I do not belong to Opus Dei.
Upon what authority are you relying for this definition?
Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing. Matthew 5:26
It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins. 2 Maccabees 12:46
That of His Holiness Pope Pius IX in the encyclical Quanto Conficiamur Moerore (On Promotion Of False Doctrines):
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Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching. There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.
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Also well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church. Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, to whom “the custody of the vineyard has been committed by the Savior.”[4] The words of Christ are clear enough: “If he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you a Gentile and a tax collector;”[5] “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me;”[6] “He who does not believe will be condemned;”[7] “He who does not believe is already condemned;”[8] “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”[9] The Apostle Paul says that such persons are “perverted and self-condemned;”[10] the Prince of the Apostles calls them “false teachers . . . who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master. . . bringing upon themselves swift destruction.”[11]
No question that those are very solid, and very correct, statements. But neither addresses the point I was questioning.
Let me review it for your benefit, since I know having to be the only person answering queries from every direction has the potential to be exhausting.
Which gave rise to your response, above… which does not address the issue I was questioning – to wit, that membership in the Church is confined to anyone in the state of grace or any baptized person who has not committed any serious sins that God has not forgiven. The commission of serious sin removes you from a state of grace, of course – no question about that – but it does not remove your “membership in the Church,” to the extent that such a membership exists. Baptism creates your membership in the Church, leaving the indelible mark on your soul (as I learned it in the Baltimore Catechism) or “imprints a character” as I suspect you learned in the current Catechism.
As Can. 11 of the Code of Canon Law provides, ecclesiastical laws bind those who have been baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it, possess the efficient use of reason, and, unless the law expressly provides otherwise, have completed seven years of age. It would be strange indeed to imagine that ecclesiastical laws would purport to bind non-members.
Even acts which inur an excommunication arguably do not sever membership inthe Church. A latae sententiae excommunication acts automatically to sever the person excommunicated from ministerial part in the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Eucharist or in any other ceremonies of public worship, from celebration of the sacraments or sacramentals and reception of the sacraments, and from the exercise of any ecclesiastical offices, ministries, functions or acts of governance. But the person is still subject to Church discipline and must follow Church process.
No, no - membership in the Church is determined simply by baptism.
Serious sin cuts us off from the sacrament of the Eucharist, yes, and sin also injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with God and neighbor. But open to us still is the Sacrament of Reconciliation, by which we are reconciled with the Church. Sin damages our fraternal communion; penance repairs it.
It is a grave error, in my view, to picture that those burdened by serious sin have removed themselves from membership in the Church. They cannot; baptism’s indelible mark upon their soul marks them as members of the Church, even though their actions have vitiated the fraternal communion which binds the faithful.
They said Jesus chose them, but Warren Jeffers and others such as Joseph Smith say they were chosen to speak for God as well. Why believe the Apostles and doubt Jeffers?
BTW, I am impressed by both your passion about and knowledge of your new faith.
Religion is a lie. Why did you choose to believe a lie?
“Religion is a lie” is a lie. Why did you choose to believe a lie?
I’d put so, SO much money into a fund to ensure I’d see this thread redux twenty years from now.
ETA - you’ve said that you were an atheist before converting to Catholicism. Is your family religious, and if so, what kind?
People don’t choose to believe anything.
But why is religion logical at all? Even if there is a god, why do you assume it had to have made itself known to humans, or wants to be worshiped?
This kind of question really makes it a debate about religion and not anything specific about Catholicism. You’re welcome to continue a discussion with this as the main thrust, but please do so in Great Debates.
Do you still live with your parents? How do they feel about your conversion?
There’s room in the Latin rite Church for the celebration of the Mass in both Latin and the vernacular. But I concur with Traditional_Catholic’s preference for the traditional Latin liturgy of the 1962 missal (aka the Tridentine rite, or the extraordinary form of the Roman Missal). I definitely find it more prayerful and reverent than the Novus Ordo rite.
The Christian Bible consists of the New Testament and the Old Testament.
The Old Testament (aka the Hebrew Bible, aka the Pentateuch, aka the Five Books of Moses, aka the Torah, aka the Tanakh) existed long before any of the popes. Despite your previous assertion, OT Jews were *not * Catholic “in a way” or in any way.
The New Testament (aka the Greek Testament, aka the New Covenant, aka the Greek Scriptures) consists of documents created and assembled over several centuries. Different streams of Christianity independently established the canon:
[ul]Roman Catholicism - Council of Trent (also called the Tridentine Council), 1546[/ul][ul]Church of England - the Thirty-Nine Articles, 1563[/ul][ul]Calvinism - the Westminster Confession of Faith, 1647[/ul][ul]Eastern Orthodox - Synod of Jerusalem, 1672 [/ul]
Which begs the question: How do you know that your is the right one? So far, you’ve offered only the circular argument that you know it’s correct because you believe in the authority of the Pope, and you believe in the authority of the Pope because you know that your understanding of the Bible is correct.
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Do you really believe that the host and wine become the body and blood of Christ?
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Why is that concept (transubstantiation?) so important to Catholics? Why can’t they just let the bread and wine be symbolic? Can’t it be just as meaningful without being, possibly in your belief, actually eating another person’s flesh and drinking another person’s blood?
I have just never understood why this is so important. Even in my own religion (United Methodist), I don’t understand why communion is so important to people. Of course, it is white bread and grape juice or us. Maybe that’s it.
- When I watch Catholics taking communion on TV they are just getting the host placed on the tongue. What about the wine? Don’t you get it every time? If not, why not?
Thank you for clarifying that.
My parents are basically agnostic Jews. The most religious members of my family are my aunt, who is a Protestant, and my great-great-uncle, who is an Orthodox Jew.
I still live with my parents. My mother has been very accepting of my religion from the beginning, but my father was hostile to it at first, though he has softened up over time.
If you want to debate the merits of Catholicism, please start a new thread in Great Debates. I would be happy to debate you there.