V
Vic_Taltrees_UK
Guest
I have been close to protestants all my life so I am always critiquing what they think!…
OSAS believers tend to worry too much about what is not real (the future), to the extent of neglecting present communion with Christ.
The essential eucharistic belief is the Real Presence. At one point that became formulated as “transubstantiation” based on a very strange usage of the term “substance” where I would think “identity” or “essence” a clearer expression. Much of the controversy is a superficial reaction against this.
If by a “prophetic” sort of impuse some in various denominations have suggested the church of Rome, Gaithersburg or elsewhere as a representation of the Whore of Babylon that is at any rate an invitation to critique any organisational system under which we would take in slavishness as an attitude of heart. (This has been done for nineteen hundred years beginning with Judaisers, super-apostles, the bewitchers of the Galatians and the like.) You might do all the same devotions (that are unfashionable to some) as the next Catholic does, but if you are doing them freely that is a different kettle of fish. There may come a time - however distant - when we each have to decide whether we are in specific communion with a purported successor of Francis (and Peter) or not (it may be a future hazard in the Catholic Church and certainly is in all the other denominations AS WELL) (I think there is absolutely no basis in sedevacantism up to and including the present) but that is no reason to necessarily take the “Whore of Babylon” doctrine of some Protestants literally as literally as they do.
It absolutely is the attitude of heart that counts. Babylon traded in souls (she was dripping in their blood) i.e they weren’t allowed their discretion or initiative in practising and sharing the Gifts of the Spirit (weren’t allowed to trade with their talents for the profit of the family firm) and every denomination is frequently guilty of exactly the same. Some of the web sites that specifically accuse Catholics of turning each other into slaves, but not protestants, are generally turning their own fellow protestants into slaves. Those that mention this as a warning to ALL denominations are more balanced and wary of the danger of their sinning likewise themselves.