…We are sinners who need hard and fast rules. I can attest to this personally.
I became pregnant at a very difficult time in our married life. I would certainly have had an abortion had I not converted to Catholicism a couple of years previously.
Our daughter, the light of our lives, owes her life to the Catholic Church, whose precepts REPLACED the conscience I had formed whilst immersed in the culture of death.
Deo gratias.
In light of the unfolding (or perhaps one should say unraveling) of Pope Francis’s pontificate, we should revisit words once spoken by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, predating and anticipating Summorum—words that now have an alarming portentousness:
I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it. It’s impossible to see what could be dangerous or unacceptable about that. A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden, and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent. Can it be trusted any more about anything else? Won’t it proscribe tomorrow what it prescribes today? (Salt of the Earth, 1997)
He has asked a question to which, so far, no honest answer has been given by the Church’s leaders. The reason is not hard to see. Ratzinger dared to say that the Church’s very being had been called into question when Paul VI declared the old Mass forbidden—which in fact he repeatedly did, in response to attempts to maintain a liturgy the Church had celebrated for 500 years, and in its essentials, for 1,000 years, and in the core of it, for 1,500 years. The longing for this treasure of faith was mocked, stepped on, suppressed, treated as a form of disobedience, arrogance, or neurosis. And the haunting question rises up: “Can the Church be trusted any more about anything else? Won’t it proscribe tomorrow what it prescribes today?”
If Paul VI in 1969 can abolish the oldest liturgical rite of Christendom and replace it with a new-fangled rite fashioned by committee according to modern ideas, with the two rites having very little in common when one looks at their details, why can’t Francis today modify the Ten Commandments or the Gospels? They, too, are awfully old, rejected by vast numbers of people as irrelevant to modern times, extremely provocative, and rather narrow in their fixation on obeying God or else. Don’t we need to update and modernize the whole of Christianity? If we can do this with what is our holiest and highest possession, namely the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we can do it across the board, top to bottom. What is permitted, what is forbidden, what is to be construed as good, what is to be rejected as evil, is simply up to the will of the reigning pontiff.
Jesus resolved a “structural” problem that occurred as a result of Adam being swindled out of his God given earthly dominion by Satan, the devil.
As a result of Adam’s fall from grace, Satan managed to enslave Adam and all of his offspring under an evil dominion, based on the power of death.
God permitted such a thing because Adam was properly and completely educated (warned in advance) by God and should have known better. Once Adam lost everything to Satan, there was no (natural) way of reversing (restoring) things. Hence, God stepped up to right the wrong.
True God and true man, Jesus is the sinless, fully authorized and fully qualified “kinsman redeemer” – the only one who has the supernatural power, as well as the “natural right” to step in and redeem mankind from perpetual slavery to Satan, sin and death. But it would not be easy and it would not be accomplished the way most would expect.
Because Jesus is God – and because Jesus is also a sinless man, Satan had absolutely no power (the power of death or otherwise) over Jesus – so Satan and his minions (the corrupt Jews and the pagan Romans of the time) had absolutely no authority to put Jesus to death.
They went ahead and crucified him anyway, even though they should have known better. They had been warned, all the way back in Genesis 3:15.
Jesus permitted it to happen, since when Jesus died on the cross, Satan’s evil dominion over mankind and the earth was forfeit and mankind now had a (perfect and sinless) new leader – the resurrected Jesus Christ, the Messiah, King of Kings and Lord of Lords – the one who Satan had absolutely no power over.
Now, all power on earth and in heaven (as well as everywhere else) was awarded to the New Adam – the resurrected Jesus Christ – fully God and fully man – who had effectively “crushed the head of the serpent” – freeing mankind from the power of perpetual death and hell – just as he promised, so long ago – and who, by his glorious resurrection, proved all that I claim here and more.
God the Father was pleased, freely bestowing grace, peace, divine adoption, protection from eternal death and much, much more, on all who choose to swear faithful allegiance to his divine son, Jesus – something that is typically accomplished through water baptism, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as well as through faithful membership and regular, consistent participation in the work, worship, sacraments and devotions of the only Church that Jesus Christ ever personally founded, authorized, empowered and perpetually guaranteed, for the purpose of our salvation – the Holy Catholic Church.
Asked and answered on Yahoo Answers
With the Blessed Mother, it isn’t, “Hold my beer…”, it’s, “Hold My Baby….” handing off the baby Jesus to a nearby angel, the Blessed Virgin Mary contends with and handily defeats the devil, according to God’s grace. Illumination taken from the Taymouth Hours, circa ARSH 1325. Courtesy of Ann Barnhardt’s Catholic Website. Enjoy!
Some years ago I was at a parish that had a “capital campaign” to raise money to build a new multi-million dollar education building. The faithful were shown the survey of the land to be purchased onand drawings of the new building. Once the money was raised, I was told that there was a directive from powers beyond the parish level that the parish must use the money to build a new church, not an education building. I raised the issue that the money had been collected for an education building. I said that my family and others had been defrauded. Promptly a representative of the parish finance council contacted me and said that, if I wanted, our donated money would be refunded. I found out that, under canon law, money collected for one purpose cannot then be used for another purpose. (As an aside, the new church building was built, and, some years later, God flooded it, completely). I was then asked by the pastor personally to leave the parish. Since it was not his, I stayed.
Canon law – the Church’s own law – says this:
“Canon 1267, §3: Offerings given by the faithful for a specified purpose may be used only for that purpose.”
“Canon 1300: The intentions of the faithful who give or leave goods to pious causes . . . are to be most carefully observed, even in the manner of the administration and the expending of the goods . . . . “
I am unaware of any “Capital Campaign To Raise Money To Pay Off Sexual Assault Victims Of Priests & Bishops” in any parish or diocese in America; of a “Pay For Priest & Prelate Predators Campaign,” or of a fundraiser “For The Pastoral Malpractice Of Bishops Who Enabled, Fostered , And Shuttled Abusers & Criminals.” In short, I am aware of no Catholic in the USA who donated money for the bishops to use to pay off claims against the Church and against them. It would be very surprising if, court-sealed, secret settlement documents do not include the provisions that all claims against the bishops personally are also settled, and ended, by the agreements.
Editor’s note: Carefully check your parish’s annual financial accounting summary and pay special attention to any and all insurance costs listed therein, especially for health care, disability, workmen’s compensation and similar items. It’s very likely that you will find these costs to be anywhere from thirty to fifty percent higher than they should be, since many parishes are forced to pay a silent “tax” in order to refill the coffers of the dioceses’ “secret insurance fund” used to help pay off past settlements or to prepare for future settlements.
For the first 300 years of Christianity, there was no Bible as we know it today.
Christians had the Old Testament Septuagint, and literally hundreds of other books from which to choose.
The Catholic Church realized early on that she had to decide which of these books were inspired and which ones weren’t. The debates raged between theologians, Bishops, and Church Fathers, for several centuries as to which books were inspired and which ones weren’t.
In the meantime, several Church Councils or Synods, were convened to deal with the matter, notably, Rome in 382, Hippo in 393, and Carthage in 397 and 419. The debates sometimes became bitter on both sides.
One of the most famous was between St. Jerome, who felt the seven books were not canonical, and St. Augustine who said they were. Protestants who write about this will invariably mention St. Jerome and his opposition, and conveniently omit the support of St. Augustine. I must point out here that Church Father’s writings are not infallible statements, and their arguments are merely reflections of their own private opinions.
When some say St. Jerome was against the inclusion of the seven books, they are merely showing his personal opinion of them. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. However, A PERSONS PRIVATE OPINION DOES NOT CHANGE THE TRUTH AT ALL.
There are always three sides to every story, this side, that side, and the side of truth. Whether Jerome’s position, or Augustine’s position was the correct position, it had to be settled by a third party, and that third party was the Catholic Church.
Now the story had a dramatic change, as the Pope stepped in to settle the matter. In concurrence with the opinion of St. Augustine, and being prompted by the Holy Spirit, Pope St. Damasus I, at the Council of Rome in 382, issued a decree appropriately called, “The Decree of Damasus”, in which he listed the canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments. He then asked St. Jerome to use this canon and to write a new Bible translation which included an Old Testament of 46 books, which were all in the Septuagint, and a New Testament of 27 books.
ROME HAD SPOKEN. THE ISSUE WAS SETTLED.
“THE CHURCH RECOGNIZED ITS IMAGE IN THE INSPIRED BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. THAT IS HOW IT DETERMINED THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE.” – Fr. Ken Baker
Question: What’s the point of being a Christian? What makes Christianity the “true faith”?
Answer: The main point of being a Christian is to faithfully “align” ones self with Jesus Christ, in the hope of overcoming eternal death.
Christianity is the “true faith” because Jesus Christ is a real, historical person who actually proved he was God by his holy life, his miracles, his salvific death (precisely as prophesied, well in advance) and his glorious resurrection.
By his resurrection, Jesus Christ proved that he had overcome the power of death and only through faith in Christ are we able to maintain that blessed hope for ourselves, as well as our friends and loved ones.
Then, we have 2,000 years of continuous testimony to divine revelation and truth by the Catholic Church, which Jesus personally founded, authorized, empowered and perpetually guaranteed – a church which has miraculously withstood the scandals, abuses, shortcomings and general malfeasance of the heinous sinners who continue to lead, govern and belong to it.
No other faith tradition offers the slightest hope of overcoming eternal death, nor does any other faith tradition have the ability to provide the other very significant benefits of Christianity, because the best they can offer is some form of temporary happiness on earth, followed by an eternity separated from God.
