Resurrexi Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 Can someone please bring me an infallable statement showing that Protestants are not part of the Church. Thank you Tyler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Adam Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 Protestants are members of the body of Christ, the Church, communio non-plena, via their valid baptisms. Protestants are rarely formal heretics anymore because they have been raised in heresy, rather than making that decision for themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marieteresa Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 Iam just wondering how is it possible that they have been raised in heresy rather than making that decision? If a 30 year old chooses to become a protestant how have they been raised in it and secondly what if it was a Catholic whom converted? Also does the body of Christ also include protestants with an invalid baptism? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resurrexi Posted April 5, 2006 Author Share Posted April 5, 2006 [quote]Protestants are members of the body of Christ, the Church, communio non-plena, via their valid baptisms. Protestants are rarely formal heretics anymore because they have been raised in heresy, rather than making that decision for themselves. [/quote] I guess I'll take my question to fisheaters if I'm going to get this sort of response. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Adam Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 (edited) Yes, you will find orthodox, faithful, Roman Catholic answers here, not schismatic or anti-Catholic ones. If you want an anti-Catholic answer, I do suggest asking at "fisheaters". What an appropriate name. Edited April 5, 2006 by Brother Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Adam Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 Iam just wondering how is it possible that they have been raised in heresy rather than making that decision? To be a formal heretic one must be in obstinate denial of some truth of the faith. If they have never been presented with the truth, but rather, have been presented with a heresy as truth, they are not formal heretics, but material heretics. If a 30 year old chooses to become a protestant how have they been raised in it and secondly what if it was a Catholic whom converted? See above. Also does the body of Christ also include protestants with an invalid baptism? No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marieteresa Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 Are you saying that the person wasn't presented with the truth? I need an explaination here...If one were once Catholic and choose to convert wouldnt they be in denial of the truth? I mean they knew the fullness of the Catholic faith but choose to convert. how are they materal heretics? Iam just trying to figure this out In JMJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Adam Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 [quote]Are you saying that the person wasn't presented with the truth? I need an explaination here...If one were once Catholic and choose to convert wouldnt they be in denial of the truth? I mean they knew the fullness of the Catholic faith but choose to convert. how are they materal heretics? Iam just trying to figure this out[/quote] I wouldn't judge any particular case, but they may very well have never heard the Catholic faith before. Catechesis the past 40+ years has been notoriously bad. It isn't rare that I meet life long Catholics that don't know who the Eucharist is. They don't know what the role of the Pope is, and they think if they just live a good life according to their own conscience that is all they have to believe in. They just think that is what the Catholic faith is because that is what they were taught and don't know any better. You can't hold someone responsible for what they don't know, unless they are being purposefully ignorant. This isn't the case for every Catholic that leaves the faith, but I believe is the case for some. That is why, as a Catholic convert, I am getting into the catechetics field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marieteresa Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 Do you know of any good links on this topic? It still doesn't make sense to me. So is there any real need for one to convert? I am just basing this off of this info...I mean if protestants are still in the body of Christ why would one need to convert them? thanks, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Adam Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 (edited) [quote name='Marieteresa' date='Apr 4 2006, 07:56 PM']Do you know of any good links on this topic? It still doesn't make sense to me. So is there any real need for one to convert? I am just basing this off of this info...I mean if protestants are still in the body of Christ why would one need to convert them? thanks, [right][snapback]935815[/snapback][/right] [/quote] I am much better with book suggestions than I am with internet links. The Catechism of the Catholic Church talks about this, as do several other recent Catholic documents. Even though they, in some way, by their valid baptisms have a tie to the Catholic Church, and thus to salvation, they still need to be converted. Protestants do not have the fullness of the faith, they are not fully united to the Chuch (communio plena). They certianly don't have the channels of grace that we do, such as the Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith. The conversion a Protestant, like me had to undergo, was not a conversion to Christ, I had faith in Christ, and I was baptized, but a conversion to the truth. They are in much greater spiritual danger than we are, who are faithful to the Church and her teachings. While they cling to Christ there is a great deal of emptiness, uncertianty, a grasping for the truth that only the "pillar and bulwark of truth" can provide. Since becoming Catholic I have grown immensily in holiness through the sacrament of penance. A protestant who doesn't believe in the sacrament of reconciliation is more likely to be living in sin and thinking he is "okay". There are certianly Protestants who becoming adopted children through their baptisms and die in a state of grace, and thus enter heaven (sometimes to quite a shock I would imagine), but there is so much they are missing, lacking. We don't want anyone living only with partial truths, without the rock (Peter), without the Magisterium, without the Eucharistic Jesus. If you owned a nice house and a nice car and saw your best friend, [i]alive[/i], but living on the street, wouldn't you take them in? Edited April 5, 2006 by Brother Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jswranch Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 [quote name='StThomasMore' date='Apr 4 2006, 05:00 PM']Can someone please bring me an infallable statement showing that Protestants are not part of the Church. Thank you Tyler [right][snapback]935684[/snapback][/right] [/quote] From a protestant website. [url="http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/trent.htm"]http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/trent.htm[/url] Canons from Trent: FOURTH SESSION: DECREE CONCERNING THE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES: "If anyone does not accept as sacred and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts [the 66 books of the Bible plus 12 apocryphal books, being two of Paralipomenon, two of Esdras, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Sophonias, two of Macabees], as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church and as they are contained in the old Latin Vulgate Edition, and knowingly and deliberately rejects the aforesaid traditions, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA." SEVENTH SESSION, CANONS ON BAPTISM: "If anyone says that in the Roman Church, which is the mother and mistress of all churches, there is not the true doctrine concerning the sacrament of baptism, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons on Baptism, Canon 3). THIRTEENTH SESSION, CANONS ON THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST: "If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist are contained truly, really and substantially the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ, but says that He is in it only as in a sign, or figure or force, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons on the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Canon 1). THIRTEENTH SESSION, CANONS ON THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST: "If anyone says that Christ received in the Eucharist is received spiritually only and not also sacramentally and really, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons on the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, Canon 8). FOURTEENTH SESSION, CANONS CONCERNING THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF PENANCE: "If anyone says that in the Catholic Church penance is not truly and properly a sacrament instituted by Christ the Lord for reconciling the faithful of God as often as they fall into sin after baptism, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons Concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of Penance, Canon 1). TWENTY-THIRD SESSION, CANONS ON THE SACRAMENT OF ORDER: "If anyone says that there is not in the New Testament a visible and external priesthood, or that there is no power of consecrating and offering the true body and blood of the Lord and of forgiving and retaining sins, but only the office and bare ministry of preaching the Gospel; or that those who do not preach are not priests at all, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA" (Canons on the Sacrifice of the Mass, Canon 1). Need more? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Resurrexi Posted April 5, 2006 Author Share Posted April 5, 2006 [quote]Need more?[/quote] more would be nice : Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jswranch Posted April 5, 2006 Share Posted April 5, 2006 Go to: [url="http://www.ewtn.com/vlibrary/search.asp"]http://www.ewtn.com/vlibrary/search.asp[/url] In Library: click on Church Councils In Keyword enter Trent. Read to your heart's content. Then, go back and enter other councils. The format for these are usually a paragraph or two followed by a list a canons. The canons usually ends in "let him be anathema." These canons, properly interpreted, are usually considered infallible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fidei Defensor Posted April 6, 2006 Share Posted April 6, 2006 Most Protestants are material heretics. I think thats what Bro Adam forgot to mention, hence StThomasMore's response. StThomasMore, do you understand the difference between formal and material heretics? Just curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marieteresa Posted April 6, 2006 Share Posted April 6, 2006 Can you explain whats the difference between formal and material heretics? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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