Posted on 08/20/2016 7:45:03 AM PDT by Salvation
Msgr. Charles Pope Catholic, August 28, 2016
Question: How will God judge non-Catholics at the time of their death? — William Bandle, Manchester, Missouri
Answer: Scripture says, “God does not see as a mortal ... The Lord looks into the heart” (1 Sam 16:7). Thus, God, who knows our hearts, will judge us based on what is there. Not all have had the same opportunity to come to know the Lord, his Church and the help of the sacraments. God is just; he knows this and will judge accordingly.
Jesus says, “That servant who knew his master’s will but did not make preparations or act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating, shall be beaten only lightly” (Lk 12:47-48).
In terms of non-Catholics who lacked some knowledge or sacraments of the Church, God will look into their hearts and judge them based on what they reasonably could have known and their actions based on that.
Therefore, to say that God looks into the heart does not mean that he merely looks to a person’s feelings or disposition. Rather, as Scripture says, we will be judged by our deeds (see Rom 2:6-11). Did our actions correspond to what we knew was expected of us or not?
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Thus, the degree of a person’s knowledge of God’s will and his obedience to that knowledge in deeds will be key on the Day of Judgment. This does not mean all non-Catholics and other nonbelievers simply get a pass. Their ignorance of full Catholic teaching must be what is called “invincible ignorance,” meaning a lack of knowledge that they could not reasonably overcome. Thus, if one is lazy or makes excuses when seeking the truth, God will take it into account.
Since the Lord alone sees into our heart, he alone will be our just judge.
The doctrine of the Real Presence is necessarily contained in the doctrine of transubstantiation, but the doctrine of transubstantiation is not necessarily contained in the Real Presence. Christ could become really present without transubstantiation taking place, but we know that this is not what happened because of Christ’s own words at the Last Supper. He did not say, “This bread is my body,” but simply, “This is my body.” Those words indicated a complete change of the entire substance of bread into the entire substance of Christ. The word “this” indicated the whole of what Christ held in his hand. His words were so phrased as to indicate that the subject of the sentence, “this,” and the predicate, “my body,” are identical. As soon as the sentence was complete, the substance of the bread was no longer present. Christ’s body was present under the outward appearances of bread. The words of institution at the Last Supper were at the same time the words of transubstantiation. If Christ had wished the bread to be a kind of sacramental receptacle of his body, he would surely have used other words, for example, “This bread is my body” or “This contains my body.”
Please!!!! Read Cardinal Newman on development of doctrine. It develops not changes. Look at the difference. You just want to argue.
P.S. compare Trent and JP catechisms and THINK about development.
I actually think you are the one that keeps wanting to argue simply because it appears you can't accept the fact that people leave Catholicism fully aware of what it teaches and the history it proposes it has come from. I find it quite telling, and sad, how many Catholics on this forum refuse to believe someone can be a completely committed and strong Christian and have the assurance of salvation that comes from that and NOT be a Roman Catholic.
There have been a few that have come right out and stated that former Catholics WILL NOT be saved no matter how much they love and follow Jesus Christ as long as they resist going back to the Catholic church. An atheist is given a better chance at salvation than an ex-catholic - imagine that! Shouldn't it be a goal of ALL Christians to lead people to faith in Jesus Christ rather than trying to get them to join a church? Isn't it possible that Almighty God is able to draw all mankind to Him through Christ and that church fellowship comes AFTER that relationship is started?
If you notice on these kinds of threads it isn't the non-Catholic Christians who are trying to get people to leave their local church to join theirs. What gets disputed here is what is seen as false doctrine - what are called damnable heresies Peter's epistle warns about:
That's what we are trying to battle against, not just picking on Roman Catholics. That a few RCs like to keep the pot of dissension stirred up between them and non-Catholics is pretty blatant - it's been going on for years. A few, I think, abuse the privilege of posting threads on this website by using it as a stand-in for creating their OWN site and I don't see many of their names on the donor lists every quarter, either. Now, perhaps they imagine they are doing the Lord's work by promoting Catholicism, I don't know. But what I do know is there are a LOT of good strong Christians on this site who are not Catholic and are offended by some of the threads that deliberately provoke. One of the things the Lord says He hates is he that sows discord, spreads strife and stirs up conflict in the community. (Proverbs 6:19) If Catholics truly want to participate on OPEN Religion Forum threads then it comes with the territory that their views may be argued against and challenged. We are remanded by Peter:
It's something we should ALL strive for don't you think?
I agree that a person sincerely seeking truth can be saved. However, I usually find that those who leave or reject Catholisism are just mistaken about its teaching. Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
We did study Catholicism, all of us. We were all raised Catholics. We studied it very well. I don't know all the reasons my friends here ultimately rejected the RCC, but I suspect it was for similar reasons that I rejected it too.
For me, the RCC was its own worst enemy. The priests and nuns told me not to read or interpret the Bible for myself. Now, I am a cantankerous, rebellious, in your face kind of guy. When they told me that, what do you suppose was the first thing I did? Right, I started reading the Bible and interpreting it for myself. It wasn't long after that, I left permenantly, never to return. I discovered salvation is in a relationship, not in some church organization, no matter how much some may claim otherwise.
Frankly, I don't care much about all kinds of silly little arguments about different doctrines. I only care about one thing. Heaven or Hell, and how to go to the first, and avoid the second. Nothing else matters a hill of beans.
Now, I have complete assurance of salvation, that my name is written in the Lamb's book of life. If that makes me guilty of committing the sin of presumption, so be it. It's not going to change anytime soon.
But which begins the list of servants in contrast with the true blessed servant.
One will be beaten with many stripes (nothing is said about being assigned a portion with unbelievers). One will be beaten with few stripes (nothing is said about being assigned a portion with unbelievers).
But both of which also and only deals with the punishment of the unfaithful, and the only thing they receive is punishment, and nothing is said about being assigned a portion with believers, especially finally, and which is what you must show, for it is you who invoked this text as proof of purgatory! But which is not nowhere stated here nor inferred, but can only be read into the text.
I myself need not press a case as regards a proof of location for the latter two, though the degree of punishment is consistent with the class of unfaithful, who are not prepared/obeying the Lord and thus are lost, but it is you who must show that this refers to being in purgatory. And considering how often the Lord clearly speaks of those who are clearly believers being in Heaven, and likewise of the lost clearly being clearly in Hell, then you need more than ambitious texts about punishment for your tradition.
A believer is one who characteristically obeys the Lord (and repents when convicted of not doing do), and which the true servant did, while those in the second category did not. It remains that it is you who must show the opposite, that these unfaithful servants were believers, sent to purgatory to be punished for sins in order to enter Heaven. As said, just give it up.
That refers to those who are being taught, and which flock only the faithful servant clearly belongs to, and obviously does not mean that all the examples used in this teaching that follows were saved. Give it up.
And which sophist " Development of Doctrine" was the daughter of necessity in light of the increasing manifest contrast btwn historical reality and the wishful thinking that RC faith was the "faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all believed always by everyone, everywhere," as per the 5th-century exhortation by Vincent of Lérins in his Commonitory. Thus Newman was forced to admit,
It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius [what the Church taught was believed always by everyone], must be considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem. — John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., reprinted 1927), p. 27.
For in contrast to even RC papal propaganda, even Caths researchers, among others provide testimony against such, including Newman in explaining how the Peter of Scripture, the non-assertive, street-level initial leader among the 11, for whom no successors are promised, and to whom the NT church did not look to as the first of a line of exalted infallible heads reigning supreme in Rome, much less by RC voting, was become the Roman pope:
While Apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. . . . St. Peter’s prerogative would remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters became the cause of ascertaining it. . . . When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred… (John Henry Newman, Essay on the Development of Doctrine, Notre Dame edition, pp. 165-67).
Avery Dulles considers the development of the Papacy to be an historical accident:
“The strong centralization in modern Catholicism is due to historical accident. It has been shaped in part by the homogeneous culture of medieval Europe and by the dominance of Rome, with its rich heritage of classical culture and legal organization” (Models of the Church by Avery Dulles, p. 200)
Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4, finds:
“New Testament scholars agree..., The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative.
That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.”
If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no." (page 3, top)
Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), examines possible mentions of “succession” from the first three centuries, and concludes from that study that,
“the episcopate [development of bishops] is a the fruit of a post New Testament development,” “...the evidence both from the New Testament and from such writings as I Clement, the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians and The Shepherd of Hennas favors the view that initially the presbyters in each church, as a college, possessed all the powers needed for effective ministry. This would mean that the apostles handed on what was transmissible of their mandate as an undifferentiated whole, in which the powers that would eventually be seen as episcopal were not yet distinguished from the rest. Hence, the development of the episcopate would have meant the differentiation of ministerial powers that had previously existed in an undifferentiated state and the consequent reservation to the bishop of certain of the powers previously held collegially by the presbyters. — Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops , pp. 221,222,224
Paul Johnson, educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford, author of over 40 books and a conservative historian, finds,
The Church was now a great and numerous force in the empire, attracting men of wealth and high education, inevitably, then, there occurred a change of emphasis from purely practical development in response to need, to the deliberate thinking out of policy. This expressed itself in two ways: the attempt to turn Christianity into a philosophical and political system, and the development of controlling devices to prevent this intellectualization of the faith from destroying it....
Cyprian [c. 200 – September 14, 258] came from a wealthy family with a tradition of public service to the empire; within two years of his conversion he was made a bishop. He had to face the practical problems of persecution, survival and defence against attack. His solution was to gather together the developing threads of ecclesiastical order and authority and weave them into a tight system of absolute control...the confession of faith, even the Bible itself lost their meaning if used outside the Church...
With Bishop Cyprian, the analogy with secular government came to seem very close. But of course it lacked one element: the ‘emperor figure’ or supreme priest... [Peter, according to Cyprian, was] the beneficiary of the famous ‘rock and keys’ text in Matthew. There is no evidence that Rome exploited this text to assert its primacy before about 250 - and then...Paul was eliminated from any connection with the Rome episcopate and the office was firmly attached to Peter alone... ...There was in consequence a loss of spirituality or, as Paul would have put it, of freedom... -(A History of Christianity, by Paul Johnson, pp. 51 -61,63. transcribed using OCR software)
Eamon Duffy (Former president of Magdalene College and member of Pontifical Historical Commission, and current Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge) and provides more on the Roman church becoming more like the empire in which it was found as a result of state adoption of (an already deformed) Christianity:
The conversion of Constantine had propelled the Bishops of Rome into the heart of the Roman establishment...They [bishops of Rome] set about [creating a Christian Rome] by building churches, converting the modest tituli (community church centres) into something grander, and creating new and more public foundations, though to begin with nothing that rivaled the great basilicas at the Lateran and St. Peter’s...
These churches were a mark of the upbeat confidence of post-Constantinian Christianity in Rome. The popes were potentates, and began to behave like it. Damasus perfectly embodied this growing grandeur. An urbane career cleric like his predecessor Liberius, at home in the wealthy salons of the city, he was also a ruthless power-broker, and he did not he did not hesitate to mobilize both the city police and [a hired mob of gravediggers with pickaxes] to back up his rule…
Self-consciously, the popes began to model their actions and their style as Christian leaders on the procedures of the Roman state. — Eamon Duffy “Saints and Sinners”, p. 37,38
For the so-called successor to Peter, as Damasus 1 (366-384) began his reign by employing a gang of thugs in securing his chair, which carried out a three-day massacre of his rivals supporters. Yet true to form, Rome made him a "saint.
Damasus is much responsible for the further unscriptural development of the Roman primacy, frequently referring to Rome as ''the apostolic see'' and enjoying a His magnificent lifestyle and the favor of court and aristocracy, and leading to Theodosius 1 (379-95) declaring (February 27, 380) Christianity the state religion.
Moreover,
The Bishop of Rome assumed [circa sixth century] the position of Ponlifex Maximus, priest and temporal ruler in one, and the workings of this so-called spiritual kingdom, with bishops as senators, and priests as leaders of the army, followed on much the same lines as the empire. The analogy was more complete when monasteries were founded and provinces were won and governed by the Church. - Welbore St. Clair Baddeley, Lina Duff Gordon, “Rome and its story” p. 176
Eastern Orthodox scholarship (while maintaining her shared accretion of errors of "tradition" as the "one true church") also adds voice to this,
Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development. Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman)... "
All the stages are useful, all are resources; and the theologian may appeal to the Fathers, for example, but they may also be contradicted by something else, something higher or newer. On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. - http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html
Other unscriptural developments included religious syncretism, as Newman confessed:
"In the course of the fourth century two movements or developments spread over the face of Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by Eusebius [Note 16], that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us."
"The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church." (John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 8. Application of the Third Note of a True Development—Assimilative Power)
Falsified history of the Roman church was also instrumental in the development of her unScriptural papacy and power. RC historian Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger:
In the middle of the ninth century—about 845—there arose the huge fabrication of the Isidorian decretals...About a hundred pretended decrees of the earliest Popes, together with certain spurious writings of other Church dignitaries and acts of Synods, were then fabricated in the west of Gaul, and eagerly seized upon Pope Nicholas I at Rome, to be used as genuine documents in support of the new claims put forward by himself and his successors.
That the pseudo–Isidorian principles eventually revolutionized the whole constitution of the Church, and introduced a new system in place of the old—on that point there can be no controversy among candid historians. - — Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, The Pope and the Council (Boston: Roberts, 1870) Then you have the unScriptural Development of the distinctive Catholic priesthood More by the grace of God.
And thus you have the recourse of no less than Manning:
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine....I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves....The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. — "Most Rev." Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation,” (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228; ttp://www.archive.org/stream/a592004400mannuoft/a592004400mannuoft_djvu.txt.
The privilege of reading your post 511 is worth all I’ve donated to Free Republic’s FReepathons. It’s worth a thousand of mine and some other FReepers’ posts — TEN thousand.
BTTT
Rather, what Christ did not say was This has become/is turned into my body," and to be truly literal in the Biblical sense then it would have to be wholly consistent with the incarnated flesh of Christ that would be crucified. For "this" refers to "my body which is given for you..Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." (Luke 22:20)
And which flesh and blood looked like, and would taste and scientifically test as real corporeal flesh and blood, and felt pain, versus a Christ that looked like and would taste and scientifically test as real bread and wine, and feels no pain, but is said to be "real" flesh and blood by employing neoplatonic thought and Aristotelian philosophy.
And if you want to be consistently literal, then you should hold that David referred to transubstantiation, for he plainly called water the blood of men, and thus (being consistent with the Law, unlike Catholicism) would not drink it but poured it out as a sacrifice to the Lord.
And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem, that was by the gate, and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord. And he said, Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this: is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it. (2 Samuel 23:16-17)
To which could be added:
God clearly states that the Canaanites were “bread: “Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us” (Num. 14:9)
Other examples of the use of figurative language for eating and drinking include,
The Promised Land was “a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof.” (Num. 13:32)
David said that his enemies came to “eat up my flesh.” (Ps. 27:2)
And complained that workers of iniquity ”eat up my people as they eat bread , and call not upon the Lord.” (Psalms 14:4)
And the Lord also said, “I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.” (Zephaniah 1:3)
While even arrows can drink: “I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh ; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.' (Deuteronomy 32:42)
But David says the word of God (the Law) was “sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. (Psalms 19:10)
Another psalmist also declared the word as “sweet:” “How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalms 119:103)
Jeremiah likewise proclaimed, “Your words were found. and I ate them. and your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart” (Jer. 15:16)
Ezekiel was told to eat the words, “open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee...” “eat that thou findest; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” (Ezek. 2:8; 3:1)
John is also commanded, “Take the scroll ... Take it and eat it.” (Rev. 10:8-9 )
And Scripture refers to Christ being spiritual food and drink which even OT believers consumed: And did all eat the same spiritual meat; And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ." (1 Corinthians 10:3-4) And Christ's word in Jn. 6, "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst," (John 6:35) are correspondent to, "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." (Isaiah 55:2-3) Moreover, like as bread is broken, Is. 53:10 states that "it pleased the Lord to bruise him," and the word for "bruise" (da^ka^') means to crumble, to break..., (Strong's). And like as wine is poured out, so Is. 53:12 also states of Christ, "he hath poured out his soul unto death," both of which are correspondent to the words of the Last Supper regarding bread and wine. And which use of figurative language for Christ and spiritual things abounds in John, using the physical to refer to the spiritual: • In John 1:29, Jesus is called “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” — but he does not have hoofs and literal physical wool. • In John 2:19 Jesus is the temple of God: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” — but He is not made of literal stone. • In John 3:14,15, Jesus is the likened to the serpent in the wilderness (Num. 21) who must “be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal” (vs. 14, 15) — but He is not made of literal bronze. • In John 4:14, Jesus provides living water, that “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life,” — but which was not literally consumed by mouth. • In John 7:37 Jesus is the One who promises “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” — but believers were not water fountains, but He spoke ”of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.” (John 7:38) • In Jn. 9:5 Jesus is “the Light of the world” — but who is not blocked by an umbrella. • In John 10, Jesus is “the door of the sheep,” and “the good shepherd [who] giveth his life for the sheep”, “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” vs. 7, 10, 11) — but who again, is not literally an animal with cloven hoofs. • In John 15, Jesus is the true vine — but who does not physically grow from the ground nor whose fruit is literally physically consumed. If Christ had wished the bread to be a kind of sacramental receptacle of his body, he would surely have used other words, for example, “This bread is my body” As in "This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you." (Luke 22:20) or “This contains my body.” Which reasoning supports rejecting the example of David and water being blood, and many others as being figurative. See here by the grace of God for more refutation of sophistry for Rome.
To ALL FR posters and lurkers:
Please, for your own benefit, thoughtfully read the preceeding post 513.
Thank you all!
Glory to God for what is good, though here are some grammatical errors.
You mean why do demonic proabortion, prohomosexual public figures and their supporters (even clerics) find a home in Rome (whom she treats as members in life and in death) and deplore conservative evangelical churches, which the media attacks more than Rome? It is the evangelical vote they really fear, not the Catholic one. Besides her many false teachings and contrasts with the NT church, Rome has morally become so liberal that many conservative RCs feel they must exist in what Rome considers sects and schisms.
It’s becoming clear that Catholics don’t have any final word authoritative teaching on their church doctrine.
We have the sure unchanging Word of God.
And while there may be differences in interpretation of some verses, there are also differences of interpretation of the CCC, and Trent, and VI and VII. So they send us..... SOMEWHERE..... for *official church teaching* on the subject and they can’t even agree on what that is. They’re shooting at a moving target.
There’s no advantage of having a governing body statement of faith to point to because EVERY. SINGLE. THING. on this planet that we read, we MUST interpret as to its meaning. NO ONE is exempt from that.
So who is going to interpret the interpretation? And is the interpretation of the interpretation infallible? Where is the infallible interpretation of the interpretation?
And it’s turtles all the way down.
. Seems like all you are defending your own opinion. So did Luther, Henry8, , Calvin, Joseph Smith and Mohammed et al and et al.. You have lots of company. Suggest you really study Catholicism.
So you are opposed to seeking to ascertain the validity of Truth claims by examination of the warrant for them since heretics exist, and instead call us to submit to Rome in order to know what Truth is? If not, what is the basis for your assurance of your beliefs?
And right now this "decider" is Pope Francis??? Even plenty of Catholics would have a problem with that!
Pope only infallible when speaking ex cathedra. Authentic teaching found when bishops (AND pope ratifying) speak usuall in council.
So you believe that only Ex Cathedra Statements from the Church from the church requires assent from RCs? If not, just what, in your opinion, requires assent? If you hold other teachings (such as encyclicals) as requiring assent can can you provide an infallible list of all teaching which requires assent, and what magisterial level each falls under so we may know what level of assent is required, and the confusion you present Rome as the solution to can be avoided? It is not your one basic duty that of simply following your pastors? Or does that no require assent?
I have asked such before without any response.
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