Need a response for accustation aganist vatican, skulls and bones post

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daywiz

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Hi,
I am very very new to these forums. I dont know if this topic has been discused. If anyone can provide me some advice on how to properly defend this topic with clear facts and substantial information I would be really grateful. I felt so bad seeing this post and comments from ppl i know
Its regarding skulls and traditions based on that, although I dont believe or follow it, the posts are taking hard potshots at my faith.

ivarfjeld.com/category/vatican-skulls-and-bones/

Kindly advice on how i can reply back to the doubters who have challenged me
 
This is an example of a first class relic, which is often a piece (small chip) of bone, though this seems like an extraordinary relic - the complete skull of St. Mary Magdeline. It’s strange that I can’t find independent confirmation of it. If it were widely believed to be authentic, I think it would be quite famous.

Relics like these seem very strange to our Western sensibilities. We have some sense of veneration for a person’s remains - human remains are treated with respect (and protected by law), and are often marked with ornate gravestones (and this is pretty universal - religion is not a factor). Marines will sacrifice lives to retrieve the remains of one of their fallen comrades.

But we don’t usually take it as far as people from European cultures, so these cultural traditions seem very strange to us.

FWIW, a Catholic altar is supposed to be constructed over a first class relic, so there is supposed to be at least one such relic in every Catholic church.
 
That website is nothing but vitriolic filth. I wouldn’t bother ‘refuting’ them: their claims are unsubstantiated. Relics are not pagan, as pagans had a distaste of dealing with human remains. Christians, however, from the earliest times, had no problem with keeping their dead near them (catacombs) during the Liturgy.

For instance, one can read in the ‘Martyrdom of Ignatius’:

“For only the harder portions of his holy remains were left, which were conveyed to Antioch and wrapped in linen, as an inestimable treasure left to the holy Church by the grace which was in the martyr.”

This was a disciple of the Apostles, and they took his remains back to Antioch to be venerated. THIS was the early Church.

The website you have posted is one of those extraordinary challenges to my ability to love our separated brethren, because so many of them hate the Holy Church with all their being. They, along with the Jack Chicks and Matt Slicks of the world, are a cross and heavy burden, not because of their arguments (which are easily refuted), but because of their hatred in the name of Jesus. They profane Christ and blaspheme Him by their hatred of His Church. Pray for them.
 
daywiz said:
Hi,
I am very very new to these forums. I dont know if this topic has been discused. If anyone can provide me some advice on how to properly defend this topic with clear facts and substantial information I would be really grateful. I felt so bad seeing this post and comments from ppl i know
Its regarding skulls and traditions based on that, although I dont believe or follow it, the posts are taking hard potshots at my faith.

ivarfjeld.com/category/vatican-skulls-and-bones/

Kindly advice on how i can reply back to the doubters who have challenged me
Click to expand...
Here is an article to help you:

calledtocommunion.com/201…ption-of-mary/

*The first real blow to this interpretation came when I read Peter Brown’s book, The Cult of Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity.

Brown challenged my view that the place of saints and relics in the church was a mere holdover from paganism, and that the practice was somehow peripheral to true Christianity. Instead, Brown painted a picture of ancient Christianity and paganism in which relics were indispensable to the former, and repulsive to the latter. Far from a holdover from paganism, the place of relics in the Church appeared as something intensely Jewish, Hebraic, and Old Testament. Pagans, like Julian-the-Apostate, found the practice revolting and legislated against it. (Paganism, with its notions of ritual purity, had strictly delimited the realm of divine worship and neatly separated it from the realm of corpses and the dead.)

Peter Brown:

On this point, the rise of Christianity in the pagan world was met by deep religious anger. We can chart the rise to prominence of the Christian church most faithfully by listening to pagan reactions to the cult of martyrs. For the progress of this cult spelled out for the pagans a slow and horrid crumbling of ancient barriers.1

The key to the New Testament doctrine of the saints is not to destroy the older Hebraic doctrine of shared merit and responsibility, but to elevate it to an even greater place. Through Christ, and because of his infinite merits, the finite merits of the saints can now take on an eternal significance. This is why, far from detracting from Christ, the Christian belief in the intercession of saints enhances, fulfills, and completes the doctrine of Christ’s infinite and sufficient intercession.*

From the article…you can see that belief in relics is ancient and rooted in our Jewish roots.

And in fact…it was in fact pagans in the early days of Christianity who did not believe in relics. If those in the link you do not believe in relics…then they believe as the pagans…point that out to them, and share the article.
 
2 Kings 13:21 (Douay-Rheims)

“And some that were burying a man, saw the rovers, and cast the body into the sepulchre of Eliseus. And when it had touched the bones of Eliseus, the man came to life, and stood upon his feet.”

Numbers 21:8-9 (Douay-Rheims)

“And the Lord said to him: Make brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live. Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed.”
 
bobbyhillisabro said:
2 Kings 13:21 (Douay-Rheims)

“And some that were burying a man, saw the rovers, and cast the body into the sepulchre of Eliseus. And when it had touched the bones of Eliseus, the man came to life, and stood upon his feet.”

Numbers 21:8-9 (Douay-Rheims)

“And the Lord said to him: Make brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: whosoever being struck shall look on it, shall live. Moses therefore made a brazen serpent, and set it up for a sign: which when they that were bitten looked upon, they were healed.”
Click to expand...
How do these biblical quotes em in emphasize the rituals of skulls and bones in our faith. I am just trying to grasp it, so that I can have a stronger argument when I tell this to those that asked me this in the first place. Where does the gaudy & rich rituals come in as an area of importance.
 
This article covers Catholic teaching about relics.

However, that blog is a gross waste of your time and anyone who believes all that tripe is going to close channel any response you offer no matter how good.

There are some real weirdos out on the intarwebz and one has to know when to dust off your sandals and walk away.
 
daywiz said:
Unfortunately, when the link is clicked it shows- Nothing Found!!! 😦
Click to expand...
Sorry…here it is again:

calledtocommunion.com/2012/08/relics-saints-and-the-assumption-of-mary/

Relics, Saints, and the Assumption of Mary

Aug 15th, 2012 | By David Anders | Category: Blog Posts
My conversion to the Catholic faith was a slow process, and contained many surprises along the way. One of the biggest surprises was the change in my thinking about relics, saints, and the Virgin Mary. As a good Presbyterian, I had naturally grown up with a revulsion to such things. The derision of Calvin’s Treatist on Relics expressed my own sentiments perfectly. How then did this “disgusting” practice of venerating the dead come to have such a profound and beneficial impact on me? My graduate study focused precisely on Calvin’s rejection of medieval devotion. For this reason, I spent a good deal of time studying not only Calvin’s theology, but the theology and devotion of those he attacked. In the end, I saw who had the better argument.
 
The same superficial thinking as with the confusion between “pray before a statue” and “pray to a statue”. The veneration of the relics is part of the christian tradition, and if you have nothing of this tradition or if you want to get nothing of it, only then it looks strange. Interesting how protestants are not focused on the heresies they might fall into by interpreting the Holy Scripture all by themselves…
 
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