The "Great Apostasy": History or Fiction?

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BibleReader:
So, when I post evidence that we are in the midst of The Great Apostasy, I am actually trying to prove that a Catholic prophecy is being fulfilled.
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Prove it on your own time and thread Please…

BUNK!
This thread is about the allegation that The Church apostasized just after the death of the last apostle. An allegation without historical evidence of any kind.

I do not feel that we are in an age of apostacy, but one of great conflict and turmoil.

I agree with the posters above about your repeated pronouncements about the sex abuse scandal, and I also suspect that your numbers are way high. I’ve read a great deal about this scandal and haven’t seen official numbers anything like the ones that you posted either of offenders or their victims. Are you sure you’re even Catholic? I don’t find the scandal nearly as big a barrier with those I share my faith with, especially since it’s peanuts compared to the numbers they say are involved in similar abuses within the educational systems around the country. I understand that the stats are FAR higher and the coverups far more extensive…also that the numbers are similar among non-Catholics, so I would have to say that the problem is more societal than ecclesiastical.

Please drop this bunk and get back to the historical evidences (which no one has as yet provided!) for the actual topic of this thread. If you wish to discuss the sex abuse scandal…open your own thread.
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming…
 
It’s not “bunk.”

If another says, “The Great Apostasy was then.”

And I respond, “No. The Great Apostasy is now, and I can prove it,” and I accumulate evidence that what is going on in the world today looks remarkably like a Great Apostasy, and these things are accompanied by other Biblical signs that “the end is near,” I have made a relevant and perfectly valid response to an issue.

I think that it is “bunk” to you, Church Militant, because you have emotional difficulty seeing portrayals of Catholic imperfection.

Wake up, Church Militant: *Hoards *of Catholics have stopped going to Church because they refuse to give up the sinful use of artificial birth control, and so can not tolerate a Church which taught, in Humanae Vitae, that ABC is a sin. Hoards of Church-going Catholics – a federally-financed study on ABC found 73.5% – of regular Catholic church-goers are also regularly and persistently disobeying Humanae Vitae. Millions have stopped going to Sunday Mass in Europe, in our generation. Churches there are nearly *empty. *In the last 50 years, over 4,000 American Catholic priests have just demolished Catholic credibility by engaing in mostly perverted sex with between 50,000 and 100,000 young people. Our seminaries are close to empty.

And our Protestant brothers and sisters are intentionally electing homosexuals, currently engaged in homosexual sexual relationships, to the pulpits in their gradually-emptying churches.

In my opinion, we are currently living the Great Apostasy.

Therefore, Protestants and ant-Catholic cultists who say that it occurred centuries ago are wrong.

And, by the way, denial doesn’t work. We need to be able to relaxedly admit and discuss how our Church has been disgusting, recently.

Failing to admit and discuss how our Church has been disgusting is *anti-*Catholic, not *pro-*Catholic.

We
must
be
aligned
with
truth.
 
Listen BibleReader,
I don’t know where you are but where I am “hoards” of people are coming into the Catholic Church, and more are on the way. Holy Church has endured for over 2,000 years and I have no doubt that she will endure til the end of time because Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not prevail.

I can satisfactorally answer all the questions and allegations that anyone has so far come up with and none of it means squat because the truth is still the truth, regardless of people, scandals, heresies, lies, and anything else that the devil can throw at us.
 
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BibleReader:
It’s not “bunk.”

If another says, “The Great Apostasy was then.”

And I respond, “No. The Great Apostasy is now, and I can prove it,” and I accumulate evidence that what is going on in the world today looks remarkably like a Great Apostasy, and these things are accompanied by other Biblical signs that “the end is near,” I have made a relevant and perfectly valid response to an issue.

I think that it is “bunk” to you, Church Militant, because you have emotional difficulty seeing portrayals of Catholic imperfection.

Wake up, Church Militant: *Hoards *of Catholics have stopped going to Church because they refuse to give up the sinful use of artificial birth control, and so can not tolerate a Church which taught, in Humanae Vitae, that ABC is a sin. Hoards of Church-going Catholics – a federally-financed study on ABC found 73.5% – of regular Catholic church-goers are also regularly and persistently disobeying Humanae Vitae. Millions have stopped going to Sunday Mass in Europe, in our generation. Churches there are nearly *empty. *In the last 50 years, over 4,000 American Catholic priests have just demolished Catholic credibility by engaing in mostly perverted sex with between 50,000 and 100,000 young people. Our seminaries are close to empty.

And our Protestant brothers and sisters are intentionally electing homosexuals, currently engaged in homosexual sexual relationships, to the pulpits in their gradually-emptying churches.

In my opinion, we are currently living the Great Apostasy.

Therefore, Protestants and ant-Catholic cultists who say that it occurred centuries ago are wrong.

And, by the way, denial doesn’t work. We need to be able to relaxedly admit and discuss how our Church has been disgusting, recently.

Failing to admit and discuss how our Church has been disgusting is *anti-*Catholic, not *pro-*Catholic.

We
must
be
aligned
with
truth.
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The Catholic Church would have to depart fundamentally from what it’s believed since the beginning. What you are describing is a falling away
 
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Benadam:
The Catholic Church would have to depart fundamentally from what it’s believed since the beginning. What you are describing is a falling away
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And this is where the cinema comes in. I agree with BibleReader, but I would even say that it goes further. Cinema has somehow destroyed the sensus fidei (sp?). And it is seeking, if it hasn’t already succeeded, in teaching us to “lie from nature”. And I believe at this point that this lying from nature has culminated in the acceptance of the inauthentic vision of Our Lord presented in The Passion of the Christ .

At least that is the position I currently take. But the point is, as BibleReader has pointed out, we should be willing to discuss these matters. The issue with The Passion is the same issue we are confronting here in this thread: Do we make our faith into a ‘memory’ or a ‘history lesson’, or do we believe ourselves to be in the middle of that story?
 
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Benadam:
The Catholic Church would have to depart fundamentally from what it’s believed since the beginning. What you are describing is a falling away
Click to expand...
The underlying Greek in 2 Thessalonians 2:3,

http://www.blueletterbible.org/gifs....blueletterbible.org/gifs/lexicon/c_gs040.gif
apostasia

does not tolerate imposition of the precise, severely-limited definition you force upon it.

If your precise, severely-limited definition of *apostasia *in the Bible is correct, then the Catholic Church is going to depart fundamentally from what it’s believed since the beginning, according to 2 Thessalonians 2. Since Paul’s inspired words predict that there will be “The Apostasy,” your definition of “apostasy” seems to violate the doctrine of indefectibility.

Sorry. I don’t believe you.
 
(Well I lost my post so here goes round 2)

Hey BR

I am starting to see where you are going and do agree some of what you are saying, but at the same time I agree with people like CM who claim that your numbers are off. All through history people have been screaming the end is near. The common denominator is that they are looking at a small chunk of time and making these claims. When you mention that the Churches are emptying, YES they are. You have to look at history and try to make sense of WHY.
For example in Europe: Would you agree that this trend of decline has been happening for about the last 50-60 years? Well guess what, Europe went though something called hell on earth known as World War 1, World War 2 and the USSR, all which destoyed the landscape, turned people into animals, murdered millions, etc. After going through something like this people will have a hard time believing in God and Christianity after seeing this horror. Now to take the place of Jesus in their lives a new form of worship enteres the picture. Liberalism, fueld with things like the media, rock and roll, etc trained people to escape reality and even become the god of themself. After having a daily dose of this everyday in school, tv, radio, books people lose their historical moral compass and start becoming part of the problem. One great example of a country in ruin and decline is England. The place is being overrun by non-British population and influence. Most dont know who they are or where they are going and seek other forms of “religion” like those found in India, something forein to European thought and lifestyle. But, like CM has said, there is only so much a person can take before they cry uncle. All that filth and anti-Christian, anti-family, amoral, lifestyles are starting to be opposed by this generation. Take for example gay “weddings” in every state in which the people were allowed to vote on the issue, every one of them defeated it soundly. People can only take so much, then the pendulum takes a heavy counter-swing in the other direction. So to sum it up people ARE starting to come back to church, ARE starting to protect their kids, ARE standing up to filth, ARE taking their business elswere. With the help of people like those on CA, we can make a difference and correct the wrongs.
At the same time you have made a good point in the idea that the apostasy doesnt mean it was something that happend a long time ago, but could happen in the future.
 
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BibleReader:
It’s not “bunk.”

If another says, “The Great Apostasy was then.”

And I respond, “No. The Great Apostasy is now, and I can prove it,” and I accumulate evidence that what is going on in the world today looks remarkably like a Great Apostasy, and these things are accompanied by other Biblical signs that “the end is near,” I have made a relevant and perfectly valid response to an issue.

I think that it is “bunk” to you, Church Militant, because you have emotional difficulty seeing portrayals of Catholic imperfection.

Wake up, Church Militant: *Hoards *of Catholics have stopped going to Church because they refuse to give up the sinful use of artificial birth control, and so can not tolerate a Church which taught, in Humanae Vitae, that ABC is a sin. Hoards of Church-going Catholics – a federally-financed study on ABC found 73.5% – of regular Catholic church-goers are also regularly and persistently disobeying Humanae Vitae. Millions have stopped going to Sunday Mass in Europe, in our generation. Churches there are nearly *empty. *In the last 50 years, over 4,000 American Catholic priests have just demolished Catholic credibility by engaing in mostly perverted sex with between 50,000 and 100,000 young people. Our seminaries are close to empty.

And our Protestant brothers and sisters are intentionally electing homosexuals, currently engaged in homosexual sexual relationships, to the pulpits in their gradually-emptying churches.

In my opinion, we are currently living the Great Apostasy.

Therefore, Protestants and ant-Catholic cultists who say that it occurred centuries ago are wrong.

And, by the way, denial doesn’t work. We need to be able to relaxedly admit and discuss how our Church has been disgusting, recently.

Failing to admit and discuss how our Church has been disgusting is *anti-*Catholic, not *pro-*Catholic.

We
must
be
aligned
with
truth.
Click to expand...
Bible Reader,

your comments are off-topic to this thread. If you want to discuss this subject from the point of view that you see that there is an apostasy happening at the present time, then please start your own thread to discuss these issues.

The thread that has been started by CM concerns the claims of Joseph Smith that before his alleged visions the church had gone into apostasy and therefore he was appointed by God to bring the Church back to God.

What CM is looking for, is the evidence of this Great Apostasy happened prior to Joseph Smith.

Maggie
 
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BibleReader:
Hi, Catholic Dude.

The idea behind openly and bluntly discussing what our Church has done to hurt the young in the 50,000 cases in which the priests have been caught …
… perhaps another 100% more, for a total of about 100,000 victims) is to shine a light on it and so kill it.

While a small percentage of our priests – about 4.5% according to the Church’s own study – perpetrated the crime, probably the * overwhelming majority of our bishops* participated in the nationwide “shell game” of shifting the perpetrators around from victimized parishes to unwary parishes.

Additionally, according to the book “Goodbye, Good Men,” a large number of our seminaries are still run by homosexual clergy …
… unbiased study by the Gay Studies Project in the University of Chicago generated evidence that male homosexuals appear to be inherently promiscuous – 87.8% of the large sample of gay men interviewed by them admitted to more than 15 sexual partners, 61.3% admitted to more than 30 sexual partners, and 42.9% admitted to more than 60 sexual partners. In other words, it is arguable that our Church is still functioning as a haven for inherently promiscuous young men.

It sounds like prejudice against our Church, but it’s not.

It’s our Church.

If we don’t openly discuss it, no one will bother to solve the problem, and make us "holy" again.
…
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First Ill start off with the 4.5% thing. I read the UCCB link you posted, and it uses a key word ACCUSED. This means that they are not yet guilty. As Americans we should follow the innocent until proven guilty model. So 4.5% ACCUSED does not equal 4.5% GUILTY.
Second, 50,000-100,000 is a HUGE spread, to go assuming these numbers only make the Church look bad, especially coming from a Catholic. Again, this is ACCUSED not hard fact. Now in terms of Bishops shifting them around, does that mean that the Bishop knew for a fact that a given priest did it, or did he move him because AFTER the ACCUSATION his good name was tarnished in that area. If he knew for sure, he will have to answer to God.

I did a quick Barnes and Noble on “Goodbye GM”, it looks like any other gold digger “writer” / “journalist” . Hes out to make a buck, thats why the book costs almost $30 and was published in 2002! I havent read it, but I would question its quality.

Now about that “unbiased study” by the GSP. First of all there is no such thing as “unbiased”, this is another university made up study to make it look like they are academic, fair, and, making progress in education. all BUNK! Second you say a “large sample” what does that mean, 1,10, 100, 1000, 10000? what is large? Second I dont believe that gays would go giving out the kind of info about how many partners they have had, especially if it is “60%+”. It makes them look bad, and hurts their position.
Next underlined quote “In other words…” The UCCB study show ACCUSATIONS for people 1-18 years old. There is a difference between a victimized child and a fully concenting promiscuous adult. When you say “young men” that only hurts your child rape position, because we dont know how many of the 16-18 young adults concented, which could in turn change the perspective. i.e. there is a big difference between grade school and high school maturity level.

For the last underlined part, why is holy in quotation marks? According to you how do we “solve the problem”?

We have to be VERY careful about putting blame on any individual person. Here in the AchDis of Portland OR. There are two separate cases that want a total of $250mil, for 3 “victims” , this smells fishy. Also one of the accused priests is DECEASED, that means he cant even defend himself! And yet they are still able to sue. There are no statute of limitations for these cases, so even after 50 years a person can still be accused. Lets look at the flip side, one of our ex-govs was found guilty of raping a girl while he was gov, guess what there is a statute of limitations, so he cannot be held accountable. He just shrugs it off! Beware the gold digger “victims”!
 
To those who want to start a war about accusations against Catholic priests, this subject has nothing to do with the thread. Please start another thread if you want to discuss the issue.

Oh yes, I think that figure of 50,000-100,000 is exaggeration.

Maggie
 
Oh my Heavens, Catholic Dude. The reason why the Church’s study says “accused” is because the Catholic Church always settles the civil claims before the Plaintiffs go to court and murder us with the evidence. Do you think that the Church is paying out millions upon millions upon millions of dollars because those 4,000+ priests are *innocent? *Believe me, you are deceiving yourself. The majority of “accused” priests – “99-44/100%”? – are guilty of more than they are accused of. They were promiscuous, sex-abuse-mass-producing homosexuals (–not “pedophiles,” as the press likes to call them, to avoid offending gays; pedophiles prefer girls about 9 to 1; the offending Catholic priests preferred boys about 9 to 1). I investigated the accusations of 3 accusers. Their cases were essentially the same. Each of the boys was from a dysfunctional family. Each heard that they could make “easy money” in the rectory by dropping their pants. Each went back again and again. (Another misconception generated by the press: The press rarely discusses the unsympathetic cases, where the accusers were “delinquents” who “put out” for $$$ purloined by the homosexual priest from collections again and again and again.)

In my opinion, based on the shame I see among victims, and their reluctance to publicly confess to dropping their pants for homosexual contacts with priests, the number of victims, instead of being 50,000, is probably about 100,000 – double – and the number of offending priests is probably about 50% higher.

And you are wrong, MaggieOH. In my opinion our own bishops clumsily spearheaded the “Great Falling Away” in the world. The damage they have done to the Holy Church is huge.

My aunt was head of the Dominicans in the Western Hemisphere. She afterwards changed jobs, and became the Church’s biggest real estate salesman in New Mexico, engaged full-time in the sale of Church property to pay-off lawsuits in that state. She actually had to sell her own convent out from beneath herself.
 
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BibleReader:
Oh my Heavens, Catholic Dude. The reason why the Church’s study says “accused” is because the Catholic Church always settles the civil claims before the Plaintiffs go to court and murder us with the evidence. Do you think that the Church is paying out millions upon millions upon millions of dollars because those 4,000+ priests are *innocent? *Believe me, you are deceiving yourself. The majority of “accused” priests – “99-44/100%”? – are guilty of more than they are accused of. They were promiscuous, sex-abuse-mass-producing homosexuals (–not “pedophiles,” as the press likes to call them, to avoid offending gays; pedophiles prefer girls about 9 to 1; the offending Catholic priests preferred boys about 9 to 1). I investigated the accusations of 3 accusers. Their cases were essentially the same. Each of the boys was from a dysfunctional family. Each heard that they could make “easy money” in the rectory by dropping their pants. Each went back again and again. (Another misconception generated by the press: The press rarely discusses the unsympathetic cases, where the accusers were “delinquents” who “put out” for $$$ purloined by the homosexual priest from collections again and again and again.)

In my opinion, based on the shame I see among victims, and their reluctance to publicly confess to dropping their pants for homosexual contacts with priests, the number of victims, instead of being 50,000, is probably about 100,000 – double – and the number of offending priests is probably about 50% higher.

And you are wrong, MaggieOH. In my opinion our own bishops clumsily spearheaded the “Great Falling Away” in the world. The damage they have done to the Holy Church is huge.

My aunt was head of the Dominicans in the Western Hemisphere. She afterwards changed jobs, and became the Church’s biggest real estate salesman in New Mexico, engaged full-time in the sale of Church property to pay-off lawsuits in that state. She actually had to sell her own convent out from beneath herself.
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Bible Reader, this subject has nothing to do with the topic. If you want to discuss this subject please start another thread. This topic is about the claim made by Joseph Smith and it has to be answered by dealing with the issues associated with his claim.

Your topic is a lot broader. There are many modern issues to be dealt with that are associated with what is happening today.

Please desist from hijacking this particular topic. If you want to discuss the subject please start your own thread so that we can get through the hearsay and into the truth.

MaggieOH
 
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BibleReader:
The underlying Greek in 2 Thessalonians 2:3,

http://www.blueletterbible.org/gifs....blueletterbible.org/gifs/lexicon/c_gs040.gif
apostasia

does not tolerate imposition of the precise, severely-limited definition you force upon it.

If your precise, severely-limited definition of *apostasia *in the Bible is correct, then the Catholic Church is going to depart fundamentally from what it’s believed since the beginning, according to 2 Thessalonians 2. Since Paul’s inspired words predict that there will be “The Apostasy,” your definition of “apostasy” seems to violate the doctrine of indefectibility.

Sorry. I don’t believe you.
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I understand what you’re saying. Yet to place the meaning of what’s happening today as what Paul is describing lends a possibly false meaning to todays events. Paul said that the anti-christ was already at work but not in the open back then . So any falling away since then could be described as the apostacy Paul means . On the other hand, ‘the’ apostacy in those passages are events that are intimately interwoven with the religion of ant-christ and is revealed when the man of sin works openly. That being the sense of the word apostacy used, and the apostacy described, what is taught by Paul isn’t happening yet unless the anti-christ is at work openly at this time or his first converts will be found amongst a known religion.
 
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Benadam:
I understand what you’re saying. Yet to place the meaning of what’s happening today as what Paul is describing lends a possibly false meaning to todays events. Paul said that the anti-christ was already at work but not in the open back then . So any falling away since then could be described as the apostacy Paul means . On the other hand, ‘the’ apostacy in those passages are events that are intimately interwoven with the religion of ant-christ and is revealed when the man of sin works openly. That being the sense of the word apostacy used, and the apostacy described, what is taught by Paul isn’t happening yet unless the anti-christ is at work openly at this time or his first converts will be found amongst a known religion.
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These are very good points. Satan (the Antichrist has certainly maintained a presence since the beginning of the Church. He has led many astray.

Maggie
 
Would it be possible if someone could give a sort of brief description of what this ‘apostasy’ was? Or point me to a good site that will say it?

I apologize if someone has done that already. I’ve read most of the posts but I might have missed it.

Thanks.
 
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Curious:
Would it be possible if someone could give a sort of brief description of what this ‘apostasy’ was? Or point me to a good site that will say it?

I apologize if someone has done that already. I’ve read most of the posts but I might have missed it.

Thanks.
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It is a claim by the Mormons that there was a Great Apostasy at the time of Constantine. Joseph Smith claimed that he was singled out by God to create a new church. If you go back to post one you will see where CM is coming from.

Maggie
 
In an attempt to get this thread back on topic, I think that the first thing that we need to do is examine the meaning of apostasy. This word is one that crops up in the Scripture on several occasions because the Chosen People kept on turning their backs on God. That is what is meant - to turn away from God and to follow another path. Amongst the responses I noticed that someone mentioned an early apostasy that happened after the time of the Apostles and in the early Christian era. I want to say to that person, you are correct to point out this particular event. There were two persecutions in North Africa and elsewhere that were a real test for the people. There were some who were not able to withstand the torture. There was quite a fight over these people, and as a result of this fight the Donatists were formed. These people who gave in to the pressure that was placed upon them were known as the Lapsi or the lapsed, and this is where we get the term “lapsed Catholic”. It is a fair indication that those who have lapsed from the Catholic faith are in apostasy.

(to be continued)
 
Having established the meaning of apostasy, what then is the Great Apostasy? The question that remains unanswered is: can it be proven from history that the Church fell into apostasy from about the third century until Jesus allegedly appeared to Joseph Smith?

There is a very helpful article written by Patrick Madrid on this issue. It can be found here:

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/MORMON2.htm

Patrick covers the claims that were made by Joseph Smith and he looks at whether or not there is any credibility in those claims.

The issue itself comes back to the false claims about the influence of the emperor Constantine. The Evangelicals and the Fundamentalists have turned Constantine into a bogey man. They use him like they use a straw man, therefore we need to also discover, which other churches, besides the Mormons make statements about this “Great Apostasy” so that we can at least try to discover whether in fact it is reality.

This is not about current Church issues. It is about the question of the historical roots of this claim and whether or not it can be verified through a reading of history.

MaggieOH
 
Having established the meaning of apostasy, what then is the Great Apostasy? The question that remains unanswered is: can it be proven from history that the Church fell into apostasy from about the third century until Jesus allegedly appeared to Joseph Smith?

There is a very helpful article written by Patrick Madrid on this issue. It can be found here:

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/MORMON2.htm

Patrick covers the claims that were made by Joseph Smith and he looks at whether or not there is any credibility in those claims.

You can also find information in the following link:
whyprophets.com/prophets/7proofs.htm

The issue itself comes back to the false claims about the influence of the emperor Constantine. The Evangelicals and the Fundamentalists have turned Constantine into a bogey man. They use him like they use a straw man, therefore we need to also discover, which other churches, besides the Mormons make statements about this “Great Apostasy” so that we can at least try to discover whether in fact it is reality.

This is not about current Church issues. It is about the question of the historical roots of this claim and whether or not it can be verified through a reading of history.

MaggieOH
 
The notion of a final, “Great Apostasy” implies that there may have been many lesser apostasies. And in a sense there have been.

I have a somewhat tongue-in-cheek theory on my End Times article:
shasta.com/sphaws/endtimes.html

But there never has been, and never will be, an apostasy of the entire Church.

As for Mormons and others who claim a Great Apostasy of the early centuries. Even if that were true, that doesn’t mean that Mormonism (or any other sect) constitutes the re-establishment of the true Church. For we could all still be in apostasy…with no true Church currently existing.

I laid that on some Mormons on another board a long time ago.

It isn’t enough for anti-Catholics to “prove” the Great Apostasy of the first centuries (or that the Catholic Church is wrong.) The anti-Catholic has the additional burden of proving his/her sect true. Mormons, SDA’s, JW’s, various Protestant sects…each one has to prove that they are, in fact, the true re-establishment of Christianity following the Great Apostasy.

Unfortunately, far too many Catholics fall victim without having the proselytizer prove his/her sect is, in fact, true. Instead, the Catholic walks down the road with whomever managed to convince him that the Church is wrong, whether that be a Mormon, SDA, JW or some other Prot.

Next time someone brings up the “Great Apostasy”: Go along for a bit, but claim we’re still in it…there are NO true Churches. See what happens. 😉
 
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