Christian Persecution In Mexico

[Katholikos]

[b]Budge wrote:
[/b][quote]Dont you all realize on the Day of the Dead they believe they are calling their dead home, which is wrong! The Bible prohbits conjuring up spirits! Unless youre going to tell me right now whipping out a Ouija board and calling grandma home is ok, then you are confused becuase they are doing the same thing![/quote]

Budge, you don't know what Mexicans are doing or what it means to them. Have you studied their culture, been among them, asked them about their customs? I've spent a lot of time in Mexico, and my degree is in anthropology (the study of man).

Mexican Catholics, like all Catholics, believe in the Communion of Saints. We are all alive in Christ Jesus, regardless of whether we are on earth, in purgatory, or in heaven. [b]". . . but he is not God of the dead but of the living, for to him all are alive" Luke 20:38. [/b] Mexicans have a way of expressing this truth that is unique to their culture. It's a beautiful thing. It is very moving experience to be in a Mexican home or cemetary on The Day of The Dead and to share in their ceremonies.

You and many other Protestants think that loved ones who have passed on are really "dead" -- that is, that they are beyond our ability to communicate with them, to pray for them, to love them. But the Bible says they are alive, so why don't you believe that? We are one family, the Body of Christ. And it isn't necromancy. We don't use Ouija boards. It has nothing to do with the occult.

I am truly sorry for you, Budge, that your religion is so impoverished. You are lacking in the incarnational principle, and it is a great poverty. Been there, done that.

Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
there's laughter and dancing and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so,
Benedicamus Domino.
[i]Hilaire Belloc[/i]

Likos

[Winchester]

This is the same tired and refuted tack. If every Bishop in the Catholic Church tomorrow started gunning down innocent kindergarteners, it wouldn't make what the Catholic Church teaches untrue. Jesus didn't tell the Jews to stop being Jews because of the misbehavior of the Sabhedrin; He instead told them to do what was taught, not what the S were doing.

Bishops and priests aren't protected from making personal errors, including failing to reprimand improper rituals. They're human. Last I checked, Christians remain sinners no matter what. Presence of sin is therefore not a proof against Christianity.

[Budge]

[quote]The previous Easter Sunday, political bosses in the Tzotzil Maya village noticed him missing from a church festival involving what Mendez considered to be idolatrous rites; they summoned him that evening.[/quote]

Why would a bunch of Commie, or supposely secular humanist govt types care if this guy went to a church festival or not?

Winchester, Jesus warned of following wolves in sheeps clothing, Im going with what he tuaght.

I always write on my board Catholics would follow the pope even if he hailed Satan on international TV, this is what Satan wants.

Same for any Prots who follow wolves as well.

[RezaMikhaeil]

[quote name='Budge' post='1251525' date='Apr 21 2007, 09:08 AM']Winchester, Jesus warned of following wolves in sheeps clothing, Im going with what he tuaght.[/quote]

No you don't, you said in another thread that despite Jesus saying that we should be born of spirit and water, that we just have to be born of spirit, not water.

[Budge]

You all dont understand that verse.

You think some water being splashed on someone is what does the saving?

What about the LIVING WATER? {get my drift}?

[Anthony]

[quote name='Budge' post='1251743' date='Apr 21 2007, 01:58 PM']You all dont understand that verse.

You think some water being splashed on someone is what does the saving?

What about the LIVING WATER? {get my drift}?[/quote]

Do you get our drift that you are not going to sway anyone to follow your views. We know what our faith tells us is true and you are just wasting your time. If you're going to continue to pointless attacks, fine, whatever. Just know that it serves no purpose and there are probably better things you could do with your time. Like pray that God doesn't strike you down for all of the blasphemous carp that you contribute to this forum. Now go away!

[Winchester]

[quote name='Budge' post='1251525' date='Apr 21 2007, 11:08 AM']I always write on my board Catholics would follow the pope even if he hailed Satan on international TV, this is what Satan wants.[/quote]
You mean like we follow him on the social justice, sanctity of marriage, abortion, and all that? If we were that monolithic and had among us no dissent, we would be a Catholic nation.

Behavior and personal statements don't change official teaching.

[Budge]

God isnt going to look at the official teachings. Hes going to see if you are under the blood of Jesus Christ, and born again.

If millions of people are being led to the antichrist, via the false interfaith movement, you think Satan cares whats in the CCC?

It wont matter.

They are being misled.

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote]But where are the bishops and priests, one word and this nonsense would be stopped.[/quote]

In Nazi-occupied Holland the bishops issued a pastoral letter against the persecution of the Jews that was read aloud from every pulpit.

In retaliation, the Nazis seized every Catholic of Jewish origin resident in Holland and shipped them to death camps. My patron St Edith Stein was one of them.

The bishops don't wield quite so much worldly power as you seem to think.

[Aloysius]

The official teachings are just what preserves the Church so that it is safe to be a member because you will have access to the Truth of God's revelation.

the evil things which infiltrate and cloud that is of satan, not of the Church.

but the whole thing is: you disagree with the official teachings, which is why you think it is not safe for a good Christian to be part of the Church. That's the real issue you have with us: our official teachings. But you have a great mechanism in place to avoid straight discussions: you can distract from any debate about official teachings by saying those aren't what matters, thereby making you safe to disagree with the Church's official teachings without ever actually debating them straight up.

the official teachings are what Catholics here believe. and that's where you really disagree with us, is it not? all these other things are distractions to those real issues. they are evils (though I don't trust fundamentalist news sources and am not sure I can take this story at face value; moreover, I think these "evanglists" are evangelizers of ethnocentric racism and will lead all of these 'converts' away from [i]potentially[/i] explicit idolatry into actualized but less recognizably avoidable economic-based idolatry; the worship of mammon.) and need to be condemned; but they are not proofs against the Church, who has weathered the attacks of satan from without and within again and again and again maintaining a strong orthodox base (though sametimes that strong orthodox base was a minority in the Church, the Church herself was still preserved)

[Budge]

I look at what churches SAY "official teachings" and DO...{the fruits}

[RezaMikhaeil]

[quote name='Budge' post='1251743' date='Apr 21 2007, 11:58 AM']You all dont understand that verse.

You think some water being splashed on someone is what does the saving?

What about the LIVING WATER? {get my drift}?[/quote]

[color="#FF0000"]Budge have you ever thought there's a reason why people converse with you as such? I'm willing to bet, that you can't go an entire day, without getting into a fight with someone that disagrees with you on the topic?[/color]

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote]I look at what churches SAY "official teachings" and DO...{the fruits}[/quote]

No, you don't. On this very board you have repeatedly stated that it doesn't matter how 'nice' Catholics are, that it doesn't matter how much 'good charity work' is carried about by vowed religious, because Catholic teaching is flawed and good works are worthless without truth. You have said this repeatedly.

Now you seem to be saying the opposite. The official teachings of the Church don't permit this sort of persecution to happen, but because some Catholics allow it to happen you accept these events as 'the fruits' of Catholicism. In short, you only concern yourself with what Catholics do when you find some who are behaving badly.

There is a second contradiction here as well. Catholic teaching urges people to be kind-hearted and work for charity...yet when people [i]obey[/i] that teaching, putting it into practice in their lives, you say that it's irrelevant. Catholic teaching condemns persecution and bullying...yet when people [i]disobey[/i] that teaching, becoming bullies and persecutors, you say that it is indicative of Catholicism.

Something doesn't fit here.

[Budge]

[quote]
Now you seem to be saying the opposite. The official teachings of the Church don't permit this sort of persecution to happen, but because some Catholics allow it to happen you accept these events as 'the fruits' of Catholicism. In short, you only concern yourself with what Catholics do when you find some who are behaving badly.[/quote]No I point out your leadership as a whole behaving badly...2/3rds of all American bishops were invovled in the scandals, not a guy here and there.

[quote]

There is a second contradiction here as well. Catholic teaching urges people to be kind-hearted and work for charity...yet when people obey that teaching, putting it into practice in their lives, you say that it's irrelevant. Catholic teaching condemns persecution and bullying...yet when people disobey that teaching, becoming bullies and persecutors, you say that it is indicative of Catholicism.[/quote]

What is wrong with examining the fruits of a church?

[cathoholic_anonymous]

[quote]What is wrong with examining the fruits of a church?[/quote]As I've already pointed out, you don't examine the fruits of Catholicism. If a Catholic behaves badly, you immediately declare that this is a result of his or her Catholic beliefs (even when Catholic teaching flatly denounces their actions). If a Catholic lives a good and holy life, you dismiss it as 'irrelevant'.

Don't duck the incongruity, Budge.

[quote]No I point out your leadership as a whole behaving badly...2/3rds of all American bishops were invovled in the scandals, not a guy here and there.[/quote]

Jack Chick also makes that claim. He also claims that the Spanish Inquisition was responsible for the deaths of nine million people - which is extraordinary when you consider that the entire population of Spain wasn't anywhere near as large as nine million during the time of the Inquisition. A lot of fundamentalists have a tendency to be very [i]laissez-faire[/i] when it comes to statistics, and you are no different.

The most dangerous thing about the scandals in the American church was the dissimulation that accompanied them. There are Catholic bishops who bear a lot of guilt for that and they need to face it. If only one Catholic priest in the whole world had abused children, it would still be a terrible moral tragedy for the Church. But this current state of affairs does not make the Catholic hierarchy any better or any worse than, say, the Southern Baptist Convention, which has also had more than its fair share of scandals and cover-ups.

Comparing crimes is not something I like to do. The fact that Protestant ministers have also been guilty of sexual abuse does not excuse Catholic priests in the slightest. But it does show one thing: it is far easier to get away with your reputation untarnished if you are a member of a convention that isn't worldwide or, better yet, a pastor in an independent church who is accountable to no one but himself. Then it is easy for Protestants of the same beliefs but who go to different churches to say, "We don't know that person. He's got nothing to do with us," and so they escape the flak that the Universal Church receives.

Edited April 22, 2007 by Cathoholic Anonymous