Some things that are on my mind..

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Irene72

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At a better attempt to understand the Catholic faith I will post some questions to those who think they have all the answers.
I say “think” because I have gotten SEVERAL e-mails with different answers to my “deleted questions”
Once again if we cannot be civil please DO NOT POST as snide remarks are not wanted or needed. This is serious to me.

Please be respectful! I really am ready to give up religion all together as people just cant agree and get along or be nice to one another. I really need a place to call mt spiritual home and I am looking very hard for answers.
  1. The infallibility of the pope. How can this be? We have had some pretty bad guys in office ; why are such “sinners” considered infallible.
    (I am not going to explain every sin by some of our bad popes; if you have a question please pick up a history book or google)
  2. Where is the Trinity in the bible?
  3. Why do we venerate saints and such people? Why was this done to begin with? How did this start? How do we know this is a right practice? Jesus never did it? Did he?
I will keep it to 3 Q’s a thread.:o
 
Irene72 said:
  1. The infallibility of the pope. How can this be? We have had some pretty bad guys in office ; why are such “sinners” considered infallible.
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“Infallible” does not mean “impeccable.” It means that the Pope cannot err in matters of faith & morals.

Jesus told Peter (Rock: Kepha) that he (Peter) did not come to his confession about who Jesus is by his own human “flesh” understanding but by the Father in Heaven revealing this to him.

Matthew 16: 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven…"

We are all sinners, even Priests & Bishops. But we will never have the infallibility that the Pope and the Bishops united to the Pope have. They have the assurance from the Holy Spirit just as Jesus told Peter from the very beginning.
 
Irene72 said:
  1. Where is the Trinity in the bible?
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The word “Trinity” is not in the bible so don’t bother looking for the word itself. But the mystery of the Trinity is most definitely in the bible.

For starters:
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
The word “name” is singular showing that the Father Son & Spirit are ONE.
Irene72 said:
  1. Why do we venerate saints and such people? Why was this done to begin with? How did this start? How do we know this is a right practice? Jesus never did it? Did he?
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Yes He did. He venerated & honored His own mother. Mary is thee Saint of all Saints.

I’ll get back to you with more on both of these issues. I’m sure others here will have more also.
 
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i85/Alegre-Fe/Emoticons/worry.gif I’m keepin’ an eye out my window. Looks like severe weather is on the way.

The Trinity

16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus & God are ONE … I’ll be back. I’m turning off my computer for now, the weather is getting worse. http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i85/Alegre-Fe/Emoticons/worry.gif
 
Irene72 said:
At a better attempt to understand the Catholic faith I will post some questions to those who think they have all the answers.
. . . .
  1. Why do we venerate saints and such people? Why was this done to begin with? How did this start? How do we know this is a right practice? Jesus never did it? Did he?
I will keep it to 3 Q’s a thread.:o
Click to expand...
Irene, you’ll find good answers to this question here in an earlier discussion on the same topic:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=249428

Also, for this and for your other questions, please be sure to do a search at the links above to the CAF Library and This Rock magazine.

A book that many people have found helpful and is often recommended here is Frank Sheed’s Theology for Beginners; it’s a relatively easy, but throrough, read on the teachings of the Church. His presentation on the Mystery of the Trinity is particularly good.

amazon.com/Theology-Beginners-Francis-Joseph-Sheed/dp/0892831243
 
The Pope is not infallible because he is holy, but because Christ is holy. Actually, technically it is the Church, not just the pope, that is infallible. The way it works is that the pope, and the bishops in union with him, constitute a divinely guided magisterium that is not allowed to err in matter of faith and morals because they are protected from doing so by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would guide the church into all truth (John 16:13). All truth means no error.

We merely take Jesus at his word.

Paul
 
Thanks for the answers!
I my Q’s are redundant just point me in the direction of the thread it was rehashed in!😉
 
Irene72 said:
At a better attempt to understand the Catholic faith I will post some questions to those who think they have all the answers.
I say “think” because I have gotten SEVERAL e-mails with different answers to my “deleted questions”
Once again if we cannot be civil please DO NOT POST as snide remarks are not wanted or needed. This is serious to me.

Please be respectful! I really am ready to give up religion all together as people just cant agree and get along or be nice to one another. I really need a place to call mt spiritual home and I am looking very hard for answers.
Click to expand...
I emphasize with the above frustrations. I will give some responses as fairly and objectively as possible.
  1. The infallibility of the pope. How can this be? We have had some pretty bad guys in office ; why are such “sinners” considered infallible.
    (I am not going to explain every sin by some of our bad popes; if you have a question please pick up a history book or google)
Click to expand...
Sure. Pope Alexander the 6th impregnated his own daughter(according to Papal Court rumor), Julius the second was a “warrior Pope”, and Peter the Apostle denied Christ.

Papal Infallibility was established at the First Vatican Council, and does not make itself dependent on the personal piety of the present Pope.
  1. Where is the Trinity in the bible?
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If you’re asking where is a Triune relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that is in the Bible. The question of weather the Bible establishes the Roman Catholic Church’s Triune formulation is another matter.

There was one verse that was quite definitive in supporting the Church’s account, however this verse has since been proven by textual critics to be fraudulent(as was the story of Jesus absolving Mary the Adulterer and saving her from stoning)
  1. Why do we venerate saints and such people? Why was this done to begin with? How did this start? How do we know this is a right practice? Jesus never did it? Did he?
Click to expand...
I will keep it to 3 Q’s a thread.:o
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I agree with this. All accounts to justify it seem, to me, to be “stretched”(to be generous).

Personally I agree with the Muslims, that it is assigning associates to God.

It pains me to say this giving Pope John Paul II’s devotion to Mary, but I believe it originated in the Church’s attempts to win over pagans.
 
Irene72 said:
At a better attempt to understand the Catholic faith I will post some questions to those who think they have all the answers.
I say “think” because I have gotten SEVERAL e-mails with different answers to my “deleted questions”
Once again if we cannot be civil please DO NOT POST as snide remarks are not wanted or needed. This is serious to me.

Please be respectful! I really am ready to give up religion all together as people just cant agree and get along or be nice to one another. I really need a place to call mt spiritual home and I am looking very hard for answers.
  1. The infallibility of the pope. How can this be? We have had some pretty bad guys in office ; why are such “sinners” considered infallible.
    (I am not going to explain every sin by some of our bad popes; if you have a question please pick up a history book or google)
Click to expand...

**Any one can be infallible - all of us are, at some time or another. So why leave out the Pope ? 🙂 **​

(Do Catholics believe in the Rapture ? Of course - we celebrate it on August 15. But that’s a subject by itself)

**Sin is of course revolting, however slight it may seem: but God is not limited by working through sinners; man only is limited - not God. He over-rules our worst deeds to bring about the doing of His Will: as at Calvary. A God Who can use the betrayal, the cowardice & perjury, the cruelty & weakness of men, in order to bring about the Crucifixion of His Son for our Redemption, can surely use sinful men to declare & define His truth ? He uses some very surprising people to create the Bible; & to preserve it. ISTM that we must not assume that God is as choosy as we might be; a God who can cause an insignificant peasant-girl to be the Mother of His Son may be less put off by speaking through bad men (which we all are anyway) than we might think.

**It seems likely that there is a pattern, or that there are patterns, in God’s way of working - so if we can find them out, they may tell us something of how He is likely to work in His Church. Papal Infallibility seems to fit into several patterns - that’s only a human ****reason, so too much can’t be built on it; but it has some force & value. **
  1. Where is the Trinity in the bible?
Click to expand...

**The bit & pieces of it are in the Bible, a bit like the bit & pieces of a jigsaw in its box. What the Bible doesn’t give us, is the doctrine assembled in an orderly manner so as to be recognisable - just as a 300-piece jigsaw in a box contains the pieces to make a picture of a farm, but not the picture as such. **​

**The task of putting the bits together as a recognisable doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is beginning in the OT, with the Patriarchs’ understanding of God - it only takes shape as a recognisable, Christian, certainly Trinitarian belief in the fourth century AD. The precise details of the Church’s Trinitarian orthodoxy need not just the Holy Bible, but also a Holy Tradition within which to read it. The Bible cannot help us if it is unread; & to read with profit, we need understanding, which is the gift of the Holy Spirit; & Tradition is a means to preserve this understanding for the whole Body **
  1. Why do we venerate saints and such people? Why was this done to begin with? How did this start? How do we know this is a right practice? Jesus never did it? Did he?
I will keep it to 3 Q’s a thread.:o
Click to expand...

Many reasons:​

  • 1. They are members of Christ’s Body, His Church, just as we are - more so indeed.
  • 2. He loves them, so we should
  • 3. God "is glorious in His Saints"
  • 4. If we are to love one another, what excludes them ?
  • 5. They are not dead, & cannot be, because Christ has “abolished death…” (1 Tim. 6.10)
  • 6. They & we share the same Life, Who is Christ
    **That’s all I can think of for now - hope that helps 🙂 **
 
**
  1. The infallibility of the pope. How can this be? We have had some pretty bad guys in office ; why are such “sinners” considered infallible.**
Irene, do you know how many times papal infallibility (properly understood) has actually been exercised?
 
Irene72 said:
At a better attempt to understand the Catholic faith I will post some questions to those who think they have all the answers.
I say “think” because I have gotten SEVERAL e-mails with different answers to my “deleted questions”
Once again if we cannot be civil please DO NOT POST as snide remarks are not wanted or needed. This is serious to me.

Please be respectful! I really am ready to give up religion all together as people just cant agree and get along or be nice to one another. I really need a place to call mt spiritual home and I am looking very hard for answers.
  1. The infallibility of the pope. How can this be? We have had some pretty bad guys in office ; why are such “sinners” considered infallible.
    (I am not going to explain every sin by some of our bad popes; if you have a question please pick up a history book or google)
  2. Where is the Trinity in the bible?
  3. Why do we venerate saints and such people? Why was this done to begin with? How did this start? How do we know this is a right practice? Jesus never did it? Did he?
I will keep it to 3 Q’s a thread.:o
Click to expand...

  1. *]The Pope is infallible, not perfect; no body can be, for perfection is reserved for Christ alone. The thing is this: any person can be infallible. If a person speaks a truth about something, they are doing so infallibly.

    Catholics believe that the Pope is infallible when, envoking full and proper authority under guidelines set out by the First Vatican Council of 1870, is said to be infallibly declaring a matter of faith that is obligatory for all the faithful to believe.

    Make no mistake: we should fully acknowledge the sins of past Popes, and fully acknowledge that as men, they will err. Yet, we believe that through the intercession of the Holy Spirit, in matters where the entire Body of Christ is concerned, the Holy Father will not lead us astray.

    And you know what? Hasn’t happened yet 😉

    *]The Trinity is not in the Bible. Only through Apostolic paradosis, or Sacred Tradition, can the Bible be read in such a way as to deduce the Trinity from Scripture.

    The Early Church held the Trinity to be an undeniable Truth of the Faith, even before the canon of the New Testament had ever been compiled. From this, it becomes necessary to attribute the successful passing of this Truth through the paradosis which traces itself back to Christ Jesus, through the teachings of the Apostles, and those bishops that the Apostles chose to continue the teaching of the faith.

    *]No, I don’t believe Jesus ever venerated the Saints. I would refer to what Gottle of Geer had to say about this; very well put!
 
FCEGM said:
Irene, you’ll find good answers to this question here in an earlier discussion on the same topic:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=249428

Also, for this and for your other questions, please be sure to do a search at the links above to the CAF Library and This Rock magazine.

A book that many people have found helpful and is often recommended here is Frank Sheed’s Theology for Beginners; it’s a relatively easy, but throrough, read on the teachings of the Church. His presentation on the Mystery of the Trinity is particularly good.

amazon.com/Theology-Beginners-Francis-Joseph-Sheed/dp/0892831243
Click to expand...
I agree with this. If you are looking for answers an open forum might not be the best place to get the truth. Check out Catholic answers home page and library, there you will find teachings of the church. God Bles you on your journey.
 
Postmodern said:
It pains me to say this giving Pope John Paul II’s devotion to Mary, but I believe it originated in the Church’s attempts to win over pagans.
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Not so, my friend!

As per St. Irenaeus,
[Mary] being obedient, was made the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race. . . . Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in belief, the Virgin Mary loosed through faith

Adversus Haereses, Against Heresies, 3, 22, 4

St. Irenaeus contended that these words were not from paganism, but were from the mouth of his mentor St. Polycarp, who attributed them to St. John the Evangelist, the beloved Apostle, himself.

In fact, the book *Adversus Haereses *was written in defending the Church from the snares of Gnosticism, which was and is a genuinely heretical and pagan doctrine.

Why would people like St. Polycarp, who died in service to our Lord in his blessed martyrdom, or his disciple St. Irenaeus who often venerated the memory of his beloved mentor and staunchly defended that which was taught universally throughout the Church, allow something as “pagan” as honoring Mary as is appropriate to her position to get in to the Church?

Well, they contend that it was because they had learned it from John, and that it was not pagan at all.

The icing on the cake is when in Revelations, Christ has nothing but good to say about the Church in Smyrna (Rev. 2:8-11); the writer was St. John the Evangelist, and St. Polycarp was the bishop of Smyrna at the time of St. John’s death! The same is to be said of St. Antipas, bishop of Pergamum; he too was ordained bishop by St. John, and was also commended by Christ for his immovable faith, even unto martyrdom (Rev. 2:13).

These were men that knew the Apostles. If they were wrong about their teachings concerning Mary and other such things, don’t you suppose that something would have been said of it in Apostolic literature? No, instead they are commended by Christ Himself in the Apocalypse of St. John

There is very little validity to the theory of pagan influence on the Catholic Church; sure, in local customs there is sometimes infiltration that destroys the faith, such as the cases of gnosticism, or marcionism. Yet the catholicity of the Church has always been maintained ;).
 
Postmodern said:
…There was one verse that was quite definitive in supporting the Church’s account, however this verse has since been proven by textual critics to be fraudulent(as was the story of Jesus absolving Mary the Adulterer and saving her from stoning)…
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(emphasis mine)

Asserted by SOME textual critics–yeah. Proven? Hardly–especially if said “critics” originate from the so-called “Jesus Seminar” which is a stacked-deck of radicals who are biased against the historic claims of Christianity right from the start
 
JLongoria said:
No, I don’t believe Jesus ever venerated the Saints.
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Jesus honored His mother. She was a living Saint because she was sinless full of God’s grace.

Jesus allowed Moses & Elijah to appear with Him and they spoke. Even though Jesus had not died on the cross yet, they were not in the place for the damned. Instead they were where the righteous slept in waiting for Jesus. Wouldn’t you call that honoring?

As baptized Christians we are saints (holy) in that we are set apart for God. We are all called to be saints (holy) and Jesus loves us all. We are not yet perfected in sainthood as God is still working on us. But if Jesus loves us as saints not yet perfected how much more would Jesus honor those Saints already perfected in Heaven and those that are being further perfected in Purgatory? We are all one family which includes the Church Militant (living on earth), the Church Suffering (purgatory) and the Church Triumphant (heaven), all of whom are saints.
 
Ahh, thank you very much for clarifying that, Sandy! I do not doubt that Saints are definitely worth being venerated - especially because they are beloved by Christ and in the fullness of the Body of Christ - but I just wasn’t sure if Jesus did, in fact, venerate them.

Hah, it’s funny, though; I’ve seen the conversation between Elijah, Moses, and Christ mentioned many times, and I even recognized that they were obviously in a place not for the damned, awaiting Christs death and glorious resurrection. It just never occurred to me to read it in that context.

But it does certainly make sense, and it is very compelling. 👍
 
Irene72 said:
At a better attempt to understand the Catholic faith I will post some questions to those who think they have all the answers.
I say “think” because I have gotten SEVERAL e-mails with different answers to my “deleted questions”
Once again if we cannot be civil please DO NOT POST as snide remarks are not wanted or needed. This is serious to me.

Please be respectful! I really am ready to give up religion all together as people just cant agree and get along or be nice to one another. I really need a place to call mt spiritual home and I am looking very hard for answers.
  1. The infallibility of the pope. How can this be? We have had some pretty bad guys in office ; why are such “sinners” considered infallible.
how about the apostles. do you ever consider them to have been infallible? not because we consider them to be perfect men but because they were truly chosen people to teach the Word of God.

they were protect from teaching err. otherwise we would have to take in consideration if the Bible is truly reliable. dont’t you think?

(I am not going to explain every sin by some of our bad popes; if you have a question please pick up a history book or google)

The Church is not the pope. the Church is the Body of Christ. Jesus says: “I came to save what is Lost.” you see, if the pope and us were perfect, we would not need a Church or Jesus. please point out to me one person in this world or any religious entity that it is perfect without any sin that you can go to.

2) Where is the Trinity in the bible?

Trust in the Church. the references are all there. a church could not make up such a lie about God and live this long.

3) Why do we venerate saints and such people? Why was this done to begin with? How did this start? How do we know this is a right practice? Jesus never did it? Did he?

I believe if you were there at that time and you said anything against Moses or father Abraham, or father Jacob, you would not be alive for to long after that.
remember the story of the rich man and lazarus? remember what the rich man said? he said father abraham send lazarus…he never went straight to God, but to Abraham.

**
I will keep it to 3 Q’s a thread.:o**
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:confused:

**“I should not believe the Gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.”
Saint Augustine (354-430), Against the Letter of Mani, 5,6, 397 A.D… **
 
Why do people keep saying that the trinity is not in the Bible?

1 John 5:7

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word [cross reference with John 1:14 and Revelation 19:13 shows that the Word refers to Jesus, the Living Word], and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

I don’t know how the trinity could be stated any planer

And as far as proving the Word refers to Jesus:

John 1:14
And the Word was made flesh and dwelth among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth

Obviously Jesus is the only begotten of the Father, as is the Word, so the Word is another term used in scripture for Jesus.

Trinity doctrine is so obvious in the Bible. The Bible may never say the word trinity, but it also never says the word “elephant.” That doesn’t mean God didnt create elephants.
 
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