Anyone have any thoughts on this?
As a former Catholic it set off huge alarm bells for me.
God Bless
_______ _______ _________ ________
Sadly Ken Copeland is ignorant, not only of the meaning (insignificant as it was) of the thing he read about 1999, but also of a great many other things that the Roman Catholic Church does and says. Spanning decades there have been countless conferences and “meet ups” (various kinds of “get togethers for lunch”) between the Roman Catholic Church and various and different “Protestant” groups: And without fail, there are always under-informed characters like Copeland who leap up and declare that the greatest thing in history just happened. The Catholics go home from the conference smiling to themselves about it, and let the non-Catholics of the world run around all giddy with these reports that sound like change. But the truth is, Rome has not given an inch.
Especially in the last fifty or so years, non-Catholic Christians (especially in the USA) have simply stopped reading and studying, and Rome knows it. There has never been a time when American Christians were as disinterested as now in reading, studying, or learning about “churchy stuff like that.” American Christians are “ecclesiastically illiterate,” and that fact is a great boon to the Papacy when it comes to “PR” or relations with the world’s non-Catholic Christians. It’s really as simple as this: Today’s Americans won’t read the “fine print” in any document. They’ll sign an agreement on the dotted line, just as long as the TITLE IN BOLD PRINT AT THE TOP of the document sounds “tasty and wonderful.” It’s much like this in the digital world today, where “users” click that they agree to the Terms of using a software, or an ISP, a website, or even one’s smart phone (or for that matter the phone service itself) et al. Americans simply cannot be bothered with reading all the fine print, the “legalese,” and they just click “I Agree.” Well this trait in Americans, of “I can’t be bothered” with fine print and details has been working very much in favor of Rome for many years. In all of these ostensibly “ecumenical” get-togethers, non-Catholic Christians gleefully “sign on to agreements” with the Papacy without even knowing what they’ve agreed to.
Protestants who have this strange superstitious (and founded upon nothing true) notion that a smile from the Pope of Rome “validates” their existence, or worse, validates their “Christianity” itself, have not bothered to look in the fine print of all the ostensibly “ecumenical” documents they get so giddy about. Imagine if you found out that the federal government considers some Americans to be actual “human beings,” but, not you. Imagine if you found out that you are classed in a category that the government calls “humanoid but not human.” Bear with me: The Oxford Dictionary (Lexico online) gives the perfect definition for “humanoid” which can assist my point: It says, “Humanoid: a being resembling a human in its SHAPE.” It also says a “humanoid” can have “an APPEARANCE OR CHARACTER resembling that of a human.” Well how would you like that? Suppose a representative from the government bestowed this FLATTERY on you:”You are the closest thing to a human I’ve seen in any humanoid. It’s just fabulous! How do you do it? You resemble us humans in so many ways it astounds me! You look like us, you talk like us, you behave like us, and I am quite sure you really do think like we humans think! Bravo! Keep up the good work!” Imagine that. Suppose the knowledge settles in on you that the government considered others in your town human, even people on your street, even considers your next door neighbor human, but NOT YOU - you’re just a “humanoid.”
Well now (and this is a fictional example) what if you found out that in the Roman Catholic Church’s DOCTRINES, it was actually WRITTEN that people of YOUR sort are not to be called “human” by any devout Catholic, but should be called only “humanoid?” What if in fact you found out that in their written doctrine it states that only Roman Catholics are “humans” and that Protestants are only “humanoids?” What if you found out that Rome teaches that the only way a Protestant humanoid can become a human being is to join the Roman Catholic Church or one of three other churches in the world which Rome approves as being “like” them enough?
Be advised that Rome uses “technical wording” for practically everything when it comes to formal dealings with non-Catholics such as Protestants. Just like the word “humanoid” almost sounds like it’s calling you “human” but really isn’t, Rome uses “technical wording” that, sadly, Protestants will like and “respond” to, but don’t actually mean what the silly American Protestants (who won’t read the fine print) THINK they mean. Watch closely and show you how it is done: Rome will tell non-Catholic Christians that they “welcome” them. “We welcome you with open arms.” They will speak of our “acceptance” in their “embrace.” They will say that since all of Adam’s race on the planet are “brothers” one to another, we Christians are therefore of course the Catholic’s “brothers.” Hence the Pope can say to us, “Welcome, my brothers.” It goes on and on. But did you know that in the “fine print” Catholics are taught that they should NOT refer to the church that you, a non-Catholic attend, as a “church.” NO, that is NOT a church, says Rome. Take the largest Baptist megachurch on planet earth for example. It is not to be called a church according to Rome. “But, but, but, wait!” you say: “They meet with Protestants and do all this welcoming ecumenical stuff. Don’t they?” Oh, they do. And Rome is well aware of the fact that the naive American non-Catholic Christians go home all aglow with what an “accepting” event that was. And Rome is also quite aware that the Catholics who represented the Papacy in that sweet get-together were disciplined, and never once let the word “church” be applied to one of those non-Catholic “outfits.” No agent of the Papacy has ever stood up in one of those gatherings and spoken a sentence with the word “churches” in it, like “We welcome so many fine ‘churches’ here today,” and they will never say that the Evangelic “Reverend Smith pastors a large ‘church’ in his city.” No. They do not slip and accidentally call a non-Catholic “thing” a “church.” They are instructed that it is false doctrine to call them “churches.” Instead, very artfully they will use expressions such as religious “communities” out there.
Perhaps it has never dawned on you, that THAT is one reason, though not the only one, that you can’t “converse” with a Catholic using any of the 114 mentions of the word “church” or “churches” in the English New Testament! If it is a doctrine-trained and knowledgeable Catholic with whom you are conversing, he believes that NONE of those Bible verses can be applied to the religious “outfit” that YOU hang out with. YOU are not in a church! You might, in your heart, want to read your Bible, and “hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches,” but dear friend, to Rome, NOTHING in the Bible that is addressed to a “church” or “churches” applies to YOUR religious outfit. It is Catholic Dogma that Christ founded only ONE church, and they are that one church, period. “But then, ‘what’ is the ‘group’ that I’M in?” you may well ask. I’m glad you said “group” because Rome is willing to give you that much: You’re in a group. But isn’t a “group” a “church” if it’s made up of all Christians? No. Absolutely not. You can put together a soccer team made up of Christians. Then watch them running all over the field. Rome does NOT allow that “bunch of Christians” to be called a “church.” And it is no different if a “bunch of Christians” buy themselves an old Gothic Cathedral with steeples and crosses on top and all gather inside it and sing songs to Jesus. Rome still says “That is not a church.” And if bunches of Christians all over America have formed a national association of such groups worshiping in religious buildings with crosses on top, and they call it their “denomination,” Rome still does not budge one inch. “Those are not churches.”
Protestants used to know these things, before we stopped reading and studying. This has been Rome’s position for ages. What you might not know is that, today, in our day, they KEEP ON reaffirming this doctrine in the hearing of Catholics, and we non-Catholic Christians don’t even notice it. Pope John Paul II reaffirmed it (reminded the Catholic Church of it). After him Pope Benedict did likewise.
Sneak peek: "What" criteria does a "bunch of Christians" who gather in a religious facility with a steeple and a cross on top have to meet, in order for Rome to grudgingly allow Catholics to call them a "church?" Here it is, simply. That “group of Christians” has to have over it a line of Bishops that extends back over 2000 years in an unbroken line of succession, clear back to the Apostles - “Apostolic Succession” - which Rome says is the only valid “Episcopate” (as the Catholics falsely claim that THEY have). That “group” must have the ceremony of the Mass or Eucharist, administered by a priest who is under a Bishop (of the sort just mentioned - the true Episcopate). It cannot be the observance of the “Lord’s Supper” after the manner of so many non-Catholic groups. The true Eucharist is obtained only by the ceremony by the priesthood under said Bishops.
At the Vatican on June 16, 2000, Pope John Paul II reaffirmed the DOCUMENT DOMINUS IESUS. The "DECLARATION OF THE CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH" was signed and published by then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, afterward Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in August of the same year. It states: "The Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Roman Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, and are true particular Churches." That basically means such as the Greek Orthodox Church, etc. And in some if not most of the verbal iterations of these laws to Catholics they include that the group must have “devotion toward the Virgin Mother of God.” It will be found under examination that Rome does not mean mere respect or honor to Mary by the term “devotion,” but that it means “THE” devotion to her believed and practiced by the Roman Church, and that Christian groups cannot disagree with Rome’s Doctrines concerning her and be held to constitute a “church.” This last “criteria” (concerning Mary) was a difficult study for this writer, Rome’s language on it being not only complex but vague; so I can only say that it is my best understanding that “Mary” is one of the “criteria.” Someone else’s research might reach another conclusion.
I have run into this in actual daily life. I have been in forums and message boards and other exchanges with religious folks, and have in fact engaged with knowledgable Catholics, and I’ve brought up “all of the above,” and have been told very matter of factly, “THAT IS CORRECT.” And if my memory serves me, I was first put on this matter quite long ago when I happened to see in a forum a Catholic person tell another Catholic that she made the mistake in talking with a non-Catholic saying she acknowledges that there are “many good churches” out there (ostensibly like this person’s church) and I saw the other Catholic in the chat shoot back at her, “Don’t EVER say that! They aren’t real churches!” And more exchanges ensued. That’s my recollection of how I first got on this, way back. It’s something that a lot of Catholics know.
So regarding KENNETH COPELAND: I have seen him on a couple of other occasions all thunderstruck that this and that event with Catholics means that “HISTORY JUST CHANGED!” Well, I’m telling you, it’ll a LOT more than Rome just sending a Lutheran group a Valentine’s card with hearts and kisses on it, for the Protestant Reformation to be OVER. There are written Doctrines and Dogma’s so deeply entrenched all throughout the corpus, that nothing like Copeland imagined that to mean even COULD be done by Rome, without VIOLATIING hundreds of other of their Doctrines.
___________________________ _________________________