religious freedom

[mrld20]

It’s amazing how much of a stark contrast there is on here between the people in Apologetics all of whom seem to advocate religious freedom.

One’s freedom of religion only can stop when it interferes with another person’s rights.

So if I weren’t Catholic I could’ve turned out to be some blood sucking vampiric satanist (this is hypothetically speaking and a hyperbole folks ). I would have a right to practice my faith until it interferes with another person.

For example If I make a traditionalist Catholic uncomfortable for being in a vampiric cult; that’s not enough to stop me from practicing my faith.

But if I wanted to sacrifice said traditionalist Catholic to my God (whoever the heck that might be LOL) that would be a violation of that Catholic’s rights. So therefore I cannot do that.

Just like if I am uncomfortable now with all these traditionalist Catholics as a “liberal” Catholic (don’t go there I’m in good standing with the Church ). That’s not enough to make them stop going to latin mass every sunday. They have a right under the Constitution to be traditionalist Catholics just like I can be a “liberal” Catholic (in good standing with the Church ). We may all make each other uncomfortable. But until someone violates the others rights (which unless your about to sacrifice someone or burn down a Church is unlikely).

It works both ways. The same goes for any other religion. And I don’t really care what an old version of the Catechism says or some pope from the 19th century.

Religious freedom is endorsed by the Church. Plane and simple!

 

[Warrenton]

It works both ways. The same goes for any other religion. And I don’t really care what an old version of the Catechism says or some pope from the 19th century.

It’s hard to debate against a sentiment like that.

However, the “old popes” are not in disagreement with the new ones.

The old popes were addressing thoroughly Catholic societies that were at the time under tremendous attack. The attacks were ultimately successful, in most cases.

The new popes are addressing almost totally non-Catholic, indeed, non-religious or anti-religious societies, but which claim democratic forms of government.

The new popes advocate for general religious freedom, because it is the only freedom many governments may admit, if they admit religious freedom at all.

The new popes do not say Catholics should stop trying to create Catholic societies. Our present Pope says the opposite, he says we must try to reestablish Catholic society.

 

[da_nolo]

So people please don’t jump down my throat over this… This is a sincere question and I’m sorry If it offends people.

It’s just every time there’s a thread on something like the Society of Pius X or the Jews; it would seem it gets shut down before any dialogue can begin.

I’m just really curious to hear a traditionalist on religious freedom. I mean I do accept that we are the “one holy catholic apostolic church.”

But at the same time I recognize it is our duty as Christians to at least acknowledge other people’s beliefs and accept that we can peacefully co-exist without trying to forcibly convert each other or refute each other’s beliefs.

I personally am friends with many protestants, jews, muslims, and buddhists.

What are everyone’s thoughts on religious freedom and ecumenical outreach?

Again I am not trying to start a fight here. I am really curious and looking for answers. I don’t want to offend or upset anyone here. No one put me up to this to bash traditionalist Catholics.

I am not anti-traditionalist in anyway. I have no problem with the old liturgy or traditions. I’m just trying to learn

Depending on what the content of other posts about Jews, Muslims, etc. you or whom ever may have posted it in the wrong section. usually, this is for traditional Catholicism and would require any/all posts to be related to it strictly.

Now, about religious freedom…the Catholic community within USSR and the Vatican were active in allowing religious expression (of all religions) through out the atheist failed communist state.

So I’m sure freedom of religion is among an important part if you’re describing political agendas.

 

[Rence]

Rence, while I agree with alot that you said, I disagree with Catholic governments failing. In what ways did they fail? The economy?

By basing the secular laws on Catholic laws, there were secular consequences for breaking those laws, which included imprisonment, toture and/or death. So if someone was a lapsed Catholic, and was public about it, charges could be brought against that person. Yes, those Catholic governments failed. They were forcing people to be Catholic and follow the Catholic religion without regard to the person’s right to choose their own religion.

Religious freedom? Remember, though the Church didn’t always let public worship of other religions, it never forced anyone to convert and in fact condemned forced conversion.

Not being allowed to practice one’s religion publicly is almost as bad as being forced to convert to another religion. Catholic countries, whose laws were based on Catholic laws, forced people to follow the Catholic religion publicly because if they did not, they faced secular punishment for doing so. They did force people to convert and forced people to be Catholic. Because you are Catholic, (and of course, free in today’s world_ to practice your faith in public you don’t appreciate another person’s right to practice their faith, because all is right with your situation. Think about how devestated you would be to not be able to practice Catholicism in public. I don’t think it would be sufficient that you were merely not forced to covert to another religion.

Hell, do you think the Inquisition was as bad as people pretend it is? It wasn’t allowed to touch those who publicly lived as Jews and Protestants, only those who who were Catholic. Of the thousands and thousands of Jews who were forced to convert, together with all the bigamists, heretics and blasphemers, only 5000 were burned in the Spanish Inquisition. 1000 in the Roman one.

That’s bad enough for me. Not one person should have been tortured, imprisoned, and/or killed because they refused to convert, believed nothing the Catholic Church taught, believed only parts of what the Church taught, wanted to follow another religion, etc.

The Inquisitors were judges and when they handed sentences, they handed sentences of penance, and it did so rightly and justly. If you want to be Catholic, you can’t believe in another religion or believe heretical doctrines without the Church condemning you.

Yeah, and the penance wasn’t a Hail Mary or an Our Father, they were cruel. Thank God for the United States of America!!! I love this country with all my

That said, even IF a country today were to become a theocracy, lack of freedom of religion wouldn’t work.

You’re right, it wouldn’t work. The people wouldn’t have it. And that’s what it boils down to.

 

[Rence]

The faith was destroyed in England through an assiduous campaign, which commenced with the theft of her property, the imprisonment and execution of her most vocal supporters, the ruthless suppression of Catholic loyalists, and the prohibition of her ability to practice publicly the sacraments according to her rites. The Church was the victim.

The human element of the Church were both victims and predators. They did both. They were on the receiving end, and they dished it out as well.

Unless, of course, you sole understanding of what transpired is taken from Foxe’s Booke of Martyrs.

I haven’t read that.

People do not have the right to leave the Church.

Of course they do.

They have the ability. I have the ability to commit any crime I please, but I do not have the right.

people leaving the Church are not commiting crimes…unless it’s a Catholic State.

The Church exists for the strongest as well as the weakest sheep. Your position leads to the conclusion that the weakest sheep should be abandoned to the wolf, in the name of freedom.

A fine freedom, which consigns a soul to eternal bondage.

I realize that you consider those who find Christ in another religion to be the weakest sheep but I disagree. I know Christians far more mindful of the love for Christ than many Catholics. Being Catholic is not a free ticket to Heaven. And not being Catholic is not a one-way ticket to Hell. I believe Christians are better off knowing Christ in a non-Catholic religion, than not at all.

 

[Dan_Daly]

Then don’t complain when others don’t want anything to do with the Church, and don’t want a Catholic President who doesn’t vow to represent all citizens without regard to Church rules (Kennedy is the only Catholic President to date, and made this promise) , and don’t want Catholic influences because they value their religion as much as Catholics do and they want to be treated with the same consideration that Catholics do. Some Catholics “fear” for their religious rights (which really means they want others to not break rules of the Church), but with sentiments that encourage not accepting other religions, they really have no room to talk. People fear having their rights taken away, and they will not let theocracies do it. That’s why we’re here and not in places like muslim-governed nations. The last thing the world needs is another country that bases their laws on Catholic laws, which we had during the Inquisitions.

JFK’s speech to the Baptist ministers about his faith was a formal statement of heresy if not outright apostasy. The fact that many Catholics consider his election the crowing achievement of American Catholicism is a very sad commentary on the state of the faith in the nation.

So should the Vatican City fire the Pope as the head of it’s state and adopt a secular model?

 

[Disinherited]

By basing the secular laws on Catholic laws, there were secular consequences for breaking those laws, which included imprisonment, torture and/or death. So if someone was a lapsed Catholic, and was public about it, charges could be brought against that person. Yes, those Catholic governments failed. They were forcing people to be Catholic and follow the Catholic religion without regard to the person’s right to choose their own religion.

No, no, no. If a Catholic became Protestant, there wouldn’t be consequences on him, there would only be consequences if he preached his false faith inside the Church. No preaching of false faiths in Catholic Churches was allowed and rightfully so. Its not forcing someone to renounce their faith, its preventing them from spreading it and Protestantism was indeed a heretical sect which sought to destroy the Catholic Church. Hell, you say you love America; if an anarchist or a neo-nazi were to instigate a rebellion, you wouldn’t say ‘let them, its a free country’, you’d order the police to stop them. As Bishop von Ketteler says, “The punishment inflicted by the Church upon heretics in comparatively few cases was not based upon the false principle that conviction could be forced upon the mind by external means, but upon the truth that by baptism the Christian has assumed obligations the fulfillment of which could be insisted upon. This punishment was only inflicted in particular cases and upon public and formal heretics.”

Not being allowed to practice one’s religion publicly is almost as bad as being forced to convert to another religion. Catholic countries, whose laws were based on Catholic laws, forced people to follow the Catholic religion publicly because if they did not, they faced secular punishment for doing so. They did force people to convert and forced people to be Catholic. Because you are Catholic, (and of course, free in today’s world_ to practice your faith in public you don’t appreciate another person’s right to practice their faith, because all is right with your situation. Think about how devastated you would be to not be able to practice Catholicism in public. I don’t think it would be sufficient that you were merely not forced to covert to another religion.

Er, no, they didn’t force people to follow the Catholic religion publicly. Jews and Protestants were left alone in the Inquisition at least and its impossible for a Jew or a Protestant to follow the Catholic religion publicly despite not being Catholic. They didn’t force them to go to mass or to pray for their own conversion and weren’t forced to take religious studies in Catholicism in school. Exceptions include the Jews in the Papal states who had to listen to a sermon three times a year and even then, if they didn’t convert they weren’t 't forced to convert.

 

[Disinherited]

That’s bad enough for me. Not one person should have been tortured, imprisoned, and/or killed because they refused to convert, believed nothing the Catholic Church taught, believed only parts of what the Church taught, wanted to follow another religion, etc.

Nobody was killed by a sanction of the Church because they refused to convert. Popes decreed that Jews couldn’t be molested in their synagogues or feasts and couldn’t forced to convert, such as Innocent III and Gregory V.

Yeah, and the penance wasn’t a Hail Mary or an Our Father, they were cruel. Thank God for the United States of America!!! I love this country with all my

Yeah, do you know why the penance wasn’t a Hail Mary, though there is obviously nothing wrong with it? Because those men were heretics. The penance wasn’t cold blooded torture, it was more public humiliation to show that this man erred and that his writings couldn’t be listened to, just as today we have a list of sex offenders and would be terrorists to be wary of in your beloved country. Was the purpose of the Inquisition made out of pure douchebaggery or was it made because they wanted to protect the faith. In fact, if the Inquisition was set up today, the faith would flourish more because perversions of it wouldn’t exist much and contrary what people dream up, there’d be no killing because killing for heresy was a custom of those times and even then it wasn’t THAT savage. Not to say it wasn’t wrong but it wasn’t as big on the scale as you think.

And yeah, thank God for the USA. Thank God for the war that brought it, for rampant materialism and for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for abortion and for same sex marriage… seriously man, I’m a pacifist and while Americans and the government and its constitution are there to stay, you should be happy for freedom of speech and religion, not for the government itself. Superman in the comics isn’t a superhero because he loves America, he’s a superhero because he upholds truth, justice and the American way. If the government were to become a fascist dictatorship (like what was going to happen in 1933 by the so called Business plot by the masonic fascist Prescott Bush), he’d fight against it. He’s the champion of everybody, not of the government.

Likewise, I uphold the faith, obey the Pope even in those things which I don’t like or which you’d get ridiculed if you believed in them such as no salvation outside the Church. Because you don’t like something doesn’t mean its not true. I’m well aware that church governments put restrictions on the Jews (and Muslims mind you) in the middle ages and up to the 1800’s but it doesn’t mean that our faith erred nor does it make our faith invalid. I accept every single Condemnation of Pius IX in the Syllabus as true. It was ex cathedra and taken inside the context of the Catholic faith, it makes perfect sense. And you have no authority to reject it. If you want to be a true Catholic, you have to accept the syllabus as true, although nowhere does it say that a person should be burned for being a heretic and nowhere does it say that we should have a war to make a Catholic state.

You’re right, it wouldn’t work. The people wouldn’t have it. And that’s what it boils down to.

 

[TrueLight]

What is lost on many people is that even though one might live in a religiously pluralistic society (like the United States), we should all be working, hoping, and praying that our state becomes a Catholic state. Not because we want to coerce or force anyone into the faith, but because we want to convert everyone. Why? Because there is no salvation outside of the Church and God instructed us to go forth, evangelize, and convert people.

Can we be loving and kind towards Protestants, Muslims, Mormons, etc?

Yes, absolutely, and we must be. Sometimes being loving means telling people that they are wrong and speaking hard truths to them.

While we love them, we should not simply accept that our society has many faiths and leave it at that. We must desire all people to be united in the Catholic Church.

Pax and God bless.

I am always going to disagree about including Protestants in the same category as Muslims. Protestants are CHRISTIANS.

Christians who are in error, and some in more error than others. However, they are Christians whom we should pray for constantly that God would convert their hearts and minds so that they would come back to the one true Church, but they are not Muslims.

 

[divinefaith]

I am always going to disagree about including Protestants in the same category as Muslims. Protestants are CHRISTIANS.

Christians who are in error, and some in more error than others. However, they are Christians whom we should pray for constantly that God would convert their hearts and minds so that they would come back to the one true Church, but they are not Muslims.

We should be proud of other Christians who practice their faith (peacefully). In saying that, I also respect non Christians who are faithful (but peaceful) to their beliefs.

 

[TrueLight]

We should be proud of other Christians who practice their faith (peacefully). In saying that, I also respect non Christians who are faithful (but peaceful) to their beliefs.

You’re right. There are some Muslims at my job that I have felt comfortable about talking about trusting in God with them. They are religious and pray several times a day etc.

Pray for them too.

But they are Muslims and they don’t believe Jesus Christ is a member of the Trinity and true God. Big difference. They are a different religion.

A traditionalist recently told me that Protestants do not serve the same God we serve. That is patently false.

 

[Rence]

JFK’s speech to the Baptist ministers about his faith was a formal statement of heresy if not outright apostasy. The fact that many Catholics consider his election the crowing achievement of American Catholicism is a very sad commentary on the state of the faith in the nation.

I realize you feel that way, but not everyone does.

So should the Vatican City fire the Pope as the head of it’s state and adopt a secular model?

I don’t think so, because Vatican City and the Vatican has an agreement with Italy as to their arrangment. However, that’s between the Vatican and Italy.

 

[Rence]

No, no, no. If a Catholic became Protestant, there wouldn’t be consequences on him,

That is completely false and we know this to be a fact because Lutherans were questioned, imprisoned and burned. So they were not free to leave the Church to become Protestant, they were just called heretics.

there would only be consequences if he preached his false faith inside the Church. No preaching of false faiths in Catholic Churches was allowed and rightfully so. Its not forcing someone to renounce their faith, its preventing them from spreading it and Protestantism was indeed a heretical sect which sought to destroy the Catholic Church.

That is completely false and we know this to be a fact because Lutherans and other Protestants had to go into hiding. They held their meetings in private assemlies in people’s homes, the same as the early Church did. It didn’t matter if they congregated in public or in private, they were still rounded up, questioned, imprisoned, tortured and/or put to death by the authorities.

Hell, you say you love America; if an anarchist or a neo-nazi were to instigate a rebellion, you wouldn’t say ‘let them, its a free country’, you’d order the police to stop them.

Actually, unless they’re disturbing the peace, they have the right to assembly. They do do this when they picket and hold demonstrations. It’s when the crowds begin to get unruly and break the law that the police are ordered to stop them.

As Bishop von Ketteler says, “The punishment inflicted by the Church upon heretics in comparatively few cases was not based upon the false principle that conviction could be forced upon the mind by external means, but upon the truth that by baptism the Christian has assumed obligations the fulfillment of which could be insisted upon. This punishment was only inflicted in particular cases and upon public and formal heretics.”

And yet, these people were Baptized when they were infants and not in a position to consent or refuse, obligating them against their will. Not that I’m against infant Baptism, because I’m not. But you can’t hold people to someone else’s decisions made on their behalf when they were not competent to make those decisions themselves. And “formal heretics” included those who called themselves Lutherans and Protestants. There are still Catholics that consider Protestants as heretics.

Er, no, they didn’t force people to follow the Catholic religion publicly. Jews and Protestants were left alone in the Inquisition at least and its impossible for a Jew or a Protestant to follow the Catholic religion publicly despite not being Catholic. They didn’t force them to go to mass or to pray for their own conversion and weren’t forced to take religious studies in Catholicism in school. Exceptions include the Jews in the Papal states who had to listen to a sermon three times a year and even then, if they didn’t convert they weren’t 't forced to convert.

 

[Rence]

Nobody was killed by a sanction of the Church because they refused to convert. Popes decreed that Jews couldn’t be molested in their synagogues or feasts and couldn’t forced to convert, such as Innocent III and Gregory V.

If someone from another location who was Lutheran moved to another Catholic area, they would be treated like any other Lutheran or Protestant if they did not accept the Catholic faith.

Yeah, do you know why the penance wasn’t a Hail Mary, though there is obviously nothing wrong with it? Because those men were heretics. The penance wasn’t cold blooded torture, it was more public humiliation to show that this man erred and that his writings couldn’t be listened to,

They were not really “heretics”, they were Protestants. They were people who chose another faith. If they were pretending to be Catholic, they were doing so because it wasn’t safe for them to be Protestant, not because they wanted to remain Catholic.

Was the purpose of the Inquisition made out of pure douchebaggery or was it made because they wanted to protect the faith.

It was still misquided. Owning it is better than denying it.

In fact, if the Inquisition was set up today, the faith would flourish more because perversions of it wouldn’t exist much and contrary what people dream up, there’d be no killing because killing for heresy was a custom of those times and even then it wasn’t THAT savage. Not to say it wasn’t wrong but it wasn’t as big on the scale as you think.

If an Inquisition was set up today, people would just leave the Church if they didn’t want to conform to the teachings of the Church, and thankfully unlike the times of the Inquisitions, there would be nothing anyone could do about it.

And yeah, thank God for the USA. Thank God for the war that brought it, for rampant materialism and for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for abortion and for same sex marriage… seriously man, I’m a pacifist and while Americans and the government and its constitution are there to stay, you should be happy for freedom of speech and religion, not for the government itself. Superman in the comics isn’t a superhero because he loves America, he’s a superhero because he upholds truth, justice and the American way. If the government were to become a fascist dictatorship (like what was going to happen in 1933 by the so called Business plot by the masonic fascist Prescott Bush), he’d fight against it. He’s the champion of everybody, not of the government.

You have the right to hold the above sentiments, thanks for our government. People who live in many other countries don’t have that same right. So you should be grateful for at least that much. Besides, if you truly don’t like it here, you are always free (unlike others in different time periods) to pack up and go someplace that better lives up to your expectations. There’s no shame in that. You have the freedom and the right to come and go.

Likewise, I uphold the faith, obey the Pope even in those things which I don’t like or which you’d get ridiculed if you believed in them such as no salvation outside the Church. Because you don’t like something doesn’t mean its not true. I’m well aware that church governments put restrictions on the Jews (and Muslims mind you) in the middle ages and up to the 1800’s but it doesn’t mean that our faith erred nor does it make our faith invalid. I accept every single Condemnation of Pius IX in the Syllabus as true. It was ex cathedra and taken inside the context of the Catholic faith, it makes perfect sense. And you have no authority to reject it. If you want to be a true Catholic, you have to accept the syllabus as true, although nowhere does it say that a person should be burned for being a heretic and nowhere does it say that we should have a war to make a Catholic state.

Yeah, I do have the ‘authority’ to reject it because I speak for myself and am responsible for myself. No one has more authority over me than I do. I am speaking for myself not for the Church. I am a true Catholic by Baptism and I don’t have to accept the syllabus or all parts of it. I don’t accept a few of the statements because they go against my conscience.

 

[Warrenton]

Of course they do.

They do not have the right to leave the Church in terms of Catholic understanding. They have the power. There is a distinction.

We have the power to sin, but never the right to sin.

I realize that you consider those who find Christ in another religion to be the weakest sheep but I disagree. I know Christians far more mindful of the love for Christ than many Catholics. Being Catholic is not a free ticket to Heaven. And not being Catholic is not a one-way ticket to Hell. I believe Christians are better off knowing Christ in a non-Catholic religion, than not at all.

You are incorrect in your assesment of my considerations. I consider Catholics who leave the Church to be among the weakest sheep. The reason why should be fairly plain. I made no comment regarding the faith of non Catholics.

Whether we know good people who are better than some Catholics, or some Catholics who are better people than non Catholics has nothing to do whatever with whether someone has the right to leave the Church one in it, or whether anyone has the right to destroy the Chuch systematically.

Under that logic, since some criminals remain uncaught and free, we should not punish any criminals.

And I am not saying that leaving the Church is a crime. I use it simply as an analogy, becuse in both cases the person is abusing his or her freedom.

I never said being part of the Church results in automatic salvation. Neither have I said that non being Catholic automatically results in damnation. I can’t understand where in my posts you got that notion. However, there is no salvation in the absence of the Church. This has been taught since the beginning of the Church. That is why the Church must be permitted to exist, and that is why Catholics have the right to resist the destruction of the Church.

 

[Warrenton]

Besides, if you truly don’t like it here, you are always free (unlike others in different time periods) to pack up and go someplace that better lives up to your expectations. There’s no shame in that. You have the freedom and the right to come and go.

In fact, most modern governments deny people the right to come and go as they please.

Ask John Walker.

They also rely on each other’s restrictive immigration policies.

The better alternative is to change the country you’re in.

 

[Disinherited]

That is completely false and we know this to be a fact because Lutherans were questioned, imprisoned and burned. So they were not free to leave the Church to become Protestant, they were just called heretics.

That is completely false and we know this to be a fact because Lutherans and other Protestants had to go into hiding. They held their meetings in private assemlies in people’s homes, the same as the early Church did. It didn’t matter if they congregated in public or in private, they were still rounded up, questioned, imprisoned, tortured and/or put to death by the authorities.

Actually, unless they’re disturbing the peace, they have the right to assembly. They do do this when they picket and hold demonstrations. It’s when the crowds begin to get unruly and break the law that the police are ordered to stop them.

Doing some more research, I found that there were very few Protestants lived in Spain and only some 1000 to 500 were killed among st this group, mostly clerics and high ones which posed a danger to the Catholic faith. And, as David Goldstein said, the Inquisition is no more guilty of murder as a jury is when a man is sent to the electric chair as secular authorities killed them. That said, those were the middle ages and times were more rough then. In fact, the Roman Inquisition which was set up between the 1500’s and 1600’s only killed like 1000 people (only in the number: of course death is always deplorable but this certainly proves that there was no genocide of Protestantism which itself tried to destroy the Church) and under later Popes, no heretics were killed because they were heretics. The only person I can think of who was killed for being an atheist in the 1800’s is some Spanish man but that was it, just one case. According to wikipedia:
*
These had the dubious honor of executing the last heretic condemned, the school teacher Cayetano Ripoll, garroted in Valencia on July 26, 1826 (presumably for having taught deist principles), all amongst a European-wide scandal at the despotic attitude still prevailing in Spain. Juan Antonio Llorente, who had been the Inquisition’s general secretary in 1789, became a Bonapartist and published a critical history in 1817 from his French exile, based on his privileged access to its archives*

Rence, you must note that the the counter reformation initiated by the Catholic Church wasn’t and was never intended to be a violent one. The Jesuits certainly weren’t violent and the Inquisitions purpose was noble and good. Do you want my honest opinion? If the Inquisition was reset today, it’d do more good to the Church then ever. Of course there wouldn’t be any killing just as there was no killing of heretics under Pius IX, and there wouldn’t be all those excessive penances performed during those times, but if you were a Priest and found to be teaching heresy, they’d certainly and justly so debate with you about why you’re a heretic and give you a chance to abjure your errors. If you remain obstinate, you’d be defrocked and excommunicated and though they wouldn’t steal your property, you’d certainly be exposed as the heretic you are to the public (I’m not talking about you yourself Rence mind you!)

That said, no, you don’t have the authority to reject the syllabus. You’re Catholic right? If you’re Catholic, you must subject yourself to the Pope and the teachings, both moral and doctrinal he teaches. He’s the representative of Christ on earth and when he speaks about faith and morals and the government of the Church, he has full authority and should be obeyed.

 

[Rence]

They do not have the right to leave the Church in terms of Catholic understanding. They have the power. There is a distinction.

They have the right to leave the Church all the way around.

You are incorrect in your assesment of my considerations. I consider Catholics who leave the Church to be among the weakest sheep.

How can I be incorrect? You just repeated what I wrote…

Whether we know good people who are better than some Catholics, or some Catholics who are better people than non Catholics has nothing to do whatever with whether someone has the right to leave the Church one in it, or whether anyone has the right to destroy the Chuch systematically.

Ok, well first of all, paranoia about people destroying the Church is unfounded. No one is going to destroy the Church and we know this because Jesus told us with his own words. So whether someone ‘has the right to destroy the Church’ is moot. However, people have the right to leave the Church.

Under that logic, since some criminals remain uncaught and free, we should not punish any criminals.

Criminals get punished for commiting crimes. People who leave the Church aren’t committing any crimes, so the comparison doesn’t work.

And I am not saying that leaving the Church is a crime. I use it simply as an analogy, becuse in both cases the person is abusing his or her freedom.

A person who leaves the Church is not abusing their freedom, they are exercising their right and the freedom. So again, your analogy doesn’t work.

However, there is no salvation in the absence of the Church. This has been taught since the beginning of the Church. That is why the Church must be permitted to exist, and that is why Catholics have the right to resist the destruction of the Church.

No one can destroy the Church. So it’s ludicrous to think one has the right to resist the destruction of the Church. What you have the right to do is practice the religion of your choice. Not being Catholic doesn’t destroy the Church.

 

[Rence]

In fact, most modern governments deny people the right to come and go as they please.

Ask John Walker.

They also rely on each other’s restrictive immigration policies.

The better alternative is to change the country you’re in.

The US doesn’t have any restrictions on leaving And it won’t change enough for your liking. There are too many people who would oppose it.

 

[Rence]

Doing some more research, I found that there were very few Protestants lived in Spain and only some 1000 to 500 were killed among st this group, mostly clerics and high ones which posed a danger to the Catholic faith. And, as David Goldstein said, the Inquisition is no more guilty of murder as a jury is when a man is sent to the electric chair as secular authorities killed them.

Except that those sent to the electric chair are convicted of crimes. It is not a crime to disagree with the Church, or not want to be a part of it anymore. No one should die because they don’t want to be a part of the Church.

That said, those were the middle ages and times were more rough then. In fact, the Roman Inquisition which was set up between the 1500’s and 1600’s only killed like 1000 people (only in the number: of course death is always deplorable but this certainly proves that there was no genocide of Protestantism which itself tried to destroy the Church) and under later Popes, no heretics were killed because they were heretics.

Yes, heretics were killed because they were found guilty of heresy. Even Thomas More executed seven Lutherans because they refused to be Catholic. And again, I don’t care how many or how few were killed. The point is they were killed for not wanting to be Catholic and they should have never been.

You can wish for a modern day Inquisition all you like, but there won’t be one. And if there were, people would leave the Church rather than conform to the rules of the Church.

That said, no, you don’t have the authority to reject the syllabus.

I have absolutely no clue where you’re coming from here. Of course I have the authority as an individual and speaking for myself to reject the syllabus (not speaking as a representative of the Church) either in part or in whole, and it puzzles me that you think I don’t. And I do reject parts of it, and that’s a fact.

You’re Catholic right? If you’re Catholic, you must subject yourself to the Pope and the teachings, both moral and doctrinal he teaches. He’s the representative of Christ on earth and when he speaks about faith and morals and the government of the Church, he has full authority and should be obeyed.

I must do nothing of the sort. And again, it puzzles me why you would claim I do. It’s not like you have any authority yourself. Catholics are not obligated to accept every word written by the Church. If you do, that’s okay with me, but I don’t (for example, every part of the syllabus). You telling me I have to isn’t gong to make me do so.

I’m curious though, in real life (outside of online forums) is your practice to tell people that they must and have to, and don’t have the right not to, accept everything that comes from the Church? If you encounter someone who disagrees with a teaching or part of it (such a an item in the syllabus), do you tell them they don’t have the authority to disagree? And what is their reaction? And…does it actually work?