One thing I think that bothers me most, aside from the growing influx of protestantism into the church, is inequality. I cannot speak for every church as I have not been to every church. I know there are churches where the congregant are relatively poor and ones where the congregants are relatively rich, and some that are in the middle. From what I have seen there is inequality to some degree within most of the churches. There are people who have and do not have worry and there are those that do not have anything but worry because they are lacking. This is not how it was originally meant to be.
In Acts 4 we read in verse 32 that "Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need." If we are apostolic then why do we not do this, not necessarily exactly this but something akin to this? Why are there people within our own church lacking while others have abundance? At what point did we get away from this and why? These are questions I am not sure I have or can find the answer to. But one thing is certain this is a problem that I do not think many people want to address.
In Acts 4 we read in verse 32 that "Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul; neither did anyone say that any of the things he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common. And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. Nor was there anyone among them who lacked; for all who were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet; and they distributed to each as anyone had need." If we are apostolic then why do we not do this, not necessarily exactly this but something akin to this? Why are there people within our own church lacking while others have abundance? At what point did we get away from this and why? These are questions I am not sure I have or can find the answer to. But one thing is certain this is a problem that I do not think many people want to address.
Why would you be Eastern 'Orthodox' when Catholicism is the only Biblical and historical Christian religion?
ReplyDeleteBecause its not. Orthodoxy has not added to the faith, the RCC has.
DeleteEastern 'Orthodoxy' is the older sister of Protestantism, both were founded on rejection of the Papacy.
DeleteAre you aware that Eastern 'Orthodoxy' doesn't have a criteria on what makes a council binding? This is exactly what happens when one rejects the Papacy. The Early Church will tell you what makes a council binding. This is because the early Church was the Catholic Church.
St.Stephen the Faster, a Catholic monk in the East in the 8th century says to the 'bishops' at the robber council of Heiria:
"How can you call a council Ecumenical when The Bishop of Rome has not given his consent? And the canons forbid ecclesiastical affairs to be decided without The Pope of Rome?" [ 754 A.D. St.Stephen the Faster, PG 100,1144]
That quote obliterates Greek 'Orthodoxy' before it started in 1054.
Also look at what the Ecumenical councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon say:
Philip, presbyter and legate of the Apostolic See, said: "THERE IS NO DOUBT, AND IN FACT IT HAS BEEN KNOWN IN ALL AGES, that the holy and most blessed Peter, prince and Head of the Apostles, pillar of the faith, and foundation of the Catholic Church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of the human race, and that to him was given the power of loosing and binding sins, WHO DOWN EVEN TO TODAY AND FOREVER BOTH LIVES AND JUDGES IN HIS SUCCESSORS. The holy and most blessed Pope Celestine, according to due order, IS HIS SUCCESSOR AND HOLDS HIS PLACE..." Ecumenical Council of Ephesus,Session III (A.D. 431)
The Patriarch of Constantinople writing to Pope St.Leo the Great regarding canon 28 says:
"As for those things which the universal Council of Chalcedon recently ordained in favor of the church of Constantinople, let Your Holiness be sure that there was no fault in me, who from my youth have always loved peace and quiet, keeping myself in humility. It was the most reverend clergy of the church of Constantinople who were eager about it, and they were equally supported by the most reverend priests of those parts, who agreed about it. EVEN SO, THE WHOLE FORCE OF CONFIRMATION OF THE ACTS WAS RESERVED FOR THE AUTHORITY OF YOUR BLESSEDNESS. Therefore, let Your Holiness know for certain that I did nothing to further the matter, knowing always that I held myself bound to avoid the lusts of pride and covetousness. -- Patriarch Anatolius of Constantinople to Pope Leo, Ep 132
There are MANY MANY more quotes, Catholicism is the only Biblical and historical Christian religion.
Humility virtually doesn't exist in these days, you need to convert to the Traditional Catholic Faith for salvation.
Pope Leo XII, Ubi Primum (# 14), May 5, 1824: "It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members... by divine faith we hold one Lord, one faith, one baptism... This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church."
Please visit vaticancatholic.com for critical information on the Traditional Catholic Faith which is necessary for salvation.
Sister of Protestantism? That is a laughable claim. Rome went awry in adding to the faith and its worldly ideas of Church government which led to the massacre of millions of people. I do not have to be an expert on Rome to know that it is incorrect, especially with the blood of millions on its hands.
DeleteCardinal Yves Congar, "Diversity and Communion" Mystic: Twenty-Third, 1982, pp. 26-27. Cardinal Yves Congar
ReplyDelete"The East never accepted the regular jurisdiction of Rome, nor did it submit to the judgment of Western bishops. Its appeals to Rome for help were not connected with a recognition of the principle of Roman jurisdiction but were based on the view that Rome had the same truth, the same good. The East jealously protected its autonomous way of life. Rome intervened to safeguard the observation of legal rules, to maintain the orthodoxy of faith and to ensure communion between the two parts of the church, the Roman see representing and personifying the West...In according Rome a "primacy of honour", the East avoided basing this primacy on the succession and the still living presence of the apostle Peter. A modus vivendi was achieved which lasted, albeit with crises, down to the middle of the eleventh century."
Cardinal Yves Congar, "After Nine Hundred Years" New York: Fordham University, 1959, pp. 61-62.
"Many of the Eastern Fathers who are rightly acknowledged to be the greatest and most representative and are, moreover, so considered by the universal Church, do not offer us any more evidence of the primacy. Their writings show that they recognized the primacy of the Apostle Peter, that they regarded the See of Rome as the prima sedes playing a major part in the Catholic communion. We are recalling, for example, the writings of St. John Chrysostom and of St. Basil who addressed himself to Rome in the midst of the difficulties of the schism of Antioch but they provide us with no theological statement on the universal primacy of Rome by divine right. The same can be said of St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. John Damascene."
Cardinal Yves Congar, "Tradition and Traditions" New York: Macmillan, 1966, p. 398.
"It does sometimes happen that some Fathers understood a passage in a way which does not agree with later Church teaching. One example: the interpretation of Peter's confession in Matthew 16:16-19. Except at Rome, this passage was not applied by the Fathers to the papal primacy; they worked out an exegesis at the level of their own ecclesiological thought, more anthropological and spiritual than juridical."
Lastly, Protestantism occurred in the West due to Roman excesses and errors, consequently, Rome is the Mother of the Protestant Church.
St Justin Popovich
With this kind of a departure from the God-Man, from the ecumenical Church as the God-Man organism, Papism surpassed Luther, the founder of Protestantism. Thus, the first radical protest in the name of humanism against the God-Man Christ, and His God-Man organism—the Church—should be looked for in Papism, not in Lutheranism. Papism is actually the first and the oldest Protestantism.
We should not do this ourselves. Papism indeed is the most radical Protestantism, because it has transferred the foundation of Christianity from the eternal God-Man to ephemeral man. And it has proclaimed this as the paramount dogma, which means: the paramount value, the paramount measure of all beings and things in the world. And the Protestants merely accepted this dogma in its essence, and worked it out in terrifying magnitude and detail. Essentially, Protestantism is nothing other than a generally applied Papism. For in Protestantism, the fundamental principle of Papism is brought to life by each man individually. After the example of the infallible man in Rome, each Protestant is a cloned infallible man, because he pretends to personal infallibility in matters of faith. It can be said: Protestantism is a vulgarized Papism, only stripped of mystery (i.e., sacramentality), authority and power.
Did you read anything i wrote? I quoted Ecumenical councils and and the Church Fathers.
DeleteYour quotes by Yves Congar mean nothing as he was a modernist heretic who believed in religious liberty, religious indifference, that Muslims worship the Catholic God etc... Yves was not a Catholic but a heretic who was part of the end times counter-'church' AKA the Vatican II sect, AKA the Harlot of Babylon.
Which is why you see anti-popes John Paul II, B16, etc... 'praying' with the Protestants and Eastern 'Orthodox'
The Vatican II sect is a one world religion.
Back to some more primary sources from the early Church.
St.Cyril of Alexandria says:
"That these things are really so, let us produce a witness most worthy of faith, a most holy man, and ARCHBISHOP OF THE WHOLE HABITABLE WORLD, that Celestine, who is both Father and Patriarch of the mighty City of Rome, who himself also exhorted thee by letter, bidding thee desist from that maddest of blasphemies, and thou didst not obey him."(St.Cyril of Alexandria To The Heresiarch Nestorius) [Rev. Joseph Berington and Rev. John Kirk, The Faith of Catholics, Volume 2, p.83]
Patriarch St.Sophronius of Jerusalem in the 7th century says:
"Go through all the world till you come to the Apostolic See, where is the foundation of orthodox belief. Tell the most holy persons of that See all about our difficulties: do not cease to beg and entreat them until their Apostolic and Divine wisdom shall pronounce the victorious sentence, and shall canonically root out this new heresy." -Patriarch St.Sophronius to bishop Stephen of Dora (before sending him to Rome, 639 A.D.) [Mansi, Collectio conciliorum, 10:896]
C. J. MacGillivray(A early 20th century Anglican) disagrees about the E."Orthodox" sects being in 'full agreement' C.J. says that, as an Anglican clergyman, he spent some years in the East amongst the Greeks and Syrians, working for the reunion of Greeks and Anglicans. He found it impossible, and in the end became a Catholic. C.J. then wrote a book called "Through The East To Rome" On page 91 of his book he writes:
"To begin with, there is no such thing as the 'Orthodox Church.' There is a group of some 15 or 16 independent Churches, recognizing no common authority, but loosely connected as being all 'Orthodox.' And again, if you leave out Russia, the whole number of the Orthodox is exceedingly small; and the Russian Church was only held together by the power of the State..."
"Cerularius had not succeeded in his plan of setting himself up as the head of a great theocracy, but he had done a far greater work and one that still lasts, he had definitely established the schismatical Eastern Church... Philip Meyer's article on 'Cerularius' in the great German Protestant Encyclopedia of Theology, for instance, says of the quarrel between the Churches: 'This time it was Michael who arbitrarily took it up again, just at a time when the court of Byzantium and the Pope had enough reason for an alliance in the Norman war... Michael violently suppressed the Latin rite... and sent a letter... a regular declaration of war against the Roman Church.'" [Fr.Adrian Fortescue, The Orthodox Eastern Church p.196]
Protestant Scholar Dr.Orchard says:
"An examination of the circumstances of the Great Schism shows that the Eastern Church did then repudiate a supremacy which it had previously been in the habit of conceding to the Roman Patriarchate." [Fr.Rumble and Fr.Carty, Radio Replies Vol.2 p.306]
You need to humble yourself, and look over the material at vaticancatholic.com
Submit to the Chair of St.Peter, don't end up in Hell like Core and his minions did for their schism against Moses (Numbers 26:10)