Before they were called Christians in Antioch, Jesus’ disciples were known as followers of the way (Acts 9:2) – Jesus said he was the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is the only way that we can be saved, the pilgrimage to him is the only one worth the effort; there is no other to whom we bow, none other through whom salvation comes. It is because of the vital importance of this that Christians have always warned against false teachers – only by fidelity to the traditions passed on orally and in writing could anyone be sure they were not, inadvertently, worshipping someone other than Jesus.
The early Church struggled from the beginning with this problem, some did not even accept the words of St John himself, and persisted, as some still do, in arguing that Jesus was not the Messiah come in the flesh. Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Christians place huge emphasis on their Apostolic descent – and yet parted company nearly a thousand years ago; as Chalcedonians they parted company from the Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox even earlier – A.D. 451. Whilst sects come and go, these splits have persevered, and now we can even have the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow meet as brother bishops. Some see this as syncretism, others as the Holy Spirit moving the hard hearts of men to recognise the truth that although Christ is the only Way, there are many directions to him. It is, of course, as it always will be, true that some will reject other traditions and insist that only their own one will lead to salvation, citing their own tradition as evidence: indeed I have seen Catholics and Orthodox cite exactly the same texts to show that the other is a false Church. After a thousand years and a splintered and broken Christendom, and in the face of a new threat from militant Islam, it might be that men are beginning to realise that this line is simply ploughing the sand. One can close one’s eyes to the evident signs of Grace working in many Christian Churches, but all that means is you fail to see what is there.
Where St John, St Paul, St Jude and St Peter all warned against false teachers in their epistles, they were warning against those who held false beliefs about what the Church later came to define as dogma in the Creeds; they were not writing about men and women who accepted that Christ was the Messiah in the flesh and confessed him Lord and accepted salvation via the Resurrection, but who disagreed on matters there is no evidence they had ever considered, such as the procession of the Holy Spirit and the place of the Bishop of Rome.
Here, at AATW, we have Christians of just about all shades. We do not have everything in common, but we do have the fact that we all believe in Jesus and the Nicene Creed. Our differences are ones over which theologians have wrestled and blood been shed, and many theologians now think differently from their predecessors and do not see many of the obstacles as being critical. Perhaps, after the experience of this Pope, some of those who are used to insisting that his verdict is final, might be recalled to the virtues of a less monarchical and more conciliar approach? God works for the good in all things, even if we cannot see it.
Back in the 1420s the Catholics and the Orthodox had an opportunity to come together. They failed to do so. Within a quarter of a century of that failure, the flag of Allah flew over the Hagia Sophia. Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. There is one Way, but within our Christian traditions, many ways of getting there. It may take the sight of the flag of Allah flying over the Vatican before the message of the need for unity is heeded – I hope not.
ginnyfree said:
Hello Jess. It seems I was right after all. Thank you very much for the help. Stay as sweet as you are. God bless. Ginnyfree
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JessicaHof said:
Right about what?
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ginnyfree said:
A bunch of stuff. But don’t tell anyone. It gets them rattled. I’ve been told I’m like a broken clock – right twice a day. And on really tough days, that was the limit to the number of right things I could say without incurring the wrath of the liberals in the vicinity, one of which was my boss. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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Dave Smith said:
We all hold the same Credal Belief . . . or do we?
Why is the Catholic Church one? –The Catholic Church is one because all its members, according to the will of Christ, profess the same faith, have the same sacrifice and sacraments, and are united under one and the same visible head, the Pope.
Why is the Catholic Church holy? –The Catholic Church is holy because it was founded by Jesus Christ, who is all-holy, and because it teaches, according to the will of Christ, holy doctrines, and provides the means of leading a holy life, thereby giving holy members to every age.
Why is the Church catholic or universal? –The Catholic Church is catholic or universal because, destined to last for all time, it never fails to fulfill the divine commandment to teach all nations all the truths revealed by God.
Why is the Catholic Church apostolic? –The Catholic Church is apostolic because it was founded by Christ on the Apostles, and, according to His divine will, has always been governed by their lawful successors. Apostolicity is easily proved by the facts of history. If a church cannot trace back its history lawfully in an unbroken line step by step to the Apostles, it is not the True Church.
This is what Roman Catholics are taught (if they are still getting the real teaching). That we relax our understanding of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, is not a sign of our drawing closer together with those outside the Church but that we are falling from our core principle understandings of the Creed itself. Principally it is largely our difference in our understanding of the Church rather than our understanding of the Triune God that keeps us separated.
As to a Catholic who professes the above: we imply by reciting this Creed that each of us believes ALL that the Church teaches as She is Holy and universally teaches only according to the will of Christ . . . which includes all of her doctrines and truths. Sadly, these are a small number of members today and so . . . it is looked upon as a sign of growth in our relationships with others rather than the loss of our understanding of what the Church comprises. So where you see a glass half full it is perhaps only because half the water has been spilt and lost to our present generation.
But, yes, we can all work together against the common enemies of the day: secularism, modernism, liberalism and evils of every stripe. But cooperation is not always a sign of a coming unity of belief.
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JessicaHof said:
I think there is far more unity of belief than you think – after all, it isn’t as though there seems to be much in the way of unity of belief between those Catholics who follow the traditional beliefs and those, including Cardinals and Bishops, who want to abandon them. Does anyone actually really know ALL that the Church believes? It is not really just this generation where this became a problem. Still, if we want to concentrate on what divides us, I am sure the Enemy will rejoice.
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Dave Smith said:
Jess, you start your sentence stating there is more unity than we think but then use as an example the disunity of even our cardinals, bishops and priests which makes my point. Where is the proof when even within the same Church we have those who are teaching a different Christ and others who are ‘singing a new church into being.’ And if we find such differences amongst our own do you think we are now finding some new fairy tale utopian unity amongst the other divisions that were created from schism?
Diplomatically and culturally in our diverse nations, where we all live together in harmony (mostly), there is certainly a sense of openess that has increased; especially between Christians who are increasingly under attack by a secular world and the Godlessness of our political leaders. But that is no more a growing unity of faith than it was to include the Soviet Union in our fight against Hitler.
And yes, it is possible to assent to ALL the Church teaches at any period in our history . . . whether educated in them or not. It is a act of faith and will to abide by all that the Church teaches and to bow in obedience and change our ways when She speaks authoritatively. Not caring what the Church teaches does nothing for unity . . . it only makes the Church more attractive in a world that hates rules, hates morality and despises an ordered life whose aims are not earthly happiness but eternal happiness.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, I still think so – it is simply that within the traditional boundaries, there is far less unity, so to suppose that one’s own Church is somehow united is to subscribe to a pious myth.
It is not, I begin to think, easy to fix what the Church teaches. One can look at the past and say x, but then, on something like the Jews, it seems perfectly clear that the Church does not now teach what it used to teach. One can, of course, always say that what it used to teach was never defined by the Magisterium as infallible, but then very few things have ever been stated as that. It is surely clear that Francis is going to leave behind him a set of statements which will allow any liberal in the future to appeal to his example. Another Pope in the same mould and I fear that for all you might say x is not what the church teaches, it will be, nonethless, what most Catholics suppose it to teach.
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Dave Smith said:
Much of what you say is right. But the Church has a set of tools. That some, then many and now most, use these tools inappropriately is a crisis in faith of varying degrees. It is only that now, most people don’t even believe in apprenticeship to learn how to utilize these magnificent tools. And that they, like those outside of the Church, suddenly find out that they are both using a hammer to pound on a screw does not describe unity in anything other than that the fact that we are all equally naive and uneducated in the Truths once taught.
There are always those who do such things maliciously and then there are those who mimic and copy what they see others saying or doing and feel (and by ingnorance are) justified.
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JessicaHof said:
Isn’t the problem that when the Pope and many Cardinals use them in a certain way, who gets to say the Pope is using them wrongly?
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Dave Smith said:
The faithful do (history will confirm it) . . . and always has. Have you not seen the inconsistencies and errors brought to light by the people in response to such? Certainly, most will be scoffed at and scorned for doing so but the Pope is not above being criticized when speaking as a man and not exercising the Grace or infallibility in proclaiming a Truth for all of Christendom to embrace. In the end, even the Pope cannot defy the traditions and teachings of the Faith that He is placed in charge of without cricicism or correction. Many today want to believe his every word or action as if he were God on Earth. As a vicarious Christ he must always be cognizant of his role and use his will and humbly submit to this burden. No Pope is perfect . . . they all go to confession . . . and all stand in need of our prayers. Some are better Popes than others, whilst some struggle and others utterly fail. What will Pope Francis be when his reign is done? We shall pray that we won’t need to ignore his place in history and that he will take his divine office with the utmost seriousness.
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JessicaHof said:
True, but this is to ignore the fact that for everyone who thinks as you do, there are a dozen who point to the Pope and use his words as their justification. I do not see what the point is of having a Pope who speaks so often against what you and others say is Church teaching.
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Dave Smith said:
Because you may just need him to settle a point of Doctrine.
But again, Jess, it seems you are not speaking so much about any unity even within our own churches. You have much the same problem in the Anglican Church . . . and others do as well. So where is this unity you are speaking about? It seems to be a coming together of folk to do this and that. But as far as a narrowing of our differences theologically in regards to the faith I doubt we have made much progress. Of course, among some who are well adept with their own faith, there might be a little movement of sorts. Among the wider population . . . it is mostly indifference that drives the camaraderie.
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JessicaHof said:
In my Church we don’t claim to agree on everything, but I am not sure what the point is of having a Pope who proclaims heterodox opinions. If he’s just another Bishop, fine.
I really am not sure what God thinks of our theological differences. I somehow cannot see that he is going to be getting worked up over disagreements on the procession of the Holy Spirit, or on the precise details of what the ‘Real presence’ means, and if he really, really cares about the position of the Pope, he’s showing it in a really odd way at the moment.
The real uity is between those of us who take the Nicene creed literally and the rest. In my Church, and yours, there are those who simply do not believe it and yet in one church, mine, that is called disunity, in yours it is called I don’t know what. I see the Brazilian bishops have just said women can contracept because of the Zika virus. There seems now to be one rule for that communion and another for the rest.
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Dave Smith said:
We don’t claim to agree on everything either . . . but we are supposed to agree that once defined we have parameters within which we must operate. Speculate however much you want within those parameters but when you try to dismantle a pillar (a defined teaching) you are operating outside of what it means to be a member of the Catholic Faith.
Peter was not useless because he was wrong in his private thinking and actions. Nor is any pope or any member who does so out of ignorance or because of the use of obscure and confused speech. But once corrected, they should always rely on the teachings of the Church unless (as stated before) it is speculative and operational within the boundaries set forth. As to what is important to Christ is pure speculation . . . what isn’t speculative is that He established a Church to give us all that we need to receive Christ’s salvation. You may argue about it and you and everyone on planet earth have, but it is not to say that ‘what the Church binds, binds and what the Church looses, is loosed both in heaven and on earth.’
Does everyone take the words literally in the Nicene Creed or as the Church intended them when written? Language and understandings change but the Church preserves what was meant . . . it is to that which we must assent.
And yes, this business of contraception being OK is pure modernist nonsense that will not put those bishops in very good positions when they go to their personal judgment. One must ask if these bishops have lost their Faith or are trying to teach us a new one. So no, they are operating outside the bounds of their own legitimate authority in doing this. But a remant will remain no matter how bad the disunity becomes within or without the Church.
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JessicaHof said:
The difficulty with this, for me, is that it is all theoretical. In practice we both know that many Catholics contracept and many Catholic politicians support abortion and the Church does precisely nothing about this. So yes, the Church can point to its eternal teaching, but of what use is that if so many Catholics disregard it and even the Pope sends out mixed signals. In effect this is saying that in a generation or so, what the Pope is saying will become Catholic teaching.
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ginnyfree said:
Jess, no one can be forced to do anything. If we teach that the Pill is a great evil and to be avoided and a couple decides for themselves to use it anyway, we have no way to stop them. God offers His love in His teaching, but if it is rejected, there is little He can do until the pains of vice become to great and the miseries of the sinners cause them to cry out to Him for mercy. They become teachable again if they out live their sin life and turn back to Him. A humble and contrite heart He will not spurn. But free will cannot be taken away. Ever. Neither by God or His Church. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
That’s not working in the real world, though, is it ginny? That’s why you and QVO retreat to your fantasy world. Or can you point me to where this great vice and its pains is working as you suggest it might? A humble and a contrite heart might actually open itself to the idea that it might be getting things wrong if it and the real world are so out of sync. It doesn’t really matter, your church is moving on and it will leave you and QVO behind, with him calling the Pope a heretic and you telling him to shush.
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Dave Smith said:
It may seems that way and yes it would suit me better if the Truths were taught and public scandal was greeted with excommunications.
But the teachings are more than theory to a believer . . . they are the means to our Eternal Happiness. So for the believer, we fall and get up time and time again as we try to improve our relationship with God and with our fellow man throughout our life. Our hope is that those who are in outright disregard or disbelief or even those in denial of the truth, will eventually find themselves grasping for the faith they never thought was important. Life and cirucustances can and do change people.
We as Catholic Christians who actually believe in something are not willing to say that because we are flabby and out of shape and we are getting whipped by a much more agressive demonic adversary should throw in the towel and declare him the winner.
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JessicaHof said:
But isn’t the problem here that implicitly you are saying those who do not go as you do aren’t really believers? They say they are, and most of your bishops and the Pope and most priests are fine with it. So either you are unequally yoked with a bunch of people who don’t really believe in what the Church teaches, or the Church teaching will change by default. You can have all the rules and regulations you like, but if most of those to whom they are meant to apply ignore them, then if no action is taken, within a generation those rules and regs will be dead letters.
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Dave Smith said:
Then, Christ lost and His victory only theoretical.
I cannot judge those who say things that I don’t understand. I am not sure what ‘loophole’ in our teaching they are leaping through . . . I am not that smart. What I do know is that I am bound by the teachings in the Catechism and that those who prefer not to abide by the Catechism, whether they are leaders or laity, are not abiding by the faith. If they change the teachings . . . then Christ abandoned the Church for a long, long time and the Holy Spirit did not lead it into all Truth. I only know that if I’m going down, I’ll go down with a sword in my hand rather than hand it over to world.
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JessicaHof said:
The problem here is that you have Cardinals – and I think a Pope – who do not think Christ has lost and who, I presume, want these changes to ensure he doesn’t.
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Dave Smith said:
Well I would hope they think Christ won the victory. But giving to the world what it wants is not going to give the Church a victory.
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JessicaHof said:
But, for example, why would not having mandatory celibacy be a victory for the devil? How does having it mean a win for a church where the average age of priests is too old and without the third world, there would not be enough? That’s a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The Ordinariate and the Eastern Rite have no problem.
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Dave Smith said:
You seem to think that Christ cannot raise up priests and save us from hard times. He has done so repeatedly for 2000 years and yet today it far beyond His abilities? Now we must change everything if we are to keep the Barque of Peter afloat? O ye of little faith. 🙂
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JessicaHof said:
No, I simply observe trends across the last half century. He may be telling you you need to relax clerical celibacy and you may have your fingers in your ears.
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Dave Smith said:
Funny that his voice wasn’t being heard for 1950 years then and that the Church continues to do that which it has always done even though we have more nay-sayers than ever before. The wonderful thing about the Church is that the dead have as much a voice in this Church as do the living . . . and the dissenters are far outnumbered.
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JessicaHof said:
Except that change has been and will be constant, because it is the nature of a living being to change.
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Dave Smith said:
It is . . . but the Church is of Divine origin and His nature is that He does not. 🙂
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JessicaHof said:
Is that quite right? The Word was not Incarnate in the beginning, and remained enfleshed at the Resurrection. That was surely a change?
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Dave Smith said:
Not a change of mind dear Jess . . . His becoming our Redeemer was known from the beginning. Nothing is hidden from the eyes of God and His Will does not change.
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JessicaHof said:
Nonetheless there is a change – not Incarnate, then Incarnate – but it is all well above my pay grade 🙂 xx
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Dave Smith said:
Maybe it was casual Friday, dress. 🙂 xx
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JessicaHof said:
Could be – when I get to these exalted heights I pass out for want of air! 🙂 xx
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Dave Smith said:
Dizzying heights of spritual ecstasy, so to speak. 🙂 xx
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ginnyfree said:
Jess, Jesus was a virgin and lived a celibate life. It is to more closely follow the Bridegroom that the Bride renounces her claim to marital relations. It is a sacrifice. You don’t have to like it and that is fine because you are called to be a priest of Jesus Christ in His Church. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
Tell that to the Ordinariate or the Eastern Rite Churches. They are all in communion with Rome and have married priests. Or does the logic of your argument, in so far as it has one, apply only where there is Latin?
What a very curious line to take, when you own church does not apply it universally. Maybe you know as much about the wider CC as you do about my Church?
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ginnyfree said:
Jess, all you are doing is pointing to valid exceptions. Exceptions are exceptions, not the rule. Look it up in a dictionary.
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, but your comment was a universal one, and these exceptions show that the discipline in unnecessary. The only bet is whether your church dies out in Europe before your priests.
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Dave Smith said:
You do get my mind working, Jess and it is always fun to cross horns with you. Let me state some of this in another way:
How can we say that Christ has won the battle against satan when most people are under the sway of the evil one? It seems that this is the argument that is being made against the Catholic Church.
In the same way, the world holds up the failures of Catholicism as a banner of victory for satan and a defeat for the Church. I would expect nothing else from this world; after all, heaping scorn upon the victor is all too human a characteristic. But they will not hold up to us the saints, that abided by all the teachings of the faith (as given us by the Church), and persevered through hardship to win the battle. Where is the esteem for the Saints of our faith? Are they wiped out for even a million failures? No, not at all.
I would only say that in the Divine realm, God sees the victory of His Son and likewise sees the victory of His Bride the Church. Regardless of the failures and individual casualties of this epic battle between good and evil we know who emerges King of kings and He knows who were His obedient servants in the battle being waged by His Saints.
If unity is found in negotiating a relaxed morality and practice or by ignoring the theology that was forged by 2000 years of loving meditation on God and His many graces then it is not a unification that you are after; it is capitulation to the world. No, we either celebrate with Christ in overcoming the world or we lose by giving back to the world those things it wants. But even then, do we think that the world will be satisfied once the Church gives in on even a hundred demands? For the world will demand a full surrender . . . and so why should Christ the King settle for an insincere truce; a false peace? And why should the Church, His Bride not strive for both perfection and full victory as well? The world simply answers; because it is too hard and too harsh for our sensibilities. Christ never promised us a life without denial of self and without crosses.
Ecumenism is fine when we destroy the urban legends that abound about one another. And we gain further respect for other faiths by such dialogue. But we all know that without a change of heart and an act of actually surrendering to the other side, there will be no unity. There perhaps is some unity of purpose or unity of desire: but no unity on what defines each Church . . . for if what binds us to our different churches are different beliefs then this is not unity when one negotiates these principles and beliefs.
After all, we have all stated that what we do at AATW is not syncretism or indifference but dialogue to better understand what we have in common and what we disagree upon. I don’t think we can go any further than that. We are men and women of good will that just happen to be faced with irreconcilable differences. There is nothing wrong with that . . . though we each would like nothing more than to be able to persuade the others that our Church is the way that Christ intended. We simply agree to disagree at this point.
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JessicaHof said:
The difficulty here is that if you frame the debate in a way designed to get one result, that is the result you get.
What does it mean to say most people are under the sway of the evil one? If this has always been so – and there are good arguments for supposing it to be so – then our own times are no different; there was no golden age (except in our rose-tinted imagination) and mankind is broken and messy – and always has been.
What is being said within your own communion is that on some issues the world has changed, and that if your church does not change then it will actually cease to minister effectively to most of those who look to it. What this debate has allowed is, I think, a situation where some essential things have been mixed up with some non-essential things, which allows the enemies of orthodox to press their agenda across a wider front than is needful. This is simply bad tactical thinking, as, even if you think you have won a tactical victory, you are losing the war on the strategic front.
One example here is clerical celibacy. It is a discipline, not a doctrine. Number of clergy are falling through the floor. We live in a world where women are quite capable of earning a better living than men, so the idea that the parish would have to support a priest and his wife and children is simply out of the ark; in most Anglican parishes, the clergy spouse actually helps support the parish; joining the twenty-first century here would not be ‘satan winning’ – but it would help the Church. There is no issue of ‘perfection’ here – no one I know maintains that Eastern Rite of Ordinariate priests are somehow less of a priest. To resist this one is to nail your trousers to the mast as the ship sinks; at some point an embarrassing u turn will be necessary – unless, that is, the number of practising Catholics falls to the low number there will be priests to serve.
I am not sure what a ‘relaxed morality’ is – if it is not Catholic politicians and priests supporting abortion and gay marriage, what is it? To say the Church does not support them is true, but irrelevant. It takes no action against them and gives an obvious signal to anyone watching.
Yes, it is perfectly possible to have a great set of rules and say ‘this is what we believe’ – but when the Boscos of this world point out how far practice departs from principle, it simply leaves the Church looking hypocritical.
What your Church needs is what it seems not to be able to have, which is a mature discussion about what things – such as clerical marriage – are not vital, and what, such as abortion, is. At the moment, to me on the outside, it is saying ‘nothing has changed and can change’, whilst in the world we live in, that is not true.
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Dave Smith said:
And what you fail to understand is that we have had these discussions in the Church and decided against it. As to the survival of the Church, I don’t doubt. As to the scandals that will come and have always been here, I have no doubt. Christ assured us of both. He didn’t say, I have no yoke, but that His yoke is easy . . . and the yoke of the Catholic Church is easy as well when carried with love . . . that is what makes both yokes easy.
And truthfully, if we do see these worldly men and women abandoning the Bride of Christ for their personal desires, then we become stronger and evangelize properly and draw people to the holiness that is left. People are drawn to holiness and that is the essence of the Christian life. When that holiness can no longer be perceived because folk don’t want to attempt to live as such, then it is better that they get out of the way so that their dark shadows don’t hide the light from the eyes of world. Even they might be reconverted.
Believe me, I am with you – I want hypocrites removed from the leadership of the Church and people excommunicated for publicscandal of any stripe. Today, most don’t even fear excommunication because they have fallen exceedingly far from the faith. Just look at the Bishops who made (priestesses) of some women. But the Church will recover: and it need not give up what it teaches to do so. It is the abandonment of teaching that led us to where we are . . . and now you say that if we abandon more we can fix it.
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JessicaHof said:
But you clearly haven’t decided, because the discussions keep going, and now have the Pope and many Bishops and Cardinals on side, so they are not going to go away.
Isn’t it too easy to condemn those who disagree with you as all being ‘worldly’. That’s like them condemning all who don’t agree with them as ‘dinosaurs’. It seems there is a total lack of Christian charity on both sides.
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Dave Smith said:
It isn’t that they disagree with me, it is that they disagree with the Church. So yes it is easy. We have discussed this far beyond the practical reasons that you brought forth . . . but from theological reasons and scriptural reasons. We have looked at the typology of priests from the beginning as well as the relationship of the priest to Christ and His virginal reflection of Spiritual Betrothal to the Virginal Church. As an ‘other Christ’ there is no way to change the practice without subverting the teaching and the understanding of the Mystery of Christ and the Church.
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JessicaHof said:
But who is the Church? They are senior people in your church who have been there all their lives in most cases. So saying you are the church and they are not seems to me not to be a tenable position – it is like saying here’s the theory, but many of our leaders, including the Pope, don’t follow it in practice, but you lot better not do as they do. It isn’t a tenable position for very long.
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Dave Smith said:
The age of the priests and the last 50 years of clerical crisis is but a blip on the radar screen . . . we are much stronger than that. We will survie VII and a few bad cardinals, bishops, priests and even popes. God knew how to build a Church that would last and the Barque will continue on, whether there are mutineers aboard or not.
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JessicaHof said:
You won’t in the Uk and Western Europe. The shortage of priests her for the RCC is beyond crisis point – they are closing parishes, merging them, and still have too many priests being told when they reach 75 they can’t retire.
If you think Jesus wants this, it may be the result not of his wishes, but of stubborn male pride – much of what goes wrong in the world is 🙂 xx
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Dave Smith said:
That’s what they said during the Reformation and then Guadalupe brought in far more Catholics and priests than were lost during that Schism. I wouldn’t count the Church Christ founded down and out just yet. 🙂 xx
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JessicaHof said:
I don’t, I simply don’t narrow down the identification to those in communion with the bishop of Rome – a practice of the early church as I recall 🙂 xx
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Dave Smith said:
I see more as this:
49 And John, answering, said: Master, we saw a certain man casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followeth not with us.
50 And Jesus said to him: Forbid him not; for he that is not against you, is for you.
. . . or perhaps that he has sheep that are not of this fold. But that does not entitle either to say that they are somehow of the fold if they do not eat in the same pasture and abide with the same shepherds.
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JessicaHof said:
does that not lead us, in love, to the place He wishes us to be? I see in that no calling of ‘heretic’.
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Dave Smith said:
Only because the word wasn’t invented yet. 🙂 Actually, the word is meant for people of the same Church who obstinately refuse a defined doctrine of the Church. Mostly the folks in the scripture are simply those in schism or those who borrowed some of the teachings of Christ to start their own church.
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JessicaHof said:
Am awful lot of people seem to me to decide what is prescriptive by what it is they want to exclude – and then claims God told it to them. Either He says different things to different people, or there are a few among us speaking for him without his real permission 🙂
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Dave Smith said:
The Church was given the permission to both bind and loose and what is bound and loosed is contained in the teachings of the Church which are found in the Catechism. Unless you don’t believe the words of the Gospels. 🙂
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ginnyfree said:
That part is not part of her thinking on a fundamental level Dave. If she admitted that someone here on earth actually can law down laws that God will honor in Heaven, she’d have to be very frightened because her church has built up from defiance of those laws and suddenly wouldn’t seem to be following the One Person who was obedient even unto death upon a Cross. Those words in the Gospel have got to be ignored to the utmost. The alternative is too ugly to face so it must be denied. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
Not at all, my church does just that.
I am sorry ginny, you are coming across as one whose mind is so closed that it amounts to total ignorance. You have come to believe your church is the only one, fine, it isn’t, o one but RCCs believe this – I am sorry you know so little, but will always help to educate you.
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ginnyfree said:
Who is the Church? Jess, we are His Body, the Church. It isn’t just in the head dogs. They don’t determine by vote who is a member and who isn’t. That is your Anglican mind talking. We’re not like that. The Baptised are the members of the Church, all the Baptised, whether or not they live it under the shadow of Rome. You know this already. The Protestant ideas regarding this are too numerous to include in this discussion and you’ll need to stick to one for the sake of discussion. So, yes, by your Baptism, you are a member of the one true Church of Jesus Christ. However, you have renounced that to remain apart in the Anglican Church and are loyal to it. You worship apart each Sunday from the Body and you prefer to do so by your own choice. Then you turn right around and claim that the place you worship is actually Catholic! Yet both the Anglican church and the Roman Catholic Church as well as pretty much all the other denominations of the world for a few hundred years, have told you you are still only an Anglican and not a Catholic. See what I mean?
So, why ruin a completed fantasy with the facts? Its okay. I understand. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
You are getting quite funny now. Of course, as an Anglican I believe we are all the body of Christ; from what weird place did you come to any other conclusion?
Rome played a very small part in the seven ecumenical councils, and whilst it is of importance, its own arrogance and clericalism has means many Christians have moved beyond its narrowness into a deeper appreciation of Christ’s message of love.
I have renounced precisely nothing. I was born and baptised into the Church, and God willing, will die comforted by its rites. Of course it is Catholic, and if you have swallowed the myth the C of E was invented by Henry VIII, I am not surprised, but yoour misinformation does not, as someone or other said, make it so.
A simple question. Have you always been a Roman Catholic?
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ginnyfree said:
No Jess. I’ve told you before and you already know it. I’m a convert. And before you demand to know from which denomination, I’ll explain a little. I considered myself agnostic simply because I wasn’t an atheist and didn’t want to be bothered much about religion. I told folks that’s what I was and it did what I wanted it to: prevented them from trying to “save” me. For all they knew, I was worshipping an alien from another planet or the trees in the park. I didn’t care. It turned out to my advantage though as I’ve discovered the incredible amount garbage some folks in Protestant places have stuck in their poor brains that prevents them from seeing the sense of Scripture and Tradition. They have way too much baggage to get over just to get in the door of the Church! I didn’t have that problem. I was a blank slate just waiting for God’s finger to write His Holy Name across my poor soul. He did. I’m His. It works wonderfully. Noticing this advantage I feel real pity for those who slates have had all kinds of graffiti written on them and they don’t know what to erase and start over with or keep. I’m the lucky one. I was basically ignorant of ecclesial stuff, so I had no baggage from bad religion to deal with. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
Fair does. I am an Anglican, have been so all my life and meet Jesus every week. So, when former agnostics tell me I am not meeting him, I smile and wonder what gives them a window into my soul when, for a long while, they did not know God at all.
I have known and walked with him all my life. Whatever your church is teaching you about my church is wrong – how do I know? Jesus meets me at every Eucharist. Can I prove it, no more than you can.
So interesting all of this, I make no attempt to convert anyone, and yet all of you former agnostics seem desperate to prove your choice was the right one.
I am glad for you, so be glad for me too.
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ginnyfree said:
Right Jess. You are a Protestant, an Anglican Protestant. That is your denomination. And I’ve had it with your insults. I’m educated. Very educated. I am also very right about history and your insults show your own ignorance. You’ve called my Patron Saint and criminal traitor who deserved to die. That is exceedingly anti-Christian of you and that is the true spirit that animates your theology. The little ISIS flags you’ve raised over the Vatican prove your true intent – to destroy God’s Church and cheer those who are working towards that same end. You are a female Bosco. I love the enemies of my Church, the One True Church. The Only Church. Lies will not change that. God can neither deceive nor be deceived. Nor does the Holy Spirit lead folks into darkness. I sincerely hope you find Christ some day, but until then I think I won’t be coming round much more. There is no love here. Where there is love, there is Christ. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
How extremely rude. I do not know where you derive the right to tell me what I am. I don’t know who your patron is, but if he was found guilty by a court and sentenced to death, then unless you are a lawyer of that period and know better, in this country we go with what the law says; is that not the case in the USA?
I have show immense love in putting up with your attitude. You have never addressed the question of my knowing Jesus at the the Eucharist, but have, by inference, said I am wrong.
You seem to have spent much of your life with no Christianity. I am glad you have found a place where it exists which suits you. It is a shame you have not the courtesy to extend the same welcome to me. Were I you, I would not look at the beam in my own eye, I would do what you are doing, play the victim and concentrate on the mote you see in my eye.
I spent four years studying theology and history, and can assure you no decent university history department accepts your RC view of the Reformation. But you know better – except of course, you know only one side. Have you read anything about Cranmer, Keble, Pusey – no, and yet you think you can pronounce on the nature of Anglicanism and call it Protestant. If that really is the level of your contribution, no one is going to be missing it.
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Gareth Thomas said:
Once again, the AATW posts in this Lenten series seem to be working in a wonderfully synchronic manner: I am working on my post for tomorrow, the Second Letter of Saint Clare to Agnes of Prague. The main metaphor of that letter is “The Way.”
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JessicaHof said:
Ah! How lovely! I am SO looking forward to this one Gareth – I have read the last one and the first letter half a dozen times, adding it, profitably, to my Lenten reading.
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oharaann said:
I came across this talk about Our Lady and her place in God’s plan. It may be a help to some in the forum who have experienced difficulties in understanding her role in same.
It is given by the son of the late Justice Scalia.
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JessicaHof said:
How lovely – thank you 🙂
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oharaann said:
Fr Scalia’s homily at his father’s funeral Mass was also outstanding.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4765662525001
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Dave Smith said:
A great find, Ann. Thank you for it.
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JessicaHof said:
So say the Orthodox. I recall being told by C that the Monks on Athos were perfectly sure all RCs were going to hell as they had added to the faith once received. No doubt one of you stubborn men intent on being right may be right – but it may be that you all create a narrow God in your own narrow image – I thank God for giving me an insight into something so much greater than you seem to have seen – and hope one day, by Grace, you too might see Him transfigured – not some narrow little tribal god putting your enemies into a fiery pit. If I were you, I’d ask why I keep fixating on hell – maybe you fear going there so much you forget to love? Who knows> What I do know is that I find your barren and sterile version of the faith once received a sad parody of the faith of the God who is love. Truly, even Bosco seems to have more love in him than you. I shall pray for you, and hope you will for me – we are both sinners.
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JessicaHof said:
Yackety yack – and so are you according to the Orthodox. No doubt when all you boys in the school yard have finished insulting each other you’ll have handed us all over to Islam – and you’ll say we deserved it. Those who fail to learn from history will repeat it – thank the Lord you lot are a tiny minority of embittered loons of whom no one takes any notice. Nice post about Our Lady though 🙂
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JessicaHof said:
Yeas, that worked out well didn’t it – do remind us all what happened to the Crusaders? Didn’t they end up sacking Constantinople and losing the Holy Land?
How did all these ghastly liberals you talk about manage to win if the orthodox view was so strong and right? Hope you’re enjoying your current Pope – whom I rather like, but bet you don’t.
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JessicaHof said:
You really believe that? They lost the Holy land, they imperilled the native Copts and Syriac Christians, they left the worst smell in terms of our relations with the Orthodox and the lost. The Crusaders had nothing to do saving Europe in the C18th, but a lot to do with weakening Constantinople in the C13rh.
What is illusory is the delusion that you and a few who think like you are the real Church. There’s nothing to be done, and if we are all quiet, you can carry on with your delusion. The double-think it takes to think your own Pope may be the Biblical False Prophet and yet stay with him is, fortunately, beyond a simple soul like me.
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JessicaHof said:
Utter nonsense.
The Crusades did nothing to stop the Muslim attack on Europe. In the West it was Charles Martel who did the trick, long before any Crusades.
what the Crusades did was to waste a lot of blood and treasure on a delusion – namely that it was possible to take back the Holy Land. There’s no evidence it held back any Muslim attacks. The 1204 Crusade sack of Constantinople, on the other hand, did lasting damage which helped precipitate the end of the Easter Empire.
People like you caused a lot of unnecessary deaths for precisely nothing. The Holy land remained under Muslim rule; your cruel attempts to repress what you called heresy led to several schisms which persist to this day; and your utter inability to see what was happening in your own ranks and admit it, had led to some terrible scandals which have weakened your church.
Worked out well really this having men in charge. About time to leave it to those who have no need to be always asserting their virility – those who do usually have something to hide 🙂
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ginnyfree said:
Fudge QVO. You were doing so good. Why did you fall for the bait? GRRRRRRR. Don’t bash the Pope. Silly man. Sacrilege. Remember? Not to mention submission to the Head, the Vicar to be in Communion? Go directly to jail, do not pass “GO” and do not collect three hundred dollars. Oh, I forgot. Many here aren’t familiar with Monopoly, the board game. Excuse me. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
Not being God, unlike you, I make no window into the hearts of men. One of the advantages of being in a Church which has women in the Ministry is we are less hung up on needing to control other people, and less arrogant about supposing we can tell what other actually believe. Happy to leave you with that set of male delusions and venerate Our Lady.
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JessicaHof said:
She seems not to be telling me that I am a heretic – are you sure she’s told you that – or are you talking, as so many men do, on her behalf?
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ginnyfree said:
Although I do wonder QVO, if the Protestants can rightfully be called heretics? I mean they certainly do have heretical beliefs, but in order to be a real heretic in either a material way or a formal way, doesn’t one need to be professing that one is a Catholic? I mean from looking at them from inside the Church, they are outsiders and so aren’t fully governed by our laws. We can be either formal or material heretics inside the Church but part of that is because we are inside the Church. Looking at all the Protestants from inside the Church, they are simply in error unless of course they claim to be Catholics and in union with us. Then they become heretics materially. But until the Church accepts them and acknowledges them as true members, they can only be in grave error regarding the faith and not formal heretics.
Whatdayathink? I’m not a theologian by a long shot, but I’m pretty sure this broken clock might be chiming in for the first time today about this. Persons inside the Church can be heretics, but those outside born there and certainly adhering to the heretical teachings of others, cannot be real heretics themselves because they aren’t inside the Church. They become heretics if they enter the Church, are accepted by us and then turn to erroneous beliefs. But even then there is a degree of levity due to ignorance. They may not know what it is they should know or may have not been told all they need to be told in order to make a break with all the bogus teaching they had prior to entering the Church. I’m not sure about all this. Need to check my Moral Theology books better. I’m not sure. So let me know what you think.
God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
That would be because you do not own the title Catholic – however much you play pretend you do, you don’t.
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ginnyfree said:
But I’m wondering Jess. I mean suppose a person thinks themselves Catholic enough, with the emphasis on enough, to receive Communion and then does so for years even. He may think otherwise on some very key beliefs regarding the Church, and in QVO’s mind would very well be a heretic, yet desiring to prove he is as Catholic as he thinks he is because he wants to be, well, can he really force God to accept him? God it is Who is the Head of our Church and it is in communion with His visible head, the Pope, that one must be in order to rightly call oneself Catholic. May converts do struggle with this issue while undergoing the RCIA, namely at what point does one go from being a Baptist to a Catholic? When along the journey’s route does one turn a corner and move from Methodist to Roman Rite Catholic? Is there a specific morning when one wakes up and finds oneself in bed with one’s hubby who is still Anglican, yet one no longer recognizes him because you went to bed Anglican and woke up Catholic? Did the Catholic Fairy come in the night and wave her magic wand over your pillow? No. God is all truth and as such can neither deceive nor be deceived. To claim Catholicism for one’s self is an imposture and if one was to do so to the point of attending a Catholic Church for worship and going up in the Communion line to receive unworthily the Eucharist, one would eat and drink condemnation unto one’s self. Hell is the reward for such arrogance not Heaven.
Oh fudge. I forgot. I think QVO may be right about this actually being heresy too as well as plain arrogance. I’m still not sure though. There are many places and persons as of late advocating “Open Communion” as a sign (a false one if you ask me) of ecumenism but they in my opinion are the true heretics and those they dupe with their falsehood and phoney friendship do those they deceive no favors in encouraging them to simply walk up and receive when they “feel they are worthy.” It is these types who are cheering the Kaspers and Cupiches of our days.
Hope this helps. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
I go to a Catholic Church every Sunday, I kneel at the altar rail and I receive my Lord in two kinds; I have done it all my life. Sometimes I go to a Roman Catholic Church and watch people jostle in a line, with some receiving him in the hand and some on the tongue; as I am not an RC, I wouldn’t dream of joining them, since I know the RC does not want me. When my RC friends come to my Catholic Church, we are really Catholic and invite them to join – after all, Catholic means universal – if they want.
Christ is indeed the head of the Catholic Church, and, I suppose, if you are narrow-minded enough to suppose your Church owns him, it might amuse or upset him, but there is precisely no sign he agrees that the RCC owns him and he is head of only the RCC.
I see no sign that the RCC of your imagining and that of QVO actually exists outside your imaginings, you are both full of complaints about its catechetical methods and the way things are going.
I, on the other hand, remain a member of the Catholic Church, quite happy with developments and seeing the Holy Spirit moving mightily,
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ginnyfree said:
Jess, the only thing I can say at this point is “Believing it is so doesn’t make it so.” GK Chesterton.
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JessicaHof said:
Back attcha!
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JessicaHof said:
We, unlike you, have never claimed we did.
On contraception, do see what your Pope has said recently; are you sure you want to throw stones, given the glass house in which you are living – go ahead.
On women priests, it is only if you accept the made up arguments to prevent women becoming priests that you have a problem; you have a female soul, but object to women being priests – is there something here about gender theory you are wrestling with?
As your priesthood dies off, and as the third world eventually gets fed up sending you priests, you will either deal with this or you will die out. I am not terribly fussed which.
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JessicaHof said:
You are the one in a church being led by a heretic – so pardon me if I decline to take advice from a man silly enough to deliberately put himself into that place – best of luck with it.
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ginnyfree said:
Jess, no matter what we live this stuff: “Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.” Jn. 6:68. Hell or high water, we simply stay put. It is called loyalty. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
I am loyal to my church, been there all my life, and never gone through a period where I wan’t. If that’s true of you, come back and talk about loyalty – if not, then perhaps meditate on what gives you the right to lecture me on loyalty?
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ginnyfree said:
Jess, you told QVO he was silly for staying in a Church whose visible head was a heretic to him. Since there really is only one church and he’s in it, where else is there to go? So, I quoted you to Scripture that shows we all get put to that test from time to time. It is you who are suggesting he go elsewhere, thusly encouraging DIS-loyalty, with all of that for pointing out the fact that there really is only one church founded by Jesus Christ. It is Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and One. You’re denomination, is Anglican though you’d like to believe you are a Catholic and you’ve even told a history lesson in which our own Pope sent St. Augustine out to your land to found “a church” in your land instead of what actually occurred, that is to bring THE CHURCH to your land. No Pope has ever sent anyone to build contrary to the wishes of Christ. But why spoil a good story with the facts? And yes, without getting you to repeat your revised version of history, I’m very well aware of the tremendous effort put into re-writing the history books to create a counter-church building apostolate on orders of the Pope himself, so tremendous that thousands have agreed to be mislead and even a few recent arrivals to the land of history books have agreed to assist in the re-written history of England and her Anglican Church’s history. Once again, I’ll simply repeat GK (Who I believe borrowed it from another BTW) “Saying it is so doesn’t make it so.” Nuff said. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
If you take such a narrow view of the church, you are right, but even on that narrow view you may be wrong; if there is only one church and its head is a heretic, explain that?
Was QVO disloyal then to all the other churches he has been in? Have you always been a Catholic and a loyal one?
Parroting what RC’s have to believe has to be the least convincing method of apologetics known to mankind. My Church dates back to Christ as yours does. If you really knew any history you would know there were Christian here long before Pope Gregory sent Augustine, but I am happy to acknowledge that blessed saint as part of my tradition, as he is. Your weird history sees the Reformation as a break, because it is utterly biased. It is called the ‘reformation’ because it reformed many abuses which your own church later got round to reforming. Admittedly, it took the poor darlings until the late twentieth century to catch on that having church services in a language no one understood wasn’t terribly clever, but you got there in the end.
The Church was here before Augustine, he joined its long tradition in these islands.
The facts spoil the propaganda you have been fed. What is this counter-church of which you speak? My church has eucharistic adoration, we receive on the tongue kneeling at the altar which is incensed. We trace our ancestry back beyond Augustine, who is a valued part of a tradition of Christianity in these islands which predates him.
I know you know none of this, but our ignorance does not make it not so – that’s Jess – I don’t need to cherry pick from others.
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ginnyfree said:
Too much to pick apart and too little time Jess. I’ve got laundry to do and its snowing. Yuk. I’ve had enough of the white stuff. So, the only think I’m going to say in response to your comments in this particular combox is that I don’t call it the Reformation but the Revolt. I will use the word reformation in a sentence if it has to be used to reference that period in time, but to me it was a total revolt by many on a large scale and cost way too many souls to be ever praised as a vehicle of genuine correction of any abuses imagined. The ends never justifies the means, any means. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
Again, you wanting to call it something which fits how you think is fine, but don’t mistake it for how the rest of us who have studied it see it 🙂 Since the RCC has signed up to most of it by now, maybe it can start repenting its harsh actions in burning people for disagreeing with it? Pope F seems to think so.
Sorry bout the snow – we may get some here, so it is thermal tights and tweed skirt time for me!
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ginnyfree said:
Yeah, but QVO, they justify all that nonsense by seeing it as the natural evolution of a Christian mind set who has risen above all the medieval trappings of the past. That is why they consider themselves more Catholic than the Catholics, because they’ve evolved! We’re the ones off a bit, who can’t seem to modernize ourselves and live a more open minded way. God bless. Ginnyfree
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JessicaHof said:
If the cap fits, wear it 🙂
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JessicaHof said:
We’re not the ones claiming allegiance to a heretic – heal yourself first. Why were you so silly as to join a church which takes the Pope so seriously. You do look a bit of a nana you know – sorry to point it out – but you do.
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JessicaHof said:
You signed up to a church where he is the focal point of unity. By all means refuse to take the successor of St Peter seriously – but don’t expect anyone to take you seriously.
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JessicaHof said:
Nor should you, but if you call him a heretic you are not really taking his office seriously. You are saying that the people you elected to be led by are so stupid and useless they elected a heretic. What sort of person signs up to be led by such people – and why would we take that sort of person seriously?
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JessicaHof said:
Yes, yes, well if you think the RCC is the only place he is, you’ve not really been looking, but best of luck. I’ll give you until Pope Francis’ successor before you join a traddy group not in full communion.
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JessicaHof said:
I am sorry you have had such a whirly-gig – but if you are looking for a religion which suits your views, you may be on the wrong quest? I have stayed an Anglican, I shan’t say I have not looked at other churches, but when I have penetrated the reality as opposed to the appearance on the surface, the temptation has receded. I am, by culture, an Englishwoman (though I have not a drop of English blood in me, being Welsh on mama’s side and German on daddy’s) and I can’t abide the idea of some foreign prelate telling me what is and is not right – and changing his mind every time a new one comes in.
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JessicaHof said:
Hope you find it – your Pope just allowed contraception.
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JessicaHof said:
No, that’s the sort of binary male thinking that has caused so much suffering. There is one church, it has many branches – you may think a tree with no branches is normal, but trees don’t.
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JessicaHof said:
No, we do not anathematise your church, any more than yours does mine – we lifted them some time ago – do keep up. I can see that the Middle Ages has its appeal to you, but we are in 2016.
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ginnyfree said:
Jess, heresy and error can be entered into and out of all the time a person is alive. Only obstinate heresy unto death recorded by others get duly noted in the history books. Frustration with another’s bad behaviors and flippant remarks doesn’t make the object of frustration a heretic. That one has much work to do to earn the title. They very well may be advocating a heretical position, but they might not exactly know or believe that which they say ergo, not a real heretic. One must really be working at it to gain the title officially. I can think someone is a heretic and even say so, but that doesn’t make them one. I could note every single error another makes but to be formally charged as a heretic is rare and must be done by the Church herself in official ways. Or else history will do the job if we fail. Error has a way of making itself immortal among men. God bless. Ginnyfree.
P.S. Your questions are tiresome simply because you attack from too many different angles. Can you try to stay focused on one or two issues till all the sides have been aired? It is hard for the others to keep up.
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JessicaHof said:
Better tell that to your fellow RCC, QV, as he’s the one banging on about tit.
I am sorry to keep bombarding you with uncomfortable facts – perhaps you need the safe space of only hearing what you’ve been told, and apologetics is not for you?
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ginnyfree said:
Jess, it is growing even more obvious that you’ve no response at all to the documents that prove your false hopes are simply flights of fancy. I’ll give you the link again, but you need to come up with an intelligent response to them. You’re so sure God is with you in this regard, then you should be able to reply clearly. Otherwise your assumed Catholicism is just a fantasy.
http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_ben-xvi_apc_20091104_anglicanorum-coetibus.html
If you’ve been a Catholic all along, why such accommodations? It is a simple and obvious answer, but don’t take too long to figure it out.
Here is an extract link to a fella who did figure it out, Father Dwight Longenecker. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. I suggest you check out his authentic conversion story. It may get you squared away a bit more than you currently are. http://dwightlongenecker.com/
God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
Oh dear. In the first place we do not accept that your denomination has any business pronouncing on our orders – typical piece of Roman arrogance to think they do.
In the second place, there was a response which remains valid and can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostolicae_curae#Saepius_officio
You continue to think you own the term Catholic, which is why your thinking is so wonky. As you keep saying, the fact you think something does not make it so.
I read Fr L’s story and it is like so many – someone wandering from church to church. I am sad for such people, but why I would want to imitate their disloyalty, I can’t imagine.
You still have not answered by question. Have you always been a Catholic, or are you another disloyal former member of another Church.
It is quite funny all these converts so desperate for someone to join them in their unhappiness with Pope Frank and the German Cardinals.
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ginnyfree said:
No, Jess. You misunderstand what and who the Pope is. He is a visible sign of unity, not its focal point. The focal point is Jesus Christ. He is our Source and Summit in the Eucharist and all that we do centers on God in this way. It is Who feeds us on Himself and all that is meant is to draw us to Him in this way, all the other Sacraments and all the other teachings and activities. The entire Church is built around this Center of our Worship. Just step into an Adoration Chapel and see for yourself. http://www.marytown.com/content/the-chapel-of-our-lady-of-the-blessed-sacrament
To say that a man, any man is the focal point of a church is to place a human being where no human being should be and is the epitome of heresy: the raising of a human to a deity, or idolatry.
God bless. Ginnyfree.
P.S. Here are a few more on line Adoration sites: http://www.savior.org/devotions.htm
http://www.fortheloveofgodworldwide.org/prayer-practices/24-hour-perpetual-adoration-24-hour-online-rosary/
http://relictours.blogspot.com/2015/07/live-webcams-eucharistic-adoration.html
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JessicaHof said:
I’m very glad you hear that. You are on the road to Anglicanism. I go to Adoration every Thursday. I receive on the tongue kneeling at the altar. How bout your ‘Catholic church’ – or does it have the untidy queue with people pawing the blessed body?
Personally, I prefer a Catholic church that worships in the Catholic tradition, but everyone to their own – I am sure those ghastly concrete barns with table in the middle are fine when you get used to them – but give me the priest facing east, incense, altar rails and communion of the tongue every time. I know who it is I encounter when I receive him, and none of your phoney baloney Roman propaganda can make that otherwise.
Do you know, when you take him on the tongue that it is him? Yes, good, well, so do I. That being so, why would I want to go to a ghastly barn and join a queue when I can receive him in a church build 1000 years ago which has been worshipping him continuously? Makes no sense at all.
I notice many Romans seem desperate to persuade people to join them. It is the Spirit, not we, who converts – leave it to Him – He’s more experience.
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ginnyfree said:
Guess what Jess? If the chapel you go to to adore in has a host that has been consecrated by an Anglican priest, you’re not adoring our Blessed Lord. Your Orders died out 500 years ago unless of course, you’ve a priest who was validly Ordained in by us then apostatized and came over to your church and then managed to perform a Mass, (which BTW would be totally illicit, valid but illicit) in which he gave you the host you happen to be adoring at that time. You’ve no valid priesthood. No valid priesthood, no valid Eucharist. Simple math would get you there. But you know these things, don’t you? You are smart girl. I know that. So why pretend your orders are valid? They aren’t. No Anglican can turn the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Blessed Lord. None. I cannot happen. For filler see the following: http://canonlawmadeeasy.com/2011/01/20/the-validity-of-anglican-holy-orders/
The next time you feel a need to Adore the Blessed Lord, come to a Catholic Chapel. He is really there not where you’d like Him to be because you believe Him there.
God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
Guess what, we don’t accept your view of our orders, and guess what, nor does anyone else. You simply fail to get it, you are not the only Church, and however many times you say it, no one but you believes it – it is like watching a little child claim she is a princess because she says so – sweet, but irrelevant to real life.
You are welcome to your little fantasy world, but when you start telling others about their world based on your fantasies, that is called cognitive dissonance.
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ginnyfree said:
No Jess, EVERYONE ELSE knows the truth about Anglican orders. Everyone. I know it will serve your endless denial to ignore Father Longenecker and the Vatican. Why? Simply because you live a fantasy and reality cannot even be acknowledged. The rude intrusion of Truth must be ignored. You cannot change history and in order to have a worthwhile present, you need to allow the Truth to step in. The Truth is a Person, Jesus Christ and you deny Him all the day long. How can He help you when you constantly slap Him in the face? There is a huge exodus of Anglicans to our Church. You are bleeding people and have been for quite some time. Reality again. Why is this? Can you ignore it? You shouldn’t but you will because prefer trite little quips and kissy smoochy sugar coated la la land where the only “theologians” you acknowledge are the ones who fawn over you. It is too obvious. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
And who, pray is this everyone? Would that, by any chance, be every Catholic who has swallowed what their church tells them? If so, no surprise there. I bet you can’t cite one non RCC scholar. I can cite a bevy on independent scholars (not Anglicans) who fail to take your view.
I meet Jesus every Sunday and have ever since I began to take communion – why should I go whoring off after other churches when I have found him here?
If you are going to talk about ‘bleeding people’, perhaps we can look at the decline of RCCs even in latin America and the growth of pentecostalism. That glass house you are in has many holes in the windows already = German Church anyone, Belgian Church hierarchy and pedophilia – need I go on?
Truth is Jesus, I meet him in communion every week. I don’t doubt you do, you are implicitly calling me a liar – at least have the guts to say so.
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ginnyfree said:
One little detail in your comment of 5:35 AM. You said this: “why would I want to go to a ghastly barn and join a queue when I can receive him in a church build 1000 years ago which has been worshipping him continuously? Makes no sense at all.”
Um Jess, that 1000 year old place was stolen from us and taken over by you during your country’s little reign of terror in which all the Catholic places were robbed, pillaged, confiscated or burnt by Henry and those after. So, unless you’re bragging about all that and want to claim some of that “glory” to yourself, well, you really should be hanging your head in shame. Christians don’t rob other Christians of their churches. Hello?
God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
You don’t know much history do you? Stolen would mean that a thing as taken illegally. The parliament of England – the supreme law making body, ruled that the English Church owned its churches. No robbery was involved. I see that truth for its own sake is still not a virtue in the Catholic misinterpretation of history.
So, unless you want to brag about the hundreds burnt by Bloody Mary and take a share of the blame, or the thousands killed by the Crusaders, or the Jews murdered and forced to convert in Spain, perhaps the large glass house you occupy should be considered a stone-free zone?
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ginnyfree said:
One more for whenever you manage to get across that pond and you can plan you trip motoring from chapel to chapel: http://www.acfp2000.com/Chapels/northamerica.htm
God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
Bless you, but I go to the Shine at Walsingham every week – why would I want a modern gimcrack version? We got the original 🙂
It occurs to me that you appear to know nothing at all about the Church of England – let me dig out something to help. Did you really not know we have been doing Eucharistic Adoration for longer than there has been a USA?
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Steve Brown said:
Well Jessica I hear you, but what would Newman say, Oh yea; “To be deep in history is to cease to be protestant.”
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ginnyfree said:
Short, sweet and to the point. Bravo! But Jess will ignore it. She prefers her flights of fancy for a historical record.
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JessicaHof said:
ginny, when you have read some real history instead of catholic propaganda, do come back. I answered Steve, I am not a Protestant.
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JessicaHof said:
I’ve never ben a Protestant 🙂 xx
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ginnyfree said:
Ah, but that is not so. You are very Protestant Jess. Very Protestant. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
Your saying so does not make it so. But then you seem to know so little history I am surprised you dare to make a comment – or perhaps not, easier to do when you read only one side of the story.
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Steve Brown said:
Jessica, C, Geoffrey, or others living in the British Isles, I wonder if you would like to articulate the reasons for and against Britain staying in the EU? Cameron wants to stay and London’s mayor, Boris Johnson wants to leave. I don’t seem to know either of these chaps and would be grateful to hear from you. Thanks in advance. Now hop to it!
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NEO said:
Steve, although not a Brit, I’ve been writing some on it, and mine today, describes it pretty well by an author in “The Spectator”. I personally can’t see why they’d want to stay on in an organization that is little more than a museum of a dying culture, but that’s my opinion. Here’s the link:
https://nebraskaenergyobserver.wordpress.com/2016/02/21/america-would-never-join-anything-like-the-eu-yet-our-government-urges-them-to-stay/
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Steve Brown said:
Thanks NEO! Joining the “AU” sounds awful but at least we could eat “oreos” when the currency was worthless. 🙂
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NEO said:
‘Bout the size of it! 🙂
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ginnyfree said:
Has nothing to do with the topic, so if you insist on driving the thread off the rail entirely………………..
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JessicaHof said:
I utterly refuse to have anything to do with that topic – ghastly subject, full of politicos on both sides fibbing like mad!
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ginnyfree said:
Lord knows we have enough mad men in our world. No need to wind up a few more. Ugh.
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Steve Brown said:
Ah, that sounds a lot like the US Congress.
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Steve Brown said:
QVO, your view sounds like you have given this some thought. Well, in my view…unless others can convince me otherwise, I think getting out is the way to go. But I don’t have a dog in the fight, except for mental exercise, and of course to upset Ginny and it seems Jessica. Is it just me, or has Jessica been on a Man Basing bandwagon lately?
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Steve Brown said:
s/b Man Bashing.
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ginnyfree said:
One more thing Jess. Where there is a will, there is a way and God Himself being that Way, He provides. Read on: http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_ben-xvi_apc_20091104_anglicanorum-coetibus.html
You might find it worth you while. Let me know what you think. God bless. Ginnyfree.
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JessicaHof said:
I’m perfectly happy in the Anglican Church. I don’t really understand these people with itchy ears and feet who go from church to church until they find one that suits them. I am a loyal girl, and I am where I have always been.
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