Posted on 09/30/2003 9:32:47 AM PDT by Fifthmark
Protestantism is founded on many lies: (1) That Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did not create a visible, hierarchical Church. (2) That there is no authority given by Our Lord to the Pope and his bishops and priests to govern and to sanctify the faithful. (3) That each believer has an immediate and personal relationship with the Savior as soon as he makes a profession of faith on his lips and in his heart, therefore being perpetually justified before God. (4) Having been justified by faith alone, a believer has no need of an intermediary from a non-existent hierarchical priesthood to forgive him his sins. He is forgiven by God immediately when he asks forgiveness. (5) This state of justification is not earned by good works. While good works are laudable, especially to help unbelievers convert, they do not impute unto salvation. Salvation is the result of the profession of faith that justifies the sinner. (6) That grace is merely, in the words of Martin Luther, the snowflakes that cover up the "dungheap" that is man. (7) That there is only one source of Divine Revelation, Sacred Scripture. (8) That each individual is his own interpreter of Sacred Scripture. (9) That there is a strict separation of Church and State. Princes, to draw from Luther himself, may be Christians but it is not as a Christian that they ought to rule. These lies have permutated in thousands of different directions. However, they have sewn the fabric of the modern state and popular culture for nearly 500 years (I shudder to think how the Vatican is going to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Luther's posting his 95 theses on the church doors in Wittenberg fourteen years from now).
Here below are explanations of these lies and their multifaceted implications for the world in which we live:
(1-2) The contention that Our Lord did not create a visible, hierarchical church vitiates the need for a hierarchical, sacerdotal priesthood for the administration of the sacraments. It is a rejection of the entirety of the history of Christianity prior to the Sixteenth Century. It is a denial of the lesson taught us by Our Lord by means of His submission to His own creatures, Saint Joseph and the Blessed Mother, in the Holy Family of Nazareth that each of us is to live our entire lives under authority, starting with the authority of the Vicar of Christ and those bishops who are in full communion with him. The rejection of the visible, hierarchical church is founded on the prideful belief that we are able to govern ourselves without being directed by anyone else on earth. This contention would lead in due course to the rejection of any and all religious belief as necessary for individuals and for societies. Luther and Calvin paved the way for Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the French Revolution that followed so closely the latter's deification of man.
(3-6) Baptism is merely symbolic of the Christian's desire to be associated with the Savior in the amorphous body known as the Church. What is determinative of the believer's relationship with Christ is his profession of faith. As the believer remains a reprobate sinner, all he can do is to seek forgiveness by confessing his sins privately to God. This gives the Protestant of the Lutheran strain the presumptuous sense that there is almost nothing he can do to lose his salvation once he has made his profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. There is thus no belief that a person can scale the heights of personal sanctity by means of sanctifying grace. It is impossible, as Luther projected from his own unwillingness to cooperate with sanctifying grace to overcome his battles with lust, for the believer to be anything other than a dungheap. Thus a Protestant can sin freely without for once considering that he has killed the life of sanctifying grace in his soul, thereby darkening his intellect and weakening the will and inclining himself all the more to sin-and all the more a vessel of disorder and injustice in the larger life of society.
(7-8) The rejection of a visible, hierarchical Church and the rejection of Apostolic Tradition as a source of Divine Revelation protected by that Church leads in both instances to theological relativism. Without an authoritative guide to interpret Divine Revelation, including Sacred Scripture, individual believers can come to mutually contradictory conclusions about the meaning of passages, the precise thing that has given rise to literally thousands of Protestant sects. And if a believer can reduce the Bible, which he believes is the sole source of Divine Revelation, to the level of individual interpretation, then there is nothing to prevent anyone from doing the same with all written documents, including the documents of a nation's founding. If the plain words of Scripture can be deconstructed of their meaning, it is easy to do so, say, with the words of a governmental constitution. Theological relativism paved the way for moral relativism. Moral relativism paved the way for the triumph of positivism and deconstructionism as normative in the realm of theology and that of law and popular culture.
(9) The overthrow of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ as it was exercised by His true Church in the Middle Ages by the Protestant concept of the separation of Church and State is what gave rise to royal absolutism in Europe in the immediate aftermath of Luther's handiwork. Indeed, as I have noted any number of times before, it is arguably the case that the conditions that bred resentment on the part of colonists in English America prior to 1776 might never have developed if England had remained a Catholic nation. The monarchy would have been subject in the Eighteenth Century to same constraints as it had in the Tenth or Eleventh Centuries, namely, that kings and queens would have continued to understand that the Church reserved unto herself the right to interpose herself in the event that rulers had done things-or proposed to do things-that were contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law and/or were injurious of the cause of the sanctification and salvation of the souls of their subjects. The overthrow of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ deposited power first of all in the hands of monarchs eager to be rid of the "interference" of the Church and ultimately in the hands of whoever happened to hold the reins of governmental power in the modern "democratic" state. Despotism has been the result in both cases
(Excerpt) Read more at seattlecatholic.com ...
See, OMalley?
The mindset is almost inescapable. Biblewonk thinks somehow that the "personal feelings" or thoughts of individual persons who happen to attend a Catholic Church somehow determines what "the Catholic Church" holds as true.
Like we take a vote on things or something.
SD
Post 990.
You would help your "cause" if you didn't lie.
SD
God didn't commission an institution. He commissioned people. The church isn't an institution - it is every person that is part of the Body of Christ. Scripture states that. Your people are responsible - not the building and not the structure - the people. So let's not play silly games. Your structure and building didn't defraud people, Your Priests and Popes did. And they are the church just as you are. If the church commits fraud, what Spiritual fruit is that?
What would you suggest Arabic Christians call "God"?
SD
You remain unwilling to consider eternity. When you reach the Catholic level of understanding we'll be here for you.
So you tell me what a priest is capable of
You are paranoid. But thanks for being honest, it helps put the picture together, along with the fascination about being "assured" of salvation.
SD
I didn't realize you were so provincial.
SD
"Abstain from blood" is a symbol?
What were the words meant to tell us not to do?
SD
I do not assume that you will go to hell..I also do not believe your will be saved by going
So It has nothing to do with reading minds. It is an observation that missing mass is a mortal sin unless there is a serious reason .
Therefore, the Catechism teaches, "Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit grave sin" (#2181), and grave sin is indeed mortal sin. Recently, our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, repeated this precept in his apostolic letter Dies Domini (Observing and Celebrating the Day of the Lord, #47, 1998).
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that a member will go to hell for an unconfessed mortal sin. To miss the Roman Catholic Mass means you have a mortal sin. This keeps the church member coming back because of the fear of Hells fire
The RCC Catechism #1035 states: "The teaching of the church affirms the existence of hell and it's eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, eternal fire."
The Catholic Encyclopedia:
Mass, Obligation of Hearing
"The whole Mass must be heard, from the prayers at the foot of the altar to the last gospel. If a small part of the mass is missed through one's own fault, a venial sin is committed. If a notable part of the Mass is missed (e.g., all up to and including the Offertory) a mortal sin is committed."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
1857 For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: "Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent."[131]
2181 The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor.[119] Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.
The Baltimore Catechism.
Q. 390. Is it a mortal sin not to hear Mass on a Sunday or a holy day of obligation?
A. It is a mortal sin not to hear Mass on a Sunday or a holy day of obligation, unless we are excused for a serious reason. They also commit a mortal sin, who, having others under their charge, hinder them from hearing Mass, without a sufficient reason.
Q. 1329. Is it a mortal sin not to hear Mass on a Sunday or a holyday of obligation?
A. It is a mortal sin not to hear Mass on a Sunday or a holyday of obligation, unless we are excused for a serious reason. They also commit a mortal sin who, having others under their charge, hinder them from hearing Mass, without a sufficient reason.
The Bible is the inspired Word of God. No where does it say that a person will go to hell for missing Mass. Infact, you will not find the word Mass in the Bible. Salvation is by God's grace alone, thourgh our faith alone, in Christ alone. God has promised to save forever, those who have faith in His finished work on the cross. No human ( or church) can take away salvation from you and God will not break His promise.
Romans 8:1-2 "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, For the Law of the Spirit is life in Christ Jesus who has set you free from the law of sin and of death." NASB
Protestant ideas are heretical.
Individual Protestants are not heretics unless they have abandonned the Catholic faith.
And even then, individual Protestants, of any stripe, will be judged by God as to their culpability for their errant beliefs. A lot of minds have been poisoned from ever believing in the True Faith, and that is not necessarily the person's fault.
SD
A little bit of everything..it seems that Hermann and fith and many more believe if you are not a Catholic you are going to hell
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.