Pope Benedict 'Resigns' - Reports

ShaunSA said:
And yet you are quite happy with the ignorance and bigotry displayed by the RCC :erm:
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Care to give some examples?

* Belief in One God, creator of all that is?
* Belief that the One God is a trinity of persons?
* Belief that the Second Person of the Trinity became incarnate in Yeshua the Messiah, born of a virgin?
* Belief that Yeshua died and rose again from the dead?
* Belief that through His passion, death and resurrection He reconciles humanity with God?
* Belief that Jesus established his Church to teach His truths definitively and authoritatively to all people?
* Belief that we shall all die, be judged, and thereafter spend eternity either with God (heaven) or alienated from God (hell)?
* Belief that all people will also be resurrected?

I grant that you that any individual Catholic is just as capable of displaying ignorance and/or bigotry, just like any other person. But it is emphatically and demonstrably not because of their Christian faith that they behave thus but demonstrably despite their faith.
 
Arthur said:
Care to give some examples?

* Belief in One God, creator of all that is?
* Belief that the One God is a trinity of persons?
* Belief that the Second Person of the Trinity became incarnate in Yeshua the Messiah, born of a virgin?
* Belief that Yeshua died and rose again from the dead?
* Belief that through His passion, death and resurrection He reconciles humanity with God?
* Belief that Jesus established his Church to teach His truths definitively and authoritatively to all people?
* Belief that we shall all die, be judged, and thereafter spend eternity either with God (heaven) or alienated from God (hell)?
* Belief that all people will also be resurrected?

I grant that you that any individual Catholic is just as capable of displaying ignorance and/or bigotry, just like any other person. But it is emphatically and demonstrably not because of their Christian faith that they behave thus but demonstrably despite their faith.
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Funny that ol' John Paul II alone apologised for more than a 100 wrongdoings of the church and its followers through the centuries. With an organisation so obviously and atrociously wrong so often I'm amazed that there are any left with any faith that it is right about anything. Its track record is abysmal.
 
HapticSimian said:
Funny that ol' John Paul II alone apologised for more than a 100 wrongdoings of the church and its followers through the centuries. With an organisation so obviously and atrociously wrong so often I'm amazed that there are any left with any faith that it is right about anything. Its track record is abysmal.
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With the amount of things they changed over the years they might as well have scrapped the entire religion and started again.
 
Hosehead said:
Not entirely true
http://tinyurl.com/8g9v25e
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Actually, not a single teaching on faith and morals changed.

Andrew Brown is a well-known anti-Catholic journalist. His piece in The Grauniad article shows the kind of ignorance of the Church that so many modern journalists evince - he sees the world through political eyes.

Vatican II did not change any teachings whatsoever, as it expressly said. It was a "pastoral council" dealing with ways of engaging the modern world, not with dogmatic matters (ie issues relating to the content of faith).

Unlike almost any other religion in the world, the Catholic Church very clearly distinguishes between doctrines which are de fide (ie which the faithful are obliged to believe) and those which are not.

What Brown (and his ilk with unsubtle minds who cannot grasp nuance, only black and white) fails to realize - and what every informed Catholic knows - is that things like the type of government (monarchy, democracy, etc) have not ever been and indeed cannot ever be matters of faith or morals. There is nothing, for example, in democracy or autocracy per se that makes one more just or superior than the other per se. This is a social and historical variable, and therefore can never be a matter of faith. And it never has been in the Catholic Church. Diversity of opinion on these prudential issues is widely tolerated in the Church of a billion believers ... that some clerics opposed democracy, for example, is easily countered by those who support it, even in times when democracy was virtually unknown in the secular world.

The same goes with that widely used and rather loose term "anti-Semitism". It is easy to take some statements - modern or ancient - out of context and then use them anachronistically. This is what Brown and his ilk do. If you're really interested (which I suspect you're not), you could consult a good Jewish author like Rabbi David Dallin, on this topic - he has made his business to study this exact topic in very great detail. Or then there's the Chief Rabbi of Rome during WWII, Rabbi Israel Zolli.

Brown writes as much out of ignorance as he does out of malice. The little piece you quote is of zero historical or comment value.
 
Arthur said:
Brown writes as much out of ignorance as he does out of malice. The little piece you quote is of zero historical or comment value.
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I suppose one positive thing to come out the ignorant ramblings of these anti-Catholic bigots and fundamentalists is that people that are actually interested in the whole truth from a balanced perspective will go and read more on this topic to educate themselves.
 
Techne said:
I suppose one positive thing to come out the ignorant ramblings of these anti-Catholic bigots and fundamentalists is that people that are actually interested in the whole truth from a balanced perspective will go and read more on this topic to educate themselves.
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One hopes so.

I was an ignorant bigot about the Christian religion at one time. My world was tidy and rational and I had pretty much worked out the main outlines of reality. None of the vitriol expressed above was beyond me, so I'm not shocked. Just saddened.

Education helps.

But one needs an open mind to start - open enough to search for truth, even in the most unexpected places. But the mind can't always stay open like a sieve - it is made to grasp onto reality, to bite into truth. That takes much effort.
 
Arthur said:
One hopes so.

I was an ignorant bigot about the Christian religion at one time. My world was tidy and rational and I had pretty much worked out the main outlines of reality. None of the vitriol expressed above was beyond me, so I'm not shocked. Just saddened.

Education helps.

But one needs an open mind to start - open enough to search for truth, even in the most unexpected places. But the mind can't always stay open like a sieve - it is made to grasp onto reality, to bite into truth. That takes much effort.
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I am currently working through Catholicism Pure and Simple and I can recommend to those who are interested.
 
Techne said:
I am currently working through Catholicism Pure and Simple and I can recommend to those who are interested.
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Careful! Once you open your mind, everything can be turned upside down (or the right way up). ;)

I come from the staunchest anti-Catholic stock. My ancestors were imprisoned, tortured and persecuted for their Protestant religion, which is why they went to America, Australia, South Africa and other places in the 16th and 17th Century. Believe me, I had to work through the history and the theology in very great detail.

As one of the greatest minds in English history (John Henry Newman) said during his journey: "To enter deeply into history is to cease to be Protestant".
 
Arthur said:
No he didn't.

He apologised for the wrongs done by Catholics.

Can you spot the difference?
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Sanctioned by the RCC in many instances - wrongs committed by Catholics in the interest of Catholicism. To want to separate the church from its members is nothing but special pleading.
 
HapticSimian said:
Sanctioned by the RCC in many instances - wrongs committed by Catholics in the interest of Catholicism. To want to separate the church from its members is nothing but special pleading.
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Yes, done by bad Christians. Shameful. Lamentable. I fully agree.

But it is another thing entirely to say that it is because of Church teaching. It is demonstrably and emphatically not because of Church teaching but despite it and in disregard of it. In disobedience of it. In flagrant contradiction of it.

We all know Catholics who only pick and choose the bits they like and disregard the rest. Even on matters that are de fide and not optional. This is not a quality unique to Catholics, by the way, nor even more prevalent in them than others. If you think so you need to get out more.

The one thing you can't accuse the Catholic Church of is being unclear about its teaching. Catechisms exist from the 2nd Century. They are all utterly consistent, and not a single de fide or dogmatic teaching has ever been changed (which is one of the main complaints of some moderns, by the way).

But what you can certainly accuse hundreds of millions of people of - both today and in the past - is ignoring or disregarding Catholic teaching. This is great scandal, and a great wound and obstacle to the gospel. Not a single human being on earth is sinless save Christ and his blessed mother, so the rest of us must work our way through this imperfection in ourselves and others.

By the way - this does not make them hypocrites. A hypocrite is someone who holds others to a standard he doesn't hold for himself. What is does make us is weak, inconsistent, vascillating sinners in need of redemption and atonement, confession and penance - precisely because we so often transgress the very teachings of Christ's given through His church. The teachings are good and pure and unchangeable. We hold ourselves to a standard we seldom if ever attain, for we hear with trepidation Christ's words "be ye perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect".

Sadly, there is not a lofty or noble principle in the world that has not been dishonoured and abused in its breach by its so-called adherents. This does not invalidate the principle, but shows human weakness and inconsistency and sometimes human malice. It is ultimately not a matter of the intellect but of the will. It is a matter of love, and the lack of it that so disfigures us and our world.
 
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Demonstrably and emphatically not because of Church teaching regardless the fact that it was often in the execution of Church teaching.

Right... sure...
 
Arthur said:
Actually, not a single teaching on faith and morals changed.

Andrew Brown is a well-known anti-Catholic journalist. His piece in The Grauniad article shows the kind of ignorance of the Church that so many modern journalists evince - he sees the world through political eyes.

Vatican II did not change any teachings whatsoever, as it expressly said. It was a "pastoral council" dealing with ways of engaging the modern world, not with dogmatic matters (ie issues relating to the content of faith).

Unlike almost any other religion in the world, the Catholic Church very clearly distinguishes between doctrines which are de fide (ie which the faithful are obliged to believe) and those which are not.

What Brown (and his ilk with unsubtle minds who cannot grasp nuance, only black and white) fails to realize - and what every informed Catholic knows - is that things like the type of government (monarchy, democracy, etc) have not ever been and indeed cannot ever be matters of faith or morals. There is nothing, for example, in democracy or autocracy per se that makes one more just or superior than the other per se. This is a social and historical variable, and therefore can never be a matter of faith. And it never has been in the Catholic Church. Diversity of opinion on these prudential issues is widely tolerated in the Church of a billion believers ... that some clerics opposed democracy, for example, is easily countered by those who support it, even in times when democracy was virtually unknown in the secular world.

The same goes with that widely used and rather loose term "anti-Semitism". It is easy to take some statements - modern or ancient - out of context and then use them anachronistically. This is what Brown and his ilk do. If you're really interested (which I suspect you're not), you could consult a good Jewish author like Rabbi David Dallin, on this topic - he has made his business to study this exact topic in very great detail. Or then there's the Chief Rabbi of Rome during WWII, Rabbi Israel Zolli.

Brown writes as much out of ignorance as he does out of malice. The little piece you quote is of zero historical or comment value.
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Ad hominem 101. lol
 
Arthur said:
Careful! Once you open your mind, everything can be turned upside down (or the right way up). ;)

I come from the staunchest anti-Catholic stock. My ancestors were imprisoned, tortured and persecuted for their Protestant religion, which is why they went to America, Australia, South Africa and other places in the 16th and 17th Century. Believe me, I had to work through the history and the theology in very great detail.

As one of the greatest minds in English history (John Henry Newman) said during his journey: "To enter deeply into history is to cease to be Protestant".
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I am also checking on some crucial doctrinal differences e.g. imputation.

Got any sources related to this topic and other crucial differences between Catholicism and Protestantism? I must confess I am not educated in this regard and wish to learn more.

ghoti said:
Ad hominem 101. lol
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Interesting, you don't appear to worry much when you dish out ad hominems yourself (it is after-all your trademark), so what gives? Do you have a problem all of a sudden?
 
Arthur said:
Wonderful from the Ad Hominst himself! Thank-you.
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I do them yes, Im not a hypocrite, but I was simply pointing out that I had to click on the link to find out what you were countering in an argument, because you spend paragraphs attacking his character so I didnt know what you guys were even talking about.
 
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