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What I speak is provable verifiable truth.

Is not truth valuable in this world any longer? Does not the truth set us free any more or did Jesus get that wrong?

David

Yetzirah231, I celebrated Pesach as I have done all my life which is to attend my Holy Thursday Mass, Stations of the Cross, Easter Sunday Mass.  My husband celebrated with his mother and family. When we lived closer to them we did both together.  Apart from the Passion and Death of Our Lord, the readings are the same for the Passover meal and Holy Thursday and Easter Saturday Mass. It astounded me the first time I attended the Passover meal to hear those readings and to witness firsthand the origins of my faith.

I don't consider mere tolerance to be acceptable.  With faith must come good works otherwise our message will be, "Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire" and that I will try to avoid!!

"By their actions shall you know them" as I said before and it is true for all of us.  If we sin then we must atone and set it right. We are human and require God's help to make our lives acceptable to Him, thus our spiritual life must be lived in conjunction with our physical lives.  
I know that Catholics have done evil deeds, that some priests from the lowest to the highest have sinned mightily but it has to be got over so that we may live our own lives in faith and hope. But the operative word here is 'some'.  Many many people have given their lives so that others may live.  Many have sacrificed the comfort of following the party line to take on unwinnable fights in the name of God. You cannot lump us all with the bigots or cowards or ogres of the past.  While one may have done the devil's work, ten others would have been doing God's.
Look at the last Supper - who betrayed Jesus with a kiss - one only while 11 others were His strength along with His Father.  that is the way of the world.

The Good Shepherd
The Woman taken in adultery
The good thief
The kindness of the Pharisee

Numerous stories in the New Testament give us the example of what Jesus wants of us. Do not waste your time and energy blaming all and sundry and particularly Catholics for all the suffering in the world.  Look to yourself and your own actions and if, when you meet God in the next life, you can say yes to all His questions regarding your life in His service, then you have been a good and faithful servant.  That should be all we are aiming for.

Margaret

Not at all - This is false doctrine spawned from Rome! In proper context Jesus is condemning those who call Him Lord but have no saved and sanctified personal relationship with Him because the good works Jesus is referring to are AS A RESULT AND CONSEQUENCE of a person being born of the Spirit, i.e., saved.

Paul confirms this, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast." (Ephesians 2:8-9).  "because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin...For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law." (Romans 3:20).  "nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified." (Galatians 2;16)

So we clearly see that good works are not the MEANS of salvation. "...he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit..." (Titus 3:5 ESV)

"You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone." (James 2:24) Here we understand that God does not want a faith that is empty and hypocritical.  Here James is talking about those who "say"  (as Jesus said, "call be Lord, Lord") that they have faith but have no works (confirming Jesus words "Depart from me I don't know you...".  Therefore, people cannot tell if they are true believers or not, because there is no fruit.  That kind of a faith is useless and is not a saving faith.  True faith results in true works.

David

fullmark

Thanks for the reply about Pesach. Off course there might be good new-testament examples for you. But Pesach also means: not to call the Pharao a good person... off course there where some good Egyptians, but the pope and catholic ''state'' policy is questioned here, not the people...

I agreed allready that there are good people too.
I only wrote about some weak points.
And with arguments about good people, we will still go around the question, instead of solving it, or preventing it next time...

Pius XI and Pius XII made bad desisions, in times that where not always so difficult for them. Mainly to maintain the Church in some countries running. Out of selfprotection Mein Kampf was considered a book able to read for all people, and in a next war people would not be helped anymore as anemies of the state, was the official agreement signed with Adolph in the 1920's.
Good that a lot of priests tried to go arround that, but the church didn't change it's policy, allthough they knew from the Catholic Head of State in Slovakia in 1942 that people died in camps...

Well I'm happy about all the good people. But it doesn't solve why the red-cross helped nazi's still in South America arround 2001, while officially the German government and the red cross didn't knew where they where.
Questions should be asked, allthough the red cross does 100 good things too. God is love AND rightiousness. And we should strive for THAT kind of peace.

Many religious denominations have  also done evil things in the past; protestants included; that fact has never been in contention on these discussions boards. Having said that,  I don't know of any other denomination whose leaders orchestrated the evils of the crusades and the inquisitions torturing and murdering  countless Christians because they believed the Bible only, Jews and Muslims.

I think also if you care to re-read the posts here on the 'Roman Catholicism' threads the only people who have labelled others as bigots are the Roman Catholics here accusing alleged protestants of being bigots for daring to challenge the doctrine of Romanism, the infallibility of the pope, the false teaching of Peter being first pope of the Roman Church, the false doctrine of purgatory, the popish heresy of Marianism, the blasphemy of the office of pope as Vicar of Christ,  the error of priests forgiving sins and the continued denial by the Roman Church of its Popes pragmatism and tacit collusion with the Nazi holocaust and the direct active involvement of many of its 'priesthood' in the Death Camps. As you correctly point out, "If we sin then we must atone and set it right..." Has the Roman church ever atoned of these things and put them right? NO! We have even got Roman Catholics here (read the relevant threads) who even deny these terrible sins let alone repent of them and atone!  For exposing these truths the Roman Catholics here call us 'bigots'. I have never labelled a Roman Catholic a bigot. What say you Margaret, do you label us 'bigots' for exposing these evil truths?

These evils need to be exposed if only for one vital reason which is that there is no salvation to be found  in the doctrine, dogmas, papal bulls, tradition and religious ritual of the Roman Church  The Word of God, says there is no other name that will save - ONLY JESUS: "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12). Only Jesus, not the Roman Church, not Mary, not the saints, not purgatory, not the confessional or the priest, not a holy crusade or inquisition or penance or even good works.

David

DavidJ,
this is the parable with which our faith is formed and honed.  God created us to know, love and SERVE Him here on earth and to see and enjoy Him forever in heaven.  
Apart from obeying the 10 commandments and the 11th as told to us by Jesus Christ - love one another as I have loved you - we are expected to serve our Lord by doing the following in whatever form it takes.  One cannot just believe and then be saved.  Your job is to work for that salvation to become reality at your death. It is the exercise of your free will which will lead you to the Lord through all of the above.

Matthew Chapter 25

34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

No Margaret. To tell someone they must work for there salvation to become a reality after death is Roman doctrine. Jesus' work at Calvary was complete; as a born again Christian my salvation is an actual reality now - my salvation was established the day I surrendered my life to The Lord Jesus Christ and accepted Him as my Saviour, my Lord and my God 22 years ago.

Concerning my works during my saved relationship with Jesus here  they are guided and prompted by the Blessed Holy Spirit living in me - it is He who guides me in the way of the works that God has for me. It is not by might nor by power but by Gods Spirit in me that my works are produced for His purpose and for His Glory - not for me to achieve salvation after death because I am already saved.

David

Web definitions for bigot
a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from his own
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn - Definition in context

Well David, it seems your intolerance of the Catholic faith is rather outmoded and I fail to see why it is so important to you to disagree with everything that we Catholics believe.  Surely your own faith is strong enough to withstand our viewpoint.

Of course, we Catholics are firm believers in our holy, catholic and apostolic church and that Jesus Christ chose Peter to be our earthly leader.  Why did He choose Peter, the sinner, the hasty mannered, the denier, the frightened one, to be our earthly leader?  "Remember Peter, that thou art rock and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of heaven will not prevail against it.  Whatever sins you loose on earth, they will be loosed in heaven.  Whatever sins you bind on earth will be bound in heaven."

It is my humble opinion that He chose poor old Peter because of his human failings but could see Peter's love and commitment which Jesus knew Peter would show when it came to the crunch.  And that's the true test isn't it?  Will we be strong enough when the crunch comes?

You do keep on about the crusades, the inquisition, the holocaust, the pedophiles etc.  Historically, the crusades were in answer to the viciousness of the muslim attacks; the inquisition is a blot on the Christian (Catholic) landscape and maybe the perpertrators did not escape hellfire; the holocaust killed more people than just Jews and Pius X11 was quiet because he had lived in Germany leading up to the war and knew what would happen and so quietly instructed his bishops to speak to the congregations without inciting the wrath of the nazis because the consequences were too terrible to contemplate (and they were); and pedophiles - well you only read about Catholic priests and in fact the far larger proportion of sinners here are family members.  This does not mitigate the sin or the sinners but it's time you laid off on all this stuff and started thinking about:
hospitals
schools
art
literature
charity
orphanages
equality for women
and so on down the ages where Catholics have worked tirelessly to achieve better lives for their fellows in countries all over the world.

And to be fair, what about the famine in Ireland, the deaths brought about by Cromwell and his ilk, the unfairness of employment opportunities in the past in the US and Australia to Catholics,the treatment of Christians and Jews by Muslims, the way fundamentalists treat the Blacks, how bigotry taints the world no matter what the religion and get out there and show by your actions, not just by your words, that you do believe in God and His Holy Son.  Make this world a better place.  I am trying and failing but still trying.....

oh golly  i will be in trouble - I got my Pharisees mixed up with my Samaritans!!

Okay Folks:

I think some of these side-topics can be easily resolved for most of us, assuming that we believe Scripture, that's it's true and particularly that it's inerrant.

Because Paul, writing from Rome, described a future Rome (a city built on seven hills,) as the base of operations for a very evil man, the anti-Christ.  

Yes, Jerusalem is also built on hills, but one description of the anti-Christ is that he would kill many Jews (yes, others too,) and I just don't see a leader resident of Jerusalem as a mass murderer, especially a murderer of Jews;  Because we have God's promise that Israel, including Jerusalem, will be under Jewish management forever.

So why do I think it's Rome?

First, Rome is the seat of the Catholic church, and although I have Catholic friends who I believe are Christians, the Roman Catholic church has a massively overwhelming history of murdering Jews and others who didn't accept it's teachings.

It's simply not refutable that the church "boiled people in oil" (actually it was a foul mixture of water, turpentine and other noxious substances.)  And you know, I just don't see the God of the Bible as being someone who would do something like this without having judged someone first -- and he himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, is the only acceptable judge.  But the Catholic church, over almost two thousand years, has committed many acts which are consistent with profound evil, and for me it's clear -- the church is now and has been a tool of the devil, and for a very long time.

Do I have to get into the facts we know of wrt the Pope's actions in WW2 which facilitated the German holocaust, especially the deaths of Italian Jews.

And this occurred at a time when were the Pope to have spoken up, because Hitler was just beginning his pogrom's in that area of Europe, had the Pope spoken out he might have been listened to by the Italian people and thereby saved many Jews.

There is a basic principle, I think.  It's that forgiveness is possible but only with repentance.

And far from demonstrating repentance the Pope acts like a disobedient child, and for him the worst thing will be when the Messiah returns because then the Pope and his helpers will have to answer for their misdeeds.

I came from a Jewish family and decided for Christ, for Jesus as the Messiah, almost 40 years ago (I was 24.)  And God has worked with me to change me, remaking me in the image of Christ, (that's His redemptive work in each Christian, not just me -- of course,) and to help me and why?, because of Jesus Christ, because I'm a Christian.  (Did I deserve this fine treatment, no!  Am I perfect?, no of course not.  I still sin.  But I am certain that I've had a much better life and done far less harm and done much more good for/to others than who I would have been had I declined Christ's invitation.)

But don't confuse being a Christian with being Catholic -- they are usually very different things.