Gene Fadness, ex-Mormon, on Catholic Answers

[dianaiad]

I am quoting this again, dianaiad, thinking maybe it got lost in other posts.

I would love for you to respond to this.

From what I have seen, Mr. Fadness is teaching what he believes to be true, and he is also talking about what Mormons believe that he thinks are false…and in so doing, he still IS keeping those promises he made.

You understand that there are no promises made in the Temple that involve the sort of thing you are talking about. Certainly there is no religion that I am aware of that would require someone to talk about the Temple script, if they had made that promise not to.

There’s no need for it anyway; anyone who has NOT gone to the Temple is quite free to look at the script for themselves and see exactly what promises are made.

 

[Havard]

Regarding the link to the show (in the original post), how do I access the show? The link takes me to a calendar… I assumed that I should then go to the October 19 show, which I clicked on… then I just got a window that gave me the option to set a reminder for it.

 

[twopekinguys]

Contrary to popular folklore, the LDS temple ceremony was not performed or recited in the U.S. Senate chambers during the 1904-06 challenge to Reed Smoot’s election from Utah. Nor was it entered into the Congressional Record. The committee investigating Apostle-Senator Smoot’s qualifications wanted to know if temple participants promised to avenge the blood of the martyred prophet Joseph Smith and whether that vengeance was sworn upon “this generation” or upon “this nation,” the former being considered a matter of religious dogma and the latter possible treason against the United States.

Quoted from “The Mormon Church on Trial” MICHAEL HAROLD PAULOS, editor

Michael Harold Paulos is a graduate of Brigham Young University and recently of the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Fellow. He is now a financial analyst with Kinetic Concepts Inc. (KCI) in San Antonio. He has published in the LBJ School of Public Affairs Journal, Journal of Mormon History, Sunstone magazine, and the Utah Historical Quarterly. He and his wife have three boys, whom they are raising to be Utah Jazz fans.

 

[twopekinguys]

Regarding the link to the show (in the original post), how do I access the show? The link takes me to a calendar… I assumed that I should then go to the October 19 show, which I clicked on… then I just got a window that gave me the option to set a reminder for it.

When you click that link, and the calendar opens up, it is Nov. 2009.

Change it to Oct. 2009 by changing the month and clicking “go”.

Then look for the 19th, and click on the listing for Gene Fadness. That should open up a window allowing you to listen to it.

Hope that helps.

 

[Jea9]

then why bother?

What part of “it’s not secret, it’s in the (W#&%(^% CONGRESSIONAL RECORD AND WE PUT IT THERE” isn’t registering?

Wow, that’s an angry response.

Do you only do good deeds for fear of going to Hell dianaiad? If you do I think that maybe your heart’s in the wrong spot. We give up meat on Fridays during Lent (and some form of penance all year long on Fridays) to offer up our own suffering with Christ’s suffering on Good Friday. It is one way that we take up our own crosses to follow Him.

FYI, I was a convert to LDS and I was NEVER told, “hey, Jea9, if you want to know what happens in the Temple just check out the congressional record”. I was told it was a secret and when/if I went to the Temple I would learn it. THAT is what makes it a secret. I never learned it was in the congressional record until…oh…however many posts it was put on before your angry one. And, I have no desire to know now.

 

[dianaiad]

Contrary to popular folklore, the LDS temple ceremony was not performed or recited in the U.S. Senate chambers during the 1904-06 challenge to Reed Smoot’s election from Utah. Nor was it entered into the Congressional Record. The committee investigating Apostle-Senator Smoot’s qualifications wanted to know if temple participants promised to avenge the blood of the martyred prophet Joseph Smith and whether that vengeance was sworn upon “this generation” or upon “this nation,” the former being considered a matter of religious dogma and the latter possible treason against the United States.

Quoted from “The Mormon Church on Trial” MICHAEL HAROLD PAULOS, editor

Michael Harold Paulos is a graduate of Brigham Young University and recently of the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Fellow. He is now a financial analyst with Kinetic Concepts Inc. (KCI) in San Antonio. He has published in the LBJ School of Public Affairs Journal, Journal of Mormon History, Sunstone magazine, and the Utah Historical Quarterly. He and his wife have three boys, whom they are raising to be Utah Jazz fans.

I never claimed that it was recited or performed. It was not. It WAS, however, placed into the record as a prerequisite to examination by that five member committee that ended up deciding that the oath everybody was upset about was “…shown to be limited in amount, vague and indevinite in character, and utterly unreliabel, because of the direputable and untrustorwthy character of the witnesses.”…the ‘witnesses’ being those who claimed that the oath was so bloodthirsty and treasonous in character as to preclude Sen. Smoot from taking his Senatorial seat. The reason that these men had to come to this conclusion regarding the Temple script is because THEY HAD A COPY OF IT; it was in the record, and they HAD to come to that conclusion. They had to…they didn’t want to. Most of them still voted to kick Smoot out of the Senate.

We didn’t have to do that, y’know. It didn’t make a difference to the vote…and Smoot and the church leaders knew that it would not.

 

[twopekinguys]

I never claimed that it was recited or performed. It was not. It WAS, however, placed into the record as a prerequisite to examination by that five member committee that ended up deciding that the oath everybody was upset about was “…shown to be limited in amount, vague and indevinite in character, and utterly unreliabel, because of the direputable and untrustorwthy character of the witnesses.”…the ‘witnesses’ being those who claimed that the oath was so bloodthirsty and treasonous in character as to preclude Sen. Smoot from taking his Senatorial seat. The reason that these men had to come to this conclusion regarding the Temple script is because THEY HAD A COPY OF IT; it was in the record, and they HAD to come to that conclusion. They had to…they didn’t want to. Most of them still voted to kick Smoot out of the Senate.

We didn’t have to do that, y’know. It didn’t make a difference to the vote…and Smoot and the church leaders knew that it would not.

You must have missed the sentence where the author states, “Nor was it entered into the Congressional Record.”

Here is the link where this information came from.

signaturebooks.com/hearings.htm

As you can see, it appears this gentleman has read the congressional record and found no proof that it was entered. Hence the statements, “Nor was it entered into the Congressional Record.” and “Contrary to popular folklore,”

Folklore: an often unsupported notion, story, or saying that is widely circulated

 

[RebeccaJ]

That is not a Catholic doctrine. I don’t know where someone would get an idea like that, but there is no Catholic teaching to that effect.

Just thought I’d clarify:

THE NATIVITY OF CHRIST TRANSCENDS
THE ORDER OF NATURE

But as the Conception itself transcends the order of nature, so the birth of our Lord presents to our contemplation nothing but what is divine.

Besides, what is admirable beyond the power of thoughts or words to express, He is born of His Mother without any diminution of her maternal virginity, just as He afterwards went forth from the sepulchre while it was closed and sealed, and entered the room in which His disciples were assembled, the doors being shut; or not to depart from every-day examples, just as the rays of the sun penetrate without breaking or injuring in the least the solid substance of glass, so after a like but more exalted manner did Jesus Christ come forth from His mother’s womb without injury to her maternal virginity. This immaculate and perpetual virginity forms, therefore, the just theme of our eulogy. Such was the work of the Holy Spirit, who at the Conception and birth of the Son so favored the Virgin Mother as to impart to her fecundity while preserving inviolate her perpetual virginity.

CATECHISM OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
PART 1: THE CREED
Article III

 

[Chris-WA]

I see…so because YOU don’t see it as dishonorable, I CAN’T?

You, of course, can see anything anyway you want. You don’t have to agree with anybody outside of yourself. But I’m merely pointing out that your logic on this particular issue is faulty. Your argument is that when a person makes a promiss to God, that person must keep the promiss even if he later believes the promiss to have been made erroneously or in vain. A simple example demonstrates why your assertion is illogical:

Suppose Catholic parents have their child baptized in the Catholic Church. During the baptism ceremony, Catholic parents are required to promiss to God to raise that child in the Catholic faith. Now suppose the Catholic parents at some point in the future convert to Mormonism. Are they still bound by their original promiss to God to raise the child Catholic even though they are now Mormon? Would you consider that person dishonorable if they break that promiss by raising the child Mormon? (Remember, you said it’s not the content of the promiss that counts, but the mere fact that a promiss was made to God.) By your logic, the answer would be ‘yes’ to both questions. But clearly the logical, reasonable answer is ‘no,’ they are no longer obligated to keep that promiss because their beliefs have changed.

How about an even more extreme example: Suppose a radical Muslim makes a promiss to God to carry out a suicide bombing. It’s a promiss to God, right? You would agree that it would be ludicrous for that person to keep such a promiss just because it was a promiss to God. So there has to be something more that binds us to keep our promisses to God other than the mere fact that we made those promisses. And that something more is that the promiss has to be valid. The content is very important. And if a person, through conversion to another faith, now believes that old promiss to be invalid, that person is no longer obligated.

The same logic applies to ex-Mormons who promissed to not discuss the temple ceremony outside of the temple. When they converted, their belief system changed and with it their previous promiss was nullified by the mere fact that their new belief system totally denies the legitimacy of the LDS temple and everything associated with it. In fact, they may even feel somewhat obligated to discuss the ceremony if their new belief system values warning others about the falsehood of their previous religion.

Now, as to an ex-Catholic priest maintaining the confidentiality of confessions after said priest converts to another faith–the same logic applies. In my opinion, if they now feel they made a false promiss to God, then they are no longer obligated to keep that promiss. I would argue that they are obligated to keep confessions secret for other reasons, but not because they made a promiss to God that they now believe was false.

 

[gentlefaith]

I believe the Mormon god to be a false god. What validity does an oath to a false god have?

When a priest receives a confession he is not under oath just to God to keep it private. He is in essence under oath to the person from whom he receives the confession to keep it private. God is not the only one involved and it is simple courtesy to the real person who made the confession to keep it private. I don’t feel any reason to be a party to hiding the blasphemy of the Mormon temple ceremony from the public. Nobody will be hurt if I reveal the contents of the Mormon temple ceremony. An ex-priest who breaks his oath of privacy with regards to a confession is hurting the person who made the confession. Big difference.

I don’t see why a Mormon should be embarrassed about the contents of the temple ceremony. There is simply nothing in the Mormon temple ceremony which hasn’t already been revealed on the internet or in print publications. There is nothing in there which is significant. Even the initiation ceremony isn’t much different from the rite of welcome new Catholics experience at this time of year.

it took me many years before i would talk to anyone about what happened in the temple not because i made a “promise to god” but because i was terrified of the oaths i made that if i reveled what happened there i was subject to violence/death…i was held silent by fear. and fear used in any fashion to gain a promise, is not a valid promise. so it very valid that people who have left the LDS church ought to for their own healing talk about the temple because that fear needs healing. until you are released from that fear you are held captive to that darkness.

 

[dianaiad]

it took me many years before i would talk to anyone about what happened in the temple not because i made a “promise to god” but because i was terrified of the oaths i made that if i reveled what happened there i was subject to violence/death…i was held silent by fear. and fear used in any fashion to gain a promise, is not a valid promise. so it very valid that people who have left the LDS church ought to for their own healing talk about the temple because that fear needs healing. until you are released from that fear you are held captive to that darkness.

You have GOT to be kidding.

Ok, your feelings and fears are your feelings and fears…but don’t blame your paranoia on US. As you have evidently figured out by now, nobody is going to hurt you or kill you because you talked about what happened in the Temple.

…and to tell this story now in the way that you have, is like, oh… claiming that you refused to deliver mail to a house because you were afraid that the kitten in the yard was going to transform into a very hungry lion—and expecting us to go shoot the kitten.

Give me a break. It’s about honor. It’s about respecting the faith of those you leave behind. YOU may no longer believe, but there are a great many people who do, and they deserve respect just as you expect us to respect the faith you now hold.

 

[Marie5890]

You have GOT to be kidding.

Ok, your feelings and fears are your feelings and fears…but don’t blame your paranoia on US. As you have evidently figured out by now, nobody is going to hurt you or kill you because you talked about what happened in the Temple.

…and to tell this story now in the way that you have, is like, oh… claiming that you refused to deliver mail to a house because you were afraid that the kitten in the yard was going to transform into a very hungry lion—and expecting us to go shoot the kitten.

Give me a break. It’s about honor. It’s about respecting the faith of those you leave behind. YOU may no longer believe, but there are a great many people who do, and they deserve respect just as you expect us to respect the faith you now hold.

Im with Diana on this. Although I dont see as what happens in the LDS temples as sacred, (and I have been thru it many times) I do respect that others hold it sacred.

I would feel that same way with any other religion who holds certain things or places as sacred.

 

[StevieD]

If knowing what goes on in the ‘temple’ discourages one person from joining themselves to the LDS heresy then it has to be a good thing. Someone has even gone on the net to describe their ‘Second Anointing’ which even most LDS don’t know anything about - he was promised a personal visitation from Christ and an assurance of salvation for himself and his wife who were elevated to King and Queen of their own universe - ‘collect prize on way out’! (The visitation didn’t happen by the way).

 

[LittleDeb]

You have GOT to be kidding.

Ok, your feelings and fears are your feelings and fears…but don’t blame your paranoia on US. As you have evidently figured out by now, nobody is going to hurt you or kill you because you talked about what happened in the Temple.

…and to tell this story now in the way that you have, is like, oh… claiming that you refused to deliver mail to a house because you were afraid that the kitten in the yard was going to transform into a very hungry lion—and expecting us to go shoot the kitten.

Give me a break. It’s about honor. It’s about respecting the faith of those you leave behind. YOU may no longer believe, but there are a great many people who do, and they deserve respect just as you expect us to respect the faith you now hold.

Actually, I was willing to support your POV until this comment. If this is how you really feel then there is no reason to honor your beliefs. I know of many people who are terrified to leave the LDS church. They don’t intellectually believe the vows they made in the temple, but the superstitious side of them sometimes gets the best of them.

Vowing to slit one’s throat or to slice their bowels open is the stuff that haunts nightmares. In the light of day, they know it isn’t real, but that is not enough. For you to so rudely proclaim another’s fears to be such a big joke doesn’t show compassion on your part. Just to let you know I have a fear that has never let go. When I was younger, I had a prank played on me. At an outside sleepover, my friends and I were covered in a web of tiny spiderweb-like thread. Then an object was dipped in red paint and smeared on our jawlines. We woke up feeling incredibly violated. And we even knew who did it and why, so that should have taken away the fear. But I am now a 38 year-old mother of two who vanquishes monsters from the closet, yet I still can’t sleep unless that spot on my jaw is covered up. Frightening memories don’t have a time-frame.

The charitable answer would have been, “I am so sorry that it frightened you that much. Might I suggest working through the fear and not so much the event the fear was attached to. The parts you found frightening are there for dramatic effect. I found the whole experience very personal and fulfilling, not frightening or controlling.”

I have tried to respect the LDS beliefs by not researching too much about the temple. But then I have never been LDS. Responses like the one you gave, do not help your case.

 

[PaulDupre]

If knowing what goes on in the ‘temple’ discourages one person from joining themselves to the LDS heresy then it has to be a good thing.

 

[dianaiad]

Actually, I was willing to support your POV until this comment. If this is how you really feel then there is no reason to honor your beliefs. I know of many people who are terrified to leave the LDS church. They don’t intellectually believe the vows they made in the temple, but the superstitious side of them sometimes gets the best of them.

I don’t believe you.

Vowing to slit one’s throat or to slice their bowels open is the stuff that haunts nightmares. In the light of day, they know it isn’t real, but that is not enough. For you to so rudely proclaim another’s fears to be such a big joke doesn’t show compassion on your part. Just to let you know I have a fear that has never let go. When I was younger, I had a prank played on me. At an outside sleepover, my friends and I were covered in a web of tiny spiderweb-like thread. Then an object was dipped in red paint and smeared on our jawlines. We woke up feeling incredibly violated. And we even knew who did it and why, so that should have taken away the fear. But I am now a 38 year-old mother of two who vanquishes monsters from the closet, yet I still can’t sleep unless that spot on my jaw is covered up. Frightening memories don’t have a time-frame.

Frightening memories of a very nasty prank played upon you in childhood? Yes. That stuff sticks. However, you don’t go through the Temple as a child, but as an adult. By that time you know exactly what your neighbors in the church are like, and you have enough sense to know that your life is not in danger for talking about the Temple. C’mon…it’s not like there have been any snakes in the mailboxes attributed to us, is there? Our most virulent opponents…the nastiest attackers there are do NOT quite have the chutspah to claim that we are violent or go after those who leave.

The charitable answer would have been, “I am so sorry that it frightened you that much. Might I suggest working through the fear and not so much the event the fear was attached to. The parts you found frightening are there for dramatic effect. I found the whole experience very personal and fulfilling, not frightening or controlling.”

I have tried to respect the LDS beliefs by not researching too much about the temple. But then I have never been LDS. Responses like the one you gave, do not help your case.

Now I wonder why I’m the one who has to be charitable? Have you READ the stuff said about my faith right here on this forum (and THIS forum is polite, generally)? When someone tells me that they didn’t speak of Temple matters because they feared for their lives, and are now annointing themselves for bravery because they finally did and (gasp) NOTHING HAPPENED…I can only treat that with the contempt it deserves. I mean, really. we don’t even SUE people who post the Temple script, for crying out loud!

As for me, I DO find the Temple highly symbolic and incredibly rich in metaphor. There is nothing frightening about it. Each word means something; everything we wear does…everything we do has layers of meaning. It is a way of teaching that, by being very different from our everyday studies and church attendance, enforces the lessons learned.

 

[StevieD]

I don’t believe you.

Now I wonder why I’m the one who has to be charitable? Have you READ the stuff said about my faith right here on this forum (and THIS forum is polite, generally)? When someone tells me that they didn’t speak of Temple matters because they feared for their lives, and are now annointing themselves for bravery because they finally did and (gasp) NOTHING HAPPENED…I can only treat that with the contempt it deserves. I mean, really. we don’t even SUE people who post the Temple script, for crying out loud!
.

Have you read what Joseph Smith Jr. said about our faith? “The Whore of Babylon” etc. You presumably agree if you are LDS. So no lessons in etiquette, please. The LDS doesn’t sue anyone because it would be an admission that their reports were accurate as well as providing unwelcome publicity about the heavy masonic content and the outrageous ceremony used until recent years.
PS Who are these priest converts to the LDS you mentioned?

 

[dianaiad]

Have you read what Joseph Smith Jr. said about our faith? “The Whore of Babylon” etc. You presumably agree if you are LDS. So no lessons in etiquette, please. The LDS doesn’t sue anyone because it would be an admission that their reports were accurate as well as providing unwelcome publicity about the heavy masonic content and the outrageous ceremony used until recent years.
PS Who are these priest converts to the LDS you mentioned?

Excuse me, sir, but first, could you possibly find a quote a little more…timely…than something close to 2 CENTURIES old…

and…he didn’t call the CATHOLIC church the ‘whore of Babylon.’ Sorry about that, but he did not. I understand that Catholics like to think that he did, but y’know what? Joseph Smith never put 'Whore of Babylon" and “Catholicism” together in the same sentence.

Or the same paragraph, for that matter.

In order to claim that he DID couple Catholicism and "whore of Babylon,’ critics have to take us back to other quotes, other assumptions (some of which beg very large questions) and carefully lead the reader on, until finally the critic can say “in context, then, you can see that JS meant Catholicism when he said…”

I will admit that other prophets and leaders got a little closer to saying that, but JS didn’t. The teaching has always been that there are two churches; the church of God (or Christ) and the church of the Devil…and it is that latter that is the 'Whore of Babylon." The members of each one are members individually; that is, it’s not an institutionalized thing…and Catholics may belong to either one. So may Mormons, or Lutherans, or anybody else.

In fact, about the only leader who came right out and called Catholics the 'whore of Babylon" Orson Pratt, included both Catholics AND Protestants in that description. This really torques off the Prots. After all, THEY have historically coupled that ‘whore of Babylon’ with Catholicism far more often than we ever have.

Diana

 

[StevieD]

Excuse me, sir, but first, could you possibly find a quote a little more…timely…than something close to 2 CENTURIES old…

and…he didn’t call the CATHOLIC church the ‘whore of Babylon.’ Sorry about that, but he did not. I understand that Catholics like to think that he did, but y’know what? Joseph Smith never put 'Whore of Babylon" and “Catholicism” together in the same sentence.

Or the same paragraph, for that matter.

In order to claim that he DID couple Catholicism and "whore of Babylon,’ critics have to take us back to other quotes, other assumptions (some of which beg very large questions) and carefully lead the reader on, until finally the critic can say “in context, then, you can see that JS meant Catholicism when he said…”

I will admit that other prophets and leaders got a little closer to saying that, but JS didn’t. The teaching has always been that there are two churches; the church of God (or Christ) and the church of the Devil…and it is that latter that is the 'Whore of Babylon." The members of each one are members individually; that is, it’s not an institutionalized thing…and Catholics may belong to either one. So may Mormons, or Lutherans, or anybody else.

In fact, about the only leader who came right out and called Catholics the 'whore of Babylon" Orson Pratt, included both Catholics AND Protestants in that description. This really torques off the Prots. After all, THEY have historically coupled that ‘whore of Babylon’ with Catholicism far more often than we ever have.

Diana

I’ll dig out the quotes, JS Jr was very agressively anti-Catholic (BY was, by contrast quite gentle towards us, though he owed us a lot, it was a Jesuit missionary that pointed him to the Great Salt Lake). So, to repeat my question, who are these Catholic priests who converted to the LDS that you mentioned?
Your accusation of impoliteness made me smile - everyone seems to be polite on the forums you subscribe to except one person who is generally sarcastic and agressive - who so you think that could that be? Well get your gloves on!

 

[TheosisM]

I’ll dig out the quotes, JS Jr was very agressively anti-Catholic (BY was, by contrast quite gentle towards us, though he owed us a lot, it was a Jesuit missionary that pointed him to the Great Salt Lake). So, to repeat my question, who are these Catholic priests who converted to the LDS that you mentioned?
Your accusation of impoliteness made me smile - everyone seems to be polite on the forums you subscribe to except one person who is generally sarcastic and agressive - who so you think that could that be? Well get your gloves on!

Jordan Vajda was a Catholic priest that converted to Mormonism a few years ago. He wrote a very interesting dissertation comparing and contrasting the beliefs of the ECFs/traditional Christians on theosis and the Mormon exaltation.