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To: Boogieman
"Yet nobody seems to suggest that it would be efficacious to seek absolution from them."

Your argument reveals a significant misunderstanding of Catholic teaching. The sacraments are efficacacious, not because of the holiness of the priest, but because it is Christ himself who acts through him. I have offered several times now to let you know what the teaching of the Church is, not so that you come to accept and believe it, but so that you can at lease intelligently express and argue the facts

Peace be with you

331 posted on 04/05/2013 10:43:45 PM PDT by Natural Law (Jesus did not leave us a Bible, He left us a Church.)
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To: Natural Law

“The sacraments are efficacacious, not because of the holiness of the priest, but because it is Christ himself who acts through him.”

This highlights my point though. If the holiness of the priest doesn’t matter, then why are people warned against seeking absolution from defrocked priests? It is because it is not seen to be as advisable as seeking them from a legitimate priest. Yet, Christ is not the one who is contributing to a different condition, since He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and cannot be diminished. So, there must be some contributing factor regarding the state of the priest which leads to the distinction.

This is all kind of a sidetrack though, since if a priest is an unrepentant sinner, then Scripture tells us that they are unfit to hold any position in the church, since they are in rebellion against God. Sure, Christ can act through those in rebellion against Him, but that doesn’t mean that we who believe should hold those in an outwardly obvious state of rebellion in any regard, ordination or no. Paul said such people were never with us in the first place, so I doubt their ordination could really be valid, regardless of the Catholic doctrine on the matter.


332 posted on 04/05/2013 11:10:16 PM PDT by Boogieman
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