Heresy and the great apostasy

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ron_Conte
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
reggieM said:
Well, I live very near the Mormon promised-land of Palmyra, NY. 🙂

True. But they were never able to say when the great apostasy happened – although they claim it occurred on the death of the last apostle. That doesn’t make sense though because the apostles started all of those Churches and none of them show any change in their beliefs after the apostles died.
Click to expand...
Their claims are without any grounds, they have their own doctrine that never existed before the 200 years that they have been around…
 
(…I was talking to a mormon missionary live over in Utuh, I tried to convert her to the catholic church, but I failed… her name was Carma.)
 
Zundrah said:
(…I was talking to a mormon missionary live over in Utuh, I tried to convert her to the catholic church, but I failed… her name was Carma.)
Click to expand...
I’m glad you made that good effort to convert her – that planted some good seeds of faith and maybe they will take root later.
 
More on the question of what exactly the true ‘great apostasy’ was, I think the ‘reformation’ may very well have been it. To support this notion, I would simply note that more people left the Church at this point than any other (setting aside the Roman/Orthodox split).

Also, what effects did the ‘reformation’ have on Christianity?
 
Scardinoz said:
More on the question of what exactly the true ‘great apostasy’ was, I think the ‘reformation’ may very well have been it. To support this notion, I would simply note that more people left the Church at this point than any other (setting aside the Roman/Orthodox split).

Also, what effects did the ‘reformation’ have on Christianity?
Click to expand...
And the Roman/Orthodox split was due to schism, rather than the heresy great apostasies should presumably be made of.
 
Zundrah said:
Isn’t it when Christ will come on clouds, or before that? Just before that?

I think that Christianity will be vastly underminded and treated so badly that maybe our beliefs and practices will become “politically incorrect” and even stopped, but Muslims will be aloud to keep on going ect…

I think we may meet a terrible end.
Click to expand...
Zundrah,

You have hit my vision of the end times right on the head. We are seeing our Christianity becoming “politically incorrect” right now. We have opposition to using the tirm “Merry Christmas”. The city that I live in used to have “Merry Christmas” on its decorations all across the entire city. All of the new decorations are now “Happy Holidays”. The Manger that used to be in one of the main parks of the City has been removed. Merry Christmas has been removed from Shopping Malls, grocery stores and fast food resterants. State employees are now required to say, “Happy Holidays” in place of, “Merry Christmas” when meeting with their clients. They want to take “In God We Trust” off of our currency. The new administration is contemplating a one world curency and this would accomplish that.

Islam is the only religion that I know of that requires you to covert by threat of death. The Muslims have taken over many regions throughout the Mid-East that were previously Christian. And so we can say that more and more of the leity and clergy are falling away from Christianity in our present day. Will Christianity have to go underground at some point, and is that period closer than we think?
 
From Our Catechism of the Catholic Church:
**
**The Church’s ultimate trial
675 Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.574 The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth 575 will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.576

574 Cf. Lk 18:8; Mt 24:12.
575 Cf. Lk 21:12; Jn 15:19-20.
576 Cf. 2 Thess 2:4-12; 1 Thess 5:2-3; 2 Jn 7; 1 Jn 2:18,22.

.
 
Ron_Conte said:
[2 Thessalonians 2]
{2:3} Let no one deceive you in any way. For this cannot be, unless the apostasy will have arrived first, and the man of sin will have been revealed, the son of perdition,

[1 Timothy]
{1:5} Now the goal of instruction is charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith.
{1:6} Certain persons, wandering away from these things, have been turned aside to empty babbling,
{1:7} desiring to be teachers of the law, but understanding neither the things that they themselves are saying, nor what they are affirming about these things.

[1 Timothy]
{4:1} Now the Spirit has clearly said that, in the end times, some persons will depart from the faith, paying attention to spirits of error and the doctrines of devils,
{4:2} speaking lies in hypocrisy, and having their consciences seared,

[Titus]
{3:10} Avoid a man who is a heretic, after the first and second correction,
{3:11} knowing that one who is like this has been subverted, and that he offends; for he has been condemned by his own judgment.

[2 Corinthians]
{11:13} For false apostles, such as these deceitful workers, are presenting themselves as if they were Apostles of Christ.

In my opinion, the foundation for the great apostasy has already been laid. Very many Catholics are in a state of material heresy (I am not here judging if they have committed formal heresy or not, but it is likely based on their own words than many have). They reject teachings of the Faith that have been taught infallibly, either by a Pope or a Council or the universal Magisterium.

Examples:
  1. The teaching that the Church does not have the authority to ordain women as priests.
What percentage of Catholics believe that the Church can and should ordain women priests? I think that it is a sizeable percentage, though perhaps less than half (less than a third??).
  1. The real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Some surveys have shown that a majority of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence.
  1. The inerrancy of Scripture.
The opinion that has been often condemned by the Magisterium is perhaps the most common opinion among Catholics, that inerrrancy is limited to matters of faith and morals. Some even place no limits on the type or number of errors, even holding that the OT has errors on morality.
  1. Contraception
Most married Catholics use contraception, and believe that contraception is not intrinsically evil, in contradiction to the teaching of the universal Magisterium.
  1. Abortion
very many Catholics do not believe that direct abortion is always gravely immoral; they think that direct abortion is moral in some cases.
  1. intrinsic evil
I think that most Catholics do not believe, or even understand, the Church’s teaching that intrinsically evil acts are always immoral, regardless of intention or circumstances.

There are many other definitive teachings of the Faith that a sizeable number of Catholics reject. But with only these six, the vast majority of Catholics hold opinions that are material heresy.

The great apostasy is not very far away.
Click to expand...
lets look at just one of the examples you cite, number 5, abortion. I would never support abortion as I take a pro life stance. I agree with what the CC teaches regarding it. Now lets look at a poor soul who for whatever reason thought this was the only option at the time, or an individual who made a grave error in thinking that it was needed. this person sinned, and sinned grievously. Are we as Christians to throw them to the wolves? Or do we minister to them? There are two souls here that need to be prayed for. We have to look at the sinner as needing spiritual healing, not ostracism. We need to educate them on the sanctity of life, not condemn them. And most importantly they need reconciliation.

The examples you cite are serious and I agree that it is an issue, but we have to remember that these are sinners who need to be informed and educated in the truth. They need the positive examples of Catholics who hold to the precepts of the CC to be beacon of truth. lastly as stated in Sacred Scripture “the gates of hell will not prevail against it”

just my thoughts for this evening 🙂
 
abajab said:
Perhaps you should start a new post with this question. However, the answer is yes. What causes you to believe that he may not be?
Click to expand...
The question is whether Ron Conte believes the pope to be validly elected. We’ll see what Ron says…
 
jpy15026 said:
From Our Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Church’s ultimate trial Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earthwill unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.
Click to expand...
Okay, I think that was my question. I was wondering what the Church’s view on the great apostasy was. I myself see the possible beginnings of it. There are many dissidents in the Church that I never knew existed prior to my reversion back to the faith. This current administration, IMO, has included many of them in it’s seeming attempt to divide and conquer the Church in America. There are many signs that are neither political nor religious that I can see as well, such as the tendency for us in today’s society to have such a short attention span and not really think about things long enough to fully understand them. I’m no exception to this, but I certainly try to fight it as much as I can recognize it.

There is obviouosly more to base my opinion on, but my point is it all seems to be part of a spiritual warfare strategy that is going into overtime. Listening to CAL “The Church and the News” and watching news shows such as The World Over, and occasionally the cable news channels, seems to reinforce my opinion that something is happening in this world that is challenging the Church and the world that may lead to a colossal crisis for the faithful.

Now, I hope I am wrong and that what we are going through is a mild tribulation that obviously needs to occur every now and then until the Second Coming. But I am scared because I see many good Catholics leaving the orthodoxy of the faith and becoming more secular every day. I see more and more Catholics becoming indifferent to things that they should care about, saying things like “I don’t see any harm in that”. I’m scared because I don’t want to see loved ones give in to this spiritual warfare that appears to disguise evil as “modern progression”, “tolerance”, and “diversity”. These things, normally good and acceptable prinicples, are being used to subvert the citizens of this country’s belief systems… and I’m not even sure those in power are fully aware of what they are doing (thus, refer back to our short attention span which doesn’t allow us to fully examine what’s going on).

Well, okay, enough of my soap box. I guess I needed to get that off my chest. It just seems that instead of feeling better about the future, I feel it’s going to get much worse for a while. Then, as one would hope, the light will outshine the darkness.

Thanks for letting me rant and God Bless,
Snert
 
Randy_Carson said:
The question is whether Ron Conte believes the pope to be validly elected. We’ll see what Ron says…
Click to expand...
I did not answer this question in the posts above because I had stopped reading this particular thread. I did not see the question until just now. I answered in a different thread, but here it is again in briefer form:

The valid Ecumenical Councils of the Church are 21, from the Council of Nicaea through the Second Vatican Council.
piar.hu/councils/

Popes Benedict XVI, John Paul II, John Paul I, Paul VI, John XXIII, and all the other popes from Peter to the present day are valid successors of Peter. Each and all of them possess both of the swords of Peter, that is, the spiritual authority and the temporal authority.
newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm

Also, I’d like to add that it is my theological opinion that each and every Pope, that is, each and every valid successor of Peter, is entirely unable, by a special grace of God, to fall into the sin of heresy, even interiorly, even if it is never reflected in his teaching. And so the conditions for a man to be a valid Pope are three:
  1. validly elected
  2. validly ordained to the episcopate
  3. freely accepts the office
    By virtue of the grace of God and the act of the man’s free will in accepting the office, in order to make the Church indefectible, and because the papal office is the seat of the Magisterium, God absolutely and necessarily prevents each and every valid successor of Peter from falling into apostasy, heresy, or schism.
The opinion often expressed by sede vacantists is absurd, which claims that the faithful have to judge each clamant to the Papacy to see if he has fallen into heresy, as if we were each and all judges over the Vicar of Christ. And if they think a man has fallen into heresy (even before he became Pope, so that they are judging his entire life), then they think that they can not only reject a successor to Peter, but even attempt to elect their own candidate (who of course is nothing but an antipope). A church built on this type of absurd system would be built on sand.

The One Holy Catholic and truly Apostolic Church is led by the Bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter, who God never permits to fall into heresy:

[Luke]
{22:32} But I have prayed for you, so that your faith may not fail, and so that you, once converted, may confirm your brothers.”
 
reggieM said:
Yes, that is helpful. I’m very familiar with Mormonism also. Keep in mind, I didn’t say that Mormons were Protestants. I said that they were “Protestant apostates”. In other words, they broke from the Protestant church which was dominant at the time. None of the first Mormons, for example, were ex-Catholics or Jews. They were all ex-Protestants – they all had the same backgrounds and biases.

But the Mormon Church is not a Protestant sect. It broke away from the Protestant church. In the same way, the Lutheran Church is not in union with the Catholic faith. Lutherans are “Catholic apostates” – they broke from Catholicism and started their own religion.

So, what does the Mormon church mean by “the great apostasy”? Their own founder attended Methodist services and he absorbed, unthinkingly, much of the Protestant novelties. But he never recognized that the Protestant faith is an apostasy from Catholicism.

That is the biggest evidence of the shortcomings of Mr. Smith’s view. He knew nothing about Catholicism, but at the same time, claimed that God wanted to “restore the priesthood” – correctly understanding that the Protestant sects did not have a priesthood, but not recognizing the apostolic authority of the Catholic Church.

He simply had no exposure to Catholicism as a youth and by the time he was made a “prophet” his only knowledge of Catholicism came from anti-Catholic bigots (Evangelicals and Masons).
Click to expand...
Great post–interesting and informative.

Many Protestants refer to the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, etc, as ‘cults.’ As in Walter Martin’s book, ‘The Kingdom of the Cults.’ These cults have set themselves up as authoritative interpreters of scripture, something that the Protestant Reformers said did not exist. It is because the founders of these cults, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, et al, recognized the need for an authoritative interpreter, that they established religious organizations that do interpret the bible authoritatively for its members. There is no ‘individual interpretation of scripture’ in these churches!

The cults came into existence when the Protestant heresy had gone to seed; when that heresy started turning back upon itself; when the spirit of protest began protesting against one of the tenets of Protestantism itself.

After all, the spirit of Protestantism is to protest, to reform. Joseph Smith and those of his ilk grew up in a Protestant environment, and for them the only thing to protest against, the only thing to reform, was Protestantism itself. By founding the Mormon church, Joseph Smith was merely being a good Protestant!
 
Some Mormon missionaries told me that the great apostasy occurred after the death of the last apostle. However, Mormons do accept and believe in the New Testament, particularly the King James Version.

Well, I pointed out to them that the New Testament was not collected together and recognized canonically until centuries after the death of the apostles, years after the apostasy had taken place. Obviously, then, the NT we have was formed by apostates! But how can we have any confidence in a book put together by apostates?

They said they would research that question and get back to me but they never did.

Indeed, this question applies not just to Mormons but to Protestants and non-Catholics in general. One of the great contradictions in the non-Catholic position.
 
It is not quite correct to refer to Mormons as Protestant apostates since Protestants are Christians, and Mormons, regardless of their protestations to the contrary, are not and have never been Christians. They do not accept the Trinity, believe God the Father has a physical body, do not believe God is perfect and infinite, believe God is just one of a plethora of gods and was part of a council of Gods that decided to create or fashion the Earth, believe some Mormon men when they die will become gods equal to Jesus - and therefore they pray to the Father-God but not to Jesus, do not believe Jesus is true God and true man, do not believe Jesus is and always was the eternal Word of God incarnated through the action of the Holy Spirit in Mary, and in spite of their claim to accept the KJV, Joseph Smith said all of it except for the Gospel of John and Revelation, was error and he was going to retranslate it. Since he did not have access to the source texts nor the education to read them, he actually meant he had the right and authority to rewrite, not re-translate, scripture. All of which makes the Mormons decidedly non-Christian. This is all found in the Doctrines and Covenants of the Mormon church.
mackbrislawn said:
Great post–interesting and informative.

Many Protestants refer to the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, etc, as ‘cults.’ As in Walter Martin’s book, ‘The Kingdom of the Cults.’ These cults have set themselves up as authoritative interpreters of scripture, something that the Protestant Reformers said did not exist. It is because the founders of these cults, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, et al, recognized the need for an authoritative interpreter, that they established religious organizations that do interpret the bible authoritatively for its members. There is no ‘individual interpretation of scripture’ in these churches!

The cults came into existence when the Protestant heresy had gone to seed; when that heresy started turning back upon itself; when the spirit of protest began protesting against one of the tenets of Protestantism itself.

After all, the spirit of Protestantism is to protest, to reform. Joseph Smith and those of his ilk grew up in a Protestant environment, and for them the only thing to protest against, the only thing to reform, was Protestantism itself. By founding the Mormon church, Joseph Smith was merely being a good Protestant!
Click to expand...
 
jdobbins said:
It is not quite correct to refer to Mormons as Protestant apostates since Protestants are Christians, and Mormons, regardless of their protestations.
Click to expand...
No, Mormons are not Protestant.

Referring to them as ‘Protestant apostates’ means that the founders of Mormonism were apostates from Protestantism.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top