A frank discussion of various positions,
based on the latest available research.
Did the Protestant Bible Exist Before the Reformation?
Authentic Bible history vs New Age Nonsense: Was Matthew or Mark the first written Gospel?
For 2000 years Christians have accepted that the four Gospels provide reliable historical facts about the life of Jesus. They also accepted that the ancient historians provided reliable accounts regarding the origins of these Gospels.
Borrowing had obviously taken place between the authors of Matthew, Mark and Luke, later known as: ‘The Synoptic Gospels’. Who had borrowed from whom was of little academic interest until 1764 when Henry Owen, an Anglican Vicar, proposed that Mark wrote after Luke.
Although discussed in Germany, conservative scholars rejected the idea because it contradicted Jerome’s sequence of Matthew-Mark-Luke.
But Owen had arrived at his theory by critically examining the wording used by the authors, and this prompted others to also do so. In 1838 Christian Weisse claimed that as Mark’s Gospel was in poor grammatical Greek, compared to the other two, he must have written prior to them. His reason was that the ‘borrower’ would not deliberately turn good quality Greek into poor quality. The sequence that Mark wrote first became known as the Markan Priority Theory.
Rationalists and other non-believers in the German Universities, supported by the government, championed this theory because all the ancient historians had said that Matthew wrote first. The acceptance of Markan Priority would mean all the early Christian historians were seriously wrong so unreliable.
Also, they could argue, that as most scholars dated Mark as writing about 64 AD, Matthew and Luke must have been written much later. So, these Gospels would have been authored by anonymous individuals who had never met Christ. They would have constructed stories of Christ not based on facts but on their personal faith.
Such a lack of Scriptural reliability would devastate Evangelical Christianity. And the evidence for the historical claim, by the Catholic Church, to having been founded by Christ would be undermined.
Christians answered those promoting Markan Priority [In future here referred to as Markans], by basing their stand on the words of the historians and on the reliability of Jerome’s listing in the order of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But although they undermined the Markan position, they failed to win the debate convincingly.
On the other side, Markans found it necessary to rely on an alleged historical document they called Q – although there was not the slightest historical evidence that it ever existed. The two sides fought each other to a stand-still.
Then, in 1965, the Second Vatican Council maintained that the historians were correct. It restated that the eyewitness Apostles and their apostolic friends had authored the four gospels. Soon afterwards, research led to a third theory emerging (or re-emerging), which would reconcile modern critical analysis with the historical evidence.
Controversy: “Les Mis” and the Catholic bishop who set Jean Valjean back on track.
The anticlerical set was especially offended by the pivotal role of the Bishop of Digne, who helped determine the course of the novel by resuscitating the soul of Jean Valjean.
As Hugo worked on the novel, his son Charles, then in his 20s, objected to the reverential treatment of the bishop. He argued to his father that the portrayal gave undeserved respect to a corrupt clergy, bestowing credibility on a Roman Catholic Church opposed to the democratic ideals that he and his father held.
Charles instead proposed that the catalyst for Jean Valjean’s transformation be a lawyer or doctor or anyone else from a secular profession.
The pushback didn’t work.
Not only did Hugo hold his ground, but he amplified the importance of Charles-François Bienvenue Myriel, affectionately known in the novel as Monseigneur Bienvenue (Bishop Welcome).
Read the study Sister Jane cited: On the Psychogenesis of Homosexuality
Abstract (Summary)
The best-established facts in relation to homosexuality point to developmental-psychological, not genetic or physiological, causation. The efforts of the last few decades to find evidence to support a biological theory have made it more doubtful than ever that such evidence will be found. In contrast, many studies have shown that the most significant factor which correlates with homosexuality is “gender nonconformity” or same-sex peer isolation. Another factor closely associated with homosexuality is an imbalance in parentchild interaction, notably forms of over-influence of the opposite-sex parent in combination with a deficient relationship with the same-sex parent. The third well-established correlation is with inherent, rather than discrimination-produced, “neuroticism” or emotional instability/immaturity.
Structured around this pivotal evidence from statistical as well as clinical research, homosexuality is explained here as a character neurosis. Characteristics of this neurotic character syndrome include personality immaturity, self-victimization, and self-centeredness. This syndrome affects not only the emotional but also the moral and spiritual dimensions of the psyche and if indulged leads to generalized personality deterioration. Therapeutically, a holistic approach, simultaneously addressing the emotional, moral, and spiritual components of the psyche, offers the best opportunity for overcoming homosexuality. De-egocentrization and personality maturity, including the development of mature manhood/ womanhood, are the goals of therapy.
Nun teaching the authentic faith in Catholic school shocks teachers, bewilders students, outrages parents
Sister Jane Dominic Laurel (The Terrible?)
The Rev. Tim Reid, pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, sent an email lauding the nun, saying “she represented well the Catholic positions on marriage, sex, same-sex attraction and proper gender roles … The Church has already lost too many generations of Catholic schools students to … a very muddled and watered-down faith.”
Charlotte Catholic High School has invited parents to a meeting Wednesday night to air concerns many of them – and their kids – had about a recent speaker’s comments about homosexuality, divorce and single parents.
Sister Jane Dominic Laurel, a Dominican nun based in Nashville, Tenn., addressed a student assembly on March 21. Days later, some students launched an online petition that called her comments “offensive and unnecessarily derogatory.”
Editor’s note: In the roughly 4,500 year history of the Judeo-Christian religions there is a long standing tradition of killing prophets who dare to proclaim the authentic Word of God to the people. It’s amazing that so little has changed, over the years.
I ran into much the same type of thing while teaching an 8th grade Confirmation Prep Class at a local Catholic Religious Education Program. I made the “mistake” of (privately) asking each student if they were in the habit of regularly attending Sunday Mass. Since nine of twelve students did not, I devoted our next class session to a review of Church teaching on worship, Mass attendance, Holy Days of obligation, etc. I also explained that, absent extraordinary circumstances, deliberately missing Mass on a Sunday or a Holy Day, objectively constituted a mortal sin.
The resulting “firestorm” of parent complaints necessitated a special meeting before the next scheduled class, where the Religious Ed director and I personally met with half a dozen irate parents. After absorbing twenty minutes worth of critical comments and vitriol, I read aloud the three paragraphs most pertinent to the Sunday/Holy Day Mass obligation, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
The Sunday obligation
2180 The precept of the Church specifies the law of the Lord more precisely: “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass.”117 “The precept of participating in the Mass is satisfied by assistance at a Mass which is celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the holy day or on the evening of the preceding day.”118
2181 The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor.119 Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.
2182 Participation in the communal celebration of the Sunday Eucharist is a testimony of belonging and of being faithful to Christ and to his Church. The faithful give witness by this to their communion in faith and charity. Together they testify to God’s holiness and their hope of salvation. They strengthen one another under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Then I asked if there were any questions. You could have heard a pin drop!
Big Bang ‘Gravity Wave’ Discovery Supports Biblical Creation, Say Old Earth Creationists – but wait a minute…
“The Bible was the first to predict big bang cosmology,” according to Hugh Ross, president and founder of Reasons to Believe, an Old Earth Creationist organization that believes Christianity and science are complementary.
In an interview with The Christian Post on Tuesday, Ross explained that the detection of gravity waves from the universe’s rapid expansion, referred to as “inflation,” shows that “when the universe was a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second old, it expanded faster than the speed of light.”
Cardinal Marx has a point
In a March 13 homily to the German bishops, Cardinal Marx said that the Gospel account of the woman caught in adultery (Jn. 7:53-8:1) should be applied to discussions of divorce and remarriage.
After reviewing the textual history of the passage and recalling that some rigorists in the early Church did not think that the sin of adultery could be absolved, Cardinal Marx said that Jesus showed the scribes and Pharisees, who wanted the woman to be stoned, that they, too, were sinners. “One thinks of the rigorists of all time in the Church … All are sinners like the woman, all have need of forgiveness.”
The prelate added that Jesus’ forgiveness of the woman, his restoration of her dignity before God, and loyalty to his example of mercy to sinners are important in the Church’s discussion of divorce and remarriage, especially as applied to confession, which is intended to offer sinners forgiveness and to save people from “the sentence of God” and “also from social death.”
Jesus’ forgiveness of the woman, however, is not a call to laxism– a reference to Christ’s words, “Go, and sin no more”– but a “call to a new life,” Cardinal Marx continued
The passage is crucial in understanding guilt and forgiveness, he concluded. “If we pastorally, spiritually, and theologically practice this more, then more doors could open than we think at the moment. Amen.”
Editor’s note: What do you think?
Did the Protestant Bible Exist Before the Reformation?
A frank discussion of various positions, based on the latest available research.
8 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About ‘The Passion of the Christ’ Movie
Upon the 10-year anniversary of its release, here are 8 things you might not know about Gibson’s moving, challenging masterpiece.
1. Some of the source material is controversial, too.
One of the main inspirations for co-screenwriters Mel Gibson and Benedict Fitzgerald was “The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ,” a tale in which poet Clemens Brentano chronicles the (supposed) visions of stigmatic German nun Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824).
While it’s been speculated that Brentano wrote most of the book himself, with a Vatican investigation concluding that “it is absolutely not certain that [Emmerich] ever wrote this,” the book inspired some of the most striking images in the film, including the suspension of Jesus over the bridge after he’s first taken into custody, the torment of Judas by demons, Mary’s wiping up the blood of Jesus from the ground after his scourging and the dislocation of Jesus’ right shoulder so that his hand could reach the hole for the nail on the cross.
Washington Post, homosexual patient, plus many, many readers obviously have no idea what is required for a “good” confession
A Catholic chaplain at MedStar Washington Hospital Center stopped delivering a 63-year-old heart attack patient Communion prayers and last rites after the man said he was gay, the patient said Wednesday, describing a dramatic bedside scene starting with him citing Pope Francis and ending with him swearing at the cleric.
Details of the exchange this month between the Rev. Brian Coelho and retired travel agent Ronald Plishka couldn’t be confirmed with the priest, who did not respond to a direct e-mail or to requests left with the hospital and the archdiocese.
If this is the “New Evangelization” we’re in big trouble!
Traditionalists have charged that a double standard is at play, with a conservative, tradition-minded order being targeted for particular sanction on ideological grounds by a pope with a progressive bent.
“I hope that I am not being intemperate in describing this as rather harsh,” the Rev. Timothy Finigan, a British priest whose “The Hermeneutic of Continuity” blog is much-read in traditionalist circles, wrote last week of the sanctions.
Editor’s note: Is this Pope Francis’ “SSPX” Moment”? The Catholic Church continues to advocate religious liberty for Jews, Muslims, Pagans, Atheists and even (especially?) liberal Catholic heretics. But no religious freedom for traditional Catholics!
Pope Francis’ hand-picked Apostolic Commissioner for the Franciscans of the Immaculate is said to have “shattered” the Order, resulting in internal chaos, suffering and more.
(Rome) A group of Catholic lay associations and websites have started a petition: They demand the dismissal of Father Fidenzio Volpi from his post as authorized Apostolic Commissioner for the Franciscans of the Immaculate.
Editor’s note: If I remember correctly, virtually the same technique was used to “shatter” the Catholic Church after the close of the 2nd Vatican Council!
Pro-life leaders urge caution, while Pope, Cardinal Dolan praise controversial Nelson Mandela
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, December 6, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The death of South African former President Nelson ‘Madiba’ Rolihlahla Mandela on Thursday has led to an outpouring of glowing praise for the man most known for ending apartheid – a system of racial segregation.
However, pro-life leaders have warned that praise from Christian leaders is inappropriate given Mandela’s role in bringing abortion-on-demand and homosexual “marriage” to South Africa.
According to official statistics, nearly a million unborn children have been killed in South Africa since President Mandela signed legislation in 1996 permitting abortion on demand two years after taking office. Same-sex ‘marriage’ was legalized in 2006, with Mandela having supported it long before its passage.
Catholics Criticize Cardinal Dolan for Lamenting That Catholics Could’ve Been ‘Cheerleaders’ for Obamacare.
“How dare he say that Catholics should be ‘cheerleaders’ of Obamacare,” Judie Brown, president of the American Life League (ALL), told CNSNews.com. “He’s a pathetic example of a shepherd of the Catholic Church.”
If the former chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and his fellow bishops had spoken out against the “total opposition to Catholic teaching” by prominent Catholics in the Obama administration like Vice President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and united their flock against the passage of Obamacare, they would not have to deal with the contraceptive mandate now, Brown pointed out.
“[Dolan] is a media darling,” she added. “They promote him as the preeminent Catholic speaker in the U.S. because they know what he’s saying suits their agenda, not what the Church teaches.
The current lack of Catholic evangelization is due to the widespread post-Vatican II notion that almost everybody will be saved.
Far from a human race that is presumed innocent or essentially saved, the Council Fathers see a world in which salvation is neither assured nor easy. It is a world in which, “very often,” rejection of Christ has been a reality, is still possible, and is a main reason for Christian missions. Indeed, the Council also warned about the severe judgment falling on Catholics who do not persist in charity and faithfulness.
The Council’s “optimism,” Martin rightly notes, is about the possibility of salvation outside of the Church, not the probability that everybody inside or outside it will be saved.
The Council doesn’t give odds on this question or tell us whether Hell is densely populated or not, nor does Martin attempt to do so. But he notes that the “very often” is attached to the negative possibility. In a chapter examining the scriptural references in LG 16 he demonstrates that this bad news is indeed biblical.
Editor’s note: It’s also due to the fact that since the end of Vatican II – priests, bishops – and even popes – have no longer been at all certain about the validity or applicability of the settled teachings of the Catholic Church – nor have they been unified and consistent in their efforts to pass along the full, complete and traditional Catholic faith to others. In fact, just the opposite has been true!
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY TO TEACH STUDENTS HOW TO PROMOTE, PROTECT OBAMACARE-COVERED ABORTIONS
The course, “Regulatory Advocacy: Women and the Affordable Care Act,” is set to be taught at Georgetown Law, and it has upset staunch Catholics, according to The Cardinal Newman Society, which first reported on the new academic offering.
“We have long warned about Georgetown scandals that undermine the Church’s strong defense of innocent life,” Patrick Reilly, society president, told Catholic Education Daily. “But here students are being required to work for a pro-abortion lobby, making America’s oldest Catholic university an active agent of the culture of death.”
Submitted by Mark H.
Chicago experience shows that closely watching groups which take CCHD money gets good results
When a statewide immigrant-rights coalition endorsed same-sex marriage this past spring, 11 groups were given a stark choice by a Roman Catholic anti-poverty program: Leave the coalition, or lose their Catholic funding.
Eight of the groups decided to stick with the Illinois Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Rights. Another group broke with both. All told, the nine groups gave up grants totaling nearly $300,000 from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development…
Editor’s note: The opportunity for corruption and scandal in these types of (CCHD) endeavors is so huge, it’s time the Catholic Church got out of this business, entirely. Has no one in the Catholic Church heard of the principle of subsidiarity? Let the parishes do these things, in their own neighborhoods – and let the local bishop remain responsible for seeing to it that the parish operates according to appropriate, authenticly Catholic standards and principles. If that fails, people ought to simply quit giving them money, at all!
Catholic writer analyzes Pope’s interview, takes exception
Is Pope Francis a wishy-washy spineless pope? Perhaps a pawn, to be used by the liberals inside and outside the Church? Does he see what others see happening in our Church? Does it bother him?
I have a very dear Catholic friend who is freaking out because I am “having issues” with Pope Francis. It’s not that I don’t WANT to like him and think highly of him, I do. I really, really do. But… it’s just not happening for me.
I tried to give it time after the whole “Holy Week Debacle”[Muslim women foot washing etc]… he was ‘new’, he was a “different kind of pope”… he “needed time”… Well he still hasn’t grown on me, instead I have more issues now with him than I did months ago! That is not to say, I’ve tossed in the towel, I haven’t. I will continue to pray for him, my Church and myself to come to some sort of peace with “my issues with Pope Francis”.
My most recent “issues” (like oh so many other Catholics out there) are from his interview. *sigh*. Here are my thoughts on what the Pope said in his recent American Magazine interview.
Doug Lawrence's Catholic Site 