross signifies redemption. In the New Testament there are not two effects of the cross: a damning one and a saving one, but only a single effect, which is saving and reconciling. In this regard, there is an important text of the catechism which Christian hope interprets as the continuation of the hope of Abraham and links to the sacrifice of Israel: Christian hope has its origin and model in the hope of Abraham, who was blessed abundantly by the promise of God fulfilled in Isaac, and who was purified by the test of the sacrifice” (1819). Through his readiness to sacrifice his son, Abraham becomes the father of many, a blessing for all nations of the earth (cf. Gn. 22).
The New Testament sees the death of Christ in this perspective, in analogy to Abraham. That means then that all cultic ordinances of the Old Testament are seen to be taken up into his death and brought to their deepest meaning. All sacrifices are acts of representation, which in this great act of real representation from symbols become reality so that the symbols can be foregone without one iota being lost. The universalizing of the Torah by Jesus, as the New Testament understands it, is not the extraction of some universal moral prescriptions from the living whole of God’s revelation. It preserves the unity of cult and ethos. The ethos remains grounded and anchored in the cult, in the worship of God, in such a way that the entire cult is bound together in the cross, indeed, for the first time has become fully real. According to Christian faith, on the cross Jesus opens up and fulfills the wholeness of the law and gives it thus to the pagans, who can now accept it as their own in this its wholeness, thereby becoming children of Abraham.
The Paschal Troparion says "trampling down death by death..." That's not the same as "annihilating." The Orthodox would say that Christ destroyed the power of death, because death is no longer a full stop, but only a commas for a Christian; it is no longer an end but a new beginning; it is no longer death but life. The whole meaning of death was changed by Christ's own death. A man no longer has to look forward to an eternity in a pit but for an eternity with God.
Here is an Orthodox icon depicting Christ about to rescue the Old Testament righteous form the depths of hell.
The aged couple in front of Jesus are Adam and Eve, King David is to the right, Moses and John the Forerunner (aka Baptist) can be discerned among others, Abraham, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, etc. Notice that Jesus is standing on the trampled down, helpless devil, and the gaping entrance into hell with its doors knocked down by Christ.
An Orthodox friend once explained to me that in Orthodoxy it isn't sin that causes death but death that causes sin (it's not that everyone dies because everyone sins but everyone sins because everyone's afraid to die), but now that death no longer exists there is no longer any reason to fear it and thus no reason to sin. I'm sorry, but this simply doesn't make any sense.
Their rationale is that once people realize that death has no power over them, i.e. cannot hold them, they have no reason to sin, to yearn for earthly things, but to conform to the image of Christ and years for the life in him.
Of course, as far as I am concerned, it is a very comforting and soothing story which has an obvious appeal to many because it deals offers at least hope.
This whole conversation illustrates one thing very well: there is no such thing as a "chr*stian religion." There are a plethora of religions, theologies, and beliefs that go by the name of "chr*stianity." And that's not taking into account the violent ideological disagreements between "co-religionists" of different ethnicities!
The term "Christianity" is a conceptual umbrella, for sure, much more than the other religions. It is theologically extremely complex because it is a product of marrying three different and often incompatible beliefs systems: Jewish spirituality, Platonic philosophy, and Zoroastrian dualism. Trying to seamlessly integrate all three is a monumental task that appears to exceed human capacity it.
Judaism is a lot simpler and more straightforward. It also lacks the extreme fluctuations present in Christianity, except for a tiny number of the so-called "Messianic Jews" (who are actually Christians, not Jews). The variations in Judaism are nowhere even close to what Christianity has given birth to.
Threre is also a problem with the so-called "primitive Church," its organization, theology, etc. which exhibited unbelievable heterodoxy and heteropraxis, beginning with the concept of God down to what is scripture, and church organization. And, 2000 years later, we are still where we were 2,000 years go.
But whether they are voluntary and compatible or "harmonized" with God's will, they still reflect God's will and purpose and are therefore what he wants.
That's a great way to excuse any type of (mis)behavior, b-d. Isn't that what people have been doing ever since Adam? We called "passing the buck."
When Peter says (1 Pet. 1:15-16, “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” what he is saying is “be what you are” or as K said to me “act your age”
I am not sure that's what he is saying, for the same phrase in the OT doesn't sound like "act your age".
Is this a "fact" or just your unscientific opinion?
Anyone with half an ounce of human gray matter realizes that there are many thing greater than we are, whether they like it or not. It's just that some call it "god," be it a volcano, the sun, or some imaginary friend in the sky, and some don't.
Statistics show that atheists and agnostics are disproportionately well educated, intelligent individuals.
they like being their own god...they love the lie...
Is that what they told you? How many?
I guess that's why the early Church left it as a matter of faith and not dogma.
I think this one is dead on arrival, sfa.
The Troparion reads, in English,
Christ is risen from the dead, Trampling down death by death, And upon those in the tombs Bestowing life!
In Greek it reads,
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη ἐκ νεκρῶν, θανάτῳ θάνατον πατήσας, καὶ τοῖς ἐν τοῖς μνήμασι, ζωὴν χαρισάμενος!
The operative word here is πατήσας.
This Troparion is very old, but not as old as the Catechetical Homily of + John Chrysostomos. He actually uses the word "annihilated". In Greek, the relevant line reads,
Ανεστη Χριστος, και συ καταβεβλησαι.
In English it reads,
Christ is risen and you are annihilated!
This isn't to say, clearly, that no one dies, but it does mean that death in the sense that it was an apparently eternal bar to the fulfillment of our pre-Fall created purpose, has been utterly and completely destroyed. From the descent into Hades to today, failure to fulfill our created purpose is a 100% personal fault, a free choice and not the work of God.
“That’s a great way to excuse any type of (mis)behavior, b-d. Isn’t that what people have been doing ever since Adam? We called “passing the buck.”
Robert Bloch’s conceit on the above, “The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone else he can blame it on.” I am thoroughly familiar with the conceit.
What I find amazing is youtr last sentence: "From the descent into Hades to today, failure to fulfill our created purpose is a 100% personal fault, a free choice and not the work of God," which ZC should find fmailiar to his ears.
This is going right back very heart of Judaism, namely that God has given man everything he needs to save himself, "...that you may do it." [cf Deut. 30:14] , and that those who fail have no one to blame but themselves.
God did his part; now it's up to you to do yours.
Why would anyone listen to an agnostic about his opinions on the atonement?
Truth is spiritually-discerned. A person who says he does not know God or understand God or even believe God exists is not someone who evidences spiritual discernment.
Just the opposite.
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