JonAkbarSpielberg

If being and Atheist comes with a medical and a dental plan, then count me in.

HelenM

Albert,

Oh, never mind...I am not sensing that you have a great deal of understanding of conservative Protestants and I really find it hard to believe that Roman Catholics through the ages have had the same approach to the Bible as you...but I don't want to fight with you.

love
Helen

[ March 04, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Dear Daemon,


By the very words of that council. This last council was the only council in the history of the Church that explicitly asserted its own NON-infallible status. It claimed to be merely a pastoral council, not meaning to define any matters of faith or morals.

So by its own words about its own words and those words themselves, all 300 odd pages of ambiguous theological speculation and seeming contradiction, we are free to ignore and better yet, fight against, those documents which are a pastoral blueprint for the auto-demolition of the Church.

Once again, the Traditional Catholic does not rely on his own judgment. That's the Protestant/liberal heresy. The Traditional Catholic relies on the judgments of the Church through the ages to reject the novelties of today's apostate Church hierarchy. The Church Herself, the Church of all time, the traditional Church, condemns the modernistic collection of faithless bishops that pass as today’s new and improved Novus Ordo Church. Not I. Not I. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

John Page

That wouldn't be the subjective opinion of the Catholic Church talking, would it?

Albert Cipriani

Dear ExPreacher,
You claim that Protestants


No one argues this. Everyone argues that they're MIS-interpreting it. Point being, barring some sort of Divine intervention (read: infallible charism bequeathed upon the Catholic Church), EVERY INTERPRETATION IS A MIS-INTERPRETATION. This is true for every symbol we interpret, not just for the book of symbols known as the Word of God.

Whatever God had in mind, His act of symbolizing that thought into words necessarily reduced that thought into a lesser thought, much like how a jar of ocean water is a reduction in the concept of what the ocean is. And since everyone of us are unique, each one of our interpretations of any symbol must necessarily be unique, i.e., our post-symbolic thought must be a MIS-interpretation of the pre-symbolic original thought.

I think it's an epistemological truism that the act of interpretation is an act of MIS-interpretation. The trick is to avoid contradiction in one's mis-interpretations. That the Catholic Church has done for 2,000 years.

Conversely, in just 200 years, our secularized supreme court has managed to MIS-interpret the constitution WITH contradiction many times. For example, it's interpreted the black man as property, as 3/5's of a human being, as a full fledged human being subject to separate but equal treatment, and finally as one who, if treated separately, is de facto being treated UN-equally.

Pathetic! Guess it's a good thing we have separation of Church and State, lest our Churches be even more corrupted and contradictory institutions than they already are. -- Sincerely Albert the Traditional Catholic

HelenM

Not to annoy you further...although it might seem like I'm trying to...what you said reminds me of this: I heard that the Catholic Church went along with Hitler rather than opposing him, during WWII.

Have they never changed their mind about that or is it that those who did so were not reflecting the opinion of most of the church?

Have they never changed their mind about Jews, throughout their history?

I'm just asking...

love
Helen

Albert Cipriani

Dear Helen,


The Catholic Church is universal, not the geographic area known as the Vatican occupied by the "man in a dress" as Expreacher derisively says. Whatever the hierarchy of the Church does, be they stationed in the Vatican or in Chicago molesting little boys, is not what the Church does.



Apostate bishops, popes, clergy, and lay persons have changed their mind like lemmings changing their course to the sea, in droves. Changing one’s mind is the very definition of apostasy. But their mind is not the mind of the Church. The Church is not a democracy. It's mind has not and cannot be changed. It is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

HelenM

Hi Albert

You said:

The Catholic Church is universal.

Whatever the hierarchy of the Church does, be they stationed in the Vatican or in Chicago molesting little boys, is not what the Church does.

But [the mind of apostate bishops, popes, clergy, and lay persons] is not the mind of the Church. The Church is not a democracy. It's mind has not and cannot be changed. It is the same today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

Ok...so...you use this term 'the mind of the Church' that evidently a lot of the hierarchy of the church have not/do not have. What is that? How do you decide which popes who spoke infallibly had it and which didn't?

I am trying to understand what your 'measuring stick' is since you do not unquestioningly accept what the Bible says, or what 'the church' says (because the infallible church pronouncement may have been by an Apostate) - so, when you decide whether something is really reflecting 'the mind of the Church' - upon what do you base that decision? What is your standard - since it's not the Bible and it's not the Church? Doesn't that mean it's your own subjective judgement about what is right and what isn't?

In which case all you are doing is following your own convictions/conscience/beliefs/prejudices (with respect - but we all have them, don't we?), aren't you? Or are you saying that you listen to the Holy Spirit speaking to you personally about who is telling the truth and who isn't? Which puts you in pretty much the same boat as a Charismatic Protestant - except at least they are not so ready as you to view the Bible through their own subjective filter.

Albert, show me the 'objectivity' in your beliefs because they seem entirely subjective to me, based on what you've said so far...

love
Helen

daemon

On what basis do you fight against them, however? Regardless of the "fallibility" status of the Second Vatican documents, anything which is opposed to them is, by your own reasoning, fallible. So you oppose the Church today based on the fallible doctrines of the past... this does not seem entirely logical, Albert.
You contradict yourself, Albert. The Church through the ages cannot condemn the present; if teachings of the present contradicts the past, the past teachings are fallible. You said so yourself. Now, if you want to claim that the present Church is so significantly different that the rules of ordinary magisterum do not apply, on what grounds do you do so? The Church of the past obviously did not condemn its future incarnation, so the only authority I can see this resting on is your own reason, making you no better than the Protestants you scoff at.

ex-preacher

I think I've got it now, Albert -
Protestants worship Bible
Regular Catholics worship old man in dress.
Traditional Catholics worship the magisterium.

First two are hopelessly subjective, but third is objective rationality.