Catholic Blasphemy Still Abounds

True- the RC idea is that the punishment for venial sins is paid by the sinner in purgatory -- then that sinner is sent on his/her way to heaven.

 

Seattle has a Roman Catholic radio station affiliated with EWTN, the worldwide Catholic broadcast ministry started by Mother Angelica. While I'm at work it is my habit every morning to listen a program by Fr. John Corapi who gives instructions on the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. Just today Fr. Corapi was teaching on the subject of indulgences. You are correct that this is indeed a doctrine still taught by the Roman church. Today I was particularly interested in hearing Fr. Corapi admit that Martin Luther was correct regarding his criticism of this practice. However, while admitting to the corruption surrounding indulgences in the Sixteenth Century, Fr. Corapi put the responsibility for that corruption on a few individuals and denied that the Pope or the Roman church was wrong with regard to the doctrine itself. I was raised a Roman Catholic, though I am now a Lutheran. Even so, I must admit that I was somewhat surprised that the the Roman Church remains forthright in their admission that they continue to teach this nonsense.

 

I thought that Trent reigned in the abuse of indulgences - sad to see it still continues.

 

We get EWTN here on our cable system. Its a great resource, in the sense that so many priests, nuns and other officials (and RCC approved lay apologists) are on there teaching accurately the Catholic dogmas.

It serves to make plain that those of us who accuse the Catholic Church of promoting blasphemy and idolatry are not in any way being inaccurate regarding our claims.

Its all on there for the whole world to see.

Mike

 

EWTN though is more the 'fundie fruitcake' end of the Catholic spectrum, full of Opus Dei-types and SSPXers (sorry to B-G!); I wouldn't say it was particularly representative of 'mainstream' Catholicism.

 

I have surfed through EWTN a few times, almost always getting Mother Angelica and some nuns reciting their "Hail Mary"s. Over and over and over and over again. It just defies understanding how, first of all, that feels like prayer to these folks, and, second, why anybody thinks that makes for interesting television programming!

 

Is Mother Angelica still alive? I thought she had a severe stroke a few years ago and was on her last legs?

 

Normally that would be "last leg" -- "last legs" beggs the question of "species"

 

If we find the Indulgence is related to the Purgatory, we can understand they are based on the Grace+Human Works as well.

As for Purgatory, RCC has not defined how long will be the maximum period, but someone in Luther's time said the reduction of the time from 25,000 years down to 7,000 years after paying some good amount of Indulgence.

When I heard about it, I started to question whether the Germans were so stupid to accept such foolish propaganda? ( Sorry to any German friends here !)

When RCC claim the Purgatory, they say the people in Purgatory can be released by the Almsgiving and Prayer by their relatives and descendants.

Can any human efforts and prayers help the people get the spritual status changed? If so, why did Jesus have to die at the Cross? Why didn't He teach the people to pray and pay more almsgiving so that they may go to the Heaven?

Even our own prayers are not enough for our problems, then can the prayers and almsgiving by the descendants satisfy the wrath of God?
Are the descendants doing well and praying enough to God during the lifetime of the Catholics? Will they do better after they die?
The fundamental truth is that no human works can satisfy the Wrath of God, and therefore Jesus shed the Blood and died the terrible death.

Another question is about when the Catholics enter the Purgatory and finish if Jesus comes with His believers in order to judge the world? If Jesus comes within 50 years time, then 25,000 years cannot be fulfilled. The Robber at the Cross went to the Paradise on that day when Jesus died. Did the Robber come out of the Paradise in order to be purified after he spend sometime at the Paradise? If the Robber was exempted from the Purgatory, why was he allowed so? Was he clean enough? Why cannot Catholics be like the Robber at the Cross?
Did the Robber buy any Indulgence from the disciples? Did any Disciples sell any Indulgence?
If the Bible often says that the Believers are sleeping after death, are they sleeping in the Purgatory, in the hot heat of Inferno?

I doubted about the intelligence of the Germans at the time of ML, now I doubt about the sanity of the Catholics who believe in the Purgatory.

Why can't Catholics believe the total and powerful Indulgence ( Remission) by Jesus Christ?

 

Most Catholics do, it is the Church that doesn't do a good job on teaching the faithful. Once you explain to them, they would either deny or say you are a follower of Luther!

 

They believe Total Redemption by the Blood of Jesus with their mouth, but not by their hearts, and that's why they claim that they still need the Purging at the Purgatory. If they believed the Total Indulgence from God which was already done at the Cross, they wouldn't have thought about the Indulgence Business.
By Indulgence, Catholics are strongly confessing that their religion is based on the Human Works.
By Purgatory, Catholics are strongly confessing that they are more miserable than the Robber at the Cross who went to the Paradise directly.
By Purgatory, Catholics are confessing that they have no hope for the second coming of Jesus who is going to raise the sleeping souls, but they have to spend thousands of years in the Purgatory which is called INFERNO, where neither the Robber at the Cross nor any true believers claimed that they went to.

 

The erroneous assumptions on the RCC is funnier than a barrel of monkeys.....:wavey: particularly on this subject but I can think of several others:laugh: :type:

 

What is not funny, Briony-Gloriana, is how that whenever such inaccurate allegations are corrected, they refuse to accept the correction and persist in them.

 

Illuminate us then...

 

Me too.

#1. Worshipping bread as though it were God.
#2. Praying to the dead
#3. purgatory
#4. Indulgences
#5. "Mary sinless like Christ"
Mary - Queen of heaven
Mary - coRedemptrix with Christ
Mary - all powerful like Christ
#6. Extermination of the saints
7. Catholic Armies sent to kill Catholic Armies -- each having a Pope to call the other "AntiChrist"

 

Why bother....there are those who cling desperately to their invincible ignorance.....it astounds me forever.....however one can still pray for those who seem so intent to hate and loathe the RCC:thumbs:

 

And Briyoni answers:

It is not that we hate the RCC. We do detest the doctrines. But let me try and shed some light on the situation. I'll take the doctrines that Bob has listed and elaborate on them:

1. Worshiping bread as though it were God.
--As a Catholic, if you had accused me of doing that I would have taken offence and denied it. I was ignorant of the Bible, but knew that somehow Christ was mysteriously present in that piece of bread we call the "host." I diddn't actually worship it, per se. It was a mystery. I simply naively accepted what the priests taught. I was no theologian, did not know the Bible, and obviously could not look at anything from a Biblical perspective. I accepted the Catholic teaching. So don't tell me that I was worshiping a piece of bread as if it was God. I wasn't!

--After I was saved, I began to realize what the bread represented, the concept of transubstantiation. Now I look at things from a Biblical perspective and not from a Catholic perspective. That is the only way that I can look at things, and indeed must. I must look at things from God's perspective, not man's (the RCC). If indeed Christ is present in the host, then the priest is bowing down before it, and worshiping it. I saw him doing this all of my life. The accusation holds true.

2. Praying to the dead.
--If, as a Catholic, you had accused me of that, if would have resulted in picking a fight, and more than just verbal. What an insult! I, like most believers today, believe that all Christians go to be with the Lord, when they die. to say that I am praying to dead people is just ridiculous. Probably the only one on this board that doesn't believe that is Bob, because he is SDA, and believes in soul sleep. Being absent from the body is to present with the Lord. That is a basic Bible belief.
Again, after becoming saved and studying the Bible, I had to change my beliefs. First I had to examine my beliefs concerning the definition of "dead."
Often we ask the children when passing a cenetary: "How many survivors do you think are buried there?" After one or two may hazard a guess, the obvious answer is NONE. Survivors aren't buried. We don't bury people that are alive. All of them are dead. It is fruitless to go into a cemetary and pray to a corpse, a dead person--even if you believed that corpse was the corpse of Mary, Peter, Paul, James, etc. They are all dead, and their bodies will not be raised until the resurrection takes place. Thus when you pray to one of those spirits in heaven you are still praying to a dead person, simply because their body is dead. We don't go to a cemetary and pray to the dead. It is the same concept.
Furthermore, and more importantly, only God deserves prayer. Prayer is worship. Any prayer directed to another is taken away from the only One who deserves it--Our creator and Sovereign the Lord Jesus Christ. How dare we insult HIm, by giving glory to another! Prayer belongs to God alone. Again, I must look at things from God's point of view, not man's.

3. Purgatory. It is a belief of the Catholic Church. I believed it because I was taught it, not because the Bible taught.
As a saved person, I found out that the Bible doesn't teach it so I rejected it. It is a man-made doctrine. That one is easy.

4. Mary was sinless like Christ. Again a Catholic doctrine without any foundation in Scipture. It only has foundation in logic--that a sinless Christ had to come from a sinless person.
--But the Bible says otherwise. I must accept what the Bible teaches.

The next three doctrines that you listed concerning Mary were never emphasized or even taught when I was a Catholic. Some of them would have offended me as a Catholic. To say that Mary was as powerful as God is offensive. She is not. How can she be? Why the false accusation? I don't think a Catholic believes that to this day.
--However there may be some in the Catholic Church that unwittingly act as if she is as powerful as God by the way that they pray to her, by the requests they place upon her. They don't realize that Mary has to by omnipresent, omnipotent, omnisicient--the attributes that make her equal to God--in order to answer their prayers. Again it is looking at things from a Biblical perspective.

Points 6 & 7 have to do with history. That history I was ignorant of. I was not ignorant of the Crusades, but was taught it from a different point of view.
After I got saved, and looked into the history more in depth I saw what really happened and the atrocities of the RCC. As a Catholic I would have never believed it. Both salvation, and knowledge opens one's eyes.

 

These are good points. However my argument above about idolatry actually comes from a very pro-catholic source.

RC Eucharist is “idolatry” (if non-Catholics are right) according to the RCC.

The Faith Explained – A bestselling RC commentary on the Baltimore Catechism post Vatican II by Leo J. Trese is promoted as “A standard reference for every Catholic home and library”. Complete with Papal Imprimatur -- Quote from page 350-351

Parenthetical inserts “mine”

Clearly this RC source is not saying "we are in idolatry" but what it IS saying is that IF the non-RC view of bread is correct - THEN this is in fact idolatry being practiced by the RCC.

in Christ,

Bob

 

When I use the term "THE DEAD" I only mean it in the exact use that we SEE in 1thess 4

"THE DEAD in Christ".

In John 11

"Lazarus is DEAD I go that I may wake HIM".

in Matt 22

"God is not the God of THE DEAD"

I don't mean to insert an SDA meaning - just the exact Biblical phrase AS we see it in scripture. So the fact that the phrase itself is not appealing to some - is not my point.

If only that phrase HAD been found in scripture -- THEN it would be a "Bible belief" -- I think we can all agree there.

True. But the RC position is not that they are praying to decaying corpses. NOR does the Budhist, Hindu, spiritist medium etc claim to pray to or communicate with the "corpse" -- but rather the PERSON.

This is an important point. The Budhist, Hindu, spiritist being condemned for "praying to the dead" or "ancestor worship" etc is doing exactly what Christians are doing who pray to the "DEAD in Christ" (perhaps a way that some here will accept that Biblical term more readily).

This is a good point since the RCC itself demands that living people NOT pray to other living people -- they insist that you can only pray to those humans who have died.

Though we have to give the RC poster some relief here since on the "Bogus way to save OSAS" thread we DO have non-Catholics arguing that "HELL" is in fact 1000 years of purgatory after which the saints go to heaven.

Odd though that may seem - we are seeing such views posted on this section of the board.

And one has to wonder WHY an RC member would object to the fact that non-RC Christians know that they teach this.??

Why claim this as a false accusation against Catholic teaching IF you believe it to be true??

in Christ,

Bob