FYI - Some Catholic Books of note

Scott Hahn's Ignatius Catholic Study Bible is ready for pre-orders at Amazon. Here's the description:

The only Catholic Study Bible based on the Revised Standard Version 2nd Catholic Edition, the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament brings together all of the books of the New Testament and the penetrating study tools developed by renowned Bible teachers Dr. Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch.

This volume presents the written Word of God in a highly readable, accurate translation, excellent for personal and group study. Extensive study notes, topical essays and word studies provide fresh and faithful insights informed by time-tested, authentically Catholic interpretations from the Fathers of the Church and other scholars. Commentaries include the best insights of ancient, medieval and modern scholarship, and follow the Church s guidelines for biblical interpretation. Plus, each New Testament book is outlined and introduced with an essay covering questions of authorship, date of composition, intended audience and general themes. The Ignatius Study Bible also includes handy reference materials such as a doctrinal index, a concise concordance, a helpful cross-reference system, and various maps and charts.

''With copious historical and theological notes, incisive commentary and tools for study, the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament is outstanding for private devotion, personal study and Bible study groups. It is excellent for evangelization and apologetics as well!''
Stephen Ray, Host of The Footprints of God series; Author of Upon This Rock

Also Our Lady of Guadalupe: Mother of the Civilization of Love
debuted at #6 on the NYT Best Sellers list last fall and is still ranking well on Amazon.

Candy's Catholic "Friend"

Today Candy Writes:

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend who is Roman Catholic. He said some things that I'd like to address on this blog, in case anyone else thinks or says the same thing. That conversation was great, and I think we both walked away having enjoyed a thorough theological conversation. :-)

My Catholic friend said that he believes that if a person thinks they are "saved," then they must not sin, because if they sin, they are not "saved." I would like to show the error in this belief via Scripture:

1 John 1:

"7But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

10If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

My friend also said that he believes that one has to earn salvation via good works, and that the person must work hard, every single day, to be a good person, and do good works, or they have not earned their salvation. I would like to show Scripture that shows that that doctrine is also in error:

Ephesians 2:

"8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

9Not of works, lest any man should boast."

It doesn't matter what church you attend. Attending, or being the member of a certain church will not get you into heaven. Neither will doing good works. Doing good works does not erase the sin we've committed. This is like a person who murdered his best friend, and then decided that they were going to be good, from then on out.

Should they then not be punished for the crime they committed, or should it be forgotten, because now he's a "good guy?" Obviously, no matter how good the person has become, they still need to pay for the sins they committed.

Being good, and doing good works will not and cannot cleans or cover our sins. We still need to pay for what we did wrong, or justice has not been served.

You are probably not a murderer, but lying is a sin, as well as impure thoughts. You are probably guilty of those, at the least. The Bible tells us that everyone is a sinner. The Bible also tells us what has to be done to pay for those sins:

I personally do not believe that Candy has a Catholic "friend." She's not tolerant enough for that. I also think that her "friend" was either messing with her or was another uncatechized Catholic.

We have tackled Salvation on this blog before.
October 6, 2009
September 19, 2009
February 10, 2009

For a complete listing see here.

Here is what the Catechism (which Candy apparently still ignores - which is odd for someone who thinks she knows so much on the topic) says: (Please note the catechism citations also reference scripture!)

169 Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother: "We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation."55 Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.

183 Faith is necessary for salvation. The Lord himself affirms: "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned" (Mk 16:16).

620 Our salvation flows from God's initiative of love for us, because "he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins" (I Jn 4:10). "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor 5:19).

621 Jesus freely offered himself for our salvation. Beforehand, during the Last Supper, he both symbolized this offering and made it really present: "This is my body which is given for you" (Lk 22:19).

622 The redemption won by Christ consists in this, that he came "to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mt 20:28), that is, he "loved [his own] to the end" (Jn 13:1), so that they might be "ransomed from the futile ways inherited from [their] fathers" (I Pt 1:18).

623 By his loving obedience to the Father, "unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil 2:8), Jesus fulfills the atoning mission (cf. Is 53:10) of the suffering Servant, who will "make many righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities" (Is 53:11; cf. Rom 5:19).

1697 - a catechesis of grace, for it is by grace that we are saved and again it is by grace that our works can bear fruit for eternal life;

1821 We can therefore hope in the glory of heaven promised by God to those who love him and do his will.92 In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere "to the end"93 and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God's eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ. In hope, the Church prays for "all men to be saved."94 She longs to be united with Christ, her Bridegroom, in the glory of heaven:

Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rapture that can never end.95

Candy and the Jesse Tree

Yesterday Candy wrote:

We finished our Christmas shopping today. The kids and I also finished putting up our Scripture Wall. We don't put up Christmas trees. We do a Scripture Wall instead. We enjoy this, as we make it as a family, and we make it look however we want. This year's says "Happy Birthday Jesus" in big colorful letters, and has several pages of decorated Scriptures and pictures on it. This time we made the Scripture wall on a movable foam board, so that if we have Christmas in the new house, we can pick up the Scripture wall, and bring it to the new house. :-)

Many Catholic Christians and others have been decorating with Scripture all Advent Long.  This resource on the Domestic Church Site has symbols and scriptures for every week of advent.

The Under Her Starry Mantle Blog has a beautiful example of the type of "scripture wall" Candy describes.

Fisheaters has a great description of the Jesse Tree and the symbols and scriptures that go with it.

My family also does a Jessee Tree and this year we even hung ornaments for the O Antiphons. (I'll try to get pictures up later). In this way, despite our differences, Candy and I have something in common!

"Deeper Study" - and some observations

I note that yesterday Candy wrote that with "deeper study" she can possibly be persuaded to change her mind about certain things. This week it's head coverings.

Welcome to Keeping The Home: "I just spent the last three hours - straight - studying this deeper. The topic I didn't want to study - I studied it. The conclusion I have so far come to, is not the one I was hoping for, LOL."

It begs the question, if Candy were to do a deeper study of , oh let's say the Eucharist, could she possibly come to a different conclusion on that too?  Hope springs eternal.


I also note that Candy dropped Halo scan commenting. Halo scanning was bought out by JS-Kit and they have this entire new platform but  you have to pay about $10 per year for it and to keep your old comments. So Candy dumped it and went with Blogger comments.  That doesn't mean that disagreeable comments will make it on her blog - but it does mean she has to work a little harder to edit them and probably comments have a better chance of being read. 

Lastly, you won't see Candy blogging about Christmas much. In years past they'll exchange gifts, have a nice dinner and then she'll have the "Christmas was fun" post, and then it will be over. This is all fine and good.

I do want to point out however that other Christians, including the Catholic, Orthodox probably Anglicans and Lutherans  and even some other Protestant Christians whose blogs I have been reading have been celebrating Advent. For weeks we have been reading the old testament in preparation for the birth of our Savior. These last few days before Christmas some Christians including Catholics have been reading the O Antiphon prayers in preparation.  For us also, December 25 will be the first day of Christmas, not the last.  I mention all of these things merely to point out that some Christian churches not only "read" the bible, but actually read it as a way to bring a deeper meaning into what we call the "Liturgical year" of which Christmas is a big feast and celebration.  I personally love this scriptural and prayerful journey to Bethlehem every year.







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Candy on Quiverful, Sex and Procreation

Apparently Candy has been taking some flack for her illogical and hard to follow views on procreation and sexuality. Her latest post on Welcome to Keeping The Home regarding "Quiverfull, Sex, Procreation" was an attempt to clarify but it still seems a little muddled to me.

She starts out with Psalm 127:

Psalm 127
1Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
2It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.
3Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.
4As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
5Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Verse one sets the tone for the whole Psalm - 'Except the LORD build...' We have people today with big, beautiful houses, but the Lord was not with them in building their homes. Their homes are not blessed. Cities and areas where the LORD is not allowed to reign lose blessings. (Thank God Christ will soon come back and reign.) It is not good to stay up late, and get up early, else you are not taking the sleep and rest that God desires for you. Children are 'an heritage of the LORD' if 'the LORD build the house.' Certainly there are pagan families who have very large families; I've met some. Was the Lord in that? There are also very large Christian families, where the parents are like baby-making factories, yet there is no joy, no rest, and utter turmoil in their family life. Did THEY decide to have child after child after child after child without the Lord's being in it?

There are a couple of telling things in here. First of all I believe and I always thought other Christians believed this as well, that only God can knit a child in the womb and only God creates and gives a soul. Whenever a Baby is made, God is in it. Even a baby conceived from rape is a child created and loved by God.

Secondly, utter turmoil and lack of rest does not mean that a family is not Godly, or unhappy or that God isn't with them. Everyone knows how much Candy values orderliness and cleanliness. That's great. God bless her for that. But it doesn't mean that other moms and dads who struggle with that are somehow less Godly. Good housekeeping can sometimes, in my opinion, become its own false idol.

Certainly baby-making is not 100% up to God, else what are non-Christians doing having babies, with some of those poor babies being abused? 

While I agree that parents co-participate with God in baby making I reiterate that God is definitely 100% involved with each and every conception.

God gave us free will in all aspects in our lives, and that includes procreation. 

That is absolutely true and with free will comes responsibility. But it also means that not every choice we make is good, holy and pleasing to God. It simply means that He allows us to have free will.  Some choices have consequences and most times God lets us suffer with them.

Let's get something straight - there are not these eternal, disembodied spririts floating around hoping that you have a baby so that that spirit can have a life.

Very True. God makes each individual soul separately for each new life conceived.  Prior to that, each of us was just a thought in the mind of God. 

That's not how it works. NOT having children is NOT a sin! We are not 'preventing a life that could have been' by deciding to not have children.

Actually, the Catholic church comes very close to teaching this same thing.  Children are a gift from God and God loves to bless with life and bless abundantly!  But when parents discern that they are not in a position to accept a new life or must postpone a pregnancy the church teaches that it must be for a serious matter. The purpose of marriage is to raise up Godly offspring.  To forgo conceiving and raising up Godly children is not something to be taken lightly.

However when one has children when they hear the still, small voice of the Lord, then when they produce seed after their own kind, they know 'the LORD built the house.' All four of my children are here, because my husband and I both felt that God wanted us to have each child. Every conception was God-led.

This in my opinion is simply Candy theology and I wouldn't be surprised if she ticks off a lot of people who read it.  "The Lord built the house" whether one hears a little voice or not, or if a baby is simply conceived after a romantic Saturday night or by a couple who thought they were past conceiving.  I think Candy is trying to say here that only planned children from a "still small voice" are conceived of the Lord?  And that of course is ridiculous.


Then we have a paragraph that falls under the TMI department, but it sounds to me that it's up to Eric whether conception occurs or not because Onanism is a guy thing.  And if Candy isn't on board with that then it couldn't  possibly be from God.  It's a very twisted piece of logic.

Someone commented on one of my quiverfull posts, and said that she knew the Lord wanted her to have three children. She had her three, and when she and her husband tried to have more, it was miscarriage after miscarriage. I believe this woman and her husband were hearing from the Lord as well. They have three beautiful children.

This part blows me away.  I am the mother of a stillborn son, born when I was 42.  I could have taken, and indeed I think that is the message of the culture that that was my cue to stop having babies and being open to new life.  We went on to conceive at age 45 and have a beautiful baby girl that I have way too many pictures of in my Flickr account.  Miscarried and stillborn children are still part of God's plan for us.  Those little souls pray for us and are there to greet us in the end.  I know of a woman who had ten miscarriages and ten live births inbetween.  A miscarriage or stillbirth isn't necessarily a punishment, or a call to not be open to the gift of new life.

I'm an only child, and I can guarantee you that all by myself I filled my parents' quiver! :-P

... no comment.


Sex is NOT purely for procreation.

Sex is not purley for recreation and pleasure either.  The Catholic church teaches that they are entertwined and that it is sinful to deliberately separate one from the other and why the church calls contraception intrisically evil as well as prohibiting certain fertility treatments. 

Other links and articles on the topic in my del.icio.us files.

Candy on family planning.

Update below!!

Last week Candy wrote:

Welcome to Keeping The Home: "Thursday, October 29, 2009
Quiverfull, etc.

As for the biblical perspective - how many children is each family to have? Certainly it is not literally a quiver, or each godly person in the Bible should have had 12 children, but most of them did not. We are to be fruitful and multiply. Some families (such as mine, when I was a child) only have one child. I was a miracle child. My parents tried for several years before I finally came along, and I was the last and only. 'Fruitful' is relative to each family.

I read several papers on this a few years ago.  The "quiver" is the holder full of arrows that an archer carries with him as he goes into battle.  Clearly from the warrior aspect, it is much better to face down the enemy with a lot of arrows in  your quiver than not.  An archer with only a few arrows better sure be a good shot!

The verse that everyone gets so riled up about is from Psalm 127 and goes:
 ³Behold, ^(F)children are a gift of the LORD,
         The ^(G)fruit of the womb is a reward.
    ⁴Like arrows in the hand of a ^(H)warrior,
         So are the children of one's youth.
    ⁵How ^(I)blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
         ^(J)They will not be ashamed
         When they ^(K)speak with their enemies ^(L)in the gate.


A warrior would be blessed to reach back and find yet another arrow so that he could take his shot.   The writer is making an analogy between that and how blessed is each child.  I can't imagine a warrior wanting to go into battle demanding to have only a limited number of arrows - I'm pretty sure the Psalm writer would scratch his head at that type of thinking as well.

Candy goes on:

Birth control - The Bible is clear on not murdering babies. After that, the only thing we see of birth control is where a guy spilt his seed on the ground. However, that seed-spilling was not what was condemned, but the fact that he was commanded, by law, to produce seed with his new wife, to raise up a child in his dead brother's name. That was Old Covenant law, and we are not under that now. Even if we were, that instance, in actuality, had little to do with birth control; it had to do with being disobedient to God's law."

Well that guy's name was Onan and that verse was understood pretty universally to indicate a condemnation of contraception until 1930.  I wrote about Poor Onan a few years ago. This seems like a good time to bring it here.  Brian Harrison the other of The Sin of Onan Revisted up made 5 points that I find pro-contraception Christians tend to overlook when waving this verse away:



1. Indeed, a further problem faces this conventional modern reading of the passage. If simple refusal to give legal offspring to his deceased brother were, according to Genesis 38, Onan's only offence, it seems extremely unlikely that the text would have spelt out the crass physical details of his contraceptive act (cf. v. 9). The delicacy and modesty of devout ancient Hebrews in referring to morally upright sexual activity helps us to see this. As is well-known, Scripture always refers to licit (married) intercourse only in an oblique way: "going in to" one's wife, (i.e., entering her tent or bedchamber, cf. vv. 8 and 9 in the Genesis text cited above, as well as Gen. 6: 4; II Sam. 16: 22; I Chron. 23: 7) or "knowing" one's spouse (e.g., Gen. 4: 17; Luke 1: 34). When the language becomes somewhat more explicit - "lying with" someone, or "uncovering [his/her] nakedness" - the reference is without exception to sinful, shameful sexual acts. And apart from the verse we are considering, the Bible's only fully explicit mention of a genital act (the voluntary emission of seed) is in a prophetical and allegorical context wherein Israel's infidelity to Yahweh is being denounced scathingly in terms of the shameless lust of a harlot (Ez. 23: 20).

2.Was Onan perhaps slain merely for refusing to give offspring to his deceased brother's wife, as most contemporary exegetes maintain? In answering these questions one must take cognizance of the following significant fact: the penalty subsequently laid down in the law of Moses for a simple refusal to comply with the levirate marriage precept was only a relatively mild public humiliation in the form of a brief ceremony of indignation. The childless widow, in the presence of the town elders, was authorized to remove her uncooperative brother-in-law's sandal and spit in his face for his refusal to marry her. He was then supposed to receive an uncomplimentary nick-name - "the Unshod." But since he nonetheless became sole owner of his deceased brother's house and goods, it is evident that his offence was scarcely considered a serious or criminal one - much less one deserving of death. Death, however, is precisely what Onan deserved, according to Genesis. It follows that those who say his only offence was infringement of the levirate marriage custom need to explain why such an offence was punished by the Lord so much more drastically in the case of Onan than than it subsequently was under the Mosaic law. If anything, we would tend to expect the contrary: i.e., that after the law was formalized as part of the Deuteronomic code its violation might be chastised more severely than before, not more mildly. Indeed, while it is clear from the Genesis narrative that the practice of levirate marriage already existed in Onan's time, there is no biblical evidence that he would have been conscious of any divine precept to observe that practice. This problem seems to have been simply ignored, rather than confronted, by those exegetes who cannot or will not see in this passage any Scriptural foundation for the orthodox Judæo-Christian doctrine against masturbation and contraception and unnatural intercourse between a man and woman, is not exactly a pleasant theme to write about.

3.It should be remembered also that we are here dealing here with a culture which so abhorred that other form of "wasting the seed" - the homosexual act - that it prescribed the death penalty for this offence. In the light of this and the other factors we have considered, I submit that it would be not only exegetically unwarranted, but quite anachronistic, to suggest that the Genesis author, in line with the 'political correctness' of late twentieth-century Western liberalism, would have taken a relaxed, indulgent view of Onan's method of preventing conception - his "spill[ing] the seed on the ground." We should note also the parallel between the description of homosexual acts as a "wicked" or "abominable" thing in the Leviticus texts and the similar qualification of what Onan did in Genesis 38: 10.

4. Moreover, in the view of revisionist exegetes, Onan's sin is presented here as being essentially one of omission. We are asked to believe that, according to Genesis, Onan committed no sinful act; rather, that his sin was to refrain from acting appropriately toward his deceased brother because of some sort of selfish interior disposition. But why, in that case, does the text describe Onan's sin as a positive action ("he did a detestable thing")? Coming directly after the author has mentioned what is certainly an outward act (i.e., "spilling the seed"), these words in v. 10 plainly indicate a causal link between that sexual act as such and the wrath and punishment of God.

After all, it is not as if the Old Testament vocabulary was lacking in concepts or words to express sins of interior attitude, when that is the kind of sin the authors had in mind. The "heart" of man - whether righteous or wicked - is a rich and important term of moral reference in Hebrew anthropology, and to the extent that Onan's fault was indeed this siof omission, such lack of piety toward his dead brother would have been an example of what the Israelites called "hardness of heart" (cf. Ex. 7: 13, 22; 8:15; Ps 95:7f), perhaps motivated at bottom by personal vanity (not wanting to father any child who would not be legally his), or even by that sheer covetousness for his brother's property which was forbidden in the Tenth Commandment and in numerous other Old Testament passages.

Once again, however, we must ask what evidence there is that this degree of "hardness of heart" would have been seen in Onan's time as sufficient to merit death. If today's revisionist exegetes are right in claiming that "spilling the seed on the ground" is not, per se, censured in this text, it would follow that even if Onan had simply declined to marry Tamar and so abstained from intimacy of any kind with her, this complete abstinence would have been viewed by the Genesis author as no less offensive to God than the course of action which Onan chose in reality - and which earned him a divine death sentence! But we have already pointed out that such a conclusion leaves unexplained the relative leniency of Deuteronomy 25 in penalizing such offences against the levirate marriage custom.

On the other hand if, as Judæo-Christian tradition has always insisted, "wasting the seed" by intrinsically sterile types of genital action violates that natural law to which all men, Jew and Gentile alike, have always had access by virtue of their very humanness, (cf. Rom. 1: 26-27; 2: 14), this will explain perfectly why Onan's sexual action in itself would be presented in Scripture as meriting a most severe divine judgment: it was a perverted act - one of life-suppressing lust. Indeed, over and above its prohibition by natural law, such deliberately sterilized pleasure-seeking could well have been discerned as a form of contravening one of the few divine precepts which already in that pre-Sinai tradition had been solemnly revealed - and repeated - in positive, verbal form: "Increase and multiply" (Gen. 1: 27-28; 9: 1).

5.until the early years of this century, when some exegetes began to approach the text with preconceptions deriving from the sexual decadence of modern Western culture and its exaggerated concern for 'over-population.' Sad to say, these preconceptions have since become entrenched as a new exegetical 'orthodoxy' which can no longer see even a trace of indignation in this passage of Scripture against intrinsically sterile forms of genital activity as such.


******************
Updated November 4, 2009

Today Candy writes:

I am quiverful, but not of the quiverful movement. I am biblically quiverful - meaning that my quiver is full. Do I want more children? Sure, but I'm fine not having anymore, either. It's not just up to me. It's also up to my husband and God, so I am very happy either way. Do I practice birth control? We do not utilize any internal or external means, nor do we abstain when I ovulate (that would be torture). Instead, we are just "careful." I've never had an "accidental" conception from being "careful," but if I ever do, that is a-okay.

Um... if it's up to her husband, and they aren't using any internal or external contraceptive and they don't abstain but are just "careful" then I think Candy should get to know "that guy spilt his seed on the ground" because it sounds as if they are practicing Onanism. Candy defended that this way:However, that seed-spilling was not what was condemned, but the fact that he was commanded, by law, to produce seed with his new wife, to raise up a child in his dead brother's name. That was Old Covenant law, and we are not under that now. Even if we were, that instance, in actuality, had little to do with birth control; it had to do with being disobedient to God's law.

She might want to familiarize herself with the 5 points above. I also have tons of links and other blog articles on this over in my del.icio.us file.

Candy - Geography not her biggest forte.

Today Candy Brauer at Keeping the home.com writes:

Welcome to Keeping The Home:

"Another point to mention, is that the whore that rides the beast is a city that sits atop seven hills. The only city in the world that houses a HUGE religious entity is Rome. Rome sits on top of seven hills."

The Vatican, the Holy See, is located on its very own hill, across the Tiber river.

The Vatican City State is the smallest sovereign state in the world, occupying an area of little less than ½ km2 in the centre of Rome. It covers St. Peter's Square, the Basilica of St. Peter, the Vatican Museums and adjacent buildings, and the garden behind all this. A number of major churches in Rome and the Papal palace in Castel Gandolfo have extraterritorial status and are under the jurisdiction of the Holy See.

Candy tends to hae a very limited repertoire and must constantly recirculate thigns she ahs already posted because the boundaries of her knowledge base on Catholicism are definitely finite.

As it turns out, we already did a post on this in September of 2007. Thanks Candy for making it so easy for us to just keep rebutting you!

Whore of Babylon written by Colin Donovan, STL

(Colin B. Donovan, STL is Vice President for Theology at EWTN. A layman, he has the Licentiate in Sacred Theology)



Judging by the criteria of biblical fundamentalism (literal words literally
understood) it is certain that there is no mention of the Catholic Church in the
book of Revelation as the Whore of Babylon. By contortions of interpretation
(not biblical literalism) some groups and individuals equate the Whore in
Revelation 17:9 with the Catholic Church since Rome is the famous city of seven
hills and the Church's principal See is Rome. This position is untenable, both
factually and from the only words of Scripture which tell us of the actual
doctrine of the Antichrist, those of the apostle John in his letters.


There would seem to be two choices, either interpret Rev 17:9 absolutely literally or according to some interpretive key that is metaphorical, allegorical or otherwise non-literal. Lets look first at literal interpretation.

"The seven heads represent seven hills on which the woman sits." First of all, no Pope has ever lived or had his "seat" (cathedra or cathedral) on any of the seven hills of Rome. These hills are small hillocks (Capitoline, Palatine, Esquiline, Aventine and three lesser "bumps" in central Rome) where the religion and government of pagan Rome was situated. The Catholic Church's headquarters at the Lateran (the cathedral) and at the Vatican (where the Pope lives) does not coincide with them. At the time that John wrote Revelation the Christians of Rome lived mostly in Trastevere (trans Tiber), a district "across the Tiber" from the City and adjacent to the Vatican hill where St. Peter was crucified and buried. The Vatican is on top of that burial site and is today its own city-state distinct from Rome and Italy.


So, of what was St. John

speaking when he wrote Revelation on the island of Patmos around 96 AD?

Obviously of the pagan imperial system situated on the Seven Hills, especially
the Capitoline (the religious and political center) and the Palatine (the imperial palace). This pagan power persecuted the Church of Rome in Nero's day (64-67 AD), and in the mid-90s under Domitian was persecuting Christians throughout the Roman world. Domitian was considered by the people a re-incarnation of the evil, but well-liked, Nero (the head that lives again).

While the antichrist Nero persecuted only the Christians of Rome, Domitian extended that persecution throughout the empire. Both are thus types of the final persecutor, the Antichrist.


Why the cryptic name Babylon? First, the historical Babylon was the pagan power which persecuted the People of God, the Jews, between 610 and 538 BC, destroying the Temple and dispersing the people. The Romans inherited that mantle of infamy when they destroyed the Temple in 70 AD, and, more importantly, persecuted the new People of God, the Church. Thus, St. Peter, writing from Rome refers to as "Babylon" (1 Pt. 5:13) - a name any Jew or Christian familiar with the Old Testament would know.


How does this relate to the Antichrist? The future Antichrist will be a world-wide power, essentially pagan, which will persecute the Catholic Church (and orthodox Christians in general) everywhere, as the Babylonians persecuted the Jews and 1st century Rome the Church. These are biblical types! The Babylon of John's day, Rome, stands for the kingdom of the future Antichrist and is no more likely to be situated in Italy than Rome needed to be situated in Babylonia (modern Iraq). John was informing his readers of these prophetic types by drawing their attention to the contemporary fulfillment they found in pagan Rome. The Antichrist will come out of the Christian world (Greco-Roman civilization) to be sure (1 John 2:19), but America is as much an inheritor of that civilization as Europe and just as likely to be the source of the Antichrist.

Finally, after distorting the text and history to read what they want into the Bible, and thereby obtaining God's "blessing" on their hatred of the Catholic Church, some "Christians" ignore the only texts of Scripture which tells us about the religious leanings of the Antichrist. The Catholic faith being a religion you would think they would see what it teaches on the only criteria the Bible actually gives about the Antichrist. In St. John's letters (1 John 4, 2 John 1), he tells us that the spirit of the Antichrist denies the Incarnation (the Son of God becoming man) and thereby also the Trinity (the Father and the Spirit, too). This is the spirit of the Antichrist.

There is not a single text in 2000 years, including the new Catechism of the
Catholic Church, where the Catholic Church, her popes, her bishops, her official
teachings, her saints, or her acknowledged ecclesiastical authors, deny the
Word-made-flesh or the Blessed Trinity. Instead, all of Christianity owes the
preservation of these Truths to the Catholic Church, whose great Councils
formulated them and whose saints and popes have defended them to this day, often
at the cost of martyrdom. The present pope, John Paul II, has written three great encyclical (circular) letters on the Trinity, one for each Divine Person,and he has without a doubt preached Jesus Christ to more people than any other person in human history. The Catholic Church does not have the spirit of the Antichrist but of God, since no one without the Spirit can say "Jesus is Lord" (1 Cor. 12:3), something the Church and Catholics always have done and continue to do!

Open Line Friday!

Ya'll seem to want to talk about whatever it is YOU want to talk about - so have at it!!

Here's a conversation starter - Scott Hahn has been instrumental in helping many convert to Catholicism.  He is also a convert to the faith.  Here is some of his work on the Papacy - an issue that divides us which seems to be what ya'll want to focus on.  Hahn's scholarship was also called into question yesterday by Paul.  Enjoy!

What's not on the table.

Interestingly, some things kept popping into the discussion about the scriptures that had no place being there - as if our separated brethren were trying to teach us about Christianity!  So I thought I'd bring up a few of the strawmen and assure folks that Catholics already know this - there is no need to keep bringing it up into every discussion.

1.  Scripture always points to Jesus Christ because its purpose is to reveal Him as our Savior, from beginning to end.

2.  Christ's death and resurrection and ascension to the Father are essential and central to the gospel and ARE the only gospel.

3.  The Holy Spirit always points to Christ as our gate, our way, our life, our hope, our High Priest, our sacrifice, our mediator, our Bridegroom.

4.  The gospels and the whole NT reveal that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. He is shown to be the Son of God and the Son of Man foretold by prophecy and Gabriel the archangel.

5.  The Old Testament is scripture too, and Jesus and the Apostles used it to show the plan of God prophesied and brought about from the beginning.

6.  If people couldn't read or have their own copies (of scripture), they could hear it read in their churches.


OK That's enough for now , but the above 6 points are all things that we agree on!  So I for one would appreciate not having them brought up as a debate point all the time. 

Some insights I got from this week's debates.

1. Some Protestants are still hung up on Trent and apparently no amount of encouragement to read the Catechism instead will sway them!

2. Some are even concerned about being "anathematized." I don't think I ever did hear a response to the news from Kelly that Anathemas just ain't what they use to be!

3. Going to church is a work and works are bad, so it's ironic that going to church can be bad for you?  That was certainly a new one on me!!

4. I'm wondering why witnessing on a blog or on the internet isn't consider a work and how come that's not bad for you as well.

5. Some Catholics are just deathly afraid that Catholics are in danger. Some are afraid that with worshiping Christ in the Eucharist we'll start worshipping a cat or the chair or something. Jennie has a lot of fear for all the busy do gooders who go to church and then do good deeds all day although I still don't see how they have much time to get into trouble.

6. Some just want to turn Catholics away from Catholicism because they "love us." Although from being on the receiving end of that I think what they mean is they want to "tough love" us. At least that's how it feels.

7.  Interestingly today is the feast of a lot of Protestant's favorite Catholic and EFC - Augustine!  Coincidence?  Serendipity?  You decide!

A funny thing happened during the debates...

people started being friendly and even (dare I say it)fellowshipping a little bit with each other. Very nice to see and something WE NEVER got to experience with Candy and her crowd - although I always thought that we had enough other stuff in common to get along.

Anyway, it's nice to see and it makes me think that maybe apologetics isn't all so bad after all!

Hebrews, Matthew and John 6

The discussion on the Early Church Fathers started to morph into a discussion of the Eucharist and scripture, particularly with a passage in Matthew 24 and Hebrews 9.


Kelly and I have done John 6 at great length in the past and you can find those here.

Jennie wrote:

It is wonderful that God rained manna on our fathers and they were fed with daily food from heaven. And so it is written: Man ate the bread of angels. Yet those who ate that bread all died in the desert. But the food that you receive, that living bread which came down from heaven, supplies the very substance of eternal life, and whoever will eat it will never die, for it is the body of Christ. Ambrose of Milan, treatise On the Mysteries was originally spoken to newly baptized Christians around the year 370 AD.

This quote is apparently referring to John 6. I would like to give a few scriptures to show why Jesus in John 6 is not referring to Christ literally giving us His body and blood to eat, and that the bread is not literally the 'body, soul, and divinity of Christ' or the whole Christ.

Matthew 24:23 “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. 24 For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand.
26 “Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. 27 For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

 
This passage says that if anyone tells you that Christ is here or there on earth DO NOT BELIEVE IT and DO NOT GO OUT to look for Him, because His coming will be 'as the lightning come from the east and flashes to the west'

.
John 19:30 He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
Hebrews 10:16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them,” 17 then He adds, “Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” 18 Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.

Jesus finished His propitiatory work on the cross and for those who believe in Him, their sins are forgiven and there is no more need for an offering for sin.

Hebrews 9:25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— 26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, 28 so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.

This passage says that He appeared once to put away sin by His sacrifice of Himself, not often, and that He will appear for those who eagerly await Him a SECOND TIME, APART FROM SIN, for salvation. He will appear a second time when He comes back to earth, 'just as He ascended' the first time. He will appear 'apart from sin' that is, not as a sacrifice for sin. He does not come back as a physical perpetual sacrifice. Every word of Hebrews denies this doctrine. He sat down at the right hand of the Father in victory over sin and death and having finished His suffering, He intercedes for us against our accuser the devil.

 

Let's look at Matthew 24 in it's entirety. I will emphasize some parts I want to use to make a point.

 Matthew 24

Signs of the End of the Age

 ¹Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. ²"Do you see all these things?" he asked. "I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down."  ³As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
 ⁴Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,^[a]' and will deceive many. ⁶You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸All these are the beginning of birth pains.
 ⁹"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. ¹⁰At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, ¹¹and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. ¹²Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, ¹³but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. ¹⁴And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
 ¹⁵"So when you see standing in the holy place 'the abomination that causes desolation,'^[b] spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— ¹⁶then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ¹⁷Let no one on the roof of his house go down to take anything out of the house. ¹⁸Let no one in the field go back to get his cloak. ¹⁹How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! ²⁰Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath. ²¹For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again. ²²If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. ²³At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. ²⁴For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible. ²⁵See, I have told you ahead of time.
 ²⁶"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. ²⁷For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. ²⁸Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.
 ²⁹"Immediately after the distress of those days
   " 'the sun will be darkened,
      and the moon will not give its light;
   the stars will fall from the sky,
      and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'^[c]
 30"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. ³¹And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.
 ³²"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. ³³Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it^[d]is near, right at the door. ³⁴I tell you the truth, this generation^[e] will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

The Day and Hour Unknown

 ³⁶"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,^[f] but only the Father. ³⁷As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ³⁸For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; ³⁹and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. ⁴⁰Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. ⁴¹Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

Jennie is trying to say that we can't refer to the Eucharist Jesus Christ because of this passage.  I say she has totally misinterpreted it.  What Jesus clearly referring to in this passage is to be aware of false prophets who are claiming to be him. Clearly the Eucharist does not proclaim itself verbally, "I am the Christ."  Christ's verbal silence in the Eucharist is part of His power - the power of just being, of being "I Am."  So Matthew 24:4 does not refer to the Eucharist in any way shape or form and it's a mighty stretch to try to connect it.   Also Matthew 24:26 again refers to a false Christ claiming to be in the desert, or the upper room, or could be the street corner or the stadium or stage.  But the Eucharist is present  only in a very specific holy place- in the tabernacle of a Catholic church being distributed by the church or in hospitals, nursing homes, prisons etc. by specially trained ministers of the Eucharist.  Matthew 24 doesn't cut it for disproving the Eucharist either.

And I can't resist just saying Christ does say we do not know the hour or the day.  I feel sorry for Christians who spend so much time and energy worrying about it. Be like the birds of the field or like a little child and don't worry about things that you can't control anyway.

Now let's look at Jennie's other passage in context.

Hebrews 9

The Blood of Christ

 ¹¹When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here,^[b] he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. ¹²He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. ¹³The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. ¹⁴How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,^[c] so that we may serve the living God!  ¹⁵For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
 ¹⁶In the case of a will,^[d] it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, ¹⁷because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living. ¹⁸This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. ¹⁹When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. ²⁰He said, "This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep."^{[e] 21}In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies. ²²In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
 ²³It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. ²⁴For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. ²⁵Nor did he enter heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood that is not his own. ²⁶Then Christ would have had to suffer many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. ²⁷Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, ²⁸so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

This passage explains why it was necessary for Christ to become the new sacrifice and why we refer to Him as the Lamb of God. And with Christ's sacrifice comes the new covenant. Catholics know this and we do not re-sacrifice Christ over and over again. Instead we take part of the ever-living sacrifice that is once and for all and not bound by time and space.

Incidentally this is what St. Paul also taught:

Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them. Paul also said, "Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself" (1 Cor. 11:27, 29). "To answer for the body and blood" of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as homicide. How could eating mere bread and wine "unworthily" be so serious? Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ.

I think it is pretty clear that Matthew 24 has been totally misinterpreted as well as Hebrews. Bible believing Christians really need to quit looking for ways to avoid it and consider that when Christ says, "This is my body," he actually meant it!


Update: Jennie blogged on this too.

Early Church Fathers and the Catholic Church

Paul, (whatsup with not having a basic profile Paul? )  whom Moonshadow and I met over on Jennie's blog wants to talk about the Early Church Fathers, specifically Augustine and Justin Martyr, although I'm pretty sure he thinks none of the early church fathers were Catholic. So I've invited him to make his case here. He apparently is use to commenting on Catholic forums. This will be a home game, but I know everyone will play nice.

The throw down- Paul said: Elena, let's continue this interaction regarding the ECF's view of The Eucharist and see who is "falling far short of the actual historical truth". I can let the ECF's be the ECF's. I am not obligated to hold to a distorted view of history such as was declared at Trent and Vatican I. The truth is, there were various understandings of the "real presence" in the early church. Sadly, Rome has painted herself into a corner by making solemn declarations on claims that history cannot support.

While there may have been various understandings there was not outright denial and certainly nothing that looks like the kind of understanding that Paul et al have towards the Lord's supper. I'll start things off with:

Ignatius of Antioch

They abstain from the Eucharist and prayer, because they refuse to acknowledge that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins and which the Father by his goodness raised up. (Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 6:2; Lightfoot / Harmer / Holmes, 110)

Justin Martyr

And this food is called among us Εuχαριστiα [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. (First Apology, chapter 66; ANF, Vol. I)


HT Dave Armstrong ebook- Church Fathers.

An interesting side note.

One of commenters here had this observation to make:

Sem, you have to understand that Elena and her crew are simply not use to coming up against people who are doctrinally sound and know their faith. They - just like they accuse us wretched Protestants - take what they ‘believe’ to be the truth about our faith instead of the facts as supported by Scripture.

And they are all self-righteous. Normally the go after some more mentally unstable woman who rants, raves and waves Jack Chick tracts around the blogosphere.

I love it that she has met her match. Thank you Elena for coming here.

I thought the bolded part was an interesting observation from someone who has been looking at our blogs.


As a side note, isn't "take(ing) what they ‘believe’ to be the truth about our faith instead of the facts as supported by Scripture" exactly what they do with Catholicism?

Want to see how whacked out those Catholics are? Look at those Methodists?

In today's rant Candy lets us know that she didn't know anything much about Christianity until the age of 17, which means that while she was courting, marrying, modeling, moving, having children and becoming a computer whiz - she learned everything there was about the bible and church history - sorta

In today's screed she tells the reader she is not a Calvinist, and then she delves into her belief in predestination! I'm not an expert on either, but it sounds to me that her view has much in common with the Calvinist view. Feel free to opine on that!

And as I was reading the post I thought maybe the Catholics had dodged a bullet - but nope - she managed to jump from predestination and Calvinism to this:


God knows man's heart, and that man craves power. To be able to speak for God, is too much power for man to handle. Therefore, He gaves us His Written Word, to keep man, and his tendency to change things over time, in check. The Roman Catholic Church, which ignored much of the Bible from their church's beginning, became even more and more corrupt through the years, because of their not adhering to the Word of God. When churches stray from the Bible, then they start introducing false doctrine. Some churches, such as the Roman Catholic Church, claim that their teachings of man and traditions, hold equal validity to the Word of God. Yet, you'll find that where their traditions differ from the Bible, they choose to follow their traditions as the correct course. This is why such churches as the Methodist church now allow gay clergy, even though the Bible is crystal clear that that is not supposed to be. Traditions, or peer pressure, is taking presidence over the Word of God in many churches of various denominations.


Clearly somehow Candy never learned that the Methodists were never part of the Catholic Church. They were started in 1739 by John Wesley and came out of the Church of England. The Church of England of course broke with the Catholic Church when Henry VIII wanted to divorce his wife and take a different queen! The Pope, adhering to you know, what the bible says, forbid the divorce and that was the beginning of the break up.

What Candy never gets back around to acknowledging is that the Catholic Church's true stand on homosexuality, which is very similar to her stand.

I found her post, and that paragraph in particular to be historically and theologically inaccurate and lacking focus. It is also misleading and rife with errors.

It's simply, more of the same.

With so much going on in the country and the world right now, Candy seems to be fretting a lot in her Oklahoma trailer about...the Catholics? She has a huge rambling post about the evils of Catholicism again.


I, on the other hand, have a life. So I don't have time to get into all of her points (again). This weekend. One of my son's is having a big 16th birthday bash tonight! On the other hand I'm sure Kelly and her little guy are just enjoying their babymoon! So in the spirit of having better things to do with our lives, I hope that those of you looking for rebuttals to Candy Brauer's post today at keepingthehome.com (Keeping The Home) will settle for a few reruns! I'll try to keep them going during the weekend.


There is no need for any religious Church "Masses:

Jesus said to keep the sabbath day holy and that if you love Him you will keep His commandments. Attending mass every week is the "Catholic way" of doing what Jesus said.

Catechism Catholic Church:
2042 The first precept ("You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation and rest from servile labor") requires the faithful to sanctify the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord as well as the principal liturgical feasts honoring the Mysteries of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the saints; in the first place, by participating in the Eucharistic celebration, in which the Christian community is gathered, and by resting from those works and activities which could impede such a sanctification of these days.

Priests of any kind are now obsolete, and NOT needed:


Someone should have told Jesus and the apostles! Because not only did Jesus designate the apostles specifically to keep his ministry going, they also "ordained" others to help them!

Catechism Catholic Church:
1536 Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be exercised in the Church until the end of time: thus it is the sacrament of apostolic ministry. It includes three degrees: episcopate, presbyterate, and diaconate.


We have one mediator, and one mediator only, and that is Jesus Christ:
For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; -1 Timothy 2:5

Catechism Catholic Church
The one priesthood of Christ
1544 Everything that the priesthood of the Old Covenant prefigured finds its fulfillment in Christ Jesus, the "one mediator between God and men."¹⁵ The Christian tradition considers Melchizedek, "priest of God Most High," as a prefiguration of the priesthood of Christ, the unique "high priest after the order of Melchizedek";¹⁶ "holy, blameless, unstained,"¹⁷ "by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified,"¹⁸ that is, by the unique sacrifice of the cross.
1545 The redemptive sacrifice of Christ is unique, accomplished once for all; yet it is made present in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Church. The same is true of the one priesthood of Christ; it is made present through the ministerial priesthood without diminishing the uniqueness of Christ's priesthood: "Only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers."¹⁹
Two participations in the one priesthood of Christ
1546 Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church "a kingdom, priests for his God and Father."²⁰ The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ's mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are "consecrated to be . . . a holy priesthood."²¹
1547 The ministerial or hierarchical priesthood of bishops and priests, and the common priesthood of all the faithful participate, "each in its own proper way, in the one priesthood of Christ." While being "ordered one to another," they differ essentially.²² In what sense? While the common priesthood of the faithful is exercised by the unfolding of baptismal grace --a life of faith, hope, and charity, a life according to the Spirit--, the ministerial priesthood is at the service of the common priesthood. It is directed at the unfolding of the baptismal grace of all Christians. The ministerial priesthood is a means by which Christ unceasingly builds up and leads his Church. For this reason it is transmitted by its own sacrament, the sacrament of Holy Orders.




There is no canonization process or church you have to go to or through to become a saint of God.
On Canonization - we've been there, done that. But because of invincible ignorance our rebuttals have never been acknowledged or addressed.  Nonetheless, it's part of our Vatican Vs. God rebuttal and you can read it here. Kelly also takes on the topic here.


We don't have to eat any Eucharist wafer, and think that we are eating Jesus in the form of a wafer. Where is Jesus Christ

We, SO HIT THIS OUT OF THE BALL PARK here.

Yes, the ancient Babylonians believed in a woman who procalimed herself a virgin, in whose husband (Nimrod, from Genesis) died. The woman claimed to be a virgin, and delivered a baby, which she taught was Nimrod come back from the dead. 

Thus, to become a saint involves no works or rituals - AT ALL. This is why Jesus said - It Is Finished


Mary and pagan stuff is here.

And now a personal note to Candy. I know you read here Candy. I know you're ticked that we show up so well in Google for people looking for your blog!  But really, can you give us some new material?  Thanks a bunch!

Our Debt to the Monks

I guess not everybody knows what happened to the bible between the time of St. Paul and his correspondence and the time of the Reformation. So this is a little bit of info of what happened before the age of the printing press.

From Henry Graham's Where We Got the Bible:

Our Debt To the Monks, page 74.

Day by day, year after yer, the monks would persevere in their holy labors, copying with loving care every letter of the sacred text from some old manuscript of the Bible, adorning and illuminating the pages of vellum with pictures and illustrations in purple and gold and silver colouring, and so producing real works of art that excite the envy and admiration of modern generations. Some Bishops and Abbots wrote out with their own hands the whole of both the Old and New Testaments for the use of their churches and monasteries. Even nuns, and this point I would bring under special notice- nuns took their share in this pious and highly skilled labour. We read of one who copied with her own hands two whole Bibles, and besides made six copies of several large portions of the Gospels and Epistles. Every monastery and church possessed at least one, and some possessed many copies of the Bible and the Gospels. In those ages it was a common thing to copy out particular parts of the Bible (as well as the whole Bible); for example, the Gospels or the Psalms or Epistles so that many who could not afford to purchase a complete Bible were able to possess themselves of at least some part which was specially interesting or popular. This custom is truly Catholic, as it flourishes amongst us today. At the end of our prayer books, for instance, we have Gospels and Epistles for the Sundays and various publishers, too, have issued the four Gospels separately each by itself and the practice seems to me to harmonise entirely with the very idea and structure of the Bible, which was originally composed of separate and independent portions, in use in different Churches throughout Christendom. And so we find that the monks and clergy often confined their work to copying out certain special portions of Sacred Scripture, and naturally the Gospels were the favourite part.

The work, we must remember was very slow, and expensive as well. Dr. Maitland reckons that it would require ten months for a scribe of those days to copy out a Bible; and that L 60 or L 70 would have been required if he had been paid at the rate that lawstationers pay their writers. Of course, with the monks it was a labour of love,and not for money; but this calculation of Dr. Maitland only refers to teh work of copying; it leaves out of account the materials that had to be used, pen and ink and parchment. Another authority (Buckingham) has made a more detailed calculation, and assuming that 427 skins of parchment would have been needed for the 35,000 verses, running into 127,000 folios, he reckons that a complete copy of Old and New Testaments could not have been purchased for less than L 218. Yet Protestants stare in astonishment when you tell them that not everybody could sit by the fireside in those days with a bible on his knees!

Invincible Ignorance Exhibit A

The Catholic church, for years, tried its best to keep the Bible from getting into the common people's hands. They even killed people who tried to get the Word of God to the common man. However, the Word of God has always been available to anyone who seeks for it, as Christ promised. 


Sometimes Candy's lack of world history knowledge astounds me. None of it surprises me however.  Her perspective of the Church and the Bible is directly influenced by Samuel Gipp whom I wrote an entire series on here.

Contrary to what Candy thinks, it was the Catholic church that got the scriptures into the hands of the common man.  First of all the Catholic Church determined which books should be preserved and in the canon and then under the authority of the pope, the canon of the bible was closed.  That canon remained intact until Martin Luther and the Reformation.  So the Protestant bible is only 500 years or so old.  Prior to that, it was the Catholic version used by Christendom.

Secondly, the church preserved the written word with great perseverance. Before the printing press, scripture had to be COPIED BY HAND. The volumes were HUGE.  And although anti-Catholics like Candy will bash the church for having copies of the bible chained in the church, it wasn't to prevent the people from having access to them, but rather to make sure everyone could have access to them! Much like important volumes in the public library available to all but not available for check out and circulation.

Thirdly, the church kept the word of God alive ORALLY and in art and music because the great majority of people COULD NOT READ! The beautiful art in the great churches and cathedrals wasn't just there for atmosphere - it's there to help the people learn the bible stories and to inspire them.

Fourthly, I would point out that prior to the printing press, and a mass distribution system, producing cheap, easy to produce and distribute copies of the bible, owning a bible would have been prohibitive anyway, which is another reason I think sola scriptura is erroneous.

Here is an excerpt from How We Got the Bible - Henry Graham:
Now one could go on at any length accumulating evidence as to the fact of monks and priests reproducing and transmitting copies of the Bible from century to century, before the days of Wycliff and Luther; but there is no need, because I am not writing a treatise on the subject, but merely adducing a few proofs of my assertions, and trying to show how utterly absurd is the contention that Rome hates the Bible, and did her best to keep it a locked and sealed book and even to destroy it throughout the Middle Ages. Surely nothing but the crassest ignorance or the blindest prejudice could support a theory so flatly contradicted by the simplest facts of history. The real truth of the matter is that it is the Middle Ages which have been a closed and sealed book to Protestants, and that only now, owing to the honest and patient researches of impartial scholars amongst them, are the treasures of those grand centuries being unlocked and brought to their view. It is this ignorance or prejudice which explains to me a feature that would be otherwise unaccountable in the histories of the Bible written by non-Catholics. I have consulted many of them, and they all, with hardly an exception, either skip over this period of the Bible's existence altogether or dismiss it with a few off-hand references. They jump right over from the inspired writers themselves, or perhaps from the fourth century, when the Canon was fixed, to John Wycliff, 'The Morning Star of the Reformation', leaving blank the intermediate centuries, plunged, as they imagine, in worse than Egyptian darkness. But I ask—Is this fair or honest? Is it consistent with a love of truth thus to suppress the fact, which is now happily beginning to dawn on the more enlightened minds, that it was the monks and clergy of the Catholic Church who, during all these ages, preserved, multiplied, and perpetuated the Sacred Scriptures? The Bible on its human side is a perishable article. Inspired by God though it be, it was yet, by the Providence of God, written on perishable parchment with pen and ink; liable to be lost or destroyed by fire, by natural decay and corruption, or by the enemies, whether civilised or pagan, that wasted and ravaged Christendom by the sword, and gave its churches and monasteries and libraries to the flames. Who, I ask, but the men and women, consecrated to God by their vows and devoted to a life of prayer and study in monasteries and convents, remote from worldly strife and ambition—who but they saved the written Word of God from total extinction, and with loving and reverent care reproduced its sacred pages, to be known and read of all, and to be handed down to our own generation, which grudges to acknowledge the debt it owes to their pious and unremitting labours?

When was the Old Testament compiled? Some would decide for about the year 430 B.C., under Esdras and Nehemiah, resting upon the authority of the famous Jew, Josephus, who lived immediately after Our Lord, and who declares that since the death of Ataxerxes, B.C. 424, 'no one had dared to add anything to the Jewish Scriptures, to take anything from them, or to make any change in them.' Other authorities, again, contend that it was not till near 100 B.C. that the Old Testament volume was finally closed by the inclusion of the 'Writings'. But whichever contention is correct, one thing at least is certain, that by this last date—that is, for 100 years before the birth of Our Blessed Lord—the Old Testament existed precisely as we have it now.

Of course, I have been speaking so far of the Old Testament, in Hebrew, because it was written by Jewish authority in the Jewish language, namely, Hebrew, for Jews, God's chosen people. But after what is called the 'Dispersion' of the Jews, when that people was scattered abroad and settled in many other lands outside Palestine, and began to lose their Hebrew tongue and gradually became familiar with Greek, which was then a universal language, it was necessary to furnish them with a copy of their Sacred Scriptures in the Greek language. Hence arose that translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek known as the Septuagint. This word means in Latin 70, and is so named because it is supposed to have been the work of 70 translators, who performed their task at Alexandria, where there was a large Greek-speaking colony of Jews. Begun about 280 or 250 years before Christ, we may safely say that it was finished in the next century; it was the acknowledged Bible of all the 'Jews of the Dispersion' in Asia, as well as in Egypt, and was the Version used by Our Lord, His Apostles and Evangelists, and by Jews and Gentiles and Christians in the early days of Christianity. It is from this Version that Jesus Christ and the New Testament writers and speakers quote when referring to the Old Testament.

But what about the Christians in other lands who could not understand Greek? When the Gospel had been spread abroad, and many people embraced Christianity through the labours of Apostles and missionaries in the first two centuries of our era, naturally they had to be supplied with copies of the Scriptures of the Old Testament (which was the inspired Word of God) in their own tongue; and this gave rise to translations of the Bible into Armenian and Syriac and Coptic and Arabic and Ethiopic for the benefit of the Christians in these lands. For the Christians in Africa, where Latin was best understood, there was a translation of the Bible made into Latin about 150 A.D., and, later, another and better for the Christians in Italy; but all these were finally superseded by the grand and most important version made by St Jerome in Latin called the 'Vulgate'—that is, the common, or current or accepted Version. This was in the fourth century of our era. By this time St Jerome was born, there was great need of securing a correct and uniform text in Latin of Holy Scripture, for there was danger, through the variety and corrupt conditions of many translations then existing, lest the pure scripture should be lost. So Jerome, who was a monk, and perhaps the most learned scholar of his day, at the command of Pope St Damascus in 382 A.D., made a fresh Latin Version of the New Testament (which was by this time practically settled) correcting the existing versions by the earliest Greek MSS. he could find. Then in his cell at Bethlehem, between (approximately) the years 392-404, he also translated the Old Testament into Latin directly from the Hebrew (and not from the Greek Septuagint)—except the Psalter, which he had previously revised from existing Latin Versions. This Bible was the celebrated Vulgate, the official text in the Catholic Church, the value of which all scholars admit to be simply inestimable, and which continued to influence all other versions, and to hold the chief place among Christians down to the Reformation