FROM THE PASTOR

Church of St. Michael, NYC ^ | April 19, 2015 | by Fr. George W. Rutler

[9thLife]

Even in this Easter season, there are those who would nervously employ the secular convention of saying that they want Christ but not his Church, and that they can confess their sins to God without confessing to a priest. This ignores what Jesus did when he rose from the dead: he constructed the Church through his teaching during the forty days before the Ascension, and the first thing he did when he appeared to the apostles was to give them authority to forgive sins in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Saint John wrote that not all the books in the world could contain what Christ did in those forty days, but the Gospel accounts tell all that he wants us to know. The power of what he taught the apostles in that brief time, with the wounds still in his body, is clear in the fact that all of them, save John himself, died brave deaths proclaiming the Resurrection.

Such dying, predicted by Christ, has perdured through all subsequent ages in one way or another. Last week, Pope Francis marked the one hundredth anniversary of the massacre of about 1.5 million Armenian Christians by the Turks, abetted by Imperial German staff officers serving with the Ottoman Empire. The Pope said that “it is necessary, and indeed a duty” to “recall the centenary of that tragic event . . . Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it.” The greatest number of killings occurred on appalling death marches of hundreds of miles where the Turks drove women, children and old people (most of the young men had already been massacred) into the Syrian desert. There was no food or water given to the victims along the way—and this was done by design.

Saint Paul, converted by the risen Christ, had evangelized his Turkish homeland. Despite centuries of persecution by Muslims, in 1914 some 15% of the Turkish population was Christian. Today the Christian community is practically non-existent. Persisting in its denial of the persecution, the Turkish government condemned the honesty of Pope Francis by withdrawing its ambassador to the Holy See. That exercise in denial was not singular. In 2010, a declaration was introduced in the House of Representatives calling the systematic eradication of the Armenians a genocide. The Obama administration blocked it.

The mentality that denies the Resurrection, also denies the consequences of such denial. The Resurrection is not about spring flowers and butterflies, and Jesus made that clear by retaining the wounds in his glorified body. Christ triumphed over Satan, and to deny that is to give Satan a leg up in the governance of nations and the attitudes of people. The dominant religion of Turkey maintains that Jesus was not crucified. If not crucified, then not risen. And if not risen, then mankind has license to sink to its lowest depths by crushing life and spreading death.

[NKP_Vet]

If not for the Catholic CHurch you would still be praying to the sun gods.

[NKP_Vet]

Father Rutler has forgotten more about scripture than you will ever learn.

[NKP_Vet]

The Bible didn’t fall out of the sky. Do yourself a favor and go to any library in the world and read some Christianity 100. If you have to put down the Catholic Church and her’s teachings 24/7 will you please quit reading the Bible, which is a very Catholic document. Not the first protestant had the first thing to do with the Bible. That’s so hard for some on here to come to grips with. Not hard for anyone that does not a closed mind though. And that is the crux of the problem.

[daniel1212]

The Bible didn’t fall out of the sky. Do yourself a favor and go to any library in the world and read some Christianity 100. If you have to put down the Catholic Church and her’s teachings 24/7 will you please quit reading the Bible, which is a very Catholic document. Not the first protestant had the first thing to do with the Bible.

More mere meaningless assertions, which vain soliloquy is to be ignored until you answer the necessary questions i asked you.

[daniel1212]

Father Rutler has forgotten more about scripture than you will ever learn.

Another desperate assertion in lieu of an argument. Prove it.

[Elsie]

Father Rutler has forgotten more about scripture than you will ever learn.

You know this HOW?

[Elsie]

Do yourself a favor and go to any library in the world and read some Christianity 100.

Oh; but I just LOVE your bible!

Too bad you guys put it together so early though.

If you'd managed to put in your TRADITIONS when you had the chance; there'd be none of us 'discussing' these things on FR today.

[caww]

...." If not for the Catholic CHurch you would still be praying to the sun gods"....

The evidence shows otherwise...

Least you forget....Roman Catholic canon Law #14 (of the thirteenth century in France)..... "Lay members are not allowed to possess the books of the Old or the New Testaments."

The golden door in the chapel of St. Ignatius in San Francisco, uses several symbols identifying the wafer god. The Unicorn, Peacock, and Phoenix are all well known symbols in the occult for 'the sun', Lucifer, or Satan.

Assyrian- style relief of King BarRaqqah from Syria, 8th century, B.C… This solar deity is Baal Hadad.... As you can see the sun is entering the moon (womb). This is a symbol of Horus(Nimrod) or Osiris being reborn. The wafer or sun is placed into the catholic monstrance.

Symbol of the pagan sun-god Shamash; a pagan sun wheel in the temple at Kararak India, which is associated with occultism and astrology;.... plaza at the Vatican, also known as St. Peter’s square.

[CynicalBear]

Ironic that a Catholic would try to excoriate someone about the “sun god” when Catholicism is replete with images, icons, and references to it.

[caww]

It's pretty astounding the depth of denial for the obvious, but then blindness does create false perceptions. How could they possibly see "truth" when they are so determined to find excuses for the obvious.

As long as they contend that the church is authority for the Word and not the Word for the church they will stumble over the truth.....and in many cases deny it.... all the pageantry and display and pomp of the Roman Catholic Church as is evidenced in her ornately decorated altars, the flowing robes and richly embellished garments of her priests... all of this simply reveals but 'relics of pagan Rome' and evidences the origin of 'papal Rome'..... yet the uninformed are taken in by such stuff, thinking that it is the mark of the true religion.

How unlike the Christ who, 'in the midst of Roman pageantry', was born in a stable and placed in a manger and who, some two years before his death, said,.. "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."........ And how unlike Peter who said,.... "Silver and gold have I none" ....

If the Vatican sold just the jewels and pomp they dressed all the corpses with they could feed a nation in squalor!