What are your thoughts on the roman catholic religion? True or False,do they qualify
There are many contradictions when you look at the RC religion. The Bible tells us the truth and the RCA's seem to teach some things that are not found in the Bible, or something opposite is found.
Example; The Bible never states that Mary was without sin, read Luke chapter 1 and discover that she needed a savior too.
The Bible never teaches that Peter was the head of the church headquartered in Rome. The fact is Peter never even visited Rome.
The Bible never tells us to pray to saints. It does tell us that there is one Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus.
The Bible never teaches that there is a place called purgatory. It does tell us that it has been appointed to everyone once to die, and than the judgment (no stops in between).
So what are your thoughts about the roman catholic religion???
if you have problems with the religion switch Im just catholic gran parents Roman but I really tend to lean towards the Luthern beliefs where women are equal to men
It is a bunch of sh*t. I worked for the Catholic Church for a few years. What a bunch of arrogant, hypocritical, self-centered, two-faced bigots the people in charge were. The pastor and the administrator who was a nun were the most uncaring people I have ever had the displeasure to know. The Vicar wrote the diocese complaining about the administrator she was so evil. The nun lied about me, I took her in front of the diocese she was admonished by them and then made to make restitution to me. A couple of months later I was fired anyway. Very christian those people.
You sir, have no idea what your talking about. Of course Peter visited Rome, he was crucified there. The Catholic Faith is the faith started by Jesus himself. Are you jealous of the Catholic Church because we love our Mother Mary. We are of the Body of Christ and as such we love our Mother according to the Commandments. We love and honor her we do not worship her. I am sure that the Lord is just SO pleased with you speaking against his Mother like you do. Their is Scriptural proof of Purgatory in the Bible, but the main proof was a little too convincing for the Protestants so this was among the books gotten rid of. The Saints are in Heaven and I for one do not mind asking them to pray for me and for us as they are alive and not dead and guess what? They pray to Jesus. Scripture says that the prayers of a righteous man availed much and Christians all the time have no problem asking people to pray for them so why not Simone who is right there in Heaven. You say well, there is no mediate between God and man but, Jesus. Several times in Scripture in the New Testament people were referred to Jesus by the Apostles and other people and they interceded for them. It says in Scripture that when one sinner repents all of Heaven rejoices so they must know what is going on on Earth so I am for the Saints. There has been plenty of miracles to support it. Doesn't it say you will know them by their fruits? How can you say people like Mother Theresa was no good?
If Roman Catholicism is wrong, why are there millions of members? Are Catholics just naive to the "real truth"? Oh yea, and Catholics do not pray TO saints. Catholics ask the sits to pray WITH them. It's the same as asking a friend to pray for you.
A lot of what you are saying is based on ignorance to the Catholic church. For one thing, Mary could not have even been born without sin, because in order for Jesus to have been born from her, she couldn't have sin on her. You can be forgiven for your sins, but that doesn't change the fact that you still have sin.
The RC Church doesn't teach Marian Worship. If you actually knew anything, you would know that prayers to Mary and to Saints are actually optional. It is in no way worship, it is asking people to pray for us. Ever asked a friend to pray for you? Ya, it's like that.
The Bible does teach that Peter is the head of the church "On this Rock I shall build Church. Why does everyone get so hung up on the fact that the RC Church's headquartered in Rome? Peter is BURRIED in Rome, so check your facts!
For issues such as confession: Confession is completely Biblical. When Jesus breathed on the Apostles and said "Go forgive the sins of the world". What was that? Jesus just said that to say that?
How about the Eucharist: Jesus said "This IS (notice, he said is) my Body". Jesus would not say that something is his body without meaning it.
Maybe you should do your research on BOTH sides of the issue, before blindly believing in what others say about Catholicism. BELIEVE ME, I have done my research, I go to a non-Denom Christian University, I'm flooded with Non-Denom Crap!
Good point "Daljack". It seems Frankly Frank is just ignorant.
Lectio Divina is Latin for ?spiritual reading? and represents an early monastic technique of prayer which continues in practice though less widely, intended to achieve communion with God as well as providing special spiritual insights and peace from that experience. It is a way of praying with Scripture that calls one to study, ponder, listen and, finally, pray from God's Word.
History
Lectio Divina was first expressed in the year 220 AD. It was found that to read the Bible profitably it is necessary to do so with attention, consistency and prayer. The systematization of ?spiritual reading? into four steps dates back to the 12Th century. Around 1150, Guigo II, a Carthusian monk, wrote a book entitled ?The Monk?s Ladder? (Scala Claustralium) wherein he set out the theory of the four rungs: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation. In 2005, Pope Benedict XVI stated, ?This is the ladder by which the monks ascend from earth to heaven.?
Method
Lectio is typically practiced daily for one continuous hour. A selection from the Holy Scriptures is chosen ahead of time, often as a daily progression through a particular book of the Bible.
Time
Selecting a time for lectio divina is important. Typical methods are to pray for one hour in the morning, or to divide it into two half-hour periods, one in the morning and one in the evening. The key is to pre-select the time that will be devoted to the prayer, and to keep it. Using the same time every day leads to a daily habit of prayer that becomes highly effective.
Place
The place for prayer is to be free from distractions. This means it should be isolated from other people, telephones, visual distractions, etc. Some find a religious icon to be helpful. The same place should be used for lectio if possible, especially as one first begins to practice it. Familiarity with a location reduces the possibility of distraction away from the prayer. Some practitioners conduct other devotions, such as praying before the Catholic Eucharist, as a preparation for Lectio Divina.
Preparation
Prior to reading, it is important to engage in a transitional activity that takes one from the normal state of mind to a more contemplative and prayerful state. A few moments of deep, regular breathing and a short prayer inviting the Holy Spirit to guide the prayer time helps to set the tone and improve the effectiveness of the lectio.
Once the stage is set it is time to begin the prayer. There are four phases of the prayer, which do not necessarily progress in an ordered fashion. One may move between different phases of the prayer very freely as the Spirit guides.
The Four Moments
Lectio
Read the passage several times.
Meditatio
Reflect on the text of the passage, thinking about how to apply to one's own life. Gravitate to any particular phrase or word that seems to be of particular import. This should not be confused with exegesis, but is a very personal reading of the Scripture and application to one's own life.
Oratio
Respond to the passage by opening the heart to God. This is not primarily an intellectual exercise, but more of the beginning of a conversation with God.
Contemplatio
Listen to God. This is a freeing oneself from one's own thoughts, both mundane and holy. It is about hearing God talk to us. Opening our mind, heart and soul to the influence of God. Any conversation must allow for both sides to communicate, and this most unfamiliar act is allowing oneself to be open to hearing God speak.
The Holy Bible Douay-Rheims Version
With Challoner Revisions 1749-52
1899 Edition of the John Murphy Company
IMPRIMATUR:
James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, September 1, 1899.
Pope Damasus assembled the first list of books of the Bible at the Roman Council in 382 A.D. He commissioned St. Jerome to translate the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Latin, which became known as the Latin Vulgate Bible and was declared by the Church to be the only authentic and official version, in 1546.
The DR New Testament was first published by the English College at Rheims in 1582 A.D. The DR Old Testament was first published by the English College at Douay in 1609 A.D. The first King James Version was not published until 1611. This online DRV contains all 73 books, including the seven Deutero-Canonical books (erroneously called Apocrypha by Protestants). These seven books were included in the 1611 KJV, but not in later KJV Bibles.
The whole Douay-Rheims Bible was revised and diligently compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Richard Challoner in 1749-1752 A.D. The notes included in the text were written by Dr. Challoner.
The DR Bible was photographically reproduced from the 1899 edition of the John Murphy Company, Baltimore, Maryland, by Tan Books in 1971. Eventually, this edition was optically scanned to produce a large text file which this publisher used for creating this website, with the aid of text-processing software.
One important goal of this project was to preserve the original text "as is", without making any changes in the wording, because the original text had the Imprimatur of James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, dated Sept 1st 1899.
The text file was checked quite thoroughly by software written by the publisher for punctuation errors and verses out of order. The index was humanly checked for misspelled words and the corrections were made to the text. However, some spelling errors may still be present in the text. Many verses were out of order in the original file. These have been corrected.
Every effort was made to ensure that this online version is an exact match to the original printed version. No words were added or ommitted from the text, except for correcting errors caused by the scanning process. No words were rearranged. No verse numbers were changed, except in the case of Psalm 9.
Psalm 9 originally contained 21 verses and there were 2 versions of Psalm 10, numbering 1-18 and 1-8. This obviously caused a conflict, so it was decided to make the first Psalm 10 as the last part of Psalm 9 and renumber the verses 22-39. This retains the same numbering as all the Douay Rheims. Note, in the Protestant Bibles the numbering of Psalms 10 through 146 differs by one.
Mary without sin? Can sin exist in the presence of God? the answer NO...
So when the Angel Gabriel says...
"Luk 1:28 And the angel came in to her and said, Hail, one receiving grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women."
Note the angel says "the Lord is with you..." not the Lord is coming to you. If the Lord is indeed with her, then she was at that time without sin. As she carried Jesus in her womb until His birth, she was indeed without sin during that time. As Jesus was the only Person who never sinned, If Mary was with original sin, then Jesus would have been born with the sin of Adam and Eve.
I can only assume that you are referring to the passage that says
Luk 1:47 and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
(so is God/Jesus her Savior? Of course He is. But remember that Jesus has yet to die on the cross for the salvation of the world, so this tells us that she was saved prior to the rest of the world)
Peter never visited Rome???
1Pe 5:12 Through Silvanus, our faithful brother (for so I regard him), I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!
1Pe 5:13 She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings, and so does my son, Mark.
1Pe 5:14 Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace be to you all who are in Christ.
It is true that Peter never used the term "pope" to describe himself, since the title was not conferred on the bishops of Rome during the earliest years of the Church. (Neither does the Bible claim to be "the Bible," for that term had not been invented yet; it simply claimed to be God?s inspired word.) But that is hardly the point, since the question is not the title used, but if Peter ever went to Rome (this is the real question), then he could hardly have been its bishop, and the present bishop of Rome could hardly be his successor.
Although the Bible has no unmistakable evidence that he was there (though 1 Peter 5:13 does imply it as many scholars will tell you that the name Babylon is commonly referring to Rome), early Christian writers such as Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Lactantius are unanimous in saying that he went to Rome, presided over the Church there, and was martyred during the Emperor Nero?s persecution.
There was no early writer who claimed that Peter never went to Rome and died elsewhere, and no other ancient city ever claimed to be the place of his death or to have his remains, which makes sense, since in this century it has been demonstrated that his bones lay beneath the high altar of St. Peter?s Basilica. As even the early Chirstians venerated or honored the early Saints, from what we know about the way early Christians preserved the bones of those killed during the persecutions.
(There may be no record of me ever visiting Japan and Korea, but I was there. There are also witnesses that can affirm this fact (I even have pictures). But I still have no stamp in any passport, and I never went through those countries customs agencies, and I never went through the US customs on my return. So just because there is no record of my visit to those countries, I was there and witnesses can testify that I was there.)
Praying to Saints...
While you are correct in your statement that there is only One mediator between God and man, your assumption that the Bible doesn't teach about praying for others is false. The bible doesn't teach about praying to Saints? How wrong can you be. Just as you may ask a fellow Christian to pray for you, Catholics do the same thing when they ask the Saints to pray for them.
The Bible directs us to invoke those in heaven and ask them to pray with us. Thus in Psalms 103, we pray, "Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will!" (Ps. 103:20-21). And in Psalms 148 we pray, "Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host!" (Ps. 148:1-2).
Not only do those in heaven pray with us, they also pray for us.
Does the Bible not say...
Mat 22:32 'I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB'? He is not the God of the dead but of the living."
Jam 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
Rev 19:8 It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. (Hmmm righteous ACTS of Saints)
Rev 5:8 When He had taken the book, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. (what exactly are the prayers of saints to you?)
Rev 8:4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand.
2Co 13:9 For we rejoice when we ourselves are weak but you are strong; this we also pray for, that you be made complete.
(I like to think that Peter, Paul and all the saints still are praying for all of us, while asking a specific Saint to pray for us, in your opinion is wrong)
Purgatory...
Joh 3:13 "No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
As nothing unclean can enter Heaven,
Rev 21:27 and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
Therefore all must go through a purgation or purging of their sins...
1Co 3:13 each man's work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man's work.
1Co 3:14 If any man's work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward.
1Co 3:15 If any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
Mat 13:49 "So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous,
(Unless we are at the end of the age, and have been for the last 2000+ years, then the wicked are in heaven right along with the righteous right now. NO, I think not...)
Mat 25:46 "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
Heb 12:23 to the general assembly and church of the first-born who are written in Heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
(If these "just men" are in heaven, why did their spirits need to have been "made perfect"? Also, how was this accomplished?)
You state that "The Bible tells us the truth" I also agree with you on this to a point.
2Ti 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
Many Protestants point to this verse to show their belief that Sola Scriptura is correct, but, they fail to continue to the next verse which states...
2Ti 3:17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
As far as the Bible being the pillar and foundation of truth, I challenge that with the following verse.
1Ti 3:15 But if I should delay, that you may know how you ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
and with regards to Christ's Church
Mat 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Only the Catholic Church has existed since the beginning of Christianity. There have been many other religions before the reformation that rose and fell, and I can see the reformation and those who believe in Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide to eventually be shown the Truth and return to the Church that Christ Himself founded through Peter.
The Catholic Church does not use Holy Scripture as the only basis of doctrine. It could not. The early Catholic church existed before and during the time that the New Testament was written (by Catholics).
There were hundreds of Christian writings during the first and second centuries. Which New Testament writings would become official was not fully decided until about 400 AD.
Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit was guiding the early church (and is guiding the church today) to make the correct choices about things like:
+ The Holy Trinity (which is also only hinted at in the Bible)
+ Going to church on Sunday instead of Saturday (which is actually directly against one of the Ten Commandments)
+ The Communion of Saints
+ Which writings include in the New Testament?
Things that are even more modern like
+ Slavery is bad. Slavery is never declared evil in the Bible. This was one of the justifications for slavery in the Confederate States.
+ Democracy is good. The Bible states that either God should be the leader of the nation like Israel before the kings or kings should be the leader, "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's." This was talked about a lot during the American Revolution.
This second source of doctrine is called Holy Tradition.
The Blessed Virgin Mary is full of grace. The angel Gabriel called her, "Full of grace" and said, "The Lord is with you."
She is full of grace at that moment; the Lord is with her at that moment, before she says "yes" to the angel's question.
Catholics believe the state of grace was with her since her Immaculate Conception. God prepared her for her later role as the mother of Jesus.
+ The Pope +
Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:17-19)
The Catholic Church believes the Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the "rock" of his Church. He gave him the keys of his Church and instituted him shepherd of the whole flock.
The Pope is the senior pastor of 1.1 billion Catholics, the direct successor of Simon Peter.
Before Jesus Christ died for our sins and opened the gates of heaven there were no saints in heaven. Therefore there are no Old Testament writings that would mention them.
Very few of the new Christians died before most of the New Testament was written. Therefore there is little in the Bible about asking saints to pray for us.
However the last book of the Bible does talk about the saints in heaven praying.
Revelation 5:8: Each of the elders held a harp and gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of the holy ones.
Revelation 8:3-4: He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne. The smoke of the incense along with the prayers of the holy ones went up before God from the hand of the angel.
The Holy Spirit guided the early Church in many things not explained in the Bible including how does the Body of Christ (believers) on Earth relate to the Body of Christ (saints) in heaven. We are still one Body.
Catholics share the belief in the Communion of Saints with many other Christians, including the Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Episcopal, and Methodist Churches.
The Communion of Saints is the belief where all saints are intimately related in the Body of Christ, a family. When you die and go to heaven, you do not leave this family.
Everyone in heaven or on their way to heaven are saints, you, me, my deceased grandmother, Mary the mother of Jesus, and Mother Teresa.
As part of this family, you may ask your family and friends here on earth to pray for you. Or, you may also ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Andrew, or your deceased grandmother in heaven to pray for you.
Prayer to saints in heaven is simple communication, not worship.
The concept of legation is hinted at in the Bible. Here are a couple of places:
"But if someones work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire." 1 Cor 3:15
"So that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Pet 1:7
Are you perfect now? Most people would say no.
Will you be perfect in heaven? Most people believe yes.
Purgatory (or legation) is the process of God's love changing our imperfect selves on earth into perfect beings in heaven.
Depending on the amount of change needed by different people, this can be an easy or slightly harder process.
Everyone in purgatory is on his or her way to heaven. I do not think Mother Teresa of Calcutta had a very hard time of it.
What are your thoughts on the roman catholic religion? True or False,do they qualify
