So Why Aren't You Catholic Yet?

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='RezaMikhaeil' timestamp='1312395972' post='2280954']
Yes, my comments will probably open up a can of worms followed by a gigantic backlash that results in my death but what else is new? This is phatmass...
[/quote]
I agree with this post with no caveats.

[havok579257]

[quote name='RezaMikhaeil' timestamp='1312390633' post='2280904']

That's the truth... so here it goes...

I'm not Roman Catholic becasue I do not agree remotely with the 'Charismatic Catholic' heresy [yes I used that term because I believe it to be so] and because of the Roman Catholic's initial response to Galileo's scientific discoveries.

I'm also not fond of Mother Theresa and Thomas Moore [the patron saint of politicians].
[/quote]

what's wrong with mother theresa?

[4588686]

[quote name='RezaMikhaeil' timestamp='1312395972' post='2280954']
Yes, my comments will probably open up a can of worms followed by a gigantic backlash that results in my death but what else is new? This is phatmass...
[/quote]


Yeah. Because being killed for your political beliefs and having people on an internet forum disagree with you are exactly the same thing.

Edited August 8, 2011 by Hasan

[dells_of_bittersweet]

[quote name='Light and Truth' timestamp='1311992583' post='2278401']
I don't think the Catholic Church would accept me because I disagree with it on certain things such as below.

I not agree with papal infallibility or the leadership of a single pope. All of that power in one man is illogical (and this differs from Jesus in that a savior is a philosophical necessity for humanity to have any hope). I do not find the interpretation of scripture to be sound. I may have another reference to support this but I need to do other work and look for it later. Either God is logical, or the atheists are right about us not thinking-I think we can agree which is more likely.

There are a few other reasons, but they take more time to dig up.
[/quote]

"Now when Jesus came into the district of Ceasarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that the Son of Man is?...Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:13, 16-19)

Let's go through this passage peice by piece. For starters, Jesus in in Ceasarea Philippi. This is the site of a great, big, huge, enormous exposed rockface. Jesus tells Peter that he is "rock" in the shadow of one of the largest rocks in the world.

And the significance of the word "rock." Throughout the entirety of salvation history, the word "rock" had always been used to refer to God only. No human being had previously been called "rock," as that would have been considered blasphemous. However, Jesus breaks with the tradition here and names Simon "rock." Jesus clearly means something very significant here.

"And on this rock I will build my Church." Church singular. Christ's Church must be visable and it must be one, else it would not be an actual church. Jesus is appointing Peter to be the head of this Church.

"And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it." If the Church founded by Jesus Christ were to teach error, than the Gates of Hades would have prevailed against it. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Christ is promising that Satan shall not prevail against His Church. Thus, His Church must be infallible.

"I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven." The keys to the kingdom. These are what were given to the Prime Minister of a Kingdom when the King was leaving for an indeterminate amount of time. Jesus is thus making Peter His prime minister here on Earth. Also, as demonstrated in the book of Machabees, the position of prime minister is passed down from person to person until the king returns.

"Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven..." That's some pretty serious power. Jesus is giving Peter all the powers necessary to act as his representative here on Earth.


The power isn't really vested in the man himself. The Holy Spirit acts to prevent the Pope from making an error in matters concerning faith or morals. That's it. It isn't illogical, it's Biblical.

[RezaMikhaeil]

[quote name='havok579257' timestamp='1312838518' post='2283467']

what's wrong with mother theresa?
[/quote]

I'm not sure that I could answer that question without being banned from this forum or extremely censored.

[Amppax]

nevermind

Edited August 14, 2011 by Amppax

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='RezaMikhaeil' timestamp='1313349434' post='2287707']
I'm not sure that I could answer that question without being banned from this forum or extremely censored.
[/quote]
As long as you don't curse excessively (or do and don't circumvent the fiddler) or link to anti-Catholic websites, most opinions - no matter how off the wall - are tolerated here.

[Amppax]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' timestamp='1313359560' post='2287781']
As long as you don't curse excessively (or do and don't circumvent the fiddler) or link to anti-Catholic websites, most opinions - no matter how off the wall - are tolerated here.
[/quote]

yeah, what Sir Mr. Important Man that Knows Everything said. I was going to say about the same, but i figured i would defer to a more experienced PMer.

[tinytherese]

As you can see, Catholics have differing opinions on the charismatic movement. You don't have to participate in it. And as far as the Galileo controversy, as CatherineM has said time and time again, Christ left His perfect Church in hands of imperfect Catholics.

I've never heard what you said regarding St. Thomas More, but even the saints sinned at times. Just because St. Peter is canonized doesn't mean that we are condoning that he denied that he knew Our Lord three times and abandoned Him.

You don't have to be thrilled about every saint, just acknowledge that the Church canonized them.

[Amppax]

[quote name='tinytherese' timestamp='1313373220' post='2287971']
Just because St. Peter is canonized doesn't mean that we are condoning that he denied that he knew Our Lord three times and abandoned Him.
[/quote]

this is one of the coolest things i've ever seen. I love this.

[RezaMikhaeil]

[quote name='tinytherese' timestamp='1313373220' post='2287971']
As you can see, Catholics have differing opinions on the charismatic movement. You don't have to participate in it. And as far as the Galileo controversy, as CatherineM has said time and time again, Christ left His perfect Church in hands of imperfect Catholics.

I've never heard what you said regarding St. Thomas More, but even the saints sinned at times. Just because St. Peter is canonized doesn't mean that we are condoning that he denied that he knew Our Lord three times and abandoned Him.

You don't have to be thrilled about every saint, just acknowledge that the Church canonized them.
[/quote]

Are you seriously comparing what Thomas Moore did, and what those that persecuted Galileo did to that of St. Peter? St. Peter had a personal inner struggle as a human being, he didn't go out of his way to persecute people. Huge difference. St. Peter is a Saint because thou he was human, generally speaking he was a good man, who followed G-d. If he'd have been a violent individual, who tried to spread his religion through the sword, it's highly doubtful he'd be viewed the same way.

[ardillacid]

I recall budge had some pretty wild things to say about mother Teresa, so you are in pretty good company

[RezaMikhaeil]

Wasn't Budge sensored? Speaking of Budge, where is that old crazy?

[ardillacid]

I didn't know you were around back then. What was your sn?

[RezaMikhaeil]

Mother Theresa, why do I not like her? Well as with most people, I don't accept the rosey picture that the media paints and do whatever is possible to get the truth. The truth is that she associated herself with and spoke highly of many individuals who were downright evil.

- The Duvalier, who she accepted money from and had taken pictures with Michele Duvalier. She didn't just take money from them but she said that Michele was, "somone who feels, who knows, who wishes to demonstrate her love not only with words but also with concrete and tangible actions." Bill Donahue and many others have said that she had to entertain these relations in order to get money to help the poor but what poor? The Haitian people got nothing out of her alliance with the Duvalier family, who had stolen it from them. At the time, Haiti had the lowest per capita annual income in the western hemisphere. After the scandle broke and the Duvaliers were overthrown, Mother Theresa said about Michele Duvalier, I have "never seen the poor people being so familiar with their head of state as they were with her. It was a beautiful lesson to me."

- Charles Keating [my favorite], she had accepted large sums of money. When the prosecutors have written to her, telling her that it had been stolen from hundreds of elderly people, who had invested their life savings in Keatings scheme, she did not return the money. Bill Donahue makes the argument that she had already spent the money. I response by saying that the Catholic Church itself could have written a check. However this is a red-herring because Mother Theresa wrote to the judge on Mr. Keating's behalf asking that they show leniency because of his giving to her organization. News Flash, that money that he gave you wasn't his money. It was stolen. That's like if a nun wrote a letter on behalf of a bank robber saying, "after he robbed that bank, he made a charitable contribution to our convent". IT WASNT HIS MONEY, he didn't earn it and so therefore it wasn't him being generous.

You might say, "you're just anti-mother theresa like Christopher Hitchens, Penn and Teller, etc." and you're more then welcome to make such assessments. I have no problem because you're entitled to your own opinion of my life, just as I am of Mother Theresa's life. However it would be important for you to know that I was raised being told that Mother Theresa was a great woman. I believed that most of my life, as did my wife but I also do not like being lied to so I often research people's lives. When I was a youngster I was told that Malcolm X was a bad man that hated all white people, so what did I do? I studied the facts just as I did with Mother Theresa and found that the opposite was true. My wife still has difficulties believing that Mother Theresa could be so 'bad' so she believes that Mother Theresa probably wasn't that intelligent and so she made many poor choices.

Note: I think that it's a shame that most recognize Mother Theresa as being good over that of St. Therese, who she was named after, because I truly believe that St. Therese was a genuinely good woman, who was genuine and did good throughout her life. Mother Theresa I can't say the same for, unfortunately.

These are two specific instances of Mother Theresa not only accepting money from, but praising individuals who stole large sums of money from poor people and the elderly, and slaughtering mass groups of people, in which I'd define as genocide. If we compare her to other saints, such as St. Catherine. St. Catherine rebuked such individuals, Mother Theresa praised them and took their money, which was stolen.

Now onto the more important part, sainthood. Mother Theresa was put on the fast track to beautification and soon to be sainthood. If I'm not mistaken, it used to be that the Roman Catholic Church required two seperate miracles in order for an individual to be considered a Saint. It was later changed to one, in which Mother Theresa was reportedly to have gotten from a woman named Monica Besra. Who was Monica and what was the miracle? Monica was an indian woman, who had a tumor in the abdomen. She claims to have been healed by intercession through a locket with a picture of Mother Theresa. This was accepted by the Vatican as an authentic "miracle" but was it?

Besra said that a beam of light emanated from the picture, curing the cancerous tumor. Critics—including some of Besra's medical staff and, initially, Besra's husband—insisted that conventional medical treatment had eradicated the tumor. Dr. Ranjan Mustafi, who told [i]The New York Times[/i] he had treated Besra, said that the cyst was not cancer at all but a cyst caused by tuberculosis. He insisted, "It was not a miracle.... She took medicines for nine months to one year."According to Besra’s husband, “My wife was cured by the doctors and not by any miracle.”

An opposing perspective of the claim is that Monica's medical records contain sonograms, prescriptions, and physicians' notes that could prove whether the cure was a miracle or not. Monica has claimed that Sister Betta of the Missionaries of Charity is holding them. The publication has received a "no comments" statement from Sister Betta. The officials at the Balurghat Hospital where Besra was seeking medical treatment have claimed that they are being pressured by the Catholic order to declare the cure a miracle.

I'd say that this is contraversial and with serious doubts at best and most likely it's no miracle at all. There is a book that I have in my library about the late Pope [St.] Kryillos VI of Alexandria. In the book there is a copy of a newsweek article in which an American man had complete heart failure and was going to die. He went to Alexandria - Egypt and asked for intercession through St. Mina and Pope [St.] Kyrillos VI [who were known to associate with each other]. He was healed and his own doctors hailed it as a miracle. This is a genuine miracle, so please don't think that I discredit miracles. Pope St. Kyrillos VI performed many miracles, all of which were investigated and documented. A friend of mine's own father was healed by Pope [St.] Kyrillos VI as a baby. As an infant he was ill and doctors told his mother that they couldn't help him. They sent him home with his mother to die. She went to see Pope [St.] Kyrillos VI. There was a large crowd around him [as he often went amongst the common people] and so she grew frustrated and left. He turned to her and said, "do not be angry at the church, go home to your son and he will be fine". She went home and her son did not die. This is much more believable of a miracle, then that of Mother Theresa's, no offense.