The Biblical Basis of 10 Catholic Distinctives

The Liturgist · Sep 18, 2023

Berserk said:
True, there are exceptions to my generalizations. But I have served as a UMC pastor for several years and have served Bible studies and prayer groups. My remarks are based on those experiences. Though Pentecostal in spirituality, I have served as a Theology professor at a Franciscan university for several years. So I have been exposed to Catholic spirituality at its best.

If Christians obey the NT command to air their dirty linen to each other, then confidentiality of the listener is essential.
The Catholic requirement of confession to a priest is therefore a good safeguard against gossip, but I agree, not a divine requirement.

I like the Anglican approach of combining optional auricular confession with a public confession, but I also like the approach of Eastern Orthodox Christians from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Georgia, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria of mandatory auricular confession at least once a month, and preferably weekly, particularly since their priests seldom impose penances. In contrast the Greek Orthodox, Antiochian Orthodox, Cypriot Orthodox, Finnish Orthodox, Albanian Orthodox (I think) and also the North Macedonian Orthodox and Carpatho-Rusyn and the Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church practice confession at your discretion or annual confession. In some of these churches however, I have noticed laity are more likely to sit out the Eucharist.

St. John of Kronstadt had too many visitors to his parishes to hear their confessions in the normal way, so he implemented an unusual solution, which was to have everyone scream their transgressions as loudly as possible, so that no one could hear what anyone else had done over the din, and then he absolved all of them (individually i expect, by having them form a queue to venerate the Holy Cross and receive the prayer of absolution). However this is not done at present.

A ROCOR priest who didn’t speak English had myself and other parishioners who did not speak Russian just read a list of sins that covered everything. I like that, because if we look into Patristic hamartiology, a lot of us are guilty of sins we don’t realize we are guilty of. For example, many Early Church Fathers considered slander to be a form of murder. It is also possible to commit sexual immorality with one’s lawfully wedded spouse, by lusting after strange flesh. Thus the ancient Orthodox canon by which a confessor can deny the chalice to sodomites for up to twice the length of time as the adulterers can also be applied to married heterosexual couples.

Berserk · Sunday at 11:16 PM

(8) THE BIBLICAL BASIS OF PURGATORY

The word "Purgatory" (Latin: "purgatorium") initially appears around 1160 AD), but this concept of postmortem purification has roots in ancient Judaism and the NT. The following 4 texts form a major part of the background for the doctrine of Purgatory:

(1) Catholics refer to 2 Maccabees in their OT for the initial principle that justifies the concept of Purgatory. It was discovered that Jewish freedom fighters had committed idolatry and it was thought that their deaths in battle were a punishment for this sin. The righteous Jewish soldiers believed in praying for the dead. So they sent a sin offering to the Jerusalem Temple and prayed for these dead soldiers "that the sin that had been committed would be wholly blotted out. 12:42, 44)." In this way, they attest the belief that prayer and godly ritual can change the status of dead sinners in the eyes of God.
Now modern Christians don't embrace the Apocrypha as Scripture. But Paul applies this Maccabean principle to the Corinthian practice of proxy baptism for the unrighteous dead. Paul believes that soul retrievals from an interim state (akin to Purgatory) through proxy baptism can be part of the process by which God will ultimately "be all in all:"

"...so that God may be all in all. Otherwise, what will they do who receive baptism in behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised all all, why are they baptized on their behalf (1 Cor 15:28-29)?"

(2) Paul accepts the traditional Jewish view that locates Paradise in the 3rd Heaven (2 Cor 12:2-3). This view raises the question of the nature of the first 2 Heavens. Paradise is the desirable place for the deceased righteous to reside (see e. g. Luke 23:42-43). But in the relevant intertestamental Jewish texts that are the background of this model of the Heavens, the 2nd Heaven is described as a place of suffering akin to Purgatory.

(3) Perhaps the best biblical precedent for the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory emerges from Paul's discussion of the fate of weak Christians who build their lives improperly on the foundation that is Christ. Paul warns that their works will not withstand close divine scrutiny: "If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Cor 3:15)." In early rabbinic literature, the expression "saved so as by fire" is applied to Jews of mediocre spirituality who must spend a year in Gehenna before being promoted to Paradise. Gehenna here seems to be a model for Purgatory.

(4) In a parable Jesus uses the image of a debtor's prison as an allusion to Gehenna: "In anger his Lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay all his debt (Matthew 18:34)." The implication is that the debt can theoretically be paid to secure release.

The Liturgist · Sunday at 11:33 PM

OldAbramBrown said:
Relics have had no basis in spirituality for a very long time now.

That might be true in those iconoclastic churches which destroyed all their relics, but for those of us who still have them, they are a very important part of our spirituality. Many, such as the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra, which were expropriated by the Latins and relocated to Bari, along with several other relics such as those of St. Mark which had been in the possession of the Orthodox, but which are now being returned (the Three Holy Hierarchs, for example, are once more in Constantinople), continue to stream myrhh, which the Orthodox have authenticated is the same myrhh that was streamed by these relics before the Roman Catholics of Bari removed them from the Orthodox church in Myra.

I myself venerate relics and receive myrhh streamed from them and from the Holy Icons known to gush myrhh (mostly icons of Our Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever Virgin Mary) on every possible occasion.

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The Biblical Basis of 10 Catholic Distinctives

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