Is This Even English?

[frozencell]

Hence the reason I'm Catholic. If I honestly thought that the teachings of Christ could be condensed into 16 points, and taught in 10 minutes, I too would be part of whatever denomination would best suite my lifestyle.

As a faithful Catholic, my journey to know Christ better will continue until the day I die.

I couldn't have said it better in my entire life!!!!! :peace:

[frozencell]

Well, Bruce,

Lemme take a shot at this.

I was educated through the 8th grade in Catholic schools, then sailed through public high school and community college before marrying and raising a family, so if I have enough grey cells left over, and if you're sincere in wanting to understand it, I'll explain it in simple, Catholic housewife terms for ya.

Norms are guidelines for our worship services, established by collective groups of bishops. In the United States, we have the USCCB, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, for instance.

In the U.S., the bishops have decided that the 'norm' for receiving Holy Communion is "standing." However, if there is long accepted (like 30 years) local parish or diocesan custom of kneeling to receive, that is acceptable.

If we decided to do a form of sashaying or do-see-doing, or promenading up to receive Holy Communion, that would certainly be contrary to canon law, as it would be disrespectful to the nature of Catholic worship and to the Divine Lord Who we approach to receive.

So no act that is contrary to divine law or canon law can become a norm.

And that is really a very over simplified and rather far-fetched example, just to keep it understandable.

Pax Christi. <><

Not only did you make it very clear that anyone who genuinely takes the time can understand this, but made it so simple I just explained it to my newborn son and he got it, too.

You are a very impressive person and God works mightily through your words and actions.

If only to follow your example. :clap:

[p0lar_bear]

Bruce S,

When reading this you have to take into account that it is a law book, not a statement of beliefs. Have you ever tried reading civil laws? (Does anyone really understand the tax laws?). Just like civil laws, Canon Law isn't necessarily intended to be read by your average person. You do not have to understand how to read Canon Law in order to understand the beliefs of the Catholic Church. Perhaps a better comparison to your 16 points would be Pope Paul VI's Credo of the People of God (which can also be found on the Vatican website). Even so, if you look at it as a law book, I don't think a lot of the canon is all that difficult to understand. A lot of it is understanding the language.

[Guest Solum Verbum Dei]

OK. I'm stupid. I only have post graduate degrees and a modicum of English skills, so is there a single person alive that can deciper this OPENING statement from the Code?

No you are not stupid at all. And yes there are persons alive that can decipher this statement and all of them in the Code, they are call canon lawyers. Have you had to sign a consent form to be treated at a hospital? Have you noticed that the person usually will say something like "Sign here, it just says that you agree to receive treatment by this hospital", and yet, it takes a whole page of very fine print to clearly spell that out. Why, 'cuz it was written by lawyers. So was the Code, it's a document of law.

A postgraduate degree on anything but Law will render anyone unable to interpret the Code. I took an introduction on the Code, and the priest (canon lawyer) showed the 2 volumes that make up the Code, but then he said that there at least 20 volumes interpreting and explaining the 2 volumes. If this seems ridiculus, then why does it take a Supreme Court (and 1000s of lawyers for that matter) to interpret what the Constitution says. After all "freedom of speech, press, religion..." seem rather simple and clear statements. But one will find volumes of court cases and lawyer interpretations of what that simple ammendment actually means.

[Bruce S]

Rabbinical.

Exactly what Jesus condemned in HIS denomination.

Religion that no one understood but the "Lawyers" [read Scribes]

He came to free us of that.

[cmotherofpirl]

lol its been replaced by private interpretation.

[RJS]

lol its been replaced by private interpretation.

:rolling:

Which has resulted in 10 new churches give or take 25000.

Now Bruce and Circle you dont need to start a new thread about how many Protestant Churchs there are, there is one already.

[Circle_Master]

as if there is another type

please let me know how another type works.

if you mean personal by "whatever I think it is, it is!" then obviously you don't know anything of hermeneutics.

and if you think that having more than one institution is a sign all the rest are wrong, you obviously are misinformed as to what protestants believe the Church is. You say denomination in a sickening way, I say denomination in a natural way. You have rites, we have denominations. Yes some are heretical, just as some Catholic teachers became heretical and were kicked out.

Edited December 31, 2003 by Circle_Master

[cmotherofpirl]

wrong.

Rites are under the Pope as the Bishop of Rome.

Demoninations are independent entities with nobody in charge. THats why there are so many of them.

[Circle_Master]

so because we hold only to Christ, and you hold to the Pope and then Christ we are wrong?

The church is being led by Christ, and it will be until the end.

[littleflower+JMJ]

outside of the Catholic Church all you have is contradiction.

pax christi.

[Circle_Master]

bruce, you are from a much different denomination than me. Do you agree that salvation is by grace alone and by nothing we do? Do you also agree in the trinity? Do you also agree that we must go to Scripture first and not tradition to learn about God?

[cmotherofpirl]

so because we hold only to Christ, and you hold to the Pope and then Christ we are wrong?

The church is being led by Christ, and it will be until the end.

Of course Christ leads the Church, but then again He isn't around to settle disputes.

THats why he left someone in charge. :)

[littleflower+JMJ]

Jesus established a church, and through the four marks we can clearly see this for "a city set on a hill cannot be hid" (Matt. 5:14).

FOUR MARKS OF THE TRUE CHURCH

If we wish to locate the Church founded by Jesus, we need to locate the one that has the four chief marks or qualities of his Church. The Church we seek must be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

The Church Is One (Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 10:17, 12:13, CCC 813–822)

Jesus established only one Church, not a collection of differing churches (Lutheran, Baptist, Anglican, and so on). The Bible says the Church is the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:23–32). Jesus can have but one spouse, and his spouse is the Catholic Church.

His Church also teaches just one set of doctrines, which must be the same as those taught by the apostles (Jude 3). This is the unity of belief to which Scripture calls us (Phil. 1:27, 2:2).

Although some Catholics dissent from officially-taught doctrines, the Church’s official teachers—the pope and the bishops united with him—have never changed any doctrine. Over the centuries, as doctrines are examined more fully, the Church comes to understand them more deeply (John 16:12–13), but it never understands them to mean the opposite of what they once meant.

The Church Is Holy (Eph. 5:25–27, Rev. 19:7–8, CCC 823–829)

By his grace Jesus makes the Church holy, just as he is holy. This doesn’t mean that each member is always holy. Jesus said there would be both good and bad members in the Church (John 6:70), and not all the members would go to heaven (Matt. 7:21–23).

But the Church itself is holy because it is the source of holiness and is the guardian of the special means of grace Jesus established, the sacraments (cf. Eph. 5:26).

The Church Is Catholic (Matt. 28:19–20, Rev. 5:9–10, CCC 830–856)

Jesus’ Church is called catholic ("universal" in Greek) because it is his gift to all people. He told his apostles to go throughout the world and make disciples of "all nations" (Matt. 28:19–20).

For 2,000 years the Catholic Church has carried out this mission, preaching the good news that Christ died for all men and that he wants all of us to be members of his universal family (Gal. 3:28).

Nowadays the Catholic Church is found in every country of the world and is still sending out missionaries to "make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19).

The Church Jesus established was known by its most common title, "the Catholic Church," at least as early as the year 107, when Ignatius of Antioch used that title to describe the one Church Jesus founded. The title apparently was old in Ignatius’s time, which means it probably went all the way back to the time of the apostles.

The Church Is Apostolic (Eph. 2:19–20, CCC 857–865)

The Church Jesus founded is apostolic because he appointed the apostles to be the first leaders of the Church, and their successors were to be its future leaders. The apostles were the first bishops, and, since the first century, there has been an unbroken line of Catholic bishops faithfully handing on what the apostles taught the first Christians in Scripture and oral Tradition (2 Tim. 2:2).

These beliefs include the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the forgiveness of sins through a priest, baptismal regeneration, the existence of purgatory, Mary’s special role, and much more —even the doctrine of apostolic succession itself.

Early Christian writings prove the first Christians were thoroughly Catholic in belief and practice and looked to the successors of the apostles as their leaders. What these first Christians believed is still believed by the Catholic Church. No other Church can make that claim.

http://www.catholic.com/library/Pillar.asp

pillar of fire, pillar of truth......"the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim. 3:15).

Jesus is the way, the truth and the light, whoever shall follow him shall have everlasting life.

and He has clearly shown us the way....

one faith, one creed.

pax christi.

[Bruce S]

bruce, you are from a much different denomination than me. Do you agree that salvation is by grace alone and by nothing we do? Do you also agree in the trinity? Do you also agree that we must go to Scripture first and not tradition to learn about God?

Salvation is GRACE ALONE, but works FLOW from that. We also have a HUGE emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit, and not just give lip service to that, but USE the HS in ways that most Protestants won't, and Catholics don't even understand.

Trinity is a given, ALL of the Trinity, EQUALLY, understand the emphasis on EQUAL, most Protestant's SAY they do, but in practice they do not.

Tradition is GREAT, you can learn TONS from the wonderful men and women that came before us, study them, learn from them, grow from them.

Just don't think they are EQUAL TO, the "RED LETTER WORDS"[/COLOR] in the Bible, they are not. They are, after all is said and done, COMMENTARY. Worth reading and learning, but NOT commands.

The rest of the Bible is wonderful too, and almost as important as the red letter words, I think they are basically true, but give them less credence, but trust almost all of them.

I personally think Revelation was written by someone that I went to college with and spent too long at Woodstock. But that is me, here and now, all those seven headed dragons remind me of Gnostic writings, having spent the last month in Gnosticism, the parallels are uncanny.

Genesis ... and the creating thing is not really that important, the world GOT created, and we are here, six days, six million years, what is the difference, God got the world created and all this began. That is ME speaking here, not the AofGod.

AofGod is not a unified denomination, there are wide divergences between individual church's not in doctrine, most agree on that, but more in the exhuberance and manifestations of the HS, there are abuses, I'm aware of that, don't defend that.

But unlike the locksteppers around here, we accept the diversity as a blessing, and don't consider it a handicap.

And we get all the really good scandals too ... not too many pedophiles, the Catholic Church has that one to itself, we get the con men, Jimmy Swaggart, James and Tammy Bakker, and even for a short time Benny Hinn, till they kicked him out.

I'm NOT a denominational bigot, I accept the good and bad in all denominations, only I'm willing to talk about OUR creeps, yep, and do so loudly and clearly online.