It's time to end the "imperial episcopate." What do you think?

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the Church was not united with unified thought until sometime in the 4th Century. Before that it was a Jesus Movement with many groups having their own interpretation of what it all meant. And the split from being Jewish Christians was just happening.
 
AugustTherese said:
Wouldn’t you rather be made righteous, instead of solely being declared righteous? Does not the doctrine of imputation empty the transformative powers of the Cross, keeping you enslaved to the bondage of sin? Did Our Blessed Lord suffer the most indescribable agony merely to declare us something we are not, or, did He assume a soul and flesh to be nailed to a cross so that He could make you righteous, and thus declare what you are in reality?
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It absolutely does not. Your understanding however, seems to deny the gospel for a synergistic understanding of how we are made righteous.

Paul himself recognizes that though we are made righteous through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness in our stead, we still struggle with sin in our flesh. See Romans Chapter 7. Paul acknowledges that though we have received the imputed righteousness of Christ, and therefore delivered from the curse of the law, there is still a future glory in which both our bodies and the world will be redeemed from the power of sin.

Again, we are declared righteous because he paid the price for us. Not because we have obtained our own righteousness.

Considering your own theology of confession, absolution, penance, and purgatory, I would assume you would have already known that that is our present reality. It appears you still haven’t made it all the way through Romans yet. Hebrews also addresses this issue quite well. As you can see in Hebrews Jesus is always before the Father as our mediator.

Also, yes, I do believe in the process of sanctification, however, that has not yet been brought to completion for any of us, has it?
 
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The Catholic Church does not teach imputation of righteousness that is a protestant idea. Our sinful self is not “covered over” by Christ’s sacrifice. Instead we are transformed by it.
 
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Would it help if we eliminated careerism in the episcopate. Right now someone gets named bishop of a small diocese. If he’s good, he gets “promoted”’ to become bishop of a larger diocese and ultimately, if he pleases the right people, he gets named archbishop of some other place.

The idea of a starter marriage and ultimately a trophy wife may work for business executives and politicians, but we shouldn’t have the equivalents for bishops.

If you’re a priest of a certain diocese and have strong leadership skills, perhaps you’ll get named a bishop. And hopefully you will do a good job in leading the diocese. If the archbishop’s seat is vacant, selection can be made from the bishops of the province. But bishops shouldn’t be criss-crossing the country in search of more prestige.
 
I too long for a return to the full and dramatic beauty of traditional clerical vestiture. Indeed, there was once a time when it was common sight to behold any vicar vested in black chasuble, purple velvet cope and breeches to match, hair-shirt, black cincture, gauntlets, maniple, collar under amice, purple stole, black stockings, black velvet shoes with strap across the instep, and black biretta while exhibiting a phosphoric livid countenance at all moments as to project to all the serious nature of his ritual. For such attire and manner was most efficacious as he stood visible and busied of sacred duties behind the holy rood screen. And, in those pius days, all present knew to stay at reverent distance, attired in black dress coat and overcoat of the same color, black trousers, black waistcoat, black kid gloves, white wristbands over them, white cravat and black veils for all women as to exploit the greatest appearance of perpetual mourning and severity among them and to accommodate to the greatest degree a somber air most effective, settling in to that holy space and announcing to all who might enter that this is indeed no happy affair.
 
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Kaliaa said:
The Catholic Church does not teach imputation of righteousness that is a protestant idea. Our sinful self is not “covered over” by Christ’s sacrifice. Instead we are transformed by it.
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I am comfortable with my Protestant take on justification because I am Protestant. And it isn’t an A or B thing. It’s A and B. Our standing before God is because Christ imputes his righteousness to us and has paid the penalty for our sin, AND he gives us the Holy Spirit who teaches, guides, and sanctifies us (ongoing process). Feel free to reference my post immediately above yours.
 
I read your post before I posted my reply. 🙂 However, I think it’s important to differentiate what you are telling people from what the Catholic Church teaches. They are not equivalent. A does not equal B. I’ll stop there as my intention was only to clarify not to derail. The rest is for another discussion which I suspect has already been done on CAF somewhere else.
 
Kaliaa said:
The Catholic Church does not teach imputation of righteousness that is a protestant idea. Our sinful self is not “covered over” by Christ’s sacrifice. Instead we are transformed by it.
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Apparently some people haven’t yet been sufficiently transformed.

D
 
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