Recent content by jamiec

"Within Catholicism and similar organizations Mary appears to be an integral part of their liturgy while seemingly to be raising her to a level of a fourth member of the Christian hierarchy." That is false. False and nonsensical, as a description of Catholicism, and equally false and...

No. Absolutely not. Apologetics is a species of Theology. And Theology is, among other things, an exercise of the virtue of faith. And only human persons, living in this world, on the way to their heavenly home, are capable of exercising the virtue - which is a God-given habit of the soul - of...

Respectability is of no importance. Whether matters, is whether it is good, or not. And it is not. The Apostles paid no attention to respectability. Lots of nonsense is respectable - that does not make it any less nonsensical. A lie accepted as true by the whole universe, would still be a lie...

The story looks very much like the application, to that Saint, of a motif applied to many Saints, in which the Saint either killed a dragon or other great worm, or tamed either it, or some other beast. Saints took on folkoric or legendary traits: monster-slayers, monster-subduers, friends of...

Which is lovely for (parts of) the USA. But it tells one nothing about how the Church is doing in any of the 190+ other countries in the world. The non-stop focus on the USA alone in online fora - even in Catholic ones, which one would expect to be to be free of USA-centredness, because...

I am far more interested in knowing how many people have have left the Church, rather than moved from one diocese to another. The Church seems to reckon all on its books as Catholics, regardless of whether they have changed religion, or lapsed, or absented themselves in some other way. How many...

That is not an abuse of Fiducia Supplicans - that is an example of how it is meant to be used. Which reflects extremely badly on Bergoglio and the other enablers of this garbage. Bergoglio is a disgrace to the Papacy. At least other morally worthless occupants of the See of Peter did not allow...

Cardinal Sarah says some stupid things at times. Such as his asinine remark about communion in the hand. It's a long time since I thought the gentlemen in the Vatican deserved any special confidence because of their positions. The Vatican seems to be as full of crooks, morons, perverts & cowards...

Vomiting verses of the Bible is neither an argument for, nor a proof of, anything. It is meaningless when Fundies do it, and equally meaningless when anyone else does it.

Most definitely. Why not ? It is lunacy, and worse, to condemn people for the "sin" of never having been able to hear Christ preached. The overwhelming majority of all mankind, for the last 200,000 years at least, would be done for. Is that the act of a Good, Wise, Merciful, & Righteous God ...

Anyone who claims to know how many are finally saved, or not, is a fantasist or a liar.

I've heard of that sermon. That kind of sermon is atrocious trash. That the preacher is a canonised Saint, does not make that sermon any less trashy or spiritually dangerous. It leaves no room for confidence in God's mercy, and is a temptation to despair, so as to cause the very evil it is...

Changing "Manasseh" to "Moses" in Judges 18.30 is an emendation - and the sense seems to require it. It seems to be an emendation of a text that was at some time "corrected" from reading "Moses". Biblehub lists several dozen English translations, which between them supply both readings of the...

Jesus was “born of a woman” - so if one were literalistic, as so many people seem to be when it comes to interpreting the Bible, one would have to conclude that Jesus is less than John. If one takes the text exactly as it stands, and leaves the requirements of Christian belief entirely on one...

The Two Towers. I am about to embark on chapter 6. I also look forward to continuing The Wheel of Time, vol.1 The Eye of the World, from (I think) page 374.