Featured Interview with ARCHBISHOP CARLO MARIA VIGANÒ APOSTOLIC NUNCIO

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is a good Catholic Bishop. If you are Catholic this is a guy you want on your side, very traditional and conservative.

 

I am always fascinated by ex-Catholics that become Baptist. Sacred scripture clearly teaches sacramental theology. They go from having valid sacraments to not having sacraments at all.

The Catholic Church since Vatican II has feminized much of the Church (not all). Some bad liturgical practices were introduced, issues with lay ministries, etc., they need to revisit Vatican II. They’ve had dismal catechesis since Vatican II.

Sadly, the South Baptist Conversation are making headlines with their own sexual abuse issues. How the Catholic Church Bishops handled the sexual abuse was just shameful. Our public school system have a higher abuse rate than the the Catholic Church. It was how the Catholic Church handle it that got them in trouble. Instead they kept some of the predators in circulation to prey on more children. It was largely a US Catholic issue. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched Church Militant they have good coverage on the liberal within the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church needs more leadership in the mold of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò and Fulton John Sheen, etc. There are a lot of good Catholic Bishops fighting the good fight. Everyone agrees, Pope Francis is not good (at least conservative minded people).

 

sacramental salvation theology is the big heresy that caused the reformation!

 

I most certainly am not defending the Catholic Church on how they handled the sexual abuse cases nor would any well meaning pious Catholics. It was an epic and tragic miscarriage of justice on how they handled it. These Priest will stand before the judgment throne of Christ one day. By God’s grace they were granted repentance and faith.

American Protestantism is known for their scripture twisty pope rages for the sake of being as un-Catholic as possible, are quick to berate the Catholic Church, while most of Americans Protestantism is gnostic and simi-Pelagian. They had their own sexual abuse sandals. There really is a lack of fear and trembling in most of Protestantism.

I am not sure what you mean by Radical Christian and radix root study. That could mean number of thing in Protestantism.

Protestants outside the Lutheran reformation have a hard time squaring their teachings with the patristic evident of the church fathers. Non-sacramental churches were never a thing.

Perhaps, you can point me to a resource that would explains what you mean by Radical Christian and radix study for root cause. It could mean a number of things.

When I think of radix, I think of the Antiphon, O Radix Jesse, chant in a Lutheran divide service.

http://emmanuelpress.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/O-Radix.mp3

Baptist generally refer to Holy baptism and the Lord’s Super as ordinance. I heard Baptist like Dr. Gavin Ortlund refer to them as sacraments, but when you push them to define their turns, they do not mean sacraments in the classical sense, as imparting divine grace, such as baptism (baptismal regeneration), the Eucharist (true corporal body and blood for the forgiveness of sins), they do not mean they are efficacious, etc. Dr. Gavin Ortlund view would be almost identical to the Presbyterian view, he believes it to be a bit more than merely symbolic, that is not the Baptist norm. Most Baptist will also believe in “preservation of the saint” also known as “once saved always saved” which it is not biblical. Baptist also reject the sacrament of holy absolution, which Luther and the Lutherans consider the third sacrament (there are nuances differences between Lutherans and Catholics on absolution).

Does a priest have the authority to forgive repent sinners? Yes, according to sacred scripture, but it is Christ that is forgiving, and that sacramental benefit is received by faith, faith in Christ Jesus. The Catholic Church would say they only (and the Orthodox) posses the Office of the Keys. Lutherans disagree, all Christians possess the Office of the Key’s however, Christ has given His church called ordained priest to distribute word and sacrament.

Sacraments

London Baptist Confession (which is the Westminster Confession of Faith modified to align with yet another view of baptism and the Lords Super).

London Baptist Confession (1644) - Chapter 39

That Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, given by Christ, to be dispensed only upon persons professing faith, or that are Disciples, or taught, who upon a profession of faith, ought to be baptized (Added later: "...and after to partake of the [Lord's] [Supper].")

The London Baptism Confession is the Westminster Confession of Faith adjusted to support yet, another view of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

The Lutherans address the Sacramentarians (Zwiglians and Calvinist).

The Formula of Concord: Epitome, art. vii, par. 1

STATUS CONTROVERSIAE. The Chief Controversy between Our Doctrine and that of the Sacramentarians In This Article.

2 Although some Sacramentarians strive to employ words that come as close as possible to the Augsburg Confession and the form and mode of speech in its [our] churches, and confess that in the Holy Supper the body of Christ is truly received by believers, still, when we insist that they state their meaning properly, sincerely, and clearly, they all declare themselves unanimously thus: that the true essential body and blood of Christ is absent from the consecrated bread and wine in the Holy Supper as far as the highest heaven is from the earth. For thus their own words run: Abesse Christi corpus et sanguinem a signis tanto intervallo dicimus, quanto abest terra ab altissimis coelis. That is: “We say that the body and blood of Christ are as far from the signs as the earth is distant from the highest heaven.”

3 Therefore they understand this presence of the body of Christ not as a presence here upon earth, but only respectu fidei (with respect to faith) [when they speak of the presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, they do not mean that they are present upon earth…

If you want to continue reading more.

VII. The Holy Supper | Book of Concord

 

Martin Luther would disagree with you. Luther nor Lutherans abolished the Mass or sacramental theology.

The primary issue was with the doctrine of justification and sacramental abuses.

“God gives the Sacraments to His people for their forgiveness, life, and salvation, and this happens as they call forth trust and confidence in Christ, the Savior. By the sixteenth century, the Roman Church had developed a complicated sacramental system that had transformed the Sacraments into meritorious works performed by priests.”

Lutherans rightly teach the apostolic biblical view of baptismal regeneration, private confession and holy absolution and the true corporal body and blood of Christ, for the forgiveness of sins, all which were maintained and are part of the Lutheran confession (Book of Concord).

I would not go quit as far as Martin Luther (I believe Baptist are Christian’s dispute there errors), but he would not consider Baptist Christian. It would be unthinkable for Luther to even consider rejecting sacraments. For Luther to reject the blessed sacrament (sacrament of the altar) is to outright reject Christ. The sacramental abuses merely were corrected. There was no wholesale rejection on sacraments.

The Augsburg Confession of Faith: II, art. xxiii

"Our churches are falsely accused of abolishing the Mass. The Mass is held among us and celebrated with the highest reverence. Nearly all the usual ceremonies are also preserved, except that the parts sung in Latin are interspersed here and there with German hymns."

The Lutheran Study Bible had an interesting observation on ritual and devotion.

“The Books of Moses demonstrate close unity between the ritual acts of religion and sincere devotion. The ritual is devotion. For example, consider the close relationships between the following: (1) covenant ritual with loyalty, love, and trust; (2) ritual vows with peace; (3) ritual sacrifices with forgiveness and atonement; and (4) ritual cleanliness with holiness. These features illustrate the unity and antiquity of the Books of Moses as well as their relationship to later biblical writings. (The Books of Moses do not raise great concerns about empty ritual, later raised by Joshua [24:15–25] and decried by the prophets [e.g., Is 1:10–17; 29:13; 66:3–4; Am 4:4–5; 5:21–24; Mal 1:6–14].)

Radical criticism of the Books of Moses, which chopped them up into primitive religion and later, priestly religion, failed to recognize this essential unity between ritual and devotion. In part, the critical approach can be traced to extreme Protestant revulsion toward ritual, tradition, and legalism. The attitude that attacked medieval Christianity for its outward, ritual expressions of faith became secularized during the Enlightenment. This critical attitude was then turned on the Scriptures, giving birth to radical criticism of the Bible and the destruction of Christianity in much of Europe. (See Hummel, pp 19–31, 156–62.)"

 

I have no doubt the men you are meeting with love the Lord. If there are reading Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones, Gill, Pink, Whitefield, they must be Calvinist/Calvinistic.

The puritans were all Calvinist (false teachings of double predestination). The early so-called puritans were rebellious rebels…trouble makers, they were, a lot like modern day progressives—burn it down!! They failed with a hostile takeover of the Church of England, then fledge to American and declared themselves victims of the Church of England and the Catholic Church. They could burn down the episcopal polity (“always-reforming” nonsense, in an attempt to rid the church from alleged false teachings of the papist) so they ran to American.

American Protestantism was largely Anglican for most of its early history and was the dominant church in American. The Protestantism landscape changed and they had a distain towards anything that was hierarchical in structure (King/Queen), they extended this to the church, episcopal polity. Interesting most of the founders of Americans were deists, they most certainly were not orthodox.

Baptist became the prominent Protestant denomination within America largely because of political reasons. The Baptist/Evangelical mind set fits well with the Philosophy of the founders of American with it’s rugged Individualism expression of faith. “I made a decision for Christ, I am getting baptized as my first step of obedience”, etc. You go outside of America the Baptist church is quit small in comparison to American.

Schisms are never a good thing. Our Lord suffered death on the Cross to heal all divisions (Eph. 2:11-17). He prayed, “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” (Jn. 17:21). Division is not good because it causes skepticism, confusion, unbelief and death. Schism is never good. The so-called puritans (especially the early ones) were anything but pure they were aggressively schismatic.

 

No worries. Yes, Lutheranism as Martin Luther intended still exist. He wanted a reformed (not in the Calvinist way) Catholic Church. Confessional Lutheranism is alive and well. However, there are problematic issues with American Lutheranism. There are a lot of Lutherans that do not know what it means to be a Lutheran, to be Lutheran is to be catholic—Augsburg Catholics, evangelical Catholics. Traditional authentic confessional Lutheranism is making an resurgence in the LCMS. It has always been there but we have our own issues within the LCMS, we have the confessional Lutherans and the not so confessional Lutherans.

The Calvinist almost destroyed authentic Lutheranism. The Prussian Union Church (a forced merger of Calvinist and Lutherans, which is like oil and water) destroyed confessional integrity in the State Church. The Lutherans were heavy persecuted by the Calvinist. The Sextons fled to America in the1800’s to escape Calvinist persecution. The ELCA is essentially the offspring of the Prussian Union Church.

If you want a flavor of what authentic Lutheranism looks like here is a good example of a LCMS church.

Easter Vigil 4/16/22



Gottestdienst blog

Gottesdienst

Confessional Lutheran Liturgy

Evangelical-Lutheran Liturgical Congregations – Helping Lutherans find Liturgical Congregations

My message to ex-Catholics; do not abandon the sacraments (a lot of Catholics have join the Orthodox Church), because of the state of the Catholic Church. If you are set on leaving Catholicism and nothings going to stop you, find a good liturgical sacramental church in confessional Lutheranism. There is no need to abandon the historic liturgy of the church and the blessed sacrament- the medicine of immortality. What you see in American Protestantism is not what Luther envisioned.

 

Hi EWF,

There is one thing to notice about Archbishop Vigano: He didn’t leave the church. You don’t leave Peter because of Judas. In other words, you shouldn’t leave because of scandal.

 

Hi EWF,

I can. You said there are two reasons you left the Catholic Church. You said one was because of scandal and the other was because of traditions. I answered the scandal part.

Here’s a challenge: By “traditions” I think you mean doctrines. On the “main doctrinal reason” you left the church, do this: Why don’t you go to a Catholic Source and copy and paste from that source exactly what you disagree with and then, in your own words, why you disagree with it. Then we will discuss it.