Posted on 06/16/2016 9:22:17 PM PDT by ebb tide
Pope Francis, spiritual leader of a billion people, has just informed them that ‘the great majority’ of sacramental marriages are invalid because couples don’t go into them with the right intentions. He was speaking at a press conference in Rome. Here’s the context, from the Catholic News Agency (my emphases):
‘I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said “I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years”. It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life,’ he said.
‘It’s provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say “yes, for the rest of my life!” but they don’t know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know.’
Uh? You can read the full report here but you won’t be much the wiser. The Pope, thinking aloud in the manner of some maverick parish priest after a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, has just told millions of his flock that they are not really married.
Did he mean to say that? What does he really think? What authority do his words carry?
And why should Catholics even have to ask these questions? Francis’s off-the-cuff ramblings on matters of extreme pastoral sensitivity are wreaking havoc in the Catholic Church, as I’ve written here.
Ross Douthat of the New York Times has just tweeted this response:
Screen Shot 2016-06-16 at 23.54.41
I suspect that even the Pope’s most liberal admirers will have difficulty extricating him from this mess.
The ONE WHO was implanted/conceived in Mary is Jesus, by the authority of the Scriptures we may make that assertion. We cannot make an inference that GOD used Mary's chromosomes to create the body for Jesus. God did not give us the specifics to that level of certainty.
No one on this thread has asserted that Mary is not really the Mother of Jesus. But that was another nice try to misstate the issue. Typical of catholic apologetics.
Now, show us where Christ said one has to be a member of the roman catholic church.
I never said Christ had said, "one has to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church". I said, "His Church". And His Church was founded upon His rock, Peter. And it just happens that One, True, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church happens to be the Catholic Church.
Hate to break the news to you, but Jesus Christ did not establish multiple "churches".
But that sounds like you are denying Jesus Christ is God. Is that true?
According to augistine,
His Church (really His Ekklesia/His body of believers) was founded upon Peter’s profession, not the man Peter. I’m happy to break the news to you, there are no denominations in the Body of Believers in Jesus as Savior, so Catholics and Methodists and Baptist and even some Episcopalians and Lutherans and Presbyterians will be counted in His Ekklesia. Even you could get into that Ekklesia by doing what JESUS told Nicodemus must be done (John 3, and affirmed by John The Baptist in John 3:36). Pay close attention to that proclamation by John the Baptist. Your eternity depends upon it, not your religious org.
[31] Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. [32] He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. [33] And of his kingdom there shall be no end. Luke Chapter 1 [emphasis mine].
One does not have to join the rcc to have salvation.
When one follows Christ one is a member of His church....that is the ekklesia.
The church was founded upon Peter's confession, "You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God." This belief in Christ is what gets you into the church. Peter later affirmed this in John 6:68-69:
Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. 69“We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”
In both instances Peter is expressing belief/faith in Christ as Christ noted in John 5:24
24“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
It's the message of faith Peter and the apostles later preached in Acts. It's the message of faith Paul wrote about in his letters.
I agree....Christ established one church. Those who believe in Him are in His church as based on the Word.
She is never “Mother of God” in Scripture. It goes beyond the text.
And thanks for this opportunity to explain why Jesus can be God and still occupy flesh ...
It has to do with dimensional limits, our dimensional limits. Jesus explained it to the disciples int he Upper Room Discourse the nioght He was betrayed. When Philip asked Jesus to just show them the Father Almighty, Jesus told him, all he could see of the Father was where GOD intersected Philip'sd sensing limits, for The Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father. All we could see of the Father is where the Father is, and that is Jesus in our limits. He will be retunring one moment, to claim those who believe in Him. And 1 John 3 tells us that when He appears we shall see Him as He really is now, resurrected, glorified, for we shall be like Him then. The rest of the world will nto be able to see Him in that moment because thyey will not have been transformed to be like Him as He is now. However, when we and He return at the end of the Great Tribulation, all alive will see Him and lament.
Now that's almost comical coming from catholicism.
btw....what's a prot? never seen one before.
Peter died, crucified upside down, defending that very profession as did many of many of his martyred successors.
St. Thomas:
Article 1. Whether sacraments are necessary for man’s salvation?
Objection 1. It seems that sacraments are not necessary for man’s salvation. For the Apostle says (1 Timothy 4:8): “Bodily exercise is profitable to little.” But the use of sacraments pertains to bodily exercise; because sacraments are perfected in the signification of sensible things and words, as stated above (Question 60, Article 6). Therefore sacraments are not necessary for the salvation of man.
Objection 2. Further, the Apostle was told (2 Corinthians 12:9): “My grace is sufficient for thee.” But it would not suffice if sacraments were necessary for salvation. Therefore sacraments are not necessary for man’s salvation.
Objection 3. Further, given a sufficient cause, nothing more seems to be required for the effect. But Christ’s Passion is the sufficient cause of our salvation; for the Apostle says (Romans 5:10): “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son: much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life.” Therefore sacraments are not necessary for man’s salvation.
On the contrary, Augustine says (Contra Faust. xix): “It is impossible to keep men together in one religious denomination, whether true or false, except they be united by means of visible signs or sacraments.” But it is necessary for salvation that men be united together in the name of the one true religion. Therefore sacraments are necessary for man’s salvation.
I answer that, Sacraments are necessary unto man’s salvation for three reasons. The first is taken from the condition of human nature which is such that it has to be led by things corporeal and sensible to things spiritual and intelligible. Now it belongs to Divine providence to provide for each one according as its condition requires. Divine wisdom, therefore, fittingly provides man with means of salvation, in the shape of corporeal and sensible signs that are called sacraments.
The second reason is taken from the state of man who in sinning subjected himself by his affections to corporeal things. Now the healing remedy should be given to a man so as to reach the part affected by disease. Consequently it was fitting that God should provide man with a spiritual medicine by means of certain corporeal signs; for if man were offered spiritual things without a veil, his mind being taken up with the material world would be unable to apply itself to them.
The third reason is taken from the fact that man is prone to direct his activity chiefly towards material things. Lest, therefore, it should be too hard for man to be drawn away entirely from bodily actions, bodily exercise was offered to him in the sacraments, by which he might be trained to avoid superstitious practices, consisting in the worship of demons, and all manner of harmful action, consisting in sinful deeds.
It follows, therefore, that through the institution of the sacraments man, consistently with his nature, is instructed through sensible things; he is humbled, through confessing that he is subject to corporeal things, seeing that he receives assistance through them: and he is even preserved from bodily hurt, by the healthy exercise of the sacraments.
Reply to Objection 1. Bodily exercise, as such, is not very profitable: but exercise taken in the use of the sacraments is not merely bodily, but to a certain extent spiritual, viz. in its signification and in its causality.
Reply to Objection 2. God’s grace is a sufficient cause of man’s salvation. But God gives grace to man in a way which is suitable to him. Hence it is that man needs the sacraments that he may obtain grace.
Reply to Objection 3. Christ’s Passion is a sufficient cause of man’s salvation. But it does not follow that the sacraments are not also necessary for that purpose: because they obtain their effect through the power of Christ’s Passion; and Christ’s Passion is, so to say, applied to man through the sacraments according to the Apostle (Romans 6:3): “All we who are baptized in Christ Jesus, are baptized in His death.”
If Mary had taken a vow of celibacy, she wouldn't have gotten married to Joseph in the first place.
And it she needed to be supported, then her family could have done it without entering into a fraudulent marriage.
After all, if it were a common, ordinary marriage, it would have been a violation of fidelity on her part to have a baby by somebody else.
Except that she never had sex with the Holy Spirit. She never entered into a physical one flesh union with Him, so that whole argument does not stand.
All of what you stated is simply speculation and rationalizations to force Scripture to fit Catholic teaching and belief.
The Holy Spirit identifies her as *Mother of Jesus*.
Why is that not good enough for Catholic that they feel the need to *improve* on it.
They aren’t making it clearer. They are only confusing the issue more.
Conceive is to implant in the body of the one who will give life support to the new life in her body. If conception was at union of oocyte and spermatozoon then more than one individual could be in the pregnancy, so conception of the One is when He implanted in Mary's womb.
Where GOD took the gametes or created the body using only His Will, you and I cannot know at this stage in History.
Did you see the passage from Matthew quoted in English and in the Greek from the Berean Bible?
Well done.....
Wrong.
The identifying title *mother of Jesus* is about who MARY is, not about who Jesus is because *mother of GOD* does not even mention Jesus. That has to be explained.
And if it has to be explained, then it's not accurate or reasonable.
Mother of Jesus is clear and accurate enough.
If someone needs to be corrected about who Jesus is, go to SCRIPTURE, where it's perfectly clear.
Don't cloud the issue and make room for more error by making things more vague.
Mary was (and still is) a virgin and engaged before the Annunciation.
[27] To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin' s name was Mary. [28] And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
You guys really cherry-pick your multiple bibles, don't you?
You’re adrift again, chasing a whisp that has run through your mind, diverting your concentration from the issue at hand. Elsie calls those ‘tar babies’ ...
No, he did not *establish* any church. He's building His body.
Besides, Scripture names many churches in it. The churches at Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, the seven churches listed in Revelation 2-3.
For that matter, if someone is going to claim to be the OTC, Paul tells us in Scripture to the Corinthians that
1 Corinthians 12:27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
So the honor of being the one true church would belong to the Corinthian church, not the Roman one.
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