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East_Anglican
Guest
Yes and as the biships in Constantinoiple debated the colour of the Virgin Mary’s eyes as the Islamic armies took over Constantinople, so you will debate the metaphysical make up of the Eucharist as the secularist legions take over Europe and America.
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East_Anglican
Guest
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
P
PJM
Guest
Dear friend in Christ;
If your assessment is true? Many are missing the opportunity of there mortal lifes.
C
CARV
Guest
Really…what do you care? You have your church and the pope has his. If the pope demands that we agree with him in order to recieve communion in his church then so be it. We’ll recieve it in ours. I don’t understand the obsession of church unity. I think the diversity of Christian churches isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I would only want a single monolithic church if Jesus himself was running it.
M
mark_a
Guest
Lord have mercy.
You shouldn’t be partaking of anything you don’t believe in.
And it’s a two way street. I, for one, am perfectly content not receiving something I don’t believe in from an Anglican minister.
No disrespect intended.
B
Bob_Crowley
Guest
I’m well aware of the ecumenical movement. However there is the issue of the Pope’s authority. Christ instituted an OFFICE when he stated Peter was the Rock on which He would found His Church, and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Over the 2 millenia since then, many attempts have been made by Hell to prevail against it, by external force, internal division, internal corruption, and of course outside criticism.
So far Hell has not prevailed, despite all the vicissitudes of history, and never will, or else Christ’s promise is in vain. Included in the methods Hell will use is a continuous attempt to downplay the role and significance of the Petrine office.
As a former Protestant I have no problem with the Catholic policy on the Eucharist. If you’re not going to formally join the Catholic Church, and reunify the divided body of Christ, why should you be able to partake of communion in a Catholic Church?
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gurneyhalleck1
Guest
Why do we care about unity? Because Jesus Christ Himself tells us to all be one and not to fracture and fall apart. The great Apostle Paul warns against schism and disunity. And it’s common sense inherent in Christianity, innate in the baptized soul to seek unity, cohesion, and brotherhood with all Christians. Anything else is diabolical and prideful selfish ego. And if you ask Catholics, they’ll tell you Jesus IS running the Church himself.
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CARV
Guest
But where do you draw the line? As far as I’m concerned we are already unified enough. There is a unity of belief in Jesus as Messiah and Lord. There is unity in mission to the poor. Etc, Etc. I don’t believe that we need, nor did do I believe Jesus commands, a unity of belief about Mary’s virginity or whether or not a purgatory exists. I certainly do not believe we need a unified church government.
And historically, to “unify” with the Vatican really meant to “submit” to the Vatican. And I don’t think anything has changed. So I’m not losing sleep about the Pope denying me communion in his church. He ain’t gonna change his mind about withholding communion from protestants (non-catholic Orthodox Christians may recieve). I have communion in my church. I don’t need his communion if he wants to be that way. I don’t want to judge the Vatican too harshly but from a protestant perspective, it is the Pope who guilty of a “diabolical and prideful selfish ego”, not us.
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gurneyhalleck1
Guest
First of all, it is the Holy Father that is trying to re-Christianize Europe, especially England and Germany, not Protestants. You need to look at how pathetic, weak, secularized, liberal, and impotent the Church of England has been in the last 50 years with evangelization and spreading the Good News. England is an atheist utopia with a ‘God is dead’ mentality. Men like Christopher Hitchens are the gods of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury is a coward. The pope enters England and proclaims Christ is Lord. He proclaims a message of life, anti-abortion, pro-life, anti-homosexual unions, and really laid down the law in England. There are more practicing Catholics any day of the week in Great Britain than Anglicans. Anglicanism is in chaos and the Episcopal Church is rapidly decaying into a totally secularized child of the Enlightenment with no unity, no message, just come as you are, stay as you are. Whether you believe it or not, as a Christian we are all called to submit to our bishops. Read Polycarp and Ignatius of Antioch. They talk right and left about submission to one’s bishop being the same as submission to Christ Himself. Christianity is about humility, piety, and ultimately submission. Pridefulness and selfish ego are hardly hallmarks of John Paul II and Benedict XVI, wouldn’t you say? Do you really believe what you said about them having diabolical egos and pride? For God’s sake, JP2 and B16? Have you listened to these men? Hardly prideful, hardly diabolical. They ask us to make tough choices: life over death, standing firm against the evils of this age, fighting for the culture of life over the culture of death, reflecting holiness in our lives as we are called to sanctification and holiness, be not afraid, fight moral relativism, evangelize the world, devotion to Our Lady, a return to piety in the liturgy that has been lost to some degree, and under JP2 open arms were out-stretched to Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Orthodox, and all humanity. John Paul II was willing to instantly go forgive the assassin who tried to take his life, hardly a diabolical man with an ounce of pride. The man was living evidence of sanctification and the call to holiness, offering up suffering, and walking the walk. Benedict is fighting to end the dictatorship of relativism and me-me-me thinking. I respect and admire that.
You are a rarity in that most Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics with whom I speak in here WANT unity, to come closer to one another, and the goal that “we may all be one” that the Lord calls to us is something I usually hear to be a GOOD thing in here. Your sentiment is that all we need is to believe in Jesus and we can all be separated, chaotic, lacking unity of doctrine, lacking unity of sacraments, lacking unity of purpose, lacking unity of clergy, lacking fellowship and communion, overlapping one another and trying to steal away flocks from each other, etc. That is a rare view, thankfully.
I found your comments about Catholic closed communion to be odd as well. The Eucharist is the ultimate sign of unity of doctrine and theology. It’s not only the Body of Christ, it is the glue that binds the Body of Christ in one mission and mode of theological belief and thought. It would be hypocritical, wrong, and immoral of the pope and the Church to practice communion with a body such as TEC who believe in gay ‘marriage,’ only two sacraments, women “priests,” gay and transgender “priests,” pro-choice agenda, extreme feminism, the 39 Articles, receptionism, Calvinism to some degree, etc.? Wouldn’t it? Would you respect that?
When you say you do not think we need unified Church government, that is in its very essence a desire for chaos and the exact antithesis of what Christ and Paul and the NT calls us to—unity and oneness.
You are a rarity in that most Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics with whom I speak in here WANT unity, to come closer to one another, and the goal that “we may all be one” that the Lord calls to us is something I usually hear to be a GOOD thing in here. Your sentiment is that all we need is to believe in Jesus and we can all be separated, chaotic, lacking unity of doctrine, lacking unity of sacraments, lacking unity of purpose, lacking unity of clergy, lacking fellowship and communion, overlapping one another and trying to steal away flocks from each other, etc. That is a rare view, thankfully.
I found your comments about Catholic closed communion to be odd as well. The Eucharist is the ultimate sign of unity of doctrine and theology. It’s not only the Body of Christ, it is the glue that binds the Body of Christ in one mission and mode of theological belief and thought. It would be hypocritical, wrong, and immoral of the pope and the Church to practice communion with a body such as TEC who believe in gay ‘marriage,’ only two sacraments, women “priests,” gay and transgender “priests,” pro-choice agenda, extreme feminism, the 39 Articles, receptionism, Calvinism to some degree, etc.? Wouldn’t it? Would you respect that?
When you say you do not think we need unified Church government, that is in its very essence a desire for chaos and the exact antithesis of what Christ and Paul and the NT calls us to—unity and oneness.
C
CARV
Guest
I sense a lot of anger from you. I didn’t mean to insult the past two popes but it is hard to view the belief that one is incapable of teaching error as anything but egotistical. I don’t think their diabolical really. I was kinda using your words to make a contrast thats all.
And its not that I don’t want unity. Just not the kinda unity the Pope wants. I’ll take unity where I can get it. But I don’t want to impose my beliefs on Catholics. If we disagree to the point where the don’t want to share communion thats too bad but we can colloborate on other things. I’m not gonna badger or lecture anybody on what they should believe.
I disagree that we live in a state of Christian chaos. Diversity, sure. But there was a lot more choas in the Middle ages, corruption, inquisition, wars, etc when there was one western church. The good ole days of unity really weren’t that good.
L
Louie1983
Guest
The chaos you talk about is not the chaos I think Gurney is talking about.
Diversity is not a good thing when it distorts the truth, you can’t have 30+ thousand denominations that claim to have the truth and have different teachings.
If truth is being mucked around with then it’s not chaos it’s a CRISIS! This is exactly what satan wants.
C
CARV
Guest
I’ll take this chaos over the Inquistion or the Taliban any day of the week.
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Louie1983
Guest
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gurneyhalleck1
Guest
Boy ya lost me with this one…?
C
CARV
Guest
What I meant was religious unity often comes at a price of violent conflict. Even in the good ole days of Christian unity in the west a lot of people were being killed for said unity. The Saudis have religious unity today. Not interested.
As horrble as you descibe Christian chaos, it really isn’t that bad. I’ll take our problems of over problems of the “religiously united”.
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Louie1983
Guest
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CARV
Guest
Contrasted with oppression and bloodshed, you bet. Live and let live.You are why I have a lingering fear of catholicism. Thank God most Catholics don’t think like you.
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gurneyhalleck1
Guest
You sense wrong, with all due respect. I’m not a touch angry at all.
G
gurneyhalleck1
Guest
CARV, this is highly insulting to a poster who is pretty mild-mannered and sincere. He hasn’t insulted you or mocked you in any way and he has the right to his views. “thank God most Catholics don’t think like you?” Come on…“you are why I have a lingering fear of Catholicism?” give me a break…
With all due respect, with your loathing of Catholicism and antagonistic, anti views, why are you here? Apart from coming on to attack Catholics, what are you hoping to accomplish? You sound set in your views, anti-Catholic to a fault, a bitter fallen-away Catholic, what can you achieve here that is edifying for you or anyone here who is Catholic?
With all due respect, with your loathing of Catholicism and antagonistic, anti views, why are you here? Apart from coming on to attack Catholics, what are you hoping to accomplish? You sound set in your views, anti-Catholic to a fault, a bitter fallen-away Catholic, what can you achieve here that is edifying for you or anyone here who is Catholic?
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