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Roman Catholicism , cult or not?

Discussion in 'Other Christian Denominations' started by shannonL, Feb 24, 2006.

  1. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Simple reasoning, though in error Sue.

    Jesus planted his Church and gave full authority to Peter as the founder of that church. His successors stand in Christ's place on earth.

    At baptism one is made a part of Christ's church, therefore a part of His kingdom.

    Obviously all those who a part of His church are a part of His kingdom.

    You keep yourself as a part of the body of Christ by physically eating His body and drinking His blood on a regular basis. Oh, thats right, now you only have to eat His body. You no longer need to drink His blood.

    Now, if one does not properly follow the instructions and traditions of the church he loses that protection and is bound for hell (since limbo no longer exists) or pergatory depending on our "bad" one has been.

    By confessing your sins to a priests you can have your slate temporarily wiped clean, as long as you do the penance he gives you.

    If you REALLY mess up and die without sorting things out you are okay if a priests comes and performs a ritual over you.

    If that fails you can still get to heaven if enough good Catholics pray for you after you die.

    If that fails and folks are willing to buy mass cards for you you may still make your way to heaven one day.

    Failing that, you may actually end up in hell, depending on whether or not you believe in it.

    Now, isn't that simple?
     
  2. I Am Blessed 24

    I Am Blessed 24 Active Member

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    Yes, Roger. Thank you for summing it all up. I really did know all those things, but was looking for a Catholic to justify it to me.

    Also why they believe that babies will go to hell if they're NOT baptised...

    I remember when I was RC, as a child, thinking that I would be in pergatory forever because we didn't know anyone but poor folks and there wouldn't be anyone to 'buy' my way into Heaven...

    To me, the RCC was a very 'cold' place. I even had a priest tell my husband-to-be and myself (both Catholic at the time) to get married in a civil ceremony (which is a sin in the RCC) and if we stayed married for a year, then we could be married by a priest.

    So, in effect, the priest was telling us to live in sin for a year as the RCC does not recognize civil ceremonies.

    How distorted is THAT? :confused:
     
  3. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Of course Sue, I was not implying that you did not know. I was just wanted to lay it all out in black and white and hope that a Catholic poster will point out anything I stated above that is wrong about their beliefs.

    We know the reason they say unbaptised babies go to hell is that they are not a part of the church, Jesus' only way for salvation.

    A recent statement, written by the current pope, also said that all of those outside the church, no matter how good, will go to hell. Something that Mel Gibson even said about his wife.
     
  4. I Am Blessed 24

    I Am Blessed 24 Active Member

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    Roger, I was seriously thanking you for laying it all out that way.

    No RC can fault anything you said because it is the truth. They can try and justify it, but it won't wash. I KNOW they believe that way!

    My SIL is going broke paying for masses to be said for my dead brother. He always used to ask me when I was coming back to the 'true' church.

    It is terrible for people to think Jesus' death on the cross was not enough to save AND keep them.

    Sad... [​IMG]
     
  5. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Yup, I live among dear precious people who don't believe a word of what their church teaches, but who are scared to death to leave "her protection" just in case.

    I love Catholic people. Virtually all of my friends and neighbours are. I have been to two Catholic funerals in the last three weeks.

    I love these people, but ... well I'd better not say how I really feel about their church.
     
  6. riverm

    riverm New Member

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    I'm aware of the Mel Gibson statement, but not the "current" Pope. You care to link the statement of the current Pope in regard to Savation of those outside the RCC that are Protestant?
     
  7. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    I thought it was common knowledge. I will have to dig it up. He wrote it before he was pope.

    It was part of his Dominus Iesus written in 200.
     
  8. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Here we go

    http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html

    Baptism in the Catholic Church is required for salvation
     
  9. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Hi Roger

    Not a Catholic here but will try to put across the Catholic POV:-
    Check.

    There's a bit more to it than that: from the Catechism
    The page from which I've quoted has numerous Scripture references - Catholics for example take Mark 16:16, I Peter 3:21 and Acts 2:38-39 very literally. They also take John 3:5 as being a reference to baptism. Taken together (according to their interpretation of Scripture), these verses mean to them that there are two requirements for salvation: belief (faith) and baptism. Although an infant cannot believe, they would say that that infant can and therefore should be baptised, thus fulfilling at least one of those two 'soteriological legs'.

    Further, since, according to Catholic soteriology, baptism does result in (initial) salvation and since all saved Christians are part of the Body of Christ, the Church, baptism therefore also incorporates you into that Church.

    Back to Roger:


    Er...not quite. Again, from the Catechism
    By participating in communion, Catholics believe not so much that they are 'keeping themselves as part of the Body' but actually meeting the risen Christ and, as a result, receiving an infusion of sanctifying grace. Most of the Magisterial Reformation Churches and the Orthodox believe similarly, though they would not try to be so precise about defining the Real Presence as the Catholics.


    Again, not quite correct. Hell is for the unsaved, Purgatory for the saved. Catholic soteriology has a pretty optimistic view concerning the likely population levels of the former - see Lumen Gentium* for example. The idea behind Purgatory is quite simple: although the saved are saved by faith and have righteousness imputed to them, they remain sinners in need of sanctification and transformation into the image of Christ by the Holy Spirit. For some that is accomplished in their lifetime, for others that has to continue after death; Catholics, unlike most evangelicals do not believe that we automatically shed our sinful natures at the moment of death but view that as a 'process' rather than a 'crisis'.

    Only technically with regard to mortal sins; venial sins are covered by the penitential rite at the start of each Mass. Mortal sins, it is to be remembered are actions amounting to a knowing repudiatory breach of one's relationship with God. On the whole issue of why priests are regarded as having authority to forgive sins, again Catholics take seriously and literally Christ's commission to the Apostles in Matt 18:18 and John 20:21-23

    Not necessarily; the anointing (based, incidentally on James 5:15-17) is aspirational and is 'done' as much to those who are regarded as 'good Catholics' as it is to those who are regarded as 'bad boys'.

    Only if you are already saved: Heaven is then the inevitable destination for you; the only difference prayers can make is to shorten the time you spend en route in Purgatory.

    Same as above; not quite the Indulgences they were in the days of Luther, though

    Only if you die in an unrepentant state of mortal sin.

    *Incidentally, Lumen Gentium paras 14 & 15 puts the extra ecclesiam nulla salus to which you and Domine Iesus refer into its proper context. Further, both LG and DI accept that in what they call 'other ecclesial communities', salvation may be found:

    -from DI. It has also to be remembered that DI is directed to Catholics and against the universalism and religious relativism prevalent in some progressive Catholic quarters (Baptists have the same sorts of problems with liberal Baptists) and was written by +++Ratzinger when he was Cardinal Rottweiller the theologian the heretic-hunter and before he became Papa Ratzi the pastor.

    [ March 27, 2006, 11:09 AM: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
     
  10. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Greetings to you Matt [​IMG]

    Looks like I was pretty close on my list. The best response to them was "not quites" instead of pointing out where I was wrong. All I did was to simplify the statements.


    Note though that is DI the "possible salvation" of outsiders is still only possible through the church. How can baptism into the church be necessary and at the same time those who don't have it still be a part of the chuch, albeit imperfectly. The Catholic Church are masters at word play.
     
  11. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    DI IMO has to be read alongsIde LG, and in particular
    [spelling]
     
  12. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    The point though Matt was in response to Ratzinger's view, not the RCC as a whole.
     
  13. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Yes, but don't forget that Ratzinger was wearing a very different hat (pun intended!) then to the one he's wearing now; DI was also addressed to Catholics (not the world at lage and not non-Catholic Christians) and was in particular a side-swipe at the post-modernist progressive Catholics who were asserting contra the Magisterium that all religions lead to God.

    It's pretty similar in thrust to a Baptist preacher or pastor having a go at the more liberal members of his congregation who are propounding a similar form of post-modern religious pluralism and relativism and who says to them in response "Only evangelicals have the fullness of the Truth; other churches may have bits and pieces of the Truth but they are mainly eg: the Catholic Church in error and there may be folk in those churches who are saved but that's in spite of rather than because of those errors"

    ...which is what many on this board say of the Catholic Church...
     
  14. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    Yes Matt, but as DI was the feelings of the man who is now "The Vicar of Christ" is does reflect at the very least a major belief of the church in 2006.

    Baptists who say those kind of things are generally wrong in doing so. When it comes the the Catholic Church they are correct, the Catholic Chruch is in error.

    Saying that, I know that there are saved Catholics and they are no less Christian than me. This is different from Ratziger's claims. Their salvation is not dependent on the good graces of some Baptist Church, as Ratzinger claims for the RCC. They also have all of the truth of salvation, something Ratziger claims is impossible outside of his organisation.
     
  15. Matt Black

    Matt Black Well-Known Member
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    Like any Vatican pronouncement, DI is not just the work of one man; Ratzinger worked in conjunction with a committee and doubtless also communicated with his then boss, John Paul II. You are right therefore that DI and LG, and the Catechism as a whole, reflect the teaching of the whole Catholic Church rather than just one individual even if that individual be the Pope. But the sort of content to which you refer is to be expected: Catholics consider themselves the direct spiritual descendants of the Apostles and the only ecclesial body which has kept the 'deposit of faith' from those Apostles alive through the centuries; they believe that only their Church is the infallible interpreter of Scripture (and, looking at the doctrinal chaos which results from sola Scriptura, one can be forgiven for concluding that they have a point there) and all others have, to a greater or lesser extent 'got it wrong'. It rather naturally flows from this that they believe their Church to be the sole repository of the 'fullness of Truth' and that others are but a pale imitation.

    That's why their Church is so important for Catholics; I'm not saying they're right in that, just attempting to explain their thinking. LG and DI are fully in line with that thinking.
     
  16. SpiritualMadMan

    SpiritualMadMan New Member

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    Man,

    I hate coming in so late in a discussion!

    (Tell me to shush and back out and I will)

    Is the RCC a cult?

    No, I don't think so.

    Because there is adequate information in the cathecism for a practioner to believe on Jesus and be Saved...

    However, this knowledge is occulted by the traditions of the church and that makes it difficult to get salvation information in a timely manner, if at all...

    Sect would probably be a better term... IMHO

    Even though I am a Pentecostal I'd palce the RCC above some of the Pentecostal Sects I've run across!

    Mike Sr.
     
  17. Bible-boy

    Bible-boy Active Member

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    This thread has reached 26 pages. Therefore, it is now being closed. If you wish to continue the discussion please feel free to start a vol. 2.
     
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