It is not necessary to justify your obedience to God. It would be a virtual impossibility for someone to convince me that the Catholic Church is not the True Church. And when I say Catholic I mean Latin, Ruthenian, Melkite, Maronite, Coptic, Ukrainian, etc. All united under the see of Rome.
Not quite. I am concerned with the true nature of the church which consciously caused innocents to suffer. It is not merely that they could suffer but that innocents did suffer. I even pointed out specific cases of this in those posts (#157-163).
As your belief that Rome is the true Church is based upon your own research, primarily, or perhaps your judgment concerning the testimony of people you trust, what you seem to say is that it is virtually impossible for your judgment about Rome to have been wrong.
Wrong. There is 2000 years of history that refutes your opinion.
Agreed-and the premise of his whole argument is false from the beginning-that is that Proetestaants are “Brethern”. The more apt compariaon would be to Phariasees. Protestants have rejected the one true Church, the Church founded by Christ himself. They have embraced a series of false doctrines such as Sola Fidelis and Sola Scriptura that not only can not be backed up by Scripture or the teachings and traditions of the church in the 1500 years prior to Luther making them up ,but also Doctrines, which if true, would mean that just about everyone who lived from 33 AD to the reformation is burning in eternal hell fire.
So if I amended the same statement to say:
I commend you on your depth of research. But before I can comment on the points you pose- I must understand your question. It seems that I, and others are talking past your real question. I think it would prove valuable to our discussion to get to the basics and work from there.
Esr, I think I understand what you mean. Yet, I must trouble you to consider that anything, any subject at all, could be made to fit into that large box of things which we imagine we can never know 100%. I don’t know how you know this before you’ve tried but I can say that I disagree that “faith” is anything like this. Faith is not blind belief in the unknown and we must be extremely cautious as to where we’ve placed our faith. Have you placed your faith in Christ or in your historical research? If it is your historical research, at least to a large degree, then you may still be right…
Sir, I know you mean well, but I must insist that this does not “seem very cruel” to me but has been shown to be evil by the testimony of Christ in the Scriptures. You may object to my interpretation of Him if you like, but I will not pretend with you that this has anything to do with “our standards” of cruelty rather than revealed truth. I am not here to waste everyone’s time by appealing to my personal standards of right and wrong. I’m here to talk about what has been revealed as compared to what has been decreed by Rome.
In the meantime, we must live by what He has revealed is best.
Then I will ask your pardon and say, kindly, that this means you do not have the proper grounds to deny what I have seemingly demonstrated. If you do not have the facts and you are not willing to examine those I have brought forward, you have no good reason to suggest that I must be wrong. All that you can say is that you believe that I am wrong… just as I can only say I believe that I am correct.
Not at all. I apologize. Let’s see… Let me explain why I think that what you just described would, if that is what I was arguing, already have made up my mind that I have no case. If, let us hypothesize, the Roman church merely promoted an Inquisition where innocent people were known casualties, then there would be some fuzziness about whether the Roman church was promoting the Inquitition itself or whether it was also promoting those atrocities. In other words, the resolution to that problem would simply be that the Roman Catholic church desired to use a solid Inquisitorial system of justice but was not prepared for the atrocities that occurred by those who were not faithful to teachings of Rome.
Yes, I could have been much clearer and wish that I had been. The 5000 character limit on these boards was in the back of my mind and I did not craft the initial question precisely enough. As for the title, it is something of a flourish, meant to be pondered like a theme to the discussion. I, of course, approached this discussion under the mistaken notion that all Protestants were “separated brethren,” but this was not essential to the point.
I encourage you to read your own church’s documents, like those of Vatican II, wherein we are called “separated brethren” because we have the same baptism and worship the same LORD:
Now, in spite of this apparent definition of “separated brethren,” which I may not adequately understand, I have chosen to adopt, for the sake of the argument, what I took to be the stronger definition in favor of Rome given by mercygate, that not all those baptized in proper Trinitarian baptism and who worship Christ are among the “separated brethren.” That certainly delimits the evidence that would be considered clear and relevant to this discussion and, as I have not exhaustively poured over the documents of Vatican II and as I want to examine the strongest possible case for Rome, I did not object.
Please, show me where I said that “any Catholic who did evil did it on behalf of the Church.” I fundamentally disagree with this idea, so I don’t know how you’ve read it into my posts as I have attempted over and again, a number of times, to explain upon what grounds I’m arguing. I encourage you to read the last several posts I’ve written to Shiann and the research I provided in posts #157-163.
Apparently, if Protestants (and quite a few other religious adherents) are not real Christians, then you do this sort of thing all the time, yourself. On the other hand, I have not. Why not?
Sad but true. And some will go to any legnths to prove that the Catholic Church is not the true Church founded by Christ. But there is no alternative for them; because if the Catholic Church is Christ’s true Church, then theirs is not–and that is an unacceptable conclusion to the non-Catholic. It doesn’t matter how many papal decrees or Church councils are referenced. The sheep that are in the fold of the Catholic Church are obedient to Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, which tells us that the Catholic Church is Christ’s Church.
I am suggesting that …edited ad hominem You came to a catholic website to deingrate our Faith. you didnt come here for a discussion-you came here to trash. You were treated kindly at first but you nonsense has gotten more and more strident.
First off, the full passage of the Council is:
The fact that Cathars “refuse to swear an oath” certainly wasn’t the only reason they were condemned and excommunicated.
The fact that Cathars “refuse to swear an oath” certainly wasn’t the only reason they were condemned and excommunicated.
His real question is “why do we belong to a false Church?” I know this sounds harsh and I followed this thread for a long time before jumping in but the question about killing the Berthern is right out of the Evanglicals “How do you convert Catholics” handbook.
But those who are only suspected, due consideration being given to the nature of the suspicion and the character of the person, unless they prove their innocence by a proper defense, let them be anathematized and avoided by all until they have made suitable satisfaction; but if they have been under excommunication for one year, then let them be condemned as heretics. Secular authorities. . . shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church. . . . But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the supreme pontiff, that he may declare the ruler’s vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled by Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith. . . . Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.
Gregory IX was very severe towards heretics, who in those times were universally looked upon as traitors and punished accordingly. Upon the request of King Louis IX of France, he sent Cardinal Romanus as legate to assist the king in his crusade against the Albigenses. At the synod which the papal legate convened at Toulouse in November, 1229, it was decreed that all heretics and their abettors should be delivered to the nobles and magistrates for their due punishment, which, in case of obstinacy, was usually death. When in 1224 Frederick II ordered that heretics in Lombardy should be burnt at the stake, Gregory IX, who was then papal legate for Lombardy, approved and published the imperial law. . . . In February, 1231, therefore, the pope enacted a law for Rome that heretics condemned by an ecclesiastical court should be delivered to the secular power to receive their “due punishment”. This “due punishment” was death by fire for the obstinate and imprisonment for life for the penitent. . . . It must not be thought, however, that Gregory IX dealt more severely with heretics than other rulers did. Death by fire was the common punishment for heretics and traitors in those times. . . . The so-called Monastic Inquisition was established by Gregory IX, who in his Bulls of 13, 20, and 22 April, 1233, appointed the Dominicans as the official inquisitors for all dioceses of France (Ripoil and Bremond, “Bullarium Ordinia Fratrum Praedicatorum”, Rome, 1729, I, 47).
Again, you have yet to provide proof that the process for determining heresy was something done just “out of thin air” to anyone the Church didn’t like or had trouble with. In fact, all evidence points to the fact that the Church was making EVERY effort to allow an accused heretic a chance to not only renounce the heresy and embrace the True Church.