Luther...

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The Catechism is a beautiful thing!

**890 **The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium’s task to preserve God’s people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church’s shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The exercise of this charism takes several forms:
 
Which gets back to both the original point and the topic of Luther. I honestly don’t think that Luther had a bad intention in what he was doing. He had a crisis of faith, not knowing why some things were done, and not thinking other things worthy of the Church, and he made a list.

The problem is when Pride enters the equasion. C S Lewis in Mere Christianity pointed out that the sin of Pride basically changes any minor sin into a huge fissure between God and man. Once Luther decided not to find answers and work withing the church to either learn why something was being done or why it shouldn’t be done, his Pride told him to take his list and found a new church.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions . . . (and for any of you protestants out there reading this, I am not telling you that you are going to hell just becuase you are protestant, just that you are denying yourselves much of the spiritual support that you could have if you were in the church, and many of the answers that would help strengthen your faith . . . and that the scism in the church keeps many non beleiverers away since they don’t want to get involved in a chuch that is so divided).
 
The point is that Luther started something that led thousands (no exaggeration here) of people away from the true church. The Bible is quite clear about people who do things like that. Something about drowning with a millstone around his neck, I believe.
 
I would shy away from making any judgements on the final disposition of anyone’s soul, at least anyone not cannonized. We can only really judge what the effects of his actions are, not desitnation of his eternal self.
 
I erred in my writing. Instead of someone I should have said one of them, which is what I meant. It all comes down to the fact that 99% of what they all taught was probably the same.
 
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squeekster:
But if one is going to claim that these alleged traditions are from God, it just seems to me that there ought to be concrete proof of those assertions. Not just “it’s that way because the church says so”.
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Concrete proof? In my own feeble mind, there is no such thing as concrete proof concerning spiritual life and faith. Using your logic, the Catholic Church may have made up the whole story about these so called “Apostles”.

As Fr Groeschel says, you kill Christianity when you remove the mystery from it.

Find someone to trust. You can’t infallibly interperet the whole Bible by yourself. All you can do is nitpick the Catholic Church. You can spend your whole life deciding what not to believe, and you will be no better off in the end.

Even if the Catholic Chuch is wrong about everything, that still doesn’t make you right.

I don’t find many of you people nitpicking the Church’s stand on moral issues. Ever wonder why? Ever wonder why so many Protestants can’t find a church to fit their own needs? Because in the end, the Church should not be here for you. You should be here for the Church.

Have a nice day.
 
Squeekster, I am very sorry; I did not mean to suggest that you are in any way, evil. Looking back at my post I can see that it can be interpreted that way. It was my mistake, I wrote poorly. Scylla’s post #37 was a lot more successful in the point I was trying to make.
Consequently, since you made the comment that “There are so many lies put out there and perpetuated, ranging from the subtle to the incredible”, I consider a number of the things that the Catholic church teaches to be included in that statement. Why? Because some of them simply can NOT be found anywhere in Scripture.
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The point I was trying to make here is that you can go to any non-Catholic, Christian source and see such things as “Many Catholics think God is evolving” (the subtle) to “the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon” (the incredible). What really gets to me is that these people think that they know the Catholic Church better than the official Catholic teaching. Here is one absolutely terrible example of a non-Catholic distorting Catholic teaching:
As the “one true church,” Catholicism claims the right to determine who is or is not a Christian:
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“All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.” Pg 216, #818
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In other words, if you have not been baptized into the Catholic church, you are not a Christian. These are not my words, but the words of the official Catholic Catechism.
…
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Understanding Roman Catholicism © 1995 by Rick Jones - Chapter 4
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But canon #818 says this:
818 "However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers . . . . All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church."272
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Which is completely the opposite of what Rick Jones is trying to say the Catholic Church teaches! This goes way beyond irresponsible, to take bits and pieces of Catholic theology and take them out of context so much so that it seems to teach exactly the opposite of what the theology is really teaching! One thing that I try and do whenever I see “the Catholic Church teaches that…” is to ask for an official Catholic source; a canon from the Catechism or an ecumenical council would do nicely. This is what I am hoping you will do from now on; not to trust anything you see that the Catholic Church teaches, but to go to the source and find out what it really does teach. But be careful, I know of a Presbyterian elder who went to the Catechism and came up with the conclusion that Catholics re-sacrifice Christ every day at mass. So sometimes it can be difficult to really understand Catholic theology, as well.
cont…
 
Some can only be found if one takes a verse totally out of the context that it was written in and twists it horribly. And some can only be found within what you guys call “tradition”.
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Indeed, we should strive to take into context the Bible as much as we possibly can. I believe that the Catholic Church is greatly more successful at doing this than any Protestant Church. Why? Because we try to use every resource possible. The ecumenical councils, the writings of the early church fathers and every other historical document we can get our hands on. While these documents may not enjoy the same inspiration as the books of the Bible, they are still very useful. Most Protestants seem to utterly reject anything that isn’t the Bible, as it isn’t inspired and hence could be wrong. They are right in that it could be wrong, but if every single Christian for 1000 years teaches the same doctrine in their writings, then surely we could say with some confidence that they were right!

Yes there are some Protestants who try and use historical documents to support some of their doctrines. For example, I have seen a Protestant apologist (Jason Engwer) use part of a letter of Irenaeus to show that the Eucharist is symbolic only. I asked at a forum about this, and it turns out that in the same letter, Irenaeus discusses how the Eucharist really is the literal body of Christ! And so the only logical conclusion to this apparent contradiction is that the Eucharist is to be taken both as literally Christ’s body and as a symbol. I think I am right in saying that this is completely consistent with Catholic teaching! (If someone could confirm that what I have said here is correct, I would be grateful!)
 
Originally Posted by squeekster
But if one is going to claim that these alleged traditions are from God, it just seems to me that there ought to be concrete proof of those assertions. Not just “it’s that way because the church says so”.
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Do you have “concrete proof” that the earth is only 6,000 years old, or that there are dinosaurs in the Bible (and still on the earth today?), or that the 66 books in your Bible are all that are inspired, that the rings that are exchanged at your weddings are a practice that originated with Christianity, or that the apostles anywhere spoke of having a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ or of receiving Christ as one’s personal Lord & savior?
I don’t think so…
Pax vobiscum,
 
I think many cathoolics today view Luther symphthetically - he had good intentions and the church were in error in selling indulgences however the symphathy does not cave way to accepting flase teaching. Which is something Luther later seemed to invent on a daily basis. His early writings are known to be compltetly Orthodox Catholcism and he was a loyal son of the pope how we went form that postion to in a few years writing about the Pope being teh anti-chrsit and the whore of Babylon and writing Jack Chick Cartoons of the Pope with fart jokes and potty jokes is beyond me. He became a rude and crude man that wrote calumnous things about the church which were completly polemical in nature with no proof he was the first Jack Chick so that’s one reason Catholics look back and shake their head at their former son.

Furthermore the catholic church views itself as the bride of christ.
Luther was her first divorce. and if you ever met a dicorcee they don’t tend to look back at the fond memories but the dark ones.
Luther being formerly a loyal son of the pope was in many ways ffar more damaging than the other reformers Calvin was just a lawyer but Luther was once a respected doctor of the church in theology at the universtiy of Wittenburg representing the Augustinina order or monks. This was a betryal from within the clergy. I think this hurt more because of these facts.
We view Luther as divorcing the church when he sould have been wed to the church for better or worse and should have tried to work within the church - like a groom works out his problmes with his bride. Divorce is not tolerated by the catholic church in the sense of marriage nor in dissent from the church. Protestantism has typically looked the other way at divorce and split itself into a never ending division among itselfs.

Others here are upset about catholics caring about the divivsions.
We only care as to show you the evidence of Luther’s error and the tragedy christiantiy is in due to his divorce from the church.
If i told you that your soon to be husabnd had been married nearly 30,000 thousand times that might shock you into considering a marriage to him. But this does not disuade the protestant who convicnes himself that out of thousands of denomination they just might be in the one that gets it right and no more divorces will occure because now they are in the marriage.
 
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Atreyu:
This is what I am hoping you will do from now on; not to trust anything you see that the Catholic Church teaches, but to go to the source and find out what it really does teach.
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Funny that you should say that. I, as well as many others, have directly quoted various “official” Catholic documents over the years such as the Catechism, canons, etc. If those to whom they were quoted didn’t like the fact that their own “official” documents proved them to be something other than what they believed, they claimed that we “interpreted it wrong”. And of course, after they made these bogus claimes of wrong interpretation, they never answered another question or responded in any way. In their mind, they got the “last word” in so they “won” the argument. :rolleyes:
 
If someone previously have not given a good answer for the faith, I apologize on behalf of my Christian brother who has not answered you to your satisfaction.

Again though as Atreyu pointed out there are many misleading opinions such as the example he pointed out. Some are as blatant as that example, some are less. We are happy to assist you in any way of avoiding this sort of thing as all it is, is misrepresentation.
Code: 
 Many people in the Catholic Church have given the Church a bad name, the Church is a hospital for sinners.  I trust you will search for truth about the Church and not just opinions.
God Bless
Scylla
 
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squeekster:
…I consider a number of the things that the Catholic church teaches to be included in that statement. Why? Because some of them simply can NOT be found anywhere in Scripture… But if one is going to claim that these alleged traditions are from God, it just seems to me that there ought to be concrete proof of those assertions. Not just “it’s that way because the church says so”.
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Well, you are abiding by some of those Church teachings that “simply can NOT be found anywhere in Scripture”—for instance, strict adherence to monogamy (vs. polygamy, that is)
simply can NOT be found anywhere in Scripture. Indeed, Luther write that it was permissible, according to Scripture. The word “Trinity” can NOT be found anywhere in Scripture. Nor is it readily inferred from Scripture (as an Evanglical acquaintance of mine once claimed) as the widespread heresies such as Arianism and others in the early centuries of Christianity prove. You have adopted much of the teaching of the Catholic Church—you just don’t know that you have. I would recommend reading Mark Shea, a former Evangelical (and sola scripturist) who has written extensively on tradition.
 
Luther has answered to God on all the people in Luther’s time and to this day that turned their backs on the true faith to follow his false teachings. The souls of the dead have cried for retribution and have gotten it from the Judge of judges. I would not want to be Luther now.
 
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KnightErrantJR:
I would shy away from making any judgements on the final disposition of anyone’s soul, at least anyone not cannonized. We can only really judge what the effects of his actions are, not desitnation of his eternal self.
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Luther was a troubled man. He not only suffered from scruples, he suffered from…

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3944549.stm

telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/22/wlav22.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/10/22/ixportal.html

My Lutheran History Prof. inform me of Luther’s problems.

Sadly, Luther’s held very strong anti-Semitic opinions.

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/luther.htm%between%%between%
 
The BBC has confirmed that the Reformation came from the toilet of Luther! Always knew that that sola fide smelled kinda funny to me.

"Archaeologists in Germany say they may have found a lavatory where Martin Luther launched the Reformation of the Christian church in the 16th Century. "
 
Getting back to the topic, ahem…

I remember reading somewhere - it may have been at Catholicencylopedia.com OR in Triumph (by Harry Crocker, another convert) that Luther was given the chance to repent and return to the church, but he refused.

I must continue to pray diligently for my estranged from the Faith relatives; one is my own Brother!

Peace,
Mimi
 
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