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RDJ
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So you have the right to tell a person that they are most likely not going to Heaven? Last time I checked, only God could judge.
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Roy5
Guest
If the RC Church ever allowed that it is not the one true church, abandoned its claim that Protestant churches are only ‘ecclesial societies’ and that Protestant communion and ministers are essentially invalid, then perhaps we could discuss ecumenism in a serious fashion.
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To me it is obvious that none of us, including each and every church, can pretend to know ultimate truth. That is too shrouded as St. Paul stated in I Cor. 13: "For now we know in part...." What Christianity desperately needs is a 'big tent' that respects a variety of opinions but is united in its dedication to the basic message of Christ: love God and one another. Otherwise, as in the past, religion serves to divide us rather than unite us.
As a Protestant, I respect much of the good work Catholicism does and continues to do. What I cannot accept (especially) are scads of scads of saintly legends (e.g., those associated with Padre Pio), all sorts of apparitions, and a host of other 'miracles' that make interesting folklore but are more in line with pre-Christian paganism than what I regard as legitimate Christianity. Why does the RC insist upon such stuff and continue to alienate millions of Protestants and more and more of its own members? Polls have shown that Catholics have deserted that faith in substantial numbers because they cannot honestly accept any longer notions that offend their intelligence and everyday common sense.
I have written the truth as I see it. Forgive me if you are offended. I have a craving for a united Christendom but it will not come until more minds are open and more respect is given to varying interpretations of our faith.
God bless Catholics, Protestants and all creeds, colors, and countries!
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Roman_Catholic_1
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So much for your “Big Tent” theory. How quickly this:Turns into:
As a proponent of “big tent” Christianity, who are you to disrespect beliefs? Who are you to decide what is “legitimate Christianity”? Again I can only go with your own words:
Yes your “big tent” theory just oozes “respect” and “open mindedness” with talks of Catholic beliefs, which Catholics hold dear to themselves, being pagan and Catholicism offending peoples “common sense” and “intelligence”.
Very open minded and respectful…
God bless
K
KindredSoul
Guest
People of other religions make those same exact arguments about Christianity in general: “If Christians would just stop believing that Christianity is the one true religion and abandoned their claim that other religions only have some partial truths and that other religions’ priests and ministers are essentially invalid, then perhaps we could all just get along as one human race.” You seem not to realize that Catholics truly believe in what the Church teaches as much as you likely believe in the Bible (which we believe in too). If you would not be willing to “admit” that the Bible’s ultimate truth-claims are “incorrect” for the sake of other religions, nor should you expect Catholics to make concessions that would betray our basis of Faith and deny what we firmly believe to be true.
“Legends” such as a man being born of a virgin, rising again from the dead, turning water into wine, raising the dead, etc. etc. alienate all kinds of modern Catholics and Protestants too, causing them to look into more “rational”–which seems constantly to be used (quite irrationally, I might add) in the sense of non-supernatural–belief systems like Atheism or Agnosticism. In fact, the existence of a God at all seems a ludicrous claim to anyone who (again, quite irrationally) refuses to believe that an intelligent person of good common sense can believe in the supernatural. Why do Christians of all kinds insist on these supernatural and miraculous things and alienate people among their own ranks? I would say “Because they honestly believe it’s true,” but evidently this is not a good enough motive…unless that not being a good enough motive only applies to we Catholic Christians of course.
By the way, since when do pagan religions have a monopoly on the miraculous, or even on the Divine working through human beings? Is God either so far removed that he cannot or will not work miracles in post-Biblical times? The Bible is full of God working miracles through the hands of mere human beings, both in the Old and New Testaments. Why should I believe there was some cut-off point? It is rare than a Christian of any kind among the people I know personally would claim that miracles should be equated with pagan legends but never with the all-powerful God. Such a claim has more in common with Deism.
I have a craving for a united world, but I will not suggest that Catholics or Christians in general should be willing to deny that our religion is true (meaning individual claims that contradict any part of it, by definition, cannot be true) just because people from other churches and religions have come to different conclusions. True unity can only come when all people unite under one absolute truth; it will not come from people compromising truth and concluding that all truth-claims are equal, either within Christianity or within the world at large.
Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul
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KindredSoul
Guest
You, my brother or sister, make an excellent observation.
Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul
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jediliz
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----- that’s also my answer
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Roman_Catholic_1
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StLawrenceFan
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**Perfectly said. **
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Roy5
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One more effort, and then I’ll depart this thread for good.
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To begin with, I'm not a sola scriptura Protestant. Like millions of mainline Protestants I have difficulty with parts of the Bible. I certainly don't take many things in the first 11 chapters of Genesis literally. I don't believe that my God commanded Joshua to slaughter every inhabitant of Jericho, Ai, and other conquered towns, nor would my God order Saul to murder every last Amalekite. How does this fit into the Ten Commandments? How does that signify the sacredness of life - killing so many innocent people? Many other verses trouble me - some of the commandments in Ex. 21, Lev. 20, and Deut. 22-23, for example. What about: "Suffer not a witch to live"? Think of the evil that resulted from that scripture verse. St. Paul seemed to endorse slavery - "slaves, obey your masters" and said that women should not speak in church. Etc.
Now, in the second place, I don't have any problem with Catholics or others believing that their particular version of Christianity is true. I simply want the RC Church to do what most lay Catholics do already: they respect other interpretations of Christianity. Many of my Catholic friends accept Catholic teaching (many do not), but they don't view my 'open tent' style of Christianity as invalid and don't label Protestant ministers as invalid clergy (as Pope Benedict has done). While I may disagree with many Catholic teachings, I am ready to respect these opinions. In my Protestant parish we have an assortment of conservatives, moderates and liberals - speaking theologically as well as politically - and we live and worship and hold Bible classes without rancor. We have some scintillating discussions, in fact, and smile as we agree to disagree. Here on CAF, Protestantism is constantly bashed, Luther and other Reformers are trashed, and bigotry and arrogance seems entrenched. There are Protestant bigots, too, of course, and I disown them as well.
Finally, while I am a Christian of course, I do not demean the faith of Jews, or of other religions. I have wonderful Muslim friends. I spent time with a devout Hindu family in Puna, India, and learned to appreciate their faith, as much as I don't subscribe to it. We have a Sikh temple nearby and there are no finer people than the Sikhs, and they are strict monotheists. And I could go on and on about Buddhists and others - and I have spent time in Japan, Korea and also in China (where all religion has been suppressed). I fully expect that many of these 'heathen' will get to heaven long before many Christians because they follow the path Christ laid out (love God and one another) more closely than many baptized Christians do. As I recall, Hitler, Mussolini and Franco were among the evil ones baptized in the church. And I well recall funeral masses for mafia murderers when I lived in NYC for 20 years.
I don't know how many of you read the weekly column of Fr. McBrien of Notre Dame each week. I do. He exemplifies what I am talking about. No air of religious superiority. No embittered or defensive diatribes. Great columnist. His attitude could lead us to a new era in Christian understanding.
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Deacon_Ed_B
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No I would not. This is because only the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of truth.
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Roman_Catholic_1
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Yea we get it Roy, you want the Catholic Church to give what you can’t; respect:
By the way, I don’t see how the Catholic Church disrespects other interpretations. It certainly disagrees with them, but disrespecting? No that would be saying things like they are, “pagan” and that they go against, “common sense” and “intelligence”.
I disagree. You have shown nothing but disrespect towards many Catholic beliefs especially towards the Holy Sacrament where you have said more than once that you find it pagan. That is going beyond disagreeing with Catholic doctrine, that is disrespectful. To tell you that you are wrong is not disrespectful, however, to tell someone that their beliefs don’t really matter in the “big tent” of things is disrespectful. “I understand your most cherished beliefs… they just don’t matter. In fact I find them pagan.”
And the “open mindedness” and “respect” of the “Big Tent” continues…
God bless you
K
KindredSoul
Guest
Regardless of how understandable your difficulties may appear, if you have no definite source of belief that you consider infallible, not even the Bible, then that explains why you believe it should be so easy for Catholics to compromise their beliefs to suit Protestants; you yourself have no infallible/inerrant source of Faith, so it would seem to be beyond you that anybody else would deem to be faithful to one. Well, Catholics do deem that there is a source of infallible truth: The Church. Even if you yourself do not believe in any infallible source of truth (not even insofar as firmly Bible-believing Protestants believe in) you should at least be able to understand that those who do believe in such a thing, whether it is the Bible or the Church or both, cannot adopt your own attitude of compromise without betraying their very belief system.
By the way, I still presume you believe in the miracles in the Bible, at least those displaying Christ’s divinity, or else Christianity becomes no more than a moral code instead of a religion…so your calling Catholic beliefs in miracles pagan has no basis in your disbelief in the entirety of the Bible unless you mean to assert that Christianity as a whole is Pagan, which would be nonsensical.
Respecting other interpretations is not the same as believing those claims are equal to or have as good a chance at being true as one’s own. I respect Buddhists for their commitment, and I respect that perhaps they have come to their beliefs based on honest and rational searching…but I do not for one second believe that their claims have a chance of being as true as my own. If I did, my own beliefs would be merely my theories, not my beliefs.
The many who do not are failing to be in line with their own beliefs…though they are technically Catholic by their Catholic baptism, why they want to claim a belief system with whose beliefs they do not accept is beyond me. The fullest meaning, beyond technicality, of being Catholic is to consent to what the Catholic Church teaches. If someone doesn’t do that, why would they want to claim that identity?
Catholics do not view your “style” of Christianity so much invalid as, frankly, incorrect. It is not that you are evil, inferior, or stupid, but rather that you believe in something–the rough equality of conflicting truth claims within Christianity–which we firmly believe is incorrect, and we do not compromise what we believe to be the truth on that matter.
As for labelling Protestant ministers as invalid clergy, that simply means we do not believe that they have the sacramental “abilities” (I use that word simply for convenience) that a Catholic or Orthodox priest has; those abilities, such as administering Sacramental Reconciliation after hearing confession, consecrating the Real (Transubstantial) Presence, and other such abilities, are perceived by us to be true realities dependent upon Apostolic Succession. If that Succession is broken or no longer even attempted to be practiced (and for the grand majority of Protestants, it’s the latter), it means that the ministers in that broken or nonexistent line no longer have those abilities. It was well known that the Church felt this way before Protestantism existed, so why are we expected to change that belief now for no other reason than that dissenters have appeared? Besides, Priestly abilities are abilities that most Protestants do not agree exist anyway, so I fail to see why they would be offended that we teach they don’t have them.
It would be akin to my being offended if a Jewish person said a Catholic priest doesn’t have the authority to make animal sacrifices in the Jewish Temple if it were rebuilt today. I don’t believe that is even a Catholic Priest’s duty (Jesus Christ Himself was never a Levite Priest!) so why would I be offended by their claim that Catholic Priests are not valid for the same purposes as a Levite Priest? They are correct about that!!! Even if they said Catholic Priests aren’t priests in any capacity, I recognize that, by their beliefs, that is true and though I disagree with them, I am hardly offended that they are being true to their firm beliefs.
CONTINUED…
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KindredSoul
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…CONTINUED (from above)
By the way, I must remind you of something:
Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul
Then please, and I am not being sarcastic, respect the Catholic “opinion” that the truth does not leave us free to “agree to disagree” nor to pretend that we believe all other opinions are of equal value to the Catholic view.
Catholicism doesn’t work that way. In Catholicism, dogmatic truths and a great many ethical truths are cut and dry; there is no need to debate or agree to disagree on something you believe (by virtue of your Faith) is absolutely set in stone. For many Protestants of your particular variety, nothing much in the way of doctrine seems to be set in stone beyond an incredibly scant bare-minimum, which is the only reason that such debates within your church are possible. For Catholics, most everything of great significance (though, to be sure, not everything) is set in stone, so an “agree to disagree” attitude that says all claims in the arena are equally valid would be dishonest of us, as well as an attempt to “fix” what we don’t think is broken. The only times such debates are legitimate are when something has not yet been infallibly determined by the Church. Protestant elements which contradict Catholicism, are by nature not such matters.
While I admit that we could use a lot more charity sometimes, myself certainly included, it is not bashing or trashing to assert that you simply believe something to be untrue, even if you believe that with firm conviction and refuse to compromise what you firmly believe is the truth. Since, as demonstrated above, Catholics aren’t free to take an “agree to disagree” approach to Christian unity, Catholics see Protestantism as a tragedy that broke Christendom like nothing before it had ever succeeded to do. Of course we aren’t going to be fond of its origins or its essence since it introduced a dilemma we are powerless to fix, since all we can do without betraying the truth is wait for Protestants to come back to Catholicism of their own will. It is not out of bigotry that we mourn Protestantism’s existence, but simple conviction and a longing for the unity of Christendom while acknowledging that we cannot betray the truth to bring that about.
By the way, I must remind you of something:
If your view of Christianity allows for such “open mindedness” and “agreeing to disagree” as you assert, then saying what you said above was far more bigoted than Catholics believing that Protestantism is false when our view of Christianity demands as much, whereas you are coming to those accusatory and offensive conclusions on your own and you are voicing them out of your own assent, without being prompted by any set-in-stone code of belief.
Believing that people of other beliefs who lived in honesty and goodness may well get to Heaven by God’s mercy does not, as I have said before, mean that you must believe their truth claims, when in conflict with your own, are equally likely or true. Respect for a truth claim doesn’t mean accepting it as equally true to your own.
If believing in and not compromising religious truth (not saying Fr. BcBrien does, as I haven’t read his column) means asserting an air of religious superiority, then we are called by Christ to do so. Of course, I disagree with your implication that the two are the same thing, but if so, that’s what we are bound by our beliefs to do…speak the truth. We are to speak it in love, of course, but love and respect have nothing to do with compromising the truth.
Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul
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MrS
Guest
In a discussion with our former Bishop, I remarked that half of the people who come into the Church at Easter, often have left, or become “no-shows” by the following Easter. He thought it was even more than half. They don’t necessary leave for a protestant faith community (notice I did not say Church, because they have no claim to use that word in their description other than habitual, constant misuse…but that is another issue). , they just get lazy and re-adopt the more easy believism of our separated brethren.
Anyway…
Kindred Soul would definitely fall into the other half. Welcome home, welcome to CAF, and continue to make your presence know. Well done.
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Anyway…
Kindred Soul would definitely fall into the other half. Welcome home, welcome to CAF, and continue to make your presence know. Well done.
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KindredSoul
Guest
Thank you so very much. It is such kindness and warm affirmation as this that continually demonstrates to me–as I have never doubted–that Catholics can and do display the welcome, charity, and edification over which Protestants sometimes claim to have some kind of monopoly.
I am glad to be home, and I have enjoyed being a part of CAF as well.
Blessings in Christ,
KindredSoul
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josie_L
Guest
Finally. Bravo!
Turns into:
As a proponent of “big tent” Christianity, who are you to disrespect beliefs? Who are you to decide what is “legitimate Christianity”? Again I can only go with your own words:
Yes your “big tent” theory just oozes “respect” and “open mindedness” with talks of Catholic beliefs, which Catholics hold dear to themselves, being pagan and Catholicism offending peoples “common sense” and “intelligence”.
Very open minded and respectful…
God bless
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Aidan12
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I am sorry I missed this comment. The question of Anglican orders is far more complex that many Roman Catholics realize. Roman Catholics may not be aware that a practice began in earnest in the 1920’s–several decades after Pope Leo XIII’s Apostolicae Curae–with the ecumenical purpose of paving the way to future reunion between the various Anglican churches and Rome. This ecumenical sensitivity to Roman Catholic views about validity of Anglican orders led some Anglican bishops to include in their consecration the laying on of hands by, not only Anglican bishops, but also Old Catholic, Polish National, or other bishops whose orders the Roman Catholic Church has always recognized as in the apostolic succession. While such rites or churches may or may not be in communion with Rome, there is no question as to the apostolic succession present in their orders. As a result, there exists a surprising number of Anglican clergy who can trace their orders through these bishops without any doubt of apostolic succession. The clergy of the particular congregation I mentioned in my original post can trace their orders in this way. Hence my comments.
In my original post, I was suggesting that the catholic mind of my two young friends was confronted by questionable conduct in the parishes they visited. Ordinary Catholics, who consistently claim the reality of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, and the grace that is available through valid sacraments, can behave during the celebration of the Eucharist as though the Lord is not present. They say one thing with their lips and another with their behavior, thereby scandalizing the very people they wish to persuade of the truth of the Roman Catholic position. My friends at the moment see the process of conversion in any of these parishes more as an obstacle rather than a path to reunion with Roman Catholics. Which may go a long way to explain why many others do not attempt it.
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jeanne71350
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I would not. Catholicism is the original Christian Church. The only true Church instituted by Christ.
-Jeanne
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thunderballs75
Guest
No. Because it is false. However, if it were a forced conversion, I’d prefer to be Lutheran, since they are only one step away from the Truth rather than 30,000.
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