German Protestants give up on Pro-Life work with Catholics

I'm sorry - but you can't post the sort of stuff you did and expect not to raise a ruckus. Possibly what you originally intended - unless you are completely naive. Do not be surprised when your insults are responded to in kind.

I think it was C.S. Lewis (a Belfast Protestant - but wise) who noted that even well-meaning Protestants never get anywhere by attacking the Blessed Virgin Mary, because Catholics respond just as any decent fellow would if you attacked his mother.

But here's our basic problem: sola scriptura. The Tradition of the Church predates the Bible; in fact, the Church compiled the Bible. When you rely solely upon the book that the Church compiled, without consulting the other teachings of the Church Fathers, you are deprived of the context. The existence of Church traditions in addition to the Bible was specifically noted by St. John and St. Paul in the Bible itself. Hence your lack of understanding of what the Church teaches.

If you reread the first 2 lines of my reply -
I specifically excluded you personally from my claim -
which was to avoid any overreaction.

I do not approach communion in any manner other than gratitude and live

I like your answer there, it is very reasoned.
Many have a hard time expressing their beliefs.
(That's keeping it Real..and I appreciate your reply too - because I ask questions nobody ever (wants to) answer!)

And don't worry whether I- or anyone else- "has made their mind up" about you - its not we who matter...
"Just go with what you know " !

Yes, I do understand where you’re coming from. They talk about the Magisterium on EWTN all the time. My disagreement is with things that I see to be un-Biblical, not just unmentioned.

Like Mary being born sinless. The Bible is replete with the statement that we are all born in sin, every one of us. Or praying to people who have died. People in the Bible don’t talk to dead people, except for necromancers who are condemned for that.

And the Catholic belief that you can only be forgiven by confessing directly to a priest who then forgives you, not by praying to God directly.

I get where you get that from, sort of, when the Bible said “The keys are given to you, whomever you forgive will be forgiven whomever you don’t forgive won’t be forgiven,” yet the Bible is filled with Christians being told to forgive each other, seven times seventy, at least.

I wasn’t insulting anyone, we were simply asked what we were protesting and I answered him, there was no insults in my reply.

The Bible is speaking generally, in reference to ordinary folk like you and I (or Paul's readers) - Adam and Eve, after all, were sinless until they fell, so it is not impossible that this should exist in one other unique instance.

More importantly, Christ was fully God and also fully man, except that He did not sin. And how should God be born in a sinful womb? Not, certainly not, through any merit of Mary herself, but solely by God's prevenient grace, she was in anticipatory fashion saved by Christ's sacrifice, so as to provide a fit place for His birth.

The Greek itself shows this in the Angel Gabriel's salutation: "κεχαριτωμένη" - a unique Greek word found nowhere else. The root is the verb χαριτόω - "to grace". The form is a perfect passive participle. My 3 years of classical Greek tell me that this form describes a state that not only exists but *has existed* indefinitely. "Hail, fully and completely graced [by God]." So full of God's grace that there is no room for sin. Which is why St. Jerome in the Vulgate translated it as "gratia plena" - full, absolutely full, of grace. Of course, that changes the verb to a noun, but there's no comparable Latin form.

Also, St Ambrose of Milan, in the 4th century: “Lift me up not from Sarah but from Mary, a virgin not only undefiled, but a virgin whom grace had made inviolate, free of every stain of sin.”

St. Augustine of Hippo, in 401 AD: "Having excepted the holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, on account of the honor of the Lord, I wish to have absolutely no question when treating of sins — for how do we know what abundance of grace for the total overcoming of sin was conferred upon her, who merited to conceive and bear him in whom there was no sin?"

Again, unless you examine the Church Fathers you cannot see the logic, reason, and inevitability of the Immaculate Conception.

"Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied.
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature's solitary boast. . .

- thus William Wordsworth (who was an Anglican)

Well, I do understand what you’re saying, I just don’t agree with it.

No disrespect intended whatsoever, I’ve more than a few Catholic friends and I worked with many, many Catholics for decades in Right To Life.

And the people I most enjoy listening to are the Catholic Answers Live crew like Sy Kellet (sp?) Jimmy Aikens, and other hosts like Father Arroyo, Father John Riccardo, and the many other people on EWTN.

Thanks for the reply,

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