Catholic Apologetic Site for Filipinos

[Carlos_Palad]

The Defensores Fidei Foundation is pleased to announce its Third Annual Apologetics Course.

We would like to invite all who are in Metro Manila and its environs who are interested in learning how to defend the Catholic faith. Please inform your friends about it too.

WHERE: 2 /F Red Ribbon Bldg. Missouri Street, Northeast Greenhills San Juan City
WHEN: 12 successive Saturdays, beginning October 13, 2007.
TIME : 8:30 AM to 12:00 Noon.
FEE: P 100 / person per Saturday session. Handouts are charged separately

RESOURCE SPEAKERS:

Rev Fr. Abraham Arganiosa CRS
Rev Fr. Carlos Estrada (Opus Dei)
Mr. Edgardo de Vera
Mr. Marwil N. Llasos
Mr. Carlos Antonio Palad

Topics:

1. Church and Magisterium (Sola Fide?)
2. Holy Scripture and Sacred Tradition (Sola Scriptura?)
3. Christology - Divinity and Humanity of Christ
4. Church History I (Age of Martyrs, Nicean/Constantine, Inquisition, Great Schism)
5. Church History II (Avignon Pope, Reformation)
6. Papacy (Primacy, supremacy, infallibility and apostolic succession)
7. Sacraments 1 (Baptism, confession, confirmation)
8. Sacrament 2 (Priesthood and Holy Eucharist
9. Mariology and the Communion of Saints
10. Common Objections - purgatory, sacred images, sign of the cross, indulgences, etc.
11. Understanding Philippine cults: INC, ADD, Quiboloy, Aglipay,etc. (their teaching and weaknesses)
12. Understanding Protestants, JW, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, etc. (their teaching and weaknesses)

Each Saturday Session will be divided as follows:

830 AM - registration and film showing
9 to 11:30 AM - Lecture
1130 to noon - Open Forum

Please invite your friends and have them registered at Totus Bookstore 723-4326.

 

[MarkA16]

I was just accepted to be part of Speak Out’s panelists. But they placed me as back-up because I might have trouble getting to their studio which is in San Francisco and I live in San Diego. Anyway, they accepted me to be part of the topic “Pregnancy & Marriage – Does a baby mean marriage?”.

I just wanted to share.

 

[Sarabande]

This is a nice thread to see. Although I’m only half Filipina and born in the States, I still feel that my mother’s culture and heritage and faith is a huge part of me and who I am.

 

[Milliardo]

This is a nice thread to see. Although I’m only half Filipina and born in the States, I still feel that my mother’s culture and heritage and faith is a huge part of me and who I am.

It is great that you feel that way, and I hope that you will keep your faith and be strong in it. We Filipinos are blessed with that.

 

[CinderFury]

ei there mga kababayan…

i went to tayuman, to the catholic stores all situated there i bought some nifty stuff including a new bible. i bought the christian community bible, catholic pastoral edition, which says that they have an imprimatur from the catholic bishop’s conference of the philippines. is this bible version any good? i have been reading alot of feed backs from others about it.

 

[Sarabande]

It is great that you feel that way, and I hope that you will keep your faith and be strong in it. We Filipinos are blessed with that.

’

Thank you, Milliardo! Yes, we are definitely blessed with our faith. I pray that you will stay strong with yours as well.

 

[mardukm]

Does anyone here speak Ilongo? My wife is Ilokana, and I would like to practice my Ilongo (in the context of the purpose of this site of course - I mean, I’m not going to talk sports)

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Sarabande]

Does anyone here speak Ilongo? My wife is Ilokana, and I would like to practice my Ilongo (in the context of the purpose of this site of course - I mean, I’m not going to talk sports)

Blessings,
Marduk

I wish I did. My mother speaks Ilongo. One of the sad parts of being born and raised when teachers were telling my mother that she shouldn’t teach her children another language and to only keep it to English. I only know a few words and phrases.

 

[hagia_sophia]

I was just accepted to be part of Speak Out’s panelists. But they placed me as back-up because I might have trouble getting to their studio which is in San Francisco and I live in San Diego. Anyway, they accepted me to be part of the topic “Pregnancy & Marriage – Does a baby mean marriage?”.

I just wanted to share.

Marriage definitely means babies…It is the service of the couple to the Church and of all human race…But not all marriages are going to this line…The Love between the couple is the primary factor in marriage…where the flesh that was separated (the rib of Adam to form Eve) be again one…Of course those who go for marriage want their love to bear fruit. if they do not like to and they resort to be with each other just for pure sex, they are not loving each other, it is not love, it is rather lust (each person using the other, making him/her just the object of his desire i.e.sex object). we cannot also blame those persons who cannot bear a child because of some circumstances (sterility)…what is important is that the couple love each other…and in loving each other, they accept the person they love for who they are…Again the primary element in marriage is love----Love between the couple and Love between the couple and God, babies (procreation) is their service to Church and to all humankind, for the continuity of our race and faith…

 

[patrick457]

ei there mga kababayan…

i went to tayuman, to the catholic stores all situated there i bought some nifty stuff including a new bible. i bought the christian community bible, catholic pastoral edition, which says that they have an imprimatur from the catholic bishop’s conference of the philippines. is this bible version any good? i have been reading alot of feed backs from others about it.

From what little I saw on it, the only problem about the version is it’s ‘horizontal’ gender inclusive language (For example, a gender inclusive version has in Ps 1:1 ‘Happy (or Blessed) is the one…’ or something similar instead of ‘Happy (or Blessed) is the man…’ or something similar.

 

[agangbern]

Peace to everyone here!

May each one of you are in good health and full of energy…

Good Luck and God Bless!

 

[CinderFury]

From what little I saw on it, the only problem about the version is it’s ‘horizontal’ gender inclusive language (For example, a gender inclusive version has in Ps 1:1 ‘Happy (or Blessed) is the one…’ or something similar instead of ‘Happy (or Blessed) is the man…’ or something similar.

thank you. i went to bookstores of catholic parishes and the bibles they were selling are from the christian community bible.

 

[Carlos_Palad]

From what little I saw on it, the only problem about the version is it’s ‘horizontal’ gender inclusive language (For example, a gender inclusive version has in Ps 1:1 ‘Happy (or Blessed) is the one…’ or something similar instead of ‘Happy (or Blessed) is the man…’ or something similar.

I object to the Christian Community Bible (CCB) because some of the commentary is, implicitly or not-so-subtly, anti-Catholic. I know for a fact that evangelicals participated in this translation and in the writing of some of the notes, and some of the notes can only be described as below-the-belt attacks on the Catholic Church. I hope that somebody can expunge these attacks from the CCB.

Much of the CCB commentary is very good and useful, but the anti-Church statements scattered here and there ought to be dealt with.

The introduction to Romans is particularly perverse. It has a reproduction of a medieval engraving of a papal Mass juxtaposed with a picture of a man carrying a wounded person, accompanied by a commentary that denounces the medieval Catholic Church in an utterly inaccurate manner, even attributing to the medieval
Catholic Church the belief in salvation by works (an odious lie.) The medieval Church is even described as “looking at itself instead of turning towards God… a Church whose whole system --political, doctrinal and repressive, blocked the horizon.”

Anybody with an unbiased and more than superficial knowledge of
medieval Church history will recognize this as a lie.

The late medieval Church was a Church in great mystical and spiritual ferment, where the hierarchy lived in constant tension with the growing national states, the pretensions of the Sorbonne, the effects of the birth of Rhineland, English and Lowland mysticism and the Florentine Renaissance, and the power of the Devotio Moderna. Luther’s work would not have been possible without this ferment, especially that of German mysticism.

In the CCB commentary on Rev 18, the following bewildering
statement is made: “The plan of salvation however, is constantly in danger: the greatest obstacles and delays often come from the Church herself, so often blind to the demands of the Gospel while she intends to conquer the world. Why these heavy and alienating
structures which finally make the Church a benefit mainly for the clerics and learned people while closing it to the poor or to the masses?”

One wonders how a Church that is “blind to the Gospel” can be the true Church, or what the anonymous commentator means by “heavy and alienating structures.” It is true that many clergy have forgotten the Gospel, but to attribute this blindness
to the Catholic Church itself is to confess that the gates of
hell have indeed prevailed over the Church. I do not even know what to make of the statement that the Church intends to “conquer the world”. That sounds more like something written by the Adventists or the INC about the Pope. To find it in a supposedly “Catholic” Bible is scandalous, to say the least.

There are other statements in CCB that have no place in a
“Catholic” Bible.

 

[Eileen_T]

A bit off track but I need help.

Our parish has a piety stall and wishes to buy religious goods direct from a manufacturer. I heard there are places in the Philippines that make these goods. Can anyone give me an address or website?

 

[Fidelis]

I object to the Christian Community Bible (CCB) because some of the commentary is, implicitly or not-so-subtly, anti-Catholic. I know for a fact that evangelicals participated in this translation and in the writing of some of the notes, and some of the notes can only be described as below-the-belt attacks on the Catholic Church. I hope that somebody can expunge these attacks from the CCB.

Much of the CCB commentary is very good and useful, but the anti-Church statements scattered here and there ought to be dealt with.

The introduction to Romans is particularly perverse. It has a reproduction of a medieval engraving of a papal Mass juxtaposed with a picture of a man carrying a wounded person, accompanied by a commentary that denounces the medieval Catholic Church in an utterly inaccurate manner, even attributing to the medieval
Catholic Church the belief in salvation by works (an odious lie.) The medieval Church is even described as “looking at itself instead of turning towards God… a Church whose whole system --political, doctrinal and repressive, blocked the horizon.”

Anybody with an unbiased and more than superficial knowledge of
medieval Church history will recognize this as a lie.

The late medieval Church was a Church in great mystical and spiritual ferment, where the hierarchy lived in constant tension with the growing national states, the pretensions of the Sorbonne, the effects of the birth of Rhineland, English and Lowland mysticism and the Florentine Renaissance, and the power of the Devotio Moderna. Luther’s work would not have been possible without this ferment, especially that of German mysticism.

In the CCB commentary on Rev 18, the following bewildering
statement is made: “The plan of salvation however, is constantly in danger: the greatest obstacles and delays often come from the Church herself, so often blind to the demands of the Gospel while she intends to conquer the world. Why these heavy and alienating
structures which finally make the Church a benefit mainly for the clerics and learned people while closing it to the poor or to the masses?”

One wonders how a Church that is “blind to the Gospel” can be the true Church, or what the anonymous commentator means by “heavy and alienating structures.” It is true that many clergy have forgotten the Gospel, but to attribute this blindness
to the Catholic Church itself is to confess that the gates of
hell have indeed prevailed over the Church. I do not even know what to make of the statement that the Church intends to “conquer the world”. That sounds more like something written by the Adventists or the INC about the Pope. To find it in a supposedly “Catholic” Bible is scandalous, to say the least.

There are other statements in CCB that have no place in a
“Catholic” Bible.

I checked the online version of this Bible and you are correct. Except for the picture you described, it is all there:

bible.claret.org/bibles/

That’s too bad. I did like some of the commentary I’ve seen from this Bible, but I can no longer recommend it to people if it manifests such one-sided hostility to the Church and her institutions. I’ve noticed before it’s occasional “bad rich versus good poor” mentality, but this other material is just too much.

 

[patrick457]

Quotes of the Commentary to the Romans:

It is now impossible to speak of the letter to the Romans without saying at least a word on the place it has held and continues to hold in Protestant Churches. It has been considered by many as the key to the interpretation of the whole bible.
It is known that Luther deepened the Reformation by commenting on this epistle. He was not wrong in seeing in this letter the condemnation of a Church established in the world, where faith had been degraded, becoming no more than practice devoid of faith which saves. The Christianity of the Middle Ages was in fact a people, rather like what the people of Israel had become. A person was a Christian by birth and continued to be one; he/she could be a believer, but as one is in any culture whatever. It was thought that salvation was gained by religious rites and by the practice of good deeds that merited heaven.

It was therefore very important to remember that faith is at the heart of every conversion, and that this conversion is the response to a freely given call from God. This letter emphasizes Christ the Savior and this emphasis was sufficient to devaluate the whole religious system which at the time was crushed by tradition and devotions. There was faith, at a time when preaching rarely touched on anything other than morality with its catalogues of moral principles. There was the word of God directed towards the individual person at a time when people were quite happy to trust Church leaders. It was then, a radical criticism of the Church which ended up looking at itself instead of turning towards God, and of a Church whose whole system—political, doctrinal and repressive, blocked the horizon…

When Paul spoke of justification—a word which at that time had a large and imprecise meaning—he meant that God re-establishes in us an order which is the true one; they understood instead that, if we believe, God will accept us even if nothing has been changed in us. The great perspectives of humankind and history as a battlefield of sin and grace, were reduced to a personal problem: am I really free or am I enslaved to sin or grace. Taking literally Paul’s images and comparisons, a doctrine of original sin was developed in which we all pay now and forever, for the sin of our first ancestors.

Several generations of protestants and catholics have been marked by these controversies: salvation through faith alone, or through faith and works, or through faith, works and sacraments? The love of the Father who saves and of Christ the Savior were eclipsed in fact by an obsession for salvation: how can I escape from this rigid frame in which God confines me? The concept of a just God, of inexorable decisions, which so easily condemns people into hell would traumatize the Occident and prepare a revolt in the next centuries, that of militant atheism…

Seeing this, I was shocked. Really.

 

[Carlos_Palad]

Quotes of the Commentary to the Romans:

Seeing this, I was shocked. Really.

And people outside the Philippines keep chattering about how “conservative” and “orthodox” the Philippines is…

The only reason why we don’t have “conservative vs. liberal” noises in the Philippine Catholic Church is because the liberals are so dominant and the conservatives so marginalized, there is NO possibility for pitched “battles” to be fought. Of course, the liberals who dominate the theological and liturgical establishment in the Philippines are also quiet and “gentle” in their own way, hence they are able to do their thing without outsiders noticing.

 

[CinderFury]

regarding the version of the christian community bible, catholic pastoral edition, which some excerpts are being quoted here. if you check the bible itself, it has an imprimatur from the catholic bishops conference of the philippines.

i for one, would like to ask if the translations are accurately sound? that’s what matters to me the most. regarding the commentaries, i respect the authors of the said commentaries because it is there opinion and it would still be up to me if i would believe it or not.

during my retreat, the priest/retreat master asked me us if the church is the church our lord jesus christ, envisioned us to be. my classmates and i replied “yes” but his response was “i don’t think so, but we are in the process of getting there.” regarding the commentaries posted in the christian community bible, catholic pastoral edition, i recognize, even in our church that there is still diversities of opinion, which i consider as healthy in an environment, as long as it it being done for the interest of discerning the theology of our faith.

just like the diversity of the church leaders’ opinion here in the philippines regarding their stand about erap estrada. difference in opinion but still unified (in our own way) with our faith.

just my two cents though.

 

[Carlos_Palad]

regarding the version of the christian community bible, catholic pastoral edition, which some excerpts are being quoted here. if you check the bible itself, it has an imprimatur from the catholic bishops conference of the philippines.

i for one, would like to ask if the translations are accurately sound? that’s what matters to me the most. regarding the commentaries, i respect the authors of the said commentaries because it is there opinion and it would still be up to me if i would believe it or not.

during my retreat, the priest/retreat master asked me us if the church is the church our lord jesus christ, envisioned us to be. my classmates and i replied “yes” but his response was “i don’t think so, but we are in the process of getting there.” regarding the commentaries posted in the christian community bible, catholic pastoral edition, i recognize, even in our church that there is still diversities of opinion, which i consider as healthy in an environment, as long as it it being done for the interest of discerning the theology of our faith.

just like the diversity of the church leaders’ opinion here in the philippines regarding their stand about erap estrada. difference in opinion but still unified (in our own way) with our faith.

just my two cents though.

1. An “imprimatur” by the CBCP does not enjoy infallibility. besides…having communicated with some bishops in the last several years over a variety of matters, I can testify that many bishops sign or approve things without first studying what they are supposedly approving. I even personally know of two cases where bishops simply signed blank letterheards, which were then filled-in by those they “trusted”. Others give approvals on the say-so of influential theologians (many of them liberal) and laypeople, hence the frequent spectacle of Philippine bishops seeming to approve of unapproved / condemned apparitions, dubious political actions and positions, etc.
2. An officially-approved Catholic Bible that is being promoted by the hierarchy is not the place for commentators – some of them not even Catholic – to publish their own opinions, especially if these contradict or undermine Catholicism itself. (The CCB was produced by a mixed Catholic-Protestant group)

You do not seem to understand the seriousness of some of the opinions expressed in the commentaries of the “Christian Community Bible”. Given the intensity of anti-Catholic propaganda from Philippine Evangelicals, the remarks in “Romans” actually constitutes a sort of “smoking gun” that Evangelicals can easily use against us.

1. “Diversity of opinions” has its limits. We are not Protestants or Episcopalians who are free ot express anything we want. We are all called by our baptismal promises to remain faithful to the Church founded by Jesus Chist.

 

[hagia_sophia]

Amen Carlos Palad.

If this is so, let usnot waste time and ask the Conference about it