Howdy Board...

[Matt Black]

Originally posted by DHK:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Living_stone:

Catholic Church - arguably the oldest Christian Body.

One of these things jsut doensn't seem to fit.

Perhaps it is one of the oldest cults that persecuted the true Bible believing Christians.
There were the Montanists. Before you label it a cult remember that Tertullian, one of you famed ECF was one of them.
There were the Waldensians. Before you label it a cult remember that Cardinal Hosius gives them a glowing report describing them as believers that lived as true to the Apostolic life as one could get.
There were the Cathari, the Albigenses, the Bogomils, and many others.

The Catholics did not even begin to exist until the fourth century, when Constantine tried to legalize Christianity and make it a state-religion. Thus the birth of the Catholic Church. He paganized Christianity (the Catholic state church). True Christianity always lived outside of this institution.
DHK </font>[/QUOTE]Oh, for goodness sake! Not this Trail of Blood nonsense again!

 

[mman]

Originally posted by D28guy:
Living Stone said...

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />I don't think that Christainity was ever meant to be split into factions.

It isnt. There is only one body, and there has always been only one body.

Because we disagree on some things, as God told us to expect, does not mean there are many bodies of Christ.

If "lost person A" embraces Christ through faith alone and is added to an Assembly of God fellowship, and "lost person B" embraces Christ and is added to a Baptist fellowship, both have been added to the same church.

The body of Christ.

This crazy looney tunes idea of all these different churchs is a fabrication of the Catholic Church to attempt to draw more victims into her clutches.


Nate said...

"I agree with this statement. The Church was meant to be one entity."

You can be happy. There is only one church here on earth.

All the born again people.

God bless all,

Mike </font>[/QUOTE]No, there is one body that is UNITED.

I Cor 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.

Does it sound like God is ok with divisions or another word for divisions is denominations?

The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth (I Tim 3:15).

II Cor 4:2 But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

What was the Galatians problem? They were preaching another gospel, but there is only one gospel (Gal 1:6-9). They held the same fundamental truths concerning Jesus and His death, burial, and resurrection as many "denominations" hold today. Did Paul say it doesn't matter as long as you hold these core beliefs?

NO! "If we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed."

What was the contrary gospel? That circumcision was a requirement for salvation (Ch 5). He did not rebuff them for not believing in Jesus. No, they thought circumcision was an everlasting requirement, and began to teach that.

Let's say you have a group of people who study the bible. They believe in Jesus and are obedient to the gospel (whatever that means in your mind). They look at various denominations and see division so they instead decide to worship by emulating the church of the first century, doing bible things in bible ways, calling bible things by bible names, speaking where the bible speaks and silent where the bible is silent, having a thus saith the Lord, an approved example, or a necessary inference for all they do, and reject all manmade creeds and doctrines and simply rely on the truth and simplicity of God's word.

What church would they be added to? That's the church I want to be a part of.

 

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
Oh, for goodness sake! Not this Trail of Blood nonsense again! [/QB]

oh no! Not this - trail of blood bashing nonsense "again"! Let the saints slaughtered by the RCC rest in peace.

 

[BobRyan]

Originally posted by Matt Black:
I would go further than that and suggest that Constantine didn't really understand much about doctrine, particularly all the Trinitarian nuances of the Orthodox-Arian debate. What he was primarily concerned about was the fact that both factions within the Church were pushing his empire to the brink of civil war and he accordingly wanted that sorted out; this, more than any theological concern, lay behind his calling of the Council IMO.

The "pagan" Constantine was not one to follow for doctrine. And yet the Catholic Church did that when they assimilated paganism into the Christian practices in Rome!

 

[Matt Black]

Originally posted by BobRyan:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Matt Black:
Oh, for goodness sake! Not this Trail of Blood nonsense again!

oh no! Not this - trail of blood bashing nonsense "again"! Let the saints slaughtered by the RCC rest in peace. [/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]And let history do its proper job.

 

[BobRyan]

Here is some history as told by the RCC

Catholic Digest 11/1997 pg 100
The question:
A Baptist family who lives across the street gave me a book called the “Trail of Blood”, by J.M. Carroll. It attacks Catholic doctrine on infant Baptism, indulgences, purgatory, and so on. But I am writing to learn if there is anything in history that would justify the following quotation:

“The world has Never seen anything to compare with the persecution heaped upon the Baptists by the Catholic hierarchy of the Dark Ages. The Pope was the world’s dictator. This is why the Anabaptists before the Reformation called the Pope the Anti-Christ”. Then: “Fifty million died by persecution over a period of 1200 years because of the Catholic Church”

The answer from Fr. Ken Ryan:

“There weren’t any Baptists until 1609, generally thought of as a year occurring after the Dark Ages. (that is why the article above includes Anabaptists) Anabaptists (means anti-baptism of infants – so they re-baptized them as adults) means “re-baptizers” and was a name given to groups existing in the 3rd, 4th, 11th and 12th centuries but they had no connection with the violent civil-religious (Catholic) reformers who appeared in 1521 at Zwickau in Saxony. These 16th century Anabaptists rejected Catholic doctrine on infant Baptism and Lutheran justification by faith, among other things, and intended to substitute a new “Kingdom of God” for the social and civil order of their time. John Leyden was proclaimed King of New Sion at Munster where museums and libraries were destroyed and polygamy was introduced. This group AND Many others were Exterminated during the Peasants Wars by a Combination of civil and religious authority. Whether they were persecuted or punished depends on your point of view”

In the article above – Fr. Ken Ryan makes the meaning of “extermination” of that group and “many other groups” clear for modern readers.
Catholic apologists like Catholic Digest’s Fr. Ken Ryan quoted above often argue that the RCC isn't accountable for the Inquisition, since the state carried out the torturing and the executions. It was the RCC who defined these people as "heretics", however, and the RCC handed them over to the state (John 19:11).

 

[BobRyan]

We know from the decrees of Popes and councils that the RCC viewed itself as having authority over the state.

The Fourth Lateran Council, for example, the ecumenical council that dogmatized transubstantiation, declared (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/lat4-c3.html):

”Secular authorities, whatever office they may hold, shall be admonished and induced and if necessary compelled by ecclesiastical censure, that as they wish to be esteemed and numbered among the faithful, so for the defense of the faith they ought publicly to take an oath that they will strive in good faith and to the best of their ability to exterminate in the territories subject to their jurisdiction all heretics pointed out by the Church; so that
whenever anyone shall have assumed authority, whether spiritual or temporal, let him be bound to confirm this decree by oath. But if a temporal ruler, after having been requested and admonished by the Church, should neglect to cleanse his territory of this heretical foulness, let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. If he refuses to make satisfaction within a year, let the matter be made known to the
supreme pontiff [the Pope], that he may declare the ruler's vassals absolved from their allegiance and may offer the territory to be ruled lay Catholics, who on the extermination of the heretics may possess it without hindrance and preserve it in the purity of faith; the right, however, of the chief ruler is to be respected as long as he offers no obstacle in this matter and permits freedom of action. The same law is to be observed in regard to those
who have no chief rulers (that is, are independent). Catholics who have girded themselves with the cross for the extermination of the heretics, shall enjoy the indulgences and privileges granted to those who go in defense of the Holy Land.

Other councils, such as Vienna, issued anti-Semitic decrees that ordered the persecution of Jews. The persecution of other groups, such as the Waldensians, was also ordered by the RCC.
For example, Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull in 1487 ordering that people "rise up in arms against" and "tread under foot" the Waldensians.
Roman Catholic and former Jesuit Peter de Rosa writes in Vicars of Christ (Crown Publishers, 1988),

"Of eighty popes
in a line from the thirteenth century on not one of them disapproved of the theology and apparatus of the Inquisition. On the contrary, one after another added his own cruel touches to the workings of this deadly machine."

 

[BobRyan]

The Catholic historian von Dollinger writes in The Pope and the Council,

"From 1200 to 1500 the long series of Papal ordinances on the Inquisition, ever increasing in severity and cruelty, and their whole policy towards
heresy, runs on without a break. It is a rigidly consistent system of legislation; every Pope confirms and improves upon the devices of his predecessor....It was only the absolute dictation of the Popes, and the notion of their infallibility in all questions of Evangelical morality, that made the Christian world...[accept] the Inquisition, which contradicted the simplest principles of Christian justice and love to our neighbor, and would have been
rejected with universal horror in the ancient Church."

Consider the following news stories from the Vatican City.

Vatican Hosts Inquisition Symposium

By CANDICE HUGHES

.c The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) – The Vatican assembled a blue-ribbon panel of scholars Thursday to examine the Inquisition and declared its readiness to submit the church's darkest institution to the judgment of history.

The three-day symposium is part of the Roman Catholic Church's countdown to 2000. Pope John Paul II wants the church to begin the new millennium with a clear conscience, which means facing up to past sins.

For many people, the Inquisition is one of the church's worst transgressions. For centuries, ecclesiastical ``thought police'' tried, tortured and burned people at the stake for heresy and other crimes.

``The church cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without pressing its children to purify themselves in repentance for their errors, infidelity, incoherence,'' Cardinal Roger Etchegaray said, opening the conference.

The inquisitors went after Protestants, Jews, Muslims and presumed heretics. They persecuted scientists like Galileo. They banned the Bible in anything but Latin, which few ordinary people could read.

The Inquisition began in the 13th century and lasted into the 19th. An index of banned books endured even longer, until 1966. And it was 1992 before the church rehabilitated Galileo, condemned for saying the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.

The symposium, which gathers experts from inside and outside the church, is the Vatican's first critical look at the church's record of repression.

Among other things, it will give scholars a chance to compare notes on what they've found in the secret Vatican archives on the Inquisition, which the Holy See only recently opened.

``The church is not afraid to submit its past to the judgment of history,'' said Etchegaray, a Frenchman who leads the Vatican's Commission on the Grand Jubilee.

Closed to the public and press, the symposium is not expected to produce any definitive statement from the Vatican on the Inquisition. That is expected in 2000 as part of the grand ``mea culpa'' at the start of Christianity's third millennium.

The great question is whether the pontiff will ask forgiveness for the sins of the church's members, as it did with the Holocaust, or for the sins of the church itself. Unlike the Holocaust, the Inquisition was a church initiative authorized by the popes themselves.

Etchegaray on Thursday swept aside the idea that it can be seen a series of local campaigns whose excesses might be blamed on secular authorities. There was only one Inquisition, he said, and it was undeniably an ecclesiastical institution.

The pontiff may give a hint as to his thinking on Saturday, when he meets with participants in the conference.

About 50 scholars from Europe, the United States and Latin America are taking part.

AP-NY-10-29-98 1403EST

============================================================

Catholic Church says must own up for Inquisition

By Alessandra Galloni

VATICAN CITY, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The Vatican on Thursday said it had to take responsibility for one of the darkest eras in Roman Catholic church history and not lay blame for the Inquisition on civil prosecutors.

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, head of the Vatican's main committee for the year 2000, opened a three-day symposium on the Inquisition saying it was time to re-examine the work of the special court the church set up in 1233 to curb heresy.

Etchegaray said some scholars claimed there were several inquisitions: one in Rome, which worked directly under the Holy See's control, and others in Spain and in Portugal which were often aided by the local civil courts.

``We cannot ignore the fact that this (attempt to distinguish between inquisitions) has allowed some to make apologetic arguments and lay responsibility for what Iberian tribunals did onto civil authorities,'' he said.

``The fact that the Spanish and Portuguese crowns...had powers of intervention...on inquisitory tribunals does not change the ecclesiastical character of the institution,'' he said.

Pope Gregory IX created the Inquisition to help curb heresy, but church officials soon began to count on civil authorities to fine, imprison and even torture heretics.

One of the Inquisition's best known victims was the astronomer Galileo, condemned for claiming the earth revolved around the sun.

The Inquisition reached its height in the 16th century to counter the Reformation. The department later became the Holy Office and its successor now is called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which controls the orthodoxy of Catholic teaching.

Some of the conclusions of the international symposium, which ends on Saturday, could be included in a major document in which the church is expected to ask forgiveness for its past errors as part of celebrations for the year 2000.

The church ``cannot pass into the new millennium without urging its sons to purify themselves, through penitence, of its errors, its infidelities and its incoherences...,'' Father Georges Cottier, a top Vatican theologian and head of the theological commission for the year 2000, told the symposium.

Etchegaray said the conference could also draw on examples that scholars had been able to examine since January, when the Vatican opened secret files.

The archives also opened the infamous Index of Forbidden Books which Roman Catholics were not allowed to read or possess on pain of excommunication. Even the bible was on the blacklist.

Pope John Paul has said in several documents and speeches that the Church needs to assume responsibility for the Inquisition, which was responsible for the forced conversion of Jews as well as the torture and killing of heretics.

While there may have been mitigating historical factors for the behaviour of some Catholics, the Pope has said this did not prevent the church from expressing regret for the wrongs of its members in some periods of history.

He initiated the procedure that led to the rehabilitation of Galileo, completed in 1992.

19:01 10-29-98

 

[BobRyan]

Those who "trust" in the culprit responsible for "Crimes against humanity" for their "Data" on the character of the saints - show the conflicted nature of their logic in their every post.

 

[Matt Black]

"Nasssty cruel Catholicses! We hates 'em! We hates 'em forever!"

Sorry, Bob but I did warn you...

 

[BobRyan]

Indeed! I am fully warned! Thanks!

Originally posted by BobRyan:
Those who "trust" in the culprit responsible for "Crimes against humanity" for their "Data" on the character of the saints - show the conflicted nature of their logic in their every post.

 

[BobRyan]

dp

 

[KellyWhite]

Why do so many of the people on this Board claim that the Catholic church is a cult?

I would agree that the Catholic church and many protestant religions have differences of opinion on interpretation of scripture, but a CULT. Isn't that a bit much?

 

[Matt Black]

Yep. But try telling that to some people here who are full of 16th and 17th century polemic and rhetoric from which, thank God, most of us have moved on.

 

[D28guy]

Matt Black,

"Nasssty cruel Catholicses! We hates 'em! We hates 'em forever!"

If we hated Catholics Matt wouldnt we keep quiet so as to allow as many as possible of those we hate to be lost forever?

The fact that we share the gospel truth with them...over and over and over again...proves our love for them.

"Have I become your enemy for telling you the truth?"

-Paul the Apostle.

God bless,

Mike

 

[DHK]

Originally posted by KellyWhite:
Why do so many of the people on this Board claim that the Catholic church is a cult?

Because they are a cult. Here are the characteristics of a cult according to www.carm.org

# What is a cult?

1. Generally, it is a group that is unorthodox, esoteric, and has a devotion to a person, object, or a set of new ideas.
1. New Teaching - has a new theology and doctrine.
2. Only True Teaching - often considers traditional religious systems to be apostate and it alone possess the complete truth.
3. Strong Leadership - often an individual or small but powerful leadership group holds control of the group’s teachings and practices.
4. Asset Acquirement - often requires tithing and/or property transfer to the religious system.
5. Isolationist - to facilitate control over the members physically, intellectually, financially, and emotionally.
6. Controlling - exercises control over the members. Sometimes this is through fear, threatening lose of salvation if you leave the group. Sometimes through indoctrination.
7. Indoctrination - possesses methods to reinforce the cult’s beliefs and standards where opposing views are ridiculed and often misrepresented.
8. Apocalyptic - to give the members a future focus and philosophical purpose in avoiding the apocalypse or being delivered through it.
9. Experience - various practices including meditation, repetition of words and/or phrases, and ‘spiritual’ enlightenment with God are used as confirmation of their truth.

1. Depravation - sleep and food deprivation which weakens the will of the subject.
2. This is uncommon, though practiced by more severe cults

10. Persecution - predictions of being persecuted and often combined with claiming any opposing views demonstrated against them as a form of persecution.

2. Many have a non-verifiable belief systems
1. For example, they would teach something that cannot be verified.

1. A space ship behind Hale-Bop come
2. Or, that God, an alien, or angel appeared to the leader and gave him a revelation
3. The members are seeded angels from another world, etc.
2. Often, the philosophy makes sense only if you adopt the full set of values and definitions that it teaches.

1. With this kind of belief, truth becomes unverifiable, internalized, and easily manipulated through the philosophical systems of its inventor.

3. The Leader of a Cult
1. Often charismatic who is considered very special for varying reasons:
1. The leader has received special revelation from God.
2. The leader claims to be the incarnation of a deity, angel, or special messenger.
3. The leader claims to be appointed by God for a mission
4. The leader claims to have special abilities

2. The leader is often above reproach and is not to be denied or contradicted.

4. Cult ethos
1. Usually seek to do good works, otherwise no one would join them.
2. They are usually moral and possess a good standard of ethical teaching.
3. Many times the Bible is used or additional "scriptures" are penned.
1. The Bible, when used, is always distorted with private interpretations.
4. Many Cults recruit Jesus as one of their own and redefine him accordingly

5. Cult groups vary greatly.
1. From the ascetic to the promiscuous.
2. From esoteric knowledge to very simple teachings.
3. From the rich and power to the poor and weak.

 

[Living_stone]

VATICAN CITY, Oct 29 (Reuters)...VATICAN CITY (AP)

Just a heads up. When you see (Reuters) or (AP), it means it's a secular authority reporting on an issue. These aren't official press releases from any given religious organization, and often times - Catholic or Not - they'll distort the facts because they just don't get it.

I'm basically through with this post. Way too much volume and way too little substance. I'm kind of disappointed with this board. I'm not through with the board, but this post is pretty much dead...

 

[BobRyan]

The statements were not made "by pagans" the quotes are from recognized RC church authorities.

The practice of turning a blind eye to the things the RC authorities say that do not flatter the RCC - is the sign of blind devotion left over from the dark ages - not enlightenment and reading with understanding.

 

[BobRyan]

The response to the mere QUOTE of these RC authorities has been "How dare a non-Catholic source HEAR and QUOTE well respected Catholic authorities".

How "odd"!

Imagine someone saying "HOW DARE the public press quote Billy Graham!"

Originally posted by BobRyan:
The Catholic historian von Dollinger writes in The Pope and the Council,
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
"From 1200 to 1500 the long series of Papal ordinances on the Inquisition, ever increasing in severity and cruelty, and their whole policy towards
heresy, runs on without a break. It is a rigidly consistent system of legislation; every Pope confirms and improves upon the devices of his predecessor....It was only the absolute dictation of the Popes, and the notion of their infallibility in all questions of Evangelical morality, that made the Christian world...[accept] the Inquisition, which contradicted the simplest principles of Christian justice and love to our neighbor, and would have been
rejected with universal horror in the ancient Church."

Consider the following news stories from the Vatican City.

Vatican Hosts Inquisition Symposium

By CANDICE HUGHES

.c The Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) – The Vatican assembled a blue-ribbon panel of scholars Thursday to examine the Inquisition and declared its readiness to submit the church's darkest institution to the judgment of history.

The three-day symposium is part of the Roman Catholic Church's countdown to 2000. Pope John Paul II wants the church to begin the new millennium with a clear conscience, which means facing up to past sins.

For many people, the Inquisition is one of the church's worst transgressions. For centuries, ecclesiastical ``thought police'' tried, tortured and burned people at the stake for heresy and other crimes.

``The church cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without pressing its children to purify themselves in repentance for their errors, infidelity, incoherence,'' Cardinal Roger Etchegaray said, opening the conference.

The inquisitors went after Protestants, Jews, Muslims and presumed heretics. They persecuted scientists like Galileo. They banned the Bible in anything but Latin, which few ordinary people could read.

The Inquisition began in the 13th century and lasted into the 19th. An index of banned books endured even longer, until 1966. And it was 1992 before the church rehabilitated Galileo, condemned for saying the Earth wasn't the center of the universe.

The symposium, which gathers experts from inside and outside the church, is the Vatican's first critical look at the church's record of repression.

Among other things, it will give scholars a chance to compare notes on what they've found in the secret Vatican archives on the Inquisition, which the Holy See only recently opened.

``The church is not afraid to submit its past to the judgment of history,'' said Etchegaray, a Frenchman who leads the Vatican's Commission on the Grand Jubilee.

Closed to the public and press, the symposium is not expected to produce any definitive statement from the Vatican on the Inquisition. That is expected in 2000 as part of the grand ``mea culpa'' at the start of Christianity's third millennium.

The great question is whether the pontiff will ask forgiveness for the sins of the church's members, as it did with the Holocaust, or for the sins of the church itself. Unlike the Holocaust, the Inquisition was a church initiative authorized by the popes themselves.

Etchegaray on Thursday swept aside the idea that it can be seen a series of local campaigns whose excesses might be blamed on secular authorities. There was only one Inquisition, he said, and it was undeniably an ecclesiastical institution.

The pontiff may give a hint as to his thinking on Saturday, when he meets with participants in the conference.

About 50 scholars from Europe, the United States and Latin America are taking part.

AP-NY-10-29-98 1403EST

============================================================

Catholic Church says must own up for Inquisition

By Alessandra Galloni

VATICAN CITY, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The Vatican on Thursday said it had to take responsibility for one of the darkest eras in Roman Catholic church history and not lay blame for the Inquisition on civil prosecutors.

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, head of the Vatican's main committee for the year 2000, opened a three-day symposium on the Inquisition saying it was time to re-examine the work of the special court the church set up in 1233 to curb heresy.

Etchegaray said some scholars claimed there were several inquisitions: one in Rome, which worked directly under the Holy See's control, and others in Spain and in Portugal which were often aided by the local civil courts.

``We cannot ignore the fact that this (attempt to distinguish between inquisitions) has allowed some to make apologetic arguments and lay responsibility for what Iberian tribunals did onto civil authorities,'' he said.

``The fact that the Spanish and Portuguese crowns...had powers of intervention...on inquisitory tribunals does not change the ecclesiastical character of the institution,'' he said.

Pope Gregory IX created the Inquisition to help curb heresy, but church officials soon began to count on civil authorities to fine, imprison and even torture heretics.

One of the Inquisition's best known victims was the astronomer Galileo, condemned for claiming the earth revolved around the sun.

The Inquisition reached its height in the 16th century to counter the Reformation. The department later became the Holy Office and its successor now is called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which controls the orthodoxy of Catholic teaching.

Some of the conclusions of the international symposium, which ends on Saturday, could be included in a major document in which the church is expected to ask forgiveness for its past errors as part of celebrations for the year 2000.

The church ``cannot pass into the new millennium without urging its sons to purify themselves, through penitence, of its errors, its infidelities and its incoherences...,'' Father Georges Cottier, a top Vatican theologian and head of the theological commission for the year 2000, told the symposium.

Etchegaray said the conference could also draw on examples that scholars had been able to examine since January, when the Vatican opened secret files.

The archives also opened the infamous Index of Forbidden Books which Roman Catholics were not allowed to read or possess on pain of excommunication. Even the bible was on the blacklist.

Pope John Paul has said in several documents and speeches that the Church needs to assume responsibility for the Inquisition, which was responsible for the forced conversion of Jews as well as the torture and killing of heretics.

While there may have been mitigating historical factors for the behaviour of some Catholics, the Pope has said this did not prevent the church from expressing regret for the wrongs of its members in some periods of history.

He initiated the procedure that led to the rehabilitation of Galileo, completed in 1992.

19:01 10-29-98

[/QB]</font>[/QUOTE]