More Candy Claims

Candy's latest post, Beauty and Glory, again shows her ignorance of what the Catholic Church actually teaches. She does refrain from mentioning the Catholic Church by name. Perhaps these things refer to a different church, with which I am unfamiliar.

You don't need to make confessions to priests, for the Bible says to make our confessions to God in 1 John 1:9.

1 John 1:9 says "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." It does not specifically say that we need to confess our sins to God. However, Catholics are confessing their sins to God, and it is God who forgives them. Please see our previous entry on confession here.

Celibacy is nowhere commanded in the Bible, but marriage is. The heretical teaching against marriage is what the Bible calls "doctrine of devils." See 1 Timothy 4:1-3.

1 Tim 4:3 says "Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth."

Luckily, the Catholic Church does not forbid marriage. Anyone is free to choose to marry, or to remain single, and they feel called. Our priests are chosen from among those who are called to remain unmarried (celibate means unmarried).

Celibacy is not commanded in the Bible, but it is something which may be chosen:

Matt 19:12For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

Matt 19:29And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

You can read our defense of clerical celibacy here.

We don't have to religiously abstain from meats on certain occasions, as the Bible also calls that "doctrine of devils" in the same reference I gave above.

The Catholic Church requires its members to abstain from eating meat a few days a year. This is not forbidding the eating of meat at all times, as the Seventh-Day Adventists do. It is merely a form of fasting, which is spoken highly of in the Bible.

We don't have to go through Mary, or "saints," or anyone else as our mediatrix or mediator between us and God, for Jesus is our mediator, and the ONLY one, as the Bible shows us in 1 Timothy 2:5.

This is something that many people are confused about. Read through my Something About Mary post to clear up the confusion.