Protestants, why are you not Catholic?

[SteveVH]

Gary…Saints are believers in Christ…I am not taking anything away from “respect” for Mary however Jesus is the only one reverence is to be given to…ie…the rosary is all about Mary & nothing re:Jesus. Prayers are offered up to the dead but very few if any to Jesus. The scapular, novenas, the rosary, praying to the dead are all directed away from Jesus. why?

Shalom
Walt

Please at least attempt to learn a subject before pronouncing judgment upon it. You could not be more in error. The rosary is a meditation on the life of Christ. Consider the mysteries which we contemplate while praying the rosary:

The joyful mysteries
I.The Annunciation of the Lord to Mary
II.The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth
III.The Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ
IV.The Presentation of our Lord
V.Finding Jesus in the Temple at age 12

Sorrowful Mysteries
I.The Agony of Jesus in the Garden
II.The Scourging at the Pillar
III.Jesus is Crowned with Thorns
IV.Jesus Carried the Cross
V.The Crucifixion of our Lord

Glorious Mysteries
I.The Resurrection of Jesus Christ
II.The Ascension of Jesus to Heaven
III.The Descent of the Holy Ghost
IV.The Assumption of Mary into Heaven
V.Mary is Crowned as Queen of Heaven and Earth

Luminous Mysteries
I.The Baptism in the Jordan
II.The Wedding at Cana
III.The Proclamation of the Kingdom
IV.The Transfiguration
V.The Institution of the Eucharist

Now, please again make your statement that the rosary has nothing to do with Christ. I don’t know of a more biblical, Christ centered prayer.

 

[SteveVH]

Steve I have & whether it is verbalized or not it is what happens.

Translation: “I don’t care what they say, I know what they mean.” This is absurd.

My catholic bible has “to Jesus thru Mary” I inscribed on the front cover. How can one give service to Mary for Jesus when reverence & adoration belongs solely to Jesus. Jesus alone deserves all reverence as He alone died for us.

Shalom
Walt

Well, most non-Catholics would say “to Jesus through the Bible”. Do you show reverence to the Bible? I hope you do.

Get this straight. We do not worship or adore Mary. She is a creature, not God. Showing reverence to someone does not equate to worship or adoration reserved to God alone.

 

[Novocastrian]

Now, please again make your statement that the rosary has nothing to do with Christ. I don’t know of a more biblical, Christ centered prayer.

Careful not to overstate your case! What about the prayers of the Mass?

 

[SteveVH]

Careful not to overstate your case! What about the prayers of the Mass?

I didn’t say “the most biblical”. I said there is not one “more” biblical. We could throw the “Our Father” (“Lord’s Prayer”) in there also. But every single mystery is found in the pages of Scripture other than the assumption of Mary which derives from Sacred Tradition. And certainly, the prayers at Mass are not all found in the pages of Scripture. Much of it is from Sacred Tradition as well.

 

[batman1973]

I’m gonna call it. This thread has been asked, and answered. Now, it’s getting contentious.

 

[Millie123]

Gary…Saints are believers in Christ…I am not taking anything away from “respect” for Mary however Jesus is the only one reverence is to be given to…ie…the rosary is all about Mary & nothing re:Jesus. Prayers are offered up to the dead but very few if any to Jesus. The scapular, novenas, the rosary, praying to the dead are all directed away from Jesus. why?

Shalom
Walt

Walt—
The Catholic Church does teach that all Christians are saints
The Church militant are the Saints (us) living our lives on earth
The Church Suffering are the Saints in purgatory
The Church Triumphant are the Saints living with God in Heaven.

If you think that we give to much respect to Mary, then you are truly blind and can not see how much more we give to Jesus. I just got back from adoration…
Do You see this piece of bread?
fathershane.com/image/19411381486

I believe that it is God almighty. I believe that that piece of bread in not bread but is Christ it his entirety his Body Blood, Soul, and Divinity. It is the Holy Eucharist. I worship God in the Eucharist…I adore God in the Eucharist…My entire being craves to fully united in both body and soul with God in the Eucharist. My prayers in my rosary, my images in my home, the novenas that I pray…is only 1/1000th of my Christian life in comparison to my love and devotion and worship of the almighty God in the Blessed Sacrament. I would lay my life down for the Blessed Sacrament. The core of Catholic worship is in the mass
and the Blessed Sacrament.
This question is stated Protestants, why are you not Catholic? But, I would like to answer it the other way around.
Catholics why are you not Protestant? And the answer for me as a Catholic is not because you guys don’t have novenas, rosaries, or images or prayers for the dead…(I can live a perfectly good Christian life without any of those, it is not the center of my spirituality). I can NEVER, EVER, EVER be a protestant because you don’t have the Blessed Sacrament. I love and worship God too much to ever give him up the Holy Eucharist.

 

[batman1973]

Walt—
The Catholic Church does teach that all Christians are saints
The Church militant are the Saints (us) living our lives on earth
The Church Suffering are the Saints in purgatory
The Church Triumphant are the Saints living with God in Heaven.

If you think that we give to much respect to Mary, then you are truly blind and can not see how much more we give to Jesus. I just got back from adoration…
Do You see this piece of bread?
fathershane.com/image/19411381486

I believe that it is God almighty. I believe that that piece of bread in not bread but is Christ it his entirety his Body Blood, Soul, and Divinity. It is the Holy Eucharist. I worship God in the Eucharist…I adore God in the Eucharist…My entire being craves to fully united in both body and soul with God in the Eucharist. My prayers in my rosary, my images in my home, the novenas that I pray…is only 1/1000th of my Christian life in comparison to my love and devotion and worship of the almighty God in the Blessed Sacrament. I would lay my life down for the Blessed Sacrament. The core of Catholic worship is in the mass
and the Blessed Sacrament.
This question is stated Protestants, why are you not Catholic? But, I would like to answer it the other way around.
Catholics why are you not Protestant? And the answer for me as a Catholic is not because you guys don’t have novenas, rosaries, or images or prayers for the dead…(I can live a perfectly good Christian life without any of those, it is not the center of my spirituality). I can NEVER, EVER, EVER be a protestant because you don’t have the Blessed Sacrament. I love and worship God too much to ever give him up the Holy Eucharist.

I’d have to disagree with you on the last part. We Lutherans have Holy Eucharist. True Body and Blood of our Blessed Lord and Saviour.

 

[aidanbradypop]

I’d have to disagree with you on the last part. We Lutherans have Holy Eucharist. True Body and Blood of our Blessed Lord and Saviour.

Episcopal Church has the True Body and Blood as well!

 

[SoMissCatholic]

It doesn’t seem that way, Walt.

She provided quotes right from scripture which directly contradicted your inerpretation of what baptism is.

How would one glean that from scripture?

For instance, one of her cited quotes:
Acts 22:16 - “And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins…”.

How would “Rise and be baptized” NOT indicate a water baptism?

It IS symbolic, to be sure. And actual. The two are not mutually exclusive, any more than the symbolic death of the first-born Egyptian males at the first Passover was not actual. Their parents all seemed to think it was actual.

Sure you can.
First, nowhere in scripture can you find a prohibition of infant baptism.
Second, baptism is a sacrament of initiation into the New Covenant akin to circumcision being the initiation into the Old Covenant. And circumcision was performed on 8-day old babies.

Funny how scripture doesn’t say any such thing.

Pax Christi

I agree with everything you say, except that I’m a ‘he’ not a ‘she’ . The “Miss” in my handle stands for “Mississippi” as in “Southern Mississippi Catholic.” I went to college at Southern Miss., and am a big USM sports fan, hence the name!

 

[PRmerger]

Steve I have & whether it is verbalized or not it is what happens. My catholic bible has “to Jesus thru Mary” I inscribed on the front cover.

This is an incontrovertible fact, 1rock1: humanity received Jesus THROUGH Mary.

So what’s wrong with the statement “to Jesus through Mary”?

Is there some other way that the Incarnation happened?

 

[Novocastrian]

This is an incontrovertible fact, 1rock1: humanity received Jesus THROUGH Mary.

So what’s wrong with the statement “to Jesus through Mary”?

Is there some other way that the Incarnation happened?

If that’s all it means, then every Protestant would be happy with the phrase. My experience, however, is that it tends to be used to present Mary as our intercessor and mediator with her Son. That, to most Protestants, would seem an least potentially unorthodox.

 

[PRmerger]

If that’s all it means, then every Protestant would be happy with the phrase.

Yep. That’s what it means. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less.

My experience, however, is that it tends to be used to present Mary as our intercessor and mediator with her Son. That, to most Protestants, would seem an least potentially unorthodox.

And yet no Protestant seems to get their knickers all twisted about the fact that St. Paul says that he can save some of us.

Yep, Novo. St. Paul says that he saves. Where the referent to “he” is St. Paul, not Christ.

Why don’t you hear any Protestant* saying, “My Bible says that Paul thinks that he can save some of us! Jesus is the one and only mediator!”??

*Well, there are, I suppose, thanks to the Protestant paradigm of not needing to conform one’s interpretation to the authority of the CC, some folks who do indeed say that Paul should not have said that he saves us. And therefore they conclude that Paul is the False Apostle and they summarily dismiss all of his epistles.

 

[simpleas]

Those who reject the Son, reject the one who sent Him, i.e., the Father.

:yup:

Scary thought that God is offended by Jews, muslims etc…I don’t think he would be, because they are all searching in the same direction as us

 

[Izdaari]

I’m not Catholic because of:

1. authority, in several categories - I don’t believe the claims of universal jurisdiction or papal infallibility.
2. doctrine - I am too liberal theologically and socially/culturally to fit with Catholicism, and at the same time too conservative economically.
3. sexism - I see the Catholic Church as deeply patriarchal and anti-women.

But except for those small matters, I think we’re pretty close.

 

[josie_L]

:yup:

Scary thought that God is offended by Jews, muslims etc…I don’t think he would be, because they are all searching in the same direction as us

I did not say God is offended, you did, I said, “he who rejects the Son rejects the Father who sent Him” (that’s scripture), i.e., I don’t know the reasons why people choose to reject Christ, only God knows.

p.s. Jews and Muslims do the best they can to serve God even if their understanding of who He is is incomplete or even wrong.

 

[PRmerger]

1. doctrine -** I am too liberal theologically **and socially/culturally to fit with Catholicism, and at the same time too conservative economically.

I don’t think you should reject a religion that doesn’t meet your theology.

Rather, you should find the theology that God revealed, and conform your views to God’s.

Saying that you are “too liberal theologically” (compared to Catholicism) and therefore you are [fill in the blank] is creating a religion in your own image.

 

[Porknpie]

Gary…Saints are believers in Christ…I am not taking anything away from “respect” for Mary however Jesus is the only one reverence is to be given to…ie…the rosary is all about Mary & nothing re:Jesus. Prayers are offered up to the dead but very few if any to Jesus. The scapular, novenas, the rosary, praying to the dead are all directed away from Jesus. why?

Shalom
Walt

Rocky,

First, Merry Christmas. You misunderstand Catholic teaching on Mary, including the Rosary. Mary calls us to follow her Son, in prayer and conversion. In essence, “do whatever he tells you.” That is the Marian message. While we pray the Rosary we meditate on the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus in the mysteries.

Also, you may want to attend a Catholic Mass and see how much Catholics pray to Jesus. The Eucharist is the summit of the Catholic faith as Christ himself told us to receive him in his body, blood, soul and divinity. John 6 is literal, not figurative as the Church starting with Christ himself has taught for 2,000 years. Malachi prophetically speaks to the Eucharist, the only perfect offering, world-wide, 24 hours a day.

11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

Catholic Church has incense too…

 

[Izdaari]

I don’t think you should reject a religion that doesn’t meet your theology.

Rather, you should find the theology that God revealed, and conform your views to God’s.

Saying that you are “too liberal theologically” (compared to Catholicism) and therefore you are [fill in the blank] is creating a religion in your own image.

I agree that I should conform my theology to what God has revealed… but I think that’s what I’ve done in arriving at the views I currently hold. Of course, I could be mistaken and may have to revise my position as I learn more.

 

[PRmerger]

I agree that I should conform my theology to what God has revealed… but I think that’s what I’ve done in arriving at the views I currently hold. Of course, I could be mistaken and may have to revise my position as I learn more.

Is there any position you have changed because your church has stated, “This is the will of God”?

An example from my own life is this: I would much prefer that God had not said that divorce and re-marriage is adultery. I would love to be able to celebrate with my friends who, once leaving their jerky husbands, have found happiness with a new-found love.

However, God said, “Divorce and re-marriage is adultery”, therefore, I conform my views to His.

Do you have an example like the above from your own life?

For it stands to reason that if there is a God, what He has revealed is not going to happen to coincide with each and every one of my own personal ideologies.

 

[Izdaari]

Is there any position you have changed because your church has stated, “This is the will of God”?

An example from my own life is this: I would much prefer that God had not said that divorce and re-marriage is adultery. I would love to be able to celebrate with my friends who, once leaving their jerky husbands, have found happiness with a new-found love.

However, God said, “Divorce and re-marriage is adultery”, therefore, I conform my views to His.

Do you have an example like the above from your own life?

For it stands to reason that if there is a God, what He has revealed is not going to happen to coincide with each and every one of my own personal ideologies.

Agreed that I may not always like what God has said. Sometimes when I read the Bible I wonder why God has done certain things the way He did, or given some of the instructions He has. But I’m sure He has good reasons that I don’t know about yet.

So far as formal church structures, my allegiance is to both the TEC and ELCA, since my parish has both formal affiliations and is under a bishop from each. I can’t think of any major doctrines of either that I have a problem with. But since both are pretty broad and tolerant, and generally in agreement with each other, that’s not surprising.