Okay. I believe most people - at least from either knowing them firsthand or seeing their written thoughts are as I claimed. That’s why I said “for the most part”. It was a general statement with no research involved and hopefully it will be taken as such.
No no no my friend. We have misunderstood each other.False Doctrine is not a bona fide reason. If you could prove that the Catholic Church has false doctrines then I’d have to listen.
Stay for the hymns??What are you kidding me?! 9 out of 10 Catholics can’t sing. You should hear them at my parish!
. That’s why we have choirs who practice and who are led by a choir director.
You obviously misunderstand the meaning of papal infallibility.
Why is the Anglican church excluded in this statement? Anglicans are protestants.
Does this mean you are not happy in your respective faith?? Why not?
If you say the the Catholic Church is the true church what keeps you from coming into the fold?
I am sorry but you do not have a valid eucharist because you do not have a validly ordained bishop, priests, or deacons.
I think you misunderstood me. I know that one can believe in papal infallibility and still think that papal arrogance played an important role in the schism. (The Syllabus of Errors condemned such a view, but then I don’t think any but the most ultra-traditionalist Catholics would say that the Syllabus is infallible!). But since I don’t believe in papal infallibility, I think that there were doctrinal aspects to papal misbehavior in the 11th century as well. I think the claims of the Gregorian Papacy were to a large extent wrong and unjustified (although very understandable given the situation). We don’t need to go into this on this thread . . . .
Ask gryskull–those were his words not mine. But Anglicanism as a matter of fact has not splintered the way other Protestant groups have. That is to say (lest we get in a big argument about this), Anglicanism has not fractured into several groups of significant size all of which can claim to be Anglican. At least, not till recently
I suspect that gryskull was simply avoiding a possible response from me to the effect that “Anglicans haven’t splintered, and aren’t really Protestants anyway.” He was trying not to get into an irrelevant side argument, and I appreciated that.First of all, I’m not happy with disunity. That was my main point.
I didn’t say it was the true Church. I said it was *a *true Church and that my arguments don’t invalidate its claim to be *the *true Church in a relatively restricted sense. I do have doubts about that claim, but if I accepted the premise that dogmatic accuracy was the overriding concern that should govern us in affiliating with a church, then I would probably be able to override those doubts (although Orthodoxy would be a very tempting alternative, since pretty much *all *my issues with Orthodoxy are non-doctrinal). I certainly would not remain Protestant in that case.
Where does Ignatius describe what it takes to be a “validly ordained” bishop?
OK, I’ll put it this way-the field is the Church. Look for that field that God has tilled and planted. It is irrelevant that the devil sneaks in and sows weeds. Look for the visible field (the Catholic Church) and hold fast to the Traditions that are passed down from the Apostles.
Then what, praytell, ranks above Dogma?
The “church we actually experience” is irrelevant. I doubt you have the same intentions, but that is the same kind of arguement posted by my apostate friends, “People are just going to have sex anways, who cares what some old man in a white dress says from his ivory tower in Rome.” What matters is the teaching of the Church, that the teaching and the “actuality” doesn’t always jive is irrelevant. Those who do not hold fast to what is taught will pay for it later.
He said that all must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. Some of his disciples found this hard to follow and left him. It is not merely bread and wine.
Prove it. Pentacost is the birthday of the Church, the Sprit came upon the Apostles-not everyone in general. The Fathers affirm the necessity of the Priesthood and the Church has consistently taught this. It has only been a modern invention to say that we don’t need an actual Priesthood.
I would say this, I believe it to be difficult for anyone outside of the Catholic Church to be saved. I do not despair on anyone’s salvation, however, I don’t see how lacking the Sacraments would be in anyone’s favor. In that manner I see poor aborigines and protestants in the same boat, with the advantage possibly to the aborigine because he truly knows no better. Seems to me it would be awfully hard for a protestant to claim invincible ignorance. As Christ teaches:
How do you know that? That isn’t what the Church teaches. If it is I’d like to see it.
Because I’ve actually read Ignatius’s letters. No one disputes that he is writing to individual churches and that bishops at that era were the leaders of local Christian communities in particular cities. This is still theoretically the case–that’s why you guys quite rightly give all your bishops titles with the name of a city in them–Bishop of Raleigh or Archbishop of Newark instead of Bishop of North Carolina or Bishop of New Jersey (as we Episcopalians unfortunately call ours).
Then your boasts of believing in the visible Church are empty.
No, it is deeply and troublingly relevant. That doesnt mean that we should ignore the teaching of the See of Rome. (By “we” I mean all Christians, not just those of you in full communion.) That is part of the Church as we actually experience it too. I am not the one saying “who cares what a man in a white dress says . . . .” On the contrary, I’m the one saying that we should care about all of it–the dogmas and the popes and the hymns and the rituals and the little old ladies on their back porches in Alabama reading the Bible.
But you’re telling me that the reality of what I find inside that church is irrelevant.
Of course it isn’t. I didn’t even mean to start an argument about in what sense it is or is not still bread and wine after the consecration, an argument I don’t find profitable (though that may just be a blind spot of mine). But if St. Paul calls it bread, I can call it bread.
Only if you define the Apostles more generally than the Twelve. There were a hundred and twenty there in that upper room, including the Blessed Virgin and other women. Are you sure you really want to go there
?First of all, I didn’t say that. I said that the prophecy of Joel (quoted in Acts 2) says that the Spirit will come upon “all flesh,” and St. Peter said that this was what was happening on Pentecost. I conclude from this and from the Letter to the Hebrews that the ministerial priesthood is an expression of the universal priesthood conferred on all the baptized by the Holy Spirit. In other words, I’m trying to apply that famous “Catholic both/and”!
That’s a reasonable and consistent position. There’s no way I could possibly ever accept it. It would be like accepting that all the air I had been breathing up to now and all the food I had eaten and all the water I had drunk were poisonous. Since I am not dead, this is not a tenable conclusion
All Christians are in some sense part of the Catholic Church. That is affirmed by Vatican II, and I accept it. We are part of the same Church you are. We disagree on just how and to what degree, but that much we can agree on (unless you reject Vatican II). So how can I not care what the Roman Communion teaches? Especially since (like Dr. Long) I believe that the Papacy is an indispensable office within the Universal Church.
I have never heard this before. Care to elaborate??Only if you define the Apostles more generally than the Twelve. There were a hundred and twenty there in that upper room, including the Blessed Virgin and other women. Are you sure you really want to go there
No, not every Catholic Church has communion in both species, but many do.
When, during your time in RCIA, did you not have access to Scripture?
Everyone who comes to Mass participates in worship.
I would say transplanting. Protestantism, objectively, is heretical. That there exists good people within protestantism does nothing to prove that it has any right to exist as a viable alternative to Catholicism or even as another option.
Protestantism has preserved nothing better than the Catholic Church. Communion in both kinds is a tradition (little t) that is subject to the authority of the Church, as the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity are present in even the smallest particle of the Precious Body or smallest drop of the Precious Blood. Therefore, it is totally acceptable to receive Communion in one form and not only acceptable but preferable as you are less likely to have mishaps with the Host than with the Blood.
I almost did go off on that tangent, but I think we would (at least outwardly) agree here. Love and Dogma are part and parcel.
Liturgy is part of dogma
likewise stems from dogma
ditto
such as…?
if it wasn’t against dogma it wouldn’t be a social evil
I think you get the point
How do you fall into a “trap” of dogma? You need an authoritative Church to define such things when questions arise. Otherwise you have denomintations just deciding they will do whatever they feel like.
We have the gifts of the Holy Spirit, however, that still doesn’t mean that everyone is of the Priesthood. The baptized have the obligation to preach Christ to the world, we are a priestly people but not everyone is a deacon, a priest, or a bishop. Not everyone can consecrate the gifts.
Maybe I’m just not explaining this right (and that may very well be true) but this does not invalidate the visible Church. The Church is visible in the Hierarchy, in the Dogmas and Doctrines, in the fact that it has existed from the time of Jesus to now and til the end of time. The Church professes the same Creed, believes in the same doctrines and dogmas in America, in Rome, in Africa, etc.
Christ purchased the Church-his Church He set up upon St. Peter and the Apostles-and the Church is to be the pillar of Truth, it is to be perfect and indefectible. That is the Church-that which you can turn to and know that it is right. It does not matter that popes have been debauched or that Joe Schmoe Catholic watches porn-the Church is protected to always teach the Truth. The Holy Spirit will guide us into all Truth through His Church. It is not an abstraction.