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.
Mightily? In the 18th century United States, better than 95% of Protestants were Reformed. Now, there are less than 5%. There aren't any Reformed Methodists - they rejected Calvin going all the way back to Wesley. I'm not sure that any Congregationalists are Reformed any more. I know that over 90% (I think the last time I looked it was 93%) of Presbyterians are not Reformed. And perhaps 10% of Baptists are Reformed.
We'll pause while you cite the numbers for the OPC, but please check out the numbers for the Presbyterian Church in America which is growing throughout the US and the world.
We all know the numbers of the OPC - plummeting faster than the approval rate for the Democrat Party. Why do you keep bringing up the PCA? Why do you not join them if they are so good? But increasing? When you are tiny, any growth can appear to be of interest. But let me ask you this: if the OPC and the PCA in their entirety gathered in any place in the world - even Iraq or Afghanistan - do you think that the Muslims would even care? They wouldn't. Not even the Muslims would call the remnants of the Reformed Christian.
No other religion in the United States has lost more members to other faiths, or to no faith at all, than Catholicism, according to the new survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The survey, conducted in 2007, found that 31 percent of Americans were raised Catholic, but less than 25 per cent of them still identify as Catholic...
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, eh? The odious Pew crew hate Christians - they only identify as hating Catholics more. Perhaps you might research them as to the other findings that they have presented. Straws...
No. The Church has already decided. Stings, doesn't it, when agnostics know the Faith so much better than the selected elite elect?
Jesus quotes Isaiah in support of His Gospel message. Isaiah does not supersede Jesus; nor does he supersede any of the NT authors.
And I am grateful when you share that knowledge.
Well, first of all, the "Gospels" - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - are full of references, most from Jesus' own mouth, that he is the Christ, the Messiah, the Chosen One. He repeatedly refers to Moses and the Prophets speaking of him and the whole purpose of his coming. If he was not the "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world", then who was he? What was the point of his death on the cross if not for taking on the sins of the world? His shed blood was for the propitiation of our sins and was the once and for all sacrifice that all the sacrifices in the temple pointed to. They were only a covering until he came and took away our sins, nailing them to the cross.
Secondly, it is startling that you imply Catholics and Orthodox only base their doctrines upon the first four books of the New Testament. Should we all just toss out the rest of the Bible? I seem to think our Lord would not be too pleased if we did. The Holy Spirit went to all that trouble for nothing???
The blood of the Pascal Lamb was a sign for death to “Passover.”
In addition to Christ overcoming death, we should remember his teaching about our personal sin and his call for repentance, love and forgiving others. It is separating these two and, often, forgetting the second that causes some of the division in our beliefs.
Thank you Mark.
The "Day of Atonement" (Yom Kippur) is the one day of the year when the high priest would make an offering of the blood from an unblemished lamb upon the altar of the Holy of Holies. It was a day for the people to reflect upon their sins and the sacrifice was for an atonement for the sins of the people. It was a temporary "fix" until God would become man and make a permanent offering for sin. The penalty for sin has always been death and without the shedding of blood there was no remission of sins.
The Feast of the Passover, was, of course, the remembrance of God's deliverance of the people from slavery in Egypt. They were commanded to take the blood and mark their doorposts and the Angel of Death would "pass over" them and not kill the firstborn. It is celebrated to this day with the seder observance. Jesus and his disciples celebrated it the night before he was betrayed. It is also a symbol of the Messiah.
I am in total agreement that we cannot and should not forget the need for personal responsibility to lead lives of holiness, confession and repenting of sin, and loving and forgiving others as Christ loves and forgives us. To do less is not being obedient to him.
It is later than I thought, so I'm hitting the sack. I hope you have a blessed night.
I appreciate your contributions, too, but I also realize that, like us all, you have a certain slant that should be considered. Without faith, it is usually impossible to understand things of God.
I hate this thread. I keep coming back for the same reason I buy a BigMac every few years, just to remind myself why I hate it. At least with a bigmac I don't eat the whole thing. I hate all these mega-sado-evangelism threads (kudos to Mad Dawg) because "victory" is established by whoever is still standing around flicking boogers at people when all the sane people have moved on to the NEXT mega-sado-evangelism thread.
I do it too, so as much as I'm pointing at everyone else I'm pointing at myself as well.
Anyhow... Surely everyone who professes anything even semi-identifiable as Christianity understands that the New Testament and the Old Testament must be read through the lens of the Gospels. All of human history is only properly understood through the lens of Christ, not in some abstract manner, but directly. Not only does St. Paul not make any sense without oblique reference to Christ but he doesn't make sense without direct reference to what Jesus Christ said and did. In that sense, St. Paul doesn't explain Christ, Christ explains St. Paul.
So... to the matter at hand: The doctrine of the Atonement is possibly the only core doctrine of the Church that was not defined because of heresy. As far as I know even the reformers took with them that one doctrine whole and entire. Since then however there's been a mess. I consulted the online old Catholic Encyclopedia and found this:
In their general conception on the atonement the Reformers and their followers happily preserved the Catholic doctrine, at least in its main lines. And in their explanation of the merit of Christ's sufferings and death we may see the influence of St. Thomas and the other great Schoolmen. But, as might be expected from the isolation of the doctrine and the loss of other portions of Catholic teaching, the truth thus preserved was sometimes insensibly obscured or distorted. It will be enough to note here the presence of two mistaken tendencies.
* The first is indicated in the above words of Pattison in which the Atonement is specially connected with the thought of the wrath of God. It is true of course that sin incurs the anger of the Just Judge, and that this is averted when the debt due to Divine Justice is paid by satisfaction. But it must not be thought that God is only moved to mercy and reconciled to us as a result of this satisfaction. This false conception of the Reconciliation is expressly rejected by St. Augustine (In Joannem, Tract. cx, section 6). God's merciful love is the cause, not the result of that satisfaction.
* The second mistake is the tendency to treat the Passion of Christ as being literally a case of vicarious punishment. This is at best a distorted view of the truth that His Atoning Sacrifice took the place of our punishment, and that He took upon Himself the sufferings and death that were due to our sins.
The point being, these concepts are new. If someone is finding these two ideas in Sacred Scripture they are finding something that nobody, not even the reformers found before them. The conclusion from the article on the Atonement:
It [the doctrine of the Atonement] is represented as the payment of a price, or a ransom, or as the offering of satisfaction for a debt. But we can never rest in these material figures as though they were literal and adequate. As both Abelard and Bernard remind us, the Atonement is the work of love. It is essentially a sacrifice, the one supreme sacrifice of which the rest were but types and figures. And, as St. Augustine teaches us, the outward rite of Sacrifice is the sacrament, or sacred sign, of the invisible sacrifice of the heart. It was by this inward sacrifice of obedience unto death, by this perfect love with which He laid down his life for His friends, that Christ paid the debt to justice, and taught us by His example, and drew all things to Himself; it was by this that He wrought our Atonement and Reconciliation with God, "making peace through the blood of His Cross".
The point of his death was to destroy death and offer mankind eternal life, thereby restoring humanity to its original created state. He offered himself as ransom, death accepted, and when Jesus died death realized it couldn't hold him and was rendered powerless.
The freed humanity was thus offered grace (pardon, mercy), and given an opportunity to return to God. The salvation was freeing mankind from obligate death, the way Passover was salvation for the Jews. The blood of the lamb in both cases meant life. Those who cling to God are led by God to eternal life. It is a reward. Those who don't cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.
You may or may not agree with this, but this is what the early Church believed and what the Eastern Church believes to this day. In the West, particularly under the influence of Anslem (11th century), the concept of divine satisfaction becomes the new doctrine: Christ had to die to satisfy the insulted God and nothing short of a divine sacrifice would do.
The idea of Christ being ransom is the original Christian doctrine and is found in Matthew, Mark and 1 Timothy (Paul). The idea that he is a divine satisfaction (propitiation) is found in Romans, Hebrews and 1 John. Obviously he can't be both.
Obivously Jesus never taught he was a propitiation. Paul is wishy-washy as always (Romans-1 Timothy disconnect), being what he was best at, namely "all things to all men," not necessarily consistent, Hebrews is a Pauline-like book, using his expressions, and 1 John is a late work obviously following Paul's line of thinking.
Secondly, it is startling that you imply Catholics and Orthodox only base their doctrines upon the first four books of the New Testament. Should we all just toss out the rest of the Bible? I seem to think our Lord would not be too pleased if we did. The Holy Spirit went to all that trouble for nothing???
I never said only on the Gospels. I said the catholic and apostolic Church is based on the Gospels (the way Judaism is based on the Torah, but not only on the Torah). The Church uses the Gospels as the key with which to unlock (interpret) all other books of the Bible, NT or OT. The OT is interpreted in terms of the NT and the NT in terms of the Gospels.
You may find my post 7751 relevant.
I don't know how but kids can be dogmatic fideists and rationalist skeptics AT THE SAME TIME. My 9 year old daughter will find the most obscure loose end in something and unravel everything in a matter of seconds, it's not fair that I have to have a copy of "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" and the Summa just to teach 5th grade religion. The temptation to say "it's that way because it's that way" is very strong.
Someone earlier said something like "I wonder how the Catholics feel knowing they're on the same side as an agnostic" or words to that effect. I thought how weird it is that people don't see the point of knowing what one doesn't believe... apparently in opposition to not knowing what one does believe.
Good grief, now that I've read it I almost think I need to point out that posts 7750 and 7751 were not written in consultation. lol
Your use of the word ransom reminded me of this:
figures of this kind [ransom] are perilous in the hands of those who press them too far, and forget that they are figures. This is what happened here. When a captive is ransomed the price is naturally paid to the conqueror by whom he is held in bondage. Hence, if this figure were taken and interpreted literally in all its details, it would seem that the price of man's ransom must be paid to Satan. The notion is certainly startling, if not revolting. Even if brave reasons pointed in this direction, we might well shrink from drawing the conclusion. And this is in fact so far from being the case that it seems hard to find any rational explanation of such a payment, or any right on which it could be founded. Yet, strange to say, the bold flight of theological speculation was not checked by these misgivings.
That from the online Catholic Encyclopedia. Apparently that idea floated around for 1000 years.
for about a thousand years it played a conspicuous part in the history of theology. In the hands of some of the later Fathers and medieval writers, it takes various forms, and some of its more repulsive features are softened or modified. But the strange notion of some right, or claim, on the part of Satan is still present. A protest was raised by St. Gregory of Nazianzus in the fourth century, as might be expected from that most accurate of the patristic theologians. But it was not till St. Anselm and Abelard had met it with unanswerable arguments that its power was finally broken.
I think that one of the great disasters in Christian history is the rejection of the authority of the Church to set the limits on figures, types and analogies. "I am of Peter, I am of Apollos, I am of Paul... I am of Christ" It's that last group we really need to watch out for, they're the ones running with the theological scissors.
All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. Isaiah 53:6
Don't unbelievers believe in prophecy?
I do not think anyone said that.. God is indeed God..BUT each member of the trinity has a different role in salvation , that is clear in the scriptures. We can not assign the work of one to the other or you get the kind of mess I indicated..
Obviously not; yet we must consider Scripture and its source. The Gospels are the quotations of Jesus. Jesus is Lord God Almighty. I am baffled by alleged Christians acting as if (but not overtly confirming) that the words of e.g. Nehemiah or the Chronicler are as important if not more important than the words of Almighty God. I mean, do you really consider Lamentations as important as the Sermon on the Mount?
My friend, your knowledge of the Faith has been an inspiration to me, however your current state may be. I understand the difference between knowledge and belief, and between questioning and acceptance. And how sometimes that step varies in length.
Negative. There are many on FR and throughout the world who don't believe in the primacy of Christ and His Gospel message, posting quotations from Paul and Isaiah in order to trump Gospel verses. And they are usually circumspect enough when asked directly that they think that they cannot be pinned down on that point.
Just as we have witnessed the Trinitarian formula mangled beyond belief right here on this thread, so all the aspects of Christianity are mangled by so many, in the attempt to please the god that these many see in the mirror.
“”Teresa was a “mystic” we could in some ways compare her to the eastern mystics of her time and now..””
You fail to understand the difference between authentic Christian gifts from Christ and something gnostic
Here is an article From Orthodox Patristic Theology.
Human Nous-Noetic Prayer
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/phronema/patristic-theology-romanides-chapter-1-what-is-the-human-nous.aspx
Here are a few excerpts..
. What St. Paul calls the nous is the same as what the Fathers call dianoia. When the Apostle Paul says, I will pray with the spirit,[1] he means what the Fathers mean when they say, I will pray with the nous. And when he says, I will pray with the nous, he means I will pray with the intellect (dianoia). When the Fathers use the word nous, the Apostle Paul uses the word spirit. When he says I will pray with the nous, I will pray with the spirit or when he says I will chant with the nous, I will chant with the spirit, and when he says the Spirit of God bears witness to our spirit,[2] he uses the word spirit to mean what the Fathers refer to as the nous. And by the word nous, he means the intellect or reason.
In his phrase, the Spirit of God bears witness to our spirit, St. Paul speaks about two spirits: the Spirit of God and the human spirit. By some strange turn of events, what St. Paul meant by the human spirit later reappeared during the time of St. Makarios the Egyptian with the name nous, and only the words logos and dianoia continued to refer to mans rational ability. This is how the nous came to be identified with spirit, that is, with the heart, since according to St. Paul, the heart is the place of mans spirit.[3]
Those who have noetic prayer in their hearts do, however, communicate with one another. In other words, they have the ability to sit together, and communicate with each other noetically, without speaking. That is, they are able to communicate spiritually. Of course, this also occurs even when such people are far apart. They also have the gifts of clairvoyance and foreknowledge. Through clairvoyance, they can sense both other peoples sins and thoughts (logismoi), while foreknowledge enables them to see and talk about subjects, deeds, and events in the future. Such charismatic people really do exist. If you go to them for confession, they know everything that you have done in your life before you open your mouth to tell them.
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