Pope Francis describes ‘ideological Christians’ as a ‘serious illness’

[Lucky Day]

So now I have started to frequent an evangelical church, part of a bigger congregation that is said to be a bit like pentecostals, except without the focus on supernatural gifts, just on a pure and sober understanding of the scriptures. The service is in an old Baptist church that is also shared with an English-speaking Baptist congregation at a different hour of the day.

The church is small but very cozy, and the pastor is a truly great man, incredibly generous and benevolent, also very articulate and intelligent with a great understanding of scriptures and a knack for vulgarizing. My wife came to the last service and she loved it as well. I came to his bible study earlier this week. I was one of the only two young people but that didn't bother me, the people were great. The wife told me she was kind of relieved that I wouldn't spend evenings with young church girls. She can't help but have a jealous side.

I must say though it is still a stretch to me. It is just incredibly weird to me to see a pastor with his wife and his son, somewhere in my mind it doesn't add up and I hope this man would be a priest instead. It is also strange to see the old testament quoted in the service and cited authoritatively.

Otherwise the service is very very similar to a Catholic service, so I'm not too lost and I appreciate the deeper discussion on the Scriptures. I'll probably be a regular member of the congregation. I'm still nervous that they're going to end up bringing up adult baptism though.

is this thread still going?

concerning marriage . keep in mind what Paul said to Timothy (1 Tim 4:1-3):

"in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. "

Now Paul himself chose not to marry but he makes a point of saying that's just him; not everyone is like him. But as you see he admonished those who did and said it will be a sign of end times. In fact, its well known that the Apostle Peter was married.

The idea of a separate class of priests above a laity does not come from the Christianity; its Plato's idea of a celibate group of Philosopher Kings running society. Its influence was an early one among converted philosophers and they called themselves Neo-Platonists.

This is why its important to read the Bible for yourself. You see already your pastor quotomg from the Old Testament. Without knowing what he is saying I can't say what he is saying is wrong. But I can say the Law has been fulfilled in Christ is and its an important topic that Paul brings up in Galatians and Romans. The entire book of Hebrews is about it too. But don't take my word for it, that's what I encourage.

On this other topic, there's lot's that can be said about the devil appearing as an angel of light. It is pointed out about being wary of "wolves in sheep's clothing" having the appearance of godliness but denying the power thereof, and knowing a Christian by their fruit.

 

[Hexprone]

Now Paul himself chose not to marry but he makes a point of saying that's just him; not everyone is like him.

He said that it was good for everyone who was not married to remain unmarried.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

There is nothing unbiblical about priests. I think it actually fully makes sense. I don't begrudge someone who has a pastoral gift and wants to put it to use while remaining married. However if one wants to wear the mantle of a pastor, the ideal is that he should wholly dedicated himself to serving God and give up on some wordly pleasures such as marriage.

This is why having the Catholic church to protect all these traditions is important.

 

[Damian]

How can you talk about the dangers of "being nice" and then proceed to whine about the crusades?

Actual study of history teaches us that the crusades were wars waged in self defense after centuries of muslim aggression. Jerusalem itself was Christian for centuries before the saracens invaded. The byzantine emperor begged for help. Contrary to popular knowledge, there was little economic interest in the military expeditions(at least initially), and both kings and commoners piously sold their earthly possessions in order to journey eastward.

Fact is people have a lot of misconceptions about the fourth crusade, the sack of constantinople and its causes. Even the tragedy of those events is not enough to badmouth the crusaders. They were mostly heroes and they died for Christianity. Wether you like it or not, if those men had not shed their blood in the sand you would be muslim by now.

How does this apply to the world now? We have to stop all the muslims entering our western countries? Just because they had good reasons doesnt make them right reasons.

 

[Damian]

He said that it was good for everyone who was not married to remain unmarried.

Actually he said that anyone that is not tempted can stay single but those who are tempted to get married.

 

[Hexprone]

"Actually":

I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I.

Marriage being better than adultery doesn't make it equal to chastity.

I should emphasize that I really have no dog in this fight. But I like clarity in language.

 

[Damian]

Yeah I agree. But if you are tempted in the very next line it says this:

But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

 

[Corwin]

There are many theories about why Paul seems to be against marriage ranging from his own love life, to an expectation that the world as he knew it was about to end. However, the bottom line is that God blesses and encourages marriage since it best represents the relationship between Him and His church (the Bride of Christ). Historically, celebacy for priests is a recent invention, But that is probably a topic for a different thread.

 

[Caddy]

There's also a lot of contradictions to Paul's ideas on marriage. Are we taking Adam and Eve, or Noah in to account? Should this have applied to them? Should they have lived a life a celibacy? Paul also said “In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” when he was talking to the people of Corinthe, but on this topic, it seems Paul stands alone. Nevermind the fact the 2nd Corinthians is actually 3rd Corinthians, because it seems a book a Corinthians is missing completely.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

I have subscribed to the newsletter of Bishop Richard Williamson of the SSPX who is a great thinker and Catholic scholar and his latest issue was especially encouraging to me. In it he relates the word of the Virgin Mary in an apparition of hers a few centuries ago which rings especially true today:

Resistance Advice

The “Resistance” may or may not organize,
But suff’ring will be its hallmark and its prize.

A precious exchange of e-mails came recently over my desk which I am sure many souls in their difficult circumstances of today will appreciate. The problem comes from a typical 21 st century city-dweller who has the Faith but feels abandoned. The solution presented here is based on a prophecy of Our Lady from the 17 th century! Firstly, the problem:—

“I am a female nurse from Germany, 48 years old. 12 years ago I entered a Convent and loved it, trying to deepen my relationship with God, but after 10 years I had to leave because of the modernism. I could not take my final vows because the Community was far from the Truth. I thought that leaving would please my heavenly Father and make me a kind of heroine in his eyes, but now I am very sad, and feel abandoned by God, not at all like a heroine.

“Two years ago I did get a job back in the hospital where I worked before entering the Convent, but here I am back in the world where the people around me are ignorant or modern, where nobody has any faith, and if they do, they don’t know why. I am too old to be able to find a job close to the sacraments. Shift work stops me from getting to Mass every Sunday. The nearest Traditional Mass is an hour’s drive away. So here I am, sitting in the dark, with little access to the sacraments. The situation in Church and world is so confused that I just do not know what to do. Where is there a way out of the darkness? Where do I go to figure out what I am supposed to do with my life? “

And now in answer to the problem, advice which any number of us in the quote-unquote Resistance, seeking to withstand the worldwide apostasy, can take to heart:—

“Dear friend, in Ecuador in 1634 Our Lady gave to a holy nun almost direct guidance for us in these unholy times which we are blessed to live in (even though they may not feel like a blessing). She promised that there would always be, despite the worldwide apostasy, souls that would remain faithful and would preserve the treasure of the Faith and virtues. But they would suffer a cruel, unspeakable and prolonged martyrdom. She said, ‘ In order to free men from bondage to the heresies all around, the souls chosen by my Most Holy Son to effect the restoration will need great strength of will, constancy, valour and confidence in God. To test this faith and confidence of the just, there will be occasions where all will seem to be lost. Just then will be the happy beginning of the restoration.’

“There is an excellent summary of this message of Our Lady on the Internet at: OUR LADY OF GOOD SUCCESS: prophetic revelations made to Venerable Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres.

“Many of us find ourselves in similar circumstances to yours. We are deprived of the help and strength which comes from living in a community surrounded by our fellow Catholics with a rule and Superior to guide us . While I am not a religious, it is still a tremendous suffering for me to be deprived of Sacraments, priests and fellow Catholics, and to find myself having to work in the very world which my heart, mind and soul reject. But this is the suffering God is permitting for many of us and the very suffering we must embrace, being in union with His will for each of us, uniting our sufferings to those which our beloved Saviour suffered and offered for us. By so doing we are drawn to Him like His little ones. He has not forgotten you. On the contrary, by all you endure, you give to His Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart of Mary much needed consolation and may perhaps be obtaining graces for those who have lost the Faith.”

Kyrie eleison.

 

[Ripper]

I have subscribed to the newsletter of Bishop Richard Williamson of the SSPX who is a great thinker and Catholic scholar and his latest issue was especially encouraging to me.

Bishop Richard Williamson - a "great thinker", and a discredited, convicted holocaust denialist. Also, not even part of the SSPX, which fired him for his extremism. Oh, and ejected from Argentina for "offending all of humanity".

Your choice of inspiration, intellectually and morally contemptible as it may be, is at least consistent with your earlier comments about the "jew sycophants".

 

[Pladio]

It's sad that people today still follow people who believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Jews and Holocaust denial[edit]
Williamson condemns the Jews.[48] He called them the "enemies of Christ" and urges their conversion to Catholicism.[49][50][51] He says that Jews and Freemasons have contributed to the "changes and corruption" in the Catholic Church.[52][53][54][49] He has also stated that Jews aim at world dominion[16][55] and believes The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to be authentic.[16]

Or believe women shouldn't attend university.

Society[edit]
Williamson holds strong views regarding gender roles and dress. He opposes women wearing trousers or shorts,[39][40][41] attending college or university, or having a career,[42][43] and has urged greater "manliness" in men.[40][41]

He supports authoritarian parenting style, denouncing the film The Sound of Music as "soul-rotting slush" and saying that, by putting "friendliness and fun in the place of authority and rules, it invites disorder between parents and children."[14][44][45]

Williamson supports conspiracy theories regarding the assassination of President Kennedy, and the World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theory, denying that the latter were terrorist attacks but were instead staged by the U.S. government.[16][41][46] He has also said that the 7 July 2005 London bombings were an "inside job" and propagated rumours about the likelihood of a nuclear attack on the London Olympics in 2012.[47]

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Lol, why did I know that someone would be here like clockwork to derail a conversation mostly about the grace of God with a hit piece that has all the grace of a Gawker reporter?

It is pretty ridiculous because it's like if I said because you listen to Richard Dawkins, you agree with every controversial statement he has made, which I will not repeat here.

I never said I believed in every last thing he said, among all those things cited I believe in some degree of massonic influence in the Catholic church (though I believe it's mostly Catholics themselves who compromised for others), overt friendliness in the media and in the traditional gender roles. He is definitely a very controversial figure, although these things represent an extremely small part of the whole body of literature he produced and isn't addressed at all in his bulletins. He mostly talks about the conflicts between Catholic traditionalists who disagree with the direction taken by the church after Vatican II and modernists who embraced it.

He definitely is not afraid to call things as he personally sees them, though I do think he is at times too keen to embrace so called conspiracy theories.

But the man has been given the best education the Western world has to offer and has a great understanding of the Catholic faith. He has a lot of relevant things to say about the state of modern society and tradition vs. relativism and modernism. In this regard he is definitely worth reading.

 

[Ripper]

In this regard he is definitely worth reading.

No, he's not.

He's a nasty, fanatical pseudo-intellectual with a mediocre 2:2 from Cambridge, and no one with any sense and decency would waste their time with him.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

No, he's not.

He's a nasty, fanatical pseudo-intellectual with a 2:2 from Cambridge, and no one with any sense and decency would waste their time with him.

Hmmm, replace Cambridge by Oxford, and you've got yourself a certain Mr Dawkins.

 

[Ripper]

Hmmm, replace Cambridge by Oxford, and you've got yourself a certain Mr Dawkins.

I'm not quite sure what Dawkins has to do with your subscription to a holocaust denier's newsletter.

He did get his degree at Oxford, though. Then a Masters, a PhD, and a professorship, before being made an Oxford Professor of Public Understanding.

Their CVs are virtually interchangable.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

First off it's not how many degrees that a man has received that makes the man, it's the core of his ideas. I'm not surprised that you're harping on a small part of his ideas, one where he was put on the spot at that. I've already told you I don't subscribe to most of the "conspiracy theories" he espouses but of course that is irrelevant to you. I seek great thinkers who defend traditionalism in front of attacks by modernism and relativism and on that front he provides.

In fact member Fretrider here has met him in a group setting when he toured Brazil and can attest that he was a great man.

Dawkins is a discredited scientist for whom his selfish gene theory flopped who resold himself as a front figure of the "new wave atheist" movement and whose book "The God Delusion" was heavily criticized who accumulates all kinds of ridiculous inflammatory statements, such as "christianity is more harmful than child abuse" which simply boggle the mind.

You might find this article about Dawkins and some of his bedfellows quite interesting:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/12/new-atheism-old-empire/

 

[FretRider]

No, he's not.

He's a nasty, fanatical pseudo-intellectual with a mediocre 2:2 from Cambridge, and no one with any sense and decency would waste their time with him.

Heresy! He denied the holocaust! Criminal! Burn him at the stake!

One thing that has to be said for the good Bishop is that he is absolutely correct about your kind. We are talking about fools completely brainwashed into playing fetch for whatever stick the powers that be throw at you.

Not that I'm saying that I particularly agree with his historical views on the "holocaust", but to label him a criminal because of a simple opinion on historical revisionism? Ok, so he believes there were no gas chambers and only about half a million jews died. You really think you should be so scandalized about that? Is "Holocaustianity" your religion?

Bottomline is that he is a good man and quite probably the best Bishop around right now. He is completely orthodox and moral to a fault. Historical revisionism has never been the grounds for ecclesiastical trial and the persecutions he has suffered were totally unlawful and immoral.

 

[FretRider]

I also have to laugh of your sniping at his academic record.

You are probably one of those atheist militants who worships Stephen Hawkings and other "pop scientists". Besides never making any concrete actual discovery or contribution to scientific advancement, Hawkings nearly flunked his college classes several times.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

You know what is the most ironic about all this? Militant atheists like Ripper are the ones who go on about how the church was unfair and oppressive and did things like the Inquisition which had questionable merits. It's obvious to anyone that the Catholic church has committed many sins, though I would put forth that it's not the only organization which has.

However in culture today, whenever they see someone they even remotely disagree with or who did something morally questionable (often simply not toeing the line), instantly you get a ton of attacks and public flogging and they set out to destroy that person. In essence, they decry evil, but they espouse the very methods of the evil they are decrying.

I read an interesting comment a few weeks ago about how the current generation of aggressive secularists were influenced by Calvinistic ideologies, where things like public flogging were very common.