Bricker, can you explain to me why only wheat bread and wine from grapes can have, by consecration as part of the sacrament of the Eucharist, their substance transformed into the flesh and blood of Christ? Is there a theological answer why these two products are special in this regard?
My opinion was asked for and I gave it. I was not trying to say I am better than anyone else.
It is called “matter” in theology.
For a Sacrament to be valid, it must use proper form and proper matter.
There is no way this can be explained fully in a forum like this. Thousands of books have been written on Sacramental Theology spanning centuries. I can give you links and book titles if you like
Sure don’t. Do you?
My experience with the religion of my parents is that I have absolutely no warm sympathetic feelings towards either of them. None. Zero. I find your belief that a grown person is unavoidably sympathetic to the religion of their parents to be laughable, and easily disproved by asking…oh, let’s say any of the extremely large number of atheists that were raised by religious families.
(Edit: That is, no sympathetic feelings towards either of their religions. I have a few warm feelings about my actual parents. :p)
Why not?
Well, I’ve got this:
Voila - no mind reading involved at all.
I’m not sure what tomndebb thought was going to happen in MPSIMS, but moving it to MPSIMS didn’t prevent a debate from breaking out. I’m moving the thread back to GD – if he really doesn’t want it there, he can move it to the Pit.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
(deleted by terry)
Actually, I really would like to go back to the original intent of the thread. I guess I will ignore other posts that go off=track. Is that what you mean? That’s okay by me, seriously.
REPEAT OF FIRST POST:
Ask A Catholic
Hello there. I am a Conservative and a Catholic. I am real about my conservatism and I am real about my Catholicism. If you have a question about Catholicism that you feel you have never gotten a straight answer to, ask me and you’ll get it. I have taught classes in “Apologetics” (Defending The Faith) so I can either give you a correct answer, or at least I can link you to the correct information. Believe me, there are plenty of websites that have crappy information and some websites that have good information, and I know the difference.
If anyone is REALLY intersted in this, here is a bit of a primer; the best condensed explanation of Catholicism online (about a 5 to 10 minute read): http://www.catholic.com/library/pillar.asp
(Please be respectful. Thank you)
False dichotomy, assuming that anyone with some sympathy for the religion of his father is not a genuine convert.
Regards,
Shodan
You are using different criteria for abortion and war
You say that simply knowing a polician will support abortion is argument enough to not vote for him. You ignore whether or not his beliefs will manifest into any tangible difference in the levels of abortion
Yet for war, you qualify your answer with whether or not they will eventually start a war. Nothing you said mentions whether simply knowing if they support a war, which is evident enough in their public platforms, is argument enough to not vote for them
So in effect, knowing a politican supports abortion, regardless of whether their election leads to more abortions, is reason not to vote for him. But knowing if a politician supports war is fine. Only if it actually leads to a war, then your vote will have been in error. But then, that vote is already cast, isn’t it?
Would you vote for a politician who is pro-choice, yet will implement policies resulting in less abortions overall, or would you support the pro-life candidate, knowing that it’s likely their policies will lead to more abortions?
Theological questions:
-Who do you think are saved? Only Catholics or all Christians or good human beings or all human beings in general?
-Do you believe the earth to be young or old? Do you believe God used evolution to create Man?
-Do you believe in papal infallibility?
-What are your opinion of the Protestant Reformers?
Piffle.
The claim that it is homosexuality that is causing the problem, (with the subtext that recent changes in seminaries either allowing or promoting homosexuality), has been a serious claim by a number of far right bishops and a few similar lay groups–and it is hogwash.
There have been substantial numbers of girls who have been abused, just as there have been abuses of boys. (If anything, the press has played up the attacks on boys more than on girls.) Beyond that, the stories that have been coming to light have involved kids going back well into the 1950s. (There would probably be more cases from the 1940s and earlier, but the people who would be in those age groups are now well into their 60s or older and probably do not want to bring forth such claims at this point in their lives.) The most serious accusations have been made against people like John Geoghan who was actually ordained before the Second Vatican Council was convened.
Now, I do not claim that you support the deliberate attempts to misdirect people regarding the issues nor that you are one of the people who falsely claim that changes in seminary practices have created the problem, but your claims do echo the more generalized comments made by people such as Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone–comments that are without basis in fact.
Your remarks concerning the distributed nature of church authority are correct, although people who wish to see the church as monolithic will never be persuaded of that fact, but your efforts to shift the discussion into one of homosexuality is simply wrong.
This is the sort of answer that got this thread off the rails. Instead of sticking to answering questions about Catholicism and simply declining to answer off-topic questions, you chose to insert your personal views, (views that appear to be based at least partly on factual errors), into the discussion.
President Obama was never a Muslim and never lived in a Muslim household, so you need to find out what you are talking about on that topic.
Any claims regarding “authentic Christianity” are seriously out of scope, both for this thread and, frankly, for your competence to answer. (You may hold whatever personal opinion you might choose, but if you are asserting that you are providing “Catholic” answers, you are out of your element.)
The Liberation Theology endorsed by Reverend Wright shared only a name with the Liberation Theology that was advanced in Latin America twenty years earlier and the pope’s remarks had as much to do with the political nature of the priest’s actions as it did with his philosophical expression. (Besides which, the pope deciding to condemn one thought as alien to Catholicism simply fails as an effort to place such though outside Christianity.)
I had hoped that you would stick to answers regarding actual Catholic beliefs. I am not going to play ping pong with this thread, so it is now here for the duration. However, if you really wish to simply answer questions regarding Catholicism, (even conservative Catholicism), you might wish to limit your answers to factual assertions, expressing your opinions in separate threads.
Terry, have a minute?
Here, rather.
How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?
Three . . . but they’re really only one.
Can we get a mod to retitle the thread, “ask the link the Catholic guy posts”?
For what it’s worth, he’s sort of correct about the paedophilia thing: it’s generally defined as paraphilic attraction to pre-pubescent children, which would exclude the 14-17 year olds. Of course, his attempt to shift the focus to homosexuality is rather sad.
Yeah, only 49% of the rapes involved pedophilia.
Closer to 73%. But hey, that’s better than all of them, I suppose.