HELP, need reply to Fundamentalist from learned apologist!

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Catholic29

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a student from life:
Christ did command that Christians be a part of a local church fellowship (not necessarily Catholic) for the purposes of biblical edification, service, fellowship, etc., but one with local authority and biblical accountability. For example Acts 2:42 and Heb. 10:25.

Perhaps the reason Bishop Kinney did not want to reveal the full report was because it would have identified how many priests and monks have HIV or have died of AIDS.

Do some Catholics never disagree with, question, or criticize Catholic doctrines, the Vatican, or other Catholic leaders?

Major Biblical evidence that the papacy and Catholic doctrines are unbiblical and apostate:

No popes since Christ’s days are able to perform the “on call” visible miracles that similarly authenticated the Gospel message of the apostles. See Heb. 2:4; Acts 2:22,43; 2 Cor. 12:12.

Apostlic office and authority biblically resided in the fact that the apostles walked and talked with Christ Himself, and had witnessed His resurrection – popes have not literally talked or walked with Christ as they did in Scripture; therefore they are not apostles nor apostolic successors. See Acts 1:21-22.

Transubstantiation is not a visible miracle or visible representation of Christ, so transubstantiation is a false teaching by biblical standards. Again see Heb. 2:4; Acts 2:22,43: 2 Cor. 12:12.

Biblically, Christ’s body was never in multiple places at one time, contrary to what the Catholic eucharist sacrament asserts, i.e., that Christ’s body is located in many places around the world at any one time. Also Scripture states that Christ’s body was not to be broken, John 19:36 and compare Ex. 12:46, Num. 9:12; Ps 34:20.

A literal interpretation of Matt 26:26 also demands a literal interpretation of Matt. 26:29 , i.e., Jesus was literally drinking the fruit of the vine–not blood.

Jews were forbidden by the Law to drink blood. Jesus was a Jew who came to fulfill the Law (compare Acts 15:19-21 with Lev. 17:10-16) – therefore Jesus would not have drunk His own blood, nor would He have asked other Jews and disciples to do so.

In transubstantiation, Christ’s body is blasphemed when His alleged literal body and blood are turned into dung and passed out of the participant’s body (cf. Matt 7:19). Christ’s (alleged literal) body is also blasphemed when rats eat it or a Catholic church burns down.

Transubstantiation makes Christians out to be cannibals, but cannibalism has been a traditionally abhorant practice to (biblical) Christianity.

If apostolic succession were true, there would have been twelve apostles at any one time through out Catholic history, which additionally would have provided apostolic accountability, as in Galations when Paul admonished Peter (allgedly the first pope) for false doctrines.

Christ made the final sacrifice for all sin, so ritualized, formal sacrifices claiming the presence of Christ’s actual body are no longer needed. The apostle Paul taught that the eucharist ceremony was “a rememberance” or “memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection – not an (outward) sacrifice for sin or salvation, I Cor. 11:24-25. And Jesus also commanded believers to participate in this memorial ordinance – and by participating in both elements of this memorial to Christ’s, i.e., both the bread and the cup. Often times individual lay Catholics are allowed to only participate in one element; again indicating Catholic teachings are unbiblical.

The apostle Paul did not mention the papacy when he referred to the offices of the church. I Cor. 1:12-13; Eph. 4:11. Paul, not Peter, claimed authority over the Roman church, Romans 1:5-6; 16:17. Paul expressly denied that Peter was the pope; and he further maintained that whatever Peter was to the Jews, he was to the Gentiles, a claim to apostolic equality. Paul also rebuked Peter, a denial of Peter’s supremacy over Paul and other apostles, Gal. 2:7-8,11. Yet is Paul listed in the papal line? I don’t believe so.

cont’d
 
The apostle Paul also said that the prophets and apostles were the foundation of the church, not the walls, roof, or head of the church ( the church biblically was usually defined as all believers) in Eph. 2:19-21. Forgiveness of sin, biblically, was made by God (not priests) upon personal repentence and informal confession of sin (I John 1:9), not formalized, ritualized sacraments and sacrifices.

The on-going sexual immorality of many of the popes, while holding the papal office, throughout history additionally proves they are not apostolic successors. And popes have officially excommunicated previous popes as heretics. The official papal roll or listing of the popes has changed several times. At times there was more than one pope claiming the papal office. The papal office has often been literally bought with money. The Catholic Encyclopedia records many of these points.

Christ said that His servants/ believers did not literally fight (except in self defense) – yet Catholic popes officially ordained Crusades, world-wide Inquisitions, and Counter Reformations that tortured and killed millions in religious wars that lasted through hundreds of years and under the reigns of 80 popes (See A Woman Rides the Beast by Dave Hunt).

The books The Church of Rome at the Bar of History, by William Webster and A Woman Rides the Beast also document how Catholic doctrines and traditions have not followed the unanimous consent of the early church fathers, nor remained unchanged since biblical times as Catholicism claims they have.

cont’d
 
a student from life:
A Christian Witness to Roman Catholicism Or: www.cwrc-rz.org

Proclaiming the Gospel, or see: www.pro-gospel.org

**The Means of Salvation and Contradictions between God’s Word and Roman Catholicism: **

Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you that that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed … a man is not justified by works of the law but by faith in Jesus the Christ … for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
– Galatians 1:8; 2:16

For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
– Eph. 2:8-9

If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law [of the Roman Catholic Church] are not necessary for salvation but … that without them… men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification … let him be anathema [anathema = a strong curse].
– Council of Trent, 7, General, 4 From the most ancient times in the Church good works were also offered to God for the salvation of sinners … [by] the prayers and good works of holy people … the penitent was washed, cleansed and redeemed …
Following in Christ’s steps, those who believe in him have always … carried their crosses to make expiation for their own sins and the sins of other … [to] help their brothers to obtain salvation from God… -
–Vatican II, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences II 5., III 6 I Timothy 4:1-5 says, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars **seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods, **which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified **by means of the word of God **and prayer.”

cont’d
 
a student from life:
What about Written Tradition? from A WOMAN RIDES THE BEAST by Dave Hunt

The written tradition in Catholicism comes from works of the so-called Church Fathers. Unfortunately, a great deal of fraud is mixed in and is often indistinguishable from fact. These frauds became the source of ideas that remain as established dogmas today, such as the saying attributed in the Isidorian Decretals to Pope Julius about 338 that “the Church of Rome, by a singular privilege, has the right of opening and shutting the gates of heaven to whom she will” and that the popes inherit “innocence and sanctity from Peter” and are therefore holy and infallible and all Christendom must tremble before them.3 Such statements are clearly not biblical. From his exhaustive studies of the original historic documents, von Dollinger informs us:

*Towards the end of the fifth and beginning of the sixth century, the process of forgeries and fictions in the interest of Rome was actively carried on there. Then began the compilation of spurious acts of Roman martyrs, which was continued for some centuries, and which modern criticism, even at Rome, has been obliged to give up…

While this tendency to forging documents was so strong in Rome, it is remarkable that for a thousand years no attempt was made there to form a collection of canons…more than twenty Synods had been held in Rome since 313, but there were no records of them to be found .4*

Spurious tradition was manufactured and eventually became the basis for almost the entire papal system and much canon law. It was the false Decretals, revised and elaborated upon century after century, which formulated Roman Catholicism as it is today. Von Dollinger informs us further:

*Gregory VII…regarded himself not merely as the reformer of the Church, but as the divinely commissioned founder of a wholly new order…

Gregory collected about him by degrees the right men for elaborating his system of Church law…Anselm may be called the founder of the new Gregorian system of Church law, first, by extracting and putting into convenient working shape everything in the Isidorian forgeries serviceable for Papal absolutism; next, by altering the law of the Church, through a tissue of fresh inventions and interpolations…

The *Decretals *were used to build up fictitious sayings of the popes (which thereafter became the law) and to put tradition (and false tradition at that) on a par with Scripture. Moreover, unlike the Bible, which is readily available in one volume, tradition is contained in many volumes of the alleged writings of the Church fathers and the decrees of the Councils. Voluminous and not accessible to the average person, it consists of: at least 35 volumes of Greek and Latin church fathers, usually ending with Gregory I in A.D. 604; another 35 volumes of Church council decrees; about 55 volumes of the alleged sayings and deeds of the saints, some 150 volumes in all. Richard Bennett, former Catholic priest, explains further: The ordinary Roman Catholic bishop or priest, let alone the ordinary Catholic, can never find all of his traditions, or read it since it is in many dead and foreign languages. Even if all were available in translation, a person could never master 150 volumes in such a way as to be one with the Bible. To declare, therefore, that [the Bible plus] sacred tradition forms a single deposit of Scripture is absurd.6 cont’d
 
… Clearly, by its sheer volume, Catholic “sacred tradition” far outweighs the Bible by about 150 to 1. Thus the average Catholic doesn’t have access to the greater part of what the Church calls “the Word of God.” Moreover, unlike the Bible (which much of it contradicts), written tradition and official dogma of the Church have frequently changed, even propounding contradictory ideas on such important topics as abortion. Most Catholics are not aware that the infallible Church and popes have changed their minds several times on this topic—unthinkable from today’s perspective.

From the fifth century onward, Aristotle’s view that the embryo goes through stages from vegetable to animal to spiritual was accepted. Only in the final stage was it human. Thus Gregory VI (1045-6) said, “He is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body” Gregory XIII (1572-85) said it was not homicide to kill an embryo of less than 40 days since it wasn’t yet human. His successor, Sixtus V, who rewrote the Bible, disagreed. His Bull of 1588 made all abortions for any reason homicide and cause for excommunication. His successor, Gregory XIV, reversed that decree. In 1621 the Vatican issued another pastoral directive permitting abortion up to 40 days. As late as the eighteenth century the Church’s greatest moral theologian, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, still denied that the soul was infused at conception and allowed for flexibility, especially when the mother’s life was in danger. Finally, in 1869, Pius IX declared that any destruction of any embryo was an abortion and merited excommunication–a view that remains to this day.
[The Bible, however, is consistant in supporting the value and protection of human life from conception.]
You can find this posted here miva.sctimes.com/miva/cgi-bin/miva?Web/page.mv+1+local+109906+&PageAction=Chat

Don’t worry, its not me making these flagrant assertions.😉
 
Just a few things that occurred to me as I read:

*miracles, in particular Eucharistic miracles, are I think fairly well-established and relatively common in the Catholic Church. On the other hand I don’t know of a similar tradition of miracles in any Protestant circle, certainly not Eucharistic miracles, seeing as the Lord’s Supper is almost non-existant among most Protestants.

*Christ specifically said we are to eat of his body and drink of his blood, and this outlook was well-understood by the church fathers.

*I find the implication in giving St. Paul’s verse about “seared in their own conscience’” interesting. Does the author think St. Paul is advocating that we do away with our consciences?

*There seems to be an implication in this quote, “Even if all were available in translation, a person could never master 150 volumes in such a way as to be one with the Bible. To declare, therefore, that [the Bible plus] sacred tradition forms a single deposit of Scripture is absurd,” that tradition cannot be valid because it is too long. I suspect that is often an unspoken Protestant belief, that Catholicism can’t be right for the simple reason that it’s more complicated than “sola fide”.

*The author condemns the Catholic Church for supporting certain wars, but unless the author is a Quaker or in some other pacifist branch of Christianity, then that seems somewhat hypocritical.

*Popes can be evil, or heretics, etc. In fact all men are sinners, so why should Popes be any different?

*Certain side comments like “His successor, Sixtus V, who rewrote the Bible, disagreed.” convince me that the author is not interested in debate but simply in preaching to the choir.

*The author writes, “Transubstantiation is not a visible miracle or visible representation of Christ, so transubstantiation is a false teaching by biblical standards.” I would be ashamed to say to the Lord that his miracle didn’t count because it wasn’t visible. As the story of the healing of the paralytic teaches (Lk 5:17-26), miracles can be invisible (forgiveness of sins) as well as visible (healing the paralytic).

As for the various specific criticisms about apparent changes on teachings such as “abortion”, I’d have to see details before making an argument. But the fact that the author mixes in comments by non-popes, even if they are saints, along with comments by popes, leads me to think that the author doesn’t fully understand what the Church means when it claims infallibility.
 
This is called pileing on the difficulties. That is, throw out every conceivable objection in the hopes of overwhelming someone. You have to take it one objection at a time. Which one do you have the most trouble dealing with?

For instance:
Apostlic office and authority biblically resided in the fact that the apostles walked and talked with Christ Himself, and had witnessed His resurrection – popes have not literally talked or walked with Christ as they did in Scripture; therefore they are not apostles nor apostolic successors. See Acts 1:21-22.
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This passage might suggest the pope is not an apostle, but it in no way disproves the possibility of apostolic succession. By this standard no one (not even the dingbat asserting this) can authoritatively teach.

Scott
 
Sounds like the same ole “Catholic bashing” to me…in one ear and out the other
 
I have addressed some of the topics you raise in other threads. If you’re interested, I’ll provide the links to them.

Concerning the role of the Church on Earth (posts 37 through 60)
forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?p=249396#post249396

Regarding justification (posts 90 through 95)
forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?p=107215#post107215

There was also quite a lively debate on the beliefs of the Early Church and clearly shows the inconsistency of Protestant views of the Early Church in this thread.
forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=19069&page=1&pp=100

Regarding this section
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Catholic29:
From the fifth century onward, Aristotle’s view that the embryo goes through stages from vegetable to animal to spiritual was accepted. Only in the final stage was it human. Thus Gregory VI (1045-6) said, “He is not a murderer who brings about abortion before the soul is in the body” Gregory XIII (1572-85) said it was not homicide to kill an embryo of less than 40 days since it wasn’t yet human. His successor, Sixtus V, who rewrote the Bible, disagreed. His Bull of 1588 made all abortions for any reason homicide and cause for excommunication. His successor, Gregory XIV, reversed that decree. In 1621 the Vatican issued another pastoral directive permitting abortion up to 40 days. As late as the eighteenth century the Church’s greatest moral theologian, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, still denied that the soul was infused at conception and allowed for flexibility, especially when the mother’s life was in danger. Finally, in 1869, Pius IX declared that any destruction of any embryo was an abortion and merited excommunication–a view that remains to this day.
Click to expand...
I notice that there are no citations of exactly what documents they are. Additionally, there is no clear indication on whether or not the supposed declarations were made under the protection of infallibility. It is a common misconception of non-Catholics that popes can never utter erroneous teaching. They can do so when acting in the capacity of a private theologian or as the local bishop of Rome. It is only under specific conditions, clearly defined at Vatican I, that papal declarations are protected by infallibility. Therefore, there is nothing to fear even if some of these statements are accurate because the Church has never infallibly declared something and then subsequently “infallibly” declared a contradictory thing.
 
The on-going sexual immorality of many of the popes, while holding the papal office, throughout history additionally proves they are not apostolic successors. And popes have officially excommunicated previous popes as heretics. The official papal roll or listing of the popes has changed several times. At times there was more than one pope claiming the papal office. The papal office has often been literally bought with money. The Catholic Encyclopedia records many of these points.
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Michelle Arnold from the “Ask an Apologist” delt with a very similar question Here.
Q. The Catholic Church has a history of wars and abuse of power by its leaders, and it even had three popes at one time. Given that, how can we believe Christ founded the Catholic Church?
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A. Let’s re-phrase the question using a modern analogy: The United States of America has a history of wars and abuse of power by its leaders, and it even had two presidents at one time. Given that, how can we believe that the Founding Fathers created the United States?
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By substituting a modern political reality, it is easier to see the faulty premises upon which the argument against the Catholic Church was built. Just as the United States did not ever have two presidents at one time, only a period in late 2000 when there was a question over who was the rightful president of the United States, so the Catholic Church never had three popes, only a period when there was question over who was the rightful pope. And, in the same way that the checkered history of the United States does not invalidate the historical reality of its creation by its Founding Fathers, so the dark periods of Catholic history do not invalidate the historical reality that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ, who himself expected that humans would fail miserably (cf. Matt. 13:24-30) but promised to protect the Church and preserve it to the end of time (Matt. 28:19-20).
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Scott
 
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