Latin America Protestantism

[BobbyO]

How greatly has this grown over the past decade or so? I recall reading an article about this around 1990 with the argument being as the region was shedding the Catholic culture, Central America will become more stable (as the Catholic faith is very anarchial and Protestantism has always been very orderly). The Pope has gone to this region over the years specifically counteract the growth of Protestant churches. And Central america has been rather stable over the past decade. So how great has the growth been?

[serenity]

If this is indeed the case, then the US-supported death squads won't have to worry about killing bishops and raping nuns and so on, any more.

[cpwill]

yes, america can go back to murdering puppies and kicking children; where it's talent lies :rolleyes:

[serenity]

yes, america can go back to murdering puppies and kicking children; where it's talent lies

You can belittle our wiful complicity in rape, murder, torture, kidnapping etc, all you like, CPWill. It doesn't change the facts.

[BobbyO]

You can belittle our wiful complicity in rape, murder, torture, kidnapping etc, all you like, CPWill. It doesn't change the facts.


The facts were that gullible people thought that movements supported and endorsed by Cuba and the USSR were about "social justice" or "democratization" or about the "poor" or the "peasants" or like minded slogan. Since the USSR and Cuba were/are not about advancing the above, I have never understood gullible people who thought movements being endorsed by those two countries, would themselves be about it, despite what was said.

How much of the stability in these regions were the result of the collapse of the USSR, which dried up support to Cuba, which then ended support revolutionary movements in this region? Things have been fairly quiet there after all. Clearly, the region has benefitted from the defeats of the FMLN in El Salvador and the sandinistas in Nicaragua.

But I was also wondering whether a cultural shift from an anarchial, Catholic culture, to a more rigid and stern Protestant one, has also been a factor.

[Heathcliff]

I attended a Methodist church a couple years back in Chicago. I was sort of surprised that there were a couple of hundred worshippers for the Spanish services (and a handful of 8 or 9 for the English services). The word I got was that Mexicans are not all that eager to make babies for the Pope anymore and many are rebelling against the Vatican's stand on birth control and such things.But I was also wondering whether a cultural shift from an anarchial, Catholic culture, to a more rigid and stern Protestant one, has also been a factor.While there are rigid Protestant cults, mainstream Protestant churches are far less rigid and stern than Catholicism, I would say, with the Pope setting down infallible rules to follow, getting the kids into Catholic schools for lifelong discipline in the Catholic way, telling people they can't have abortions, confessionals, etc. Methodists just sing a few hymns, listen to a sermon, and that's about it.

[BobbyO]

I attended a Methodist church a couple years back in Chicago. I was sort of surprised that there were a couple of hundred worshippers for the Spanish services (and a handful of 8 or 9 for the English services). The word I got was that Mexicans are not all that eager to make babies for the Pope anymore and many are rebelling against the Vatican's stand on birth control and such things.While there are rigid Protestant cults, mainstream Protestant churches are far less rigid and stern than Catholicism, I would say, with the Pope setting down infallible rules to follow, getting the kids into Catholic schools for lifelong discipline in the Catholic way, telling people they can't have abortions, confessionals, etc. Methodists just sing a few hymns, listen to a sermon, and that's about it.


Here in NYC, it seems there are storefront evangelical churches throughout spanish neighborhoods.

I do believe that the Catholic religion is basically anarchial. From a cultural and political angle, countries and regions that have been overwhelmingly Catholic for centuries (such as central America, or France, or Spain or Italy) are not generally thought of as models of discipline and orderliness. Chaotic and and anarchial come to mind. But areas which have been primarily protestant for generations (such as the UK, northern germany (Prussia) scandinavia, Switzerland) are indeed known for its orderliness and organizational. There has to be a religious component to it.

[Turenne]

I do believe that the Catholic religion is basically anarchial. From a cultural and political angle, countries and regions that have been overwhelmingly Catholic for centuries (such as central America, or France, or Spain or Italy) are not generally thought of as models of discipline and orderliness. Chaotic and and anarchial come to mind. But areas which have been primarily protestant for generations (such as the UK, northern germany (Prussia) scandinavia, Switzerland) are indeed known for its orderliness and organizational. There has to be a religious component to it.

The difference being that the Roman Catholic Church has been around longer and people are know beginning to realise its worth,history and backwardness.Lutherism(sp?)on the other hand is far less rigid,more liberal and hasn't got the repressive history that Rome has. :shrug:

[cpwill]

You can belittle our wiful complicity in rape, murder, torture, kidnapping etc, all you like, CPWill. It doesn't change the facts.

i don't pretend that we haven't played a role in it: i simply contend that it's a rather silly digression to go into on a thread about protestantism.

[serenity]

The facts were that gullible people thought that movements supported and endorsed by Cuba and the USSR were about "social justice" or "democratization" or about the "poor" or the "peasants" or like minded slogan. Since the USSR and Cuba were/are not about advancing the above, I have never understood gullible people who thought movements being endorsed by those two countries, would themselves be about it, despite what was said.

Many of these movements WERE decidedly and demonstrably about the "poor" and the "peasants"--words which aren't slogans but actually people, and often we declare them as enemies.

So you believe all the proppaganda about communist inflitration and so on. How obedient of you.

It's funny, our own leaders, Reagan, Eisenhower, et al, must have been rampant leftists, masochistically telling the truth in internal documents and the like.

Like when eisenhower pointed out to staff that the American publi must believe in Guatemala's "communist threat"--this after reams of paper discussing financial considerations--the real meat of our "anti-communist" policy--without mentioning the Soviets.

The only real involvement came when we forced certain regimes--the Sandanistas are a perfect example--into an alliance with the Soviets.

You understand that, my obedient friend? It was OUR idea...we left them no choice...because they were bad for business--the only TRUE crime.

And you have swallowed it whole.

[Soren]

How greatly has this grown over the past decade or so? I recall reading an article about this around 1990 with the argument being as the region was shedding the Catholic culture, Central America will become more stable (as the Catholic faith is very anarchial and Protestantism has always been very orderly). Some strains of Protestantism are orderly, to be sure, but some of them seem to merit the term anarchical much more than Catholicism does. I think that you first need to be clear on which Protestant groups you are talking about, then maybe we could speculate on whether religious conversion would make or has made the area more or less politically stable. I don't really know much about the degree of success which churches other than my own --I'm LDS (or Mormon) and FYI, we don't consider ourselves Protestant -- have had in Latin America. Which strains of Protestantism are growing fastest down there? It would also be wise to examine the degree to which religious affiliations typically influence political behaviors of people. We would also be wise to ask when stability is in the interests of a nation.

[BobbyO]

Some strains of Protestantism are orderly, to be sure, but some of them seem to merit the term anarchical much more than Catholicism does. I think that you first need to be clear on which Protestant groups you are talking about, then maybe we could speculate on whether religious conversion would make or has made the area more or less politically stable. I don't really know much about the degree of success which churches other than my own --I'm LDS (or Mormon) and FYI, we don't consider ourselves Protestant -- have had in Latin America. Which strains of Protestantism are growing fastest down there? It would also be wise to examine the degree to which religious affiliations typically influence political behaviors of people. We would also be wise to ask when stability is in the interests of a nation.

I have no idea what Protestant sect. I do not think its anything more than the storefront type.

Its not so much wondering what religious denomination places an influence on politics. But rather a religious change which causes a cultural shift away from and toward certain values which in turn impact how people think.

[BobbyO]

Many of these movements WERE decidedly and demonstrably about the "poor" and the "peasants"--words which aren't slogans but actually people, and often we declare them as enemies.

So you believe all the proppaganda about communist inflitration and so on. How obedient of you.

It's funny, our own leaders, Reagan, Eisenhower, et al, must have been rampant leftists, masochistically telling the truth in internal documents and the like.

Like when eisenhower pointed out to staff that the American publi must believe in Guatemala's "communist threat"--this after reams of paper discussing financial considerations--the real meat of our "anti-communist" policy--without mentioning the Soviets.

The only real involvement came when we forced certain regimes--the Sandanistas are a perfect example--into an alliance with the Soviets.

You understand that, my obedient friend? It was OUR idea...we left them no choice...because they were bad for business--the only TRUE crime.

And you have swallowed it whole.

Oh, please... The USA forced the sandinistas into an alliance with the USSR... Be serious.

[cpwill]

perhaps ya'll should take this discussion over into the international politics or history section?

[Cedars]

How greatly has this grown over the past decade or so? I recall reading an article about this around 1990 with the argument being as the region was shedding the Catholic culture, Central America will become more stable (as the Catholic faith is very anarchial and Protestantism has always been very orderly). The Pope has gone to this region over the years specifically counteract the growth of Protestant churches. And Central america has been rather stable over the past decade. So how great has the growth been?
Sorry to digress. But I was amused by your comment regarding "the Catholic faith is very anarchial and Protestantism has always been very orderly." Which history books have you been reading? Tried any factual ones? Your logic is a little backwards. It was the Protestants who protested (hence the name Protest-ants) and who broke away from the Catholic Church; not the other way around. It is the Catholic Church who grew from a small number to a vast number, necessitating the need for hierarchy in the Church to maintain order for so many -- that particular order and authority is the very reason the Protestants protested (and now we find many Protestant denominations have created their own hierarchies to preserve order). And for your information, the Pope is not concerned with counteracting the growth of Protestantism but is more likely concerned with shepherding his sheep from straying from the flock.

[Blueangel]

Agree with you there Cedars :clap:

[cpwill]

it wasn't the heirarchy and order we had a problem with; it was the abuses of it.

[Cedars]

Ah, cpwill, Christ came to save the sinners and in fact ate with them and visited with them -- something the Pharisees and Sadduces could not understand. The Protestants made the same mistake. They need not have separated themselves from the Church and founded a new Church. Even today, the Catholic Church has sinners and saints, and it will have sinners and saints until the end of time. You surely do not deny there are sinners in the Protestant churches as well. We are all sinners; that is why it was necessary for Christ to come save us.

[cpwill]

we are all sinners indeed; it is when it becomes systemized that we need either take over or seperate ourselves.

[Soren]

Sorry to digress. But I was amused by your comment regarding "the Catholic faith is very anarchial and Protestantism has always been very orderly." Which history books have you been reading? Tried any factual ones? Your logic is a little backwards. It was the Protestants who protested (hence the name Protest-ants) and who broke away from the Catholic Church; not the other way around. It is the Catholic Church who grew from a small number to a vast number, necessitating the need for hierarchy in the Church to maintain order for so many -- that particular order and authority is the very reason the Protestants protested (and now we find many Protestant denominations have created their own hierarchies to preserve order).I agree, it's always seemed to me that Protestants are less commited to a commonly-held view of the social order than Catholics are. Perhaps that has something to do with the sorts of Protestants I tend to encounter here in California. I recognize that some sects, like the Lutherans, tend to be more intensely commited to a shared vision of the social order, while Baptists and Pentacostals often seem more atomistic.

[Cedars]

we are all sinners indeed; it is when it becomes systemized that we need either take over or seperate ourselves.
As I said, there have been sinners in the Catholic Church in the past, are in the present, and will be in the future. Christ founded the Church and promised that the gates of hell will never prevail against it. He fulfilled that promise of the Church never failing by the gift of infallibility, which guarantees Catholic doctrine from error. As a Christian and a Catholic, I believe in the Word of the Christ and His promise that His Church will never fail. Protestants do not recognize the literal Word of Jesus’s promise that His Church will never fail. Catholics do.

18 And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. (Matthew 16:18-19)

[Soren]

Can't say I buy that interpretation of the scripture, but then again, I'm not Catholic.

[cpwill]

As I said, there have been sinners in the Catholic Church in the past, are in the present, and will be in the future. Christ founded the Church and promised that the gates of hell will never prevail against it.

indeed, and so it shall not.

He fulfilled that promise of the Church never failing by the gift of infallibility, which guarantees Catholic doctrine from error.

:laughter: Jesus didn't give ya'll that; sorry, one of your 19th century popes did; and it was a rather unpopular move at the time;)

As a Christian and a Catholic, I believe in the Word of the Christ and His promise that His Church will never fail. Protestants do not recognize the literal Word of Jesus’s promise that His Church will never fail. Catholics do.

oh, we recognize fully the literal promise from Jesus that His church will never fail. we are simply not arrogant enough to imagine that when he states that the church will never fail, that he means only our denomination in particular.

[Cedars]

Can't say I buy that interpretation of the scripture, but then again, I'm not Catholic.

I don’t mean to offend when I say this, but Protestants are always insisting that they believe in the literal interpretation of scripture. When Christ said that He will build His Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, He meant just that, that He will build His Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18-19) You can’t get any more literal than that, yet Protestants refuse to see the literal meaning here, as that would mean an error in Protestantism. They would rather blindly accuse Catholic doctrine of error when really the error was that of the Catholic men/women, humans with free will capable of sinning and of error – humans who did not follow Catholic doctrine. Christ did create a literal church – there are many epistles (or letters) in the N.T. to the many churches that came about under the teaching of the Apostles. And although these might be churches, as in plural, they were all still ONE CHURCH who heeded the teaching of Peter and the other Apostles (just as there are many Catholic churches today all over the world who all heed the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church who has the written and oral tradition of the apostles and is the one holy catholic and apostolic church). How can any Protestant deny that Christ built a literal Church, and that the Church He built be ONE Church. Christ prayed that the Church be ONE Church, not many denominations holding different interpretations, as those differences in and of themselves work against the perfection of unity with God, and in fact can ultimately cause others not to be convinced in the unity and perfection of God (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) Himself.

(John 17:21-23)
21 That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as we also are one: 23 I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one: and the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast also loved me.

[Blueangel]

:laughter: Jesus didn't give ya'll that; sorry, one of your 19th century popes did; and it was a rather unpopular move at the time;)
19th Century?!!!
Time to send you back to the history books CP ;)

The Dogma of Papal Infallibility dates back to the time of Martin Luther some 300 years previously, but I can see that your refering to the Vatican Coucil and not the true origins.

[cpwill]

i'll have to check this out; i may indeed have misread.

[cpwill]

I don’t mean to offend when I say this, but Protestants are always insisting that they believe in the literal interpretation of scripture. When Christ said that He will build His Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, He meant just that, that He will build His Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18-19) You can’t get any more literal than that, yet Protestants refuse to see the literal meaning here, as that would mean an error in Protestantism.

no, we take it quite literally :). as stated, we are simply not so arrogant as to assume that the church is defined solely by our denomination; but rather by the body of christians.

They would rather blindly accuse Catholic doctrine of error when really the error was that of the Catholic men/women, humans with free will capable of sinning and of error – humans who did not follow Catholic doctrine.

i would say that the idea of being able to buy one's way into heaven would be a pretty false doctrine; whether applied to yourself or a passed away loved one. honestly; as though somehow Christs' blood is'nt enough and you have to help it out a little?:rolleyes:

Christ did create a literal church – there are many epistles (or letters) in the N.T. to the many churches that came about under the teaching of the Apostles.

correct, and especially Paul. Christ had no hand in their creating; other than via the disciples via the Holy Spirit.

And although these might be churches, as in plural, they were all still ONE CHURCH who heeded the teaching of Peter and the other Apostles

;) don't forget James; peter wasn't exactly The Boss. however, the jerusalem church, although it was hardly the center for jewish believers, did remain important in doctrinal affairs; as witness the effort paul had to go through to get them to accept gentiles without forcing them to convert to judaism.

(just as there are many Catholic churches today all over the world who all heed the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church who has the written and oral tradition of the apostles and is the one holy catholic and apostolic church).

:laughter: then you have a problem; because apostolically speaking, the greek orthodox holds the benifite over you.:)

How can any Protestant deny that Christ built a literal Church, and that the Church He built be ONE Church.

because there is no record in the New Testament of Christ establishing a church while on earth; so we figure when he states "I will build my church" he means via the Holy Spirit. at that point you have to realize that the Holy Spirit was involved in the founding of many different churches; who in their early days were bound together solely by belief; not by heirarchy. and so when Christ says "the church" he means all believers; not simply the believers who have a leader who lives in Rome.

Christ prayed that the Church be ONE Church, not many denominations holding different interpretations, as those differences in and of themselves work against the perfection of unity with God, and in fact can ultimately cause others not to be convinced in the unity and perfection of God (the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) Himself.

(John 17:21-23)
21 That they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22 And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as we also are one: 23 I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one: and the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast also loved me.

:lol: dude, that's a prayer for the disciples; the ones "the father had given him" while here on earth, not the ones' to come. he was praying them up for the Father to prepare them for his leaving.

[Cedars]

indeed, and so it shall not.



:laughter: Jesus didn't give ya'll that; sorry, one of your 19th century popes did; and it was a rather unpopular move at the time;)



oh, we recognize fully the literal promise from Jesus that His church will never fail. we are simply not arrogant enough to imagine that when he states that the church will never fail, that he means only our denomination in particular.
The Roman Church usually did not define Catholic doctrine generally held by all Christians until or unless some basically held doctrine was being disputed. Christians believed in the authority of the Roman church long before the 19th century. Writings of the early Christian witnesses attest to this.


Ignatius of Antioch

"Ignatius . . . to the church also which holds the presidency, in the location of the country of the Romans, worthy of God, worthy of honor, worthy of blessing, worthy of praise, worthy of success, worthy of sanctification, and, because you hold the presidency in love, named after Christ and named after the Father" (Letter to the Romans 1:1 [A.D. 110]).
"You [the church at Rome] have envied no one, but others you have taught. I desire only that what you have enjoined in your instructions may remain in force" (ibid., 3:1).


Irenaeus

"But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the succession of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, that church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. With that church, because of its superior origin, all the churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world, and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition" (Against Heresies 3:3:2 [A.D. 189]).


Cyprian of Carthage

"The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. And to you I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever things you bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth, they shall be loosed also in heaven’ [Matt. 16:18–19]). ... On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were also what Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all [the apostles] are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?" (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; 1st edition [A.D. 251]).
"Cyprian to [Pope] Cornelius, his brother. Greeting. . . . We decided to send and are sending a letter to you from all throughout the province [where I am] so that all our colleagues might give their decided approval and support to you and to your communion, that is, to both the unity and the charity of the Catholic Church" (Letters 48:1, 3 [A.D. 253]).
"Cyprian to Antonian, his brother. Greeting ... You wrote ... that I should forward a copy of the same letter to our colleague [Pope] Cornelius, so that, laying aside all anxiety, he might at once know that you held communion with him, that is, with the Catholic Church" (ibid., 55[52]:1).
"Cornelius was made bishop by the decision of God and of his Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the applause of the people then present, by the college of venerable priests and good men ... when the place of Fabian, which is the place of Peter, the dignity of the sacerdotal chair, was vacant. Since it has been occupied both at the will of God and with the ratified consent of all of us, whoever now wishes to become bishop must do so outside [the Church]. For he cannot have ecclesiastical rank who does not hold to the unity of the Church" (ibid., 55[52]:8).
"With a false bishop appointed for themselves by heretics, they dare even to set sail and carry letters from schismatics and blasphemers to the chair of Peter and to the principal church [at Rome], in which sacerdotal unity has its source" (ibid., 59:14).

[BobbyO]

Sorry to digress. But I was amused by your comment regarding "the Catholic faith is very anarchial and Protestantism has always been very orderly." Which history books have you been reading? Tried any factual ones? Your logic is a little backwards. It was the Protestants who protested (hence the name Protest-ants) and who broke away from the Catholic Church; not the other way around. It is the Catholic Church who grew from a small number to a vast number, necessitating the need for hierarchy in the Church to maintain order for so many -- that particular order and authority is the very reason the Protestants protested (and now we find many Protestant denominations have created their own hierarchies to preserve order). And for your information, the Pope is not concerned with counteracting the growth of Protestantism but is more likely concerned with shepherding his sheep from straying from the flock.

I tend to think that religion influences people. Not merely politically, but in all aspects of their lives. So how people in general live their lives can be good indication as to the nature of that religion.

My observation is that not only Latin America, but also countries like Spain, France and Italy are generally not associated with thoughts of orderliness, organization ect attached. Chaos and anarchy seem to rule the day there. The UK, Scandinavia (northrn Germany, Prussia) are generally seen the opposite. The catholic faith has dominated in the former; the Protestant in the latter. As Latin America has become more stable over the past decade, I wondered to what extent the growth of Protestantism there is responsible.

Martin Luther was appalled by what he thought was the wayward direction of the Catholic Church, and sought a return to previous understanding of Christianity.

[cpwill]

precisely; they were giving Rome the superior position due to the superiority of her teachings. once her teachings ceased to be worthy; she no longer rightfully holds that position.

mind you; i wouldn't mind seeing the churches of the world reunite; it seems to me that this division is not a wholesome thing whatsoever for believers. however, that doesn't by any means mean that i can accept that only the catholic church is blessed and the true representation of the apostolic church. if you want a church that truly organizes itself along those lines; try the southern baptists.

[Cedars]

BobbyO, I disagree that how people in general live their lives can be good indication as to the nature of their religion. The point I have been trying to make is that those in the Catholic faith who sinned had NOT been living according to the nature of their faith. They had been living in sin CONTRARY to their faith. Martin Luther and other Catholics (yes, Martin Luther and all the Protestants of the Reformation were Catholics too) were understandably appalled by the misbehavior and abuses that were going on. But clearly, you have to understand that not ALL Catholics were abusive. It is ridiculous to say that the actions of some speak for all -- you do not throw out the baby with the bath water! For example, Jesus chose JUDAS as an apostle; but we do not say that all the apostles are in error just because Judas was. Christ knew what he was doing when He chose Judas, and God can always turn the errors of humanity to good advantage. Martin Luther could well have been a saint had he not separated the Church. Separation is not unity and can never be for the good of all. In fact, by his and others of the Reformation's separation, the Protestant churches continually separate -- because there is no unity (hence all the denominations). The only "unity" among Protestant churches is their protesting that there were people of the Catholic Church who had sinned.

And cpwill, if there is any arrogance here, it is on the part of Protestants who by disassociating themselves from the sinners in the Catholic Church seem to say that Catholics are sinners but they are not.

Nowhere in Catholic doctrine does it say you can buy your way into heaven.

How can you possibly deny Christ had no direct hand in creating His Church when scripture explicitly states otherwise. Matthew 16:18 clearly says, “And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” [Emphasis added.] You cannot get more literal than that.

In ancient times, keys were the hallmark of authority -- and only Peter was singled out and given the keys to the Church. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 16:19) Peter was also singled out for the authority that provides for the forgiveness of sins and the making of disciplinary rules. “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:19) Later the apostles as a whole would be given similar power (Matt. 18:18) but here Peter received it in a special sense.

‘Finally, after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" (John 21:15-17). In repentance for his threefold denial, Peter gave a threefold affirmation of love. Then Christ, the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14), gave Peter the authority he earlier had promised: "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17). This specifically included the other apostles, since Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me more than these?" (John 21:15), the word "these" referring to the other apostles who were present (John 21:2). Thus was completed the prediction made just before Jesus and his followers went for the last time to the Mount of Olives.
Immediately before his denials were predicted, Peter was told, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again [after the denials], strengthen your brethren" (Luke 22:31-32). It was Peter who Christ prayed would have faith that would not fail and that would be a guide for the others; and his prayer, being perfectly efficacious, was sure to be fulfilled.’
(www.catholic.com)

The Greek Orthodox Church, while it is apostolic, is not ONE. They are not in communion with any other church, not even other eastern churches that are orthodox. There are eastern churches (including Greek Catholic), however, that are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They are as follows:

Antiochian: West Syrian (Syro-Antiochian, Maronite, and Malankarese Churches) and East Syrian (Chaldean and Malabarese Churches);

Alexandrian: Coptic and Ethiopian Churches;

Byzantine: These Churches originate from the Byzantine tradition: Albanian, Belarusan, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Italo-Greek, Melkite, Romanian, Russian, Ruthenian, Slovak, Ukrainian.

Armenian: The Armenian Church.

[Cedars]

(oops, sorry, doubled my post)

[BobbyO]

Unity within those churches. There is a much narrower room to maneuver within Protestant churhes than the Catholic one. At some point, the dissenter in the Protestant church is forced to conform, or simply leaves.

[Cedars]

Why do you think that is?

[cpwill]

we don't have a leader who claims he can damn us to eternal purgatory if we don't obey :)

[cpwill]

The only "unity" among Protestant churches is their protesting that there were people of the Catholic Church who had sinned.

not really; there's quite a bit else that unifies the protestant (indeed, all) churches.

And cpwill, if there is any arrogance here, it is on the part of Protestants who by disassociating themselves from the sinners in the Catholic Church seem to say that Catholics are sinners but they are not.

:laughter: who in the world told you we think that? no, an examination of the early movement, from Luther on, reveals a group that originally didn't want to split off; but did so when it realized that rather than there simply being sinners within the church; that it had become so systemized and part of the regular business that we could not oppose it if we were to remain in the church, and so we did not.

Nowhere in Catholic doctrine does it say you can buy your way into heaven.

;) how did you pay for St Peter's, anywho?
for that matter; how is it the Templars became as rich as they did as fast as they did?
the catholic church most certainly did teach that monetary gifts here on earth would speed either yours or an already deceased loved one's passage through purgatory and into heaven. it was one of the chief reasons that we left.

How can you possibly deny Christ had no direct hand in creating His Church when scripture explicitly states otherwise. Matthew 16:18 clearly says, “And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” [Emphasis added.] You cannot get more literal than that.

indeed, i agree; as i stated; i simply am not so silly as to imagine that when Christ is talking about his church that he is talking about one denomination to the exclusion of all others; really; it would require a mindset that i find rather xenophobic.

In ancient times, keys were the hallmark of authority -- and only Peter was singled out and given the keys to the Church. “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 16:19) Peter was also singled out for the authority that provides for the forgiveness of sins and the making of disciplinary rules. “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matt. 16:19) Later the apostles as a whole would be given similar power (Matt. 18:18) but here Peter received it in a special sense.

yeah; pity it took so long for him to step up and accept the leadership Christ had left him, but, i suppose it's inherently part of the nature of peter. he has always been my favorite disciple (reminds me of me; kind of a well-intentioned screwup:)).

‘Finally, after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples and asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" (John 21:15-17). In repentance for his threefold denial, Peter gave a threefold affirmation of love. Then Christ, the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14), gave Peter the authority he earlier had promised: "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17). This specifically included the other apostles, since Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me more than these?" (John 21:15), the word "these" referring to the other apostles who were present (John 21:2). Thus was completed the prediction made just before Jesus and his followers went for the last time to the Mount of Olives.
Immediately before his denials were predicted, Peter was told, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again [after the denials], strengthen your brethren" (Luke 22:31-32). It was Peter who Christ prayed would have faith that would not fail and that would be a guide for the others; and his prayer, being perfectly efficacious, was sure to be fulfilled.’
(www.catholic.com)

:shrug: so? i know all this.

The Greek Orthodox Church, while it is apostolic, is not ONE. They are not in communion with any other church, not even other eastern churches that are orthodox. There are eastern churches (including Greek Catholic), however, that are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They are as follows:

Antiochian: West Syrian (Syro-Antiochian, Maronite, and Malankarese Churches) and East Syrian (Chaldean and Malabarese Churches);

Alexandrian: Coptic and Ethiopian Churches;

Byzantine: These Churches originate from the Byzantine tradition: Albanian, Belarusan, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Italo-Greek, Melkite, Romanian, Russian, Ruthenian, Slovak, Ukrainian.

Armenian: The Armenian Church.

you've still got the problem; they don't accept the authority of your pontif. they are not part of the church. rather tricky, that.

let me ask you a question: in your opinion; can protestants find Jesus and gain entrance into heaven?

[Blueangel]

;) how did you pay for St Peter's, anywho?
for that matter; how is it the Templars became as rich as they did as fast as they did?
the catholic church most certainly did teach that monetary gifts here on earth would speed either yours or an already deceased loved one's passage through purgatory and into heaven. it was one of the chief reasons that we left.
I've never in my life read such absolute rubbish regarding Catholicism! :eek:

When you look at all the so called Protestant faiths that actually demand a percentage of their followers' incomes, I find that insinuation little more than offensive!

You can't direct debit Catholicism!

[cpwill]

:shrug: hey, i'm not making this stuff up; it's history.

i agree; you can't buy a speedy purgatory (if you believe such) nor entrance into heaven. however, that belief would have put me (in Luther's time) rather at odds with the Catholic Church. there was a reason i brought up the Templars; that was one of the ways in which they became among the largest property owners in Europe; lords and nobles had a habit of donating plots of land, towns, and the like to them on their deathbed in order to speed up their process thru those pearly gates:D

[cpwill]

have you truly never heard of indulgences?

[Blueangel]

I've heard of them but they went out with the ark.
It's the 21st century CP. You can throw the sins of the past in anyone's face but it won't get us anywhere.
The modern Catholic church demands nothing but faith from it's parishoners, unlike certain protestant faiths we could both name ;)

[cpwill]

we are discussing not today; but the 16th century; the protestant reformation. to pretend that today's catholic church has anything to do with it is inherently innacurate. the abuses of the clergy, and fundamental misinterpretations of gospel, including the selling of indulgences and "pardon's" (:rolleyes: as though the pope could do what only Jesus was able to accomplish) which had become systemitized beyond the point of our power to alter them was why we left.

furthermore, no protestant church that i am aware of demands a certain portion of income; the only one i can think of offhand might be the mormons. mind you; we teach that which the bible teaches, which is that we should be trying to tithe 10%; but certainly no one makes it some silly part of the rules.

[Heathcliff]

Unity within those churches. There is a much narrower room to maneuver within Protestant churhes than the Catholic one. At some point, the dissenter in the Protestant church is forced to conform, or simply leaves.Suggests unfamiliarity with Protestant churches. Pointing to excesses of fringe elements and cults is like saying Catholic theology is the Spanish Inquisition and homosexual child molestation.

[Soren]

This dispute no longer holds any interest for me.

[JoeR]

And cpwill, if there is any arrogance here, it is on the part of Protestants who by disassociating themselves from the sinners in the Catholic Church seem to say that Catholics are sinners but they are not.


I would think it more arrogant to refuse to reform.

[Cedars]

we don't have a leader who claims he can damn us to eternal purgatory if we don't obey :)
Care to back up that piece of misinformation? What is your source for saying this?

[Cedars]

not really; there's quite a bit else that unifies the protestant (indeed, all) churches.
Not really ONE, when you consider the diverse beliefs that are held by Protestants.

:laughter: who in the world told you we think that? no, an examination of the early movement, from Luther on, reveals a group that originally didn't want to split off; but did so when it realized that rather than there simply being sinners within the church; that it had become so systemized and part of the regular business that we could not oppose it if we were to remain in the church, and so we did not.
Reform originally began in the Catholic Church. Martin Luther hindered the Catholic reform, but he did not stop it. Regardless of the Protestant Reformation, reform still continued in the Catholic Church – and all done without the need for separation. So your stating that Protestants didn’t WANT to but had to separate is simply not true.

;) how did you pay for St Peter's, anywho?
for that matter; how is it the Templars became as rich as they did as fast as they did?
the catholic church most certainly did teach that monetary gifts here on earth would speed either yours or an already deceased loved one's passage through purgatory and into heaven. it was one of the chief reasons that we left.
Suppose you tell me what your source is and I will look into it and research it. More than likely, you are confusing some sin of someone in the Catholic Church (which is entirely possible) with Catholic doctrine. But one thing I can assure you of: It has never been a doctrine of the Catholic Church that monetary gifts here on earth can speed passage through purgatory and into heaven. That is simply not true.

indeed, i agree; as i stated; i simply am not so silly as to imagine that when Christ is talking about his church that he is talking about one denomination to the exclusion of all others; really; it would require a mindset that i find rather xenophobic.
“Christ did not found a number of different churches teaching men different things. He founded one Church as a way of salvation. As God he could not do anything imperfect. The Church must be the perfect way of salvation. It cannot lead men into error. So unity always has been a mark of the Church. "One body and one Spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. 4:4-5). A Church without unity cannot be the true Church of Christ.
“Christ taught a doctrine of holiness. His Church must be a holy Church, teaching a holy doctrine, offering to men the means of being holy. The true fruits of the Church are the saints of every century. The fact that many Catholics are weak and sinful reminds us that Christ came to call not the just but sinners to repentance.
“Christ made his Church Catholic or universal in time and in extent: in time, because he promised to be with it until the end of the world; in extent, because he sent his apostles to all nations. Great empires and kingdoms have come and gone, but the Church remains. It is the only universal society which has survived for two millennia. This combination of unity and universality is a moral miracle. It has no purely natural explanation and must be the fulfillment of Christ's promise.”
www.catholic.com

yeah; pity it took so long for him to step up and accept the leadership Christ had left him, but, i suppose it's inherently part of the nature of peter. he has always been my favorite disciple (reminds me of me; kind of a well-intentioned screwup:)).
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; and Peter, possibly the weakest link, was chosen as the “rock” on which Jesus would build His Church. I’m sure God knew what He was doing.

:shrug: so? i know all this.
Good.

you've still got the problem; they don't accept the authority of your pontif. they are not part of the church. rather tricky, that.
Not tricky at all. We all have free will to break away and start our own churches; but they are just that, our own churches. No, the Greek Orthodox don’t accept the authority of the pope. But Orthodox churches are VERY close to the beliefs of the Catholic Church. Both have valid holy orders and apostolic succession through the episcopacy, both celebrate the same sacraments, both believe almost exactly the same theology, and both proclaim the same faith in Christ. On the flip side of the coin, about the only thing they have in common with Protestants is that they don’t accept the authority of the pope and have separated from the Catholic Church. But as I stated earlier in this thread, there are other many Eastern churches who have remained Catholic.

[Cedars]

let me ask you a question: in your opinion; can protestants find Jesus and gain entrance into heaven?
YES. However, for those who knowingly and deliberately (that is, not out of innocent ignorance) commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine) or schism (separating from the Catholic Church and/or joining a schismatic church), no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in Catholic unity.

Ignatius of Antioch

"Be not deceived, my brethren: If anyone follows a maker of schism [i.e., is a schismatic], he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange doctrine [i.e., is a heretic], he has no part in the passion [of Christ]. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons" (Letter to the Philadelphians 3:3–4:1 [A.D. 110]).

Justin Martyr

"We have been taught that Christ is the first-begotten of God, and we have declared him to be the Logos of which all mankind partakes [John 1:9]. Those, therefore, who lived according to reason [Greek, logos] were really Christians, even though they were thought to be atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus, and others like them. . . . Those who lived before Christ but did not live according to reason [logos] were wicked men, and enemies of Christ, and murderers of those who did live according to reason [logos], whereas those who lived then or who live now according to reason [logos] are Christians. Such as these can be confident and unafraid" (First Apology 46 [A.D. 151]).

Irenaeus

"In the Church God has placed apostles, prophets, teachers, and every other working of the Spirit, of whom none of those are sharers who do not conform to the Church, but who defraud themselves of life by an evil mind and even worse way of acting. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace" (Against Heresies 3:24:1 [A.D. 189]).
"[The spiritual man] shall also judge those who give rise to schisms, who are destitute of the love of God, and who look to their own special advantage rather than to the unity of the Church; and who for trifling reasons, or any kind of reason which occurs to them, cut in pieces and divide the great and glorious body of Christ, and so far as in them lies, destroy it—men who prate of peace while they give rise to war, and do in truth strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel. For they can bring about no ‘reformation’ of enough importance to compensate for the evil arising from their schism. . . . True knowledge is that which consists in the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient constitution of the Church throughout all the world, and the distinctive manifestation of the body of Christ according to the successions of the bishops, by which they have handed down that Church which exists in every place [i.e., the Catholic Church]" (ibid., 4:33:7–8).

Clement of Alexandria

"Before the coming of the Lord, philosophy was necessary for justification to the Greeks; now it is useful for piety . . . for it brought the Greeks to Christ as the law did the Hebrews" (Miscellanies 1:5 [A.D. 208]).

Origen

"[T]here was never a time when God did not want men to be just; he was always concerned about that. Indeed, he always provided beings endowed with reason with occasions for practicing virtue and doing what is right. In every generation the wisdom of God descended into those souls which he found holy and made them to be prophets and friends of God"(Against Celsus 4:7 [A.D. 248]).
"If someone from this people wants to be saved, let him come into this house so that he may be able to attain his salvation. . . . Let no one, then, be persuaded otherwise, nor let anyone deceive himself: Outside of this house, that is, outside of the Church, no one is saved; for, if anyone should go out of it, he is guilty of his own death" (Homilies on Joshua 3:5 [A.D. 250]).

[Cedars]

(cont)

Cyprian of Carthage

"Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress [a schismatic church] is separated from the promises of the Church, nor will he that forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is an alien, a worldling, and an enemy. He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother" (The Unity of the Catholic Church 6, 1st ed. [A.D. 251]).
"Let them not think that the way of life or salvation exists for them, if they have refused to obey the bishops and priests, since the Lord says in the book of Deuteronomy: ‘And any man who has the insolence to refuse to listen to the priest or judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die’ [Deut. 17:12]. And then, indeed, they were killed with the sword . . . but now the proud and insolent are killed with the sword of the Spirit, when they are cast out from the Church. For they cannot live outside, since there is only one house of God, and there can be no salvation for anyone except in the Church" (Letters 61[4]:4 [A.D. 253]).
"When we say, ‘Do you believe in eternal life and the remission of sins through the holy Church?’ we mean that remission of sins is not granted except in the Church" (ibid., 69[70]:2 [A.D. 253]).
"Peter himself, showing and vindicating the unity, has commanded and warned us that we cannot be saved except by the one only baptism of the one Church. He says, ‘In the ark of Noah a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. Similarly, baptism will in like manner save you" [1 Peter 3:20-21]. In how short and spiritual a summary has he set forth the sacrament of unity! In that baptism of the world in which its ancient wickedness was washed away, he who was not in the ark of Noah could not be saved by water. Likewise, neither can he be saved by baptism who has not been baptized in the Church which is established in the unity of the Lord according to the sacrament of the one ark" (ibid., 73[71]:11).
"[O]utside the Church there is no Holy Spirit, sound faith moreover cannot exist, not alone among heretics, but even among those who are established in schism" (Treatise on Rebaptism 10 [A.D. 256]).

Lactantius

"It is, therefore, the Catholic Church alone which retains true worship. This is the fountain of truth; this, the domicile of faith; this, the temple of God. Whoever does not enter there or whoever does not go out from there, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. . . . Because, however, all the various groups of heretics are confident that they are the Christians and think that theirs is the Catholic Church, let it be known that this is the true Church, in which there is confession and penance and which takes a health-promoting care of the sins and wounds to which the weak flesh is subject" (Divine Institutes 4:30:11–13 [A.D. 307]).

Jerome

"Heretics bring sentence upon themselves since they by their own choice withdraw from the Church, a withdrawal which, since they are aware of it, constitutes damnation. Between heresy and schism there is this difference: that heresy involves perverse doctrine, while schism separates one from the Church on account of disagreement with the bishop. Nevertheless, there is no schism which does not trump up a heresy to justify its departure from the Church" (Commentary on Titus 3:10–11 [A.D. 386]).

Augustine

"We believe also in the holy Church, that is, the Catholic Church. For heretics violate the faith itself by a false opinion about God; schismatics, however, withdraw from fraternal love by hostile separations, although they believe the same things we do. Consequently, neither heretics nor schismatics belong to the Catholic Church; not heretics, because the Church loves God; and not schismatics, because the Church loves neighbor" (Faith and the Creed 10:21 [A.D. 393]).
"[J]ust as baptism is of no profit to the man who renounces the world in words and not in deeds, so it is of no profit to him who is baptized in heresy or schism; but each of them, when he amends his ways, begins to receive profit from that which before was not profitable, but was yet already in him" (On Baptism, Against the Donatists 4:4[6] [A.D. 400]).
"I do not hesitate to put the Catholic catechumen, burning with divine love, before a baptized heretic. Even within the Catholic Church herself we put the good catechumen ahead of the wicked baptized person . . . For Cornelius, even before his baptism, was filled up with the Holy Spirit [Acts 10:44–48], while Simon [Magus], even after his baptism, was puffed up with an unclean spirit [Acts 8:13–19]" (ibid., 4:21[28]).
"The apostle Paul said, ‘As for a man that is a heretic, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him’ [Titus 3:10]. But those who maintain their own opinion, however false and perverted, without obstinate ill will, especially those who have not originated the error of bold presumption, but have received it from parents who had been led astray and had lapsed . . . those who seek the truth with careful industry and are ready to be corrected when they have found it, are not to be rated among heretics" (Letters 43:1 [A.D. 412]).
"Whoever is separated from this Catholic Church, by this single sin of being separated from the unity of Christ, no matter how estimable a life he may imagine he is living, shall not have life, but the wrath of God rests upon him" (ibid., 141:5).

[Cedars]

(cont)


Fulgentius of Ruspe

"Anyone who receives the sacrament of baptism, whether in the Catholic Church or in a heretical or schismatic one, receives the whole sacrament; but salvation, which is the strength of the sacrament, he will not have, if he has had the sacrament outside the Catholic Church [and remains in deliberate schism]. He must therefore return to the Church, not so that he might receive again the sacrament of baptism, which no one dare repeat in any baptized person, but so that he may receive eternal life in Catholic society, for the obtaining of which no one is suited who, even with the sacrament of baptism, remains estranged from the Catholic Church" (The Rule of Faith 43 [A.D. 524]).


(END)

[Cedars]

Indulgences ARE still a part of Church teaching; however, it is not what cpwill thinks it is. He prefers to believe in the myths about indulgences so he can beat Catholics over the head with it.

Here is a site for reading what indulgences actually are:

http://www.catholic.com/library/Primer_on_indulgences.asp

[cpwill]

Care to back up that piece of misinformation? What is your source for saying this?

:) i am unaware of any protestant leader who claims to have the power of excomunication with the spiritual results that the popes claimed.

[cpwill]

Not really ONE, when you consider the diverse beliefs that are held by Protestants.

there are basic beliefs that all christians hold to. furthermore, differing beliefs are held by catholics of different era's and orders; so i really fail to see how this is somehow a negative point.

Reform originally began in the Catholic Church. Martin Luther hindered the Catholic reform, but he did not stop it. Regardless of the Protestant Reformation, reform still continued in the Catholic Church – and all done without the need for separation. So your stating that Protestants didn’t WANT to but had to separate is simply not true.

the CounterReformation was just that; a counter-reformation; a reaction to it. had the movement started 50 years later, had the church functionaries later been less stubborn; yeah, we might have seen a reunification, or, perhaps, no schism at all. however, the catholic church was hardly about to simply complete this all on it's own. like all human endevours, it often requires outside influences to force it to do what is best for it.

Suppose you tell me what your source is and I will look into it and research it. More than likely, you are confusing some sin of someone in the Catholic Church (which is entirely possible) with Catholic doctrine. But one thing I can assure you of: It has never been a doctrine of the Catholic Church that monetary gifts here on earth can speed passage through purgatory and into heaven. That is simply not true.

well not originally, no; they were intended as merely thanks, a physical manifestation of the redemption and grace offered by the church; it was over time that they became more necessary, and this is why we see rich nobles and large landowners giving away land and riches on their deathbed, quite sure that it will speed their process through purgatory. has it ever been official dogma? certainly not, has it been (and was it in the time of luther) practice? certainly so.
as your own source states Those who claim that indulgences are no longer part of Church teaching have the admirable desire to distance themselves from abuses that occurred around the time of the Protestant Reformation.

“Christ did not found a number of different churches teaching men different things. He founded one Church as a way of salvation.

He didn't found any church's at all; He left that to his disciples to accomplish; as you yourself have pointed out by utilizing the example of Peter. however, the disciples did establish multiple churches within one overlapping "church"; which was the body of believers.

As God he could not do anything imperfect. The Church must be the perfect way of salvation. It cannot lead men into error.

see, this is where i think the catholic church err's; in it's tendency to confuse the Catholic Church with God. there are too many sins on the church's record to assume that it cannot lead men to err. it is a human institution. how else to explain it's fallibility.

So unity always has been a mark of the Church. "One body and one Spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. 4:4-5). A Church without unity cannot be the true Church of Christ.

and so the greek orthodox's are false because they are not unified under the roman catholics? :rolleyes: you are mistaking the Church in general with the catholic church in particular.

“Christ taught a doctrine of holiness. His Church must be a holy Church,

his church should try to be a Holy Church; however, recognizing that it is made up of humans, we realize this is impossible.

teaching a holy doctrine, offering to men the means of being holy.

blasphemy: only God through Jesus Christ can do that. the pope did not die on the cross for my sins.

The true fruits of the Church are the saints of every century. The fact that many Catholics are weak and sinful reminds us that Christ came to call not the just but sinners to repentance.

:rolleyes: this holds true for all believers, not just catholics.

“Christ made his Church Catholic or universal in time and in extent: in time, because he promised to be with it until the end of the world; in extent, because he sent his apostles to all nations. Great empires and kingdoms have come and gone, but the Church remains. It is the only universal society which has survived for two millennia.

you must not be much aware of eastern religions. the confucianist school predates christianity by centuries, as do various buddhist schools.

[cpwill]

This combination of unity and universality is a moral miracle. It has no purely natural explanation and must be the fulfillment of Christ's promise.”
www.catholic.com

unfortunately the "if it is not of God it will fall" argument would rather argue for a certain degree of universalism, something i don't really think either of us is all that willing to accept.;)

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link; and Peter, possibly the weakest link, was chosen as the “rock” on which Jesus would build His Church. I’m sure God knew what He was doing.

:shrug: no doubt.

Not tricky at all. We all have free will to break away and start our own churches; but they are just that, our own churches. No, the Greek Orthodox don’t accept the authority of the pope. But Orthodox churches are VERY close to the beliefs of the Catholic Church.

so? they are not of it, they are seperate from it; hence your' "one holy denomination" theory would invalidate them.

YES. However, for those who knowingly and deliberately (that is, not out of innocent ignorance) commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine) or schism (separating from the Catholic Church and/or joining a schismatic church), no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in Catholic unity.

:lol: so, if a man raised catholic rejected his faith in his twenties, lived a miserable life, and was brought to Christ by a baptist minister; despite accepting the forgiveness and salvation offered by Christ, will go to hell unless he leaves his Baptist Church to become Catholic again?

:sorry: this smacks too much of desire for the glory to the church rather than desire for the glory to God.

[cpwill]

here is a copy of martin luther's 95 Thesis, as a historical document it will likely shed some light on this discussion; especially as pertains to the use (or misuse) of the theory of indulgences. i think you might find it interesting; as it's clear goal is reform within the catholic church.
http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/ninetyfive.html

[Cedars]

i am unaware of any protestant leader who claims to have the power of excomunication with the spiritual results that the popes claimed.
No, Protestants don’t generally excommunicate; they just protest yet again and start a new church that “agrees” with their divergent concept and disagrees with whatever the reason they disagreed with the “old” church.

What do you think are the spiritual results the popes claimed?

there are basic beliefs that all christians hold to. furthermore, differing beliefs are held by catholics of different era's and orders; so i really fail to see how this is somehow a negative point.
First of all, Catholic doctrine, that which is taught to all Catholics that Catholics must believe, NEVER changes. NEVER. Doctrine today in the Catholic Church is the same doctrine taught by the apostles. You might be confusing Catholic doctrine with Catholic discipline. Discipline CAN change, such as priests not marrying; but Catholic doctrine can NEVER change to be different than what the apostles taught or contrary to scripture.
There may be some basic beliefs among Protestants and Catholics, but there are other beliefs that should be basic criteria (that is, taught by the apostles) for all Christians yet are not believed by many Protestants, or they are not even understood by some Protestant preachers who teach their congregations. For instance, I have a relative who is a nondenominational Protestant who once informed me that we should not be praying to God, we should be praying to Jesus. I must confess, I was astounded by that statement. First, let me ask you, do you see any error in this Protestant teaching?
Also, do you see any error with a pastor saying, “This is the symbol of my body,” when administering holy communion?

the CounterReformation was just that; a counter-reformation; a reaction to it. had the movement started 50 years later, had the church functionaries later been less stubborn; yeah, we might have seen a reunification, or, perhaps, no schism at all. however, the catholic church was hardly about to simply complete this all on it's own. like all human endevours, it often requires outside influences to force it to do what is best for it.
The term “Counter Reformation” is actually a misnomer, the term used by Protestant historians.
You need to hit the history books, cpwill. Reform originally began in the Catholic Church. In fact, Martin Luther was a Catholic Reformer BEFORE he became Protestant. Even before the Protestant Reformation the holding of synods and provincial councils had been frequent, and they had always been attentive to points requiring reform.
“The monk Luther and many like him began by denouncing abuses. The abuses were serious, no doubt, but from the nature of the case abuses in matters or of matters themselves holy and laudable. Yet so violent did the accusers become that they gradually forgot any good there was connected with the object decried, though the good perhaps in reality far outweighed the evil. Then came attacks upon the persons who maintained or defended the thing impugned, or who failed to make the changes demanded, and they were almost always declared to have virtually or actually betrayed or deserted the Church itself. Finally the reformer, setting himself up as the true standard of orthodoxy, fell to self-exaltation, and at last rebelled and separated from the Church, which he had originally intended to serve.” (www.newadvent.com)

here is a copy of martin luther's 95 Thesis, as a historical document it will likely shed some light on this discussion; especially as pertains to the use (or misuse) of the theory of indulgences. i think you might find it interesting; as it's clear goal is reform within the catholic church.
The key issue here, as you have just mentioned, is the abuse or misuse of indulgences, not indulgences themselves.

well not originally, no; they were intended as merely thanks, a physical manifestation of the redemption and grace offered by the church; it was over time that they became more necessary, and this is why we see rich nobles and large landowners giving away land and riches on their deathbed, quite sure that it will speed their process through purgatory. has it ever been official dogma? certainly not, has it been (and was it in the time of luther) practice? certainly so.
as your own source states Those who claim that indulgences are no longer part of Church teaching have the admirable desire to distance themselves from abuses that occurred around the time of the Protestant Reformation.
Not originally, and not EVER. I suggest if you truly want to know what indulgences are, that you read in full that site I listed instead of just the first sentence which you quoted out of context to suit your own misinformation. I reiterate: It has never been a doctrine of the Catholic Church that monetary gifts here on earth can speed passage through purgatory and into heaven. That is simply not true – today or ever.

[Cedars]

He didn't found any church's at all; He left that to his disciples to accomplish; as you yourself have pointed out by utilizing the example of Peter. however, the disciples did establish multiple churches within one overlapping "church"; which was the body of believers.
Then you are admitting you do not believe scriptures literally when Jesus said, upon this rock I will BUILD MY CHURCH and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Obviously, as Christians we all share some basic beliefs. But in apostolic times, the apostles appointed others to go out and preach, AFTER having been properly taught or schooled by the apostles, and also appointed their own successors. When the early Christians strayed or believed in some error, the apostles sent letters to those people or churches to correct them and tell them of their error. They did not say, well, hey, it’s okay, we’re all Christians, we can believe what we want as long as we all know we are Christians. No, the apostles told them what they must do and must not do to stay right with God. They insisted on it. Do you not believe that our Lord still insists on one faith today? You and I both know that God did not let His Church die with the apostles, that He would fulfill His promise that His Church would never fail. Apparently, our difference is that you, as a Protestant, do not believe that Christ founded a VISIBLE Church. Yet, Paul did speak of "one faith," and the first great Church gathering, around the year 50 in Jerusalem, was without doubt the manifestation of a visible Church. There the apostles, the quite visible leaders of the Church, made one of the earliest universal decisions, exempting Christians from Judaic law.

‘Ignatius of Antioch speaks of a visible Church when he outlines its nature in 107, marking it, for the first time of which we have record, as the "Catholic Church": "Where the bishop is found, there let the people be, even as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church."’
“Most of Protestantism - at least traditional Protestantism - chokes on the idea that Christ established a visible and consequently authoritative Church, no matter how clearly history seems to insist that he did. If Christ's Church is truly visible, as Catholics maintain, then it follows that no Protestant body can be that Church, for no Protestant church, quite obviously, can be dated back to the beginning.” (www.catholic.com)
“Christ's Church does have an invisible quality in that it is his Mystical Body on earth. But to understand the Church as having no visibility at all - and, as a consequence, no authority at all - conjures up a Church as tenuous as feathers in the wind. It's almost as if Jesus, in setting up his Church, didn't quite know what he was doing.
“[O]nly a visible, authoritative Church could have set in place the pillars that would support Christian belief and practice through the ages. Here are a few examples:
“1. Codification of the Bible. The Bible did not codify itself, did not specify which books, among many, were to be seen as inspired. A visible, authoritative body, comprised of bishops, decided the content of the canon.
“2. The worldwide councils. Christianity's doctrinal parameters have been charted by the ecumenical councils, now numbering 21, each conducted under the authority of the visible, universal Church. Not once in those 21 sessions did an "invisible" group of bishops meet and deliberate.
3. The Lord's day. The Christian Sunday replaced the Saturday sabbath of the Old Testament. The visible Church made this change.
“4. Christmas and Easter. The Bible nowhere mentions the word "Christmas" or the date for Christmas. The celebration of Christmas on December 25 was a decision of the Church. (The feast didn't arise all by itself.) Much the same can be said for Easter as a feast separate from the other Sundays which commemorate the Resurrection. It was a visible Church, headed by a definitely locatable pope, that settled the dates of observance for the two key feasts.
“5. The calendar. It is Christ's visible Church, its reach extending into the secular realm, which has given us the Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII.”
(www.catholic.com)

[Cedars]

see, this is where i think the catholic church err's; in it's tendency to confuse the Catholic Church with God. there are too many sins on the church's record to assume that it cannot lead men to err. it is a human institution. how else to explain it's fallibility.
The Catholic Church does not confuse itself with God. YOU are confusing the Catholic Church which Christ founded with the Catholics (pope, clergy, layman, etc.). Christ founded a Church which He promised would never fail; He never promised that the PEOPLE of the Church would never fail – but that the Church itself would never fail, because the Holy Spirit dwells in the Church, and that is the gift of infallibility. In other words, God protects Catholic doctrine from error; only Catholic doctrine and teaching authority is infallible. A pope or teaching authority of the Catholic Church are capable of sin but they are barred by the Holy Spirit from teaching error whereby all Catholics are to adhere to that teaching authority. This gift protects DOCTRINE not people, as people have free will to sin or not; but Catholic DOCTRINE is protected by the Holy Spirit. This is what Christ meant when He said that the Church would never fail. He never meant that PEOPLE would never fail; He meant that the teaching authority of His Church would never fail. The gift of infallibility is a negative gift, that is, it does not inspire – it simply bars from teaching error. If a pope, say, were given a test to infallibly interpret scripture (where all Catholics must adhere to that teaching) and had to answer ten questions, what do you think would be the most he could get wrong? The answer is ALL of them – because he could leave all ten answers BLANK! A pope can be sinful, and normally a sinful pope would be too busy sinning to care about doing the Lord’s work; but the Holy Spirit WOULD bar even a sinful pope from teaching error to the masses. This is a wonderful gift that God has given us through the Holy Spirit. It is too bad you refuse to believe in it. The Holy Spirit did not stop its work with the apostles’ teaching authority. It lives on through the teaching authority of the Catholic Church.

Consider this explanation from www.catholic.com:
The Church’s fidelity to its own doctrine serves the interests of its children and of society at large. If the Oracle of God were to allow people to shout it down, two things would likely happen. First, the gates of hell, although not prevailing against the Church itself, would no doubt prevail against many of its erring children. Second, society in general would be weakened, because the Church would no longer be a prophet with the strength and vision to challenge that society when it goes astray.

Because of its union with Christ, the Church is larger than the world. Yet some would reduce it to a mere microcosm of society. Since society is itself collapsing under the weight of its own secularity, the last thing it needs is a Church that mirrors its own weaknesses.

Pluralism, properly understood and balanced by other values such as order and unity, can exist within the Church as well as within society. The Church is diverse in many ways: It embraces people of all cultures. It elevates the positive elements found in such cultures. It encourages myriad ways of serving God through its many religious orders. It recognizes and promotes all the gifts that the Holy Spirit rains upon the people of God. There may be different styles of theology, and theologians may differ on questions that the Church declares open. But the Church must not be pluralistic in the sense that it tolerates doctrinal dissent.

No theology that fails to spring from faith, proceed with faith, and culminate in faith can rightly be called Catholic theology. And no theologian who sets himself above the Church’s official teachers can rightly be called a Catholic theologian. Aquinas and Bonaventure had different theologies, but they shared the same faith. Aquinas wasn’t sure about the Immaculate Conception, but the Church had not yet spoken definitively on that issue. Had the "Dumb Ox" been living on earth in 1854, when Pope Pius IX solemnly defined the dogma, he would have undoubtedly accepted it on faith.

(cont)

[Cedars]

(cont.)

The phrase "immune from error" sounds naïve in postmodern ears and evokes a litany of the Church’s imagined errors down the centuries. Invariably these turn out either not to be errors at all or, if real errors were involved, the teaching in question was not advanced in a definitive manner. No one would deny that there have been times in history when the Church’s human voices threatened to muffle its divine voice. But it is a strange spectacle when children of the Church pay more heed to its occasional errors than to its constant truths.

Why this odd preference? Why did Adam and Eve prefer a piece of fruit to paradise? Why did the Jews of the Exodus pine for the stewpots of Egypt even as the Promised Land loomed before them? Why did the crowds chant, "Give us Barabbas!" and then, turning to Christ, "Crucify Him!"? Why do so many Catholics surround themselves with teachers who tickle their ears (see 2 Tim. 4:3) and remain deaf to the Oracle of God? Clearly, the human race boasts a long and glorious history of bad judgment.

So we silence the Oracle of God not because it is unreliable but because it is accurate. When the Church says "No" to birth control, to abortion, to sex outside marriage, we ignore the voice of God and cling to the vices of men. What would our society be like today if the Oracle of God had been heeded consistently by mankind over the past 35 years? Or, if that question sounds impossibly utopian, what would our society be like if the Oracle of God had been heeded consistently by the majority of Catholics over the same period? When the Church says that God is three Persons in one nature, that Jesus is one person who has two natures, that all this is relevant because our destiny lies in what C. S. Lewis called "the happy land of the Trinity," we put our fingers in our ears like stubborn children and follow false teachers along safer paths.

What is the solution? We need to close our mouths and open our hearts. We need to sit still before the Oracle of God and listen to what the Spirit is telling us. If we do this, both Protestant Fundamentalists and Catholic dissenters will accuse us of worshiping the Church. But we cannot heed all voices. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1). Indeed, the very fact that orthodox Catholics come under fire from both the religious right and the religious left at the same time is revealing.

However embattled we may become with those who slander the Oracle of God, we must strive always to win them over. Fundamentalists believe, against Cyprian, that they can have God as their Father without having the Church as their Mother. We must show them with charity what their own tenuous doctrines of sola scriptura and sola fide already manifest—namely, that Father God and Mother Church cannot be separated any more than can Scripture and Tradition or faith and good works.

Dissenting Catholics believe that they can have the Church as their Mother without obeying that Mother as a teacher. We must demonstrate with the holiness of our own lives and the cogency of our arguments that the Church is a Mother whom we never outgrow, a Mother whose beauty and wisdom increase with age, a Mother who deserves our reverence and obedience and not our arrogance and condescension.

There is a paragraph in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that should be posted in large letters in every parish in America: "Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the ‘mystery of iniquity’ in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh" (675).

Listening to one’s own voice or the voice of society instead of the voice of God is easy to do, since, as Elijah discovered, God speaks in "a still, small voice" (1 Kings 19:12). But the consequences of doing so, as the Catechism indicates, are literally apocalyptic. Orthodox Catholics, like the remnant of 7,000 that God promised to Elijah, need not make this still, small voice any louder. There is enough noise in the world as it is. But if we reveal in our words and in our lives the goodness, the truth, and the beauty of the Oracle of God, the world will grow, slowly but surely, as silent as heaven during the half-hour before the seven trumpets sound (Rev. 8:1).

A day will come when the still, small voice will sound like thunder. Be it with joy or with terror, each of us on that day must hear it. Until then we had best attend to God’s holy Oracle.

[Cedars]

and so the greek orthodox's are false because they are not unified under the roman catholics? you are mistaking the Church in general with the catholic church in particular.
so? they are not of it, they are seperate from it; hence your' "one holy denomination" theory would invalidate them
No, Greek Orthodox is not false. As I said earlier, the Orthodox are VERY close to the beliefs of the Catholic Church. Both have valid holy orders and apostolic succession through the episcopacy, both celebrate the same sacraments, both believe almost exactly the same theology, and both proclaim the same faith in Christ. But the Orthodox are a schism (not heretics) in that they broke away from the Catholic Church.

so, if a man raised catholic rejected his faith in his twenties, lived a miserable life, and was brought to Christ by a baptist minister; despite accepting the forgiveness and salvation offered by Christ, will go to hell unless he leaves his Baptist Church to become Catholic again?
You are jumping to erroneous conclusions. Read again: For those who KNOWINGLY and DELIBERATELY (that is, NOT OUT OF INNOCENT IGNORANCE) commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine) or schism (separating from the Catholic Church and/or joining a schismatic church), no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in Catholic unity.

this smacks too much of desire for the glory to the church rather than desire for the glory to God.
Christ founded the Church. Why would any Christian doubt His promise that it would never fail?

blasphemy: only God through Jesus Christ can do that. the pope did not die on the cross for my sins.
No one has ever said that the pope died on the cross for our sins. What makes you jump to that conclusion?

you must not be much aware of eastern religions. the confucianist school predates christianity by centuries, as do various buddhist schools.
.
I think the author here was referring to universal societies, not predating Christianity.

unfortunately the "if it is not of God it will fall" argument would rather argue for a certain degree of universalism, something i don't really think either of us is all that willing to accept.
I think the author is merely pointing out that with all the adversity, it is a miracle by God that it still exists.

[JoeR]

Catholicism and Christianity in general was destined to survive once those with wealth and power accepted/co-opted it, i.e. Rome.

[cpwill]

to an extent; the romanization of the church is where it starts (i think) to have serious negative elements creep into it.

[cpwill]

No, Protestants don’t generally excommunicate; they just protest yet again and start a new church that “agrees” with their divergent concept and disagrees with whatever the reason they disagreed with the “old” church.

over major theological issues; yes. however, that doesn't mean that we assume (for example) that the other church is somehow without the light or isn't part of Christ's Church. that would be rather the height of arrogance.

What do you think are the spiritual results the popes claimed?

At any rate, in the first centuries excommunication is not regarded as a simple external measure; it reaches the soul and the conscience. It is not merely the severing of the outward bond which holds the individual to his place in the Church; it severs also the internal bond, and the sentence pronounced on earth is ratified in heaven. It is the spiritual sword, the heaviest penalty that the Church can inflict (see the patristic texts quoted in the Decree of Gratian, cc. xxxi, xxxii, xxxiii, C. xi, q. iii). Hence in the Bull "Exsurge Domine" (16 May, 1520) Leo X justly condemned Luther's twenty-third proposition according to which "excommunications are merely external punishments, nor do they deprive a man of the common spiritual prayers of the Church". Pius VI also condemned (Auctorem Fidei, 28 Aug., 1794) the forty-sixth proposition of the Pseudo-Synod of Pistoia, which maintained that the effect of excommunication is only exterior because of its own nature it excludes only from exterior communion with the Church, as if, said the pope, excommunication were not a spiritual penalty binding in heaven and affecting souls. The aforesaid proposition was therefore condemned as false, pernicious, already reprobated in the twenty-third proposition of Luther, and, to say the least, erroneous. Undoubtedly the Church cannot (nor does it wish to) oppose any obstacle to the internal relations of the soul with God; she even implores God to give the grace of repentance to the excommunicated. The rites of the Church, nevertheless, are always the providential and regular channel through which Divine grace is conveyed to Christians; exclusion from such rites, especially from the sacraments, entails therefore regularly the privation of this grace, to whose sources the excommunicated person has no longer access.

source: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05678a.htm

First of all, Catholic doctrine, that which is taught to all Catholics that Catholics must believe, NEVER changes.

that's Dogma. as i understand it; the issue of infalibility applies only to when the Pope speaks Ex Cathedra; which is extraordinarily rare; and doesn't cover any but the most basic solid beliefs.

There may be some basic beliefs among Protestants and Catholics, but there are other beliefs that should be basic criteria (that is, taught by the apostles) for all Christians yet are not believed by many Protestants, or they are not even understood by some Protestant preachers who teach their congregations.

such as?

For instance, I have a relative who is a nondenominational Protestant who once informed me that we should not be praying to God, we should be praying to Jesus. I must confess, I was astounded by that statement. First, let me ask you, do you see any error in this Protestant teaching?

i'm interested in what you consider to be the actual weight of this statement; i once had a catholic friend tell me that it wasn't necessary for Christ to die on the Cross in order for man to be forgiven; do you see any error in this Catholic teaching? is it worse than the aforementioned error (which is really fairly nitpicky) in that Protestant teaching?

Also, do you see any error with a pastor saying, “This is the symbol of my body,” when administering holy communion?

not really; that's what i think Jesus meant.

The term “Counter Reformation” is actually a misnomer, the term used by Protestant historians.

those darn historians :) whatever you wish to name it, the movement remains the same.

You need to hit the history books, cpwill. Reform originally began in the Catholic Church.

:shrug: and it actually began to happen after the protestants began to leave.

In fact, Martin Luther was a Catholic Reformer BEFORE he became Protestant.

correct, as i pointed out when i referenced his Thesis. finally he left due to the fact that reform wasn't actually going anywhere.

Even before the Protestant Reformation the holding of synods and provincial councils had been frequent, and they had always been attentive to points requiring reform.
“The monk Luther and many like him began by denouncing abuses. The abuses were serious, no doubt, but from the nature of the case abuses in matters or of matters themselves holy and laudable. Yet so violent did the accusers become that they gradually forgot any good there was connected with the object decried, though the good perhaps in reality far outweighed the evil. Then came attacks upon the persons who maintained or defended the thing impugned, or who failed to make the changes demanded, and they were almost always declared to have virtually or actually betrayed or deserted the Church itself.

:shrug: i really don't see how this is any worse (and indeed, is a bit better) than the catholic church's reaction at the time.

[cpwill]

Finally the reformer, setting himself up as the true standard of orthodoxy, fell to self-exaltation, and at last rebelled and separated from the Church, which he had originally intended to serve.” (www.newadvent.com)

that's correct; we decided rome had moved too far from where christianity was intended to be; and that she wasn't looking like she was too interested in moving back; particularly in her response to these reformers like Luther. (what was the dominicans role in this time period again? oh.)

The key issue here, as you have just mentioned, is the abuse or misuse of indulgences, not indulgences themselves.

one of the key issues at first; yes.

Not originally, and not EVER. I suggest if you truly want to know what indulgences are, that you read in full that site I listed instead of just the first sentence which you quoted out of context to suit your own misinformation.

:) you assume; i did in fact read on.

I reiterate: It has never been a doctrine of the Catholic Church that monetary gifts here on earth can speed passage through purgatory and into heaven. That is simply not true – today or ever.

and i reiterate; it may not have been part of official doctrine; but it did not stop the catholic church from teaching, encouraging, and profiting off of it. st peter's bascilica didn't get to be the size it is today due to the pope's wise medieval stock market investments;)

The phrase "immune from error" sounds naïve in postmodern ears and evokes a litany of the Church’s imagined errors down the centuries. Invariably these turn out either not to be errors at all or, if real errors were involved, the teaching in question was not advanced in a definitive manner. No one would deny that there have been times in history when the Church’s human voices threatened to muffle its divine voice. But it is a strange spectacle when children of the Church pay more heed to its occasional errors than to its constant truths.

:lol: so this guy's argument is that "immune from error" means "only sometimes errors"??? :rolleyes: if this is indeed the church argument then i suggest that you begin to reword some of your language.

The Catholic Church does not confuse itself with God. YOU are confusing the Catholic Church which Christ founded with the Catholics (pope, clergy, layman, etc.). Christ founded a Church which He promised would never fail; He never promised that the PEOPLE of the Church would never fail – but that the Church itself would never fail, because the Holy Spirit dwells in the Church, and that is the gift of infallibility. In other words, God protects Catholic doctrine from error; only Catholic doctrine and teaching authority is infallible.

and yet strangely your instinct was not to say "doctrine is cannot lead men into error", nor "God is the perfect path to salvation"; but rather to say The Church must be the perfect way of salvation. It cannot lead men into error. (emphasis added

Most of Protestantism - at least traditional Protestantism - chokes on the idea that Christ established a visible and consequently authoritative Church, no matter how clearly history seems to insist that he did

show me the scripture that involves Jesus founding a church, like, for example; paul in acts.

Aquinas wasn’t sure about the Immaculate Conception, but the Church had not yet spoken definitively on that issue. Had the "Dumb Ox" been living on earth in 1854, when Pope Pius IX solemnly defined the dogma, he would have undoubtedly accepted it on faith.

i thought doctrine was unchanging?;)

[Cedars]

over major theological issues; yes. however, that doesn't mean that we assume (for example) that the other church is somehow without the light or isn't part of Christ's Church. that would be rather the height of arrogance.
Then you would probably consider the apostles arrogant when they opposed other Christians who did not believe what they, the apostles, taught.

At any rate, in the first centuries excommunication is not regarded as a simple external measure; it reaches the soul and the conscience. It is not merely the severing of the outward bond which holds the individual to his place in the Church; it severs also the internal bond, and the sentence pronounced on earth is ratified in heaven. It is the spiritual sword, the heaviest penalty that the Church can inflict (see the patristic texts quoted in the Decree of Gratian, cc. xxxi, xxxii, xxxiii, C. xi, q. iii). Hence in the Bull "Exsurge Domine" (16 May, 1520) Leo X justly condemned Luther's twenty-third proposition according to which "excommunications are merely external punishments, nor do they deprive a man of the common spiritual prayers of the Church". Pius VI also condemned (Auctorem Fidei, 28 Aug., 1794) the forty-sixth proposition of the Pseudo-Synod of Pistoia, which maintained that the effect of excommunication is only exterior because of its own nature it excludes only from exterior communion with the Church, as if, said the pope, excommunication were not a spiritual penalty binding in heaven and affecting souls. The aforesaid proposition was therefore condemned as false, pernicious, already reprobated in the twenty-third proposition of Luther, and, to say the least, erroneous. Undoubtedly the Church cannot (nor does it wish to) oppose any obstacle to the internal relations of the soul with God; she even implores God to give the grace of repentance to the excommunicated. The rites of the Church, nevertheless, are always the providential and regular channel through which Divine grace is conveyed to Christians; exclusion from such rites, especially from the sacraments, entails therefore regularly the privation of this grace, to whose sources the excommunicated person has no longer access.

source: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05678a.htm
What do YOU think are the spiritual results the popes claimed? What do you think this means?

Quote:
First of all, Catholic doctrine, that which is taught to all Catholics that Catholics must believe, NEVER changes.

that's Dogma. as i understand it
‘The term “doctrine” can be used generally to refer to all of the Church’s teachings. In addition, we can say that dogma is a subset of doctrine — all dogmas are doctrines, but not all doctrines are dogmas. A doctrine is a teaching of the universal Church proposed as necessary for belief by the faithful. Dogmas, properly speaking, are such teachings that are set forth to be believed as divinely revealed (Catechism, no. 88; cf. 891-892). When differentiating from dogma, we use the term “doctrine” to signify teachings that are either definitively proposed or those that are proposed as true, but not in a definitive manner (cf. Catechism, nos. 88, 891-92).’ (Elizabeth Hruska)

the issue of infalibility applies only to when the Pope speaks Ex Cathedra; which is extraordinarily rare; and doesn't cover any but the most basic solid beliefs
True. ‘The magisterium (which is the pope and the bishops in union with him) is the guardian of this teaching, not its author and arbiter (Catechism, no. 85-87). The magisterium is preserved by the Holy Spirit from formally teaching anything on faith and morals that was not at least implicitly taught by Christ and the apostles (cf. Catechism, no. 67). The magisterium cannot formally teach anything that contradicts the truths revealed by Christ. The Gospels clearly show how Christ gave this teaching authority to the apostles and their successors (see Mt 10:40, Mt 28:19-20, Lk 10:16, Jn 13:20, Jn 16:11).’ (Elizabeth Hruska)

such as?
such as the example, or “for instance” that followed it…

Quote:
For instance, I have a relative who is a nondenominational Protestant who once informed me that we should not be praying to God, we should be praying to Jesus. I must confess, I was astounded by that statement … a pastor saying, “This is the symbol of my body,” when administering holy communion?

i'm interested in what you consider to be the actual weight of this statement; i once had a catholic friend tell me that it wasn't necessary for Christ to die on the Cross in order for man to be forgiven; do you see any error in this Catholic teaching? is it worse than the aforementioned error (which is really fairly nitpicky) in that Protestant teaching?
You may call any error “nitpicky”; I just plainly call it “error.” One of the basic teachings of Christianity is the Trinity. When we pray, we pray to God (that is, the Trinity). Some Protestants consider Catholics crossing ourselves as superstitious. It is not. Catholics start and end all prayers by saying, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” all while crossing ourselves. We recognize even in our prayers that the Trinity is ONE God.

PS: I almost neglected to address this. I am not sure what this Catholic is talking about. You might ask him/her. Perhaps s/he erred.

[Cedars]

not really; that's what i think Jesus meant. You said that in response to my asking: Also, do you see any error with a pastor saying, “This is the symbol of my body,” when administering holy communion?

Jesus actually said, “This IS my body.” (Emphasis added.) (Mat. 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19). He did not say this is the SYMBOL of my body. (Emphasis added.) “This IS my body” is a literal interpretation of what Jesus actually said. “This is a symbol of my body” is not a literal interpretation and is an error. In fact, this is a vital difference between the Catholics/Orthodox and Protestants. The apostles never taught that this was a symbol.

those darn historians whatever you wish to name it, the movement remains the same.
The point is that the Protestant historians erred when they called it a Counter Reformation, as the Catholic Reformation preceded the Protestant Reformation.

and it actually began to happen after the protestants began to leave.
How do you figure? Catholic reform began before the protestants left. Just because Martin Luther, first a Catholic reformer, left and re-formed his own church does not negate that Catholic reform had already started.

correct, as i pointed out when i referenced his Thesis. finally he left due to the fact that reform wasn't actually going anywhere.
Not going anywhere? You mean, it wasn’t actually going to where Luther WANTED it to go.

i really don't see how this is any worse (and indeed, is a bit better) than the catholic church's reaction at the time.
I’m not following your logic. How could it be better?

Quote:
Finally the reformer, setting himself up as the true standard of orthodoxy, fell to self-exaltation, and at last rebelled and separated from the Church, which he had originally intended to serve.” (www.newadvent.com)

that's correct; we decided rome had moved too far from where christianity was intended to be; and that she wasn't looking like she was too interested in moving back; particularly in her response to these reformers like Luther. (what was the dominicans role in this time period again? oh.)
You just agreed that it was correct that the reformer (Martin Luther) set HIMSELF as the true standard of orthodoxy and fell to SELF-EXALTATION! So you think it better to follow a man full of self-exaltation, conceit and arrogance for setting himself as the true standard of orthodoxy than following the wisdom of the apostles? There may be sinners in the Catholic Church who abused the doctrines of the faith, but at least the doctrines themselves were not tampered with –- the teaching of Jesus and the apostles remain intact. Not so with Luther and his followers. Luther tampered with the teaching of the apostles. He exalted his own personal ideas (e.g., sola scriptura and “faith alone”) over that of the teaching of the apostles. (Nowhere in the bible is the “doctrine” of sola scriptura. And "faith alone" only appears once in the Bible—in James 2:24—where it is rejected.)

Quote:
Not originally, and not EVER. I suggest if you truly want to know what indulgences are, that you read in full that site I listed instead of just the first sentence which you quoted out of context to suit your own misinformation.

you assume; i did in fact read on.
And decided to quote what appeared to fit in with what you think, and with no other comment? Tsk, tsk.

and i reiterate; it may not have been part of official doctrine; but it did not stop the catholic church from teaching, encouraging, and profiting off of it. st peter's bascilica didn't get to be the size it is today due to the pope's wise medieval stock market investments
As I said before, the Catholic Church has had sinners in the past, does now, and will in the future. Your charges are always against the sinners who abused the doctrine but never against the doctrine itself of the Church. Have you noticed this?

so this guy's argument is that "immune from error" means "only sometimes errors"??? if this is indeed the church argument then i suggest that you begin to reword some of your language.
The author is merely saying that no error was ever of a doctrinal nature.

Quote:
The Catholic Church does not confuse itself with God. YOU are confusing the Catholic Church which Christ founded with the Catholics (pope, clergy, layman, etc.). Christ founded a Church which He promised would never fail; He never promised that the PEOPLE of the Church would never fail – but that the Church itself would never fail, because the Holy Spirit dwells in the Church, and that is the gift of infallibility. In other words, God protects Catholic doctrine from error; only Catholic doctrine and teaching authority is infallible.

and yet strangely your instinct was not to say "doctrine is cannot lead men into error", nor "God is the perfect path to salvation"; but rather to say The Church must be the perfect way of salvation. It cannot lead men into error. (emphasis added
I am saying that Catholic DOCTRINE has no error. Man has free will to accept the truth (through God’s grace) or not; but the Holy Spirit protects the doctrine itself from error so that man may always know the truth if he desires it – that is how Jesus has fulfilled His promise that His Church will never fail.

show me the scripture that involves Jesus founding a church, like, for example; paul in acts.
How about my previous example: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Mat. 16:18)

[Cedars]

i thought doctrine was unchanging?
Correct.

“It’s important to understand that the Church does not, indeed cannot, change the doctrines God has given it, nor can it "invent" new ones and add them to the deposit of faith that has been "once for all delivered to the saints." New beliefs are not invented, but obscurities and misunderstandings regarding the deposit of faith are cleared up.”

“However, when we read Scripture in the light of the apostles’ authentic teachings, we sometimes forget that some central doctrines (such as the Trinity and the hypostatic union) were not always understood or as clearly expounded in the Church’s early days the way they are now. Understanding grew and deepened over time. As an example, consider the Holy Spirit’s divinity. In Scripture, references to it seem to jump out at us. But if we imagine ourselves as ancient pagans or as present-day non-Christians reading the Bible for the first time, we realize, for them, the Holy Spirit’s status as a divine person is not as clearly present in Scripture, since they are less likely to notice details pointing to it. If we think of ourselves as having no recourse to apostolic tradition and to the Church’s teaching authority that the Holy Spirit guides into all truth (cf. John 14:25-26, 16:13), we can appreciate how easy it must have been for the early heresies concerning the Trinity and Holy Spirit to arise.”

“Another example is the early heresy known as Monothelitism. This heresy, which Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants reject, claimed that Christ had only one will—the divine—and that he had no human will. This error sprang up because people had not yet clearly perceived that, since Christ is fully God, he must have a divine will, and, since he is fully man, he must have a human will. If he lacks one or the other will, then he would either not be fully God or not be fully man. Thus Christ must have two wills, one divine and one human. But because the issue had never been raised before, this teaching had not yet been discerned as a necessary inference from the fact that Christ is fully God and fully man—two teachings that had been understood for ages.”

“As these and many other cases demonstrate, doctrinal questions can remain in a not-yet-fully-defined state for years. The Church has never felt the need to define formally what there has been no particular pressure to define. This strikes many, particularly non-Catholics, as strange. Why weren’t things cleared up in, say, A.D. 100, so folks could know what’s what? Why didn’t Rome issue a laundry list of definitions in the early days and let it go at that? Why wasn’t an end-run made around all these troubles that plagued Christianity precisely because things were unclear? The remote reason is that God has had his own timetable and set of reasons (to which we aren’t privy) for keeping it. The same could be said about Old Testament prophets: Why didn’t they understand the fullness of the doctrine of the Trinity all at once? Or the identity of the Messiah? Or the fullness of Christian teaching? Partly because God had not revealed it all yet, and partly because their understanding of the implications of the doctrines they had needed to grow clearer over time.”
(www.catholic.com)

[BobbyO]

Suggests unfamiliarity with Protestant churches. Pointing to excesses of fringe elements and cults is like saying Catholic theology is the Spanish Inquisition and homosexual child molestation.

How so? I pointed out, correctly I believe, that in Protestant churches one can stray only so far and still be considered members of the flock. There was no condemnation implied in that staement of mine.

[Heathcliff]

How so? I pointed out, correctly I believe, that in Protestant churches one can stray only so far and still be considered members of the flock. There was no condemnation implied in that staement of mine.I probably misunderstand your direction. Maybe you could give examples. My impression is that the Catholic church is more intolerant of dissent in the sense that they have more rules to follow handed down to them. I don't think you would ever hear talk of Kerry being excommunicated if he belonged to a mainstream Protestant church, for ex.

Seems universal to me. If you stray too far from Catholic authority, you may be a Lutheran, like Martin Luther did. Under the Protestant umbrella there are many formal divisions, but Catholics have divisions also, if not formally recognized, like cafeteria Catholics, divorced Catholics.

http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/index.asp?vm_id=1&art_id=25815

At the center of the swirling controversy is Marc Balestrieri, a California canon lawyer, who has brought a canonical suit against Kerry (and others), citing his flagrant dissent from Church teachings on the dignity of life. This summer he visited Rome and spoke to officials at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, asking them whether public support for abortion could be considered heresy, and thus grounds for excommunication. On October 15th, he announced that he had received an affirmative answer.

[cpwill]

Then you would probably consider the apostles arrogant when they opposed other Christians who did not believe what they, the apostles, taught.

nope, they had (were given) the authority to make such decisions. the catholic church is not the apostles. they claim to have some kind of "apostolic tradition", but that A) is rather highly debatable and B) still leaves them distinctly not the apostles.
also, the apostles were sometimes wrong in what they preached, as recorded in Acts; it took a bit for everyone to get on board with accepting gentiles.

What do YOU think are the spiritual results the popes claimed? What do you think this means?

what it says; if i had to give you a rough approximation, i'd bet that it at the least lengthens your time in purgatory by quite a bit.

Quote:
First of all, Catholic doctrine, that which is taught to all Catholics that Catholics must believe, NEVER changes.


‘The term “doctrine” can be used generally to refer to all of the Church’s teachings. In addition, we can say that dogma is a subset of doctrine — all dogmas are doctrines, but not all doctrines are dogmas. A doctrine is a teaching of the universal Church proposed as necessary for belief by the faithful. Dogmas, properly speaking, are such teachings that are set forth to be believed as divinely revealed (Catechism, no. 88; cf. 891-892). When differentiating from dogma, we use the term “doctrine” to signify teachings that are either definitively proposed or those that are proposed as true, but not in a definitive manner (cf. Catechism, nos. 88, 891-92).’ (Elizabeth Hruska)

if they are not proposed to be true in a definitive manner and are from man (rather than from God, as you put it, divinely revealed) then how can they be unchanging? only that which comes from God is unchanging.

such as the example, or “for instance” that followed it…

Quote:
For instance, I have a relative who is a nondenominational Protestant who once informed me that we should not be praying to God, we should be praying to Jesus. I must confess, I was astounde