Pope: Only Catholics are Christians

Post Reply New Topic

That is SO true. The persecutions, executions, and all that just got all those Roman masochists so EXCITED!

The thrill of meeting in the catacombs, wondering about raids.

Of course as soon as Christianity became legal they all left.

I guess that is how Islam spread - Alwan bin Hussayn walks into town, tells the guys - I get to go to Paradise and you can't come because we are EXCLUSIVE, nyaah!.

And everybody in North Africa PLEADS to be allowed in.

That is why everybody is Jewish - who would not want to be chosen?

Don't you just love informed logic?

I love informed logic but I find non sequitur funny at best.

Noted, and doubly appreciated - the pearl (or so my name translates) had to pick herself out of the muck and head to work, anyways. Skipping forwards in the thread, I nearly killed a keyboard thanks to your last post. All those Romans beating down the Church door just for a chance to belong somewhere - in a lion's stomach!

Insofar as that works at all as a tactic, it works best in a community where the majority is "on the inside" and "outsiders" are the minority. That was not the case in the first days of Christianity; not in Israel and certainly not in the wider Roman Empire. To the Romans, Christianity was a bizarre Jewish cult fomenting unrest - "those men who are turning the world upside down have come here also!" The promise of eternal life was certainly an attractant (though didn't the Romans have their own idea of that already?), but the promise of getting to belong to something exclusive, when discovery meant public humiliation, imprisonment, and an unpleasant death? Not so much.

Last edited by Natty_Boh on 24 Feb 2011, 12:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

At this point it wouldn't surprise me if people made it up as to what he said, we still have yet to see a source.

Did he? When and where? Surely that made the news in the States, so point us to the article.

Actually, I had heard that the Pope had issued such a statement - a year or two back, I believe. So this is actually old news. But to be sure, he did say such a thing, as I saw it on CNN. And I recall my own church body, the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, issuing a restrained response.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Sure thing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11332515

And here's some comedians taking the piss:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DC_E5Ix8Bo4[/youtube]

I don't know where you get your information from, but it doesn't sound like Roman Catholic sources.

Thanks - hadn't heard about it. Referencing "a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society" is very far from saying 'all atheists are Nazis". Where was that thread on logical fallacies again...

http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=6099

Sounds pretty Catholic to me. The pope must specify that he is making an irrevocable decision and that he wishes it to bind all of the Church.

Where does it say "only twice in the course of church history"?

I'm not reading the whole of that mumbo jumbo.

"I'm not reading the whole of that mumbo jumbo."

Hey ho, the wind and the rain. A expects me to spend the half hour it takes to watch a 5 minute clip that explains nothing to one without the background.

B links to dozens of vigilante groups pointing out all the evils of the views B THINKS I hold but don't and gets upset if I don't read and apologize for existing.

But you ain't going to read mumbo jumbo.

Fine. Next poster gets mad that I saw no reason to follow his stupid link, I will refer him to you.

Thanks.

As for the original question, over the years at times I've been very good friends with some priests and priests in training, and I tend to ask them all my nit picky theologial questions, and they tend to give thoroughly referenced answers. Part of their training is to get a master's degree in theology, which includes studying the church structure and history; one friend was in the seminary when I knew him, so I heard lots about the most recent lessons. Oh, and a close friend of my husband's heads the theology department at a Catholic High School. See, I've got lots of sources for getting definitive answers. You ... aren't talking to or reading informed Roman Catholics, as far as I can tell. Do you even know any, or is it all heresay?

I wouldn't have posted it if I wasn't 99% percent sure I had the facts right in my head. When I'm not 99% sure, I qualify my statement.

I remember the detail about twice because it was discussed when the Pope was considering making parts of the church pro-life position infallible. Since there are sections of those papers most of us Catholics happily ignore or even disagree with, the idea that it would rise to that level caused lots of discussion among the faithful. Or, at least, among the circles of Catholics I run in.

Getting me to cite what those two infallible positions would be more difficult; to me, they weren't that interesting (as in, not challenging to me) and, thus, left my brain pretty fast. I think they both may have to do with Mary.