Posted on 05/28/2014 5:50:04 AM PDT by WVKayaker
Can Roman Catholics be saved? Yes they can but not if they adhere to Roman Catholic theology. Like anyone else, salvation is found only through faith in Christ alone. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at carm.org ...
And every ONE of your POPES have been EXCELLANT role models.
"You can go and visit those places. Nothing there, nothing at all. There are Iraqi checkpoints. Everything is okay."
Which wonderful pope was that?
The one, who instead of GIVING his predecessor the finger; decided to chop the other guy's OFF?
By George! I think I get it now!
#1. Mary’s Place Is Highest After Christ
Mark 10:36-38
And He said to them, "What do you want Me to do for you?"
They said to Him, "Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory."
But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"…
Dead mothers of GOD and DEAD 'saints' can do NOTHING.
I’m guessing you’re not Catholic
That’s an interesting question and perhaps I’m not understanding it fully but it doesn’t seem to me beliefs require “leaps of faith” (as if there is never a reason to believe in anything other than through an act of the will).
How is it possible to show others that you truly believe something and are not just saying you believe?
Which common sense must have a foundational premise. I think the first question I would ask you is, what is the basis for your assurance of truth?
For it seems that the RC argument is that an assuredly (if conditionally) infallible magisterium is essential for valid assurance of Truth and to fulfill promises of Divine presence, providence of Truth, and preservation of faith. (Jn. 14:16; 16:13; Mt. 16:18)
And that being the historical instruments and stewards of Divine revelation (oral and written) means that Rome is that assuredly infallible magisterium. Thus those who dissent from the latter are in rebellion to God. Does this fairly represent what you hold to or in what way does it differ??
No the ancient aliens guy.
I guess it’s not possible to convince someone you believe in something for a reason and not just an act of the will, if one is convinced that there can be no reason. Really the only way someone is convinced of something anyway is ultimately through their own experience and/or trust.
Let’s take a mundane example: belief in the existence of Antarctica. I’ve never been there, but I believe, I *know* it exists. Why? Because I have experience in those that claim to have been there are trustworthy. Explorers, scientists, I have no reason to doubt their claim, experience has taught me such people have no reason to lie in such a situation, so I trust that Antarctica is there, and through that trust, I *know* it’s there. Thus I can say with confidence, I believe Antarctica exists, when I really mean I *know* it exists, as a fact.
I would say that if a belief is real to one, then there can be no convincing otherwise. So for example, if my life is changed in some way because of something, then that something must be real, by definition. I think as a society we put way too much emphasis on the so-called “power of the mind” to transform us. Sure there’s a mental component to change in one’s life, but not the only one.
So if I am perceptibly changed, another can perceive a change in me, and I say “This change is because of God, because of this experience ‘x’”, who can deny that witness? Other than to call me a liar of course.
So this is about belief in God. Belief in Transubstantiation, Mary, etc, these are things that, if one’s intellect is so willing, can be easily believed, because again, a change in one’s life due to these factors, attributable to these factors, who could “explain” this change other than to suggest it’s “the power of the mind” or call me a liar?
I submit only the cynic would say something like that. Or someone convinced such changes come from the Devil (which makes no sense IMO if such changes are positive ones, changes that lead me to increase in holiness).
In other words, I don’t believe in something if there’s not a reason. I just don’t. And I really don’t think that’s the Christian proposal, that we believe in Jesus (or anything) as a “leap of faith” or “blind faith”. That’s not what the Church proposes anyway.
Hope that helps.
Every Catholic-bashing protestant on FR knows what the Church teaches for salvation. So ignorance is no excuse.
That this excludes every Catholic-bashing protestant on FR is simply your interpretation of Rome's ambiguity as what "know the Catholic Church" precisely refers to, and many other RCs call them brothers, and the CCC affirms:
819 "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth"273 are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements."274 Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church.
838 "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter."322 Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church."323 With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."324
And which comes from V2:
LUMEN GENTIUM: 16. The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety or do not preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter. (Cf. Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:15-16 and 26)
For there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. (Cf. Jn. 16:13) They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical [Protestant] communities...
They also share with us in prayer and other spiritual benefits. Likewise we can say that in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit, for to them too He gives His gifts and graces whereby He is operative among them with His sanctifying power. Some indeed He has strengthened to the extent of the shedding of their blood...
John Paul II, Tertio Millennio Adveniente (# 37), Nov. 10, 1994: The witness to Christ borne even to the shedding of blood has become a common inheritance of Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants, as Pope Paul VI pointed out in his Homily for the Canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs.(22)...Perhaps the most convincing form of ecumenism is the ecumenism of the saints and of the martyrs. The communio sanctorum speaks louder than the things which divide us. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_10111994_tertio-millennio-adveniente_en.html
All Christian Communities know that, thanks to the power given by the Spirit, obeying that will and overcoming those obstacles are not beyond their reach. All of them in fact have martyrs for the Christian faith [some by the hands of Rome]... These Saints come from all the Churches and Ecclesial Communities which gave them entrance into the communion of salvation...This universal presence of the Saints is in fact a proof of the transcendent power of the Spirit. It is the sign and proof of God's victory over the forces of evil which divide humanity. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unum-sint_en.html
Trying to read into all these affirmations of Protestants a restriction that has them only referring to those who are ignorant of the claims of Rome would be so restrictive as to essentially render these affirmations meaningless.
But rather than defining "know the Catholic church" as excluding all who know of the claims of Rome but will not join her, many other modern writings convey the opposite, inferring it refers to those who actually believe the claims of the Catholic church but refuse to join her.
And indeed, while we know of Rome's claims to be the one Catholic [universal] Church, what we actually know most assuredly is that she is not.
And note that CCC 838 simply makes the Orthodox Churches closer. But if "Catholic church" is defined as being the Latin church then it excludes the Byzantine, who also regard themselves as the one true church, and reject papal claims to power and infallibility.
And which exclusion some RCs hold to, as the CCC is not itself an infallible document, but such veracity depends upon past infallible teaching, and in which the Greeks were also excluded:
"We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff." "If [or when], therefore, the Greeks or others say that they are not committed to Peter and to his successors, they necessarily say that they are not of the sheep of Christ, since the Lord says that there is only one fold and one shepherd (Jn.10:16)." Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam.
Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius [the eastern “Orthodox” schismatics] and the reformers [the Protestants], obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief shepherd of souls?...Let none delude himself with obstinate wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned, which will be lost and entirely destroyed, unless their interests are carefully and assiduously kept in mind.”“ — Pope Pius XI, Pontifex Maximus, Mortalium Animos (The Promotion of True Religious Unity), 11, Encyclical promulgated on January 6, 1928, #11. http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11MORTA.HTM
Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis: "They, therefore, walk in the path of dangerous error who believe that they can accept Christ as the Head of the Church, while not adhering loyally to His Vicar on earth. They have taken away the visible head, broken the visible bonds of unity and left the Mystical Body of the Redeemer so obscured and so maimed, that those who are seeking the haven of eternal salvation can neither see it nor find it... Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi (On the Mystical Body of Christ), Encyclical promulgated on June 29, 1943, #41-42, 69. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi_en.html
St. Thomas Aquinas: It is also shown that to be subject to the Roman Pontiff is necessary for salvation. Against the Errors of the Greeks, Pt. 2, ch. 36 http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraErrGraecorum.htm#b38
However, what being "committed to Peter and to his successors" and "adhering loyally" and being subject to the pope means is manifestly subject to interpretation, and thus the Byzantines are affirmed as somehow doing this even though they reject the Peter of Rome as being infallible and exercising universal unhindered power, and reject the RCs doctrine of Original sin and thus the Immaculate Conception, and her Purgatory, among other things, which the CCC teaches.
And likewise, rather than the rather ambiguous "knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ" as excluding the vast majority of Prots from salvation, it and other modern teachings affirm them, leaving us to understand it refers to those who know as a truth the necessity of the Catholic church for salvation but refuse to do enter or remain in her, not those who honestly do not see the church of Rome as being that church, but are part of the universal body of believers.
You keep resorting to this polemic, but which has a fundamental premise which you refuse to deal with. For if this assertion is to mean anything of weight, it must be that the stewards of Scripture as the infallible interpreters of it. Thus the unanswered question asked of you before remains: F
or it seems that the RC argument is that an assuredly (if conditionally) infallible magisterium is essential for valid assurance of Truth and to fulfill promises of Divine presence, providence of Truth, and preservation of faith. (Jn. 14:16; 16:13; Mt. 16:18)
And that being the historical instruments and stewards of Divine revelation (oral and written) means that Rome is that assuredly infallible magisterium. Thus those who dissent from the latter are in rebellion to God. Does this fairly represent what you hold to or in what way does it differ??
But if they are saved it is in spite of the RCC, not because of it.
Same here.
The question is ludicrous because it's not denominations which save or don't save. It's faith in Christ.
The only thing that varies is the percentages of saved and unsaved in each denomination.
Indeed, for according to her decree (for according to NKP_Vet Rome does not interpret) then only her version of Scripture, Tradition and history can be correct in any conflict. Which is cultic.
Thus Leo P XIII asserts:
Catholic doctrine, as authoritatively proposed by the Church, should be held as the supreme law; for, seeing that the same God is the author both of the Sacred Books and of the doctrine committed to the Church, it is clearly impossible that any teaching can by legitimate means be extracted from the former, which shall in any respect be at variance with the latter.
Hence it follows that all interpretation is foolish and false which either makes the sacred writers disagree one with another, or is opposed to the doctrine of the Church.(Providentissimus Deus; http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18111893_providentissimus-deus_en.html)
This is consistent with recourse of Manning in the classic quote:
The doctrines of the Church then are as unmixed as the light ; and undiminished in all the perfections of truth, which like Jesus ‘ is yesterday and to-day, and the same for ever...’
And from this a fourth truth immediately follows, that the doctrines of the Church in all ages are primitive...
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine...The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. — Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation pp. 227-228.
And even the EOs find fault with Rome due to her attempts to justify her claims:
Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of “doctrinal development.”
Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman), Roman Catholic theologians began to define and teach the idea that Christ only gave us an “original deposit” of faith, a “seed,” which grew and matured through the centuries. The Holy Spirit, they said, amplified the Christian Faith as the Church moved into new circumstances and acquired other needs.
Consequently, Roman Catholicism, pictures its theology as growing in stages, to higher and more clearly defined levels of knowledge. The teachings of the Fathers, as important as they are, belong to a stage or level below the theology of the Latin Middle Ages (Scholasticism), and that theology lower than the new ideas which have come after it, such as Vatican II.
All the stages are useful, all are resources; and the theologian may appeal to the Fathers, for example, but they may also be contradicted by something else, something higher or newer.
On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of “papal infallibility” and “the immaculate conception” of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. - www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html
Interestingly, when a Protestant or Evangelical leader fails, it’s a feeding frenzy for Catholics, where they gleefully point out that it is the major short coming of Protestantism.
Because when it’s a pope or priest, well *We’re all sinners*, *Nobody expects them to be perfect*, *Once a priest, always a priest*, etc.
They demand perfection from others that they don’t expect of themselves.
The hypocrisy is staggering.
This plethora of professions utterly fails to provide the needed substantiation, and is not more an answer than quoting Hebert Armstrong. Thus the questions remain:
And where do you see even one prayer addressed to Mary or to anyone in Heaven but the Lord., out the approx. 200 in Scripture - except by pagans?
Where do you see any Queen of Heaven in Scripture - except by pagans?
And where do you see any insufficiency in Christ in anything, from accessibility to empathy to ability, that would even suggest one is advantaged in going to another Heavenly intercessory.
Where do you see any created beings shown being able to actually hear innumerable prayers to them in Heaven?
Where do you see any any created beings of Heaven and earth communicating with each other without one party having to be in one realm or another (outside visions, dreams)?
There is none, and the incongruous utter lack of such for what is sppsd to be a most common practice renders even the egregious extrapolation Caths resort to as untenable.
And when I say that, I get castigated for misrepresenting Catholic teaching, being *poorly catechized* or outright lying.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.