do you believe in religious freedom?

[Era Might]

[quote]The human nature of Christ represented, to a great extent, the human nature of every single person who has ever lived. ...Every single human being that would ever be born until the end of time was incorporated into this humanity. Hence, there is not a Buddhist, Confucioanist, communist, sinner, or saint who is not in this human nature of Christ. We're in it. Our neighbor next door is in it. Every persecutor of the Church is, too. When we are puzzled about how other people are saved, we need only realize that implicitly all salvation of all men, are in Christ. They may not recognize their incorporation to Christ, but in a certain sense every person in the world is implicitly a Christian in his human nature. ...If the sin of Adam had so many repercussions in every human being who has lived, shall we deny the incarnation of our blessed Lord has had a greater repercussion? Can the sin of one man have greater effects and disorder in human nature than the Incarnation of the Son of God has in ordering all humanity? Thus, I say everybody in the world is implicitly Christian.

--Archbishop Fulton Sheen, "Your Life Is Worth Living", pgs. 67-68[/quote]

Edited June 3, 2006 by Era Might

[desertwoman]

ah, I'm not Catholic.

Yes, the trials were not singular, they were plural. They started in certain areas and some areas were quite. They happened for different reasons ie... social, political, and religious issues did spawn them.

I'm becoming such a nerd about these trials. This class I'm taking is fun!!

oh, and telling someone the truth of Christ is one thing. WHen they refuse, we shouldn't deny them freedoms or the such.

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='Extra ecclesiam nulla salus' post='996122' date='Jun 3 2006, 01:01 PM']
why is that you all assume i have no love? of course i have love. im not racking some heretic, and making them convert by force. i am simply saying i do not believe in relegious liberity (niether did Pius XI).
[/quote]
Sam, love is not something that you keep to yourself and harbor in your own heart. It must flow through your actions and your words. You say you have love, but your actions and words are stone cold.

[journeyman]

The problem with this question is a problem that has plagued the Church since it was founded. People live in the here and now, in this world. Jesus' kingdom is not of this world.

Men of government need to be guided by the morality that is the special province of the church. The church needs to be separate from the grasping for power in the secular sphere, so its teaching on morality is not tainted by those secular considerations.

When it gets right down to it, the authority of the government has always been dependent upon the ability to compel - through moral, economic, or physical means. It doesn't matter how well intentioned government may be, if it causes my death because I am too stupid or too stubborn to join a particular religion, it has killed me. Deliberately and purposefully. That constitutes murder.

If you, as the representative of the government, believe my death under those circumstances would be a lawful or justified killing, that is a reflection of your belief about my status as a human being.

[avemaria40]

I came from a nonreligious background and converted to Catholicism at the age of 15. Yes, I do believe in religious freedom because if we didn't have that, I wouldnt' be free to choose it! God gave us free will, no man should ever be allowed to deny that.

[Extra ecclesiam nulla salus]

[quote name='fidei defensor' post='996127' date='Jun 3 2006, 02:39 PM']
Sam, love is not something that you keep to yourself and harbor in your own heart. It must flow through your actions and your words. You say you have love, but your actions and words are stone cold.
[/quote]


Do i assume correctly that anyone who is against relegious liberity Has "actions and words that are stone Cold"?

So, do i assume correclty that your condemnation applies to His Late Holiness Pius IX?

CONDEMNED:
[quote]"in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship." (No. 77)[/quote]

CONDEMNED:
[quote]
"every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true." (No. 15) and that "it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship." (No. 78)[/quote]

It seems Pius IX was also cold and unloving, like me?

i am only restating Church teaching, but i guess that makes me unloving. But i always thought that Charity was rooted in Truth? 'guess not.


was Pope Boniface VIII unloving when he defined EENS?

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='Extra ecclesiam nulla salus' post='996136' date='Jun 3 2006, 02:26 PM']
Do i assume correctly that anyone who is against relegious liberity Has "actions and words that are stone Cold"?

So, do i assume correclty that your condemnation applies to His Late Holiness Pius IX?

CONDEMNED:
CONDEMNED:
It seems Pius IX was also cold and unloving, like me?

i am only restating Church teaching, but i guess that makes me unloving. But i always thought that Charity was rooted in Truth? 'guess not.
was Pope Boniface VIII unloving when he defined EENS?
[/quote]
I refuse to converse with you any longer. I am talking to you about your words. You know very well that I am not condemning his Holiness or anyone. I am not even condemning you. I am simply telling [b]you[/b] that [b]your[/b] words do not have love in them.

Good day, God bless.

Edited June 3, 2006 by fidei defensor

[Extra ecclesiam nulla salus]

[quote name='fidei defensor' post='996167' date='Jun 3 2006, 04:54 PM']
I refuse to converse with you any longer. I am talking to you about your words. You know very well that I am not condemning his Holiness or anyone. I am not even condemning you. I am simply telling [b]you[/b] that [b]your[/b] words do not have love in them.

Good day, God bless.
[/quote]

your obligation as a Christian would be to tell me why, so i can fix the problem....

[Aloysius]

frankness is not necessarily opposed to love. you needn't always seem "nice" and "soft" about things to be loving.

[Tata126]

Wait... don't the Pope Pius quotes defend religous freedom? Or did I read them wrong? Or did I misunderstand extra ecclesia - I thought he took them as condemning religious freedom?

"in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship." (No. 77)

-doesn't this say that the Catholic religion should NOT be held as the only religion of the state?


"every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true." (No. 15) and that "it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship." (No. 78)

-and doesn't this say that every man should be free to worship as he chooses?

The State's job is in protecting basic human life and allowing people to live together peacably, and it's the Church that has the obligation to preach truth and convert people who believe what is not true - which means that the State should allow people to practice and profess whatever religion they hold, as long as it does not harm people, and that means physically, not spiritually, because the State has no authority in the spiritual realm. It is not up to the government to decide what is good for people's souls. Though it is legitimate for there to be a religion particularly favored by the State, it's not legitimate for the State to persecute other religions, unless the practice of those other religions endangers the citizens of the State.

[Extra ecclesiam nulla salus]

[quote name='Tata126' post='996209' date='Jun 3 2006, 06:33 PM']
Wait... don't the Pope Pius quotes defend religous freedom? Or did I read them wrong? Or did I misunderstand extra ecclesia - I thought he took them as condemning religious freedom?

"in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship." (No. 77)

-doesn't this say that the Catholic religion should NOT be held as the only religion of the state?
"every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true." (No. 15) and that "it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship." (No. 78)

-and doesn't this say that every man should be free to worship as he chooses?

The State's job is in protecting basic human life and allowing people to live together peacably, and it's the Church that has the obligation to preach truth and convert people who believe what is not true - which means that the State should allow people to practice and profess whatever religion they hold, as long as it does not harm people, and that means physically, not spiritually, because the State has no authority in the spiritual realm. It is not up to the government to decide what is good for people's souls. Though it is legitimate for there to be a religion particularly favored by the State, it's not legitimate for the State to persecute other religions, unless the practice of those other religions endangers the citizens of the State.
[/quote]


Those three ideas were CONDEMNED by Pius IX. that is why i wrote condemned above them.

[ironmonk]

The wisdom of the Church...


[quote]
[b]The social duty of religion and the right to [u]religious freedom[/u][/b]

[url="http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect2chpt1.htm"]http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect2chpt1.htm[/url]
[b]2104 [/b]
"All men are bound to seek the truth, especially in what concerns God and his Church, and to embrace it and hold on to it as they come to know it."26 This duty derives from "the very dignity of the human person."27 It does not contradict a "sincere respect" for different religions which frequently "reflect a ray of that truth which enlightens all men,"28 [u]nor the requirement of charity, which urges Christians "to treat with love, prudence and patience those who are in error or ignorance with regard to the faith[/u]."29


[b]2105 [/b]
The duty of offering God genuine worship concerns man both individually and socially. This is "the traditional Catholic teaching on the moral duty of individuals and societies toward the true religion and the one Church of Christ."30 By constantly evangelizing men, the Church works toward enabling them "to infuse the Christian spirit into the mentality and mores, laws and structures of the communities in which [they] live."31 The social duty of Christians is to respect and awaken in each man the love of the true and the good. It requires them to make known the worship of the one true religion which subsists in the Catholic and apostolic Church.32 Christians are called to be the light of the world. Thus, the Church shows forth the kingship of Christ over all creation and in particular over human societies.33


[b]2106 [/b]
"[u]Nobody may be forced to act against his convictions, nor is anyone to be restrained from acting in accordance with his conscience in religious matters in private or in public, alone or in association with others, [b]within due limits[/b][/u]."34 This right is based on the very nature of the human person, whose dignity enables him freely to assent to the divine truth which transcends the temporal order. [u]For this reason it "continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it[/u]."35


[b]2107 [/b]
"If because of the circumstances of a particular people special civil recognition is given to one religious community in the constitutional organization of a state, the right of all citizens and religious communities to religious freedom must be recognized and respected as well."36


[b]2108 [/b]
The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error,37 but rather [u]a natural right of the human person to civil liberty, i.e., immunity, within just limits, from external constraint in religious matters by political authorities[/u]. This natural right ought to be acknowledged in the juridical order of society in such a way that it constitutes a civil right.38


[b]2109 [/b]
The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a "public order" conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.39 The "due limits" which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with "legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order."40[/quote]


An answer to almost every question posed on these boards can be found in the Catechism.

Here is a great Catechism search tool... [url="http://www.usccb.org:8765/?col=&ht=0&qp=&qs=&qc=&pw=100%25&ws=1&la=en&si=0&ql=a&nh=10&lk=1&rf=1"]http://www.usccb.org:8765/?col=&ht=0&qp=&q...nh=10&lk=1&rf=1[/url]

Please use search tool, also note all the options. This can provide you with a easy and quick answer to any question about the faith and make you a stronger Catholic.



God Bless,
ironmonk
your friendly neighborhood CatholicBot.

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='996181' date='Jun 3 2006, 03:32 PM']
frankness is not necessarily opposed to love. you needn't always seem "nice" and "soft" about things to be loving.
[/quote]

Werd




I'll be on at some point to put some things up. Religious Liberty is one of the things that made me leave my alliance with the current popes so I feel pretty strongly about this one .

[ironmonk]

[quote name='goldenchild17' post='995347' date='Jun 2 2006, 01:50 AM']
I absolutely do not believe in religious freedom. Especially according to the above definition. I believe it is a heresy condemned by the Church(although I'm going to be a good boy and not debate it if such is not allowed to be debated here ).
[/quote]

We should all know and trust Christ... if we ever think the Pope is wrong on something, then we will have a misunderstanding somewhere in our understanding of the Catholic Faith.

Christ did not lie and He cannot be wrong... The Church will never be overcome, the Pope is the successor of Peter, and all who leave the Church or disrespect the Pope are wrong to do so.

Please read this page from the 1908 AD Catholic Encyclopedia...
[url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14763a.htm"]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14763a.htm[/url]

A few excerpts...
[size=4][b]Religious Toleration[/b][/size]

I. The Idea of Toleration;
II. The Inadmissibility of Theoretical Dogmatical Toleration;
III. The Obligation to Show Practical Civil Toleration;
[u][b]IV. The Necessity of Public Political Toleration.[/b][/u]


IV. THE NECESSITY FOR PUBLIC POLITICAL TOLERATION
Since the State may not pose either as the mouthpiece of Divine Revelation or as the teacher of the Christian religion, it is clear that in regard to matters of religion it can adopt a much more broad-minded position than the Church, whose attitude is strictly confined by her teaching. The ethical permissibility, or rather the duty, of political tolerance and freedom of religion is determined by historical presuppositions and concrete relations; these impose an obligation which neither State nor Church can disregard. We will first consider the State in itself, and then the specifically Catholic State.
....


The state axiom of religious freedom can therefore mean only freedom for religion, not freedom from religion or irreligion. In his Encyclical "Vehementer nos", of 11 February, [u]1906, Pope Pius X sharply denounces for its injustice the violent breach of the Concordat by the French Government, instancing as the chief grievance that, by the official recognition of its own irreligion[/u], the French Republic had forsworn God Himself (cf. Denzinger, n. 1995).
...

If the State as such is under the same obligation to confess and venerate God as the individual, it must set bounds to religious freedom at least at the point where the unrestricted exercise of this freedom would lead to the subversion of state security and public morality. The history of religion shows that, to deceive unwary authorities, intrigues most immoral and most dangerous to the State have disguised themselves in the mantle of religion: the cults of Moloch and Astarte, religious prostitution and community of women, ritual child-murder and Anabaptist horrors, conventicles for debauchery and anarchistic secret societies, etc. No State with a regard for its own preservation will hesitate to raise a barrier against moral, religious, and political anarchy; and to repel with vigour all such attacks aimed, under the mask of freedom of belief, at the existence of society. Free competition between truth and error, which is sometimes urged in the name of tolerance, promises neither for the State nor the Church an enduring success; the free competition between virtue and vice could be upheld by the same reasoning.

....

When various Christian denominations establish themselves in any country, the Catholic State can no longer maintain its former exclusive attitude, but is compelled for reasons of State to show tolerance towards the heterodox and to grant them religious freedom within the limits described above and determined by natural law. If religious freedom has been accepted and sworn to as a fundamental law in a constitution, the obligation to show this tolerance is binding on conscience. The Catholic Church recognizes unreservedly the inviolability of constitutions confirmed by oath, of traditional laws, and regular religious compacts, because a breach of the constitution, of allegiance, of a treaty, or of an oath is a grievous sin, and because the Christian moral law prescribes fidelity to the State as an obligation strictly binding in conscience. To justify ethically tolerance towards certain religious practices of heathen subjects, medieval theologians appealed to the principle that tolerance might be always exercised wherever either its refusal would cause more harm than good, or, vice versa, whenever the granting of it ensured greater advantage than disadvantage. Thus[b] St. Thomas teaches (Summa theol., II-II, Q. x, a. 11): [/b] "Ritus infidelium tolerari possunt vel propter aliquod bonum, quod ex eis provenit, vel propter aliquod maum, quod vitatur" ([b]Heathen worships can be tolerated either because of some good that results from them or because of some evil that is avoided[/b]). In all the centuries the Church displayed an admirable tolerance especially towards the Jewish religion, since the survival of Judaism offered a living proof of the truth of Christianity.




God Bless,
ironmonk

[Dave]

I remember doing a previous post in a previous thread that dealt, in part, with religious freedom ... [url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=44921&st=25&p=834031entry834031"]http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?s...31entry834031[/url]