Do you believe there is one true church?

[Ani_Ibi]

Maybe “the” would have been better used instead to “our.” That might have come out of refering to all of us who have a part in belonging to the Church. I’ll try to use my words better in the future. I’m only human though. I apologize for any misunderstanding.

Thank you. I appreciate your flexibility. We are human. Sometimes other folks catch what we miss. Sartre was wrong: hell is not other people. Other people are quite handy at times.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

And right before my dad died, he admitted that he only stayed a southern baptist after reading the early church fathers because he didn’t want to lose his livelihood of being a paid pastor. But he knew he was in the wrong faith, but couldn’t convert because of finances. I have been told he made a death bed conversion.

God bless your Dad, Halsalter. What a gift to you to know that he held himself accountable at the end. Good for him.

 

[distracted]

distracted;2139771:

I agree. Confusing would have been a better word then mysterious. Rapid writing gets me every time. I noticed a bunch of spelling issues too. We can’t edit on here unless we catch it pretty quick.

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t offer thanks to the Lord that I don’t have to search or wonder anymore. Now, by the Grace of God, I can spend the rest of my life helping others on their journey to conversion.

Amen. Frankly, i get tired of always trying to reinvent the wheel of right religion… I know this one guy who just wants to study this and read about that… and question everything ad naseum…
I guess that’s where he’s at… (or was, i don’t spend much time with him anymore)… but i am (what i consider) “beyond that.”
I just want to be with Jesus in the church, listen to him, be close to him, not necessarily strain my brain to understand all t he things i admit i don’t understand.
Oh, by the way, you do know about the EDIT feature, don’t u, which comes up after you SUBMIT REPLY? I just discovered a spell-check too, though i haven’t used it yet. It is in the upper right hand corner…
God bless…

 

[Ani_Ibi]

guanophore:

That was Carol. She seems to be saying that we need to flex with the world…

Carol Coombe:

Nah, that was not me.

If that was not you then who posted this?
Carol Coombe:

I do believe that this is the way the world is moving, and our faith must move with it.

Carol Coombe:

I am always surprised that I do not see any evidence that anyone has been reading Merton, Nolan, Nouwen, Vanier, Rolheiser, all devout Catholics.

Why on earth would you be surprised if what you say about the reading habits of folks other than yourself is true? If you have a point to make, then it is your responsibility to make that point – hopefully more succinctly than you have to date – reference your point, quote the relevant material, and give us a link to that material.

Rather than simply namedrop.
Carol Coombe:

They are suitable candidates for evidence, but people stick to the same Biblical interpretations.

Which people?
Carol Coombe:

Even if people looked at and quoted the book that I recommended out of the Vatican (imprimere) on how to read the Bible, I think there would some surprise at the difference between that official publication and some of the views put before this thread.

Quoted the book? Perhaps you could demonstrate that process by giving us an example?

You think there would be some surprise at the difference between that official publication and some of the views put before this thread?

What part of that official publication?

Which views?

Is your post on topic or does the thread have to be split again?

 

[Ani_Ibi]

…I am not sure how people are using the word relative or relativism, or even if everyone who uses it, uses it the same.

You slipped and we noticed. In any case, the remedy for being unsure about how folks are using the word ‘relativism’ is what?

 

[Contarini]

Pot and kettle? Having said that, I do believe that claiming that “Ms Coombe’s post supports moral relativism” is preferable to “calling Ms Coombe a relativist.” Ad hominems are fallacious and not the best form.



You are speaking about what you heard

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Only in doctrine. In fact, I think where the Church has gotten into the most trouble is trying to “move with the world”.

Carol Coombe:

I know that lots of people think the Church has remained faithful to the original principles and understandings of Christianity established within the first century after His death. But it has also reacted with tremendous vigour to heresies, schisms, tendencies and other challenges from inside and outside the Church and its doctrine. It is inevitable that the Church has changed as a result.

Equivocation. Magisterial teaching does not change. Other aspects of Church teaching does change. We’ve already explained this to you.
Carol Coombe:

We see the Church adjusting … their interpretation of doctrine and its subsequent application.

Adjusting Her interpretation of doctrine? Remember all those quotes you were instructing us to post? Merton, Nolan, Nouwen, Vanier, Rolheiser? Now would be a good time for you to demonstrate the art of posting evidence of what you claim to have read.
Carol Coombe:

And if you take the papacies from early 1900s, you will see the change is dramatic.

Change in what area? I suggest that you take the papacies from the early 1900s and you demonstrate to us that the change happened and that it was dramatic, please. If you have a point to make, then please don’t ask us to do your research for you. Thank you.
Carol Coombe:

Doctrine may change slowly

Demonstrate that it changes at all please.
Carol Coombe:

I think the foundation is Christ. Whatever humanistic motives and efforts we have will ultimately only have a limited effect unless they are grounded in the person of Christ.

And what He has asked us to do.
Carol Coombe:

The idea that each individual is imbued with a spark of the divine (ie the soul or spirit) which returns to God at death, and that therefore each of us in equally divine in God’s eyes, came from the great Quakers

. It is an idea that is not outside RCIA teaching, at least here.

The Quakers came before the Catholic Church?

 

[Traveller1534]

Please realise how boring it is to hear the same thing again and again and again:

(1) Christ created One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church (although in the Nicene Creed, these are written without capital letters);
(2) Luther and his ilk kicked off the traces of the Absolute Truth of Catholicism and made an ill-fated attempt to understand what Christ meant by his life and mission;
(3) by being so moronic, they gave up any hope of salvation, redemption, forgiveness, etc etc which come only from Christ through the One True Church;
(4) and then the kicker opinion that anyone not in the Catholic faith has nothing at all to think about that has any merit.

This is a really uninformed charicature of the nature of both the Catholic Church and those denominations founded after the schism. And the charicature leads us nowhere really. We all know these four themes really well.

So can you help us move forward with something more informed, that would help us to think out of the box?

Jabulani!

You have got to be joking!

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Carol Coombe:

My point is that with the Catholic Church claiming primacy, and apparently relegating people of other Christian denominations as well as ‘pagans’ like Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims (pardon Dogmatic Constitution Vatican II) to somewhere beyond the pale, there is no possibility right now to identify a unified or universal church of Christ.

Your posts have left me with the impression that you do not know what the Church has said about non-Catholic religions. Start with Paul 6 Nostra Aetate. Then go to vatican.va and enter ‘other faiths’ and ‘Nostra Aetate’ in the search window. Read what JP2 and B16 have written. There is a lot.

Also go to New Advent or EWTN and enter ‘extra ecclesia nulles salus’ in the search window.

Also go to vatican.va and read Dominus Iesus.
Carol Coombe:

Such a church, if ultimately achieved, would of course be diverse because it would **not **

be simply the Catholic Church having swallowed all the other denominations. Instead it would be a true universal church representing all of Christendom. It might even contain elements of other faiths (meditation and contemplation coming out of Buddhist and Hindu traditions are making headway in mainline churches including RCC for example).

Catholics accept the authority of Church to interpret and to teach. If a Buddhist or Hindu wants to do that, then he/she is Catholic. If he/she does not want to do that, then he/she is not Catholic. It is the Church who decides who is Catholic.
Carol Coombe:

… in our RCIA, we have talked about how the Church works, what we do during service, the history of the faith from the time of the Jews, the issue of whether the Garden of Eden was ‘real’ or not. So far there has not been a word about Christ

: who was He, what were His intentions, did He achieve them, why did God send Him at that particular point in the history of humanity?

Are you finished RCIA? Do you have a sense that, between the time you started RCIA and the time you finish, nobody will ever mention Jesus Christ? If so, then you need to be talking to the priest in charge, not us.

‘The Teachings’ is a word that has not been closely defined. It would help to know how much it covers.

How has the priest in charge answered your question?
Carol Coombe:

Again, what all does ‘Catholic Teaching’ cover?

Start with the Church Fathers. Read the writings of the recent Popes; look at their endnotes and pore over the saints and popes which they reference. Pore over the Catechism. Ask the priest in charge to fill in the gaps.

The library on the home page of Catholic Answers has very succinct explanations of basic Church teachings. Other Church teachings you can enter in the search window and pages of links will appear.
Carol Coombe:

Christ did teach – and exemplify in his brief life - the principal principles that are understood and honoured by all Christians. But what I said was that their interpretation and their application will vary both within the Catholic Church, and among various other Christian denominations.

Among individual Catholics there is a learning curve on Church teaching.

Among folks who are convinced that their own interpretations are the be all and end all – whether they claim to be Catholic or non-Catholic – there is no learning curve on Church teaching.

Some things the Church allows us to think over ourselves. Some things are Her preprogative to be strict about.

 

[Benedicta]

absolutely , yes there is only one true Church; the work of Solovyov is interesting particularly as it affects the separated Eastern churches, and hte ecumenical initiative. The fracture in the Protestant denominations denies the unity and universality of the Church instituted by Christ,and the theology of hte Patristics- the early Chruch Fathers. Although the separated christian churches do contalin some truth about hte message of Christ, the fullness of truth resides in the Catholic Church.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Carol Coombe:

Taking a parish priest out his management position, and putting him into a Bishopric does not mean he will make an effective Bishop with the capacity to do what a Bishop is meant to do in terms of maintaining appropriate standards of teaching.

If you are in RCIA, you should not have time to worry about whether other folks are learning what they are supposed to be learning. Your own knowledge could clearly use a lot of work.
Carol Coombe:

I think we need to understand relativism too. Could you expand on this? I am not clear about it, and I know that there is a very grave distrust of relativism within the Catholic Church, but I am not sure why.

Someone gave you a link to that B16 article on relativism already. Perhaps you could further this inquiry about relativism on a different thread?
Carol Coombe:

I know I think in grey – not black and white – and that I am reluctant to judge anyone else (except for someone who is Prime Evil).

If God did not want us to judge behaviour then he would not have given us the gifts of observation or reason. If you can’t judge behaviour then you can’t protect yourself or your family from harm. That’s not right. God does not want us to judge people’s hearts; their motives. Judging hearts is His job.
Carol Coombe:

I think it is basic to the discussion because (1) there has been little discussion about the alternative to the Catholic Church and its claim to primacy within the Christian faith;

I’ve given you references to what the Church teaches on other faiths. Do you have thoughts about which church other than the Catholic Church has primacy? Perhaps a thread on the claims of another church to primacy might be useful?
Carol Coombe:

and (2) this is related to the Catholic belief in an Absolute Truth maintained by the Absolutely One and Only Catholic Church (sorry if I offend),

The authority of the Church is based on historical evidence.
Carol Coombe:

and the belief of others that there are Christian principles that are applied in various ways by a plethora of distinct Christian bodies.

Their claims are not based on historical evidence.

I’ve assisted at RCIA. I noticed that some folks were in RCIA because they wanted a Catholic wedding but had little use for a Catholic life. They didn’t do very well. Why are you in RCIA?

 

[RNRobert]

But then, traveller1534 has left the building.

I think he’s only here to snipe.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Carol Coombe:

Please realise how boring it is to hear the same thing again and again and again

Most people who leave the Catholic Church do so because they are bored. Why are you in RCIA again?

 

[lak611]

Most people who leave the Catholic Church do so because they are bored. Why are you in RCIA again?

I really do not think boredom is the main cause of people leaving the Catholic Church. I think relativism is a bigger cause of people leaving. They want to “do their own thing”, and they cannot abide by the moral laws of the Church.

 

[jmcrae]

Yes, it is certainly part of understanding His life, His nature, His mission, His intentions, His achievements. I mean, in our RCIA, we have talked about how the Church works, what we do during service, the history of the faith from the time of the Jews, the issue of whether the Garden of Eden was ‘real’ or not. So far there has not been a word about Christ: who was He, what were His intentions, did He achieve them, why did God send Him at that particular point in the history of humanity? ‘The Teachings’ is a word that has not been closely defined. It would help to know how much it covers.

I have a fairly traditional-style RCIA curriculum that I work from. It has 44 lessons, as follows:

INQUIRY
Ql. Your Journey of Faith
Q2. What Do Catholics Believe?
Q3. What Is the Meaning of the Mass?
Q4. The Bible
Q5. How Do Catholics Interpret the Bible?
Q6. The Saints
Q7. Mary
Q8. Places in the Catholic Church (Church Tour)
Q9. Who’s Who in the Church
Q10. Catholics and Prayer
Qll. Catholic Practices
Q12. Catholics and Church

CATECHUMENATE
Cl. The Sacraments
C2. The Sacrament of Baptism
C3. The Sacrament of Confirmation
C4. The Sacrament of the Eucharist
C5. The Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation
C6. The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick
C7. The Sacrament of Marriage
C8. The Sacrament of Holy Orders
C9. The People of God
C10. Who Is Jesus Christ?
Cll. The Early Church
C12. History of the Church
C13. Christian Moral Living
C14. Social Justice
C15. The Consistent Life Ethic
C16. The Dignity of Life

LENT
Ll. What Is Lent?
L2. Saying Yes to Jesus
L3. Take a Look (Introduces the Examination of Conscience)
L4. The Nicene Creed
L5. The Way of the Cross
L6. The Lord’s Prayer
L7. The Meaning of Holy Week
L8. Catechumenate Retreat Day

MYSTAGOGY
M 1. Conversion: A Lifelong Process.
M2. The Laity: Called to Build God’s Kingdom
M3. Your Special Gifts
M4. Family Life
M5. Your Prayer Life
M6. Discernment
M7. Holiness
M8. Evangelization

Additionally, we are supposed to be teaching them to pray, and encouraging them to go to Mass, as well as conduct their own research outside of class in whatever areas of Church practice and belief most interest them.

 

[Ani_Ibi]

I really do not think boredom is the main cause of people leaving the Catholic Church. I think relativism is a bigger cause of people leaving. They want to “do their own thing”, and they cannot abide by the moral laws of the Church.

One would think so. And perhaps this is the root reason. But the identified reason is boredom. They don’t understand the Liturgy, the Mass, the Eucharist, Confession, and any number of other things. Fr Busch spoke about this last Sunday. They want to be entertained and when what is offered does not meet their standards for entertainment, they leave.

 

[distracted]

I really do not think boredom is the main cause of people leaving the Catholic Church. I think relativism is a bigger cause of people leaving. They want to “do their own thing”, and they cannot abide by the moral laws of the Church.

So true!!

But you have to admit, it is sometimes virtually impossible to live a perfectly holy life…

I’ve been celibate for a 100 years I used to not care.

Now i care… But oh well…

Better to be alone than to be lonely WITH someone…

 

[Ani_Ibi]

Contarini:

No need to explain anything.

If there is no need to explain anything then why participate in a discussion? Why not just adopt a posture of authority and lecture us?

Contarini:

Your statement is a non sequitur.

You do not demonstrate this. But then why should you? In any case which statement are you talking about?

There is a quote button on the top menu. It is the little yellow square with the v at the bottom. Please use that so that we can follow what you are talking about.

Contarini:

It’s up to Carol to explain what she meant.

And because she did not do that, it is perfectly legitimate for us to make reasonable inferences from what she did say.

Contarini:

There are a number of things she might have meant by the above other than “all truth is relative.”

“All truth is relative.” Who said that? Oh! I guess you just posted a strawman. Whew! Almost slipped past us.

Contarini:

She might have meant that some kinds of truth are relative and some aren’t.

Are you explaining what she meant?

Contarini:

Or she might have meant that there is an absolute truth, but that we do not currently have full possession of it.

Are you explaining what she meant?

Contarini:

As for the world being the “foundation of truth,” she might simply think that it was one witness to the truth and in this particular case an authentic one.

Are you explaining what she meant?

Contarini:

I’m also not sure why you think I agree with her.

Um… because you are explaining what she meant?

Contarini:

I am under no obligation to defend her views just because I criticize one unfair characterization of them.

Why are you then? By the way, you have not demonstrated that the inference drawn by more than one person is unfair. You have merely made the claim hoping that it will stick by magic.

How do you expect us to follow what you are saying if you do not give us the tools to follow you – logic, links, and quotes? We should just accept your teaching as the final word?

Contarini:

I certainly do not think that the world is the foundation of truth.

The point is: do you believe that the Church should follow the world?

 

[Contarini]

First of all, I responded to the earlier post without reading all of Carol’s later posts. She doesn’t seem to object to being characterized as a relativist, so I withdraw my defense of her!

However, just to clarify what I was saying:

If there is no need to explain anything then why participate in a discussion?

What I meant is that I was making a statement about what Carol had not said, not about what she actually believed (much less what I believed).

There is a quote button on the top menu. It is the little yellow square with the v at the bottom. Please use that so that we can follow what you are talking about.

I did. I was referring to the statement I had just quoted!

And because she did not do that, it is perfectly legitimate for us to make reasonable inferences from what she did say.

I did not think that what she said reasonably implied relativism. Apparently I was being overly charitable. However, it is better to be overly charitable than to jump to conclusions.

“All truth is relative.” Who said that? Oh! I guess you just posted a strawman. Whew! Almost slipped past us.

Well, that’s my definition of relativism. How would you define relativism differently? Surely you agree that some values are relative.

Are you explaining what she meant?

No, I wasn’t. I was urging caution in applying a broad and not very useful label (since “relativism” can mean a lot of things) to her statements.

Um… because you are explaining what she meant?

Are you seriously suggesting that one should only explain things with which one agrees? Don’t you agree that it is important to understand the things with which one does not agree (or with which one thinks one does not agree)?

The point is: do you believe that the Church should follow the world?

Simply put, no. My only caveat would be that just because non-Christians think of something first does not make it a bad idea, so there might be times when “following the world” (in the sense of imitating non-Christian trends) might be the right thing to do. But only if the Church concluded that this was in fact the most Christian think to do. One should never follow the world just for the sake of doing so.

Edwin

 

[The_Truthinator]

you don’t have how the hearers of the time understood what the Apostles said and wrote to them, nor how they have continued to be understood by the same Church since that time.

Your history comes to an abrupt halt at the end of the Book of Acts, and then resumes more than 1500 years later, with Martin Luther pounding his 95 theses into the door of the cathedral at Wittenberg.

The Catholic Church can only speculate as to what was going through the heads (and hearts) of the Apostles as the words of Scripture came together at their dictate. I do not believe that the Scriptures were written in some hard-to-decipher Bible Code, and if one has the context, the Word, and the intellect, the Scriptures are in most areas quite clearly defined. And with the Holy Spirit, the Word can be applied.

I do not consider myself a Protestant, *per se. *It is a tricky subject, given that non-denominationalism is a Protestant movement, yet the churches themselves are independently governed and profess no allegiance to the realm of Protestantism, but prefer the appropriate dub of “Christian,” their main reasoning drawn from the fact that the Word is their unbroken lineage. Make of that as you wish. I may attend a Baptist church, but I believe in the equality of the Church (the Body of Believers) and Christ, the necessity of water baptism with few exceptions, the antiquity of the universe, and the losibility of salvation, which makes me something of an odd-ball at First Baptist. But I believe this not because of some persuasive argument or eloquent creed, but because the Word itself seems to attest to these things.

socializing occurs elsewhere, as does Catechesis and Bible study - the Mass is neither a classroom nor a social hall; it is a time of worship.

Yes, our church also has discipleship, Sunday school, and plenty of social events. From this alone I could have concluded that likewise the Catholic churches also in all probability have such things.

You have no support for any of this.

There is plenty of support for the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist in Scripture.

They do have plenty of arguments calling for transubstantiation, yet I remain unconvinced due to the context of the passages. Heck, the Noahide laws, which were reinforced by Paul, strictly condemn the consuming of blood. Anyway, look at my comments on the Eucharist on the thread asking to prove wrong any point of Catholic theology, and here’s a fairly unbiased Web site that does the context of these passages justice, if you’re interested: godandscience.org/doctrine/eucharist.php.

being required to come to Mass on Sundays, many of us are there even when we’re having a bad time of it.

Protestants only have to go to Church when everything is going well

I admire that attitude. It’s a good one to have. Although most educated Protestants consider Sunday worship to be less of an obligation than something that is simply in line with the will of God, and thus they seek to fulfill their “obligation” to please him. For those that just come maybe twice a year, or just whenever they feel like it, I encourage you to be skeptical, but try not to be judgmental, for there we both would fail.

The Council of Trent reaffirmed the Declaration of Pope Damasus I which he made in something like 385 AD- it closed the canon of the Old Testament at the original 46 books that Christ and the Apostles are known to have used.

Yeshua refers to the “Scriptures” as “the Law of Moses (Torah), the Prophets (the Apocalyptic books), and the Psalms (a generic term most likely identifying the poetic narratives as a whole)” in Lk. 24:44. Neither he nor any of his disciples are ever seen quoting directly from any Apocryphal book or giving any one of them authoritative Scriptural power. And Paul said in Acts 24:14 that he believed everything in “the Law and the Prophets.” While the Apocryphal books were in circulation by that time, and while arguably the Canon was still open, officially it is often believed that the Jewish canon, which excluded the Apocrypha (with the possible exception of 2 Esdras, which was renounced by Trent anyway), was decided upon in the second century B.C. Anyway, though many of the books of the Apocrypha were accepted by the Fathers, there was tremendous disagreement as to which ones were to be admitted into the Canon and which were not. The discrepancies were a large part of the reason they were ultimately rejected. Needless to say, even the Jews, by whom and for whom those texts were crafted, did not recognize them as inspired, either. None of the Apocryphal books makes any claim of inspiration and some make historical and geographical errors. Jerome calls them simply “books of the Church,” not “books of the Canon.”