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AChris
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You are an apostate.
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ron77nyc
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I look at it this way: The Pope is the superintendent or the steward who represents the owner of the building. God is the owner. If the super is not doing his job properly or charging too much rent I can go directly to the owner, get a copy of the contract (New Testament) and take instructions from God Himself. If the super is abiding by the rules of the contract I will obey him but I have to read the contract to see if the super is abiding by it also. I don’t have any complaints about the Church but I have complaints about what those in charge of it have done with their control. The 2 large schisms were the fault of church leaders not the laity. To correct their poor management they pressure the laity to make up the difference.
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AChris
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Yes, but just before that, in Romans 10:
21But to Israel he saith: All the day long have I spread my hands to a people that believeth not, and contradicteth me.
and then in chapter 11:
16For if the firstfruit be holy, so is the lump also: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. …
20Well: because of unbelief they were broken off. But thou standest by faith: be not highminded, but fear. 21For if God hath not spared the natural branches, fear lest perhaps he also spare not thee. 22See then the goodness and the severity of God: towards them indeed that are fallen, the severity; but towards thee, the goodness of God, if thou abide in goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. 23And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.
And from Lumen Gentium, Ch 2:
- At all times and in every race God has given welcome to whosoever fears Him and does what is right.(85) God, however, does not make men holy and save them merely as individuals, without bond or link between one another. Rather has it pleased Him to bring men together as one people, a people which acknowledges Him in truth and serves Him in holiness. He therefore chose the race of Israel as a people unto Himself. With it He set up a covenant. Step by step He taught and prepared this people, making known in its history both Himself and the decree of His will and making it holy unto Himself. All these things, however, were done by way of preparation and as a figure of that new and perfect covenant, which was to be ratified in Christ, and of that fuller revelation which was to be given through the Word of God Himself made flesh. "Behold the days shall come saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel, and with the house of Judah . . . I will give my law in their bowels, and I will write it in their heart, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people . . . For all of them shall know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest, saith the Lord.(86) Christ instituted this new covenant, the new testament, that is to say, in His Blood,(87) calling together a people made up of Jew and gentile, making them one, not according to the flesh but in the Spirit. This was to be the new People of God. For those who believe in Christ, who are reborn not from a perishable but from an imperishable seed through the word of the living God,(88) not from the flesh but from water and the Holy Spirit,(89) are finally established as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people . . . who in times past were not a people, but are now the people of God”.
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AChris
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And so how do we know the true spirit of the law? Isn’t that why we have a Church to explain what the spirit of the law is?
Didn’t Christ also say if we loved Him we would obey His commandments?
I think the problem He had with the pharisees was that they had thousands of rules way beyond what Moses had left them. Also, they were self-riteous and thought they were great because they obeyed all the rules.
A good Christian would recognize himself as a miserable sinner, and beg God for mercy…in confession, of course…not leave his only hope for salvation, arogantly thinking he didn’t need Christ’s Church to reach Christ in eternity.
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ron77nyc
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Are you saying both Jew and Gentile are the chosen people? That is still not a reason to be arrogant.
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guanophore
Guest
This is a good point, and part of what I am referencing when I point out that people are suffering from a deficient understanding of “Church”. Jesus only has One Bride, that is why all who are found in Him are members of His One Body.
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** I am sure it seems this way, because you are suffering from a deficient understanding of the nature of Church. The Apostles taught that the Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. The reason that other ecclesial communities are considered deficient is that they are missing one or more of these four marks of the Church.
The idea that “church” is the sum total of believers on earth, while a true statement, does not account for the Apostolic Teaching on the communion of saints. It also denies the Apostolic teaching of authority in the Church.
The visible congregations that are Catholic have these marks, whereas, those who are separated from the Church founded by Christ lack them to a greater or lesser degree.
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guanophore
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No, Chris, this is not appropriate. Partly because it does not further productive discussion, and partly because it is a false statement. mpjw2 has made it clear that he never understood or embraced the Apostolic faith. This is a requirement to become an apostate. Apostate is one who has “fallen away”. In order for one to “fall away”, one has to first be holding, embracing, and standing upon that One Faith taught by the Apostles. The reason why modern day Protestants cannot be charged with the sin of heresy (or apostasy) is because most of them have never learned the faith of the Apostles.
They are in the tradition of Apollos - they are very fervent and zealous in faith, but missing part of the Truth.
if they are validly baptized, they are considered members of the Church, though imperfectly joined.
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AChris
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Thank you. I certainly hope my message was not understood in an uncharitable way.
I was merely attempting to clarify this person’s situation, since they did ask.
But I don’t think my answer was incorrect, albeit blunt.
From the perspective of someone inside the Church - if someone were to stand up in Church, state something heretical, such as Luther, and then leave of his own accord from inside the Church to outside of it, jumping overboard so to speak, without accepting something the Church holds to be true - I’m sorry, but I’m pretty sure that’s what the Church defines as “apostacy”. I don’t think a person has to be a cannon lawyer to be an apostate, or a heretic.
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Hisalone
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She is not. She is a child of God, bought by the blood of Jesus a memeber of His body and part of His Church.
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PRmerger
Guest
sigh
AChris…go to your Catechism. Go to paragraph 846, which I cited earlier. See what is cited there? It’s the paragraph from Lumen Gentium.
See? The Catechism, which is not infallible, as you correctly stated, is citing an INFALLIBLE source, Lumen Gentium from Vatican II.
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AChris
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Yes, I do think so.
If you recall, you said:
This is the heart of the problem. Popes have always said only Catholics go to heaven, I think for the purpose of maintaining unity. They even exclude Catholics from heaven if they don’t accept everything that is taught. If they did not want to be taken literally or there were exceptions in some cases they didn’t tell anyone until Vatican II. They left Catholics with the impression that they were the chosen people…
And in that sense, not that we are the chosen people of the Old Testament, but in the sense that the Church is the continuation of the Old Testament “chosen people”.
The same God of Abraham and Moses, that’s the same God of the early Church, and the same God of the Church today. They made sacrifices to him for their sins, and in the Mass we sacrifice Christ as the “Lamb of God”…or rather, He offers Himself…so it’s the same God, and His people are the ones of the New Covenant - before it was circumcision, now it’s the Blood of Christ - which we must drink to have life.
Is that arrogance? If it were not true, and we claimed it to be, then I guess that would be arrogance. But if it’s true, then it’s not arrogance but humility and obedience.
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Hisalone
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I am sure it seems this way, because you are suffering from a deficient understanding of the nature of Church. The Apostles taught that the Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. The reason that other ecclesial communities are considered deficient is that they are missing one or more of these four marks of the Church.
The idea that “church” is the sum total of believers on earth, while a true statement, does not account for the Apostolic Teaching on the communion of saints. It also denies the Apostolic teaching of authority in the Church.
The visible congregations that are Catholic have these marks, whereas, those who are separated from the Church founded by Christ lack them to a greater or lesser degree.
Im am constantly reminded when Catholics lay it out this way that Jesus scolded the pharasees who claimed Abraham as their father.
In other words You claim to be a Jew descendent of Abraham one of YHVH chosen people you claim the law, the prophets, yet you are not like Abraham God can raise up a nation despite you and your wicked heart.
Gods Church is made up of all the called out ones, who are holy universal and carry on as the apostles carried on doing what the apostles did and believing on Christ as the apostles did.
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AChris
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Lumen Gentium, Ch 4.
Therefore, the chosen People of God is one: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”(192); sharing a common dignity as members from their regeneration in Christ,…
Therefore, the chosen People of God is one: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”(192); sharing a common dignity as members from their regeneration in Christ,…
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PRmerger
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Amen!
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Janet1983
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So you’re calling us apostates from the Christian faith? Well let me see…
apostate - a person who forsakes his religion, cause, party, etc.
Apostasy a fide, or perfidiæ
Perfidiæ is the complete and voluntary abandonment of the Christian religion, whether the apostate embraces another religion such as Paganism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, etc., or merely makes profession of Naturalism, Rationalism, etc. The heretic differs from the apostate in that he only denies one or more of the doctrines of revealed religion, whereas the apostate denies the religion itself, a sin which has always been looked upon as one of the most grievous. (Catholic Encyclopedia, Link in caption)
(Though, what does it matter… I have been called a heretic and a schismatic before… one more or less, who cares? 500 years ago I would have been burned or drowned… Anabaptists were drowned by Calvinists less than 500 years ago…)
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guanophore
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Yes, of course you are right about this. But my point is that he was never “someone inside the church”. He never properly understood Catholic Teaching, so when he left, he did so with a lot of misunderstandings. One cannot qualify as an apostate if one never understood or believed what the Church taught as true in the first place. Most modern day Protestants, and catholics who leave, are ignorant. I left because I was poorly catechized, and fell for all the Southern Baptist rhetoric about what Catholics believe. When I finally undertook to study it myself, I realized that none of it was true. I was not an apostate, because I had never taken hold of what had taken hold of me.
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AChris
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Yes, I understood what you were saying. Thank you.
The CCC says more than just the quote from Vatican II on this subject. That was what I was getting at.
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guanophore
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The nature of the faith is not necessarily a statement on the nature of individuals. Those persons who do not hold the Catholic faith are not in communion with the Apostolic faith. there are many(possibly the majority in America) of “Catholics” who have denied the Faith. they have actually become Protestants without realizing it.
This is the Teaching of the Catholic Church. However, this subsists in completeness only in the Catholic Church. All denominations and schismatics have separated from the fullness of Apostolic Faith to a greater or lesser degree.
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AChris
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With all due respect and in all charity, of course.
We always pray for the salvation of souls.
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Janet1983
Guest
Due to the fact that neither of us abandoned the Christian faith completely, calling us apostates is simply factually wrong considering the definition of the Catholic encyclopedia.
You might call us heretics (but then we’re in good company).
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