Posted on 06/21/2018 9:48:25 PM PDT by boatbums
Over the years, Ive had several Catholic friends and converts ask why I ultimately didnt convert to their denomination. During my first two years of college, I spent a significant amount of time with Catholics, including at the (then?) US Opus Dei headquarters in NYC. I attended these gatherings with a good friend, who eventually decided to convert from Evangelicalism. I came close to converting, but ultimately decided against it. This has surprised some Catholics. I suspect this is because the standard narrative is that Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are crossing the Tiber in great droves.
Statistically, the narrative isnt quite so neat: in recent years, Catholicism has lost millions of adherents, most of these converting to a kind of nonreligious spiritualism/secularism or to Protestantism, while millions more Protestants remain Protestant. For every one person who converts to Catholicism, about six leave the church.
Still, the notion that Catholicism is attracting large numbers of Protestant converts, with no movement in the other direction, can create the impression that there is something irresistible about Catholicism to anyone who studies it. My reasons for remaining Protestant havent changed a great deal, although they have become more refined, especially since seminary. I would like to share some of them here.
(Excerpt) Read more at medium.com ...
No argument there atoll!
Do you think Catholics worship Jesus Christ, preach and believe His Gospel?
To which theyve added a whole bunch of stuff often contradicting or nullifying Christ as sole Savior. As Paul notes, theyve believed another gospel.
In the same vein, if a Catholic, having made the same choice to accept and believe that Protestants claim to do, continues to do good works because the Church, even a corruptmember of the Church instructs them to do so, have they sinned?
That stuff never filtered down to the riff-raff like me, because Ive never believed that.
Then by Roman Catholic standards you are not a Roman Catholic.
kitty break!
Darn, guess pic was too big
Thanks LC! You saved me a lot of copying and pasting. ;o)
We had British friends that related an experience they had trying to get a cash advance at a bank here. The teller couldn’t understand what they were saying and she asked, “Sir, do you speak English?”. To which he replied, “Young lady, we INVENTED English!”. ;o)
What I wrote was not disputable, except with the Being Who had them written as holy scripture. The things mentioned are not “little” since they are key facts upon which important doctrines depend. To have the wrong understanding does not make one a liar, but to knowingly and deliberately deny them does.
When I read that passage from John 10:27-30, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Fathers hand. I and the Father are one., I knew right away that Jesus was promising me something that Catholicism can't. I could KNOW I would never perish and would HAVE eternal life in Christ. Your religion can only offer a nebulous hope or maybe that if I was good enough or worked hard enough I MIGHT go to heaven when I died after I suffered some time in Purgatory (a fictitious, non-Biblical place). Thanks, but NO THANKS!
Examples please of that as a norm, as in refuting such Catholic distinctives as post 172 describes, versus the egregious extrapolation or erroneous exegesis RCs resort to in attempting to support these as being what the NT church believed.
Number 4 tells me he doesn't understand that the "post Vatican II ethos" has even less authority than "Pope Francis' off-the-cuff opinions". (The actual documents of Vatican II, IMO, clearly teach the same thing as Pius IX and other Popes before him: only invincible ignorance can excuse lack of Christian faith.)
Don't you mean lack of Catholic faith, such as is not in submission to the pope, and abiding in the bosom of the Catholic church?
Of just how do you interpret Lumen Gentium? Do Muslims worship the same God as Catholics? Are properly baptized RCs saved if they convert to and live and die as faithful evangelicals, trusting the Divine Son of God to save them by efficacious faith, but not believing in the act of baptism effecting regeneration, or the Catholic Eucharist, the papacy, etc.?
Where does the Bible teach that justifying grace is only forensic and external, i.e., that justification means a change in how God views us, not also a change God works in us at exactly the same time?
It doesn't. Where did documents such as the Westminster Confession teach that conversion and its justification by faith leaves the convert just as he was before, versus heart-purifying justifying faith not being alone but effecting obedience, though the effect is not the cause of actual justification?
Then you are unlearned in historical Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus RC teaching , which V2 "clarified/"changed or rendered obscure.
Yeah, probably so.
identifying the reading and interpreting of the Bible as Protestant even affected the study of Scripture. Until the twentieth Century, it was only Protestants who actively embraced Scripture study. That changed after 1943 when Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu. This not only allowed Catholics to study Scripture, it encouraged them to do so. And with Catholics studying Scripture and teaching other Catholics about what they were studying, familiarity with Scripture grew.http://www.usccb.org/bible/understanding-the-bible/study-materials/articles/changes-in-catholic-attitudes-toward-bible-readings.cfm
Sometimes I think that the USCCB is more anti-Catholic than you two are. :-0 Pope Leo XIII attached an indulgence to reading of the Gospels "by the faithful" in 1898. The church doesn't indulgence an act she finds objectionable or even unwise.
Your references simply do not refute what the USCCB said, since the first one only pertains to the gospel, and not all to the majority of Scripture, free access to which in the common tongue Trent (for one) did indeed consider "objectionable or even unwise. The second reference only pertains to Bishops, while the 3rd was a local council, albeit with papal affirmation (whatever that is worth), and was likely in reaction to evangelical Bible societies which Rome opposed.
And the council hoped "that no family can be found amongst us without a correct version of the Holy Scriptures yet despite claims of concern over bad translations, you have had decades of the poor NAB translation (with its aversion to clearly forbidding sins) and its often liberal notes, and study notes in expanded versions. And the NABRE has done little to correct such.
Moreover, the preface of the version Baltimore esteemed, the Douay, itself implicitly admits RCs were not actively encouraged to read the Bible, since this requires widespread availability in the common tongue - and literacy - and historically neither was not made a priority by Rome (unlike men as Chrysostom and the Puritans, though obviously the printing press helped the latter), and who required - for doctrinal reasons - special permission from high places in order for a lay person to privately read Scripture.
Which translation we do not for all that publish, upon erroneous opinion of necessity, that the Holy Scriptures should always be in our mother tongue, or that they ought, or were ordained by God, to be read impartially by all,..or that we generally and absolutely deemed it more convenient in itself, and more agreeable to God's Word and honour or edification of the faithful, to have them turned into vulgar tongues, than to be kept and studied only in the Ecclesiastical learned languages...and no vulgar translation commonly used or employed by the multitude
Which causeth the Holy Church not to forbid utterly any Catholic translation, though she allow not the publishing or reading of any absolutely and without exception or limitation, knowing by her Divine and most sincere wisdom, how, where, when, and to whom these her Master's and Spouse's gifts are to be bestowed to the most good of the faithful. (http://www.bombaxo.com/douai-nt.html)
When English Roman Catholics created their first English biblical translation in exile at Douai and Reims, it was not for ordinary folk to read, but [primarily] for priests to use as a polemical weapon. (Oxford University professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History, 2003, p. 406; p. 585.)
For the Council of Trent decreed in, Session XXV: Rule IV of the Ten Rules Concerning Prohibited Books Drawn Up by The Fathers Chosen by the Council of Trent and Approved by Pope Pius:
Since it is clear from experience that if the Sacred Books are permitted everywhere and without discrimination in the vernacular, there will by reason of the boldness of men arise therefrom more harm than good, the matter is in this respect left to the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor, who may with the advice of the pastor or confessor permit the reading of the Sacred Books translated into the vernacular by Catholic authors to those who they know will derive from such reading no harm but rather an increase of faith and piety, which permission they must have in writing.
It is indisputable that in Apostolic times the Old Testament was commonly read by Jews (John 5:47; Acts 8:28; 17:2,11; 3Tim. 3:15). Roman Catholics admit that this reading was not restricted in the first centuries, in spite of its abuse by Gnostics and other heretics. On the contrary, the reading of Scripture was urged (Justin Martyr, xliv, ANF, i, 177-178; Jerome, Adv. libros Rufini, i, 9, NPNF, 2d ser., iii, 487); and Pamphilus, the friend of Eusebius, kept copies of Scripture to furnish to those who desired them. Chrysostom attached considerable importance to the reading of Scripture on the part of the laity and denounced the error that it was to be permitted only to monks and priests (De Lazaro concio, iii, MPG, xlviii, 992; Hom. ii in Matt., MPG, lvii, 30, NPNF, 2d ser., x, 13). He insisted upon access being given to the entire Bible, or at least to the New Testament (Hom. ix in Col., MPG, lxii, 361, NPNF, xiii, 301). The women also, who were always at home, were diligently to read the Bible (Hom. xxxv on Gen. xii, MPG, liii, 323). Jerome recommended the reading and studying of Scripture on the part of the women (Epist., cxxviii, 3, MPL, xxii, 1098, NPNF, 2d ser., vi, 259; Epist., lxxix, 9, MPG, xxii, 730-731, NPNF, 2d ser., vi, 167). The translations of the Bible, Augustine considered a blessed means of propagating the Word of God among the nations (De doctr. christ., ii, 5, NPNF, 1st ser., ii, 536); Gregory I recommended the reading of the Bible without placing any limitations on it (Hom. iii in Ezek., MPL, lxxvi, 968). New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia
There was far more extensive and continuous use of Scriptures in the public service of the early Church than there is among us. (Addis and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, The Catholic Publication Society, 1887, page 509)
Through most of the fourth century, the controversy with the Arians had turned upon Scripture, and appeals to past authority were few. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 Volume Special Edition under the auspices of the Knights of Columbus Catholic Truth Committee, The Encyclopedia Press Inc., New York, 1913, Volume 6, page 2)
Our present convenient compendiums -- the Missal, Breviary, and so on were formed only at the end of a long evolution. In the first period (lasting perhaps till about the fourth century) there were no books except the Bible, from which lessons were read and Psalms were sung. Nothing was written, because nothing was fixed. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 Volume Special Edition under the auspices of the Knights of Columbus Catholic Truth Committee, The Encyclopedia Press Inc., New York, 1913, Volume 9, page 296)
This attitude and access changed by the early Middle Ages, and while accusations of censure of Bible reading by Rome are sometimes exaggerated, yet for too much of her history it is evidenced that the church of Rome did not place a priority upon personal Biblical literacy among the laity, but actually hindered it. However, like as sites such as Politifact do, the typical RC apologetic resorts to refuting an extreme claim, that Rome unconditionally discouraged or forbade all private Bible reading. But like as you did here, the evidence presented does not show that Catholic overall actively embraced Scripture study, which is what you are supposedly refuting, nor does the evidence show Rome reading much Scripture in Mass, and the Vatican overall really promoting personal Bible study until the V2 era.
But although Catholics are encouraged and enabled to read all of Scripture, Cath scholarship also encourages doubt of its veracity.
http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Ancients_on_Scripture.html#Supplementary , by God's grace.
Dude has more info on Roman Catholicism than practically any Roman Catholic on these threads.
I know. I acknowledged as much in my post to him. That said, Im not sure what his knowledge means to me. As you observed, Im not much of a Catholic, just a guy raising kids, going to Church and work, keeping my 25-year marriage going. The Bible Im reading now is the Bible of CNC programming using Fanuc custom macro B. I have no interest in debating anyone about God. Ive always considered Protestants brothers in Christ. I still do.
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