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Archbishop Lori issues pastoral letter on political life in honor of 250th anniversary of the U.S.

Archbishop William Lori urged Catholics to approach public life with synodal listening and civic virtue, drawing on Blessed Michael McGivney’s example of serving immigrant

Archbishop Lori issues pastoral letter on political life in honor of 250th anniversary of the U.S.​

Archbishop William Lori urged Catholics to approach public life with synodal listening and civic virtue, drawing on Blessed Michael McGivney’s example of serving immigrant families.


Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore urged Catholics to foster a political culture grounded in Christ by prioritizing human dignity and genuine encounter amid partisan divisions.

“In Charity and Truth: Toward a Renewed Political Culture,” released in anticipation of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, is among the nine pastoral letters and reflections Lori has written as archbishop of Baltimore. The Feb. 9 letter explored how the anniversary can be “a moment of grace” and one of “responsibility.”
The U.S. can both take pride in its achievements and “the vibrancy of our Catholic faith” while also recognizing “the fractures, wounds, and crises that mark both our national life and, sadly, even at times our ecclesial life,” Lori wrote.

“As our nation approaches the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we find ourselves invited into a moment of profound reflection and renewal,” Lori said. “Anniversaries are not merely occasions for nostalgia or celebration. Authentic remembrance always orients us toward renewal; it calls us to consider not only who we have been and who we are becoming — but, by God’s grace, who we are called to be.”

Continued below.

Anti‑Zionism claim by Catholic panelist prompts sharp exchange at Religious Liberty Commission

Catholic teaching does not explicitly oppose Zionism, the movement supporting Jewish self‑determination in a homeland in Israel.


Anti‑Zionism claim by Catholic panelist prompts sharp exchange at Religious Liberty Commission​


Catholic teaching does not explicitly oppose Zionism, the movement supporting Jewish self‑determination in a homeland in Israel.


Former Miss California Carrie Prejean Boller, a member of President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, said she doesn’t embrace Zionism because of her Catholic faith, despite Catholic teaching that does not oppose Israel as a nation or the Jewish people.

“I am a Catholic, and Catholics don’t embrace Zionism,” Boller said at the fifth hearing of the Trump-appointed Religious Liberty Commission focusing on the topic of antisemitism in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 9.

Catholic teaching does not explicitly oppose Zionism, the movement supporting Jewish self‑determination in a homeland in Israel. Israel is seen as God’s chosen people through whom God revealed himself and prepared the way for the coming of Jesus Christ. The Catholic Church universally condemns antisemitism. The Church recognizes Israel’s fundamental right to exist.

Boller issued several social media postsafter the hearing. She wrote:

“Forcing people to affirm Zionism on a ‘Religious Liberty’ Commission is the opposite of religious freedom. I will not resign, and I will not be bullied for following my Catholic conscience.”

Continued below.

Gifts of The Spirit

“Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.” (1 Corinthians 13:8-10 NASB1995)

What do cessationists believe? According to Google’s AI, “Cessationists believe that miraculous sign gifts—specifically prophecy, tongues, and healing—ceased after the Apostolic Age (end of the 1st century) once the New Testament canon was completed. They argue these gifts were intended to validate the apostles' message, not to continue throughout church history. They still believe God performs miracles today but no longer uses individuals with specific ‘gifts’ of healing or miracles.” But is that biblical? No!

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” (John 14:12 NASB1995)

Jesus said, “greater works.” The cessationists say, “lesser works.”

And one of the Scripture passages the cessationists use to support their case is this passage in 1 Corinthians 13. So, let’s break that down to see if their theory “holds water.”

Yes, the passage of Scripture speaks of a time when the gifts of the Spirit will be done away with. But when is this to take place? When the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. And who is “the perfect” who is coming? Jesus Christ. When Jesus returns for his bride, and he takes us to be with him in glory, there will be no more need of the gifts of the Spirit. And then it goes on to describe that time:

“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (v. 12)

When will that take place? When Jesus Christ returns for his faithful ones, and he takes us to be with him for eternity, which is when we will then see him “face to face.” So what this is contrasting here is our time here on this earth compared to what it will be like when we are with our Lord in glory for eternity. Here our understanding and our knowledge of things is incomplete. But when we are out of these earthly tents, and we are in our glorified bodies with Christ for eternity, then we will have complete understanding.

So, the gifts of the Spirit are not to cease while we live here on this earth. And in our present reality we need to be exercising those gifts of the Spirit even more. But they must be exercised with much spiritual maturity and discernment, and done biblically, and of the Holy Spirit, and not of human flesh. For there is much fakery and misuse of the gifts of the Spirit going on within the gatherings of the church (or what is falsely being referred to as the church). So we must test the spirits to see if truly they are of God.

But what happened on the day of Pentecost when the believers in Christ (male and female) were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak in other languages (the languages of the people present)? They were accused of being drunk. So, what was Peter’s response to that accusation?

“For these people are not drunk, as you assume, since it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what has been spoken through the prophet Joel:
‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says,
‘That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
And your young men will see visions,
And your old men will have dreams;
And even on My male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days,
And they will prophesy.” (Acts 2:15-18 NASB; see also Joel 2:28-32)

And where are we now? Certainly we are in the last days, for they were, too. And who are these gifts bestowed upon? Male and female. No differentiation. And, poetically speaking, the way this is written does not mean that only young men will see visions and only old men will have dreams. And looking at the interlinear for Acts 2:17, it appears to me that all are included in those who will prophesy and see visions and dream dreams. But these prophecies, dreams, and visions must not contradict the teachings of the Scriptures. For God will not contradict himself and his word.

And to prophesy is not just in the area of future telling, but the word means to “speak forth” the messages of God, to proclaim the Word of the Lord. Another word for this is to “preach.” But this proclaiming of the Word of the Lord must be under the guidance and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who will lead us in what to say, and in what subjects to discuss, and to make these messages relevant to our world today, practical, and applicable to our daily living. And this must not rewrite nor contradict the Scriptures. And all should be tested against the Scriptures to be sure they are of God.

Body of Christ and Spiritual Gifts

[Acts 2:14-18,42-47; Romans 12:1-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians 14:1-5; Galatians 6:1; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:1-16; Ephesians 5:15-21; Ephesians 6:10-20; Philippians 2:1-8; Colossians 3:12-16; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 10:23-25; James 5:19-20]

The Spirit Calling

An Original Work / November 12, 2019
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love


Hear the Spirit calling.
He’ll keep you from falling.
Tenderly He’s calling,
“Come and follow Him.”

Walk with Jesus daily.
Don’t give in to lazy.
Folks may call you crazy.
Fellowship with Him.

Follow where He leads you.
Eat what Jesus feeds you.
His love will renew you
If you follow Him.

Do what Jesus tells you.
Don’t let your faith fail you.
His love will avail you
If you walk with Him.

Jesus, Lord and Savior,
Reigneth now forever.
He gave us His favor
So we’d live with Him.

Turning now from our sin,
Holy Spirit live-in.
Holiness we walk in,
Purified by Him.

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Gifts of The Spirit
An Original Work / February 10, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

‘Any Christian who votes Democrat again is a fool,’ rapper Nicki Minaj declares

You do not have the moral or legal right to trespass in my church, which is private property, or impede entry to it, because you think a member of my clergy might be an officer of a law enforcement organization conducting law enforcement operations (that were conducted, I would note, even in the Obama administration as a matter of course) you find morally objectionable.

The reverse is also true; I do not have the right to trespass in your church because your church might have a member of clergy who promotes the continued legalization of abortion and euthanasia, or who is, for example, a prosecutor who is conducting prosecutions of Christians who obstructed an abortion clinic entrance (which interestingly is forbidden by the same bipartisan law that also forbids obstructing churches, which was essentially a bit of that parliamentary jiu-jitsu that in the US we commonly refer to as “log rolling” or as “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch my back” to use a particularly colorful metaphor from the 1990s.

The absurdity of all of this is that the protestors in question would have been entirely within their constitutional rights to protest on public land across from the street in a manner that was not disorderly. But the right to freedom of speech does not extend to preventing the speech of someone else, by entering into, for example, their workplace or their place of worship, and disrupting whatever they are seeking to do, because you suspect them of being a member of a law enforcement agency you have moral qualms with.

The fact that this issue is even controversial I find appalling; as if trespass and disorderly conduct is now regarded as acceptable behavior in the consecrated precincts of a church, even one which I personally would not patronize, for said church is not Orthodox. But the principle holds.

Suppose, for example, because some churches in my denomination, the Orthodox Church in America, serve predominantly Russian communities and are called Russian Orthodox, despite the fact we were granted autocephalous status by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970 and thus have no connection with the MP or with anyone involved in the ongoing tragic fratricide of Russians and Ukrainians, that some Ukrainians were to protest in our church under the assumption that because it says Russian Orthodox therefore that means the priest is part of the Moscow Patriarchate and therefore presumptively a supporter of controversial Russian foreign policy?

Is that to be the next dish on this buffet of bizarre and grotesquely disproportionate behavior that I am supposed to smile and quietly endorse as the apex of free speech in Western civilization?

Or for that matter, suppose feminists were to descend upon my OCA parish because it is widely said and believed by many in the liberal mainline churches that the majority of converts to the Orthodox Church are men who are misogynistic and opposed to the rights and freedoms of women? (the large number of single women converts and the importance of women in the Orthodox church notwithstanding, even, I would note, within the Old Calendarist churches which are more likely than canonical Orthodox churches to attract the vocal minority known as “Orthobros” or in the previous decade, as “Hyperdox Herman”, notwithstanding? Since it would seem according to that group that Orthodox churches are arguably harboring men engaging in harm to the wider community through various acts of callous and disagreeable behavior with respect to the fairer sex?

I should think not.

No, your first ammendment rights do not entail infringing on mine, no matter how noble or ignoble the cause, nor vice versa. Churches, synagogues and mosques and other religious buildings are sacred places, lawfully protected, but any private place can prosecute people who refuse to leave after being asked (this is called having someone trespassed and is a daily occurrence, frequently happening on airliners, for example, when flight attendants realize a passenger is intoxicated and inform the captain, who concurs with his cabin crew that the aircraft cannot safely push back with that person on-board, which requires calling the police to remove them.

The principle of unauthorized protestors in worship services at its core boils down to that basic principle combined with a bit of the Golden Rule and also the concept of respect for the rights of others. There’s also the idea of due process - accosting someone because you think they are affiliated with a law enforcement agency you have issues with is in and of itself morally dubious activity. It could very easily constitute slander, if one were mistaken about the question of identity, which we must admit is always a risk when doing that sort of thing, and which I would note was regarded by the early church fathers as being a sin akin to murder, a sin of particular heinousness. Indeed slander is one of the very few things I know of that most Orthodox clergy will penance someone for.

This is a confusion of categories. You're speaking of property rights, religious freedom, the categories of the Enlightenment, I'm speaking of whether people that claim to be following Jesus should be allowing somebody participating in harm to the community to shepherd them, giving them a place of honor and prestige.
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Dennis Quaid and Milo Ventimiglia say 'I Can Only Imagine 2' shows faith in middle of suffering

Nine years after the original film turned a chart-topping worship song into a box-office phenomenon, “I Can Only Imagine 2” returns with a more complicated question: What happens after redemption?

The first movie, which grossed over $83 million domestically, traced MercyMe frontman Bart Millard’s reconciliation with his abusive father and the birth of a song that would change his life. The sequel, hitting theaters Feb. 20, begins in the middle of adulthood, when forgiveness has already been offered, success has already arrived, yet old wounds still find a way to speak.

Andy Erwin, who directed the film with Brent McCorkle, told The Christian Post that “I Can Only Imagine 2” is about inheritance: what is carried on from one’s parents, passed to their children, and how faith collides with the messiness in between. It’s also a story about unfinished healing, he stressed.

Continued below.

It is near

I generally tend to go with universal reconciliation
I believe every name is written in the Lambs book of life. But Jesus says there are people who's name is blotted out. So in the very least they are not in a covenant with God.

What a covenant gives​

  • Belonging — “You will be My people, and I will be your God.”
  • Identity — a name, a place, a role.
  • Protection — God takes responsibility for those in His covenant.
  • Inheritance — life, blessing, future.
  • Presence — God dwells with His covenant people.
To be in covenant is to be inside that relationship.

What it means not to have a covenant​

  • No shared identity — you are not counted among God’s people.
  • No claim on the promises — the blessings of the covenant are not yours.
  • No protection of belonging — you stand outside the relationship God offers.
  • No inheritance — you are not written among those who receive life.
  • No mutual commitment — God offers Himself, but the person has not responded.
It does not mean God hates the person. It means the person is outside the relationship God desires.
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Can I ask about "Aliens"?

The physical universe is matter and energy. And they can be interchangeable. But that doesn't mean that matter and energy is all there is.
Interesting that you brought that up. I was thinking about the connection we feel with the people who have died and gone to be with the lord. People say you should not talk to dead people but that is not what we are doing.

What continues after the physical world drops away​

  • Memory — not just images, but the emotional shape they left in you
  • Attachment — the patterns of love, trust, conflict, and meaning formed over years
  • Identity — your sense of who you are in relation to them
  • Expectation — the inner “place” they occupied in your life
  • Conscious awareness — which is not a physical sense and doesn’t depend on matter or energy

Even animals, we hope to go to heaven to be with them someday because they were so much a part of our life here.
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Conviction vs compulsion?

I admire your zeal for Christianity despite all odds being stacked against you! Your perspective is refreshing.
It is all God's doing. I praise Him! He has touched your life, too. You are blessed.

I will be praying for you, sister. Keep fighting the good fight!
Thanks be to God and you!
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Call upon the Name of the Lord and you shall be Saved.

It is not anything of the kind. Just Gods call to John for him to receive Revelation.
You constantly show your bias and wrong beliefs. We all must endure trials and testing, the Lord will try and Judge everyone.
Keras, you're apparently forgetting what John said about how he received Revelation.

Rev 22:8 (ESV): I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me,

He said twice that he "heard and saw" these things. He was on Patmos the whole time and heard and saw by way of a supernatural education. He heard and saw specifically through a vision that included audio of each chapter in Rev.

John never left Patmos because he didn't have to, to absorb and write Rev.

Rev 4:1 is unfulfilled and it will serve as the pre-Trib rapture of the Church.
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Why do we do things not written in the Bible?

When Emperor Constantine became a Christian, Christianity became the state religion you remember. As thousands of sun-worshipers flocked into the church, it wasn't long before they had a dominating influence. Most of his top officials had been sun-worshipers. Because the Roman government was getting shaky, Constantine consulted with his aides and with the church officials in Rome.

"What shall we do? How can we unite and stabilize the government?"

The counsel of the church leaders was timely.

"Pass a Sunday law. Force everyone to cease work and honor Sunday."

That was it! It would satisfy the sun-worshiping pagans, and unite pagans, Christians, and the Roman empire as never before.

The year is 321 A.D. Constantine, yielding to the suggestion of church leaders passes the first Sunday law! Here it is, straight out of the record:

"Let all the judges and town people, and the occupation of all trades rest on the venerable day of the sun" Edict of March 7, 321 A.D. Corpus Juris Civilis Cod., lib. 3, tit. 12, Lex. 3.
You continue your usual trick of dodging my points (as well as the points of others). You don't offer any actual evidence outside of the mention of where one can see the law in question, but its existence wasn't in dispute.

Beyond that, your post is just a bunch of stuff you spout off with no evidence. Christianity was never the state religion under Constantine (all he did was give it legal protections), even if this inaccurate fact is commonly made. And then the rest of it is a bunch of speculation with no evidence given. And indeed, you have on multiple occasions posted the above text before, which people have pointed out errors with, so it's not very good that you post it all again even when you should know better.

But others have already pointed out the errors here. But there's another problem people haven't mentioned yet, which is this is another case of you copying someone else's (inaccurate) claims word-for-word without admitting it. For, as a search found, this entire post of yours is copied from someone else. More specifically, it's from chapter 4 of A. Jan Marcussen's book "National Sunday Law". This book tried to claim that there would soon be the titular "national Sunday law" which would require people to not work on Sunday and those who defied it would be persecuted and eventually killed. The book is filled with inaccuracies, such as the ones already discussed. As for its "national Sunday law" claim, that has no shortage of implausibilities. Marcussen in 1989 was apparently convinced it was absolutely imminent, at least according to this writer recounting an interaction with him ("I remember well the Sabbath in 1989 when SDA Pastor Jan Marcussen, author of National Sunday Law, came to our church and spoke with great solemnity: "Time is so short that a small child could count the number of months.""), though his apparent failure on that front hasn't stopped him from continuing to promote the idea. Now, you haven't been promoting the overall "national Sunday law" claim of the book that I have seen, just copying some things from it, but given the apparent issues with both him and his work, perhaps he is not the greatest source to appeal to?

It should be noted the above is not the only thing you have copyed straight from that work in your posts in this topic and elsewhere in this forum (and on other forums other than Christian Forums, for that matter) without any attribution as well, and those tend to not be any more accurate than the above and to make similar errors. Marcussen does not appear to be a reliable source, as shown by his repeated errors that you have reproduced and which have been responded to.

It's not very good to copy inaccurate claims (especially when people have already corrected you on them), and it's not very good to copy someone else's claims without mentioning you're copying (especially after people pointed it out previously and you said you would stop). Yet you've done both of these repeatedly.
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What's on your mind? Friendship Court edition.

I'm thinking what did people learn from various CF sub forums during the last 7 days?

If the answer is “nothing,” then you might as well have been just watching TV.

CF should be the place where your brain gets something back for the time you invest---at least something tiny.
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Every church in America needs armed security

No. This is not the way. This is not the gospel. This is not how we are to treat our neighbors.
This question has long been a serious dividing point among Christians. It's why some Quaker congregations disagreed with taking up arms in the American Revolution, despite raids on Patriot settlers, and why some left the Quakers. I will only note that those who invaded that church likely picked a soft target. There are other churches where the sisters swing a mean purse, and no, I'm not joking.
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Asking AI to explain Sunday observance when NT has no such command

As even AI admitted much of what we know about them only comes from their enemies since their enemies brutally attempted to exterminate them.

That’s not evidence, that’s an attempted summarization of the output of an AI prompt which I have not been able to reproduce but which looks like GPT 5.2, but not an accurate representation; indeed your argument, contra the statement made by the AI, amounts to a logical fallacy, in that it constitutes an argument from silence and a red herring (in that what rationale would exist to make up a fake heresy in order to conceal a real belief system?* We can say, insofar as it misrepresents the AI’s argument, that it is also a strawman, albeit a strawman of your own ally, and insofar as the question of whether or not there was an effort to destroy the Albigensians (which there obviously was) has no bearing on whether or not they were Sabbatarians, a red herring (that is to say, a logical fallacy which is of assumed relevance but is in fact irrelevant).


You said:​

is there any historical evidence generally accepted by scholars and academics to suggest the Albigensians were Sabbatarians in the sense implied by Sabbatarian denominations such as the Adventists?

ChatGPT said:​


Thought for 34s

In the mainstream medievalist literature, the answer is basically “no”: there isn’t generally accepted historical evidence that the Albigensians (usually identified with Cathars in Languedoc) were Sabbatarians in the Adventist sense (Saturday as the binding, perpetual biblical Sabbath, often framed with creation-week/Decalogue continuity and sometimes eschatological identity-markers).
Here’s why scholars are so hesitant to connect those dots.
Most of what we can reconstruct about “Albigensian/Cathar” belief points in the opposite direction of Sabbath-keeping. Cathar theology is usually described as dualist: the material world is the product of an evil or inferior power, while the good God is associated with the spiritual realm. Standard summaries emphasize that many Cathars sharply downgraded or rejected the Old Testament, often identifying its God with the evil creator.
If your religious imagination treats the Mosaic order as coming from the bad principle, “keeping the seventh-day Sabbath” as a positive divine command becomes, at best, an awkward fit and at worst a category error.
What our best evidence tends to record is ascetic discipline (especially among the perfecti), the consolamentum, dietary restrictions, rejection of Catholic sacraments, and a very different moral and ritual world than either medieval Catholicism or later Protestant Sabbatarianism. General overviews also stress that much of what we “know” comes through inquisitorial and polemical lenses, so historians are careful about reading later confessional desires back into those records.
So where does the “Sabbath” idea come from at all? Mostly from later claims that certain medieval dissenter groups were called things like insabbatati/sabbatati and therefore must have “kept the Sabbath.” But in the scholarship this is usually treated as (a) a label applied especially to Waldensians in some traditions, and/or (b) an ambiguous nickname that could just as easily mean “they reject the Church’s festival ‘sabbaths’/holy days” rather than “they rest on Saturday like Jews.” In other words: interesting philology, not a solid behavioral proof of Saturday observance, and still less of Adventist-style Sabbath theology.
If you’re asking the very specific question “Do we have solid primary evidence that Cathars in Languedoc taught Saturday-Sabbath obligation the way modern Sabbatarian denominations do?”, the mainstream answer remains: we don’t. The best-attested contours of Cathar belief (especially their stance toward the Old Testament and the creator) make the claim unlikely, and the “Sabbath-keeper” arguments usually rest on later polemics, contested labels, or confusions between different dissident movements rather than on a clear, agreed-upon body of primary testimony.
If you tell me what kind of “evidence” you’ve seen cited (a particular inquisitor, chronicle, or quote), I can chase that specific reference down and tell you how historians evaluate it.

IMG_0456.jpeg
IMG_0459.jpeg





The screenshots provided above indicate this was a fresh session, in chatGPT 5.2 auto, which caused it to enter Thinking (reasoning mode) automatically, resulting a more robust analysis, and a thought stream we can analyze here, which proves I did not fiddle with this prompt to get the answers I wanted:

Researching Cathar sabbath practices and sources
I need to find scholarly insights about whether the Cathars, being dualists, observed the sabbath or practiced Saturday worship. Their rejection of the Old Testament suggests not, though some claims exist. I’ll check for sources like inquisitorial records and Adventist writers to clarify this and offer evidence.

Searching scholarly views on Cathars and Sabbath observance
Looking for scholarly sources on Cathar sabbath practices

I need solid academic sources, not Wikipedia or polemical accounts. I'll search for works by scholars like Malcolm Lambert, Mark Pegg, Bernard Hamilton, Wakefield & Evans, and relevant inquisitorial records like those of Fournier. I'll refine the search specifically to uncover mentions of sabbath practices.

Searching for scholarly sources on Cathar Sabbath topics


Searching for sources on Cathar views on Sabbath and Old Testament
I need sources specifically discussing whether the Cathars criticized Catholics for observing Sunday or followed the Sabbath. The inquisitor manuals might help, and Bernard Gui's work could have relevant details. Since the Cathars rejected the Old Testament, it's likely they did not observe the Sabbath, but I'll check authoritative sources like the Oxford Reference or Britannica for confirmation.

Searching academic sources on Cathar views of Sabbath

Clarifying Cathar views on the Sabbath and Old Testament

There’s no strong evidence that the Cathars observed the Sabbath or followed Judaic practices. They rejected the Old Testament, seeing the God portrayed in it as evil. Despite some polemical accusations of "Judaizing", these claims mostly refer to Waldensians. Scholars argue that terminology like "insabbatati" is misunderstood. I'll reference Britannica and Peeg's academic papers for evidence.

Thought for 34s
Done

Also it did provide a diverse panoply of interesting links and references, of which a further filter to exclude denomination-specific links from Catholic and Adventist websites as well as Wikipedia, Blog posts and other dubious material produced the following, which I daresay is worthy of further investigation by those interested in Albigensian studies.

Scholarly Sources on Cathars, Albigensians, and Medieval Inquisition

A Survey of Recent Research on the Albigensian Cathari (JSTOR)
On Cathars, Albigenses, and the Good Men of Languedoc (ScienceDirect)
Inquisition in the Fourteenth Century: Manuals of Bernard Gui and Eymerich (Oxford University Press)
The Paradigm of Catharism; or, the Historians’ Illusion (Cambridge University Press)
‘The Root of Bitterness’: Crusade and the Eradication of Heresy (Springer)
The Cathars – Malcolm Lambert (Wiley-Blackwell)
On Cathars, Albigenses, and Good Men of Languedoc (Academia.edu)
Mark Gregory Pegg, Innocent III, and the Obsolete Paradigm of Catharism (Academia.edu)
Hamlet the Heretic: The Prince’s Albigensian Rhetoric (MDPI Religions)
The Epistemic Mystery of the Cathars (Retrospect Journal)

Primary Sources and Critical Editions

Bernard Gui, Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis (Archive.org)


Also the book referred to the Oxford Handbook of Sacramental Theology, which, shockingly, is not in my theological library (despite my fondness for Oxford Handbooks…I have them on everything ranging from the Philosophy of Law to Methodism. So I shall definitely be adding that to my library.

*Considering that there are numerous people on the fringes of Christianity who, then, as now, would react to such a thing and embrace whatever they thought was being taught contra the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and the other Orthodox Nicene churches such as the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox (which we see evidence of in the large amounts of syncretism between geographically distant sects with different founders; like the 19th century Restorationists, they proceeded on the ad hominem idea that whatever Rome taught was, depending on the intensity of the Restorationists in question, either likely an error (EGW, the Stone/Campbell Movement, the Landmark Baptists) or definitely an error (earlier non-Trinitarian Millerites, J/Ws and others who embraced a sort of knee-jerk anti-Catholicism.[/URL]
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