Featured My Journey Into The Catholic Church

You are not being honest with yourself or with others.
Let me stress this. You do not ask Mary to pray for you. You pray TO Mary, and that is idolatry!! You kneel down and pray to Mary. You don't do that to me or to any person on this board, to your family or any of your friends. Why? Because in our eyes it is worship.
Pray to me; it is worship.
Pray for me, I appreciate it.
Ask me to pray for you, I will do it.
There is a difference in praying TO a person, and asking a person to pray for you. Catholics pray TO Mary which is idolatry. At least be honest here.

No they are not. If they were you wouldn't go to funerals. You wouldn't have prayers for the dead. The church would do away with cemeteries. Mary is dead. The resurrection has not yet taken place yet. The dead cannot hear you. We are commanded not to pray to the dead. Again, our authority is not Catholicism but the Bible.

Prayers of dead people are not necessary--ever!!!!!!

There is no such thing as a universal church.
The Bible always defines church as local.
It is a local assembly of baptized believers.
It never includes "spirits." That would be part of your necromancy theology. We do not commune with spirits, and they are not part of our church.

A prayer TO a saint IS idolatry. Just leave it there. It is idolatry. Prayer is worship. Every prayer addressed to another is worshiping that person or object. The Catholic church is steeped in idolatry. Go back and study the Ten Commandments.

 

http://en.radiovaticana.va/m_articolo.asp?c=663815

 

Ask for her intercession about what? Christ is the Intercessor between man and God the Father. Who is Mary supposed to be communicating to for us?

I don't think anyone was saying nothing is too difficult. But God doesn't do that which makes himself into a liar. So who is Mary interceding to? Can't be the Father or else Jesus is a liar. And it can't be Jesus as Christians are indwelled by the Spirit and have direct access to Jesus because He is the Intercessor.

So who is Mary supposedly interceding to???

She was the earthly mother of Christ. I don't know that anyone has a problem acknowledging that she was unique because of that choosing. But praying to her to intercede?

If Mary can get us to the Father, why did Jesus have to go to the Cross?

 

Why would the saints and Mary be hearing prayer requests? Doesn't Scripture say to pray "Our Father"?

Converse, as in they talk and the angels and dead saints answer back?

What does this have to do with praying to dead people? And Scripture says they are holding the bowls. It says nothing about them offering anything to God. Incense rises on its own

 

It's impossible to break something that never was.

It would be impossible to trace "catholic" bishops back to the New Testament since bishops there were simply pastors of local churches, the two terms being synonyms.

 

Better than "Fox's Book of Martyrs", look into "Martyrs' Mirror", an account of the murder of mostly Anabaptists by state churches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyrs_Mirror

http://www.homecomers.org/mirror/contents.htm

 

John being in the Spirit of the Lord does not translate into praying to Mary or anyone other than God. Not to be rude but that Idea is ridiculous and mental gymnastics at best.

 

It's late, so I will answer you fairly briefly. There is nothing I have stated that is not absolute historical fact. What is telling is the attempts by Catholics and Magisterial Protestants to dodge, deny, and rationalize the atrocities approved of and committed by them against Dissenters, and each other! For you to try to make the claim that it was the state which was responsible and not the church is laughable, absurd, and false. The former state churches have admitted their guilt by apologizing for their crimes; popes have done this, and leaders of the Magisterial Protestant denominations, also.

Catholicism was of course not created by Constantine, but with Constantine was the beginning of the union of church and state, an unholy alliance.

I have many weaknesses and infirmities, but ignorance of history and church history are not among them, despite your attempt to insult.

Of course infant baptism was practiced before the state and church became united, but after it did, this became one way of trying to insure the perpetuity of both. What you are either ignorant of or not honest enough to admit is that the Baptists, Anabaptists, and other free church/believers' baptism churches were persecuted by the state churches mostly for two reasons: the advocacy of the former for absolute religious liberty for all and the refusal to have their infants baptized. Why the persecution because of this? Fear! These two beliefs were a threat to the state churches and thus in their eyes to the entire society, so they were determined to stop the free churches and wipe them out by whatever means. This resulted in the most heinous persecution and torment, and murder in the most terrible ways imaginable, often mockingly and in parody.

You have not one leg to stand on. All your denials of the facts that I have stated are nothing more than obfuscation to try to obscure the truth.

I challenge anyone who doubts what I say to read some history of the atrocities perpetrated by the state churches against the free churches. One good resource is the "Martyrs' Mirror", a book I referenced elsewhere in this thread. No evidence? There is first-hand evidence and historical fact. And that is just one source among many: personal, objective, and scholarly.

The united church and state worked hand-in-hand to enforce uniformity of belief and carry out atrocities against other Christians. No "assertion"; again, historical fact.

 

Here is an example of how the infant baptizing union of church and state worked hand-in-hand to persecute and murder:

"CALVIN BELIEVED IN RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

The outstanding work of Calvin, from a practical point of view, was his municipal dictatorship in the city of Geneva. The literature on the subject is exhaustive. Striking instances of discipline in Geneva are these:

A man was banished from the city for three months because he heard an ass bray and said jestingly, "He prays a beautiful Psalm."

Three men who had laughed during a sermon were imprisoned for three days.

Three children were punished because they remained outside of a church to eat some cakes.

A child was whipped publicly for calling his mother a thief.

A girl who struck her parents was beheaded.

A person was imprisoned for four days because he wanted to call his child Claude (the name of a Catholic saint) instead of Abraham.

It can be seen from the above that many of the persecutions which John Calvin endured were not for "well doing" (1 Peter 2:15): they were for carrying on like a fool engaged in trying to "bring in his Kingdom."

In Geneva, a secret police was forged under the name of The Consistory. Every home was compulsorily examined and searched. The City was divided into districts and committees of the Consistory were empowered to search and interrogate all residents without previous notice. Attendance at public worship was commanded and watchmen were directed to see that people went to church. The one thing that Calvin did not endorse was religious liberty.

From 1541 to 1546, John Calvin caused 58 people to be executed and seventy six were exiled. His victims ranged in age from 16 to 80. The most common capital offense was the opposition to infant baptism. Today, baptism only for accountable believers, is a Baptist distinctive. In Calvin's time it was punished either by drowning, a drawn out and slow burning at the stake, or beheading. All this was done in public, with city residents compelled to watch the butchery. The executions were spaced out so as to exert a continuing policy of fear and terror. Others were killed for advocating local church autonomy; opposing the tie-in of church and state: and preaching that Christ died for all sinners (unlimited atonement). Press censorship continued in Geneva until the eighteenth century.

THE KILLING OF MICHAEL SERVETUS

It is Servetus' religious views that we are now concerned with, for that is what got him killed. He was premillennial and rejected Calvin's doctrine of predestination. So far so good. Servetus was also strongly anti-Catholic. He referred to the Mass as "a Satanic monstrosity and an invention of demons." To these sentiments the Reformers could agree. So what was the problem with Servetus? His trouble was twofold: rejection of infant baptism and holding unorthodox views of the Trinity.

According to Servetus, infant baptism was "a doctrine of the Devil, an invention of popery, and a total subversion of Christianity." He wrote two letters to Calvin on adult baptism and exhorted him to follow his example. The marginal notes against infant baptism that Servetus wrote in Calvin's Institutes were used as evidence against him during his trial. Servetus admitted at his trial that he had referred to infant baptism as a "diabolical invention and infernal falsehood destructive of Christianity." Regarding the Trinity, Servetus was not a Unitarian but had a strange view of the Trinity in a great measure peculiar to himself. Now although Servetus' Trinitarian views were not orthodox; they were by no means criminal. Calvin wrote in a letter, "Servetus lately wrote to me... He takes it upon him to come hither, if it be agreeable to me. But I am unwilling to pledge my word for his safety, for if he shall come, I shall never permit him to depart alive, provided my authority be of any avail."

While in Geneva, Servetus made the mistake of attending church on Sunday where he was recognized and arrested. It was on Calvin's information to the magistracy that Servetus was put in prison, which fact Calvin did not deny. The trial lasted over two months and Calvin himself drew up a document of thirty-nine accusations against Servetus.

On the way to the stake, Servetus besought God to pardon his accusers. On account of the use of green oak-wood, Servetus suffered for half an hour. His last words were: "Jesus Christ, thou Son of the eternal God, have mercy on me!" At twelve noon on October 27, 1553, Servetus passed into his eternal destiny. Nine years afterward, Calvin still justified his actions.

The strongest recorded statement from Calvin on the Servetus affair is a 1561 letter from Calvin to the Marquis Paet, high chamberlain to the King of Navarre, in which he says intolerantly:

"Honour, glory, and riches shall be the reward of your pains; but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those scoundrels, who stir up the people to revolt against us. Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus the Spaniard."

The respected Lutheran historian, Mosheim (1694-1755), judged in favor of Servetus. The historian Gibbon remarked: "he was more deeply scandalized at the single execution of Servetus than at the hecatombs which have blazed in the Auto da Fes of Spain and Portugal. The zeal of Calvin seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps envy."

 

See in-post answer.

 

"The treatment of heretics

In contrast to the late antiquity, the execution of heretics was much more easily approved in the late Middle Ages, after the Christianization of Europe was largely completed. The first known case is the burning of fourteen people at Orléans in 1022. In the following centuries groups like the Bogomils, Waldensians, Cathars and Lollards were persecuted throughout Europe. The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) codified the theory and practise of persecution. In its third canon, the council declared: "Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, .. to take an oath that they will strive .. to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church."

Saint Thomas Aquinas summed up the standard medieval position, when he declared that that obstinate heretics deserved "not only to be separated from the Church, but also to be eliminated from the world by death"

See also this article on the Inquisition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition

The Inquisition was a Satanic alliance of Roman Catholic church-state persecution and murder.

 

The Protestant theory of persecution

The Protestant Reformation changed the face of Western Christianity forever, but initially it did nothing to change the Christian endorsement of religious persecution. The Reformers "fully embraced" Augustine's advocacy of coercion in religious matters, and many regarded the death penalty for heresy as legitimate. Furthermore, by presenting a much more powerful threat to Catholic unity than the heretic groups of the Middle Ages, the Reformation led to the intensification of persecution under Catholic regimes.

* Martin Luther had written against persecution in the 1520s, and had demonstrated genuine sympathy towards the Jews in his earlier writings, especially in Das Jesus ein geborener Jude sei (That Jesus was born as a Jew) from 1523, but after 1525 his position hardened. In Wider die Sabbather an einen guten Freund (Against the Sabbather to a Good Friend), 1538, he still considered a conversion of the Jews to Christianity as possible, but in 1543 he published On the Jews and their Lies, a "violent anti-semitic tract."
* John Calvin helped to secure the execution for heresy of Michael Servetus, although he unsuccessfully requested that he should be beheaded instead of being burned at the stake.

Effectively, however, the 16th century Protestant view was less extreme than the mediaeval Catholic position. In England, John Foxe, John Hales, Richard Perrinchief, Herbert Thorndike and Jonas Proast all only saw mild forms of persecution against the English Dissenters as legitimate. But (with the probable exception of John Foxe), this was only a retraction in degree, not a full rejection of religious persecution. There is also the crucial distinction between dissent and heresy to consider. Most dissenters disagreed with the Anglican Church only on secondary matters of worship and ecclesiology, and although this was a considered a serious sin, only a few 17th century Anglican writers thought that this 'crime' deserved the death penalty.

 

And yet, the first English Baptist, Thomas Helwys, died in prison at the hands of the Anglican state church at the age of forty for his beliefs.

I don't want to derail the thread further, so I'll cease to discuss this here. If the mods want to move my posts about state church atrocities to another section, that's fine with me.

 

Christ told Peter, i have prayed for thee that thou faith failest not. In John 17: 20 Neither i pray for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word. When Christ who is at the right hand of God as my intercessor, i don't need anyone else as a intercessor.

 

"Let us...implore his holy Mother Mary so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers...."

Assistance is guidance. Imploring her is beseeching her. This is a prayer to her. Instead of "imploring Christ for this assistance and guidance he asks Mary. This is blasphemous and it is idolatry.

In fact, as you say, he is asking all one billion Catholics to commit this act of idolatry. Shameful!

 

catholic Chuirch can say all day long they "merely" venerate mary, but actual practice and doctrines are that the RCC worship her, as give to her similar attributes as Christ Himself!

 

You are right, this is blatant idolatry and no one says a word in the RCC. Makes you wonder about how many are really saved or spiritual. Mary says she was blessed among women, not that she would bless others or make intercession for anyone. How cruel it is to enslave so many in the false religion of Mary worship.