re: An update, honestly if anyone cares...

quote:

---

Flip perspectives. It's not what you get out of it, it's what you give.

---

Are you suggesting you’re not supposed to get anything from mass or a church service?

If that’s true, why is there a sermon or homily?

quote:

---

Catholic, wide is Presbyterian. Just celebrated 18th anniversary. It’s not THAT big of a deal.

---

My wife is Catholic, and we had our two boys baptized in the Catholic Church. They attend Catholic school as well. I was baptized Presbyterian, but I attend Mass every week with my wife and sons. I give money and we do a lot at the Catholic Church, I just don't take communion.

Note that Jesus did NOT say “take three months of classes, fill out a bunch of paperwork, and come follow me.”

quote:

---

I believe they backed off, maybe in Vatican II, to state that she would simply not have been in full communion previously.

---

Maybe that's true, and I'll admit ignorance to that if so. However: "CANON VI.–If any one saith, that the canon of the mass contains errors, and is therefore to be abrogated; let him be anathema." so the council that edited or backed off of the claim at Trent, would also be anathema according to Trent.

And again, I'm not attacking anyone's personal beliefs here. Just looking at the available texts and applying it to the situation being discussed.

quote:

---

Early church and any church for that matter should be Elder and deacon led, not some pope.

---

Catholic Church has priests and deacons which are functionally the same thing - we do respect and interpret that Christ appointed Peter as the first pope. Of course you can argue that’s not what He was doing, however, that is how we have interpreted it or almost 2000 years.

quote:

---

papal infallibility

---

only ‘ex cathedra’ the pope is still a sinner, as all are we

quote:

---

Marian dogmas, purgatory, indulgences

---

and what is wrong with these? Is this something you don’t understand? Or is this another interpretation problem?

quote:

---

many doctrines that Rome later defined (papacy, Marian dogmas, purgatory, indulgences, etc.).

---

most of those doctrines stem from what the early church believed and practiced - that’s how they came to be in the first place. It’s not something Rome ‘just made up’

quote:

---

sort of like Baptists and other denominations ‘reBaptizing’ people?!?!?

---

That's stupid too.

quote:

---

most of those doctrines stem from what the early church believed and practiced - that’s how they came to be in the first place. It’s not something Rome ‘just made up’

---

If they didn't make them up, they sure made up the part where they bind one's conscience:
1. Clerical celibacy (Peter himself had a wife)
2. Annual confession as a requirement
3. Weekly mass and holy days of obligation, or else...

quote:

---

Catholic Church has priests and deacons which are functionally the same thing - we do respect and interpret that Christ appointed Peter as the first pope. Of course you can argue that’s not what He was doing, however, that is how we have interpreted it or almost 2000 years.

---

I can respect Peter as an important bishop, even the preeminent bishop, but what happened with the papacy during the early and high middle ages is a travesty.

1. The Bishop of Rome's appointment by presbyters via the laying on of hands morphed into his election by a college of cardinals (made official in 1059).
2. Gregory VII issued the Papal Decree of 1075, which stated that no one can judge the pope. Somehow the pope went from first servant of Christ to being above the law.
3. Then there was the creation and abuse of the Papal Interdict starting in the 12th century.
4. OH. What about the Conciliar movement? The early church was obviously conciliar, then it faded away, then when it was brought up in the 15th century, the pope shut it down for good?!

I'm not even getting into holy wars and indulgences.

Even the Vatican acknowledges that things got out of hand:

quote:

---

One must further pose the question of whether and to what degree the
Roman Catholic Church fundamentally sees a possibility of a form
of communion of the non–Catholic churches with the pope, in
which the essence of the Petrine Ministry of unity is preserved, but
in canonical forms other than those that have been presented as
normative since the Middle Ages, and especially in the modern
period” (L–C Germ 2000, 200). The same is true for the extension
of papal primacy over various areas of Church life; historical
circumstances, which once justified a more or less far-reaching
extension of primacy in ecclesial matters, might have changed. It is
therefore “important to distinguish between the essence of a
ministry of primacy and any particular ways in which it has been or
is currently being exercised”

---

quote:

---

I tried to tell her, her Church only started in 1500.

---

That is so cute that Catholics think they are the one true church even though history says otherwise.

This thread is a little disheartening. Instead of building each other up in spiritual growth and encouragement, it's gone south in trying to tear each other thoughts and beliefs down. Christians should be united in one body through Christ, sharing spiritual blessings but instead this thread seems to be the opposite.

Southern Hog, maybe try to be encouraging her to do what her calling seems to be and you should try living strong in your faith and not telling her the rights and wrongs of either church. If you're putting Christ first, the rest works out. All churches have flaws because we're human and have misguided actions but should always be seeking forgiveness. The church isn't the bldg nor the denomination. It's a people united in prayer, worship, highlighting God's presence and blessing to become better Christians.