The division in the Catholic Church (Churches)

[The Liturgist]

You are correct. Yes, he took on many spiritual and social issues which are still quite relevant today.

Yes, I love him. He brought the Gospel and Christian morality to the television. He was the first of the three great televangelists, the others being his close friend Rev. Schuller of the Reformed Church in America parish known as the Crystal Cathedral, which is now the actual cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange County, and which I have visited a few times, and the other being Dr. James Kennedy, of the Presbyterian Church in America (which is conservative, unlike much of the PCUSA), who after the death of Pope John Paul II, until a day or two after his last service on Christmas in 2006 (where he preached a profoundly beautiful sermon about who Jesus Christ was), when he had a debilitating heart attack that he would not recover from, but rather reposed the following summer, was, during that year and some month, the foremost Western moral theologian (since moral theology was really a strong suit for Pope John Paul II, as demonstrated by Dignitatis Humanae, and James Kennedy in terms of his pro-life, pro-family, anti-sodomy values, was in many respects a Protestant fellow-traveller of Pope John Paul II on issues of morality. Since that time there are a few contenders, although the best work I see being done in the West on moral theology is by the Southern Baptist theologian Dr. Albert Mohler.

Among Eastern moral theologians, there are a number of leaders, particularly among the Coptic Orthodox (who are OO), but among English speaking Eastern Orthodox, Fr. Josiah Trenham, who has ten children and is extremely opposed to abortion, the anti-family objectives of the left wing, and sodomy, and also other issues which have been brought to the forefront such as marijuana.

Another important Christian evangelist on television who worked in a different way was Rev. Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister specially ordained by the Pittsburgh Presbytery of the UPC to work in children’s television, who retained his credentials as an ordained minister throughout his life and regularly appeared before the presbytery. His work was really exceptional, in that he taught the basics of Christian morality and lovingkindness to generations of young children, myself included. He also maintained a marriage lasting more than 50 years, from 1952 until he reposed in 2003, with his pious wife Joanne, who was a concert pianist until arthritis forced her to retire in 2016, and who reposed in 2021 (Fred Rogers himself had a Bachelor’s in Music and a Bachelor’s in Divinity).

 

[concretecamper]

I thought it was Archbishop Fulton Sheen? Anyway, I love watching recordings of his program on YouTube.

Fulton Sheen was/is a saint. I also love watching the early Fr. Corapi shows on the CCC

 

[Simon_Templar]

Haha, the Evil one couldn't have said it better

Situational ethics, no thank you.

Being clear to me is not the point. Being clear to all is.

What I said is objective fact, and it has nothing at all to do with situational ethics.

If you want to respond with an actual argument or really anything that actually engages with what I actually said, great. If you'd prefer to continue being a rude ass then I suggest going to confession.

 

[Simon_Templar]

Indeed, situational ethics is no ethics at all, since divine morality is, and should be, applicable in every instance. There is no scenario, for example, where abortion or euthanasia could be justified, in my view.

Unfortunately his response was moronic and incorrect. Your response provides a good opportunity of explanation.

Let's look at the commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

This commandment is very black and white. It doesn't get more black and white than that right?

But, the first point is that thou shalt not kill, is not an accurate translation. What it actually says is "thou shalt not murder." There are many circumstances in the Bible itself where killing is not only allowed, but even actually demanded.

The black and white is now a little more nuanced, because we realize it isn't a blanket prohibition against all killing, but rather it is a statement forbidding killing without proper justification.

Now, lets say that in the past there was a blanket punishment applied for all cases of murder. You unjustly kill someone else, and you are subject to be killed yourself.

Again, very black and white.

But then we begin to make more distinctions and we say, well, it's not quite the same if you kill someone by accident and if you kill someone on purpose.

So we make a lesser penalty for killing someone on accident.

Then we say, it's also not quite the same if you intentionally set out to kill someone and if you didn't originally intend to kill someone, but were driven to it in anger because of something they did to you or your family etc.

So we set up different penalties for those situations as well.

This is not situational ethics. Through out all of this, the universal moral rule that murder is evil/sinful and a crime has not changed or even been questioned.

What did change was how we responded to the evil, and our recognition of the degree of culpability of those who committed the evil act for different reasons.

Clinging to the old "all murderers get executed" ruling is not more true or more just. Further, the appearance that it is more "clear" is itself an illusion because the clarity that some people see in it, is a false understanding. The principle itself was never wrong. How people understood it based on the application of the principle by the authorities, may be wrong.

 

[Simon_Templar]

So maybe you'll take a look at the Canons on justification from Trent and let us all know which ones are not crystal clear.

They apparently have led you to a false understanding, so I'd say by definition that means they are not clear.

 

[concretecamper]

What I said is objective fact, and it has nothing at all to do with situational ethics.

Check your post, circumstances do not matter when it comes to truth.

 

[concretecamper]

They apparently have led you to a false understanding, so I'd say by definition that means they are not clear.

Non answer.

 

[concretecamper]

Unfortunately his response was moronic and incorrect. Your response provides a good opportunity of explanation.

Let's look at the commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

This commandment is very black and white. It doesn't get more black and white than that right?

But, the first point is that thou shalt not kill, is not an accurate translation. What it actually says is "thou shalt not murder." There are many circumstances in the Bible itself where killing is not only allowed, but even actually demanded.

The black and white is now a little more nuanced, because we realize it isn't a blanket prohibition against all killing, but rather it is a statement forbidding killing without proper justification.

Now, lets say that in the past there was a blanket punishment applied for all cases of murder. You unjustly kill someone else, and you are subject to be killed yourself.

Again, very black and white.

But then we begin to make more distinctions and we say, well, it's not quite the same if you kill someone by accident and if you kill someone on purpose.

So we make a lesser penalty for killing someone on accident.

Then we say, it's also not quite the same if you intentionally set out to kill someone and if you didn't originally intend to kill someone, but were driven to it in anger because of something they did to you or your family etc.

So we set up different penalties for those situations as well.

This is not situational ethics. Through out all of this, the universal moral rule that murder is evil/sinful and a crime has not changed or even been questioned.

What did change was how we responded to the evil, and our recognition of the degree of culpability of those who committed the evil act for different reasons.

Clinging to the old "all murderers get executed" ruling is not more true or more just. Further, the appearance that it is more "clear" is itself an illusion because the clarity that some people see in it, is a false understanding. The principle itself was never wrong. How people understood it based on the application of the principle by the authorities, may be wrong.

Shedding of innocent blood is ALWAYS wrong (thou shalt not kill). Keeping blurring the lines, Adam and Eve fell to blurred lines too.

 

[Simon_Templar]

Shedding of innocent blood is ALWAYS wrong (thou shalt not kill). Keeping blurring the lines, Adam and Eve fell to blurred lines too.

Can you not read? Or are you just a liar?

Here is what I actually said.

This is not situational ethics. Through out all of this, the universal moral rule that murder is evil/sinful and a crime has not changed or even been questioned

 

[Simon_Templar]

Check your post, circumstances do not matter when it comes to truth.

false, unscriptural, and against Sacred Tradition and Church teaching.

 

[concretecamper]

Can you read? Or are you just a liar?

Here is what I actually said.

Then stop with you irrational examples of killing.

 

[concretecamper]

false, unscriptural, and against Sacred Tradition and Church teaching.

So let it be written, so let it be done

 

[Simon_Templar]

Non answer.

Actually it is an answer.

You are claiming the documents coming from Trent are clear and don't need to be interpreted or unpacked.
You think that those documents teach something which actually conflicts with Church teaching, and has been interpreted differently by the Magisterium than how you understand it.
This means that the idea that you got from those documents is in error.

Therefore since you yourself have misunderstood them, your argument that the documents are "clear" is refuted by the very fact that you don't understand them.

 

[The Liturgist]

Fulton Sheen was/is a saint. I also love watching the early Fr. Corapi shows on the CCC

Yes, I am in favor of his glorification (Eastern Orthodox term for canonization, which I can’t say because for us, when someone is canonized, it means a canonical penance was applied to them for violating a canon or otherwise engaging in some sin sufficiently unpleasant as to provoke our priests, who only rarely issue penances, into doing so, for example, slandering other members of the church), and also the glorification of St. Benedict XVI.

In my church we also lack the intermediate stage of beatification, since when we make someone a saint, it is because the church has compelling reasons to believe they have attained salvation, for example they have won a crown of martyrdom. There is no intermediate step because someone is either in Heaven and will be judged worthy to live with God in the World to Come, or not (so our prayers for the dead are offered for everyone who has not been glorified; when one is glorified, the memorial service or Pannikhida, analogous to the Requiem Mass except it is not a mass, so perhaps more akin to the Officium pro Defunctorum), will be celebrated for them one last time, and then after that their relics will be installed in appropriate reliquaries, and the first Divine Liturgy on their appointed feast day will be served, at which time the Troparion and Kontakion hymns composed for them will be heard for the first time. And from that time, it is no longer permitted to pray for them, but rather one should ask for their intercession. It is also possible to ask people we believe to be saints, but who have not been glorified officially, for their prayers, and icons can even depict them, but these icons are not supposed to show them with a nimbus (halo) until they have been glorified, but in practice some do.

For example, I have an icon of St. John and Charles Wesley, who I venerate as saints, and it depicts them with halos.
St. John Wesley was secretly consecrated a bishop by the Greek Orthodox hierarch Erasmus, the bishop of Arcadia, when he was visiting the UK. This gave Wesley a secondary, albeit confidential, authority when he made Thomas Coke superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church of North America (ostensibly on his authority as an Anglican presbyter, but as he pointed out when asked if he had been consecrated by Erasmus of Arcadia, he pointed out that he could not answer that question, because if he answered yes, he could have been executed under the Praemunire ACT.

 

[concretecamper]

You are claiming the documents coming from Trent are clear and don't need to be interpreted or unpacked.

I asked you specifically about the Canons about justification. You appear not ready to show me where they are not clear.

 

[Valletta]

Fulton Sheen was/is a saint. I also love watching the early Fr. Corapi shows on the CCC

Me too. By the way, there was poor media reporting on Corapi. What his order did was list the charges against him in a letter, unsigned. The fact is there never was a trial so there was no guilty verdict.

 

[Simon_Templar]

I asked you specifically about the Canons about justification. You appear not ready to show me where they are not clear.

Let me be clear. I have no problem with the Council of Trent, or the Canons on justification. I don't think they are wrong or mistaken. I think they are as true now as they were when they were written.

What I do have a problem with is your continued insistence on implying that the current CCC is unclear and implying that the current Church teaching about Protestants and Eastern Orthodox etc, is in contradiction to the Canons of Trent. Those understandings are false.

Your insistence that it is not necessary to properly understand something in a given context is false and is basically fundamentalist Protestant thinking. It is tantamount to making yourself and your personal interpretation of something above the magisterium of the Church.

Now, to the clarity of the Canons.

The first and probably most important point is the word anathema and the phrase "let him be anathema".
MANY people, in fact, most that I have ever met understand anathema to be an automatic condemnation to hell and a statement that such a person is not saved and is not a Christian. Further, many people think that the anathemas pronounced take effect automatically.

These understandings of what an anathema is and how it works are all false.

An Anathema is a special kind of excommunication that is ritually performed with ceremony etc. Like any excommunication is does not condemn anyone to hell. Rather it excludes the person in question from the fellowship of the Church because they have committed a grave offense, in hope and with the intent that they will return to the Church.

An Anathema is NOT a statement that a person is condemned to hell.
An Anathema is NOT a statement even on whether a person is currently in a state of grace or not.

An Anathema IS a statement that a person did something gravely wrong and has been officially excluded from the public fellowship of the Church until such time as they publicly repent.

Further, Anathemas are NOT automatically applied. Anathemas, including those pronounced in Council Canons ARE NOT LATAE SENTENTIA. They DO NOT take effect automatically and CAN ONLY be applied through a pontifical ceremony. Thus if the Pope has not held a ritual ceremony to Anathematize a person, they are not subject to anathema.

Further, the Code of Canon law actually abolished the penalty of Anathema in 1983, so it isn't even possible to be anathematized anymore. It was abolished at least in part because it was almost never actually used.

Almost everyone I've ever heard of, misunderstands what it means when Council Canons say "If anyone says... let him be anathema".

So, since every Canon from Trent says that, every one has been misunderstood by MANY people.

That is the biggest issue.

However, there are also instances where the language is not clear to modern readers, or people not trained in theology etc.

Example, Canon 10.
If anyone says that men are justified without the justice of Christ, whereby He merited for us, or by that justice are formally just, let him be anathema.

That wording is not clear at all to a modern reader, nor is it clear to someone who doesn't know what precise definitions for the term "Justice" are being used.

or Canon 11.
If anyone says that men are justified either by the sole imputation of the justice of Christ or by the sole remission of sins, to the exclusion of the grace and the charity which is poured forth in their hearts by the Holy Ghost, and remains in them, or also that the grace by which we are justified is only the good will of God, let him be anathema.

Lots of people would find that confusing.

or Canon 12.
If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ's sake, or that it is this confidence alone that justifies us, let him be anathema.

again, very easy to misunderstand this.

I'm sure the list could go on.

This is the last I'm gonna say, because this has become (and probably never was anything but) a big waste of time and an occasion to me to sin out of anger and frustration.

I responded uncharitably previously and I am sorry for that.

 

[concretecamper]

Let me be clear. I have no problem with the Council of Trent, or the Canons on justification. I don't think they are wrong or mistaken. I think they are as true now as they were when they were written.

That wasn't the question.

What I do have a problem with is your continued insistence on implying that the current CCC is unclear and implying that the current Church teaching about Protestants and Eastern Orthodox etc, is in contradiction to the Canons of Trent. Those understandings are false.

When did I say anything about Protestants or Orthodox?

Your insistence that it is not necessary to properly understand something in a given context is false and is basically fundamentalist Protestant thinking. It is tantamount to making yourself and your personal interpretation of something above the magisterium of the Church.

Your situational ethics makes one protestant. I'm advocating for the truth, whether it offends or doesn't.

The first and probably most important point is the word anathema and the phrase "let him be anathema".
MANY people, in fact, most that I have ever met understand anathema to be an automatic condemnation to hell and a statement that such a person is not saved and is not a Christian. Further, many people think that the anathemas pronounced take effect automatically.

You are wrong.

An Anathema is a special kind of excommunication that is ritually performed with ceremony etc.

Wrong again

Further, Anathemas are NOT automatically applied. Anathemas, including those pronounced in Council Canons ARE NOT LATAE SENTENTIA. They DO NOT take effect automatically and CAN ONLY be applied through a pontifical ceremony.

Wrong again.

I think this is enough

 

[The Liturgist]

That wasn't the question.

When did I say anything about Protestants or Orthodox?

Your situational ethics makes one protestant. I'm advocating for the truth, whether it offends or doesn't.

You are wrong.

Wrong again

Wrong again.

I think this is enough

The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox still use anathemas, and I think the Church of the East does as well.

 

[Valletta]

The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox still use anathemas, and I think the Church of the East does as well.

Conclusion of the II Vatican Council: Joint Catholic-Orthodox declaration, approved by Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople (7 December 1965) | Paul VI

Second Vatican Council, Catholic-Orthodox Declaration

www.vatican.va

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