Posted on 04/17/2015 12:12:16 PM PDT by RnMomof7
I’ve mentioned that Roman Catholicism is so onerous because it puts its hooks in you at various times in your life – from baptism as a child, to “first confession” and “first holy communion”, then Confirmation as an early teen, then marriage, baptism of your own children, etc. It’s a programmatic cycle.
There is another point at which Rome is prominent, and that is at death. As the “Baby Boom” generation continues to age and die, people will continue to be focused on this phase of life, either as people focused on the end of their own lives, or that of their aging parents.
Paul Moses, a journalism professor at Brooklyn College/CUNY”, has written a piece for the Wall Street Journal this morning entitled “A Liberal Catholic and Staying Put”, which puts this in view.
Beginning the article with some comments from the atheistic “Freedom From Religion Foundation”, which urged discontented, liberal-minded Catholics to “Summon your fortitude, and just go”, he rejects this notion with the following comments:
To me, these invitations reflect a shallow view of the Catholic Church that reduces its complex journey to the points where it intersects with the liberal social agenda. Pope Francis’ pastoral approach has shown a more merciful, less judgmental face of the church—one that always existed but needed to be more prominent in the public arena.
After my father died last year, I realized that my instinctive resistance to these “just go” arguments—from the atheists, the secularists, the orthodox, the heterodox or anyone else—runs deep. It began when I observed how impressively the church was there for me in a moment of need (emphasis added).
Early on the morning after he died, I went to my father's parish, St. Peter's in lower Manhattan, to find out what to do to bury him. I found one of the priests in the sacristy after the early Mass. The Rev. Alex Joseph took my hands in his, spoke a beautiful prayer, told me of his own father's death years earlier and added, "Our fathers are always with us." I was much moved.
We decided to have my father's funeral in the Staten Island parish where he had worshiped for 25 years … Bernard L. Moses, who died at 88, had loved Father Madigan’s homilies, and to hear [Father Madigan] speak at the funeral Mass was to understand why. My father had advanced up the ranks of the New York City Housing Authority to director of management. Citing his concern for tenants, Father Madigan used the traditional Catholic term “corporal work of mercy” to describe what my father did. It explained for me, in those difficult moments, why my father, who was well-schooled in Catholic social teachings, had passed up the opportunity for a more pleasant career in academia, or a more lucrative one managing private housing, to work in housing projects instead.
Few of us, I think, live daily on the edge of eternity in the conscious way that the Puritans did, and we lose out as a result. For the extraordinary vivacity, even hilarity (yes, hilarity; you will find it in the sources), with which the Puritans lived stemmed directly, I believe, from the unflinching, matter-of-fact realism with which they prepared themselves for death, so as always to be found, as it were, packed up and ready to go (emphasis added). Reckoning with death brought appreciation of each day’s continued life, and the knowledge that God would eventually decide, without consulting them, when their work on earth was done brought energy for the work itself while they were still being given time to get on with it (pg 14).
You really have a comprehension problem. Saint Jerome is saying that the texts of the Bible can be hard to understand, but they are not in error, it is just those in our times may have a hard time understanding what the “sacred writer” meant given the sacred writer when they wrote were writing in a particular time and place and thus a particular culture. What Jerome is talking about with reference to the “sacred writers” are those who wrote the books of the Bible.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08341a.htm
You need to read the sentences just before the one you pulled out of context of the entire paragraph for which it is part of. Not an intellectually honest way to go about attacking Saint Jerome’s character and integrity.
Of course after the Blacks and Jews, Catholics were next on the hit list. You can say 1A, 1B, and 1C.
tsk tsk
So say you Mormons.
And at the same time the priest was killed (no verification huh?) other priests were having homosexual sex with male children.
I'm trying to make my reply more outrageous than yours, but am failing.
So it wasn't created just to persecute Catholics huh? Good to see you apparently walking back your previous statements.
Jehovah's witnesses and Mormons and many others, like the KKK, claim to be Christian. It seems to help your agenda to accept the lies refuted by history.
No kidding! And this.
"There are many subtleties and even contradictions in the explanations Jerome offers,"
And this is the best they've got? And "the difficulties in scripture"? Difficulties when trying to fit a preconceived belief. What a fake! I couldn't imagine putting faith in that charlatan.
Syncro:
I am not Mormon or JW and for the record, it was American Protestantism that they sprung from as well. That to is a fact
Here is the case I was referring to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Coyle
Here is a recent story from a Alabama newspaper about it that mentions his story being told by Irish Public TV.
http://blog.al.com/living-news/2010/04/birmingham_priests_1921_slayin.html
The other stuff you posted is a red herring.
And I am not a “FR prot” which you broadbrushed me with.
You may not be a Mormon, but the tactics they use seem to be prevalent in your posts.
Rewriting or ignoring history, blaming stuff on Christians because they are not followers of your denomination.
Mormons find Catholics easy pickings for their cult.
Oh btw, Catholics were the first protestants as they had to have a pope and non Biblical practices so they split from the Orthodox in protest.
Back in the day, Cerularius denied the validity of the “Holy” Eucharist so pope Leo the 9th called him names and went off in a huff.
You FR original prots are amusing.
Syncro:
The tactics I use have nothing to do with Mormons. The tactics of most of the FR Prots here reflect a pack of wolf mentality. It is very seldom a discussion with one or two people can stay as such as eventually one of the FR Prots will ping a litany and all of a sudden you have a pack mentality.
Most of these FR Prots will not tell you what church they go to because in the end, one will find that most of them belong to unaffiliated rural protest sects with bubba smith jones as pastor and his wife Sister Ethel. And the sum of their theology if what Pastor Bubba Bob Jones and SIster Ethel say complimented by their own reading of scripture. The Mormons and JW you cite again were from American Protestantism and come out of a sola scriptura framework where each read the bible for their own and came to theology of their own.
My Catholic faith is my own but it is the faith of those that came well before. The Nicene and Apostles Creed are what I confess because it was what 4th century Catholics confessed, of which Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine where part of, and in the case of the Apostles Creed, it in fact can be traced to around 200AD as the Baptismal Creed of the Church of Rome, per Saint Hippolytus of Rome’s writings.
The Orthodox and Catholics are not protestants, they are at best in a schism.
As for who Mormons find easy picking for their faith, first off, there are over 1 Billion Catholics so in % terms, they may get not even 1% of Catholics to join their crazy sect.
And I did not blame the KKK on every Protestant, I said it came out of certain segments of American Protestantism and I said it is possible, maybe probable, that there some o those types here on FR. That is just conjecture and I made no claims that it was a statement of fact. However, it is an historical fact that the KKK came out of American Protestantism. Furthermore, Mormonism and the JW are creations of American religious Capitalism and those 2 are products of American Protestantism.
The only forms of Protestantism that have any connection to historic Roman-Latin Christianity are the ones from Western Europe, that would be the Anglican-Church of England, the Lutherans from Germany and the Reformed-Presbyterian tradition. Indirectly, the Methodist and Baptist are connected as both of those are evangelical-puritan offshoots from the Church of England, for the most part.
: > )
We can discuss the Inquisition......
Otherwise, do yourself a favor and lose the martyr complex.
Catholics trying to portray themselves as victims just doesn’t have much credibility.
Well, Protestantism sprang from Catholicsm, therefore, Catholicism, by your logic, is the source of Mormonism, JWism, and all manner of cults, thereby invalidating Catholisim since IT is the source of those cults.
And Protestantism sprang from the Orthodox not accepting some of un-Biblical practices of what we now know as Catholicism, so the Catholics “protested” and the two became separate factions.
So that makes Catholics the first “Protestants.”
Yes, the Orthodox say that they were the oriiginal Catholics and that the Roman rite is thenes who went off.
If you wish to disagree with my statements please do so on the thread.
I will be glad to answer your disagreement right here in front of God and everybody.
"Correcting" a poster via FR mail is quite backhanded and should be exposed to the light of the Holy Spirit.
Patiently awaiting your response and opinion here on the thread.
The Mormon church, LDS, today is the Mormon version of "protestant."
Same here with the Catholics and their protestations against the Orthodox, who would not follow their pope or believe in Jesus being in a piece of bread to be worshiped (veneration rooms) and other extra Biblical beliefs of Roman Catholics.
Quite a bit later came the Protestant "movement" when eventually Christians Born Again Believers broke with Catholicism also so they could follow Jesus with the leading of the Holy Spirit instead of men's traditions--see Church Fathers, highly respected, quoted continuously and followed by those who follow the denomination/belief system of Catholicism.
that happened in Europe over 500 years ago, the KKK killing a Catholic Priest was in 20th Century USA.
And we can Discussion the Inquisition, because it happened in the context of the Spanish reconquest of their Country from the Muslims and was directed at “Catholics suspected of heresy, including the so-called Conversos, Jews who had converted to Christianity, but some, not all were still Jewish and had conspired with the Muslims”, not non-Catholics in Spain, which at the time was only Muslims and Jews.
I predict, your knowledge of the Inquisition is based on what you learned from Monty Python.
metom:
No, not really. I clearly said in a post that European Protestantism, the 3 Classic branches 1)Anglican-Church of England, 2) Lutheran, 3) Reformed, retained much of historic Christianity. All retained the Historic Creeds of the early Church, all retained some form of Liturgical worship, all retained some theology of sacraments, etc.
In the USA, with its “free market system of Religion”, forms of Protestantism emerged in that would not resemble at all historic orthodox Christian Doctrine and it is from those groups that broke from the 3 branches of European Protestantism, formed here in the USA, from which the Mormons and JWs, various stripes of Pentecostalism, prosperty movement, health and welfare name it and claim it, etc all came from.
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