? about annathamas from Trent

[soldonsacramnts]

I have a friend who is looking into the church. He a evangelical. He likes most all of what he is discovering about the church. He is reading a great deal. He read the counsel of trent. He spoke to me of how put off he was about the anathamas. His biggest question. Since the church canot error how can it be that she clearly teaches that all who believe in … (fill in any number of anathamas) (the calvnistic doc of predistination) are anathama! Then she turns around and says you can be saved if your a presberterian! What resource preferably a historical one would be best for my friend to read to gain clarity on this subject?

 

[Fidelis]

soldonsacramnts:

I have a friend who is looking into the church. He a evangelical. He likes most all of what he is discovering about the church. He is reading a great deal. He read the counsel of trent. He spoke to me of how put off he was about the anathamas. His biggest question. Since the church canot error how can it be that she clearly teaches that all who believe in … (fill in any number of anathamas) (the calvnistic doc of predistination) are anathama! Then she turns around and says you can be saved if your a presberterian! What resource preferably a historical one would be best for my friend to read to gain clarity on this subject?

Technically speaking, the anathemas themselves applied, historically, to Catholics during the Reformation who subscribed to heresy or fell into apostacy, including the original “Reformers.” They also apply to Catholics of all times, who are expected to not abandon the truth as it is passed on to them. The anathemas themselves do not apply to subsequent generations of Protestants who are understood to be in ignorance of the fullness of Catholic truth (unless, of course they become Catholic–then they are held to a higher standard).

Having said that, even if a Protestant cannot be “anathematized” for not accepting Church teaching, that does not make him or her any less in error for not doing so.

 

[Bishopite]

**I would also like to add a few facts to many misconceptions Protestants have against the word “anathema.” **
**The word anathema means “excommunicated” in legal Catholic Church documents and NOT banished to hell as some anti-Catholics assert. **
** And since the other post correctly says that only Catholics can be anathematized in the formal sense it really doesn’t apply to Protestants who were raised Protestant and aren’t Catholic. **

Anathema is also found in Galations 1:6-10 where it says that anyone who preaches another gospel let him be anathema or some translations say accursed; all which mean excommunicted.

As a former Protestant I had problems with that before becoming Catholic then I read my Charles Ryrie NAS study bible. Ryrie is a Baptist Protestant theologian and in the footnotes of this bible on page 1770 speaking about Galations 1:6-10 Ryrie comments:
"accursed. Lit., anatheman, or devoted to destruction. Ecclesiastically [within the Church], it was accompanied by excommunication."

**So it means excommunication. Trent used it toward those like Luther who were Catholic. Remember not the apostle Paul nor the Pope nor anyone at all can say for certain to another person that they are absolutely going to hell. That is ONLY reserved to God alone who knows all and is the final judge. **

 

[Maranatha]

I agree with the responses above.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

818
“However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.”

 

[Genesis315]

soldonsacramnts:

I have a friend who is looking into the church. He a evangelical. He likes most all of what he is discovering about the church. He is reading a great deal. He read the counsel of trent. He spoke to me of how put off he was about the anathamas. His biggest question. Since the church canot error how can it be that she clearly teaches that all who believe in … (fill in any number of anathamas) (the calvnistic doc of predistination) are anathama! Then she turns around and says you can be saved if your a presberterian! What resource preferably a historical one would be best for my friend to read to gain clarity on this subject?

If someone is at fault for being a Presbyterian they cannot be saved (this fault is for God to judge of course). People who are culpable for their choice to believe those things are anathema.