Apostasy

For me it was a bit different.
The exegetes seemed to demonstrate that what was in the Catechism was not clearly found in or proven by Scripture.

 

Do you still find the Catechism wanting in this way?

 

Actually it was both the Catechism AND Scripture, after being "deflowered" by the exegetes, that I found wanting .

There seemed like this huge chasm between the two.
But how could this be if today's Church was true and one with the Church of New Testament times?!

 

Hi Blue, are you serious ? or you are trying to be invited to the next Synod ?, just saying.

Aviso

 

Blue Horizon,

I, like most everyday Catholics, are not versed in Laws of adultery, knowing what constitutes legal adultery verses actual adultery and I wonder, is the Lord stating in Matthew's Gospel, legal adultery or actual adultery?



Matthew 5: 27-28

27'You have heard how it was said, You shall not commit adultery.

28 But I say this to you, if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.


Matthew 5: 19-23

19 Therefore, anyone who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of Heaven; but the person who keeps them and teaches them will be considered great in the kingdom of Heaven.

20'For I tell you, if your uprightness does not surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of Heaven.

21'You have heard how it was said to our ancestors, You shall not kill; and if anyone does kill he must answer for it before the court.

22 But I say this to you, anyone who is angry with a brother will answer for it before the court; anyone who calls a brother "Fool"will answer for it before the Sanhedrin; and anyone who calls him "Traitor"will answer for it in hell fire.

 

September 18, 2015, Friday — Out of Germany



The danger of a division in the Roman Catholic Church -- of a schism -- is being "mentioned" increasingly in press reports on the eve of October 4-25 Bishops' Synod on Marriage and the Family in Rome.



Now, an article in German which calls on the Catholic Church to make the Church's teaching more open to and accepting of homosexuality, has sparked sharp controversy, especially because the article has been picked up by LifeSiteNews, which headlines: "Germany's bishops just published an apologia for gay 'marriage' -- this crosses a whole new line." (Full text of the article below.)



The headline is misleading.



The article is not by the German bishops. Rather, it is by a 22-year-old German theology student named Simon Linder who is studying Catholic theology and rhetoric at Tubingen.



So the article is just Linder's opinion, not the opinion of any German bishop, or of many or all of the German bishops.



However, the headline is accurate to this extent: the article has been posted on the official website of the German bishops, Katholisch.de.



Yes, the website presents the article as one contribution in a continuing debate on the issues the Synod on the Family must address.



But there is no doubt that the author, writing on the bishops' website, is decidedly in favor of greater acceptance of homosexual relationships.



The author says this is in keeping with changes in the wider society in the past 25 years, and that the Church needs to change to keep up with society.



And he argues that there is, in fact, already a division in the Church -- a de facto schism -- on the question of homosexuality.



"On the eve of the bishops' synod, many are warning of a split in the Church," Linder writes. "What people with worried expressions usually don't see is this: the split in the Catholic Church is already real. The Church's frequently invoked unity has long been an illusion. The majority of German Catholics, men and women alike, no longer hold to rules that the Magisterium dictates."



Certainly the opinions expressed by Linder, and published by the German bishops on their website, make clear how wide is the chasm between the traditional Catholic view of homosexuality, as taught by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the "new view" of many in Germany.



These German Catholics would like to see homosexual "marriages" blessed in the Church, Linder says, and they do not understand why such a blessing should not be given, he concludes.



And this does mean that there is great confusion in the world on these matters, and that the Synod in October must find a way to speak clearly and without ambiguity on all of these questions, in fidelity to the perennial Magisterium of the Church and to the teaching of Christ and the Apostles.



Here is a link to the original German text of the article: link.



And here is a link to the article LifeSiteNews published yesterday: link. And below is a copy of the text of the LifeSiteNews article...

 

I remember the great loss of joy and inspiration, the loss of freedom and spontaneity, the restrictions of acadaemia and the warning given by the pope to theologians in their cleverness not to destroy the faith of the common man. In class all the ingredients of scripture were picked out and laid on the table but the Word of God became inedible. It had lost its nutritional value and its spiritual attraction. Once I left the seminary and used scripture in my prayer the light came on again and then I found a wonderful preacher who knew how to feed his flock in his homilies.
Perhaps your chasm resulted from your point of view or your hermeneutic or maybe from your motivation. Whatever the answer it is clear that in part scripture and catechism are human artefacts and therefore imperfect. Perhaps you were hoping for a perfect fit of catechism and scripture. Perhaps you were hoping your study would ratify and justify your faith. Perhaps this was not the best way to let your faith lead you to truth. But like Jacob you wrestled with God and you were dislocated not only in the hip but also the head and the heart. I am off to sleep. Thanks for the chat.

 

Jospephite if your post is more than rhetorical ... then it seems vs 27 is speaking of the Commandments so sounds akin to law to me...yet maybe its about more than just "law".

In vs 28 Jesus seems to teach us that true sin is primarily a disorder of the heart not the body.
Its our hearts that need to be "circumcised" not merely the body.
Of course most of us "incarnate" our sinful hearts through our external bodily acts...but the link is not cast iron is it?

Hence with no sexual act whatsoever our hearts are capable of adultery.
And, also, such "adultery of the heart" is even possible wiith our legally married partners it seems!
For to worship our partners in a way that excludes God ... is unfaithfulness to Him.

Perhaps it doesn't pay to get wholly reliant on "the law" when trying to discover who or what pleases or displeases God. We judge by externals, God sees to the marrow.

 

Exactly.
Or as the orientals say, "the Way once spoken is no longer the Way."
In wordless silence and contemplation without human concepts do we find The Path again.

 

exegesis is not scripture. we are the church that has officially called scripture the Word of God. it has no error, it was inspired by God. It can and has been interpreted many ways by speculative theologians, many of them Catholics, but that exegesis is not truth unless a Pope officially accepts the result of someone's exegesis. There are 4 levels of truth in scripture according to the church: literal, spiritual, allegorical (how types of Jesus and the story of salvation are are throughout the old testament), moral. The Catechism is a summary of the magisterium, once it was approved by John Paul II, it also is true. I was really surprised to read this thread this morning. I copied this from the site vatican.va, I really think everyone should read it, just in case the worst of what people think is going to happen with this synod actually does happen. Make sure you know it for the sake of the Catholics in your life you may be able to influence. I am also surprised the the vast majority that took this apostasy survey seen at the top of this thread said the Church may apostosize. The Lord Himself said the gates of Hell would not prevail against His Church. If that is not good enough, what could be to convince a believer? ...unless you are actually starting to believe scripture is not reliable, let alone the official interpretation of scripture by the Church founded by Jesus, which is a very bad sign and should be a signal to pray for guidance.

I. INSPIRATION AND TRUTH OF SACRED SCRIPTURE

105 God is the author of Sacred Scripture. "The divinely revealed realities, which are contained and presented in the text of Sacred Scripture, have been written down under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."69

"For Holy Mother Church, relying on the faith of the apostolic age, accepts as sacred and canonical the books of the Old and the New Testaments, whole and entire, with all their parts, on the grounds that, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have God as their author, and have been handed on as such to the Church herself."70

106 God inspired the human authors of the sacred books. "To compose the sacred books, God chose certain men who, all the while he employed them in this task, made full use of their own faculties and powers so that, though he acted in them and by them, it was as true authors that they consigned to writing whatever he wanted written, and no more."71

107 The inspired books teach the truth. "Since therefore all that the inspired authors or sacred writers affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, faithfully, and without error teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the Sacred Scriptures."72

108 Still, the Christian faith is not a "religion of the book." Christianity is the religion of the "Word" of God, a word which is "not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living".73 If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures."74

III. THE HOLY SPIRIT, INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE

109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.75

110 In order to discover the sacred authors' intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."76

111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. "Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written."77

The Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.78

112 1. Be especially attentive "to the content and unity of the whole Scripture". Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God's plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover.79

The phrase "heart of Christ" can refer to Sacred Scripture, which makes known his heart, closed before the Passion, as the Scripture was obscure. But the Scripture has been opened since the Passion; since those who from then on have understood it, consider and discern in what way the prophecies must be interpreted.80
113 2. Read the Scripture within "the living Tradition of the whole Church". According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church's heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God's Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church"81).

114 3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith.82 By "analogy of faith" we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.

The senses of Scripture

115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism.84

2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".85

3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86

118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:

The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.87
119 "It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgement. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God."88
But I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me.89
IV. THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE

120 It was by the apostolic Tradition that the Church discerned which writings are to be included in the list of the sacred books.90 This complete list is called the canon of Scripture. It includes 46 books for the Old Testament (45 if we count Jeremiah and Lamentations as one) and 27 for the New.91

 

Temptation to sin, are not sins.

We can be tempted to anger, jealousy, lust, envy, greed, slough and gluttony but we can counter this temptation with Holy thoughts and an act of Love.

If we allow the temptation to enter our hearts we are now subject to this unholy desire, but we still have recourse to removal of said desire through Gods grace, before an act of the will consolidates/incarnates this sin in the body, making the sin even greater by giving it form.

I will give you a personal example; In my heart I believe a certain person to be very arrogant, dismissive, superior and also downright mean to many people, however she is held in high esteem by many, as many like her mean girl ways.

In my heart I feel an anger for her and really would like to say something, which would do no good at all I believe, so I pray for her and I ask God to bless her.

I will hopefully never act on my opinions of her and hope my prayer helps her to change her ways. Like Our Lord said I and the adulterer have sinned and can only hope in His mercy to rid us of these ill feelings we have towards others.

 

Church in Wales votes YES for gay marriage but we're still a long way from real chang

 

Philippine Church expects upsurge in annulment cases

 

There seems to be a view here that when individuals apostasize, even individuals who are priests or bishops, even in large regions as a whole, like happened during the Reformation it means the "Church" has apostasized. That is not true. Be logical. Almost every heretic in the history of the Church was first a priest, including Luther. he and those who followed him were in apostasy. Those who stay with the Magisterium, scripture and tradition are not. So the examples about German bishops and Catholics agreeing with gay marriage do not equal the church in apostasy. It means those who agree with these things are separating themselves from the Church and are themselves potentially apostate; that is nothing new. At one point it is said more "Christians" believed the Arian heresy in parts of Europe than believed the Church's Christology. So what? The Church never taught erroneous Christology, and we believe the Church won't because it can't. It has been given the gift of holding bound what is held bound in heaven. Period.

 

To post a picture of Luther's protest against the Church along with headlines of today gives the impression that the poster is equating the two. If I'm wrong in my assumption or conclusion then I would be happy to be corrected. Have said said that, let's remember that among many "wrongs" Luther was protesting, chief among them was he dud not believe in transubstantiation. I don't believe that as serious as the issues being addressed today, that we are in the sane place. Luther essentially refuted a priests power to change ordinary bread and wine into the REAL body and blood of Jesus Christ. I think to link his picture and what it stands for here is a very serious accusation and one I disagree with whole heartily.

 

BH, it sounds like you have been the victim of intellectual rape. Your interpretations are so counterintuitive that one might classify it as Gnosticism, for no one reading Scripture without preconceived biases could ever come up with this stuff. Yes, you are right about one thing - it is POSSIBLE to do actions that are gravely sinful without being in mortal sin (i.e. separated from God), but that is for God to judge. As for us lowly humans, we can only judge the actions. I still maintain that the context of that passage is obvious, because it's the only way it fits within traditional Catholic teaching.

Since you have indicated that you are not a fan of the Catechism or traditional interpretations of Scripture in general, I don't really feel much of a need to debate with you. While not having a high-faluting degree, I have studied the Faith for over 25 years. God doesn't intend the Faith to be understandable only to those who have formally studied to a PhD level.

If one engages in sexual relations without marriage, it is objectively adultery. I said there could be an exception if one is morally CERTAIN that their previous marriage was invalid, but that this moral certainty would be extremely difficult to come by due to our own tendency to rationalize what we desire. In an uncertain situation, if we are willing to commit what "might" be adultery, we are guilty of adultery.

 

How are Scripture and the Teachings of the Catholic Church imperfect?

I hesitate to ask. Reading some of this stuff between you and Blue makes my heart sink. Where on Earth are you picking up this stuff? Dreadful

 

I am afraid we veering straight into heresy here.

I am not surprised at Blue Horizon, but I am surprised at yourself Joe.

What on Earth are you thinking? Where are you getting this stuff from? It is right from hell itself. I cannot alllow this on a Catholic forum.

TRIM your sails the both of you.

 

If you , either of you put forward any more of this hellish muck or attempt to defend the indefensible I will throw you both of the forum with no more warning. Stop it at once.

I remind you both you will answer to God for spreading this filthy muck.

Bethink your souls. There is a God and He will sit on Judgement on you both. If you both believe what you have written you are no longer in any sense any longer Catholics.

Arrant heresy. May God forgive you.

 

I think you are misunderstanding. As I understand, he was speaking of how the seminary nearly destroyed his faith, but later, after leaving seminary, he recovered it.