Did Jesus have siblings?

[guanophore]

Ah, it was helpful seeing you write it that way. No one is begrudging you, that you have standards to get into your tent. Instead, I think it’s two things. One is puzzlement at some of the entry requirements (we could refer to several ongoing threads on the site).

Please do!

Second, perhaps instead of a tent, let’s use a club as an example. Yours is member-only. The rest are public clubs that remain open to people from surrounding cities.

Ok, let’s look at “club”. Yes, only those who are members of the Body of Christ are joined to His Church. those who are at emnity with God, and reject Him, are not in union with His Body, the Church. However, membership is OPEN to ALL! God desires all to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the Truth. However, there is no other name under heaven by which we may be saved. People either come to Him for Life, or die in their sins.

I think by “public clubs” you are referring to non-Catholic ecclesial communities. I think you are also right that people can be considered “members” of them while still rejecting the doctrines of the faith. Most American Catholics also suffer from this condition. They do not realize that they have departed from their Catholicity. Their membership card is no longer valid, because they have rejected that which is essential to belong. They may still carry the card, think they are members, and represent to others that they are, but when they are measured against that which identifies them as members, they do not meet the criteria. This is not “exclusive” however. Anyone can belong to the Catholic Church. Most choose not to do so.

 

[guanophore]

Oh I don’t know, I think the overwhelming majority of people know it when they commit a grave sin. Some one has to have a dead conscience to not know it.

I think there are an overwhelming number of people with a dead conscience. How else can abortion be explained?

 

[Sir_Knight]

Then you are accusing the CC of talking out of both sides of her mouth, for I am merely repeating her message.

I’ll be starting another thread on that when I get back from work. I’d like to see some heavy hitting apologists weigh in on this matter and reconcile the two apparent conflicting positions.

Don’t forget about the invincible ignorance thing.

CCC1791: when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

Don’t forget about invincible ignorance again.

CCC 1859: Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

(I’m beginning to think that yours is obstinate ignorance, though. :bigyikes:

I was thinking the same thing about you.

However, as I can’t see into your heart and mind I simply cannot proclaim definitively whether you are still invincibly ignorant about the Catholic Church’s teaching, or merely being obdurate.)

Ditto.

Absolutely not! Someone is going to hell because he misunderstands what the CC teaches? Your god is a monster for condemning someone for a mistake.

And what does Leviticus 5:17 tell us …

"*If any one sin, and do any of the things which Jehovah hath commanded not to be done, though he knew it not, yet he IS guilty, and SHALL bear his iniquity."*

… Are you saying God is a monster for that? I’d be very careful about answering that question!

It is a re-affirmation of the CC’s teaching:* Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*

The Church is necessary for salvation. We cannot have salvation without Christ. We cannot know Christ without the Church.

Thus, if someone rejects the Church, he rejects Christ and he will perish forever.

That is what I have been saying all along and you’ve been disagreeing with me.

As Peter Kreeft, Catholic Apologist, says at this website from the Knights of Columbus:

The author is obviously misguided and ignorant of Church teaching.

1. *]A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?
   
   *]“without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole AND inviolate.”
   
   – Encyclical of Pope Gregory XVI
   

   I thought I’d just repeat that this source is a*** Knights of Columbus ***source.

   And I’ve met Knights who were under the impression that they could remain Masons. Also misguided and in need of our prayers.

 

[PRmerger]

CCC1791: when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.

Indeed!

CCC 1859: Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

Absolutely!

And what does Leviticus 5:17 tell us …

"*If any one sin, and do any of the things which Jehovah hath commanded not to be done, though he knew it not, yet he IS guilty, and SHALL bear his iniquity."*

… Are you saying God is a monster for that? I’d be very careful about answering that question!

Absolutely not! That verse does not make God into a monster. (Your paradigm, however, in which God sends someone to hell for a misunderstand, does.) The verse above says nothing about condemning someone to hell for committing as in he didn’t even know was a sin. (That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard a Catholic say.)

However, God will certainly allow a person to “bear his iniquity” for his sins. Example: a woman has an abortion without fully understanding what horrific act she has committed. God allows her to have the natural consequences of her iniquity–depression, ectopic pregnancies, infertility, self-medication, etc etc etc. But condemn someone to hell for doing something she didn’t even know was wrong–heaven help us!

That is what I have been saying all along and you’ve been disagreeing with me.

:banghead:

You are saying that anyone who is a Protestant cannot enter heaven. Is that correct?

1. *]A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?

1. 
   

   *]“without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole AND inviolate.”

   – Encyclical of Pope Gregory XVI

   “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.” CCC 848

 

[Janet1983]

Then you do not believe official church teaching. I present MIRARI VOS, the Encyclical of Pope Gregory XVI (August 15, 1832) for your consideration …

Another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that “there is one God, one faith, one baptism” may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that “those who are not with Christ are against Him,” and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore “without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.” Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: “He who is for the See of Peter is for me.” A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: “The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?”

Let me highlight for you … * This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. – showing that “Invincible Ignorance” is the exception and not the rule. Otherwise, explain what the above statement means?

• Referring to those who broke from the Catholic faith – "The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?"
• And finally, and most important, please explain what this statement means – "without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole AND inviolate."

So what you are telling us is that someone who did never get into contact with the Catholic Church because he was raised in another Christian denomination will perish forever, based on a saying by someone (Jerome) who never saw the reformation or the aftermath?
How can you blame not being in the Catholic Church on someone today who has never been raised in her? The reformers for example were familiar with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Their early followers were too. But just a few generations down the line people were only familiar with what they’d been raised in.
In understand if you want to blame people like me who defected, but you cannot blame someone who has never believed the Catholic Church to be the One Church.

 

[Sir_Knight]

Absolutely not! That verse does not make God into a monster. (Your paradigm, however, in which God sends someone to hell for a misunderstand, does.) The verse above says nothing about condemning someone to hell for committing as in he didn’t even know was a sin. (That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard a Catholic say.)

However, God will certainly allow a person to “bear his iniquity” for his sins. Example: a woman has an abortion without fully understanding what horrific act she has committed. God allows her to have the natural consequences of her iniquity–depression, ectopic pregnancies, infertility, self-medication, etc etc etc. But condemn someone to hell for doing something she didn’t even know was wrong–heaven help us!

The verse shows that God will hold someone guilty of an offense AND punishment even of the person was not aware that it was an offense. There is no other way to look at it.

:banghead:

You are saying that anyone who is a Protestant cannot enter heaven. Is that correct?

I am saying that those that REJECT the Catholic faith can not enter heaven. If it has not been presented to them, then they can not reject it (the invincible ignorance thing). But if they encountered it and they refused to accept it, then they will not enter heaven.

“Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.” CCC 848

**… those who, through NO fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel … **

If it has been presented to them, if they have access to it and “take little trouble” to find out about it (CCC1791), then they ARE **culpable **(CCC1791). Refusing to listen and hardness of heart, do not diminish, but rather increase the guilt (CCC 1859).

 

[inkaneer]

What you are saying is funny. As PRmerger already mentioned, we are not here to play a blame game. If you want to look at things from that perspective, then you tell me who is to blame when one commits a grave matter without knowing?

Do you know everything? If yes, you wouldn’t be on this platform or you would have been one of the apologist. Assuming you don’t know everything,* So who is to blame here, you for not knowing it, or your parents for not teaching you or not insisting that you are properly catechized?(copied and pasted*)

Could you quote the person who said that other people are to be blamed?
As already mentioned, nobody is interested in playing a blame game here.

Look pal don’t get cutesy with me because I don’t buy it. You want me to believe that you knew [your own word] that the Immaculate Conception was about Jesus’ Conception not Mary’s in spite of the fact that you also have said:

“I went to a Catholic school for 8 years and was never told that missing Mass on Sunday is a grave sin. In my school, going to church every morning was(is still) compulsory for the first and second years. Going to church every Sunday is compulsory for everybody. In my family, church going is also compulsory. However, I saw it a just one of the many rules and regulations in school and at home. Nobody ever told me it was a grave sin not to attend mass on Sunday.”

Sorry, buster but believable you are not. LOL, I have visions of the good nuns or brothers who taught you doing barrel rolls in their graves.

 

[Sir_Knight]

So what you are telling us is that someone who did never get into contact with the Catholic Church because he was raised in another Christian denomination will perish forever, based on a saying by someone (Jerome) who never saw the reformation or the aftermath?
How can you blame not being in the Catholic Church on someone today who has never been raised in her? The reformers for example were familiar with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Their early followers were too. But just a few generations down the line people were only familiar with what they’d been raised in.
In understand if you want to blame people like me who defected, but you cannot blame someone who has never believed the Catholic Church to be the One Church.

I’m telling you what church teaching is on the matter. I’ve quoted it word for word. Kindly give me your understanding of the Encyclical of Pope Gregory XVI (August 15, 1832):

1. *]This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained.
   
   *]A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?
   
   *]“without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole AND inviolate.”

 

[PRmerger]

The verse shows that God will hold someone guilty of an offense AND punishment even of the person was not aware that it was an offense. There is no other way to look at it.

Not true.

“If someone, without being aware of it**, commits such a sin by doing one of the things which are forbidden by some commandment of the LORD, that he incurs guilt for which he must answer” Lev 5:17

** “Without being aware of it: the case naturally presupposes that later on the offender learns of his mistake.” Cf Lev 4:13, 14. (I’ll tell you the source later, if you want to know.)

I am saying that those that REJECT the Catholic faith can not enter heaven.

Yup. You just don’t know what it is they’re rejecting.

One person left the CC because he thought we worshipped Mary. He’s not rejecting the CC, then, is he?

You just don’t know.

Thus, one ought to keep one’s mouth shut about whether a Protestant is condemned to hell or not.

 

[PRmerger]

I’m telling you what church teaching is on the matter. I’ve quoted it word for word. Kindly give me your understanding of the Encyclical of Pope Gregory XVI (August 15, 1832):

1. *]This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained.
   
   *]A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?
   
   *]“without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole AND inviolate.”

1. 
   Janet, if you respond to Sir Knight’s posting, it helps to know the context of the encyclical. Pope G was speaking specifically about the sin of indifferentism–the belief that one’s religion does not matter. Not about Protestants.
   
   In fact, the subtitle is “On Liberalism and Religious Indifferentism”

 

[inkaneer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
And it never occurred to you to ask why it was compulsory? Do you always do things without knowing why you do them? Listen, I got a bridge I can sell you real cheap…

Yes it never occurred to me to ask why it was compulsory (surprised? satisfied? eh?).
When I arrived boarding school at the age of 9, I was given a book with rules and regulations which I had to read and follow. Would you have started asking why the compulsory stuff in the book were compulsory? Should I have started asking why we had to do chores, manual labour on Mondays (and not Tuesdays), why the first and second years had to attend mass everyday etc? Do you always ask why?

Yes, I sometimes do things without knowing why I do them (satisfied?). Before Christmas, we used to cut down a cypress tree, decorate it and call it a Christmas tree. I got used to this tradition and never asked why. In my culture, we don’t have Easter eggs. Well, knowing the history of Easter eggs is not yet on my “To-Know-List”. However, I accept the tradition and take part in it without knowing why. So are you satisfied?

Have you ever asked why your cell phone does what it does or why your computer does what it does or would you have asked why an apple falls down from a tree?

I am interested in growing more in faith and I do have a “To-Know-List” but unfortunately I can’t ask all my questions at once and I can’t get all my questions answered at once.
E.g After reading a passage in the bible, I discovered that the sabbath was on Saturday and not Sunday. I searched for the topic on this forum and the answer from the apologist was a reference to a lengthy online article. Well, I simply bookmarked the page (increasing my “To-Visit-Pages” to 40) since I didn’t have time to read the article. So currently, I don’t why the sabbath was moved to Sunday and I believe it’s not a priority for me to know and I must not also know why. But I accept it like accepting a Gospel truth.

Well, I will leave it here. If you choose to be catholic (open-minded), then you would understand that people are different and that people are brought up differently.

Peace

I still don’t buy it. First you say you went to Catholic school for eight years now you say you went to a boarding school at the age of 9. So what school did you go to at age 6? By the way, catholic does not mean open minded. It means universal. The name comes from the scriptures, Acts 9:31 to be exact:

“So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Sama’ria had peace and was built up; and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit it was multiplied.”

The words translated in English as, “the church throughout…” is, in the Greek, ecclesia kata holis

As for the Sunday versus Sabbath thingy, the early christians worshipped on the “Lord’s Day” otherwise known as the “eighth day” or Sunday, the day of the Resurrection. They reasoned that just as the New Covenant did away with the Mosaic Law and the Old Covenant which were precursors of that which was to come, meaning the New Covenant, then so too things associated with the Old Covenant such as the dietary laws, the rite of circumcision and keeping the Old Testament Sabbath were done away with. There is an early christian writing dating to around about 225 AD called the Didascalia which claims that Sunday worship was taught by the Apostles:

“The apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let there be service, and the reading of the holy scriptures, and the oblation [sacrifice of the Mass], because on the first day of the week * our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and on the first day of the week he arose upon the world, and on the first day of the week he ascended up to heaven, and on the first day of the week he will appear at last with the angels of heaven” (Didascalia 2 [A.D. 225]).

St. Athanasius probably summed it up best when he wrote:

“The Sabbath was the end of the first creation, the Lord’s day was the beginning of the second, in which he renewed and restored the old in the same way as he prescribed that they should formerly observe the Sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things, so we honor the Lord’s day as being the memorial of the new creation” (On Sabbath and Circumcision 3 [A.D. 345]).*

 

[PRmerger]

I’m telling you what church teaching is on the matter.

Here’s more about what the CC actually teaches about EENS, again, from your own group, the Knights of Columbus, Luke E. Hart and Peter Kreeft.

We do not how exactly *how *God saves non-Catholics or how many are saved; but we do know *who *they are saved by: the One who said, “No man comes to the Father but by me” (John 6:14)…

Fundamentalists send out missionaries because they claim to know that all are damned except those who consciously know and accept Christ. Modernists send out missionaries, if they do, just to do good human works. They also claim to know the number of the damned: none. Catholics make neither claim. They just preach the truth.

(bold mine)

Gotta love those Knights of Columbus–the ones who know their faith, that is!

Again, Catholics do not make any claim as to who is in hell.

 

[kelvinf]

Look pal don’t get cutesy with me because I don’t buy it. You want me to believe that you knew [your own word] that the Immaculate Conception was about Jesus’ Conception not Mary’s in spite of the fact that you also have said:

“I went to a Catholic school for 8 years and was never told that missing Mass on Sunday is a grave sin. In my school, going to church every morning was(is still) compulsory for the first and second years. Going to church every Sunday is compulsory for everybody. In my family, church going is also compulsory. However, I saw it a just one of the many rules and regulations in school and at home. Nobody ever told me it was a grave sin not to attend mass on Sunday.”

Sorry, buster but believable you are not. LOL, I have visions of the good nuns or brothers who taught you doing barrel rolls in their graves.

Once again you don’t need to buy it. You can convince yourself that you know too much but if you have never heard of the common misinterpretation of the Immaculate Conception then…
This link should give you some insight

 

[inkaneer]

Once again you don’t need to buy it. You can convince yourself that you know too much but if you have never heard of the common misinterpretation of the Immaculate Conception then…
This link should give you some insight

Your are correct, I don’t have to buy it. But I’ll go you one better. I don’t think you are Catholic nor do I think you were ever Catholic. No one goes to Catholic school for eight years and doesn’t know the difference between the Incarnation and the Immaculate Conception as you claim you didn’t. Maybe you know which religious order staffed this Catholic School you allegedly went to. Care to enlighten us? One more thing, you know those “common misconceptions of the Immaculate Conception” that you posted from Wikipedia? Those are not 'misconceptions at all. Rather those are the allegations made by fundamentalist evangelicals who will stop at nothing to denounce the Catholic Church. Those are contrived allegations not misinterpretations. The writer of that article was obviously Catholic and preferred to characterize the fraudulent accusations as only misinterpretations. But I have been involved for some time in discussions with members of other protestant denominations. We discuss differences in doctrines and other things. They all know the difference between the Incarnation and the Immaculate Conception. That is not to say they believe in the Immaculate Conception but they know what the doctrine is. Now if Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists are not confused about the Immaculate Conception is why is someone, who claimed to go to a Catholic school for eight years, like you claim you did, confused? Like I said, you can keep your bridge, I’m not buying it.

 

[PRmerger]

Your are correct, I don’t have to buy it. But I’ll go you one better. I don’t think you are Catholic nor do I think you were ever Catholic. No one goes to Catholic school for eight years and doesn’t know the difference between the Incarnation and the Immaculate Conception as you claim you didn’t.

Have you forgotten already, inkaneer, about Major Tom? You read his posts that said he had no idea what the Immaculate Conception was, despite growing up Catholic.

So there’s one example, right from this thread, of someone who grew up Catholic and doesn’t know the difference between the Incarnation and the IC. I’ll provide you with lots more.

Another poster, Redrum went to an all boys Catholic school and did not know what the IC was.

And another poster, Lesley Polley, grew up in a Catholic boarding school and did not know what the IC was.

:tsktsk:

 

[kelvinf]

I still don’t buy it.

Again and again, you don’t need to buy it. It’s another truth which can’t be disputed and your opinion does not matter.

First you say you went to Catholic school for eight years now you say you went to a boarding school at the age of 9

.
Hahahaha, am I confusing you? Okay, let me spell it out. I went to a Catholic boarding school at the age of 9 and completed after 8 years. Clear? satisfied? eh?

So what school did you go to at age 6?

Why do you keep asking all these funny questions? Ok, at age 6, I was in a Primary School (in Class 5). Satisfied?

Lo, I took a course called “Living and studying in a multicultural environment”. I recommend such a course for you. You would learn a lot of things you don’t know.

By the way, catholic does not mean open minded.

Who told you that? You were playing around with the fact that I acknowledged being one of those who misinterpreted the Immaculate Conception (and you chose to cast doubt albeit your opinion those not matter). I am surprised you are not aware of the meanings of the word catholic. I have linked a dictionary with the word catholic in the search field. Check out all the meanings of the word catholic and see for yourself. Also check out the synonyms of open-minded.

As for the Sunday versus Sabbath thingy, the early christians worshipped on the “Lord’s Day” otherwise known as the “eighth day” or Sunday, the day of the Resurrection. They reasoned that just as the New Covenant did away with the Mosaic Law and the Old Covenant which were precursors of that which was to come, meaning the New Covenant, then so too things associated with the Old Covenant such as the dietary laws, the rite of circumcision and keeping the Old Testament Sabbath were done away with. There is an early christian writing dating to around about 225 AD called the Didascalia which claims that Sunday worship was taught by the Apostles:

“The apostles further appointed: On the first day of the week let there be service, and the reading of the holy scriptures, and the oblation [sacrifice of the Mass], because on the first day of the week * our Lord rose from the place of the dead, and on the first day of the week he arose upon the world, and on the first day of the week he ascended up to heaven, and on the first day of the week he will appear at last with the angels of heaven” (Didascalia 2 [A.D. 225]).

St. Athanasius probably summed it up best when he wrote:

“The Sabbath was the end of the first creation, the Lord’s day was the beginning of the second, in which he renewed and restored the old in the same way as he prescribed that they should formerly observe the Sabbath as a memorial of the end of the first things, so we honor the Lord’s day as being the memorial of the new creation” (On Sabbath and Circumcision 3 [A.D. 345]).*

There were a lot of question marks in my previous posts but you did not answer any of them. Instead, you decided to touch on the sabbath. Anyways, thanks for shedding light on the sabbath.

 

[Roy5]

Sir Knight

Wow! I wonder if you are 'more Catholic than the Pope' - or, at least John XXIII, my favorite. Or, maybe, are you Catholic at all? As I recall Fr. Feeney, formerly of Boston (now probably deceased) argued that 'outside the church there is no salvation' and he was admonished. 

 But, okay. Let me ask you. Do you believe that God regretted that he had created humankind and decided to drown all but eight people, including young children and babies still in the womb? How does that fit in with your view on abortion? And the Ten Commandments? And the Sermon on the Mount?

 And, do you honestly believe that God commanded Joshua to kill every last person in Jericho once it had surrendered - except for a prostitute and her family? Does that fit into the just war concept?

 Oh, and King Saul. He was told (by God?) to slaughter every remaining Amalekite. Is that in accord with Catholic morality and ethics? 

 We could go on. But, try as I may, I cannot make my concept of God - the God of love who commanded that we love one another - jive with such Biblical stories of mass murder. Sounds more like Hitler than Jesus.

  But if you can believe that atrocities were the work of God, go ahead. I think it much more likely that Joshua and Saul (or the Bible scribes) wanted to justify this evil work, so why not blame God? 

  There's a lot in the Old Testament that I find thoroughly unChristian. Re-read Ex. 21, Lev. 20, and Deut. 22-23, for example. Do you approve of a father selling his daughter into slavery? What about killing a rebellious son? Think of all the sons dads would have killed over the years?

   I wonder - with all due respect - if you shouldn't reexamine your harshness and weigh it against the words of Christ. 

  But God bless you and all of us sinners. I do worry, a bit, that you may have some explaining to do once you stand before Jesus. I would much rather be that Good Samaritan.  Re-read Luke 10:25-37. That guy was going to inherit eternal life, and he wasn't a Catholic! Not even a Jew!

 

[kelvinf]

Your are correct, I don’t have to buy it. But I’ll go you one better. I don’t think you are Catholic nor do I think you were ever Catholic. No one goes to Catholic school for eight years and doesn’t know the difference between the Incarnation and the Immaculate Conception as you claim you didn’t. Maybe you know which religious order staffed this Catholic School you allegedly went to. Care to enlighten us? One more thing, you know those “common misconceptions of the Immaculate Conception” that you posted from Wikipedia? Those are not 'misconceptions at all. Rather those are the allegations made by fundamentalist evangelicals who will stop at nothing to denounce the Catholic Church. Those are contrived allegations not misinterpretations. The writer of that article was obviously Catholic and preferred to characterize the fraudulent accusations as only misinterpretations. But I have been involved for some time in discussions with members of other protestant denominations. We discuss differences in doctrines and other things. They all know the difference between the Incarnation and the Immaculate Conception. That is not to say they believe in the Immaculate Conception but they know what the doctrine is. Now if Lutherans, Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists are not confused about the Immaculate Conception is why is someone, who claimed to go to a Catholic school for eight years, like you claim you did, confused? Like I said, you can keep your bridge, I’m not buying it.

I wouldn’t debate with you any further. There seems to be a lot of things you don’t yet know which you need to learn. However you can choose to be catholic or keep up with your bigotry.

Tschüß

 

[Major_Tom]

Have you forgotten already, inkaneer, about Major Tom? You read his posts that said he had no idea what the Immaculate Conception was, despite growing up Catholic.

So there’s one example, right from this thread, of someone who grew up Catholic and doesn’t know the difference between the Incarnation and the IC. I’ll provide you with lots more.

Another poster, Redrum went to an all boys Catholic school and did not know what the IC was.

And another poster, Lesley Polley, grew up in a Catholic boarding school and did not know what the IC was.

:tsktsk:

And, as I posted later, the true meaning of the Immaculate Conception did come back to me after I’d contemplated it for awhile. I’d spent many years not contemplating or practicing them, so I don’t think that it’s surprising that some elements of doctrine get elusive over the years. Similarly, I’m sure I’ve forgotten the Corporal works of mercy, etc…Even during school, I recall several students having trouble with it at the time, let alone after a few years…

I sympathize with kelvinf. For whatever its worth, I believe you, bro!

 

[inkaneer]

Have you forgotten already, inkaneer, about Major Tom? You read his posts that said he had no idea what the Immaculate Conception was, despite growing up Catholic.

So there’s one example, right from this thread, of someone who grew up Catholic and doesn’t know the difference between the Incarnation and the IC. I’ll provide you with lots more.

Another poster, Redrum went to an all boys Catholic school and did not know what the IC was.

And another poster, Lesley Polley, grew up in a Catholic boarding school and did not know what the IC was.

:tsktsk:

:tsktsk: indeed!!! I know people, some of whom are my own relatives and others who were my childhood friends and grew up in the same town as I did, played on the same Little League teams as I did and whose families were nominal Catholics. That means they were Catholic in name only. They were baptized Catholic, made their first Holy Communion, a few even were confirmed Catholic and married in a Catholic Church. They may have attended Mass for funerals or weddings but other than that I could count on my fingers and toes the number of times they attended Mass. Most of them are now protestants. I love it when they say something like, “I was once Catholic…” That’s when I stop them and say, “You were never Catholic.” I know my “reborn” aunt doesn’t know what the Immaculate Conception is but she never went to catechism class let alone a Catholic School. Now I could be wrong but reading Major Tom’s posts he seems sincere and not well catechized, if, indeed, at all. So maybe maybe when he says he grew up Catholic he was Catholic nominally.

As for Leslie Polley I have to question if this person ever knew anything about Catholicism. Her posts appear to follow the fundie evangelical line. Even you question whether he/she was Catholic. In your own post you characterized Leslie’s knowledge of the faith as, “voluminous IGNORANCE”.

As for Redrum, even he admitted that he knew that the Immaculate Conception was not the Incarnation. He also said he went to an “all boys Catholic school all his life.” But in response to your post in which you said:

“There seem to be a lot of non-Catholic Christians on this forum who feel that the Truth cannot be known.”
Redrum’s response was:

“I was baptized Catholic and completed CCD so I have some street cred here bro.”

Does that strike you as odd??? It strikes me as very odd. First, why would someone who went to a Catholic school 'all my life" attend CCD??? CCD is for those who do not go to Catholic school. Second, Redrum says he was baptized Catholic and went to CCD and Catholic schools but doesn’t mention his first Holy Communion nor does he mention Confirmation.

Kelvinf claims he went to a Catholic boarding school for eight years and claims he knew that the Immaculate Conception referred to Jesus conception not Mary’s. That is such a grevious error of a fundamentally basic Catholic doctrine that not once in eight years at a “Catholic boarding school” was his understanding corrected. Boarding schools are very strict on academics and I image that a Catholic boarding school would be very strict on Catholic theology. So I don’t buy it.