Catholic apologists wanted!

[BlindSheep]

Could some of you come over to this blog: evenstar.lifewithchrist.org/permalink/17076
and help me refute some typical evangelical misconceptions about the Church? I’m not so adept at this particular branch of apologetics!

 

[Montie_Claunch]

Alright. I went there and laid down a post. I hoped it helped. If you need me agian, just ask and I will be more than happy too.

 

[RobNY]

Mia, I recognize that many Catholics don’t hold to the strict teachings of the Church–for instance, my grandmother doesn’t think that non-Catholic Christians are all hellbound

Of course she doesn’t believe that… because we don’t teach it! I believe that’s what we regard as the Feenyite heresy. I believe you can consult sections 846-848 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church if you want to understand what we mean when we talk about salvation and the Catholic Church.

but when your church has rejected the literal truth of the Bible…Somethin’ ain’t right.

This simply isn’t true.

But more than that, the Reformation was the turning of tides. I suggest Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, for a good historical discussion, written right at the time the Reformation was going.

As this short little bit says:

The book was widely read, and its influence was extensive, although as history it is highly prejudiced and not altogether trustworthy.

Perhaps you may want to read it, but then again, perhaps it isn’t best to use this as your first source for these sorts of things.

You have to admit, the Catholic Church has been, historically, a fairly narrow-minded and worldly church. It wasn’t until the Reformation that many folks were even allowed to read the Bible.

That’s just pure nonsense. But, if you can provide any real examples of people being prohibited from reading the Bible, have fun. Yes, people were prohibited often from reading heretical translations of the Bible, but that’s only common sense. The fact that the Reformation coincided with the rise of the movable type printing press (some forty years earlier, I believe, Gutenburg was printing Latin Catholic bibles on his new invention) was the reason more than any of the Protestants love of freedom. The fact was simply that the movable type printing press made it economically possible to widely distribute the Bible.

Whether or not some Catholics are Christians today

No one here is questioning whether or not Protestants are Christians, please don’t do that to us either.

you gotta admit that their Church hasn’t been exactly a shining example of the Bride of Christ. Thus, it became necessary that some depart it and make their own attempt. Hence, “Reformation.”

There is a different between rebellion and schism, and reform. If the Protestants caused schism with the Church then they didn’t “reform” anything. It was the Council of Trent that reformed the Church, not the Protestants.

It is burning and executioning that the Reformers were trying to stop. The self-righteous Catholic church claimed power to have the power to kill those who allegedly commit blasphemy.

Was it a Catholic that killed Michael Servetus (anti-trinitarian)? Oh no, that was the Calvinists. Come to think of it, the Protestant Reformers were just as likely to support execution for heresy as the Church. Was Luther “self-righteouss” when he claimed (see various excerpts on this subject here):

 

[RobNY]

There are others who teach in opposition to some recognised article of faith which is manifestly grounded on Scripture and is believed by good Christians all over the world, such as are taught to children in the Creed . . . Heretics of this sort must not be tolerated, but punished as open blasphemers . . . If anyone wishes to preach or to teach, let him make known the call or the command which impels him to do so, or else let him keep silence. If he will not keep quiet, then let the civil authorities command the scoundrel to his rightful master - namely, Master Hans . (Janssen, X, 222; EA, Bd. 39, 250-258; Commentary on 82nd Psalm, 1530; cf. Durant, 423, Grisar, VI, 26-27)

Or:

That seditious articles of doctrine should be punished by the sword needed no further proof. For the rest, the Anabaptists hold tenets relating to infant baptism, original sin, and inspiration, which have no connection with the Word of God, and are indeed opposed to it . . . Secular authorities are also bound to restrain and punish avowedly false doctrine . . . For think what disaster would ensue if children were not baptized? . . . Besides this the Anabaptists separate themselves from the churches . . . and they set up a ministry and congregation of their own, which is also contrary to the command of God. From all this it becomes clear that the secular authorities are bound . . . to inflict corporal punishment on the offenders . . . Also when it is a case of only upholding some spiritual tenet, such as infant baptism, original sin, and unnecessary separation, then . . . we conclude that . . . the stubborn sectaries must be put to death.

(Janssen, X, 222-223; pamphlet of 1536)

That was in reference to the Anabaptists. (Oh and, don’t take any of this stuff out to hit Luther over the head with a bat… use this stuff charitably at best to show that neither Protestants nor Catholics were inherently inclined to be the best of people.)

In fact, no one liked the Anabaptists… you do know how badly Protestants and Catholics persecuted the Anabaptists? If our criteria for the correct church is which one has never engaged in bloodshed, then perhaps only the Amish qualify. The whole reason that Anabaptists are predominantly pacifists now is because we killed all the ones that weren’t at Munster.

 

[Church_Militant]

I have posted some of this in other places and it seems that a certain “Black Knight” has beat me to it.

The Double Standard of Protestant “Inquisition Polemics” (John Stoddard)

  Religious persecution usually continues till one of two causes rises to repress it. One is the sceptical notion that all religions are equally good or equally worthless; the other is an enlightened spirit of tolerance, exercised towards all varieties of sincere opinion . . . inspired by the conviction that it is useless to endeavor to compel belief in any form of religion whatsoever. Unhappily this enlightened, tolerant spirit is of slow growth, and never has been conspicuous in history, but if it be asserted that very few Catholics in the past have been inspired by it, the same thing can be said of Protestants.

  This fact is forgotten by Protestants. They read blood-curdling stories of the Inquisition and of atrocities committed by Catholics, but what does the average Protestant know of Protestant atrocities in the centuries succeeding the Reformation? Nothing, unless he makes a special study of the subject . . . Yet they are perfectly well known to every scholar . . . If I do not enumerate here the persecutions carried on by Catholics in the past, it is because it is not necessary in this book to do so. This volume is addressed especially to Protestants, and Catholic persecutions are to them sufficiently well known . . .

  Now granting for the sake of argument, that all that is usually said of Catholic persecutions is true, the fact remains that Protestants, as such, have no right to denounce them, as if such deeds were characteristic of Catholics only. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones . . .

  It is unquestionable . . . that the champions of Protestantism - Luther, Calvin, Beza, Knox, Cranmer and Ridley -- advocated the right of the civil authorities to punish the 'crime' of heresy . . . Rousseau says truly:
   
        The Reformation was intolerant from its cradle, and its authors were universal persecutors
        . . . Auguste Comte also writes:
         
        The intolerance of Protestantism was certainly not less tyrannical than that with which Catholicism is so much reproached. (Philosophie Positive, IV, 51) What makes, however, Protestant persecutions specially revolting is the fact that they were absolutely inconsistent with the primary doctrine of Protestantism -- the right of private judgment in matters of religious belief! Nothing can be more illogical than at one moment to assert that one may interpret the Bible to suit himself, and at the next to torture and kill him for having done so!

  Nor should we ever forget that . . . the Protestants were the aggressors, the Catholics were the defenders. The Protestants were attempting to destroy the old, established Christian Church, which had existed 1500 years, and to replace it by something new, untried and revolutionary. The Catholics were upholding a Faith, hallowed by centuries of pious associations and sublime achievements; the Protestants, on the contrary, were fighting for a creed . . . which already was beginning to disintegrate into hostile sects, each of which, if it gained the upper hand, commenced to persecute the rest! . . . All religious persecution is bad; but in this case, of the two parties guilty of it, the Catholics certainly had the more defensible motives for their conduct.

  At all events, the argument that the persecutions for heresy, perpetrated by the Catholics, constitute a reason why one should not enter the Catholic Church, has not a particle more force than a similar argument would have against one's entering the Protestant Church. In both there have been those deserving of blame in this respect, and what applies to one applies also to the other.

  (Stoddard, 204-205, 209-210)

The Protestant Inquisition

Pax vobiscum,

 

[Roman_Army]

:yawn: Zzzzzzzz