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.
Why do you try and use Saint Augustine to support your agenda?
He was a member of that Catholic Church and according to you he is not likely to be in heaven along with the rest of the Saints of the Catholic Church.
You also trust those Catholic's who preserved the Scriptures and gave us canon( Jerome, Athanasius etc..) etc.. and according to you they are likely in hell
You need to stop this lunacy ,dear sister
That is very kind, thank you. I am not inventing anything new.
The Blessed Saints were far better at explaining these things than I
Note that God using you as a marionette, a puppet is not love. Love is gentle, love is kind... That would not be love, that would be ultimate direction and control where we cannot think a thought good or bad, except directed by God, kind of like we are characters in a video game and directed completely by the programmer/player. That, ma’am, is not love.
There is something sort of like a forcing of freedom. (It's been a while since I made this analogy -- but I think I understand it better now than I did for years.)
The state of sin is SORTA like the state one is in when one is given a geometry "original" to do (or a poem to write) and one just tries everything and nothing works. Desperation increases.
But then (on a good night) suddenly the answer comes to one. And that's how we say it. It FEELS exogenous. We may later say, "I found it," or even "I figured it out." But at the moment we say, "It came to me." Even in geometry Truth has a self-disclosing aspect.
Now, two things: First, at the moment it comes to us, we may doubt a little, but our doubt is swallowed up as things click in our alleged brains and in ALMOST an instant it becomes apparent that it's really right.
At that moment, it doesn't occur to us to say, "Well, shall I go with this true answer or shall I waffle around in feckless desperation for another couple of hours?" The obvious rightness of the answer compels our assent, and so we can say that the freedom of the truth was compelled. Lovely paradox, and I think this is one of the scarce very good things in Calvinism.
Second: HOWEVER, JUST AS the romantic attraction leads to love and over time love is rightly seen more as a choice than a passion, SO ALSO the seemingly compelled freedom requires acts of affirmation and consent of increasing frequency until, we may hope, they become one continual act.
It is as though God gives us himself with training wheels, but little by little invites us more and more deeply into His Freedom.
Even though it is right to say that that growing act of assent and affirmation is impossible without grace, it is grace into Freedom, and not the 'enabling' of a puppet master.
One of the reasons the soul is likened to something feminine is that this progress can be compared to a girl dancing as she grows into a woman:
At first, my little girl actually stood on my feet as we danced, and so she learned to follow my lead. As she grew that was (a) impossible, (b) no longer sufficient. She learned to follow without actually having me provide the motive power and direction.
God trains us into freedom by withdrawing the training wheels and, often, the 'consolations.' Some of our opponents measure grace by "experiences", especially by 'nice' or 'beautiful' experiences. Consequently they think of Mother Teresa as a failure.
But in fact she is one of God's glorious successes. With a decreasing and "approaching zero" supply of perceived consolations, her Will for God grew stronger and stronger, and He conducted her, as a trainer demands more and more of the athlete, into the depths of the heart of our Lord's cry from the Most Holy Cross, "Why have you forsaken me?"
So, mistaking the training wheels for the end of the saving process, they see a cyclist laboring up Calvary, and since she's moving so much more slowly than they can coast downhill, they childishly conclude she is contemptible.
So we see that a good impulse, to celebrate the mystery of the power of God and to acknowledge our radical neediness before Him, is changed, by a clutching for unwarranted comprehensibility and a forced intellectual resolution, into a thought and a theology which 'dies aborning' and never reaches the fullness of the stature of Christ.
I hope that's not too long, too unclear, or too wrong.
So God wins our love with sweet milk and withholds the strong and spiced wine until we are mature.
“”Look what you just wrote. “there is no evil in anything God creates.”””
Looks fine.Let me explain...
Evil is attributed to the one doing the evil and God has no attachment to evil in creating.Evil is done freely by created beings in an act against the will of God who wills all things GOOD..
Evil cannot be attributed to God or God would not be perfection.
Try reading Aquinas..
That God is Universal Perfection
AS all perfection and nobility is in a thing inasmuch as the thing is, so every defect is in a thing inasmuch as the thing in some manner is not. As then God has being in its totality, so not-being is totally removed from Him, because the measure in which a thing has being is the measure of its removal from not-being. Therefore all defect is absent from God: He is therefore universal perfection.
2. Everything imperfect must proceed from something perfect: therefore the First Being must be most perfect.
3. Everything is perfect inasmuch as it is in actuality; imperfect, inasmuch as it is in potentiality, with privation of actuality. That then which is nowise in potentiality, but is pure actuality, must be most perfect; and such is God.*
4. Nothing acts except inasmuch as it is in actuality: action therefore follows the measure of actuality in the agent. It is impossible therefore for any effect that is brought into being by action to be of a nobler actuality than is the actuality of the agent. It is possible though for the actuality of the effect to be less perfect than the actuality of the acting cause, inasmuch as action may be weakened on the part of the object to which it is terminated, or upon which it is spent. Now in the category of efficient causation everything is reducible ultimately to one cause, which is God, of whom are all things. Everything therefore that actually is in any other thing must be found in God much more eminently than in the thing itself; God then is most perfect.
Hence the answer given to Moses by the Lord, when he sought to see the divine face or glory: I will show thee all good (Exod. xxxiii, 19).-Saint Thomas Aquinas
Outstanding!
An especially appropriate reflection for today, I think!
Is that a tenet of the OPC, or is it to be found in the incomplete, but poetic, KJV? Just wondering...
In other words, what authority do you reference for that rather bigoted statement?
Got it!
A nicely drawn distinction. Gravely mistaken notions, persisted and defended, tend to foster bigotry (my opinion).
As a "Bible thumping" Baptist my heart is always with any church that believes people should be free to voice their opinions. Of course then we want to sit down open our Bibles and search for the truth of it, but always without the threat of the sword.
How much clearer does it need to be?
It's perfectly clear. What is being said is that man has no free will. Every thing is carved in stone making this thread and any attempts to convert others absolutely useless.
Someone has never watched the late, late show. Puppets and clowns... EVIL!
Of course you are correct, nothing we do matters under double predestination. Neither the good we do, nor, to be consistent, the evil. In fact we are not responsible even though the God Calvin imagines will hold us to account for the... er... um... evil he does through us. Brain explodes.
From double predestination springs the theory of OSAS or eternal security, if we can't cooperate in our salvation then we can't be uncooperative in losing it.
This is why the Sacraments don't do anything... because there's nothing to do. The cooperation of the BVM is immaterial because everything we do is also immaterial, it's not just her.
This manners thing can be used to lead people down the wrong path. It's one of the strongest tools the evil one has to get Christians to remain silent. The initial post heading down the road to claiming this leader of yours was brilliant, etc was what I responded to. If he had been so smart he would never have allowed himself to create an image in which Christianity was symbolically made to be bowing down and subservient to islam.
Another example of how "manners" were used to give islam a "soap box" was your current leader sitting still while a muslim talked about the Jews and Israel in despicable terms. In this instance if your leader didn't know what was being said someone with him should have told him and they should have told the jerk to shut up. Instead, they were polite.
Of course, PapaBenXIV was quoting in the statement you guys attribute to him. Fine. Whatever.
I know he was quoting someone. The point was the quote was correct and initially he was right. Unfortunately, he retracted his comment. I guess he has good manners.
When thinking about the importance of manners try remembering Jesus Christ in the Temple and the moneychangers. I'm sure the "establishment" didn't think much of His manners.
CANON 4. If anyone maintains that God awaits our will to be cleansed from sin, but does not confess that even our will to be cleansed comes to us through the infusion and working of the Holy Spirit, he resists the Holy Spirit himself who says through Solomon, "The will is prepared by the Lord" (Prov. 8:35, LXX), and the salutary word of the Apostle, "For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).
CANON 5. If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism -- if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, "And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:6). And again, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God" (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers.
CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, "What have you that you did not receive?" (1 Cor. 4:7), and, "But by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor. 15:10).
CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, "For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God" (2 Cor. 3:5).
CANON 8. If anyone maintains that some are able to come to the grace of baptism by mercy but others through free will, which has manifestly been corrupted in all those who have been born after the transgression of the first man, it is proof that he has no place in the true faith. For he denies that the free will of all men has been weakened through the sin of the first man, or at least holds that it has been affected in such a way that they have still the ability to seek the mystery of eternal salvation by themselves without the revelation of God. The Lord himself shows how contradictory this is by declaring that no one is able to come to him "unless the Father who sent me draws him" (John 6:44), as he also says to Peter, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17), and as the Apostle says, "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3).
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