Protestants: How Do You Know That Your Interpretation of the Bible is the Right one? Part II

[christian1]

James you said: After learning that Mary was carrying a child conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is VERY likely (in my mind) that Joseph, being a God fearing man, would choose NOT to EVER have relations with Mary, the “eternally betrothed of the Holy Spirit”. Even though He was her earthly husband, I suspect he held her in appropriate awe considering that she was “Full of Grace”.

---

You act as though having relations is evil which is contradictive of your religion. Having relations in the marriage is indeed undefiled and a beautiful gift from God.

To act as though him having relations with her AFTER she bore her firsborn son is preposterous given God’s position on ‘relations between a man and a woman’ of which we know is NEVER considered evil in the smallest notion.

It is an act ordained by God. How can you pretend that it in and of itself is not a Holy gift shared between a man and a woman.

That God should forbid him to have relations with the wife he ordered him to take unto himself is VERY against scripture on the matter. This you should know. Your dogma takes the opposite position of tradition in scripture and you are trying to defend such a notion that him having relations would have defiled her. That thought alone is an abomination to me seeing that God Himself ordained it and declared the marriage bed undefiled.

Another dogma that nullifies the word of God.

 

[christian1]

**James you said:**So - questions or doubts do not automatically disqualify one from entering the Church. Simply excepting is sufficient. After All there are many things in the Church that we will never fully understand on this side of death.

---

Did you not forget that God judges the heart? And that, as a man thinketh, so is he? Do you suppose you can think in your heart and mind contradicitions to a dogma full knowing it is unlawful for you to do so according to your religion, and escape damnation?

The sin you commit is of the heart and one to be judged not lightly. Jesus explained it beautifully with adultery.

He said, it is written, thou shalt not commit adultery, but I tell you, if you look at a woman and lust, you have already committed adultery with her in your heart.

So apparently, sins of the mind and heart qualify as sin. They are the secret sins that God will judge every man for.

You can say all day long with your mouth the right thing, but if you believe in your heart and mind another, then you have only added lying to your sin.

 

[christian1]

Peter you said: But if you deny the Assumption, the perpetual divinity of Mary, etc etc etc, our Church does not say that you, a non-Catholic, are beyond redemption

---

With all respect Peter, I think you are ignorant of your own religion.

Show me what you claim and I will show you that you are wrong.

 

[JRKH]

James you said: After learning that Mary was carrying a child conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is VERY likely (in my mind) that Joseph, being a God fearing man, would choose NOT to EVER have relations with Mary, the “eternally betrothed of the Holy Spirit”. Even though He was her earthly husband, I suspect he held her in appropriate awe considering that she was “Full of Grace”.

---

You act as though having relations is evil which is contradictive of your religion. Having relations in the marriage is indeed undefiled and a beautiful gift from God.

If I gave you the impression that I find “having relations” to be evil, I apologize it was not my intention. However it is also recognized that “marital relations” are first and primarily for procreation as well as the intimate charing of Love between a couple. However, a couple may choose not to engage in marital relations for any number of reasons and not insult God beautiful gift.

To act as though him having relations with her AFTER she bore her firsborn son is preposterous given God’s position on ‘relations between a man and a woman’ of which we know is NEVER considered evil in the smallest notion.

It is Also preposterous to dismiss the possiblility that a God Fearing Man such as Joseph would choose to remain in a celibate marriage with Mary after discovering that She is carrying the Son of the Most High God.

It is an act ordained by God. How can you pretend that it in and of itself is not a Holy gift shared between a man and a woman.

I don’t believe I ever said any such thing.

That God should forbid him to have relations with the wife he ordered him to take unto himself is VERY against scripture on the matter. This you should know. Your dogma takes the opposite position of tradition in scripture and you are trying to defend such a notion that him having relations would have defiled her. That thought alone is an abomination to me seeing that God Himself ordained it and declared the marriage bed undefiled.

1. I do not see in my post anywhere that I said anything about God forbidding Joseph to have relations with Mary.
2. The fact that God did not forbid it does not change the fact that Joseph may very well had CHOSEN not to. This is a FAR different thing than being forbidden to.

What I did was to place before you a possiblility.
Can you honestly say that, if you were Joseph, and found that your betrothed was carrying the Son of the Most High God, indeed was told that you should marry her anyway, that this would not effect how you viewed this person you were marrying?
Then
After Jesus birth, you are holding the Son of God in your arms, And looking at the Woman who Just Gave Birth to Him who will save Isreal.
Or you are Looking at His Holy Mother - Full of Grace - suckling the Son of God at her breast - and you would only see your wife that you should have marital relations with?
Perhaps it is you my friend who are putting too much emphasis on the marriage bed to the detriment to the appropriate fear and worship of the Lord.

Peace
James

 

[JRKH]

**James you said:**So - questions or doubts do not automatically disqualify one from entering the Church. Simply excepting is sufficient. After All there are many things in the Church that we will never fully understand on this side of death.

---

Did you not forget that God judges the heart? And that, as a man thinketh, so is he? Do you suppose you can think in your heart and mind contradicitions to a dogma full knowing it is unlawful for you to do so according to your religion, and escape damnation?

Oh ye of little faith. Is it your contention that we can only accept those things that we fully understand?
Either I am doing a very poor job of expressing myself or you have a talent for seeing things in my post that are not there. You claim that I have contradictions in my heart where I used the words questions and doubts. These things are simply NOT the same.
When I don’t undertand sumething but accept it on faith it doesn’t mean I still don’t have questions and questions can sometimes raise doubts. But I continue to accept them because I know from whom I have learned these things and I trust in Her (The Church).
As time permits, I might delve more deeply into a particular dogma. If time does not permit I simply accept the Dogma without understanding.
I may have questions about the mysteries of God, but I do not reject them. I am NOT a doubting Thomas who will refuse to believe until I can place my fingers in the nail holes and my hand in His side.

The sin you commit is of the heart and one to be judged not lightly. Jesus explained it beautifully with adultery.

He said, it is written, thou shalt not commit adultery, but I tell you, if you look at a woman and lust, you have already committed adultery with her in your heart.

So apparently, sins of the mind and heart qualify as sin. They are the secret sins that God will judge every man for.

You can say all day long with your mouth the right thing, but if you believe in your heart and mind another, then you have only added lying to your sin.

I dare say that there are many things about my faith that I do not understand. That does not mean that I do not accept them.
You are right in that we are judged by our hearts and not by our words.
We are also judged by our faith and trust in God’s Promises. Sometimes that faith requires us to overcome questions and doubts.
Ever heard the prayer - Lord I believe, Help my unbelief.

Peace
James

 

[JRKH]

Peter you said: But if you deny the Assumption, the perpetual divinity of Mary, etc etc etc, our Church does not say that you, a non-Catholic, are beyond redemption

---

With all respect Peter, I think you are ignorant of your own religion.

Show me what you claim and I will show you that you are wrong.

The Church does indeed allow for salvation outside of the Church.
The issue falls under the heading of “invincible ignorance”
The Catachism states it thus:
1793 If - on the contrary - the ignorance is invincible, or the moral subject is not responsible for his erroneous judgment, the evil committed by the person cannot be imputed to him. It remains no less an evil, a privation, a disorder. One must therefore work to correct the errors of moral conscience.

Another part of the Catachism talks about the Church and those “outside” of her.
“Outside the Church there is no salvation”

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337​

So - Those who are outside the Church and, through invinvible ignorance, do not know or are not convinced of the Truth of The Church, yet seek God with a pure heart, may (not will) be saved.

Peace
James

 

[guanophore]

PRmerger

I am a seeker of truth for a very long time. I am not entirely ignorant as you might think on your doctrine and dogma but apparently you are.

No, christian1, PRmerger is not ingorant of Catholic doctrine and dogma. The requirement to hold the Catholic faith applies to Catholics. Those who have not yet learned the Truth of the Apostolic Teachings are not expected to adhere or be accountable to them. God does not condemn people because they don’t know things.

I have the following to offer. Tell me if it’s in contradiction to what your church teaches:

We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.
[Declaramus, pronuntiamus et definimus doctrinam quae tenet beatissimam Virginem Mariam in primo instanti suae conceptionis fuisse singulari Omnipotentis Dei gratia et privilegio, intuitu meritorum Christi Jesu Salvatoris humani generis, ab omni originalis culpae labe praeservatam immunem, esse a Deo revelatam, atque idcirco ab omnibus fidelibus firmiter constanterque credendam.]

Hence, if anyone shall dare – which God forbid! – to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.

I forgot the darn link. I’ll go get it and post that next.

This is written for Catholics, and heretics, not for those who have not been evangelized. You need to understand such statements in the context in which they were written. This is addressed to those who held the Catholic faith, then aposticized. Anathemas do not apply to those who were not adherents to the faith in the first place.

If you are a lapsed Catholic, then this may apply to you, but it is more likely that you were never properly taught the faith.

Here is another interesting term used in Catholic writing.

Here is the link that this came from:

vatican.va/holy_father/pius_x/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_02021904_ad-diem-illum-laetissimum_en.html

you should read the entire thing so that you can be informed as to exactly HOW you should worship Mary and in what way. For it clearly says, if you do not do so in the right attitude, you honor her with your lips and your heart is far from her.

This kind of stuff seems to be an abomination of the Holy Scriptures.

But I know that it isn’t taught to worship Mary or venerate her images, artifacts and saints.

And yet it is.

You have misunderstood the term “worship” in this context. You have brought up an excellent subject and posted some excellent quotes for discussion. They are off topic in this thread, and you should start a new thread, over in Apologetics. If you continue to ignore the forum rules in this matter, there will be consequences. Trust me, I have experience in this area!

 

[guanophore]

The Catholic Church is infallible because it is :

1 Tim 3:15. the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth.
If a baptized person deliberately denies or contradicts a dogma, he or she is guilty of sin of heresy and automatically becomes subject to the punishment of excommunication.

From the work of Dr. Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, published by the Mercier Press Ltd., Cork, Ireland, 1955. With Imprimatur of Cornelius, Bishop. Reprinted in U.S.A. by Tan Books and Publishers, Rockford, Illinois, 1974.

You are going to have to tie this into the thread topic. It is a great topic for discussion, but has the potential to derail the thread.

The salient point here is “deliberately denies”. In order for someone to commit heresy, one must have expoused the true Apostolic Teaching. If one has never learned it, or embraced it, then one cannot be guilty of heresy. I don’t know about your background, but it does not sound like there was ever a time when you embraced the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic faith. Even if you were baptized a Catholic, you may not have been properly catechized before leaving the Church.

PRmerger, don’t you get it?

If I want to be catholic, I have to embrace this. What is the blessed difference?

The blessed difference, dear brother, is that, if you want to be Catholic, you will study and pray until you are able to receive the Church teachings.

The perpetual virginity, the devotion, the adoration, the assumption, all of it!

And if you think you cannot properly worship/adore Mary and not suffer for it, read your dogmas carefully.

You do not understand the Church’s teaching on Mary. We do not worship/adore Mary. We honor her. The use of the word “worship” as you have quoted it refers to honor and reverence, not the worship that belongs to God alone. This whole matter is off topic in this thread.

How do we know that your interpretation of the meaning of the word "worship"in Catholic documents is more correct than the definition given by those who wrote it?

This is the same question that applies to the Scriptures!

 

[guanophore]

Peter: That does not explicitly say that you will go to hell if you don’t agree with the Immaculate Conception. Granted, Pius IX does use the image of “shipwreck in the faith”, and he might have meant that you will go to hell if you don’t agree with the Immaculate Conception. I honestly don’t know. But even if he meant that, I and my fellow Catholics are not obliged to agree with him. (BTW, you should bear in mind that Pope Pius IX was a very unecumenical Pope.)

---

Peter, it wasn’t Pope Pius IX, it was Pope Pius X and what exactly do you mean by unecuminical???

He wrote sixteen, and even if you don’t agree with fifteen of them, the ecuminical on Mary supports the dogma, therefore is widely accepted.

Pope Pius X’s ecumenism (or lack therof) is also off topic in this thread.

As to the shipwreck of faith, one must be on the ship in order to be affected if it wrecks.

James you said: After learning that Mary was carrying a child conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is VERY likely (in my mind) that Joseph, being a God fearing man, would choose NOT to EVER have relations with Mary, the “eternally betrothed of the Holy Spirit”. Even though He was her earthly husband, I suspect he held her in appropriate awe considering that she was “Full of Grace”.

---

You act as though having relations is evil which is contradictive of your religion. Having relations in the marriage is indeed undefiled and a beautiful gift from God.

This is off topic in this thread.

No, relations in marriage of course are holy and good. The evil is to take a sacred vessel that has been consecrated to God, and return it to the daily table. This is called “profanation”.

Joseph understood that the HS had espoused Mary. This is not something that happens in your everyday marriage.

To act as though him having relations with her AFTER she bore her firsborn son is preposterous given God’s position on ‘relations between a man and a woman’ of which we know is NEVER considered evil in the smallest notion.

It is an act ordained by God. How can you pretend that it in and of itself is not a Holy gift shared between a man and a woman.

Well, you are right, the marital embrace is holy,and made sacred by God. Mary was also holy, and made sacred by God, but in a manner different than what is found in the average everyday marriage.

That God should forbid him to have relations with the wife he ordered him to take unto himself is VERY against scripture on the matter. This you should know. Your dogma takes the opposite position of tradition in scripture and you are trying to defend such a notion that him having relations would have defiled her. That thought alone is an abomination to me seeing that God Himself ordained it and declared the marriage bed undefiled.

Another dogma that nullifies the word of God.

God did not “forbid” Joseph to have relations with Mary. Joseph knew she was a consecrated virgin when he was betrothed to her. He accepted her vow of chastity. His only confusion was that she then got pregnant, and he knew it was not his.

No Catholic dogma “takes the opposite postionf of scripture”. The only think that is “opposite” is your perception of one, the other, or both. (I am guessing the latter is the case, after reading your posts). No Catholic dogma nullifies the Word of God. How could it? They both came from the same Source! God cannot contradict Himself.

**James you said:**So - questions or doubts do not automatically disqualify one from entering the Church. Simply excepting is sufficient. After All there are many things in the Church that we will never fully understand on this side of death.

---

Did you not forget that God judges the heart? And that, as a man thinketh, so is he? Do you suppose you can think in your heart and mind contradicitions to a dogma full knowing it is unlawful for you to do so according to your religion, and escape damnation?

You misunderstand, christian1. God does not ask you to do anything against your own conscience. Those of us that have had trouble of conscience with the Catholic Teachings just pray that our conscience will be conformed to His will. Sometimes, this can take decades.

This is written about in the catechism under “mental reservations”.

The sin you commit is of the heart and one to be judged not lightly. Jesus explained it beautifully with adultery.

He said, it is written, thou shalt not commit adultery, but I tell you, if you look at a woman and lust, you have already committed adultery with her in your heart.

So apparently, sins of the mind and heart qualify as sin. They are the secret sins that God will judge every man for.

You can say all day long with your mouth the right thing, but if you believe in your heart and mind another, then you have only added lying to your sin.

I admire your passion and integrity.

DIfficulty accepting the Teachings of the Church is not necessarly related to sin.

 

[guanophore]

Peter you said: But if you deny the Assumption, the perpetual divinity of Mary, etc etc etc, our Church does not say that you, a non-Catholic, are beyond redemption

---

With all respect Peter, I think you are ignorant of your own religion.

Show me what you claim and I will show you that you are wrong.

I admire your willingness to wade right into this.

However, I am not going to post the relevant part of the catechism here because it is off topic, and I think someone said they were going to open a new thread.

Basically what has happened is that we have transferred the primary problem identified in the OP from Scripture to Church teaching. The question remains the same, though, and our responses bear this out. How can you know that your interpretation of what the Church teaches is more correct than what the Church says she means?

 

[Good_Fella]

Peter you said: But if you deny the Assumption, the perpetual divinity of Mary, etc etc etc, our Church does not say that you, a non-Catholic, are beyond redemption

I believe you mean “the Perpetual Virginity of Mary”.

But there are Protestants who think for some reason that Catholics have divinized Mary because they believe she was sinless, remained a virgin all her life, and was assumed into heaven body and soul.

“So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Matthew 5, 48

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he really is. Everyone who has this hope based on him makes himself pure, as he is pure.
1 John 3, 2-3

He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
1 Corinthians 12, 9

“He has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness.”
Luke 1, 48

A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.
Songs 4, 12

“How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”
Luke 1, 34

And the angel said to her in reply, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”
Luke 1, 35
*
“Some have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.”*
Matthew 19, 12

Just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in proper order: Christ the firstfruits; then at his coming, those who belong to Christ.
1 Corinthians 15, 22-23

“The Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.”
Luke 1, 49

“My cup you will indeed drink, but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”
*Matthew 20, 23 *

Pax Christu :harp:

 

[Peter_J]

Peter: That does not explicitly say that you will go to hell if you don’t agree with the Immaculate Conception. Granted, Pius IX does use the image of “shipwreck in the faith”, and he might have meant that you will go to hell if you don’t agree with the Immaculate Conception. I honestly don’t know. But even if he meant that, I and my fellow Catholics are not obliged to agree with him. (BTW, you should bear in mind that Pope Pius IX was a very unecumenical Pope.)

---

Peter, it wasn’t Pope Pius IX, it was Pope Pius X

The quotation in question, i.e.

Hence, if anyone shall dare – which God forbid! – to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.

is from Pope Pius IX, 1854 Ineffabilis Deus. If Pope Pius X said the same thing, then presumably he was quoting Pope Pius IX.

and what exactly do you mean by unecuminical???

See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenism .

He wrote sixteen, and even if you don’t agree with fifteen of them, the ecuminical on Mary supports the dogma, therefore is widely accepted.

Do you mean “encyclical”?

Peter you said: But if you deny the Assumption, the perpetual divinity of Mary, etc etc etc, our Church does not say that you, a non-Catholic, are beyond redemption

Oh dear. I must have been really out of it when I typed that.

 

[Peter_J]

Show me what you claim

I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation, he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the prophets. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

See vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html

 

[PRmerger]

You (christian1) have misunderstood the term “worship” in this context. You have brought up an excellent subject and posted some excellent quotes for discussion. They are off topic in this thread, and you should start a new thread, over in Apologetics. If you continue to ignore the forum rules in this matter, there will be consequences. Trust me, I have experience in this area!

Indeed. I (PRmerger) just started another thread on this question of why “worship Mary” was in an encyclical–which seemed scandalous to me, frankly!

Click here to follow the discussion. The explanations were quite satisfactory!

 

[PRmerger]

It is indeed scandalous that the word “worship” is applied to Mary. **Yet, I find the entire document a *beautiful and sublime ***description of how Christians are to follow the Word of God…it is an exhortation that we should have “one will with Mary to serve Jesus our Lord.”. Who could disagree with that?

Edit to above: I did not read the entire document. I should have said I find the *paragraph *cited a beautiful and sublime description of how Christians are to follow the Word of God. However, I have no doubt that the entire document is also a beautiful and sublime description of how Christians are to follow the Word of God.

 

[Peter_J]

Indeed. I (PRmerger) just started another thread on this question of why “worship Mary” was in an encyclical–which seemed scandalous to me, frankly!

Click here to follow the discussion. The explanations were quite satisfactory!

Thanks PRmerger. I’m not much into the Apologetics Forum, but I would like to quote one post that I found interesting (albeit a little off-topic with respect to this thread):

All adoration is worship - all worship is not adoration.​

The encyclical uses the word colere - “to cultivate” a field, thus, “to farm”, or, to cultivate a person. (This is normal UK English - US English may be different; if so, I hope this makes sense.) The noun is cultus - and the liturgical cultus of a Saint is the liturgical expression of the veneration of that Saint; in this case, the BVM. So,

“…cultivating [the friendship of the Saints] ought to spring from the heart…”

Since it is obviously idolatry to put God & His Saints on a par, the Church, in honouring both, distinguishes the honour due to each. This is a perfectly reasonable, even self-evident, distinction: every Fundamentalist who distinguishes the the USA from God makes it; if no such distinction had any basis in reality, the Fundamentalist would be adoring the USA every time he sang “My Country, 'Tis of Thee”. Only in the heat of controversy is it overlooked. Since the Church of God does not adore any but God, & cannot, & must not, the love which is not adoration is distinguished from adoration by having a different name: love of country is patriotism, love of the Saints is douleia, & so on.

**All **honour, love, veneration,worship is God’s: the honour paid to His creatures, is paid them within the scope or environment of the boundless devotion of which God Alone is - can be - worthy. “Honour your father and you mother”, “love your neighbour as yourself”, “love your enemies”, are distinct commands from “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy might” - but though in words they seem to contradict it, they do not: they can’t, if all are God-given. So they can only be fruits & signs & evidences of it. Love of God is not a steam-roller, that flattens & destroys all lesser loves - it is the source & principle which alone can create, enliven, purify, direct, & order them; they are nothing, if it is lacking.

Hope that helps.

Concerning the original issue, of the phrase “worship Mary” being used in that encyclical … that didn’t really seem all that strange to me, because it used to be quite common for Catholics to translate “dulia” into English as “worship”. But it is a little strange that the full Latin text of that encyclical isn’t (apparently) available online.

 

[PRmerger]

I would like to see something that would indicate Mary was to never have other children and did not have other children.

What about “Then He said to the disciple, ‘Behold, your mother!’ From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.”?

Certainly, if Mary had other children they would have taken their mother into their household at the death of their brother, Jesus.

What is your (fallible) explanation as to why our Lord told St. John to look after His mother?

 

[PRmerger]

what exactly do you mean by unecuminical???

Concerned with establishing or promoting unity among churches or religions.

He wrote sixteen, and even if you don’t agree with fifteen of them, the **ecuminical **on Mary supports the dogma, therefore is widely accepted.

You mean encyclical, not ecumenical. An encyclical is a pastoral letter meant to inform the universal church on some particular matter of importance.

 

[PRmerger]

Peter you said: But if you deny the Assumption, the perpetual divinity of Mary, etc etc etc, our Church does not say that you, a non-Catholic, are beyond redemption

---

With all respect Peter, I think you are ignorant of your own religion.

Show me what you claim and I will show you that you are wrong.

No, christian1. It was PRmerger who said that. I will show what I claim, and I will wait to see you prove that I am wrong. From the Catechism:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337

 

[PRmerger]

**James you said:**So - questions or doubts do not automatically disqualify one from entering the Church. Simply excepting is sufficient. After All there are many things in the Church that we will never fully understand on this side of death.

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Did you not forget that God judges the heart? And that, as a man thinketh, so is he? Do you suppose you can think in your heart and mind contradicitions to a dogma full knowing it is unlawful for you to do so according to your religion, and escape damnation?

The sin you commit is of the heart and one to be judged not lightly. Jesus explained it beautifully with adultery.

He said, it is written, thou shalt not commit adultery, but I tell you, if you look at a woman and lust, you have already committed adultery with her in your heart.

So apparently, sins of the mind and heart qualify as sin. They are the secret sins that God will judge every man for.

You can say all day long with your mouth the right thing, but if you believe in your heart and mind another, then you have only added lying to your sin.

If it is a sin of the heart to question the articles of one’s faith, then the entire Catholic Answers Forum should be shut down immediately!!