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Contarini
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Documentation for this? The Episcopal Church, which is the most likely of Protestant denominations to follow Catholic practice, in fact usually reports the number of “active” members.
Edwin
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Edwin
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Jon_Hus
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Well, the mega churches may or may not teach the Word of God but someone is buying all the Bibles in the USA, and it ain’t the Roman Catholics.
cbaonline.org/nm/documents/BSLs/Bible_Translations.pdf
CBA (Christian Retailers Association) which keeps track Bible sales, see above link. I have seen actual annual sales numbers, the total for the top 10 is in excess of 40 million per year at retail. I know that the Gideons (outside of the sales figures) give away almost 80 million world wide. And of course the CBA only tracks member retailers.
Two observations:
- #8 on the list is the New Revised Standard Version which is the Bible of choice for mainline protestant groups. This is the least likely group of protestants to buy and read the Bible.
- The New American Bible, the Bible of choice for Catholics does not make the top 10. I have never see it or the New Jerusalem Bible on the top 10, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been there.
So, does this mean that the evangelical will disappear in 10 years as you desire? Good question.
Jon
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Contarini
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That is an outrageous falsehood. Just because you haven’t bothered to learn about the heroic things done by your Protestant and Orthodox brothers and sisters doesn’t justify you in slandering us based on your ignorance.
Edwin
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rinnie
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The thing that I can say about the RCC that I love is it is the first Church, and it will be the Last Church. Jesus promised us that. What is really amazing too is this. Look how many Church’s have broken off from the RCC. But here is what is really amazing. Start with the first Church that broke off and continue down the line. Now go backwards. The closer you get to the Catholic Church from the Protestant faith, the closer to the Catholic faith it is. The further away in time the further away from the teachings it is. Does that not tell you something. But isn’t it something to think about!
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Contarini
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Depends on what you mean by “witchcraft and idolatry.” Catholicism is itself witchcraft and idolatry according to some old-fashioned Protestants, so a Protestant judgment on what is “witchcraft and idolatry” may not pull a lot of weight with Catholics!
You could say with more justice that once people start to think seriously about where Scripture comes from and how we interpret it, it is hard to remain a traditional Protestant. The real Achilles’ heel of both Catholicism and Protestantism is that Protestantism is parasitic on Catholicism. Protestantism is like the cartoon animal running out into midair, which only falls when it looks down. Protestantism can exist as a self-confident expression of orthodox Christianity only as long as Protestants take for granted the framework established by pre-Reformation Christianity. But as long as Protestants take this framework for granted, they have a powerful rhetorical advantage over Catholicism. Catholics can’t point out the weak foundations of Protestantism without seeming to attack Scripture. (The argument “if you didn’t trust the historic Church, you would have no reason to trust Scripture” is perfectly valid, but to a pious Christian of any persuasion sounds skeptical and even blasphemous.) So Protestants can make the triumphalist claim you made above and get away with it for a long time.
Edwin
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Contarini
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rinnie
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Depends on your church I guess. My Church has never practiced witchcraft, or idolatry. Never ever. I belong to the RCC always have, always will, and have never seen anything like that in my life. And that I would swear to on my own Kids life. So lets see, I can say for a fact and swear to in any court its never happened in my Church or my lifetime. 
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PJM
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Dear friend in Christ,
If this is true, and that is a REALLY Big if
Then informed, practicing Roman catholic will disapear in nine years
Love and prayers,
O
OneTrueCathApos
Guest
Well Mr. Contarini, instead of calling people names I’d like you to name other groups of religious who have saved MORE PEOPLE THAN POPE PIUS during the Holocaust. Nothing else but name these groups of people or better yet name some individuals who WERE NOT Catholic.
O
OneTrueCathApos
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There you go again Contarini, more name calling…what denomination are you? Do they encourage this?
Why not just answer the question. Again, who else but pope Pius saved over 800,000 Jews during the Holocaust? It really isn’t rocket science here.
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OneTrueCathApos
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GKC
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Edwin - stop hiding your denomination so well.There you go again Contarini, more name calling…what denomination are you? Do they encourage this?
GKC
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atheist1
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You claim Pius saved 800k Jews. How exactly did he do this? Can you verify these numbers?There you go again Contarini, more name calling…what denomination are you? Do they encourage this?
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OneTrueCathApos
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Absolutely. You need just ask Rabbi Israel Zolli who was the chief Rabbi of Rome and who was also received into the Catholic church in 1945 after the war was over. He was baptized on his own free will and asked pope Pius, with whom he had worked closely in the saving of the Jews, to be his godfather. Dr. Zolli chose the name Eugenio, his baptismal name because it was Pius’s own name.
Golda Meir, Albert Einstein, Moshe Sharett and Rabbi Isaac Herzog and inumerable others publicly expressed their gratitude to Pius.
On display at the Vatican are letters from a French Rabbi thanking Pius and Catholic priests for their aid to the Jews during the Holocaust.
Israeli Diplomat Pinchas Lapide who served as the Israeli Consul in Milan and interviewed Italian Holocaust survivors, declared pope Pius was instrumental in saving at least 800,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands.
In response to the new attacks on Pius, several Jewish Scholars have spoken out recently. They say Pius deserves thanks and praise for what he had done.
Now, seriously, what were if any Protestant people doing during these days? Has anyone any knowledge how many Jews were saved by Protestants? Were there more than 800,000? Just curious. Contarini claims there were, that I am being ridiculous in saying these claims from the Catholic church. But these claims are historical facts. Please name other groups who had helped the Jews during the Holocaust.
O
OneTrueCathApos
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Furthermore, in Hungary the Nunciature used thousands of blank and forged forms to help Jews escape. The pope protested particularly against the deportations of Jews in Slovakia, Hungary, and Vichy, France since these were formerly Catholic countries where fascists had gained control and they still had a majority of Catholic citizens.
The Vatican even put out mattresses on their stairs for the people to sleep as they could not let anyone in and no one could come out.
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atheist1
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None of this answers my question about Pius.
I believe Contarini was commenting on your previous statment in which you made the comment that nobody other than Catholics helped the Jews which is indeed a ridiculous comment. Now you want to see if anyone helped them more than Pius. Two completely different issues.
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atheist1
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Okay but what did Pius do, specifically, to save 800k Jews?
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OneTrueCathApos
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Contarini
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Ever heard of Corrie Ten Boom?
Please do not misrepresent what I said. I did not say there were more than 800,000. You said that no one else was helping Jews, period. This is indeed ridiculous. Now you have completely changed your argument to a statistical claim, regarding which I’m not going to dispute with you because I’m not an expert in the field and experts seem deeply divided as to whether Pius XIII’s actions helped or hurt Jews. That many Catholics helped Jews is beyond dispute. That Catholics by and large did better than Protestants is not beyond dispute but is something I’m quite disposed to believe. That Catholics were the only ones doing anything is clearly false. And it is clearly true that Christian anti-Judaism in general (certainly including the Catholic Church as a very prominent purveyor of anti-Judaism) did a lot to prepare Europe to accept Nazi policies toward Jews; and that Catholic church leaders often gave a divided and ambiguous response to Nazism because some of the policies of the Nazis mirrored what Catholics had been advocating (or practicing) for centuries. It also seems to me (though I don’t claim that it’s beyond dispute) that in spite of Luther’s vicious anti-Judaism, and in spite of the unquestionably anti-Jewish policies and attitudes of Protestants right up to WWII, the Catholic Church was louder and more explicit (during the century or so before the Holocaust) than Protestant churches in its call for the reduction of Jewish influence in society. I am willing to be corrected on this last score. But given my knowledge at this point, my tentative conclusion is that Catholics were both more openly and explicitly hostile to Jews before the Holocaust and more willing to defy governmental policies to help Jews once it became clear that fascist anti-Judaism was clearly racist in nature and went well beyond the policies the Catholic Church had been advocating to curb Jewish influence on social mores.
Edwin
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Contarini
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Why is that even relevant? You didn’t say that Pope Pius saved more people than anyone else. You said that no one else did anything, period. You can’t just switch your argument and hope we won’t notice.
Edwin
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