Catholic XVI

To be infallible, the pope must be speaking on matters of faith and morals, and the belief that he preaches must be applied to the whole Church. In other words, it would not be infallible for him to say if that we should all wear red shoes because they are cool (he would not be speaking of faith or morals). It would also not be infallible for him to say that inquisition is allowed in Spain (this teaching is not being applied to the whole world).
…….that is what it sounds like from what I have read.

It says that for the Pope to be infallible he must be speaking ex cathedra (on behalf of the ENTIRE Church). He must also be speaking of faith and morals.

When teaching us with infallibility, you can tell that he is when you can tell that he is consistent with the many councils and collective wisdom of bishops and cardinals, which he is when he is speaking with infallibility.

“He who hears you, hears me.” -Luke 10:16
“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven…” -Mt. 18:18

…the conditions for infallibility were always there, but they were not defined until after the reformation. They were defined because of the Catholic reformation. Many Catholics realized that the Church needed to set some guidelines, so She did. The Church knew that a big problem was people thinking that anything the Pope said directly from God. They fixed the problem, obviously by defining infallibility through ex cathedra.

“According to the teaching of the First Vatican Council and Catholic tradition, the conditions required for ex cathedra teaching are as follows:

1. “the Roman Pontiff”

2. “speaks ex cathedra” (”that is, when in the discharge of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority….”)

3. “he defines”

4. “that a doctrine concerning faith or morals”

5. “must be held by the whole Church” (Pastor Aeternus, chap. 4)” -wikipedia.

This doctrine was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council of 1870. According to Catholic theology, there are several concepts important to the understanding of infallible, divine revelation: Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and the Sacred Magisterium. The infallible teachings of the pope are part of the Sacred Magisterium, which also consists of ecumenical councils and the “ordinary and universal magisterium”. In Catholic theology, papal infallibility is one of the channels of the infallibility of the Church. The infallible teachings of the pope must be based on, or at least not contradict, Sacred Tradition or Sacred Scripture. Papal infallibility does not signify that the pope is impeccable, i.e., that he is specially exempt from liability to sin.

In practice, popes seldom use their power of infallibility, but rely on the notion that the Church allows the office of the pope to be the ruling agent in deciding what will be accepted as formal beliefs in the church.”^[2] Since the solemn declaration of Papal Infallibility by Vatican I on July 18, 1870, this power has been used only once ex cathedra: in 1950 when Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary as being an article of faith for Roman Catholics. Prior to the solemn definition of 1870, Pope Pius IX, with the support of the overwhelming majority of Roman Catholic Bishops, had proclaimed Immaculate Conception an ex cathedra dogma in December 1854.”

…That’s a fairly complex way of putting it and that is just from wikipedia.

Respect is such an important gift to give. If you cannot respect a person, it will be very difficult to have an conversation with anyone. This Wednesday, I listened to a woman give a great talk on respect.

When you do not respect someone, odds are that you are going to hurt their feelings whether they show it or not.

Think about it, calling someone fat, stupid, ugly, a jerk, or whatever does not help anyone, and if it happened to you, you wouldn’t like it. Always remember to put yourself in other people’s shoes.
Joking. You must always be careful with joking, sometimes people understand that you are only joking and they laugh, but sometimes people are really feeling pretty crappy because of what you are telling them.You may be able to joke around with people, while calling them a weirdo because they know you, but you cannot do this with everyone. AND, always, always remember not to joke around about touchy subjects with people because you really could hurt there feelings.

You must respect others if you want peace. Respect is another aspect of love. You must give everyone the respect they deserve as human beings, and you must do this out of love. This is sometimes hard to grasp, but it is not impossible.

One great example of giving respect, which this woman told us, is to go up to someone who is talking badly of someone else, and say, “Oh, I love __(insert name)__!” or “They are awesome.” When you do this, the others will realize that they were being disrespectful, and they will stop talking badly of that person.

Love is then to give respect through selflessness.

Remember to always try your best to envision everyone with Jesus inside them. Even if you do think that they are rude to everyone, you must realize that God loves them just as He loves you. You would never want to hurt Jesus.

AMDG. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam. “for the greater glory of God”

I would like to discuss the use of Matthew 12:31-32 when speaking to Protestants or other Catholics. This is a passage that is used to prove the teaching of Purgatory. My sister and I thought there may have been a flaw with using this as an argument for Purgatory, but after thinking it over, we found reason to use this great tool. Read our conversation below to find what flaw we thought may have existed.

Here is the conversation between to Catholics: my sister and I:

ME:

“31 Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. 32 And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.”

Matthew 12:31-32

10 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but to him that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven.

-Luke 12:10

* 31 “The blasphemy of the Spirit”… The sin here spoken of is that blasphemy, by which the Pharisees attributed the miracles of Christ, wrought by the Spirit of God, to Beelzebub the prince of devils. Now this kind of sin is usually accompanied with so much obstinacy, and such wilful opposing the Spirit of God, and the known truth, that men who are guilty of it, are seldom or never converted: and therefore are never forgiven, because they will not repent. Otherwise there is no sin, which God cannot or will not forgive to such as sincerely repent, and have recourse to the keys of the church.*

MY SISTER:

i wonder if it just sounds like the world to come is hell rather than purgatory, though? or at least that’s how protestants would take it?

ME:

but the whole idea is that it says “…it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.”

well, then it is implying that some sins are forgiven in this world and some sins are forgiven in the world to come.
…BUT, sins are not forgiven in hell because you are eternally damned when in hell, AND sins are not forgiven in heaven because you are already forgiven when you enter heaven.
………that would mean that there would have to be a place in the next world where sins can be forgiven.

…it would make sense then that there would be a purgatory.

…and if it was just hell—-it would be pretty obvious that this would not be forgiven because you would be judged before hell.

MY SISTER:

i see your reasoning, but i think a lot of people would think that you are drawing too many implications… they could say that He’s only talking about heaven and hell since he doesn’t directly say that some sins are forgiven in the next world… He may just be emphasizing the fact that hell is eternal, and once you’re there, there’s no going back because speaking against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven ever.

ME:

Well, you can then look at St. Luke’s version which does not mention “it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.” Luke did not put this in his gospel because he knew that, in saying the sin would not be forgiven, the passage is saying that it will not be forgiven under any circumstances. If it would be forgiven under any circumstances, he would put “it shall not be forgiven in this life, nor shall it be forgiven in Heaven or Hell”.

Matthew added it because he obviously thought that there was reason to specify that this particular sin would not be forgiven in the after life. And, he singles this sin out alone. He does not say “no sin can be forgiven in the life to come.” He was pointing out that this sin, specifically, cannot be forgiven in this life or in the life yet to come. He had to add this so that people would not assume that this sin could only NOT be forgiven on earth rather than the fact that sin sin would not be forgiven in this life nor in the next.

…and you can point out that this verse is used along with the many other purgatorial verses to prove purgatory’s existence, and when you see that the doctrine of purgatory is true in other verses, you can clearly see that Matthew is speaking of purgatory in this verse.

So, I suppose that this verse is best used to assure others that their Church’s teachings are true. You may or may not wish to bring this up to a protestant without using any other verses though.

MY SISTER:

true– that’s a good point! thanks

ME:

I think that I’ve learned something myself about this Scriptural argument for Purgatory.

By the way, if you have any trouble looking up any other topics, I would use Catholic Google because it lists mostly good Catholic sites first.

http://catholicgoogle.com

Whether 95% of the Church likes it or not, the Catholic teachings are truth. They will not and cannot be changed. Truth cannot be changed because of popular vote.

Just because 20 people in a class room think 2+2=5 does not mean that we are going to pretend that you can have two grapes in a bowl, place two more in, and suddenly have 5.

No, mathematicians will make sure that the answer remains 4.

God cannot say one thing and mean another just because people do not find favor with what truth He gives. What God says is what is.

That means that if the Church has spoken infallibly on a, it speaks TRUTH from GOD! You cannot deny its factuality. It is impossible for GOD to be wrong!

So when the Church says it is wrong to do something, do NOT do it.

That means that you cannot support:

• Abortion
• Homosexual “marriage”
• Women becoming priests
• Sex outside of marriage
• Porn
• Stripping
• Slavery
• etc.

You do not decide what is truth and what is not. God will speak through the Magisterium and through the Bible in communion with Magisterium to bring the truth to us. If we each decided what to believe we would not be a universal Church. If people chose what to believe, we would have a million different churches claiming to be Catholic, and we would not know the true Church. That is why much of Protestantism does not work. Some Protestant church says that believing in Christ alone as your savior will get you into Heaven, but then someone doesn’t like that the church also teaches that abortion is wrong, so they create their own church saying the same thing except they claim that abortion is okay. Then, another group decides that abortion is okay, but that sexuality is wrong, so they create their own church. And the churches keep splitting from one another. Whereas, if they would stay as one Church under the Catholic Church and try to resolve problems from within and try to learn why the Church believes what she believes,  we could all be a stronger Christian family.

The Catholic Church is the True Church that has her doors open to all.

That is why the strong laity of the Church are thankful for bishops who correct those who try to preach false things of the Church such as Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. of Denver when he spoke out against Pelosi’s stance on abortion. Read it here: http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=29005

When the Church tells us that we cannot support a candidate who supports  an intrinsic evil, we must obey that command. (Read this to further understand my meanign of this: http://catholicxvi.stblogs.com/2008/12/29/catholic-voting-clarification-on-page-15/)

Thank you!

AMDG. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam. “for the greater glory of God”

Popes of the Bible? Yes, that’s right! There are four popes whose names are stated in the Bible, and the fifth pope was serving when the book of Revelation was being finished!

That means that the Apostle John did not have to write down everything about the Church specifically because he knew that the successors of Peter would be able to pass the Truth to all generations. The apostle John would have been around when these men took the highest position of the Church. He would be working under them when he wrote the Bible.

The Bible does not say that there should be no pope. It does not deny that these 5 men were popes. Don’t you think that John would have said something about how we should not accept them as our popes? Don’t you think he would say that there is no successor to St. Peter? Well, he did not. He never denied that they were popes. Instead, these men are said to men of God (according to the Bible).

We must then take what these men say as truth, for they heard the words from their predecessor who heard the truth from their predecessor all the way back to St. Peter who heard the truth from Jesus Christ who spoke directly from God because Jesus is God.

This shows us that the ONLY TRUE CHURCH must be one with a successor of Peter–a pope. The only church like this is the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Therefore, having a pope is a tradition of God.

“…

The Unbroken Line of Popes Throughout the Ages:

It is by far the longest continuous line of succession of any Christian religious institution on earth. By the time that the last book of the Bible (Revelation) was written, the Catholic Church was already on its fifth Pope.
St. Irenaeus listed the first 14 Popes in “Against Heresies”, 3:3:3, 180 AD
——————————————

* St. Peter (32-67), Matthew 16:18
* St. Linus (67-76), 2Timothy 4:21
* St. Anacletus (Cletus) (76-88)
* St. Clement I (88-97), Philippians 4:3
* St. Evaristus (97-105                                ….”

-Fr. Scott W. Brossart

“29 And I dispose to you, as my Father hath disposed to me, a kingdom; 30 That you may eat and drink at my table, in my kingdom: and may sit upon thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” -Luke 22:29-30

“28 Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” -Acts 20:28

” Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone:” -Eph. 2:20

“20 For it is written in the book of Psalms: Let their habitation become desolate, and let there be none to dwell therein. And his bishopric let another take.” -Acts 1:20