“I guess to anti-Protestant bigots who refuse to acknowledge there are Christians who don’t identify as “Protestant”, it’s a detail that doesn’t matter.”
Accuracy and facts matter more than self-styling fads. A Protestant is a Protestant even if he doesn’t like to use the word. A man is a man even if he makes the bizarre decision to have “sex reassignment surgery”.
“You claim you aren’t a “Roman” Catholic? If you are part of the Latin rite, you certainly are and those other “rites” that are “in communion with Rome” are as well.”
False. I am a member of the Roman Church within the Catholic Church. I am not a “Roman Catholic”. That is essentially a term used by Protestants since after they started their sects in the 16th century. The OED makes this clear. Second, a Byzantine Catholic is Catholic, not a “Byzantine Roman Catholic” nor a “Roman Byzantine Catholic”. The two terms cannot be paired for they are contradictory.
“It’s all a semantics game.”
It’s not semantics, it’s just true.
“I’m surprised you would try that here. That IS your problem, not mine. In the meantime, I as well as millions of other Christians will continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ unhindered by the accursed gospel of Roman Catholicism. THAT is the fullness of the faith!”
No, you will never possess the fullness of faith as a Protestant. Protestants can’t have what they don’t want.
Just more evidence of bigotry. Do you deny that Christians existed and exist outside of the Roman Catholic church who do not identify as "Protestants"?
False. I am a member of the Roman Church within the Catholic Church. I am not a “Roman Catholic”. That is essentially a term used by Protestants since after they started their sects in the 16th century.
That is false. The term "Roman Catholic" was in use centuries before the Reformation, was used by Popes and continues to be used BY the Roman Catholic church to this day. A little history:
The church widely known as the Catholic Church consists of 23 autonomous churches (all of which are subject to the Pope)— one "Western" and 22 "Eastern" — governed by two sets of Codes of Canon Law.[2] To refer to all 23 autonomous Churches together, official Church documents often use the term "Catholic Church" or, less frequently, the term "Roman Catholic Church". The usage that makes the term "Roman Catholic" mean members of the Latin Rite or Western Church to the exclusion of those who belong to the Eastern Catholic Churches does not appear in any recent document of the Holy See, and popes have used the term "Roman Catholic Church" on various occasions throughout the 20th century to mean instead the whole Church without exclusion of any part.[3]
In popular usage, "Catholic Church" is usually understood to mean the same as "Roman Catholic Church". In compound forms such as "Roman Catholic worship" the term is sometimes used to differentiate Western (Latin Church) practices from Eastern. However, in itself the word "catholic" translates into English as "universal" or "pertaining to the whole", as opposed to "particular" or "related to a part". Being "catholic" is one of the Four Marks of the Church set out in the Nicene Creed, a statement of belief accepted by many churches, even if not in communion with the Pope.
The word "church" represents the Greek word ecclesia, originally meaning "meeting, assembly", the usual Septuagint translation of Hebrew qahal, "congregation [of Israel]", as in Deuteronomy 31:30 and elsewhere.[4] The word "Catholic", meaning "universal", was first applied the Church by St. Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Smyrnaeans in 110. It was repeatedly used to describe the "universal" congregation of the believers of the pure Word of Christ in theological works such as St. Augustine of Hippo in his books Confessions in 394 and City of God in 410. After the 5th-century splits that followed the First Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon, the Church split again in the 11th century, with the Western Church loyal to the Pope and the Eastern Orthodox Church loyal to the Patriarch of Constantinople. St. Thomas Aquinas repeatedly used the word "Catholic" to describe the Church loyal to the Pope, the bishop of Rome, as opposed to those loyal to the bishop of Constantinople, called the Ecumenical Patriarch.
The use of the adjective "Roman" to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) became more widespread after the fall of the western Roman Empire and into the early Middle Ages. For example, the mid-eighth-century document known as the "Donation of Constantine" repeatedly declares that its grant of imperial prerogatives and patriarchal primacy is made to "the most holy Roman Church". This document became a crucial theoretical statement in the Middle Ages "to defend the universality and supremacy of Roman jurisdiction over lay rulers and their subjects in Western Christendom."[5]
16th and 17th centuries
The terms "Romish Catholic" and "Roman Catholic", along with "Popish Catholic", were brought into use in the English language chiefly by adherents of the Church of England, which saw itself as the Catholic Church in England, so that they were not willing to concede the term Catholic to their opponents without qualification.[6]
The reign of Elizabeth I of England at the end of the 16th century was marked by conflicts in Ireland. Those opposed to English rule forged alliances with those against the Protestant reformation, making the term Roman Catholic almost synonymous with being Irish during that period, although that usage changed significantly over time.[7]
Like the term Anglican, the term Roman Catholic came into widespread use in the English language only in the 17th century.[8] The terms "Romish Catholic" and "Roman Catholic" were both in use in the 17th century and "Roman Catholic" was used in some official documents, such as those relating to the Spanish Match in the 1620s. There was, however, significant tension between Anglicans and Roman Catholics at the time (as reflected in the Test Act for public office). Even today, the Act of Settlement 1701 still prohibits Roman Catholics from becoming English monarchs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_(term)
Should I post a list of self-named Roman Catholic churches in America for you?
Well, if Catholics feel free to define Protestantism for non-Catholics, then that sword cuts both ways and non-Catholics can define who’s Catholic whether Catholics like it or not.
So y’all end up owning Pelosi, Kennedy, Chavez, Kerry, Cuomo, and all the liberal, pro-abort, pro-homosexual marriage Catholics that y’all like to count as part of the 1.2 billion strong when y’all appeal to numbers in the numbers game.
If they’re baptized Catholics who attend mass regularly and partake of communion, then according to Catholic teaching, they are in Christ and going to heaven because they are accepting Jesus.
The Catholic church keeps accepting them as in communion by giving them communion and Catholic funerals. They’re yours, like it or not, and, like it or not, they are examples of the fruit of Catholicism.
HMMMmmm...
Matthew 17:20
Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."