Hypocritical to accept the Bible but not the Catholic Church?

[Bill McEnaney]

Albion, I respect other people, and I agree often with them, but I don't respect any falsehood that anyone believes, including the ones I believe mistakenly.

We agree that Christ didn't found any particular denomination, but I deny that the Catholic Church is a denomination. For me, each flavor of Protestantism is a manmade religion almost guaranteed to teach one or more falsehoods, partly because Protestants reject the seven Old Testament books that Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox consider canonical.

Why do I think those books matter? In Holy Scripture, God revealed a divinely inspired, error-free collection of mutually consistent, coherent, logically interrelated truths that interrelate strongly enough that anytime I reject even one of them, I implicitly reject every truth that implies it. Any proposition is already false when it implies a falsehood. If I reject any truth in the collection, the rest of the collection probably will be logically inconsistent. Strange as it may sound, one inconsistency in any set of propositions makes the whole set inconsistent, because two or more propositions are mutually consistent if and only if they can be true together.

Think about Matthew 16:18-19, where Christ gives St. Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven. From Isaiah 22, you know that in the Bible, keys stand for authority. Our Blessed Lord tells St. Peter that anything he binds on earth will be bound in heaven and anything He losses on earth will get loosed in heaven. Since "to bind" and "to loose" mean "to forbid" and "to allow," our Savior is assuring Peter that God will ratify anything he, the Apostle, forbids or allows. God is all-good, all-poweful, all-knowing, and so forth. So He wouldn't and couldn't ratify any falsehood. That's partly why Catholics believe that in some conditions, the pope can and does teach infallibly. After all, the other popes get papal authority because they succeed Peter. Why would Jesus give Peter that ability and deny it to his successors when it's meant to protect the faithful from falsehoods? Did people Our Lord'd day enjoy protection that no one gets now?

Although only St. Peter got the keys from Christ, in the upper room, He enabled the other Apostles to bind and loose when He breathed on them to give them the Holy Ghost. Their authority depends on St. Peter's authority because the ability to bind and to loose comes from the power of the keys. If I'm right and I reject papal infallibility, I'm implying that I deny what Christ told Peter about keys, binding, and loosing.

The Catholic Church is the only one I know of that says it and the pope can teach infallibly. The Eastern Orthodox think they accept the Council of Ephesus that met in 431, because the accept the first seven ecumenical councils,of which it's one. Well, they think they do. But as my Greek Orthodox acquaintance Monk Paul told me years ago, his Church believes those councils taught truly but non-infallibly Maybe his seminary professors forgot to mention that the Ephesene Fathers believed their council taught infallibly and that Pope Celestine taught with St. Peter's authority, the same authority with which Celestine ratified what the council taught.

Correct me if I'm wrong, my friend, because I believe that council met before the schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox ones. How can the EO Churches accept the whole Council of Ephesus while they reject what it said about its infallibility? I contradict myself when I say that, although I accept everything that council taught, I don't accept what it taught about infallibility.

Fans of sola scriptura insist that Sacred Scripture is infallible. Catholics do, too. The trouble is that its infallibility doesn't guarantee that the sola scriptura people will interpret it accurately. From my admittedly biased perspective, their disagreements seem to undermine the Bible's credibility when unbelievers discover that disagreement about what Scripture passage mean has helped create thousands of denominations. Since I don't know what it is you believe, I don't know whether you believe any heresies. But I'll bet you'd find lots of them lots of them if you studied many of the mutually inconsistent, fallible interpretations of God's infallible book.

I'm a Catholic partly because I don't trust my judgment enough to believe in sola scriptura in any sense of that phrase.

 

[Albion]

Albion, I respect other people, and I agree often with them, but I don't respect any falsehood that anyone believes, including the ones I believe mistakenly.

What I was speaking of was BEHAVING respectfully towards other people. Simple courtesy or civility, not to mention Christian charity, suggests that we do not purposely insult other people in this way. That has nothing to do with what one believes in his own heart and mind, and it doesn't in any way mean that the speaker is accepting of anyone else's ideas.

We I agree that Christ didn't found any particular denomination, but I deny that the Catholic Church is a denomination.

Yes, but the denial is just more denominational "one-upmanship." Your church and my church are denominations by the dictionary definition, so there's nothing partial or partisan about it.

For me, each flavor of Protestantism is a manmade religion almost guaranteed to teach one or more falsehoods

OK, that's as far I'm interested in reading, since this has all been said before and shows that there's no willingness to even consider what I wrote.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Albion, I'm not suppressing anyone's best judgment. But I have been telling everyone here exactly what I believe, because I reject the ambiguous, misleading, talk you hear from Catholic ecumenists, the ones who'll say, "Let's talk about what we agree on and ignore all the disagreements."
I mean to be civil. I'm frank only because I want my points to be absolutely clear to anyone who can understand what I write.

I know I may be wrong, and many here know much more theology than I've ever learned. They're smarter than me, they reason better than I do, they write better than I do. Intellectually, they can put me to shame.

But I'm not going to act as though what I believe is mere denominational theory . In his Syllabus of Errors, Pope Pius IX condemned religious indifferentism, the belief that man is morally free to practice any religion reason tells him to choose. You're no religious indifferentist. Neither am I. Still, I think there's a major problem when evangelical acquaintances talk with me about interdenominational disagreement. One woman said, "We all love Jesus. That's all that matters." That's like saying, "Love him, and believe what you will." How often have you heard evangelical pastors say, "Admit you're a sinner, accept Christ as you Lord and Savior, then you'll know that the moment you die, you'll go straight to Heaven?" They mean what they say, the believe it, too. But if it's all we need to know from the Bible, why did God write the Bible instead of a pocket-sized tract?

If you like, we can PM about some issues or even talk about them. I'm here to be civil, not to suppress what others say. Feel free to ignore my posts, too, if you like. Many boards let you hide posts by users you prefer to ignore. You're welcome to ignore me, too. It won't offend me at all.

 

[Albion]

Albion, I'm not suppressing anyone's best judgment.

I don't believe that anyone suggested otherwise. I don't know how you'd do that even if you wanted to.

But I have been telling everyone here exactly what I believe, because I reject the ambiguous, misleading, talk you hear from Catholic ecumenists, the ones who'll say, "Let's talk about what we agree on and ignore all the disagreements."

I know. Roman Catholicism has many internal divisions, so for you to want to verbalize the traditional view is reasonable, but you do not usually tell us "This is my own view." You tell us that "X is the truth" as though everyone knows it to be so. And you are not telling it to backsliding Catholics but to reformed Christians you know do not agree.

But I'm not going to act as though what I believe is mere denominational theory .

You've already said that it's just your opinion.

If you like, we can PM about some issues or even talk about them. I'm here to be civil,

If you decide to start being civil, there would be no need for any PMs, would there?

 

[Bill McEnaney]

I don't believe that anyone suggested otherwise. I don't know how you'd do that even if you wanted to.


I know. Roman Catholicism has many internal divisions, so for you to want to verbalize the traditional view is reasonable, but you do not usually tell us "This is my own view." You tell us that "X is the truth" as though everyone knows it to be so. And you are not telling it to backsliding Catholics but to reformed Christians you know do not agree.


You've already said that it's just your opinion.


If you decide to start being civil, there would be no need for any PMs, would there?

If the problem is that I use too few "I thinks," too few "I believes," and so forth, I'll use them more often. But if I don't use them, please assume that I believe exactly what I'm telling you.

I don't know what you mean by "divisions in Catholicism." But anytime I say that the Catholic Church teaches something or other, I'll be happy to quote an official Church document to support what I believe. What the Church has always taught sometimes differs from what some Catholics think mistakenly that she has always taught. The Catholic Church is much more than the collection of its members, many of whom don't know that some things that come from the Vatican don't count as teachings, let alone infallible ones. Even in a council document, some passages can have more authority than some others do.

Yes, Albion, I sometimes tell you that something is my opinion. When I do that, I assume than every opinion is either true or false. If I use the word "opinion," please interpret it as a synonym for "belief."

Feel free to omit "I believe," "I think," "in my opinion," and so forth when you correspond with me. I assume that you're honesty.

I mentioned PMing because I prefer it to public discussion.

 

[Albion]

I don't know what you mean by "divisions in Catholicism."

I can't find that quote in my last post, but you know--because you referred to their existence yourself. You have the pre-Vatican II traditionalists, the Ecumenists, those impatient for reforms and women priests, theological liberals, etc.

I mentioned PMing because I prefer it to public discussion.

Me too. I'm sorry this little matter played out in the middle of the thread as it did.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

I can't find that quote in my last post, but you know--because you referred to their existence yourself. You have the pre-Vatican II traditionalists, the Ecumenists, those impatient for reforms and women priests, theological liberals, etc.


Me too. I'm sorry this little matter played out in the middle of the thread as it did.

Albion, I am a traditionalist who wants no part of the Vatican II novelties. They shock me, and I think today's false ecumenism suggests that the Catholic ecumenists have too little Christian for non-Catholics.

Maybe you've heard or read about the recent controversy about the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, a priestly order where some priests began, with Pope Benedict's permission, to say the Traditional Latin Mass. Less conservative members of the order complained that the Latin Mass fans were trying to impose it on the others. Through a bishop, Francis forbade the FFI priests to say the TLM when St. Pius V had already published a bull called Quo Primum Tempore to obligate his successors and other Roman Rite priests to use the TLM. The Council Trent even anathematized anyone who would try to revise the Latin Mass rite into a new one. But that's what Bugnini and company did when they fabricated the New Mass, the vernacular one.

Then there's Fr. Hans Kung who wrote books to defend already-condemned heresies. Nobody disciplines him, bishop won't excommunicate him, he's still a Catholic priest in good standing, and the Vatican persecutes the FFI because some priests there used rituals they had a canonical right to use.

For years, Catholics have accused Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre of schism because in 1988, he consecrated four bishops without papal permission. Before he did that, he preached a sermon to explain why he would do that. During the sermon, which you can find at (District of the USA), he says he's still loyal to the Pope, that he has no schismatic intent, and that he wasn't trying to create a parallel hierarchy. He consecrated them because he feared that if he didn't do it, the Church would run out of traditional priests.

John Paul II published a document called Ecclesia Dei Afflicta to tell the world that Lefebvre had done something schismatic. JPII should have remembered two important facts, though. In Canon 1323, his 1983 Code of Canon Law exonerates any bishop who consecrates illicitly because he thinks there's an emergency. Lefebvre, the four bishops, and supposedly the rest of their order got excommunicated when the penalty for illicit consecration is, and has always been, suspension, not excommunication.

Today I read articles that Abp. Lefebvre and the rest of the Society of St. Pius X did exactly the right thing. But an unjust stigma still attaches to the SSPX.

Progressives want to remake the Catholic Church. Traditionalists want to preserve it and to restore it. If Christ founded it, we have no right to morph it into something He wouldn't approve. Traditionalists are only striving to keep, protect, and defend the same religion they believe they've inherited from the Apostles. Traditionalists aren't schismatic. The schismatics are the ones who refuse to obey pre-Vatican-II rules that no pope can repeal. Many schismatic progressives even try to turn Catholicism into a new religion, another stunt they have no right to pull.

A schismatic rejects the papacy and papal authority in themselves. Sometimes a non-schismatic loyal Catholic needs to resist some novelties, even if a pope advocates them.

As Orestes Brownson says in his article about Catholicism and popular liberty. Christ founded a Church that wouldn't democratize. He wanted it to help them live, holy, sacramental lives with help from the authorities He appointed. The Church and its religion need to govern the Church's members. The faithful aren't here to democratize a monarchy.

I, too, am sorry about the public conversation that we could have had by PM. Too often, I'm too blunt, and I've been that way here. I'm not your enemy. I'd like to be your friend.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Everyone,

Here's an excellent two-part article you may want to read, especially if you're a conservative Catholic who has problems with the Catholic Traditionalist movement.

The Remnant Newspaper - Revolution Revealed: The Triumph of Modernism and the End of the Traditional Catholic Church
The Remnant Newspaper - Revolution Revealed The Triumph of Modernism and the End of the Traditional Catholic Church

 

[barryatlake]

bbbb, maybe you should read from the archives of mainline European Protestant churches and the writings from unbias early years Jewish and secular writers that show it was only the Bishops [ through the guidance of the Holy Spirit ] of His Catholic Church that gave us the Canonical List of Sacred Books along with the Table of Contents as found in our Bibles.

 

[barryatlake]

Bill McEnaney, before you attempt to slam the Catholic Church please get your facts correct. You haven't a clue.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Bill McEnaney, before you attempt to slam the Catholic Church please get your facts correct. You haven't a clue.

Examples, please.

Quo Primum
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius05/p5quopri.htm
Trent Canon XIII of Session VII
http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch7.htm
Archbishop Lefebvre's sermon before the consecrations in 1988
http://archives.sspx.org/archbishop...nsecrations_sermon_of_archbishop_lefebvre.htm
Ecclesia Dei Afflicta
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/j...ii_motu-proprio_02071988_ecclesia-dei_en.html

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

bbbb, maybe you should read from the archives of mainline European Protestant churches and the writings from unbias early years Jewish and secular writers that show it was only the Bishops [ through the guidance of the Holy Spirit ] of His Catholic Church that gave us the Canonical List of Sacred Books along with the Table of Contents as found in our Bibles.

Originally Posted by barryatlake

Bill McEnaney, before you attempt to slam the Catholic Church please get your facts correct. You haven't a clue.
​

Examples, please.

Quo Primum
QUO PRIMUM
Trent Canon XIII of Session VII
~The Council of Trent - Session 7~
Archbishop Lefebvre's sermon before the consecrations in 1988
Appendix V:[bless and do not curse] Archbishop Lefebvre's 1988 Consecration Sermon
Ecclesia Dei Afflicta
Ecclesia Dei - John Paul II - Motu Proprio (2 July 1988)

Is there any Christian Church that is free of any error?

http://www.christianforums.com/t6870602/#post54128344
Roman church errors and inventions


.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Here's Canon 1323 along with some information about it.
Archbishop Lefebvre and Canons 1323 & 1324

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Is there any Christian Church that is free of any error?

http://www.christianforums.com/t6870602/#post54128344
Roman church errors and inventions


.

The list the link brought a list of Catholics doctrines, etc., Protestants reject. An answer hurries to mind right away because the list mentions Purgatory. As you may know now, I posted a link to show that the Early Church's canon of Scripture includes the titles of the OT books you find in Catholic Bibles and in Eastern Orthodox ones. In a book of Maccabees, 2 Maccabees 12, I believe, you'll read that it's holy and wholesome to pray for the dead.

Which departed people would your prayers help? Clearly, the ones in Heaven don't need them, since they'll be blissful there forever. Prayer for the damned is useless because they'll suffer forever in Hell, through their own fault.

That leaves people who went elsewhere when the died in friendship with God, Purgatory.

There's Limbo, too, for babies who die unbaptized. There they'll always enjoy perfect natural happiness. But since nothing defiled can go to Heaven, i.e., without the blessedness baptism puts into the baptized soul, the babies in babies can't see God face to face. To do that, they would need to be in Heaven.

Even if you reject the Catholic doctrine about Purgatory, it's easy to see that Heaven and Hell were only two places someone could go after death. Matthew 8:11 assures me that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will sit at a table in Heaven while sons of the kingdom wale and grind their teeth. Those three men, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, died before Christ Incarnated. So they weren't damned for their ignorance about Him. They still went to Heaven.
I'm talking about the Catholic Church, the one Pope Francis rules, I think. I'm also thinking about the diabolic disorientation Our Lady of Fatima. The Church is, in my opinion, going through the crisis she predict in the Third Secret in 1917. She told Sr. Lucia, to whom she appeared in 1917, that a pope need to read that secret in 1960 because it "would be clearer then." That years was about two years before Vatican II. Pope John XXIII read the secret, denied that it was for his pontificate, and Vatican II met.

In about 2001, Cardinal Sodando said the Third Secret predicted the assassination attempt against John Paul II. But there are big problems with that interpretation. The secret describes a pope who would walk among corpses and die in a barrage of gunfire. During the assassination attempt, JPII got shot by only one gunman and survived. How would the secret be clearer in 1960 if it predicted a crime committed more than 20 years later.

In a quotation I'll find for you, Cardinal Ratzinger admits that the results of Vatican II were nearly the opposites of the expected ones. He expect renewal. He got decay. In his Preface to Msgr. Klaus Gamber's book Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background, he calls the New Mass a "fabricated liturgy" and "banal on-the-spot product."

You might think traditionalists were committing the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. You might believe we reasoned fallaciously that, since the crisis happened after the council, the council caused it. But as Michael Davies points out in his book Pope John's Council, I think, we would have committed that fallacy. Sadly, the council still got the opposite of the expected results.

 

[Albion]

The list the link brought a list of Catholics doctrines, etc., Protestants reject. An answer hurries to mind right away because the list mentions Purgatory. As you may know now, I posted a link to show that the Early Church's canon of Scripture includes the titles of the OT books you find in Catholic Bibles and in Eastern Orthodox ones. In a book of Maccabees, 2 Maccabees 12, I believe, you'll read that it's holy and wholesome to pray for the dead.

Which may describe a "Purgatory" as closely as a lightbulb proves that there's a lighthouse on the beach.

Which departed people would your prayers help?

For one, the principle of praying for dead is held in the EO and Anglican and other churches that do not believe in your Purgatory, so that isn't a good argument. For another, the verses in Maccabees describe a practice that some Jews engaged in, not that it was a proper or useful one--not to mention that we still don't have anything about Purgatory mentioned except for this one vague point.

There's Limbo, too, for babies who die unbaptized.

That's been axed by the RCC as the preliminary to getting rid of Purgatory (by redefining it into something else).

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Which may describe a "Purgatory" as closely as a lightbulb proves that there's a lighthouse on the beach.


For one, the principle of praying for dead is held in the EO and Anglican and other churches that do not believe in your Purgatory, so that isn't a good argument. For another, the verses in Maccabees describe a practice that some Jews engaged in, not that it was a proper or useful one--not to mention that we still don't have anything about Purgatory mentioned except for this one vague point.


That's been axed by the RCC as the preliminary to getting rid of Purgatory (by redefining it into something else).

Purgatory isn't droppable, since a defined dogma says that Purgatory exists. As for Limbo, you probably are remembering a theological committee at the Vatican that studied the question but had no authority to abolish the teaching about that place. I suggest you visit the Purgatory Museum in Rome to see relics holy souls left behind when they returned from Purgatory to ask for prayers.

http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/e048-Museum_1.htm

 

[Albion]

Purgatory isn't droppable, since a defined dogma says that Purgatory exists.

Exactly. That's why it's already being reworded, redefined, and effectively changed into something unrecognizable by any Catholic who was raised to believe in Purgatory as the church taught it since the Middle Ages. Since Purgatory was the creation of a council, eliminating it would be more difficult to explain than Limbo's expiration, but what will remain is only the name. The same approach was used during talks with the Lutherans on the nature of the Eucharist. In that one, Transubstantiation was described as simply a more emphatic way of expressing Real Presence.

Ask many Catholics posting here on CF, and they will confidently assert that, of course, there is a Purgatory!...and then proceed to describe it as a quickie orientation session after death or what has been called "the celestial mudroom" in which nothing more unpleasant happens than that we have to pause long enough to put on our heavenly wedding garments before charging into heavenly bliss.

As for Limbo, you probably are remembering a theological committee at the Vatican that studied the question but had no authority to abolish the teaching about that place.

I think you need to be aware of what your Church is and teaches in fact, rather than cling to official statements that even the clergy pay no practical mind to anymore. Any institution is what it does, not what it may have tucked away in its archives.

I suggest you visit the Purgatory Museum in Rome to see relics holy souls left behind when they returned from Purgatory to ask for prayers.

returned from Purgatory? :o

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Albion,

I'm very aware of what the Catholic Church teaches, partly because I own several theology books, some meant for priests, books full of Latin. I don't know your age, but if you're in your 20s or in your 30's, I probably have been studying theology longer than you've lived. I'm 52.

Nobody has been trying to change Purgatory into Limbo or Limbo into Purgatory. Even the most basic pre-Vatican II catechism would explain that Purgatory is for the souls of people who die imperfect but with the blessedness that baptism puts into theirs. Limbo is is for babies who die, through no fault of their own, without that blessedness.

Yes, holy souls have come back from Purgatory to ask for prayers for themselves, especially for Masses. I suggest a book called Hungry Souls if you'd like to learn more about Purgatory and the souls who live there until they're ready for Heaven.

Here's a true story you're free to take or leave, my friend. After my friend Jake, whom I love like a brother, passed away, I asked Lord to get my credit card company to mail me a courtesy check for 30 Traditional Latin Masses for the repose of my friend soul. It, the check, came the next day. Jake was a Methodist, by the way.

http://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Souls-...8&qid=1391371422&sr=8-1&keywords=hungry+souls

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Here's some ancient information about Purgatory.

Scripture Catholic - PURGATORY
I posted the link to show everyone the patristic quotations in it.

 

[Bill McEnaney]

Is there any Christian Church that is free of any error?

http://www.christianforums.com/t6870602/#post54128344
Roman church errors and inventions


.

Little Lamb,

Some non-infallible Church-documents can contain some falsehoods, but I believe the pope and the Catholic Church can and do teach infallibly when the Holy Ghost enables them to do that. If the Pope or the Catholic Church taught a falsehood as though it were a dogma, the gates of Hell would conquer the Church. But we know that won't happen, since Christ promised that it wouldn't happen.