You wrote:
“I already posted the excerpt from the Council of Trent.”
In post 31 you posted a quote from anti-Catholics which they lied about coming from the Council of Trent. No such quote appears in the documents of Trent. The Council of Trent did not do what your bogus quote claimed it did. But why let facts and truth get in the way of a juicy anti-Catholic fantasy, right?
“Should I show you the martyr’s testimony written in blood on a wall, you would not believe it.”
I believe the truth. I have no reason to believe you can discern what the truth is when you’re fooled so easily by bogus made up quotes from anti-Catholics.
“You have made an idol of a particular organized church, and will not believe it has ever, as an institution, sinned.”
First of all, I do not worship the Church, so it is no idol to me. I do know what the Church is, however, and as the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ, it has never sinned. It can’t. People in it certainly can, but the Church itself cannot. Have you decided to just make things up out of thin air now about me?
“You dismiss all evidence as false, given by hundreds of witnesses, written records, and ancient history.”
False. I correctly interpret evidence, and quite frankly, I actually know that evidence. I have no reason to believe you know that evidence because you demonstrated so early on that you were easily fooled by phony, made-up, bogus non-evidence.
“All to preserve the idolatry which has its grip on you.”
Again, I have no idols. I worship the Trinity alone. What you’re doing, of course, falls in line with what I said Protestant anti-Catholics always do: “When that fails...the Protestant anti-Catholic will always either resort to, 1) simply making things up out of thin air - things which are, in fact, logically impossible - while claiming all along those things are based squarely on the Catholic’s beliefs, posts, comments, etc.”
So, there you, claiming I have an idol when I do not. Once again we see a Protestant anti-Catholic making things up out of thin air, making completely bogus charges. This also proves my earlier point that Protestant anti-Cathoics are predictible in their prejudice.
“You defend the exhumation and burning of a man who committed no crime, etc.”
First, Wycliffe HAD COMMITTED a crime. The crime was heresy. You might not like that fact, but it is undeniable that heresy was against the secular law in the 14th century. Second, the man was never burned. His bones were burned. Third, if the burning of his remains got across to anyone that Hell awaited thos who spread heresy without repentance in an age without modern communications, no TV, no newspapers, etc., I’ll sleep just fine tonight. In the Middle Ages, and even in much more modern times, we do things even with the dead to make a point. Hence, Joe Paterno had the last 14 or so years of victories stricken from his win tally by the NCAA. Paterno’s dead. The NCAA made it clear it was doing this not so much as punishment of Paterno (and since he’s dead this can’t be punishment of Paterno anyway) but it was done as a warning to others.
“The Inquisition was real.”
Yes, it was. But Protestant anti-Catholic fantasies about it are not. I have researched the inquisition in detail. I have colleagues who are urging me to publish a book on it in fact, but I don’t know if I have the time to produce it. Most likely you’ve never read a single reputable article or book on it. Not one, right? And I will be the first one to stipulate that there were excesses committed by inquisitors and we certainly wouldn’t want one just like it existed centuries ago. What I don’t do is make things up - as Protestant anti-Cathoics so often do.
“The martyrdom recorded in Foxe’s and other histories is real.”
Actually many of those Foxe lists and discusses were not martyrs at all. They were merely heretics and schismatics. Foxe’s book was propaganda. That’s why it was officially endorsed by the Protestant anti-Catholic state-church government of England.
“Only Jesus never sinned.”
Can a seven month old baby sin? What if that baby dies in the 8th month? Was that baby a sinner?
“You should repent.”
I repent of what I have done wrong - but that includes nothing in this thread. Have you repented for posting a completely bogus quote that appears nowhere in Trent? Have you repented for allowing yourself to be so easily fooled by it? Apparently not.
And what you did there falls in line with what I wrote earlier:
“...making a parting shot which strongly implies either that the Protestant is a better person...”
I am not going to do a research paper for you, you know the Bible was forbidden to be translated/owned/read at various time and in various places by the RC Church, which was wrong. I acknowledge they no longer do that, but you don’t want to give me credit for that acknowledgement, just to accuse me of making it up because it makes you (justifiably) uncomfortable. Have some Council of Toulouse, I could do this all day, but here:
“ITEM #2 COUNCIL OF TOULOUSE - 1229 A.D.
The Council of Toulouse, which met in November of 1229, about the time of the crusade against the Albigensians, set up a special ecclesiastical tribunal, or court, known as the Inquisition (Lat. inquisitio, an inquiry), to search out and try heretics. Twenty of the forty-five articles decreed by the Council dealt with heretics and heresy. It ruled in part:
Canon 1. We appoint, therefore, that the archbishops and bishops shall swear in one priest, and two or three laymen of good report, or more if they think fit, in every parish, both in and out of cities, who shall diligently, faithfully, and frequently seek out the heretics in those parishes, by searching all houses and subterranean chambers which lie under suspicion. And looking out for appendages or outbuildings, in the roofs themselves, or any other kind of hiding places, all which we direct to be destroyed.
Canon 6. Directs that the house in which any heretic shall be found shall be destroyed.
Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.”
As for innocent infants, yes, they do not commit actual sin, so far as I can detect, but they have original sin, and are thus sadly sinners, otherwise why baptize them? Of course they are sinners, if only by birth.
The church itself can indeed sin, it is a group of people, just like nations can sin and etc.
“Again, I have no idols. I worship the Trinity alone.”
I would love to believe that, but, your vitriol particularly against the very holy martyrs calls that into question.
They were folks killed by the hands of the Catholic Church for daring to disobey them.
Would you believe a Jesuit source, Fordham University? Or are they themselves indulging [no pun intended] in a "juicy anti-Catholic fantasy"?
TEN RULES CONCERNING PROHIBITED BOOKS DRAWN UP BY THE FATHERS CHOSEN BY THE COUNCIL OF TRENT AND APPROVED BY POPE PIUS
IV Since it is clear from experience that if the Sacred Books are permitted everywhere and without discrimination in the vernacular, there will by reason of the boldness of men arise therefrom more harm than good, the matter is in this respect left to the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor, who may with the advice of the pastor or confessor permit the reading of the Sacred Books translated into the vernacular by Catholic authors to those who they know will derive from such reading no harm but rather an increase of faith and piety, which permission they must have in writing. Those, however, who presume to read or possess them without such permission may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed them over to the ordinary. Bookdealers who sell or in any other way supply Bibles written in the vernacular to anyone who has not this permission, shall lose the price of the books, which is to be applied by the bishop to pious purposes, and in keeping with the nature of the crime they shall be subject to other penalties which are left to the judgment of the same bishop. Regulars who have not the permission of their superiors may not read or purchase them.
Looks like the Jesuits at Fordham must be liars and "anti-Catholics", too?
Or you yourself have been either misinformed or ignorant concerning such as the above quoted extract (even as you accuse others here of "ignorance' more generally).
These decrees may be ancillary to the others made at Trent, but they were made by a select group from that very body, with the results signed by the sitting Roman pontiff!
That makes them arguably, coming "from" Trent.
Since this be more generally the case, I must ask, why not yourself then set the record straight as to where such information came from?
Did you not know of where such information could be found?
To proclaim it is all "phony, made-up, bogus non-evidence" is gross distortion of the wider historical record.
Discussing the matter in historical context can be helpful...but if it is done in the interests of distracting from, or covering up that which can plainly enough be found, then what sort of treatment or analysis would that be, but one chiefly of denial and obfuscation?
I find that to be the case regarding most of today's Roman Catholic apologists. It is only by digging beyond, or around the typical 'proclaimed to be the truth' that one gets to the real heart of the matter(s).
Even then, when certain facts are brought to light, various oppositional strategies to what the records and accounts of what transpired actually show, kick into gear...
I've seen it over and over. What I have seen on this thread (more than once!) appears to me to be lawyerly exploitation of the narrowest of loopholes.