Posted on 07/04/2015 12:23:13 PM PDT by Morgana
This is a tough Vortex to speak. I’m as patriotic as the next guy. I remember being a young lad of 15 as my country celebrated its bicentennial back in 1976.
I watched TV that day from six in the morning until well past midnight as the non-stop, commercial-free, wall-to-wall coverage on the giant national birthday party was broadcast from sea to shining sea.
I watched the tall ships sail into New York harbor, saw the explosive fireworks show over D.C. I listened and sang my lungs out with a lump in my throat as Arthur Fielder conducted the Boston Pops on the Esplanade playing one stirring American hymn after another. I watched Walter Cronkite move effortlessly from one sprawling scene of Americana to another. There was no other place I would have rather been on that glorious Fourth of July all those years ago.
But that is all gone now.
What I did not know in my innocent youthful naïveté was the seeds for America’s self-destruction had been in place from the beginning. See, America at her core has always been at war with the Catholic Church.
Few know that it was illegal to be Catholic in 10 of the original 13 colonies. Even after the War of Independence, hostility to Catholicism remained intense. But more importantly, it is the philosophical underpinnings of America that are the very heart of the problem.
America was born from the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Those philosophers were driven by their hatred of scholastic philosophy — the mind of Aquinas, you might say. Aquinas expounded a philosophy as solid as rock: that God is the center of the Universe and man is bound to certain codes and creeds in face of that reality.
In order to break away from those codes and creeds, Enlightenment philosophers set out to change the perception of reality. What sprang up in place of Aquinas and the Catholic Church was a new system of thought: that MAN was the center of the universe — or at least the functional center.
Sure there may have been a God of Nature, but that God had little to do in reality with man’s day-to-day life. So man was free to set course to develop his own religions, moral codes, even separate truths, when the time was right to pull that trigger. All of this social philosophy came to a legal, formal construct in the birth of the American nation.
As an aside, a few years later, this same philosophy would be responsible for the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror where thousands and thousands of Catholics were beheaded.
Here in America, a new nation emerged from the Age of Enlightenment, and although it was decidedly divorced from the past politically, it still took a couple of centuries to shake off the morality it had learned from the Catholic Church. The PEOPLE were now the arbiters of truth. No longer crushed underfoot by kings and monarchs, power would be derived from the consent of the governed.
And THERE is the problem, the decidedly anti-Catholic proposition. What happens when the consent of the governed now agrees with contraception, abortion and sodomy? What happens when the majority of the governed accept no-fault divorce, cohabitation, pornography, single parenthood, explicit sex education in schools and a host of other evils?
In America, these are all allowed because the majority of the governed accept them — and that places faithful Catholics on the outside looking in. America says man gets to decide. The Church says God gets to decide. Those two principles cannot co-exist. Either America will be converted by the Church, or the Church will be converted by America. We know how that turned out.
Too many Americans who are also Catholic have twisted themselves into theological pretzels to insist a person can be a good Catholic while also being a good American. As long as America remained essentially Catholic in its morality, that tightrope could be walked, however gingerly.
But once Protestant-majority America — with all the diversity that description contains — realized it was living Catholic morality, without adhering to the underlying Catholic theology, it threw off the morality and turned secular. Catholic Americans took more pride in their country than they did their Church, always struggling for a place at the table, always ready to compromise or accommodate their Protestant neighbors.
Even John F. Kennedy in 1960 was willing to sell out his faith in front of an audience of protestant preachers to be accepted and win the White House. He learned that groveling act from a succession of bishops in the American hierarchy stretching back more than a couple hundred years, and who the present crop for the most part continues in that sad tradition.
The silly appeals to so-called religious liberty will fall flat. What Catholics in America have not understood is that the will of the governed could be turned on them at any point — and now has.
This is one of the topics Church Militant was able to discuss with Bp. Athanasius Schneider when we were in Rome recently when he sat down with us and granted us an exclusive far-reaching interview.
We’ll be presenting that to you soon, so look for it.
Why not? Do you?
LOL, looks like the south end of a.....oh, never mind.
Why...
Last night; NBC had a big party on TV.
Before the fireworks we got treated to a bunch of songs about gettin' it on with your significant other all night long.
I commented to the wife,"Didn't they used to have Patriotic songs??"
I then went outside to tend to the animals.
When I finally came back in; the sky over the river was afire and the 'right' songs WERE being played!
And the Pope expresses it quite eloquently.
Don't know much about history...
Your ancestors, unless they were Muslims or Buddists, were JEWISH, so yes Catholics got their faith from the JEWISH carpenter. Middle of story.
While rabid in support of your church; you somehow FAIL to have knowledge of how the MISSIONS out West treated the natives that were there; LONG before the Spanish Catholics arrived.
How many 'protties' were there on Christopher Columbus' ships?
The Catholics all need to start reading the CCC and ACTING upon what it says!
Still pushing this Roman falsehood?
As regards the oft-quoted Mt. 16:18
• Augustine, sermon:
"Christ, you see, built his Church not on a man but on Peter's confession. What is Peter's confession? 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' There's the rock for you, there's the foundation, there's where the Church has been built, which the gates of the underworld cannot conquer. — John Rotelle, O.S.A., Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine , © 1993 New City Press, Sermons, Vol III/6, Sermon 229P.1, p. 327
Upon this rock, said the Lord, I will build my Church. Upon this confession, upon this that you said, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,' I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not conquer her (Mt. 16:18). — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 236A.3, p. 48.
• Augustine, sermon:
For petra (rock) is not derived from Peter, but Peter from petra; just as Christ is not called so from the Christian, but the Christian from Christ. For on this very account the Lord said, 'On this rock will I build my Church,' because Peter had said, 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.' On this rock, therefore, He said, which thou hast confessed, I will build my Church. For the Rock (Petra) was Christ; and on this foundation was Peter himself built. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. The Church, therefore, which is founded in Christ received from Him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in the person of Peter, that is to say, the power of binding and loosing sins. For what the Church is essentially in Christ, such representatively is Peter in the rock (petra); and in this representation Christ is to be understood as the Rock, Peter as the Church. — Augustine Tractate CXXIV; Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: First Series, Volume VII Tractate CXXIV (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf107.iii.cxxv.html)
• Augustine, sermon:
And Peter, one speaking for the rest of them, one for all, said, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt 16:15-16)...And I tell you: you are Peter; because I am the rock, you are Rocky, Peter-I mean, rock doesn't come from Rocky, but Rocky from rock, just as Christ doesn't come from Christian, but Christian from Christ; and upon this rock I will build my Church (Mt 16:17-18); not upon Peter, or Rocky, which is what you are, but upon the rock which you have confessed. I will build my Church though; I will build you, because in this answer of yours you represent the Church. — John Rotelle, O.S.A. Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1993), Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 270.2, p. 289
• Augustine, sermon:
Peter had already said to him, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' He had already heard, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona, because flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not conquer her' (Mt 16:16-18)...Christ himself was the rock, while Peter, Rocky, was only named from the rock. That's why the rock rose again, to make Peter solid and strong; because Peter would have perished, if the rock hadn't lived. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City, 1993) Sermons, Volume III/7, Sermon 244.1, p. 95
• Augustine, sermon:
...because on this rock, he said, I will build my Church, and the gates of the underworld shall not overcome it (Mt. 16:18). Now the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4). Was it Paul that was crucified for you? Hold on to these texts, love these texts, repeat them in a fraternal and peaceful manner. — John Rotelle, Ed., The Works of Saint Augustine (New Rochelle: New City Press, 1995), Sermons, Volume III/10, Sermon 358.5, p. 193
• Augustine, Psalm LXI:
Let us call to mind the Gospel: 'Upon this Rock I will build My Church.' Therefore She crieth from the ends of the earth, whom He hath willed to build upon a Rock. But in order that the Church might be builded upon the Rock, who was made the Rock? Hear Paul saying: 'But the Rock was Christ.' On Him therefore builded we have been. — Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Volume VIII, Saint Augustin, Exposition on the Book of Psalms, Psalm LXI.3, p. 249. (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf108.ii.LXI.html)
• Augustine, in “Retractions,”
In a passage in this book, I said about the Apostle Peter: 'On him as on a rock the Church was built.'...But I know that very frequently at a later time, I so explained what the Lord said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' that it be understood as built upon Him whom Peter confessed saying: 'Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,' and so Peter, called after this rock, represented the person of the Church which is built upon this rock, and has received 'the keys of the kingdom of heaven.' For, 'Thou art Peter' and not 'Thou art the rock' was said to him. But 'the rock was Christ,' in confessing whom, as also the whole Church confesses, Simon was called Peter. But let the reader decide which of these two opinions is the more probable. — The Fathers of the Church (Washington D.C., Catholic University, 1968), Saint Augustine, The Retractations Chapter 20.1:.
Anything to do with the world, the flesh, and the devil is left behind and the poor saps still here are welcome to it all.
The Catholics all need to start reading the CCC and ACTING upon what it says!
Since the Roman Catholics are Monarchists I can see the conflict.
If the question burbles up in your mind, 'so what is the will of God that Jesus came to do? Well, Jesus anticipated that one, too, and answered in several places:
John 3:13 No one has ascended into heaven, but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.Jon 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God didn't send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him. He who believes in him is not judged. He who doesn't believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.
1 Corinthians 14:25 And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.
Romans 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
1 Corinthians 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
1 Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
1 John 4:4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
The Gospel of God's Grace in Christ Jesus for you and me is this, That God sent His Son to be with us (Emmanuel), so that any who believe on Him will be immediately born from above, have everlasting life, thus have God's Life in them, raising them up in the Way that they should go as a family member of Jesus The Christ, for Jesus is building His Church, the Spiritual Church having members who are the temples of the Living God in them, fashioned as The Bride of Christ and therefore the Body of Christ. And with that, read I Thess 4:13-18 to see what Jesus will soon be doing for/with His Bride.
Many are called but few are chosen. Faithful is He that calleth you for He will also do it. ... Of the many called, why are so few chosen? ... Because so few will let Him do it int hem and believe they must follow a salvation trail of striving to obtain salvation, the very thing God Promises to give you the moment you believe on Him Whom God has sent for your salvation. As Moses lifted up the brass serpent int he wilderness, so also the Son of Man must be lifted up, that all who look to Him shall have Life everlasting, then , right then, and be born from above.
Did you know that the explanation for that scene in the wilderness where Moses made a brass serpent and placed it upon a high pole, so those who looked to it were healed of the poisonous serpent bites is not explained anywhere in the Old Testament. It was kept for explanation until Jesus spoke with Nicodemus telling Him a man must be Born from above, by FAITH, not by works and not in idol worship, by FAITH.
The Israelites were so into literal empowerment (like catholics, who are taught that they must eat the flesh, blood, soul and divinity of Christ to get God's Life inthem), a few generations into the Promised land and they were making for themselves brass serpent statues and worshiping them thinking that gave them power over the world, the flesh and the devil.
Yes, what was a sacred ritual for healing became an object for idol worship, because the heart of man is desperately wicked and will so easily be convinced that his work will make him good enough to meet a level of God's righteousness.
So trusting in the flesh rather than Faithing in God's Promises is the great weakness in humans that satan exploits in all generations.
Catholicism is not false. It was founded by Jesus Christ on the apostles.
There was no other religion until Luther did his thing. Only Catholicism.
Luther and all that follow are the false religions.
LOL, that is just your opinion. I don't agree with your interpretation. Sorry if that bothers you, but I can assure you, that disagreement will last forever. Have a nice eternity. I plan to.
“I can’t live with a works based plan of salvation”.
Brother Jimmy Swaggart needs you. Put your faith in Jimmy. Instead of helping others by going to prisons, rest homes, or putting others before yourself, send Jimmy some more money and watch his TV show to find out how Christians make it to heaven.
“Luther and all that follow are the false religions”.
Protestantism, teaching error for over 550 years.
You are correct sir. They can have all of it. The tribulation is going to be a bit of a hassle, wouldn't you say? My suspicion is, that the people alive at that time, are going to realize that the world as they know it, is about to end, and most of them are not ready for eternity. Not a good thing, but you are right. The poor saps left behind are welcome to all my worldly possessions. During the great tribulation, however, I am not sure how much good my IPhone 6 and my Mac Book Pro are going to be to them. 😂
Men twisted, at the inveigling of the evil one, the truth of Christianity into the dogmas of caatholicism long before Luther showed up. Your blasphemous the real Christ in the wafer on the catholic altar arose centuries before Luther awoke to the heresies taught by caatholicism. The worship of the Mother of Jesus as an assistant to help Jesus accomplish His Priestly duties arose to full heresy after that, however.
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