Why I'm Catholic

I'm just curious as to why Catholicism goes to such effort to separate mankind (moreso, womankind,) from God, that's all.

I believe, in terms of biblical teachings, that no one goes to the Father but through Christ. And I hardly doubt that the Catholic Church has the monopoly on God or holds the keys to "heaven."

Further, I believe the very existance of the Catholic Chruch <trademark> is dependant on their followers to believe that their salvation is dependent on the Church.

 

Well--historically the "people of God" have had a priestly structure through which they have had to use to approach God. The Hebrews had the Levites and the high priest was the one who had to enter the Holy of Holies to make offering and atonement. There is some very complex theology that explains the roles, and you might be shocked at some of the sexual symbology of it--however it does explain a lot in terms of the differing roles of men and women in the Church.

Now a days, we like to focus on the touchy-feely, peace and love side of Christianity, but we don't like to deal with the Awesomeness of God--the fearful Power of the Almighty. And yet God is that too. He is Love AND Authority. He is Compassion AND Justice. You CAN go directly to God--but also it is respectful to approach God in humility.

 

I prefer to "go to God" as respectful and humble as a child. I don't think the Eddie Haskell approach would work that well.

 

You're characterizing it in a negative way that it is not. Also, going to God as a little child is wonderful.

Little children CAN be very frank and honest--but also, kids make excuses and are self focused rather than other centered. Sometimes it's important to put on the big person panties and do what needs to be done and face the reality of our position in relation to God.

1Cor.13

[11] When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

Still--I understand being a child before God. I just think some people use that as an excuse not to try very hard at being the most engaged Christian they can be.

 

OR.... some of us may think that before God, we are as bare naked as the day we were born and we hold no secrets from the Almighty. Our approach is not of any concern for He sees right through us regardless.

The main thing is, that we approach. Don't let any roadblocks get in the way Felicity. Love your church and hold strong in your faith but never believe that your church is a pre-requisite to approach God.


PS... That's one of my favorite scriptures.

 

I don't disagree on a personal level--our personal relationship with God. But we are also a people--a community-- in communion with God, and we need to relate communally as well.

Again--i'm pretty sure you didn't actually read what I wrote about " no salvation outside the Church" or you wouln't be trying to convince me my Church isn't a pre-requisit. I didn't say it was.

 

going to religion, church and preachers, aint going to god.

Teaching them how life's cycles work, is assisting them in understanding 'god'.

Biology will assist more to know 'god' than a lying religious wingnut.

They can understand the life that they are.

honest children deserve honest answers.

And not to be lied too, for your entertainment.

no sh't

someone gotta to put the morons in their place.

might as well be me

for example: idiots believe someone died for their sins

while the growing up part assists the honest child in realizing, there aint magic to fix the problems. It dont exist!

not on your life.
You understand the beliefs you've been taught and not a dam thing about 'god'

christians sustain honesty before religion.

Otherwise, the liars are against truth as the anti christs are just the selfish sobs, that will be judged most horribly (by their own brethren).

 

it's getting personal when a person believes they can mislead and no one can intervein.

that has got to be the stupidest thing anyone could write, claim or represent.

Did you or do you represent them words as true?

 

Bishadi,
You may want to wipe the spittle off your chin. M'kay....thx.

 

pharaoh's claim

stupid wingnuts

holy of holies (zion)

egyptian foundations

god is nature itself

and liars are spitting on him, dividing mankind from knowing him.


I hate the sobs that mislead others,

especially the children

 

Anyone on the forum knows how i deal with the bad; i reveal what they are, so others can see for themselves.

 

I don't know much about you but I can already tell that I rather have Felicity live next door to me than you.

I think her religion may be sideways with me but I don't think she is bad at all. I kinda of like her actually.

 

You may want to direct him to the Catechism of the Catholic Church where it states:

843 The Catholic Church recognizes in other religions that search, among shadows and images, for the God who is unknown yet near since he gives life and breath and all things and wants all men to be saved. Thus, the Church considers all goodness and truth found in these religions as "a preparation for the Gospel and given by him who enlightens all men that they may at length have life."332

844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them:

Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.333
845 To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is "the world reconciled." She is that bark which "in the full sail of the Lord's cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world." According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood.334

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338

Mission - a requirement of the Church's catholicity

849 The missionary mandate. "Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament of salvation,' the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men":339 "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the age."340

850 The origin and purpose of mission. The Lord's missionary mandate is ultimately grounded in the eternal love of the Most Holy Trinity: "The Church on earth is by her nature missionary since, according to the plan of the Father, she has as her origin the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit."341 The ultimate purpose of mission is none other than to make men share in the communion between the Father and the Son in their Spirit of love.342

851 Missionary motivation. It is from God's love for all men that the Church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigor of her missionary dynamism, "for the love of Christ urges us on."343 Indeed, God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth";344 that is, God wills the salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in the truth. Those who obey the prompting of the Spirit of truth are already on the way of salvation. But the Church, to whom this truth has been entrusted, must go out to meet their desire, so as to bring them the truth. Because she believes in God's universal plan of salvation, the Church must be missionary.

852 Missionary paths. The Holy Spirit is the protagonist, "the principal agent of the whole of the Church's mission."345 It is he who leads the Church on her missionary paths. "This mission continues and, in the course of history, unfolds the mission of Christ, who was sent to evangelize the poor; so the Church, urged on by the Spirit of Christ, must walk the road Christ himself walked, a way of poverty and obedience, of service and self-sacrifice even to death, a death from which he emerged victorious by his resurrection."346 So it is that "the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians."347

853 On her pilgrimage, the Church has also experienced the "discrepancy existing between the message she proclaims and the human weakness of those to whom the Gospel has been entrusted."348 Only by taking the "way of penance and renewal," the "narrow way of the cross," can the People of God extend Christ's reign.349 For "just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path if she is to communicate the fruits of salvation to men."350

854 By her very mission, "the Church . . . travels the same journey as all humanity and shares the same earthly lot with the world: she is to be a leaven and, as it were, the soul of human society in its renewal by Christ and transformation into the family of God."351 Missionary endeavor requires patience. It begins with the proclamation of the Gospel to peoples and groups who do not yet believe in Christ,352 continues with the establishment of Christian communities that are "a sign of God's presence in the world,"353 and leads to the foundation of local churches.354 It must involve a process of inculturation if the Gospel is to take flesh in each people's culture.355 There will be times of defeat. "With regard to individuals, groups, and peoples it is only by degrees that [the Church] touches and penetrates them and so receives them into a fullness which is Catholic."356

855 The Church's mission stimulates efforts towards Christian unity.357 Indeed, "divisions among Christians prevent the Church from realizing in practice the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her sons who, though joined to her by Baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her. Furthermore, the Church herself finds it more difficult to express in actual life her full catholicity in all its aspects."358

856 The missionary task implies a respectful dialogue with those who do not yet accept the Gospel.359 Believers can profit from this dialogue by learning to appreciate better "those elements of truth and grace which are found among peoples, and which are, as it were, a secret presence of God."360 They proclaim the Good News to those who do not know it, in order to consolidate, complete, and raise up the truth and the goodness that God has distributed among men and nations, and to purify them from error and evil "for the glory of God, the confusion of the demon, and the happiness of man."361

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a9p3.htm

 

Sorry such a long link, but it's pretty much pertinent to both what you and I are talking about, and may also be interesting to Churchmouse.

 

ever look at what history has done with lies

you accept that as OK


I dont

their books say, 'thou shalt not false witness'

Just wait until 'we the people' wake up. Them religious sobs will reap far worse, than the honest man/women.

You think it's ok.

i dont.

i see what weakness that pity has enabled.

 

See what i mean.

People are being told that 'the church' is what shall lead them

 

Long read. I agree that when two or more are gathered in his name, there too shall He be. That's church as far as I'm concerned.

I understand that the church being the body of Christ is duly noted but I do not necessarily agree that the Catholic Church is the only "body of Christ," if you will.

"salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:"


I am of the belief that, scriptually speaking, salvation comes from God the Father through Jesus the son. There isn't any church in-between that.

 

But, as noted, Jesus himself said you need Baptism...you can't baptize yourself.

 

Planks, specks, yada, yada, yada...

I am not one for letting someone pee down my leg and then tell me it's raining. I am doing fine, on my own, expressing the alternate view to Felicity's beliefs and I am doing it without being a jerk. At least, I'm TRYING not to be a jerk.

When I was a child, I spake as a child......

I'm too grown up now to let all that upset me.

 

You know, on the subject of baptism, it may be acedemic but I have heard protestants get in an uproar over catholics baptising babies and the sprinkiling thing vs. emersion.

Like I said, it's no biggee but how does the Catholic Church get around the bible on that one?

 

What has history done with lies?

http://youtu.be/8NRIcodFHSQ

 

deleted...duplicate...dupe..

This dam website is starting to (*)(*)(*)(*) me off. Double posts. Editing malfunctions.... Arrrgggghhhh!

 

Also...as I noted when this first came up, What is today called the Catholic Church traces itself back to Jesus' founding of His Church (in Matthew). All Christendom comes through the Catholic Church. It was one Church until the Great Schism and Luther.

 

Immersion is preferred, but pouring is okay. As for babies, it relates to how the Hebrews entered into the Covenant. At 8 days old, they were circumcised. Baptism enters one into the New Covenant of Christ. Also--Biblically, whole households were baptized--it didn't exclude the children, why should we? I was baptized by full immersion in a Baptist church. That was my "one Baptism for the forgiveness of sin."