BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

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What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

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"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Some pagan festivals and popular devotions were kept and reinterpreted into a Christian context in order to smooth the integration of new believers into their new faith. There is nothing inherently wrong with a festival or a commemoration of heroes, which is exactly what saints are -- heroes of the faith. Of course, none of the sacrifices to pagan gods were kept; they were usually replaced by Christian liturgy. Many scholars of the time period, such as A.D. Nock, have come away surprised at just how little the essentials of Christian ritual changed during the influx of converts in the 4th and 5th centuries.

Saying that men such as St. Jerome made compromises with paganism is laughable; Greco-Roman pagans hated him because he openly denounced their gods devils and evil influences. Yet he also mentioned that he liked to go to the catacombs to venerate dead martyrs on holidays.

My local Catholic parish is comprised of a surprisingly large percentage of converts; we are probably 1/4 or 1/3 of of the entire congregation. We have a youth group and parish Bible studies that function almost exactly like the ones I attended while a Baptist, which isn't necessarily traditional among Catholic parishes. We live in an overwhelmingly Protestant city and culture. Yet all our theological beliefs and liturgical practices are Catholic. They weren't changed at all by the high percentage of converts.

ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective..

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And I'd say that you're clearly not interested in acknowleding the real, historical "Catholic perspective", as given by the Popes, bishops, and Doctors of your Church.

And don't skirt an important point in my post: in Revelation, did not the angel consider John bowing to him as worship? If so, then how can you then say that bowing to Mary (her STATUE and IMAGE, nonetheless!) in religious reverence is not also worship? How can you say that it's worship only when it entails sacrifice? John clearly was not sacrificing to the angel, he was only bowing.

Here is the excerpt from Revelation 22:8-9, for reference:

"I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."

I'm asking you to be very honest - have you bowed in religious veneration to an image of Mary, or not?

ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

---

"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Some pagan festivals and popular devotions were kept and reinterpreted into a Christian context in order to smooth the integration of new believers into their new faith. There is nothing inherently wrong with a festival or a commemoration of heroes, which is exactly what saints are -- heroes of the faith. Of course, none of the sacrifices to pagan gods were kept; they were usually replaced by Christian liturgy. Many scholars of the time period, such as A.D. Nock, have come away surprised at just how little the essentials of Christian ritual changed during the influx of converts in the 4th and 5th centuries.

Saying that men such as St. Jerome made compromises with paganism is laughable; Greco-Roman pagans hated him because he openly denounced their gods devils and evil influences. Yet he also mentioned that he liked to go to the catacombs to venerate dead martyrs on holidays.

My local Catholic parish is comprised of a surprisingly large percentage of converts; we are probably 1/4 or 1/3 of of the entire congregation. We have a youth group and parish Bible studies that function almost exactly like the ones I attended while a Baptist, which isn't necessarily traditional among Catholic parishes. We live in an overwhelmingly Protestant city and culture. Yet all our theological beliefs and liturgical practices are Catholic. They weren't changed at all by the high percentage of converts.

---

There is absolutely no teaching from Jesus or the original apostles about devotions, festivals, or prayers to saints. It is purely a man-made accretion that began with pagan Rome's infiltration into Christianity. Based on what divine revelation, do you derive the current practice of praying to saints, or saints having "offices", like the saint of healing, farming, etc?? Can you really deny this is the result of the carryover of pagan practice in Rome??

What Nock was likely referring to, was exactly what Ramsay MacMullen said - at the beginning of the transformation of Rome, there was little change to the core concepts of Christianity. The point was, though, that a compromise was indeed made at that point. The question then, is how much has that compromise resulted in Roman Catholic practice departing from the original apostolic faith over the next centuries? I think the answer is obvious.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

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I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective..

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And I'd say that you're clearly not interested in acknowleding the real, historical "Catholic perspective", as given by the Popes, bishops, and Doctors of your Church.

And don't skirt an important point in my post: in Revelation, did not the angel consider John bowing to him as worship? If so, then how can you then say that bowing to Mary (her STATUE and IMAGE, nonetheless!) in religious reverence is not also worship? How can you say that it's worship only when it entails sacrifice? John clearly was not sacrificing to the angel, he was only bowing.

Here is the excerpt from Revelation 22:8-9, for reference:

"I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."

I'm asking you to be very honest - have you bowed in religious veneration to an image of Mary, or not?

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This would be a real "gotcha" moment if bowing to someone or something was always worship. Yet it often is not.

People everywhere bowed to royalty until very recently, and that is still the norm in many countries. In many East Asian and Middle Eastern countries, bowing is a sign of respect for an honorable person. Bowing is only worship if it is intended to be so. Catholics do not intend to worship the saints, so bowing is not worship in that scenario.

So yes, I obviously agree with the angel in Revelation 22. John should not have bowed in worship to the angel. He should have only worshipped God.

To answer your question: no, I have honestly never bowed before a statue of Mary or any other saint. I respect the tradition of Marian devotion and how it has benefitted the spiritual life of many Catholics, and I have asked for the intercession of saints at various points. That said, I have never developed a devotion to a particular saint thus far in my life. I attend Mass on Sunday, I go to reconciliation every 2-3 weeks, I sing in my parish choir during Mass, and I volunteer with the parish youth group. The closest I get to a private devotion is sometimes singing the Divine Mercy Chaplet as a form of prayer, and I listen to Gregorian chant occasionally.

No one ever asks me about my saintly devotions or lack thereof. I love God, try to serve Him, and regularly receive the sacraments. That is all that is required to be considered a Catholic in good standing.

TinFoilHatPreacherBear said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Realitybites said:

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OsoCoreyell said:

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I want to know by what authority Catholics think it is sound theology to pray to Mary.

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I'm not Roman Catholic but this explanation may help.

Intercessory prayer isn't praying to a person. It is a prayer request that others pray to God for us.

The Biblical support for it is found in these verse:

James 5:16 - Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working."

John 11:26 - "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (It's a modern heresy that Christians die. Historically, the passing of the Christian has been thought of as the falling asleep of their body in the Lord to await a bodily resurrection. This is why Christians bury their dead, and don't cremate them.)

Hebrews 12:1 - "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." (We are surrounded by this great cloud today, not at some point when we get to heaven).

Revelation 8:3-4 "Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel's hand."

The bolded portion of the text is the actual technical mechanism by which God hears your prayer, by the way.

But who gave this angel with the golden censer your prayer to offer to God? Revelation answers that too.

Revelation 5:8 "Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

As you can see, making prayer requests of other Christians is not limited to those in your Sunday School Class, Church, City, State, Country, or Generation.

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There is NOTHING in Scripture that clearly and explicitly instructs us to pray to departed saints or Mary, or tells us that they even have the ability to receive prayers to begin with. There is no instance whatsoever anywhere in the Old or New Testament of anyone praying to a departed believer for any kind of intercession. None. There exists NO teaching from Jesus or his apostles that we can and should pray to Mary and the saints.

I just don't understand how a church can build a system of faith, worship, and practice on something like praying to Mary or the saints, when the basis of such a practice can only be derived by reading your assumptions into Scripture and drawing non sequitur inferences like you did in order to justify something that really isn't there. Especially since there is no real reason to do it. We have direct access to God and Jesus, and we are explicitly instructed by Jesus himself to go directly to them. This is the clear, unambiguous teaching of Scripture.

The prayers being in "bowls of incense" does not necessarily indicate that those prayers were directed to the saints or Mary. And there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this is the "actual mechanism" by which prayers go up to God. All this is pure eisegesis. And after all, the practice has no real benefit - what does a believer lose if they don't pray to Mary of the saints? On the other hand, if you DO pray to them, you risk committing idolatry and angering God. The risk/reward is way too high for something finding its basis only in haphazard eisegesis. Praying to Mary and the saints had its origins in pagan Rome. In order to make the pagans convert to Christianity, they were allowed to continue praying to their multiple gods, but they just renamed those gods after Christian figures, like Mary and the saints. Those of you who engage in this practice REALLY need to understand this history.

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There is reason the curtain that partitioned the Holy of Holies tore from top to bottom.

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Tradition is Mary sewed that curtain. Now Ps will say they dont do tradition because they sola scriptura yet the scriptura tells them that tradition is part of it.

Ps even invented a completely separate Bible that didnt exist prior to Martin Luther and somehow explain it away as its the scriptura they want to believe just like they completely ignore verses that nuke their beliefs

Even with all that Ps and Catholics believe statistically most of the same things. Its just the Ps toss aside some of the most critical ones

And of course Ps wouldnt even have a Bible to sola had the Catholics not created it. Bizarre place to find ones self.

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Created it. That's rich.
The Catholics didn't make the books of the Bible authoritative. The books were already seen as authoritative by the early church. The premise that the catholic church created the Bible and made them authoritative is a bad or circular logic.
The truth is that God had already inspired the letters and they were already recognized as being inspired and authoritative by the early church.

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Huh? Do you know what the word Catholic means? What a total word salad of nonsense simply denying fact and history. If that makes you feel better or helps you reconcile willfully schisming from the church Jesus founded on Peter the Rock.

One can inly be shown. What you choose to domwith it is free will.

ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

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• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

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Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

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What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

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I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective..

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And I'd say that you're clearly not interested in acknowleding the real, historical "Catholic perspective", as given by the Popes, bishops, and Doctors of your Church.

And don't skirt an important point in my post: in Revelation, did not the angel consider John bowing to him as worship? If so, then how can you then say that bowing to Mary (her STATUE and IMAGE, nonetheless!) in religious reverence is not also worship? How can you say that it's worship only when it entails sacrifice? John clearly was not sacrificing to the angel, he was only bowing.

Here is the excerpt from Revelation 22:8-9, for reference:

"I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."

I'm asking you to be very honest - have you bowed in religious veneration to an image of Mary, or not?

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This would be a real "gotcha" moment if bowing to someone or something was always worship. Yet it often is not.

People everywhere bowed to royalty until very recently, and that is still the norm in many countries. In many East Asian and Middle Eastern countries, bowing is a sign of respect for an honorable person. Bowing is only worship if it is intended to be so. Catholics do not intend to worship the saints, so bowing is not worship in that scenario.

So yes, I obviously agree with the angel in Revelation 22. John should not have bowed in worship to the angel. He should have only worshipped God.

To answer your question: no, I have honestly never bowed before a statue of Mary or any other saint. I respect the tradition of Marian devotion and how it has benefitted the spiritual life of many Catholics, and I have asked for the intercession of saints at various points. That said, I have never developed a devotion to a particular saint thus far in my life. I attend Mass on Sunday, I go to reconciliation every 2-3 weeks, I sing in my parish choir during Mass, and I volunteer with the parish youth group. The closest I get to a private devotion is sometimes singing the Divine Mercy Chaplet as a form of prayer, and I listen to Gregorian chant occasionally.

No one ever asks me about my saintly devotions or lack thereof. I love God, try to serve Him, and regularly receive the sacraments. That is all that is required to be considered a Catholic in good standing.

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You're trying to compare bowing in the wordly sense where one bows to another in respect of their earthly position, to bowing in the sense of submission, honoring, glorifying, etc. in the spiritual/religious sense. The world has its own rules, God has his. And clearly, Scripture tells us that bowing in the religious sense to anyone but God/Jesus is verboten. It's like Roman Catholicism completely forgets about the second commandment. God did not make a provision in that commandment where bowing to idols would be okay as long as you didn't intend to worship them. God only said "do not bow to them". The mere act of bowing to them was forbidden by God.

The angel in Revelation 22 did not know whether John's "intent" was to worship him, as opposed to say show his gratitude, unless you're saying that angel was omniscient, which angels are not. It didn't matter. The angel objected to the mere act of bowing to him. It was an act of worship in of itself, regardless of the intent.

Roman Catholics bow to Mary as a glorified being in heaven, to whom they petition for spiritual as well as earthly intercession. It's no different than bowing to any other glorified, heavenly being like an angel. And we know from Revelation 22 that this is worship, and explicitly forbidden. Also, RC's fully intend to give Mary honor and glory in their act of bowing, so you can't even use the "intention" argument to downplay it. So clearly, bowing to images and statues of Mary (2nd commandment!) is worship, and a clear and obvious form of idolatry.

And remember, your argument was that it's not worship unless it involves sacrifice. You're now saying that you agree with me that this is NOT the case, correct? Apparently, this was a successful "gotcha", wasn't it? Not that anyone is keeping score or even cares.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

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• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

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Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

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What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

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I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

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"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

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Jerome never said anything like that. The Catholic "compromise" with paganism is more mythology than history.

mtenery14 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Also, are you buying ArBear's argument that those quotes were "out of context"? You let him off the hook too easily. I have been trying to address this with him myself, but I fear he has joined the long list of people who don't like my questions so they ignore me. I guess you're gonna have to get that out of him, if you care to.

Is there really a context in which such statements could EVER be acceptable to someone who professes to love and only worship God, as they say they do? Denying that one worships Mary, but then balking at disavowing clear statements of Mary worship somehow just doesn't make a person seem like they're on the level.

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I married into a Catholic family and have been to many, many Catholic masses. Some of the family seem to place Mary higher than others but I've yet to hear any of them say salvation comes through Mary or, anything remotely close to it.
I've sat through many liturgies and have yet to hear one say anything that links Mary to salvation. On the other hand, I've also sat through a handful of rosaries after a death and hear nothing about Christ expect from family members in casual conversation before and after. Never have I heard the person conducting (is that the right word) the rosary speak of Christ salvation.

The last rosary I went to , all of the grand kids had t-shirts with their favorite or most appropriate Bible verse on it-verses they had learned in family Bible studies with their grandparents.

As for the quotes, I'd love to have a link to the English translations of each document so I could read them for myself. I fully expect Prots to attack them and RCs to support them or shy away from any defense.

It may be that ARBear isn't shying away from answering but collecting sources . We'll see.

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Individual Roman Catholics here and there may not credit Mary with salvation... but the question is not about them, nor about what they show outwardly, but about specific statements made by their leaders. Are they able to disavow those obviously heretical and idolatrous beliefs? Because if not, then something is really, really wrong, and their repeated denial that they worship Mary starts to look phony.

Can you really doubt the translation of those quotes? Roman Catholicism is suffused with this kind of excessive and idolatrous glorification of Mary. I'm sure you've read the quotes I've given in other threads from The Glories of Mary, or the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary (a book of psalms, where the author used the Psalms from the Old Testament and inserted MARY in place of God. Yes, you heard that right. If that in of itself does not scream idolatry, then idolatry has no meaning whatsoever. If one can't recognize the idolatry in that, then one never will.)

Pope John Paul II's personal motto was "Totus tuum Maria" which (accurately) translated means "I am all yours, Mary". It comes from a Marian prayer in the 1712 book True Devotion to Mary by Louis de Montfort. The prayer goes:

"Totus tuus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt. Accipio te in mea omnia. Praebe mihi cor tuum, Maria."
("I belong entirely to you, and all that I have is yours. I take you for my all. O Mary, give me your heart")


He belongs entirely to Mary?? Mary is his all??

How does all this not make plainly obvious, about who Mary is in Roman Catholicism? And mind you, we're not even including their bowing and praying to Mary's image IN CHURCH, singing hymns to her IN CHURCH, holding hundreds of festivals for her, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE" in their catechism, etc. There's gotta be a point where the oft-repeated, "you're taking it out of context" go-to argument from Roman Catholics hunkering down on the defensive starts to face an enormous and ever-expanding wall of implausibility.... isn't there? Why do they think we'll keep buying it? The level of gaslighting is truly perplexing.

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I understand what you are saying regarding RC leaders and their written statements regarding Mary. I just don't see the trickledown coming out in the liturgy.

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But again, the question is not whether they are personally engaging in or expressing those sentiments - the question is whether these Catholics, who insist they aren't worshiping Mary, are willing/able to disavow those statements? If they are not, then it doesn't do much to lend credence to their claim. No one who truly loves and worships God alone would ever find those statements even remotely acceptable. If they lack discernment in that area, then there's something really, really wrong.

---

Are all Christian's theologically trained?

Are we saved corporately or as individuals?

I don't deal with the Catholic Church. I deal with Catholics.

I don't deal with prosperity churches, Hillsong, Bethel etc… I deal with individuals.

You stick with the corporate battles of church vs church. I'll stick with individuals. We each have our roles.

---

I get that you're defensive for the sake of your kin. But this isn't about theological training or what they belief individually and personally. But the truth remains that if they can't recognize the problem in crediting any other person other than Jesus for their salvation, you know, the central tenet of the Christian faith, then there's something really wrong with their Christianity. Is this even debatable?

---

"This isn't about…. But…"

Like I said , you handle the corporate side and I'll handle the individual side.

---

What exactly is wrong about what I just said?

---

If you are dealing with them corporately, nothing is wrong. If you are dealing with them individually, I see a lot that can be done better.

You said " this isn't about them individually or personally" and then came with "but…if they can't". Well that recognition is individual/personal.

It pays to approach individuals differently than it does groups. A professor of 500 teaches differently than a tutor of 1 or 2. Your approach is directed at the RC church. My approach is directed to the individual.

Do professors make breakthroughs or tutors? I think they both do in their own way.

Like I said, different roles.

---

Let me clarify: it isn't about them individually or personally with regard to whether the corporate beliefs "trickled down" to their personal belief or not. Even if they did not, still, how those individuals respond to corporate statements of belief might indicate a problem in their individual beliefs, especially in this case about Mary.

If an individual denies worshiping Mary, but then can't/won't disavow completely idolatrous corporate statements fully supporting it, then it makes supect their denial, as well as raise the question whether they are even truly a Christian. It certainly doesn't take being "theologically trained" to understand the problem behind crediting someone else for salvation other than Jesus, at least one would think. If you are concerned with Catholics as individuals, I hardly see how you can dismiss this. You should approach them as you see fit, but I really don't see how one can reach individual Catholics without first addressing the serious corporate problems first. Especially since in Roman Catholicism, the corporate has full authority over the individual beliefs. Will they listen to you over their corporate authorities? If so, then they can't be Catholic. So there's a catch-22.

---

Think of it as people that describe themselves as Calvinist, 4 1/2 point Calvinist.

Yes I do see the catch-22 in what you described just as there is a catch-22 in a 4 1/2 point Calvinist. I also see the Catholics in my family fully describing the gospel, fully believing the gospel and living the gospel as close to fully as any Protestant is capable of living it.

NOT A RABBIT TRAIL
if an individual Catholic struggles with transubstantiation and leans more towards con substantiation, should they disavow the church for that reason?

---

Would, or do your family members who you say fully describe, believe, and live the gospel recognize the idolatry that is clearly evident in the Roman Catholic Church regarding Mary? If they don't at all, then I just can't believe they are true Christians. However, if they recognize the "troublesome language" and try to make (lame) excuses for it like some here, perhaps they are true Christians, but they are in serious error, and vulnerable. And I have to point out that if they truly are okay with crediting anyone else other than Jesus for their salvation like what is being done for Mary in Roman Catholicism, then I can't agree that they are truly "living the gospel". Something is very wrong in their Christian life.

If an individual Catholic does not believe in transubstantiation, then the Roman Catholic Church disavows THEM. You and your Catholic family members do realize this, don't you? And I would say that definitely yes, that if a church teaches something that is not the gospel or something that conflicts and/or contradicts clear biblical teaching, that person should leave that church. It's what Paul instructs us to do in Galatians. I would certainly consider the idolatry of Mary to apply here, wouldn't you?

As far as Calvinism is concerned, or any other doctrinal difference among Protestants for that matter, I don't believe any of them claim that if one doesn't agree with their specific doctrine, that they aren't saved. And certainly none of them engage in idolatry like with Mary and make it binding to salvation. I mean, the treatment of Mary in Roman Catholicism makes it NOT a Christian religion. It's a different religion altogether. So definitely anyone who claims themself a Christian should not be part of a church that isn't even a Christian church. That should go without saying.

---

"Take this all of you and eat of it, for this is my body which will be given up for you."

"In a similar way, taking the chalice with the fruit of the vine, He gave thanks, and gave the chalice to his disciples saying: Take this, all of you, and drink from it. For this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins."

"Do this in memory of me."

Regarding your claim of not needing to follow one doctrine for salvation, Nietzsche once suggested that a major consequence of protestantism was that everyone would eventually just become their own church. Perhaps this is why you're seeing a vast number of young people going towards Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

---

I think with access to information what so many have realized is living your faith isnobviously so much more than what Ps sold people for a few decades and they can easily dispute what the akinnynjeans 50 year old dude who pays his bills selling God to them is telling them Catholicism is and can just see for themselves they are wrong with a little effort, study and reading.

You have a couple people in this thread saying Catholics are idolaters of Mary (but oddly not Joseph as their skinny jeans pastor never got em worked up about that statue) and screeching that Catholics believe Mary gives salvation.

Thisnis the problem with ecumenism. The people that did that to the Catholic church will all soon be dead and it will revert to its historical norms. Weve seen it many times over the last 2000 years. Theres no need to lean towards an schismed recently invented faith

It has their eye completely off the ball while they actually live in mortal sin committing heresy regularly and ignoring passages of the Bible they don't like and believing osas nonsense.

This is why that belief is shrinking and dying off and traditional Catholic belief is fervent and growing.

Obey. Work out your faith in fear and trembling. Confess. Take communion. Endure. Baptize. Call homosexuality the sin it is. Adultery. Fornication. Abortion.

These are largely not things the Ps stand for and it is more rapidly killing off their congregations.

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

---

"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Jerome never said anything like that. The Catholic "compromise" with paganism is more mythology than history.

---

Rrright. Praying to saints and giving them "offices", two practices that originated in Christianity from that time, they were just amazing coincidences. Especially considering the two practices are nowhere to be found in Jesus and his apostles' teachings.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

---

"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Jerome never said anything like that. The Catholic "compromise" with paganism is more mythology than history.

---

Rrright. Praying to saints and giving them "offices", two practices that originated in Christianity from that time, they were just amazing coincidences. Especially considering the two practices are nowhere to be found in Jesus and his apostles' teachings.

---

You'd be surprised how often coincidences happen. A few people in Jerome's time were outraged about the lighting of candles because that's exactly what the pagans did in their ceremonies!

Someone is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay paranoid about their fellow Christians, yet imagines it's the people he, well, "screeches" about.

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

---

"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Jerome never said anything like that. The Catholic "compromise" with paganism is more mythology than history.

---

Rrright. Praying to saints and giving them "offices", two practices that originated in Christianity from that time, they were just amazing coincidences. Especially considering the two practices are nowhere to be found in Jesus and his apostles' teachings.

---

You'd be surprised how often coincidences happen. A few people in Jerome's time were outraged about the lighting of candles because that's exactly what the pagans did in their ceremonies!

---

A coincidence is when Hamas Harry claims "journalists" have demonstrated there is a "famine" in Gaza but suddenly cannot find any graves, bodies, list of dead, etc.

canoso said:

---

"Paragraph 970…"

Man complicates.



"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

God simplifies.

---

You are your own pope. Interpret english words as you will

simpol

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

---

"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Jerome never said anything like that. The Catholic "compromise" with paganism is more mythology than history.

---

Rrright. Praying to saints and giving them "offices", two practices that originated in Christianity from that time, they were just amazing coincidences. Especially considering the two practices are nowhere to be found in Jesus and his apostles' teachings.

---

You'd be surprised how often coincidences happen. A few people in Jerome's time were outraged about the lighting of candles because that's exactly what the pagans did in their ceremonies!

---

yeah.... nobody EVER lit candles in that time period.

Fre3dombear said:

---

canoso said:

---

"Paragraph 970…"

Man complicates.



"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

God simplifies.

---

You are your own pope. Interpret english words as you will

simpol

---

Checked my Bible again, it seems Jesus wanted us to pray directly to the Father.

No 'popes' anywhere in the Gospel, it turns out.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

---

"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Jerome never said anything like that. The Catholic "compromise" with paganism is more mythology than history.

---

Rrright. Praying to saints and giving them "offices", two practices that originated in Christianity from that time, they were just amazing coincidences. Especially considering the two practices are nowhere to be found in Jesus and his apostles' teachings.

---

You'd be surprised how often coincidences happen. A few people in Jerome's time were outraged about the lighting of candles because that's exactly what the pagans did in their ceremonies!

---

yeah.... nobody EVER lit candles in that time period.

---

I think you're missing the point.

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

---

"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Jerome never said anything like that. The Catholic "compromise" with paganism is more mythology than history.

---

Rrright. Praying to saints and giving them "offices", two practices that originated in Christianity from that time, they were just amazing coincidences. Especially considering the two practices are nowhere to be found in Jesus and his apostles' teachings.

---

You'd be surprised how often coincidences happen. A few people in Jerome's time were outraged about the lighting of candles because that's exactly what the pagans did in their ceremonies!

---

yeah.... nobody EVER lit candles in that time period.

---

I think you're missing the point.

---

In that post, he is very much ON point. Sam.

There is no need to keep suffering in your guilt. Know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

ARbear13 said:

---

canoso said:

---

"Paragraph 970…"

Man complicates.



"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

God simplifies.

---

People are not expected to put aside their intellect when becoming Christians. It is natural to have questions about what one should believe.The Catechism is meant to be a teaching and reference guide for people with questions about the Christian faith, so it's supposed to be exhaustive.

I'm sure that you would agree that studying the Bible is profitable. I'm also sure you would agree that it is the job of the universal church to teach the tenets of the Christian faith. The Catechism is the product of nearly 2000 years of intense study of Divine Revelation (of which the Bible is a major part) from the combined effort of thousands of learned, faithful Christian men and women.

If you're looking for simplicity, the Church already simplified the core tenets of the Christian faith nearly 1700 years ago at the Council of Nicaea. The Nicene Creed is not long and not difficult to memorize.

---

They dont believe this bc they don't have a magisterium. They walk into whatever door on Sunday reinforces what they think they believe which is why theres 10s of thousands of sschismed groups from Catholicism.

They wouldnt see the value in a reference like a catechism because they are their own popes. They dont realize very learned Catholic scholars who lived 2000 years ago pondered the greek writings deeply and often said "it is possible i dont understand" and yet some here know with absolute confidence they understand better than those celibate monks whom devoted their entire libes to that study.

Seems logical

Some are obviously very liberal which also makes more sense what they are espousing

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

ARbear13 said:

---

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

---

Sam Lowry said:

---

We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

---

"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Jerome never said anything like that. The Catholic "compromise" with paganism is more mythology than history.

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Rrright. Praying to saints and giving them "offices", two practices that originated in Christianity from that time, they were just amazing coincidences. Especially considering the two practices are nowhere to be found in Jesus and his apostles' teachings.

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You'd be surprised how often coincidences happen. A few people in Jerome's time were outraged about the lighting of candles because that's exactly what the pagans did in their ceremonies!

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yeah.... nobody EVER lit candles in that time period.

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I think you're missing the point.

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Dumb ones often are missed. If you really want to attribute the practice of praying to statues of saints and giving them "offices", two clear pagan practices from Rome from the same time period when Christianity was declared the official religion in Rome to amazing coincidence, practices that are found NOWHERE in Scripture but suddenly originate, well, then it goes to your continuing pattern of having to grasp at straws to defend your beliefs.

LIB,MR BEARS said:

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ARbear13 said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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ARbear13 said:

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LIB,MR BEARS said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

I think we've all heard people wrongly use " judge not lest ye be judged." Read by itself, it sounds like a clear cut statement. When I hear people misuse the verse, I try to provide them context rather than let them continue down the wrong thought path.

Can you provide context to any of the statements in question so that I and others aren't misinterpreting the statement the same way the "judge not" statement gets misinterpreted.

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All of these quotes are from treatises penned by famous Catholic theologians who are widely regarded in the Church as exceptionally advanced. They build their arguments and statements upon Catholic first principles (such as the absolute sovereignty of God and sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice at Calvary) that were already fully understood and accepted by the intended audience. Most of those papal quotes were from missives that were directly specifically to other Catholic bishops, so pontiffs such as Pope Leo XIII and Pope Pius IX could be certain that their audience had the theological background necessary to understand them in their proper context. The other quotes are from professional theologians, such as St. Alphonsus Liguori, who wrote them for highly educated clergy or lay audiences who wanted to understand Marian devotion at a deeper theological level. They definitely were not intended for a Protestant or lay Catholic audience that isn't well-versed in Catholic theology. Let's just say that one is passing out Liguori's four volume Moral Theology to random visitors at Sunday Mass.

It's helpful to think of these theological treatises like math textbooks. A textbook focused on multivariable calculus is not going to begin with basic addition and subtraction; it's going to assume that you already know a great deal about mathematics before you begin reading. The Catholic Church has spilled so much ink about theology over the past few thousand years that trying to rehash these arguments on a message board is an exercise in futility. If you are actually interested in learning more about Catholic Mariology and aren't just using this as a line of attack, I would suggest starting with the Catechism or Scott Hahn's book Hail, Holy Queen. Hahn is a former Presbyterian minster turned Catholic theologian who writes about Catholic doctrine specifically for a Protestant or formerly Protestant audience.

The extent of the average parishioner's Marian devotion consists of an occasional Rosary, which is a meditation on the life of Christ from Mary's perspective, and attendance at the Masses commemorating the Marian dogmas. All four Marian dogmas are actually meant to establish a truth about Christ Himself, a point that has been emphasized and expounded upon by the priest at every one I've ever attended.

Mary is rarely mentioned at Mass outside the aforementioned feast day Masses, Christmas, and Easter. Mass is the one weekly event that Catholics are required to attend, and it is all about God and is directed to God. In fact, a normal Sunday Mass is only going to mention the Virgin Mary once, in the recitation of the Nicene or Apostles' Creed. Contrast that with the dozens of times the various Persons of the Trinity will be specifically mentioned at every Mass.

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I like the last paragraph as it matches what I have seen at masses I've attended.

Regarding the previous paragraphs, I'll see if I can find the crib notes.

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Paragraph 970 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church is particularly helpful in understanding the lens by which Catholics view everything else we say about Mary.

Also, if it helps you to understand my perspective, I actually was not raised Catholic. I am an adult convert. I was raised as a devout, churchgoing, evangelical Southern Baptist. My parents and sister are still devout, churchgoing, evangelical Baptists. I love my family and still greatly appreciate the Christian upbringing which they provided for me. When I visit my parents, I attend both Catholic Mass and my parents' Baptist church on Sundays.

Like many Baptists, I was raised with a strong bias against Catholicism, seeing them as definitely heretical and possibly not Christian at all. I changed my mind and when I started getting serious about theology and Church history in my 20s. I "converted" as an adult, but I don't like thinking of becoming Catholic as a conversion to a different religion. I didn't change religions. If after my investigations I found incontrovertible proof that the Catholic Church worshipped Mary or anything other than the Trinitarian God, I would never have given becoming Catholic a second thought and would have gladly continued to call Catholics heretics. However, I found that the exact opposite was true.

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Many Baptist, including a couple on my side of the family, believe Catholicism is a false religion. At the same time, I've heard one priest formerly in Waco state only RCs will find salvation.

In central Texas I'm sure it's heavily slanted to the Protestant side. In the NE, I'm sure it leans the other way.

The cool thing is prots and RCs don't get to make that call

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Youre asleep at the wheel on the demographics of Texas. Catholics overtook Ps decades ago thanks in large part to God using Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1529

ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

---

I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective, and ask a different question that I've been wondering as I read your posts.

Why do you call us Roman Catholics every time you refer to us? There are millions of non-Romans who are still Catholics.

---

"Catholic" just means "universal". Your brand of "Catholicism" comes from the Romanization of Christianity which started in the 4th century, when the Roman state entered the church. In an effort to expedite and facilitate pagan Rome to convert to the official state religion, compromises to Christianity were made. Consider what Emeritus professor of history at Yale University, Ramsay Macmullen, writes about regarding this very topic:

"The creed that was the true heart of the Christian community in the first centruy of two of its existence was retained untouched by the inflow of new members after Constantine. Church organization, too, showed no effects. But in the ideas and rites just described a large area of new loyalties opened up. Augustine called the sum total of imported paganism among his congregation their "mother," while what he himself would teach them was "the father." They must choose; or he hoped they would. But he could not make them do so. He conceded that they must be allowed some latitude in their manner of worship. At just about the same time, toward the beginning of the fifth century, Jerome made the same acknowledgement: better, worship of the saints in the pagan manner than none at all."

And of course you're going to call what I said a "rant". It's a convenient way of dismissing a person and what they're saying when the truth starts to hit too hard. Marginalizing them is a way of not having to answer them.

---

Some pagan festivals and popular devotions were kept and reinterpreted into a Christian context in order to smooth the integration of new believers into their new faith. There is nothing inherently wrong with a festival or a commemoration of heroes, which is exactly what saints are -- heroes of the faith. Of course, none of the sacrifices to pagan gods were kept; they were usually replaced by Christian liturgy. Many scholars of the time period, such as A.D. Nock, have come away surprised at just how little the essentials of Christian ritual changed during the influx of converts in the 4th and 5th centuries.

Saying that men such as St. Jerome made compromises with paganism is laughable; Greco-Roman pagans hated him because he openly denounced their gods devils and evil influences. Yet he also mentioned that he liked to go to the catacombs to venerate dead martyrs on holidays.

My local Catholic parish is comprised of a surprisingly large percentage of converts; we are probably 1/4 or 1/3 of of the entire congregation. We have a youth group and parish Bible studies that function almost exactly like the ones I attended while a Baptist, which isn't necessarily traditional among Catholic parishes. We live in an overwhelmingly Protestant city and culture. Yet all our theological beliefs and liturgical practices are Catholic. They weren't changed at all by the high percentage of converts.

---

Anyone whos walked through the catacombs of rome and seen the writings of "pray for me" and think they dont understand the Bible clearly have little knowledge of the Catholic faith.

Reading through the last few pages of this thread, I feel compelled to say what may be obvious to some:

There have been a lot of statements about what Protestants or Roman Catholics believe and do, as if every Roman Catholic was the same and every Protestant was the same.

This is obviously not so. There are a wide range of believers, even limiting 'believer' to the classic definitions of Christianity. It is a disservice to a great many Christians to pretend someone can toss out a pithy comment and properly speak about everyone in a group.

We in this thread all care about our faiths and our relationship with God, and because we follow Christ we want our brothers and sisters to join us in Heaven. And so we are concerned if and when we believe someone is practicing a dangerous thing, perhaps offending God in their words and actions.

And if we're honest, a lot of the posts have not been about seeking wisdom and serving God, but trying to win arguments and one-up the "other side".

Pride is our enemy far more than other believers ever shall be. And Jesus knows our hearts better than we will see others. I pray the Lord forgives us all our arrogance, and leads us to true wisdom and fellowship as siblings in Christ's Kingdom.

With that said, I now return you to your regularly scheduled barfight.

Thank you for your patience, and in some cases, your good humor as well.

ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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ARbear13 said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Sam Lowry said:

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We don't credit Mary with our salvation any more than we credit the mothers and fathers who prayed for us and brought us up in the faith.

---

• "O Virgin most holy, none abounds in the knowledge of God except through thee; none, O Mother of God, attains salvation except through thee; none receives a gift from the throne of mercy except through thee." (Pope Leo XIII, Adiutricem, 9)
• "no man goeth to Christ but by His Mother" (Pope Leo 13th, Octobri Mense)
• "She has been made the ladder to paradise, the gate of heaven, the most true mediatrix between God and human beings" (St. Lawrence Justinian)
• "Sinners receive pardon by the intercession of Mary alone." (attributed to St. John Chrysostom, by St. Alphonsus Ligouri)
• "No one ever finds Christ but with and through Mary. Whoever seeks Christ apart from Mary seeks Him in vain." (St. Bonaventure)
• "All those who seek Mary's protection will be saved for all eternity." (Pope Benedict XV)
• "Mary's intercession is not only useful but necessary for salvation.... " (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church)
• "Mary is the road we must travel to reach God" (Pope Francis, paraphrased)
• "God has entrusted the keys and treasures of Heaven to Mary." (St. Thomas Aquinas)
• "The foundation of all our confidence is found in the Blessed Virgin Mary. God has committed to her the treasury of all good things, in order that everyone may know that through her are obtained every hope, every grace, and all salvation. For this is His will: That we obtain everything through Mary." (Pope Pius IX)

All this clearly belies your claim. When you start saying, writing, and teaching these things about your own mother and father as well, then maybe people will start to believe you. The most stupefying thing is you and your fellow Catholics' blatant dishonesty regarding this, and your attempts at Jedi mind-trick level gaslighting. I am really at a loss to explain it, other than to attribute it to the result of deep Satanic deception.

---

Have you considered that you might just be misunderstanding the intent of these authors and are taking quotes out of context?

Let's say you found someone badly injured on the side of the road. Without your intervention, they are clearly going to die soon. You load them into your car and take them to the hospital, where the doctor provides lifesaving medical treatment. After the person has recovered, they come up to you and thank you for saving their life.

Were they wrong to thank you in this way? Are they saying that you saved them instead of the doctor? I don't think any honest person would say that they were. The doctor's intervention is what actually saved this person's life, but you also "saved" them in a lesser, subordinate way by taking them to the hospital. This second sense is how Catholics view Mary's intercession. Mary, through her intercession, brings us wounded sinners into the presence of the Great Physician, who is the only Person with the power to heal the soul.

Also, let's say for argument's sake that you're right and that we Catholics are semi-pagans who worship Mary as some sort of secondary goddess. If so, we do an awfully poor job of it by historical pagan standards. Pagan deities expected to be publicly acknowledged as divine by their devotees, but no Catholic publications ever written have ever called Mother Mary divine. On the contrary, there are many official Church documents that explicitly reject the existence of any divinity other than the Trinity.

Also, all ancient Greco-Roman deities demanded ritual sacrifice as a key component of worship. However, the only ritual sacrifice known to Catholicism is that of Christ's sacrifice in the Mass, which is exclusively offered to the Trinitarian God according to unchangeable dogma. The only religious group that ever attempted to offer sacrifice to Mary, the aforementioned Collyridians, were excommunicated by the Catholic Church on the grounds of idolatry without any internal Church controversy, an excommunication which still stands to this day. And if there is anything we can say for sure about the character of the early Catholic Church, it's that they were NOT shy about engaging in controversy regarding religious matters.

If I were to call an ancient Greco-Roman pagan to the present day and tell them that "my religion worships someone named Mary, but she isn't divine and we never offer sacrifice to her. In fact, we will kick anyone who sacrifices to her out of our community" they would call me a madman. Ritual, intentional sacrifice was the central component of worship in Greco-Roman paganism, so the previous statement would strike them as insane and self-contradictory.

Do some poorly catechized Catholics take Marian devotion too far? Yes, and that's precisely why the recent doctrinal note was issued. Offering worship to the Virgin Mary, or to anyone other than God, is expressly forbidden in Catholicism, and it always has been.

---

What you're saying is that if someone saves your life, that it's okay to say that particular person saved ALL lives, that salvation for everyone ONLY comes through that person. That unless you go through that specific person, you will not be saved at all. That's what those quotes are clearly saying. You Roman Catholics are really trying to whitewash those quotes and dilute what they are really saying. You're clearly in denial. You're trying to say that ANY person who evangelizes another is credited in the lesser sense of that person's salvation. But in that case, NEVER would the saved person ever (rightfully) extoll the person who evangelized them as the person from whom every other person obtains "ALL grace, hope, and ALL salvation". Do you truly not see the problem there? How is it that you Roman Catholics don't see this? You are all so blind it's ridiculous.

Regarding worship as having to entail sacrifice. obviously God does not see it that way. Scripture clearly indicates that bowing to Peter and the angel in Revelation was considered worship. Have you bowed to any images of Mary lately?

If you can't understand that those quotes are exactly an example of taking Marian devotion too far making it actual worship, then you're totally blind and deceived and you're just gaslighting. If you can't see that bowing to Mary's statue, praying to her, celebrating hundreds of festivals for her, singing hymns to her in church, saying repetitive prayers where you say her name ten times more than you mention God, calling her "THE ALL HOLY ONE", and saying that ALL SALVATION comes through her is idolatrous worship, then you are deeply, deeply deceived and in big, big trouble. The recent doctrinal note MUST disavow ALL such things like it in Roman Catholicism (which is a LOT) and you must do the same, otherwise it is all just an empty, meaningless gesture.

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I'm going to ignore the rant, as you very clearly are not interested in understanding the Catholic perspective..

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And I'd say that you're clearly not interested in acknowleding the real, historical "Catholic perspective", as given by the Popes, bishops, and Doctors of your Church.

And don't skirt an important point in my post: in Revelation, did not the angel consider John bowing to him as worship? If so, then how can you then say that bowing to Mary (her STATUE and IMAGE, nonetheless!) in religious reverence is not also worship? How can you say that it's worship only when it entails sacrifice? John clearly was not sacrificing to the angel, he was only bowing.

Here is the excerpt from Revelation 22:8-9, for reference:

"I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God."

I'm asking you to be very honest - have you bowed in religious veneration to an image of Mary, or not?

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This would be a real "gotcha" moment if bowing to someone or something was always worship. Yet it often is not.

People everywhere bowed to royalty until very recently, and that is still the norm in many countries. In many East Asian and Middle Eastern countries, bowing is a sign of respect for an honorable person. Bowing is only worship if it is intended to be so. Catholics do not intend to worship the saints, so bowing is not worship in that scenario.

So yes, I obviously agree with the angel in Revelation 22. John should not have bowed in worship to the angel. He should have only worshipped God.

To answer your question: no, I have honestly never bowed before a statue of Mary or any other saint. I respect the tradition of Marian devotion and how it has benefitted the spiritual life of many Catholics, and I have asked for the intercession of saints at various points. That said, I have never developed a devotion to a particular saint thus far in my life. I attend Mass on Sunday, I go to reconciliation every 2-3 weeks, I sing in my parish choir during Mass, and I volunteer with the parish youth group. The closest I get to a private devotion is sometimes singing the Divine Mercy Chaplet as a form of prayer, and I listen to Gregorian chant occasionally.

No one ever asks me about my saintly devotions or lack thereof. I love God, try to serve Him, and regularly receive the sacraments. That is all that is required to be considered a Catholic in good standing.

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If you continue to engage expect a continuous stream of parochial, juvenile metaphors and analogies such as this used tomjistify his or her schismed belief system dreamed up recently.

Everyone in a gi prior to a karate match is worshipping their opponent and a thousand other examples.

/eyeroll

One thing i know for certainty, Marian devotion has brought millions of % more people to Christ and eternal salvation than this guy or gal has shamed Catholics into leaving the Catholic faith for their Marian devotion.

Seems actually marian devotion and eucharist envy.

Oldbear83 said:

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Someone is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay paranoid about their fellow Christians, yet imagines it's the people he, well, "screeches" about.

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Paranod clearly doesnt mean what you think it means

One your buddies in a quote said "catholic just means universal" lmao. This the team youre on

Oldbear83 said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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canoso said:

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"Paragraph 970…"

Man complicates.



"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

God simplifies.

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You are your own pope. Interpret english words as you will

simpol

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Checked my Bible again, it seems Jesus wanted us to pray directly to the Father.

No 'popes' anywhere in the Gospel, it turns out.

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Peter. Check again

Oldbear83 said:

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Reading through the last few pages of this thread, I feel compelled to say what may be obvious to some:

There have been a lot of statements about what Protestants or Roman Catholics believe and do, as if every Roman Catholic was the same and every Protestant was the same.

This is obviously not so. There are a wide range of believers, even limiting 'believer' to the classic definitions of Christianity. It is a disservice to a great many Christians to pretend someone can toss out a pithy comment and properly speak about everyone in a group.

We in this thread all care about our faiths and our relationship with God, and because we follow Christ we want our brothers and sisters to join us in Heaven. And so we are concerned if and when we believe someone is practicing a dangerous thing, perhaps offending God in their words and actions.

And if we're honest, a lot of the posts have not been about seeking wisdom and serving God, but trying to win arguments and one-up the "other side".

Pride is our enemy far more than other believers ever shall be. And Jesus knows our hearts better than we will see others. I pray the Lord forgives us all our arrogance, and leads us to true wisdom and fellowship as siblings in Christ's Kingdom.

With that said, I now return you to your regularly scheduled barfight.

Thank you for your patience, and in some cases, your good humor as well.

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While this is true for Ps, the whole purpose of the magisterium is to largely eliminate this in Catholicism

As one of a couple billion Catholics, one can walk into most any Catholic church on Sunday amd get the same message. Consistently. Everywhere. Universally one could say. Everywhere.

Youre right though. Much "gotcha" and projection coming from one direction about something they reveal with each post they have little knowledge of.

Fre3dombear said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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canoso said:

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"Paragraph 970…"

Man complicates.



"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

God simplifies.

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You are your own pope. Interpret english words as you will

simpol

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Checked my Bible again, it seems Jesus wanted us to pray directly to the Father.

No 'popes' anywhere in the Gospel, it turns out.

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Peter. Check again

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Per Rome, not Christ.

You need a mirror, and some time to think.

Oldbear83 said:

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You need a mirror, and some time to think.

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All i present are words in the Bible and 2000 years of documented writings on the teachings.

If that bothers you, it appears you maybe should look in the mirror.

Oldbear83 said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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Oldbear83 said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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canoso said:

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"Paragraph 970…"

Man complicates.



"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

God simplifies.

---

You are your own pope. Interpret english words as you will

simpol

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Checked my Bible again, it seems Jesus wanted us to pray directly to the Father.

No 'popes' anywhere in the Gospel, it turns out.

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Peter. Check again

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Per Rome, not Christ.

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Matthew 16:18

"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."

Jesus Christ…not Rome

For further clarity, there was none of these:

Protestantism (Lutheranism - ELCA, LCMS, WELS; Baptism - Southern Baptist, American Baptist, Independent Baptist, Reformed Baptist; Methodism - United Methodist, Free Methodist, Wesleyan Church, African Methodist Episcopal; Presbyterianism - PCA, PCUSA, OPC, EPC; Pentecostalism - Assemblies of God, Church of God in Christ, United Pentecostal Church International - Oneness; Evangelicalism - non-denominational evangelical, Southern Evangelical, Bible churches; Adventism - Seventh-day Adventist, Advent Christian Church; Anabaptism - Mennonite, Amish, Hutterite, Brethren; Quakerism - Friends General Conference, Evangelical Friends, Conservative Friends; Restorationism - Churches of Christ, Christian Churches, Disciples of Christ), Anglicanism (Church of England, Episcopal Church - USA, Anglican Church of Canada, Anglican Church in Australia, Church of Nigeria, Global Anglican Future Conference - GAFCON churches), Mormonism (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - LDS, Community of Christ, Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints - FLDS), Jehovah's Witness to name a few.

Oldbear83 said:

---

Reading through the last few pages of this thread, I feel compelled to say what may be obvious to some:

There have been a lot of statements about what Protestants or Roman Catholics believe and do, as if every Roman Catholic was the same and every Protestant was the same.

This is obviously not so. There are a wide range of believers, even limiting 'believer' to the classic definitions of Christianity. It is a disservice to a great many Christians to pretend someone can toss out a pithy comment and properly speak about everyone in a group.

We in this thread all care about our faiths and our relationship with God, and because we follow Christ we want our brothers and sisters to join us in Heaven. And so we are concerned if and when we believe someone is practicing a dangerous thing, perhaps offending God in their words and actions.

And if we're honest, a lot of the posts have not been about seeking wisdom and serving God, but trying to win arguments and one-up the "other side".

Pride is our enemy far more than other believers ever shall be. And Jesus knows our hearts better than we will see others. I pray the Lord forgives us all our arrogance, and leads us to true wisdom and fellowship as siblings in Christ's Kingdom.

With that said, I now return you to your regularly scheduled barfight.

Thank you for your patience, and in some cases, your good humor as well.

---

Amen.

So you think you have no part in the problem?

Oldbear83 said:

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So you think you have no part in the problem?

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Which problem? If i bring up Topics and verses in support of it and you disagree, is that a "problem"?

I am not judging anyone. Ive said many times and you can find it of course, that it is up to God to judge. I only point out flaws in logic and defense of my beliefs as taught by Jesus' church he founded in Peter here on earth.

I even point out when the men leading Jesus' church here on Earth are flawed and err and dont hold to the traditions and words of the Bible. What more do you want from me? Seems you prefer I just agree with you, which on many of these topics i cant and wont. Probably on most i can agree with you on though as the Ps and Catholics agree on much given the Ps split from the Catholics so the same trunk.

It is all information for one to consider. What you do with it is up to you.

Oldbear83 said:

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Fre3dombear said:

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canoso said:

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"Paragraph 970…"

Man complicates.



"This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."

God simplifies.

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You are your own pope. Interpret english words as you will

simpol

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Checked my Bible again, it seems Jesus wanted us to pray directly to the Father.

No 'popes' anywhere in the Gospel, it turns out.

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Catholics can and should pray directly to God the Father. The single most common prayer in the Catholic Church is the Our Father, after all. Catholics are highly encouraged to pray directly to God on a regular basis, and we do so at every Mass.

Bishops are mentioned in 1 Timothy 3. The Pope's actual office is the Bishop of Rome. Being Bishop of Rome is what makes a man the Pope, not the other way around. He received this office via apostolic succession from its original occupant, Saint Peter, whose grave is still in Rome and who mentioned being in Rome (under the code name Babylon) in 1 Peter 5.

Peter was famously given his new name (Kepha in Aramaic) and the "keys to the Kingdom" by Jesus Himself in Matthew 16. Because of this commission from Christ, Peter was the leader of the Apostles in the book of Acts and therefore the early Church. His successors, Linus and Clement, are both mentioned in 2 Timothy, though they were not yet bishops at the time. The title of "pope" came later, but the actual office of Bishop of Rome already existed well before that particular term was adopted.

Peter received a special commission from Jesus to lead the Church. Peter is shown leading the Church in Acts. We know from Paul that the office of bishop already existed during Peter's lifetime. Peter was Bishop of Rome. Authority is passed down via apostolic succession from a bishop to his successor bishop. So yes, popes are indeed mentioned in the New Testament.