Posted on 05/05/2011 9:38:04 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
The Pope said no such thing. I will no longer engage with somebody who falsly represents what the Pope says or teaches.
The rest of the story from the article:
“An interpretation of the sacred writings that disregards or forgets their inspiration does not take into account their most important and precious characteristic: that they come from God,” he said.
The Catholic position is that the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical writers so that “human words express the word of God,” he said.
“Through his word, God wants to communicate to us the whole truth about himself and his plan of salvation for humanity,” the Pope wrote. “A commitment to discovering ever more the truth of the sacred books, therefore, is a commitment to seeking to better know God and the mystery of his saving will.”
A keynote, Skypilot -- whenever you read an article posted like this by you know who, read the entire post -- it is generally excerpted pretty well so that you can't see the real information like the one above
Well, we could swap our great Polish and Italian dishes for some of that awesome Southern comfort food on occasion, FRiend! We should all work towards Culinary Ecumanism, and experience the best of universal gastronomic salvation. We have beer too...it’s how we know God loves us.
Freegards
Exactly -- that is why some use sola scriptura to justify just one line taken out of context
You should know that , ZC -- after all Noahcides reject sola scritpura, correct? And that means that you will agree with the Popes point that "you should not take individual passages literally without reading the bible as a whole."
Also, do read the entire article before commenting as it has been expertly excerpted to keep the relevent facts out.
After all, ZC, you do disregard sola scriptura as a Christian innovation, correct? And, if you take this as true, do you consider Christianity with it's insistence that Jesus Christ is God to be true or not?
Thanks Cronos. I wish Zionist Conspirator all good health but choose not to discuss this further with him.
You may not agree that Jesus Christ IS present (and you'd then disagree with the Early Christians and indeed all Christians until the 16th century and indeed with Martin Luther, all the Lutherans, Anglicans as well as orthodoxy (Catholics, Orthodox, Orientals, Assyrians), but the prostration is to Jesus Christ alone. Go to a mass and see it for yourself instead of getting second-hand propaganda opinions
Please riddle me this: how does one quote from something that isn't 100% literally true in order to defend an institution that claims said document isn't 100% literally true? HOW DO YOU SPLIT THIS ATOM? The answer is: you can't! Once you cross that Rubicon, you're done, and so is the Catholic Church.
This is not what you actually said, and I think you know that. Your claim, which was false, was that the pope did not give me permission to quote it. Catholics do not need permission for such things, and nothing in this article suggested any ban on bible quoting, and so your claim was false.
Are you trying to say that "him" meant God and not the angel? If you are, that is more rubbish.
You can't be serious.
Moreover, the very fact that this Pope, or any Pope, would allow any Catholic to call them "Holy Father" and not correct it on the spot, issue a statement saying to never do that again, brings down your whole argument.
Holy Father is not a form of worship. Many people are holy, and the scripture calls them this. St. Paul calls himself other people's spiritual father, and calls himself holy. But, you say this is so simply because you say it is so. And it has nothing to do with the texts you have quoted. The Apocalypse verse in question describes John as falling down in adoration, not saying Holy Father, and so there is no connection. It simply doesn't back up your assertion that these words are a form of adoration due to God. I could argue that shaking somebody's hand is worship and use this text with as much relevancy as you have. One first has to prove that the action is definitively a form of adoration before such verses have bearing, and you haven't done it, nor can you since adoration is a matter of intent in the first place.
Right...I know....they aren't really prostrate down before the Pope. Right? What are they prostrate before?
God, as if you didn't know. And when you kneel at home to pray I suppose you are worshiping your bed?
You know that is true, and that this is the crux of the whole argument. And frankly, your refusal to admit it isn't astonishing. If you did, the foundation that you believe keeps you in the good "IN" basket versus the bad "OUT" basket would be shattered.
Now, you are being dishonest here. You stated, directly, that the pope has warned Catholics against reading, studying and meditating on the bible, and you know that is a lie. Don't dodge. You said something which was untrue, and you should admit it was wrong and then move on to the point you want to make now. Don't compound your error.
You know what I never understood when I was a Catholic?
I would bet there was a great deal you didn't understand, including the faith itself. What you state as the Catholic faith in these posts bears no resemblance to what we do or believe. Your arguments that we worship the pope are simply absurd, and would be akin to me arguing, as I said earlier, that you worship your bed or a book that you bow down in front of. You have no credibility on this. You read an article and then made up things that were not there and you expect me to believe your interpretation of the bible? Please, don't be absurd. If you can take a few simple statements as were given in this brief writing and come up with things that are not there who could trust your interpretation of scripture? Who could trust you regarding what Catholics do? You just aren't reliable as a witness.
For the Catholic understanding of sacred Scripture, attention to such methods is indispensable, linked as it is to the realism of the Incarnation: “This necessity is a consequence of the Christian principle formulated in the Gospel of John 1:14: Verbum caro factum est. The historical fact is a constitutive dimension of the Christian faith. The history of salvation is not mythology, but a true history..."...Pope Leo XIII’s intervention had the merit of protecting the Catholic interpretation of the Bible from the inroads of rationalism, without, however, seeking refuge in a spiritual meaning detached from history. Far from shunning scientific criticism, the Church was wary only of “preconceived opinions that claim to be based on science, but which in reality surreptitiously cause science to depart from its domain.
... In this way, both documents rejected “a split between the human and the divine, between scientific research and respect for the faith, between the literal sense and the spiritual sense”
The danger of dualism and a secularized hermeneutic (emphasis in original)
In this regard we should mention the serious risk nowadays of a dualistic approach to sacred Scripture. To distinguish two levels of approach to the Bible does not in any way mean to separate or oppose them, nor simply to juxtapose them. They exist only in reciprocity. Unfortunately, a sterile separation sometimes creates a barrier between exegesis and theology, and this “occurs even at the highest academic levels” Here I would mention the most troubling consequences, which are to be avoided:
- First and foremost, if the work of exegesis is restricted to the first level alone, Scripture ends up being a text belonging only to the past: “One can draw moral consequences from it, one can learn history, but the Book as such speaks only of the past, and exegesis is no longer truly theological, but becomes pure historiography, history of literature”.[110] Clearly, such a reductive approach can never make it possible to comprehend the event of God’s revelation through his word, which is handed down to us in the living Tradition and in Scripture.
- The lack of a hermeneutic of faith with regard to Scripture entails more than a simple absence; in its place there inevitably enters another hermeneutic, a positivistic and secularized hermeneutic ultimately based on the conviction that the Divine does not intervene in human history. According to this hermeneutic, whenever a divine element seems present, it has to be explained in some other way, reducing everything to the human element. This leads to interpretations that deny the historicity of the divine elements.[111]
- Such a position can only prove harmful to the life of the Church, casting doubt over fundamental mysteries of Christianity and their historicity – as, for example, the institution of the Eucharist and the resurrection of Christ. A philosophical hermeneutic is thus imposed, one which denies the possibility that the Divine can enter and be present within history. The adoption of this hermeneutic within theological studies inevitably introduces a sharp dichotomy between an exegesis limited solely to the first level and a theology tending towards a spiritualization of the meaning of the Scriptures, one which would fail to respect the historical character of revelation.
They are laying prostrate because they are being ordained. Priests do that during the Litany of the Saints, I believe, to emphasize their unworthiness in their service. It is a form of humility. They are no more worshiping whoever happens to be standing on the other side of the room than they are the floor they are on. If it were so then what do Protestants worship when they say their prayers on their knees? I suppose pews, their beds, books, pastors, each other, or whatever happens to be in front of them.
Because God created free will?
Because God created free will.
As close as I can tell with a really quick search, every Catholic has an alter cross and has ever since about the thirteenth century.
Actually, this is an ordination and all priests lie prostrate at one point during the service to show their unworthiness before God. It has nothing to do with adoration really, but rather is about humility.
Good point, even if there is no cross or crucifix, He is present.
NO, you don't understand what is at stake. There's a whole school of thought that dwells on the translation, "had become without from and void" claiming either that matter in some form preexisted the Creation or that a prior Creation had been punished by God which is the cause of the destruction of the earth. Which school of thought to you agree with? The matter itself being equivalent to God was fought by the early Church, or the school of thought that believes there was a prior creation that God destroyed and therefore He did not create the universe at all but only works within the laws of the Universe? Both were popular heresies in the early Church era. We do not know that the six days are the same as our days since He is timeless and outside of matter and time, that is the important point. He is superior to all matter and is timeless, therefore we cannot know how He measures time given that we are bound both by time and matter. You cannot restrict God to six of our days any more than you can restrict Him to taking billions of years. God has no restrictions and definitions that restrict Him are denials of Him.
Some scientists have pointed out that from outside our known universe the light from our planet would arrive at a viewer in exactly the number of billions of years that others argue our planet has existed. So, from outside our universe, the perspective of the Creator, X number of billions of years from now from our perspective, the light from this moment we're now in will arrive at the limits of the universe. That same light, though, will be just the moment after one moment ago as after the first light reaches that point it's a continuous stream, the equivalent of one of our moments following the last in the same sequence we see them. It is in no way impossible that six days from His point of view would be billions of years to us. We cannot know since He could create everything in six days from one point of view and have it take billions of years from another point of view.
So, the Church says we don't know for sure. It could easily be six days as we now know days to be, or it could be an extremely long period of time. Either way, God created it in the sequence the Scripture describes. How does that point of view deny that God and His Word are always the Truth? It doesn't, it simply admits that we cannot always understand everything God has done and how He has done it. Period. No denial of His Creation, no denial of His Word being the Truth, no denial of anything other than the two early heresies that were based on the verses related to the Creation.
You cannot believe either of those heretical views of Creation since the Church has spoken on Creation in a way that denies both of them. You can believe that God created everything in six of our days, or you believe that God created things over billions of years because we cannot know how God measures time, particularly since time itself did not preexist His Creation. As long as you acknowledge that He actively created all things, including all matter, not in the clockwork sense of setting some processes in motion, but actively through His Word, you remain in agreement with the Church.
That is not a denial of Him, it is a tribute to His Majesty and how far He is beyond our meager means of understanding Him.
They are prostrate before God. Within the ordination rite the man being ordained lies prostrate before the altar (out of sight in the photo) during the Litany of Saints and the prayer that follows it. It symbolizes his complete submission to God unworthiness for the office to be assumed. It signifies his total dependence upon God and the prayers of the entire Christian community to be successful in his new ministry.
There is nothing you can say based on your interpretation of Scripture that has any weight beyond the confines of your own skull. Sola [Your Name Here] is the first step in the [Lego Block Method of Scripture Interpretation] so you have yet to reference anything other than your personal opinion.
have a lovely night and sleep tight
I understand, read some of my following posts. I realize they are simply making a physical showing of how worthless we all really are and I am impressed by their humility. Humility seldom seen among some other folks.
Regards
It'll be the opposite of whatever the "rednecks" believe.
That makes no sense whatsoever. Why do people feel the need to constantly make things up to "prove" their point of view? The Church says nothing derogatory about "rednecks" and this article says nothing like what you and others are trying to claim. Who would trust people so completely unreliable? What point is there in trying to tell a Catholic that Catholics believe something they don't? Catholics know what Catholics believe, after all. Do you spend time trying to convince Baptists that they worship moon people and cats?
Evidently a G-d who is 100% accurate is a threat to Catholicism.
Can't imagine where you get this either. Catholics don't believe that God is less than 100% accurate, and this article doesn't say anything supporting that. Rounded numbers are not inaccurate unless one suggests that all figures are absolutely literally accurate as printed, and the bible doesn't do that. You apparently do, but the bible doesn't and neither does the Church.
“An interpretation of the sacred writings that disregards or forgets their inspiration does not take into account their most important and precious characteristic: that they come from God,” he said.Secondly, some folks prefer to read a propaganda mouthpiece instead of seeing something for themselves -- this is as bad as someone reading the "Protocols of the Elders" -- a scurrilous piece of anti-semitic thrash that many people believed was true because they didn't bother to walk down to their local synagogue and see the truth.The Catholic position is that the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical writers so that “human words express the word of God,” he said.
“Through his word, God wants to communicate to us the whole truth about himself and his plan of salvation for humanity,” the Pope wrote. “A commitment to discovering ever more the truth of the sacred books, therefore, is a commitment to seeking to better know God and the mystery of his saving will.”
it's time for a babe ruth on this thread
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