I actually am good friends with his niece, Susan Reichmann!!! I’ll send you a personal message about this in a little while. Don’t want to get off the subject here! By the way, my husband actually graduated from Seattle U back then, but I graduated from U.W. a few years later in the midst of having babies!
You do not understand the difference between a request and what you call dictating. “true beliefs” cannot go unnoticed or uncommented upon if they are in error. I am not a moderator here.
Sorry, I only meant to say that I at least had said this on another thread, not that you were trying to change the subject.
If you are not a moderator, who are you to judge what is “in error”?
I’m sorry, but I cannot accept any human-filled organization as infallible, and the Church has made enough mistakes over time that I don’t see how anyone could see them as inherently infallible.
You are absolutely right. While listening to Father Corapi, he said that people in the 1950s would look at you funny if you did not go to Church. Today, people might look at you funny if you went to Church ‘too often.’
But those who have a conflicting Truth than that of the God of the Jews and Christians have a false god revealing itself.
Indeed.
Why then, in your opinion, would infallible Truth enter time and human history?
Forgive me, Princess, but you must concede that since this is a Catholic forum, most of us will accept the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, and therefore its official language, Latin. If we wish to discuss that, we should move to another thread. Otherwise, how the Jews interpreted the Law under the Old Law is irrelevant to how the Church interprets the Law under the New for Catholics. The Church may interpret the 6th commandment insofar as it is in its power, in the Catholic view, whether broadly or narrowly. The original meaning is good to know, but not necessary to inform our understanding.
Thank you, Alisa, your words are very kind.
You are mistaken. The Catholic Church has no authority upon which to redefine the original Hebrew Text of the Old Testament just because they prefer to have it written in Latin. In translating from one language to another, it is easy for things to be lost in translation. This is why we study the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts.
Again, I am sorry, but the Church is not revising the meaning, only interpreting it as Moses, Rabbis, and the Priests of Old did. The leaders of the Church, in the Catholic view, have been given this authority with the coming of the New Law, and are merely excercising the power that was excercised validly in the previous covenent. I do not see where the Catholic Church is out of its depth here or violating the covenent that has been granted them by God. Please tell me where in Scripture the legitimate covenant holders may not interpret the scriptures as is their rightful power. In this case, according to the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, it appears that they would not be unjustified either. Where have they strayed from plain Scripture here?
Well, first off, merely treating Latin as an original language of Biblical Text is an error. That’s as bad as the people I’ve heard say “Well, the KJV was good enough for Paul, so it’s good enough for me.”Again, I am sorry, but the Church is not revising the meaning, only interpreting it as Moses, Rabbis, and the Priests of Old did. The leaders of the Church, in the Catholic view, have been given this authority with the coming of the New Law, and are merely excercising the power that was excercised validly in the previous covenent. I do not see where the Catholic Church is out of its depth here or violating the covenent that has been granted them by God. Please tell me where in Scripture the legitimate covenant holders may not interpret the scriptures as is their rightful power. In this case, according to the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, it appears that they would not be unjustified either. Where have they strayed from plain Scripture here?
I think there were six, actually, but only one was the Vicar of Christ. As to what you believe, you’re entitled to believe what you wish and you don’t need me to tell you that. What you believe is, however, irrelevant to this forum and this discussion. This is a Catholic apologetics site and I think you know what that means. It’s you who will have to find a way to deal with it.
There are millions who have spent much of their lives studying Scripture. There are over 34,000 different protestant sects. You get the point, I’m sure.
The millions of souls in each one of those 34,000 sects say exactly the same thing; that God is speaking directly to each of them about one thing or another. Each of them is absolutely convinced about that. Again, God would never tell you anything but that homosexual sex is an abomination to Him.
PrincessKatrina, one question: what is a Christian-Wiccan?
I agree about St. Paul, however, you still do not answer my question, or acknowledge my point. Most of us who oppose homosexual marriage on this forum do so primarily because we are Catholic, and other reasons secondarily. To start getting into a debate here on the authority of the Catholic Church in this thread is taking us off topic, and we would be better suited to discuss it on another thread.
*I agree about St. Paul, however, you still do not answer my question, or acknowledge my point. Most of us who oppose homosexual marriage on this forum do so primarily because we are Catholic, and other reasons secondarily. To start getting into a debate here on the authority of the Catholic Church in this thread is taking us off topic, and we would be better suited to discuss it on another thread.
But to address your objections, I ask again: Where is the Church out of its depth here, where is it misinterpreting or “redifining?” The foundations for what we saw at Trent can all be found in the Greek and Hebrew context, and the interpretations of Moses in the Old Law also attest to the broader interpretation, so where has the Church gone off the rails? The Latin context is just the foundation for their official definitions, but it is not a departure from the original languages in essential meaning.
Even Jewish Rabbinical interpretation seems to accept the Church view, if not more so. Surely they would understand the Hebrew context?
I quote liberally from wikipedia:
“Hasidic Judaism views homosexuality as a grave sin. Accepting Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, as normative, it believes that heterosexual intercourse is a holy act, because it has the potential to lead to new life, and because heterosexual sex mimics the mechanism through which God created the universe. When a male and a female perform this act, they evoke creative spiritual energies, similar to ones that were used to create the Universe. This creation mechanism involved two opposite partners (male and female aspects of Divinity known as Zachar and Nehkayvah [pronounced n-kAy-vah]), a source of life-force and a recipient of it.”
The Midrash is one of the few ancient religious texts that makes reference to Homosexual marriage. The following teaching can be found twice in the Midrash:
“Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Joseph, ‘The generation of the Flood was not wiped out until they wrote marriage documents for the union of a man to a male or to an animal.’”
A midrash, Sifra Aharei Mot 8:8–9, states that this refers to sexual customs, and that one of those customs was the marriage of women to each other, as well as a man to a woman and to her daughter. Maimonides, in his Mishneh Torah, summarizes the matter as follows:
“For women to be mesollelot with one another is forbidden, as this is the practice of Egypt, which we were warned against: “Like the practice of the land of Egypt . . . you shall not do” (Leviticus 18:3). The Sages said [in the midrash of Sifra Aharei Mot 8:8–9], “What did they do? A man married a man, and a woman married a woman, and a woman married two men.” Even though this practice is forbidden, one is not lashed [as for a Torah prohibition] on account of it, since there is no specific prohibition against it, and there is no real intercourse. Therefore, [one who does this] is not forbidden to the priesthood because of harlotry, and a woman is not prohibited to her husband by this, since it is not harlotry. But it is appropriate to administer to them lashings of rebellion *, since they did something forbidden. And a man should be strict with his wife in this matter, and should prevent women known to do this from coming to her or from her going to them.”
"The Torah prohibits men from having sex with other men. It states: “You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is a to’evah” (Leviticus 18:22). (וְאֶת זָכָר לֹא תִשְׁכַּב מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה תּוֹעֵבָה הִוא) Leviticus 20:13 further states: “A man who lies with a male as one lies with a woman; the two of them have done a to’evah; they shall be put to death; their bloodguilt is upon them.” (וְאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁכַּב אֶת זָכָר מִשְׁכְּבֵי אִשָּׁה תּוֹעֵבָה עָשׂוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם מוֹת יוּמָתוּ דְּמֵיהֶם בָּם)
The term to’eva is usually translated as “abomination” and is used in the Bible to refer to a variety of forbidden acts including incest, idolatry, eating unclean animals, and economic injustice. In the context of sexual prohibitions, the word is also interpreted by the Talmud to be a contraction of the words תועה אתה בה to’eh ata vah (“You are wandering astray with it”)."
Again, I ask, where has the Church missed something? Even if they were not infallible, in your view, surely 5,000 years of Jewish interpretation and 2,000 of years of Catholic Church interpretation cannot ALL be wrong?!?
I’m going to repost here what I added in edit to my previous post since I suspect you replied before I edited. ^^;
As for redefining the term, yes, they are. By ignoring the original contextual meaning in the original language it was presented in, they are choosing to interpret it according to what the same words mean at the time of interpretation instead of at the time they were being given.
Here’s an alternative example.
In the Chronicles of Narnia, the word “queer” is used frequently. Back when those novels were written, the word “queer” meant “weird, strange.” It had nothing to do with homosexuality. When someone in those books called another character queer, they were not calling the person homosexual. However, if we interpret it now without considering the original meaning, then we would automatically assume the person was being called homosexual.
The Catholic Church began interpreting things around 2000 years after the book of Exodus was written, using what at the time was “modern” Latin rather than the original Hebrew words, context, and cultural references.
Also, you go on about everything but the actual 6th Commandment in that post and the Hebrew for adultery, and much of what you quote is not even out of the Old Testament, but rather other Jewish documents.
In short, I’m a Christian Witch. I, and others like me, have adopted various ideologies and concepts and practices from Wicca/Witchcraft that we have determined, through much study and prayer, is not contrary to our Christian beliefs. This includes the use of “magic” fueled, powered, defined, and governed by God the Father. Unlike most pure Wiccans, we do not worship a polytheistic pantheon representation of the different aspects of God. We worship God Himself. I, personally, believe in the Holy Trinity, though I have known one or two other Christian-Wiccans in my time who disagreed on that note (but I’ve known ordinary Christians who do the same, so that probably is not terribly surprising).
I take Pauls words as authoritative, but I have yet to see any mention of the Papacy or Catholic Church in any of Paul’s writing.
It is my belief, and the belief of the Protestant Churches I consider myself loosely affiliated with, that all Christians are filled with the Holy Spirit in the same way as the Apostles were, making us all members of Christ’s Church and Priesthood.