With all due respect, if you truly understood the Catholic Church and Her doctrines, you would not be a ‘former’.
QUOTE=JustaServant;7112617]With all due respect, if you truly understood the Catholic Church and Her doctrines, you would not be a ‘former’.
I do “truly” understand her teachings and believe they are misguided.
And I have researched the history, thoroughly - Mostly but not limited to Catholic sources, which of course present history from a Catholic perspective. I actually read entire translations of original documents as opposed to excerpts provided by Catholics.
Wow! What a difference it make to read a complete quote rather than a little snippet here and there.
For intance, I was told Martin Luther removed books from the Bible. When I researched this subject I discovered Luther presented the exact same Bible as Jerome had translated - the Latin Vulgate.
The following is just to show you I am not “lazy” as some have claimed, but do my homework to learn the facts:
Jerome appended the deuteros and wrote this comment within the pages of the Latin Vugate:
“As the Church reads the books of Judith and Tobit and Maccabees but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so also it reads Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus for the edification of the people, not for the authoritative confirmation of doctrine.” Jerome(340-420) - Jerome’s preface to the books of Solomon."
The RC does not allow translators, publishers nor even scholars to write commentaries within the pages of the Bible that disagree with Catholic teaching. Yet, Jerome was allowed to write comments, not just on history or interpretation of the seven books, but outright deny their inspiration and append them apart from the universally accepted Scriptures.
Luther’s translation was identical to Jerome’s. He even appended the exact same books, the deuteros (apocrypha to Protestants) writing a similar comment to Jerome’s concerning them not be inspired texts.
The Latin Vulgate was considered (I am told by Catholics,) the authentic Bible of the Catholic Church for 1600 years and was canonized following the reformation
drbo.org/intro.htm “Pope Damasus assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Roman Council in 382 A.D. He commissioned St. Jerome to translate the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, which became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official version, in 1546.”
However, the version used by Catholic since 1546 is not the same as the one originally written by Jerome.
Question 4 of the Captia dubitationum concerns the canon of Scripture.
According to Catholic scholar Gary G. Michuta, Trent adopted a different from that contained in Jerome’s original Vulgate. Michuta was disputing the Protestant claim that Trent adopted a different version then Hippo and Carthage concerning Esdras, but in claiming Trent and Hippo were identical admits Trent and the Vulgate were very different.
“On March 29, 1546 the Council Fathers took up the fourth of fourteen questions (Capita Dubitationum) on Scripture and Tradition. At issue was whether those books that were not included in the official list, but were included in the Latin Vulgate (e.g. The Book of Esdras, Fourth Ezra, and Third Maccabees), should be rejected by a Conciliar decree, or be passed over in silence. Only three Fathers voted for an explicit rejection. Forty-two voted that the status of these books should be passed over in silence.”
There’s a whole lot more to it than what is above, but I think this demonstrates I make exceptional efforts toward discovering the actual facts and truth concerning my faith.
I have done the same concerning the Marian doctrines. **Most of which I neither deny nor accept. I simply am not bound to promote something that cannot be proven one way or the other. If there is no harm in believing something that does not distort proven truth - the Holy Scriptures - I think it is fine to believe it until it is proven false. However, I think it is wrong to promote something as fact when it is nothing more than specultation. **
Examples:
I have no problem with Catholics believing Mary had no children and Jesus. It doesn’t change a thing about the nature of Christ nor his mission on Earth.
I have no problem with Catholics believing Mary never committed a sin during her lifetime.
The Bible clearly states “even those who have not committed a personal sin are still in need of a savior”
What I object to is being told I will burn in hell if I don’t believe things that are contrary to Scripture. I object to being told I will burn in hell for leaving the Catholic Church…
Which, by the way, I didn’t leave because I was mad at someone or something, not was I seduced away by some Protestant doctrine. I left as a young child and did not go to any Protestant church. I continued my catechism instruction and I was in my twenties before I stopped attending Mass, but still did not associate with Protestants and read only my Catholic Bible until I 37. That was the first time I ever saw a Protestant Bible. It was also the first time I ever heard the name Martin Luther.
Ginger
) your love and appreciation of Mary did not start there. Did I read you wrong or did you not grow up in a Catholic famliy? Were you not exposed to images, statues, rosaries, May Crownings from an early age? If not, please don’t take things personally.
I don’t disagree with your positions, but I think, particularly in the case of the native-protestant, you really don’t understand that person’s situation and what is likely to get them to see the truth about Mary, assuming that is your goal in debating these points.
