The roman catholic sun cult has from its inception been satans counterfeit church.
God is Truth (John 14:6), and so unless 100% of what non-Christians do is false, it is to be expected that what few good elements there are within other religions would be baptized into the Christian faith. This goes for rational arguments as well as symbols and imagery - insofar as such things do not contradict the teachings of the faith.
Jesus said "few" will find eternal life. Not the largest so called Christian denomination.
Few just indicates some amount less than half of the whole. There are almost 8 billion people alive today, and many more who have lived throughout time. Furthermore, not everyone who calls himself Catholic will necessarily be saved. The Truth of the faith is not determined by how many claim to believe in it.
Revelation 14:2 - Here is the patients of the saints. Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
That verse alone disqualifies the jews, catholics and her daughters.
No it doesn't. I already explained how there has to be a difference between eternal / moral commands that last forever, and ceremonial commandments, like circumcision, that do not. Given that this is the case, we must look only at the eternal commandments to see who keeps what. Christ commanded that we love God above all, and love our neighbour as ourselves - commandments which contain the Ten Commandments themselves.
"The Pope and God are the same, so he has all power in Heaven and earth." - Pope Pius V, quoted in Barclay, Chapter XXVII, p. 218, "Cities Petrus Bertanous".
That's a fake quote. The actual statement reads thus:
He that reigneth on high, to whom is given all power in heaven and earth, has committed one holy Catholic and apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, to one alone upon earth, namely to Peter, the first of the apostles, and to Peter’s successor, the pope of Rome, to be by him governed in fullness of power.
God reigneth on high, and committed the Church to Peter and Peter's successors, the Popes.
Pope Nicholas I declared that "the appellation of God had been confirmed by Constantine on the Pope, who, being God, cannot be judged by man." - Labb IX Dist.: 96 Can. 7, Satis evidentur, Decret Gratian Primer Para.
Another fake quote. The statement is from Decretum Gratiani, Prima Pars, Distinctio 96, Canon 7. is the full source. Go to Distinctio 96 (XCVI), then in the sidebar to the left, click on Canon 7 (VII), and you will find the following text:
Satis euidenter ostenditur, a seculari potestate nec solui prorsus, nec ligari Pontificem, quem constat a pio principe Constantino (quem longe superius memorauimus) Deum appellatum, cum nec posse Deum ab hominibus iudicari manifestum sit. Sed et Theodosius minor sanctae sinodo scribens dixit Ephesinae primae. "Deputatus est igitur Candidianus, magnificentissimus comes strenuorum domesticorum, transire usque ad sanctissimam sinodum uestram, et in nullo quidem, quem faciendae sunt de piis dogmatibus questiones seu potius expositiones, communicare. Illicitum namque est eum, qui non sit in ordine sanctissimorum episcoporum, ecclesiasticis intermisceri tractatibus."
Putting this through Translate, I get the following:
It is clearly shown,
should be set free from a secular power, either totally
be either bound the Pope
which has proved its love by the loving ruler, Constantine
(very mentioned above)
God called / appointed [Deum appellatum]
when it cannot be judged by men that God can manifest to sense.
It is readily understood how a careless translation could seem to entirely change the meaning. By breaking the statements into one translation at a time, what I glean from this is that 1) God is not judged by man, and 2) the Pope is appointed or called by God. It is not saying that the Pope is God, that is to say, shares His essence; this runs completely contrary to the doctrine of the Catholic Church and the Church's entire tradition. Even if a Pope did say this, it would render him a heretic; it would not render the faith false.
"We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty"
Yes, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ. The Pope is not God, but he does "stand in God's place" temporally, on Earth; that's what Vicar means. That's what Christ signified by giving the keys of heaven to Peter, the first Pope; a key is something that grants access to a place, and does not change its shape - if its shape is changed, is use is forfeited. Thus Peter (and Peter's successors, after him) were entrusted to hold this key, this true faith, and protect it from perversions such as your own.
"Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change (Saturday Sabbath to Sunday) was her act... And the act is a MARK of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things."
The act was performed by the Apostles themselves (see my reference to Acts 20:7 in my comment above), and the Apostles were the Fathers of the Catholic Church. The justifiability of this change to ceremonial precepts I have already explained. Unless you want to argue, contrary to St. Paul, that circumcision is still necessary for salvation, than your radical fear of altering anything from the Old Law is as inconsistent as it is ridiculous.
"Sunday is our MARK of authority. . .the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact" Catholic Record of London, Ontario Sept 1,1923.
This must be approached in a Thomistic way. In how many ways can a thing be "above" another? In perfection, is one way; in nature, another; in priority, another still. In perfection, Scripture is above the Church (taking the Church to be its members as well as its doctrines), since the Church's members may be flawed or contradictory, whereas Scripture cannot be. In nature the same is true (if the Church is taken the same way), since Scripture is the very Word of God. But in priority, the Church is first, since it is by the Church (or more accurately, by God, through His Church) that Scripture is canonized and thus given its authority. In this way, the Church is above Scripture, which, reacting charitably to the statement quoted, is what must have been meant.
Or in that statement, the Church was strictly being taken as her Magisterium and doctrines, in which case the authority given her would have been emphasized only, and the same conclusion can be drawn.
Revelation 18:4 - Come out of "her" my people
The Church is a "her" because She is the Bride of Christ; the Harlot is a "her" because she was unfaithful to Christ, who should have been faithful. The Harlot is Apostate Israel, and it is you who must come out of your apostasy, enter into humility, and cease applying individual and insufficiently informed interpretations to the Word of God.
Your entire faith is based on an incomplete understanding of the necessary difference between ceremonial and eternal precepts, as well as a reliance on websites that misquote Catholic Popes.
My words can convince you of nothing. Only when you heed Christs spirit speaking to you will you come to the truth.
But seeing as you allow only the roman prelates to guide you, Christs spirit is shut out. Satan dwells in what should be His place.
Shameful.
On two counts you have misquoted Popes, and you have not responded to the point that some ceremonial precepts have clearly been fulfilled in Christ and thus are no longer followed in the same way (circumcision). It is you who has closed your mind to Truth, and thus to God.
Not responded because my words cannot pull you from the ditch while you are clinging on to the walls.
Once you let go, then Christs spirit can come to you and teach you all things. As of now, you rely on men in silly costumes and ornate temples to lead you.
Shameful. You declare in your heart you are rich and in need of nothing. You have nothing to learn from me, so dont waste your breath replying. I sure wont.
/thread
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ArcticFamousIbex-size_restricted.gif
But in priority, the Church is first, since it is by the Church (or more accurately, by God, through His Church) that Scripture is canonized and thus given its authority. In this way, the Church is above Scripture, which, reacting charitably to the statement quoted, is what must have been meant.
I think this ought to follow from straightforward reasoning. The revelations of God through Moses, and later through Christ, were temporal events (instances, in other words, and by extension: historical) whereby eternal Truth was transmitted in a necessarily finite mode. Now, this forges an important distinction! There comes to be a difference between the eternal gnosis which is represented by the words and the tokens of ink on paper or parts of speech themselves. This is, in one way, the very same mystery as Christ the man, i.e. the duality of that which is unchangeable enduring within the changeable. The eternal Truth does not change, nor can it yet provide the exhaustive list of every possible ceremonial/ritualistic contingency embodied in Christian praxis, now and into the changeable future.
It's simple. The world changes - quite drastically. Therefore, the Truth itself must have both eternal components and temporal ones (which PS has called the ceremonial). The substantive parts of culture representing the moral battleground of the ancient near east were always going to change, and we can expect these to be vastly different for us 2,000 years from now. It seems obvious that this must be the case.
I'd be inclined not even to view the Scripture and the Church as separate identities, rather as material and living vessels for the transmission of unchanging, abstract truths. The Bible itself (in the temporal sense) is a changeable book. Words on paper are not eternal, but the Word is eternal. The Church, as the living organism which protects that spiritual DNA, must change (cautiously and guided by the spirit) with the world, and therefore must have priority above Scripture as it concerns the temporal aspects of the way that eternal truth manifests in the finite ceremonial and ritual aspects of praxis. At least, I'm not inclined to think that eternal Truth hinges on what day of the calendar week mankind celebrates the Sabbath; what I mean is that I cannot see that things as important as creation, love, and salvation hang by the strings of Saturday or Sunday.
I think there is a very good analogy which connects the Church and the Bible to a biological cell and its chromosomes, where we think of the DNA as Truth. On the one hand, we have the physical material of the DNA, which is just stuff. It is finite, but what it represents in terms of information is something abstract and eternal. We might think that there just is a perfect and true genetic code for the human organism, an Ideal Form. The actual material of DNA is like the words of the Bible, tokens of the eternal Truth that we could print billions of times (indeed, there are billions of people). The eternal Form which is pointed to by the DNA does not change.
If you view the Church as operating like all of the cellular machinery built up around the sheltering space of the nucleus, it's clear that the Church has a great interest in preserving the integrity of the physical stuff of the DNA. The physical DNA is the actual interface of the Truth (eternal) with the duality and danger of the world. To transmit that physical truth to the next generation of cells means maintaining the integrity of the physical copy.
Here is where the metaphor becomes interesting. The extra-nuclear cellular envelope (with all of its complex parts) exists quite literally around the DNA for a very simple reason, so that the cell membrane (acting like a shield) senses the assault by and the changes in the world FIRST. The cell's function just is to sense the totality of pressure toward change issuing from the surrounding world, and to permit only certain change-signals to reach the nucleus, whereby the DNA does not change, rather, its expression changes. Therefore, the Church acts as a protector of the physical stuff, and a transmitter of the representation of eternal Truth, but also as a mediator and arbitrator which can sense the changing world and permit certain changes to the Biblical interpretation that will preserve both the integrity of herself and the Bible mutually across their life in the world.
The eternal Truth does not change; there is always within every cell a condensed truth script called DNA, which is modular in the sense that it has functional parts called genes, just like the Bible is modular. Some genes can be quieted while others are promoted, and this symphony of which involves the careful and skilled playing of this key but not that key across time is what preserves the integrity of the music. This is how both the DNA and the Bible, as physical tokens of something eternal, endure within a changing world. The Church is the cell which protects that Truth, interprets it, and transmits it.
I'd be inclined not even to view the Scripture and the Church as separate identities, rather as material and living vessels for the transmission of unchanging, abstract truths.
I wanted to touch on this, thank you. The Church is typically "divided" into three: Scripture, Tradition, Magisterium. And yet these three are relationally distinct, but not necessarily distinct in essence - just as the only distinction between the Three Persons of the Trinity are those of relation, not of essence. I'm not saying it is exactly the same with the Church, but it is surely similar. Rightly speaking, Scripture cannot be separated from the Church, any more than the Son can be separated from the Godhead. And this is precisely why men like EMJ insist that "if you take the Bible out of the Church what you get is revolution", as he demonstrates well in his writings.
Nice analogy with the cell.
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