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12/04/2018 Baruch: Jeremiah’s scribe, against Hopelessness and Idolatry

Dr. Jeff Mirus
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otc.cfm?id=1590
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/authors.cfm?authorid=17

The Old Testament Book of Baruch is very brief, just six chapters, but it is still divided into three sections, each one fascinating in its own right.

The book was nominally composed by Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch, who had to write all of Jeremiah’s visions and prophecies in a scroll, and then write it out again after it was disregarded and burned by the King.

This book is not that scroll, however.

Rather, the Book of Baruch was initially composed as a letter from the exiles in Babylon to the high priest who remained in Jerusalem after its capture.

This letter was sent along with donations from the exiles for the continuation of Divine worship in the temple, with both encouragement to all Israel and a request for fervent prayer.

Scripture scholars tend to think parts of it were written at different times up to shortly before the birth of Christ,

And such judgments may arise in part because of the three markedly different sections in the book.

Moreover, the book is not extant in Hebrew, and is known only from the Greek.

As an aside, I should say that textual arguments about authorship may not actually prove anything.

In a secular age, Scripture scholars have been notorious for re-dating and reinterpreting texts based on the flimsiest of internal literary evidence.

In any case, the Church’s determination of canonicity is not affected by the manner in which any given book may have been composed.

She vouches for the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the text, not for the historical process through which God has caused it to be written.



Contrition and Supplication:

The first two chapters of Baruch explain his purpose and request the High Priest to make confession for the whole people on special feast days.

Baruch provides a text to be used, both as a confession that the Jews have fallen into punishment through their own fault, and as a prayer for deliverance and the renewal of God’s covenant with Israel.

This prayer is extraordinarily honest:

Righteousness belongs to the Lord our God, but confusion of face to us and our fathers, as at this day.

All those calamities with which the Lord threatened us have come upon us.

Yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord by turning away, each of us, from the thoughts of his wicked heart….

We have sinned, we have been ungodly, we have done wrong, O Lord our God, against all thy ordinances.

Let thy anger turn away from us, for we are left, few in number, among the nations where thou hast scattered us.
Baruch 2:6-13

Again, about a third of the book is devoted to introducing the problem and prescribing the prayers to be offered.



Hope and Encouragement:
The next three chapters are a combination of what we might call Wisdom literature and prophetic poetry.

The text extols Wisdom and also encourages Israel in general, and Jerusalem in particular, to hope for Divine restoration.

This portion of the text is written as if Wisdom were speaking;

In one portion the discourse, Wisdom also personifies Jerusalem, putting the words of a mother on her lips:

God has brought great sorrow upon me, for I have seen the captivity of my sons and daughters, which the Everlasting brought upon them.

With joy I nurtured them, but I sent them away with weeping and sorrow…. But I, how can I help you?...

Take courage, my children, cry to God, and he will deliver you from the power and hand of the enemy.

For I have put my hope in the Everlasting to save you, and joy has come to me from the Holy One, because of the mercy which soon will come to you from your everlasting savior.
Baruch 4:9-22

This section concludes in a multi-layered prophecy with Messianic overtones.

Wisdom enjoins Jerusalem to look toward the east, where she will behold her children coming back to her, gathered from afar at the word of the Lord, and “rejoicing in the glory of God” Baruch 4:36-37



Argument against Idolatry:

The last chapter of Baruch is a copy of a letter which Jeremiah sent to the exiles in Babylon.

(In some Bibles this chapter is presented as a separate book, called the “Letter of Jeremiah”, ending Baruch with chapter 5.)

This letter is chiefly a sustained argument against idols and idolatry.

It consists of ten proofs that idols are human creations which can do nothing whatsoever for themselves or anyone else.

Each of these proofs closes with a variation on this refrain: “From this you will know that they are not gods, so do not fear them.”
Baruch 6:23



Throughout the Old Testament, there are references to idolatry as not only harlotry (the betrayal of the Divine spouse)

But also the height of human folly, since idols are inanimate objects fashioned by men—

Objects which, should they be knocked down, cannot even set themselves aright.



But this section in Baruch is unique in two ways:

First, the argument is sustained through ten parts, each exposing different ways idols are created and used that prove they are not gods;

Second, each ends with the admonition that, since idols clearly are not gods, there is no reason to be afraid of them.

This emphasis is significantly different from mere condemnation, in that it takes into account the confusion into which the Israelites had fallen,

So much so that they were actually afraid of offending gods which were demonstrably merely wood, metal or stone.


While the book ends abruptly with the final sentences of this letter, its conclusion is worth quoting:

Like a scarecrow in a cucumber bed, that guards nothing, so are their gods of wood, overlaid with gold and silver.

In the same way, their gods of wood, overlaid with gold and silver, are like a thorn bush in a garden, on which every bird sits;

Or like a dead body cast out in the darkness.

By the purple and linen that rot upon them you will know that they are not gods;

And they will finally themselves be consumed, and be a reproach in the land.

Better therefore is a just man who has no idols, for he will be far from reproach. Baruch 6:70-73

With the modern rebellion against the Christian Faith, we are seeing the rise once again of various forms of idolatry, even in the strictly religious sense of pagan worship.

But Our Lord universalized Jeremiah’s argument (as preserved in Baruch) when He advised us not to lay up for ourselves treasures on earth,

Which are as subject to deterioration and rot as they are to loss through thievery and death.

Rather, we are to lay up treasures in heaven, which we can enjoy forever.

We can almost hear Him asking,
“Since earthly treasures are not gods, why do you fear being without them?”

This is the lesson of the whole book of Baruch, powerful and consistent through all three sections—


Concerning the Chosen People who had lost everything by speculating in the market of worldly success.

Yet the lesson was perhaps best summarized later by this same Christ, when He said:

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Matthew 6:21; Luke 12:34

Rose42

It should be noted that the book of Baruch is not part of the Christian Bible though it is in the Catholic version of the Bible.

It should also be noted that the apocrypha was only put into the Catholic version of the Bible as a response to the Reformation to justify some of it's practices which the Reformers showed to be false doctrine.

Controversy surrounds the Apocrypha regarding whether these books are from God or divinely inspired. For example, some biblical scholars point out that Jesus never quoted any verses from the Apocrypha, although He quoted with great frequency from many Old Testament books. Many books of the Apocrypha contain historical or geographical inaccuracies and teach false doctrines (e.g., the Book of Tobit claims good works lead to salvation). Plus, Jewish Scripture never included any of these documents as sacred writings.

In response to the Reformation, the Catholic Church, after centuries of not acknowledging these writings fully, canonized the Apocrypha at the Council of Trent in 1546 in part to provide “biblical” justification for some doctrines not found in originally canonized works, e.g., praying for the dead, purgatory, salvation by almsgiving, etc. It was during the Reformation that doctrinal validity was judged against the principle of sola scriptura (Scripture alone). So, by accepting writings in the Apocrypha that mentioned the above practices not found in original Scripture, the Catholic Church could support its theological position and the validity of these doctrines during this tempestuous time.

https://www.gotquestions.org/book-of-Baruch.html

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Rose42.

There is no controversy, the only controversy is the Revisionist Protestants anti-Catholics and Jewish “Council of Jamnia and the collection of Old Testament books, The Council that Never Wasn’t.

Couldn't add anything to the Post Article thread, other than your Protestant Church rejects the Old Testament Book Baruch.


"How Nice," your usual compost comments.

Nothing to say . . .


Let me give you the Jewish, Catholic and Protestant observation on the 7 Apochraphal-deuterocanonical books, (Greek; hidden away)


1. Historical Christian Catholic bible was canonized in AD 397 and for 1,621 years to this present day. It has always been present in the Christian Catholic Bible and will remain the canon of Scripture is the list of 73 books that belong to the Bible

The Old Testament septuagint greek bible written and translation 1,921 years of the Septuagint itself began in the 3rd century BCE and was completed by 132 BCE


It wasn't until AD 1611 that the Protestant Churches King James version changed the Bible and removed 7 Apochraphal-deuterocanonical books, (Greek; hidden away) Tobit, Judith, 1st & 2nd Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach & Baruch. And come up with Protestant 66 books in the Bible.

The chapters from Daniel, and verses from Ruth, Esther. Removed the Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children (Daniel 3:24–90) Susanna (Daniel 13, Septuagint prologue) Bel and the Dragon (Daniel 14, Septuagint epilogue)



rose42, Know what you are talking about and about biblical Church History and stop being a Man-Made Protestant Biblical revisionist.


By what authority, did the Reformers, Luther, Calvin Tisdale and others remove these books ?


Luther made an attempt to remove the books of Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation from the canon (notably, he perceived them to go against his new doctrines such as sola gratia and sola fide), but this was not generally accepted among his followers.


However, these books are ordered last in the German-language Luther Bible to this day.


1. The short answer is this:
When Luther was cornered in a debate over Purgatory, his opponent, Johann Eck, cited 2 Maccabees against Luther’s position.

Luther was forced to say that Second Maccabees could not be allowed in the debate because it wasn’t canonical.

Later in the debate, Luther appealed to St. Jerome for rejecting Maccabees (the councils of Carthage, Hippo, and Florence all included 1 & 2 Macabees as canonical Scripture).


2. By appealing to Jerome, he also rejected all the other books Jerome rejected (Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Daniel 13, and sections of Esther).

From then on, Luther (and all Protestants) have been trying to justify this removal. Luther in 1534 thought Baruch was “too skimpy” and not lofty enough to be from the scribe of Jeremiah. He also had problems with certain historical elements in Baruch. But in the long run, it really came down to Jerome’s rejection.

For Catholics it is not a matter of scoring but a matter of authority. Someone has to close the canon – in other words, some authority has to say “these books are inspired and these books are not inspired.”

It was the Catholic Church that made that determination.

Without the authority of the Catholic Church, how does a Protestant know which books belong in the New Testament? Reformed theologian R. C. Sproul honestly admits that the Protestant position can at best claim “a fallible collection of infallible books.”
(Essential Truths of the Christian Faith
[Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1992], 22).

Sola Scriptura and the Canon of Scripture
https://www.catholicconvert.com/blog/2018/05/23/sola-scriptura-and-the-canon-of-scripture/

There are parts of the Apocrypha which the Catholic Church has used to justify prayers for the dead ( 2 Maccabees 12:38-46).

2 Timothy 3:14-17
Verse 14: But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of (Timothy had learned the Gospel and become convinced that it was true by Paul’s ORAL preaching and teaching.

This oral preaching and teaching is known to Catholics as Sacred Tradition.), because you know those from whom you learned it (Timothy had learned the Scriptures first from his mother and grandmother, and then the full gospel from Paul, an Apostle (and Bishop) of the Church, and possibly from other Church leaders whom Timothy had heard preaching and teaching.

The teaching authority of the Church is known to Catholics as the Magisterium.) ,

Verse 15: and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures (Timothy would have known only the Old Testament scriptures from his infancy since the New Testament had not been written or completed at the time Paul’s letter to Timothy was composed.

However, the New Testament is recognized as part of the Bible, the written Word of God.

This is known to Catholics as Sacred Scripture.), which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

(Only after commending the Tradition “handed on” from the Magisterium does Paul go on to discuss the nature of Sacred Scripture in the following verses.)


Verse 16: All Scripture is God-breathed (referring exclusively to the Hebrew Scriptures) and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,
17: so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Viewed this way, we can see that 2 Timothy 3:14-17 does not support the doctrine of sola scriptura at all.
In fact, the opposite is true.

(Compare: 1 Cor 11:2; 2 Thess 2:15, 3:6.)

(Gary Michuta’s excellent book Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger).
Martin Luther removed these seven books from the Bible because they contain passages that support distinctly Catholic doctrines like praying for the dead and purgatory—doctrines which he rejected.

Luther justified his action in part upon the fact that the some Jews themselves rejected the Deuterocanonicals as part of their canon.

Martin Luther used their doubt to justify his own.
(For more on the “Council of Jamnia and the collection of Old Testament books, read my article The Council that Never Wasn’t as published in This Rock Magazine.)
https://www.catholicconvert.com/wp-content/uploads/Jamnia-for-Website.pdf

This leads to a couple of obvious questions: “Why would the Holy Spirit guide a group of rabbis on matters related to the Old Testament canon when there was already a Christian Church in existence that was under His infallible guidance as Jesus had promised?

And why should Luther accept the revised Hebrew canon instead of the canon of the Septuagint that had been used by St. Paul and from then on in continuous use in the Church for over fifteen centuries?

Luther picked that truncated canon for the same reason the rabbis did:

In order to undermine the teachings of the Catholic Church which did not fit his new theology.

The Catholic Church had ‘dogmatically’ defined the books in THE (there is only one) Canon in the year 393 (Council of Hippo) and reconfirmed and closed the Canon in 397 (Council of Carthage). Note, there was no new testament before this.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.viii.xxv.html

For 1500 years the Church (both East and West) had practiced intercessory prayers for the departed.

When protestants attempted to remove this pious and Biblical practice (due to Western abuses and the novel doctrine of purgatory), they were unable to state that it was un-Biblical.

The solution was to remove the books (Deuterocanon) that disagreed with this and other theology that was counter to their beliefs.

This in effect was the theological equivalent of ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater’

5 Myths about 7 Deuterocanonicals Books
Here are the answers to five common arguments Protestants give for rejecting the Deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament.
https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/5-myths-about-7-books.html

“Apocrypha”: Why It’s Part of the Bible
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2016/08/apocrypha-why-its-part-of-the-bible.html

A Biblical Defense of Catholicism: 7 Deuterocanonicals Books pp. 259-264]
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2006/07/books-by-dave-armstrong-biblical.html

Luther’s View of the Book of Esther (Anti-Catholic Attempts to Blame Catholics for a Questionable Luther Citation Passed Down by Three Admiring Protestants)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2011/08/luther-on-the-book-of-esther-attempts-to-blame-catholics-for-a-questionable-luther-citation-passed-down-by-three-admiring-protestants.html

Luther’s Radical Views on the Biblical Canon (His Outrageous Assertions, Protestant Scholars’ Opinions & “Debate” with John Warwick Montgomery)
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2016/04/luthers-radical-views-on-the-biblical-canon.html

Jewish and Christian Bibles: Comparative Chart - Catholic Resources
http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Heb-Xn-Bibles.htm



3. The Torah (or Pentateuch, as biblical scholars sometimes call it) is the collective name for the first five books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

The development of the Torah began by around 600 BCE when previously unconnected material began to be drawn together; by around 400 BCE these books, the fore-runners of the Torah, had reached their modern form and began to be recognized as complete, unchangeable, and sacred; and by around 200 BCE the five books were accepted as the first section of the Jewish canon

4. The older compilation is called the Jerusalem Talmud or the Talmud Yerushalmi. It was compiled in the 4th century in Galilee. The Babylonian Talmud was compiled about the year 500, although it continued to be edited later. The word "Talmud", when used without qualification, usually refers to the Babylonian Talmud.

5. The Old Testament septuagint greek bible written and translation of the Septuagint itself began in the 3rd century BCE and was completed by 132 BCE, initially in Alexandria, but in time elsewhere as well. The Septuagint is the basis for the Old Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Old Armenian, Old Georgian and Coptic versions of the Christian Old Testament.

6. Historically the Jewish canon, The Mishnah or Mishna is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions known as the "Oral Torah".
It is also the first major work of Rabbinic literature.

The Mishnah was redacted by Judah the Prince at the beginning of the third century CE in a time when, according to the Talmud, the persecution of the Jews and the passage of time raised the possibility that the details of the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period would be forgotten.

Most of the Mishnah is written in Mishnaic Hebrew, while some parts are Aramaic. Describes by Nehemiah (around 400 BCE) as having "founded a library and collected books about the kings and prophets and to the (BCE 200)

The Masoretic Text is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the Tanakh for Rabbinic Judaism. It is not the original text (Urtext) of the Hebrew Bible. It was primarily copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries CE. The oldest extant manuscripts date from around the 9th century.

The Aleppo Codex dates from the 10th century. The Masoretic Text (MT) defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the Masorah.


Doc110

bahmer

Very good Rose they are losing their cool and becoming frustrated.

Doc110 Loc: York PA

Balmer,

Still nothing out of your concrete brain, except school-girl cheerleading Balmer.

bahmer

At one point on here I thought that you might be learned and have something to offer. But as time has past you are sinking further and further down to where you are today is very undesirable. Your acidity toward others here on OPP is atrocious and disgraceful. I truly feel sorry for you and your egotistical attitude of yours. You are really nothing to me and your attack on Rose who has tried to be civil to you and your counterpart Radiance is disgraceful. Oh and by the way Rose42 has explained Sola Scriptura to you and radiance countless times and your continued questioning shows that you are unable to grasp the simplest of explanations. You sir are grasping at straws and swallowing camels.

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12/04/2018 Why Aren’t More Evangelicals Becoming Catholic?

K. Albert Little
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/albertlittle/why-arent-more-evangelicals-becoming-catholic/?



I was an Evangelical Protestant, and I loved it.

Then I became a Catholic.

As a convert, I didn’t join the Church with any sort of starry-eyed vision of paradise.

I knew what to expect.

I knew all about bad Catholics.
admin.patheos.com/blogs/albertlittle/what-should-we-do-with-bad-catholics/

Bad music. Badly done liturgy.

But the timeless, ancient pull of the Catholic Church prevailed and I joined, in spite of some obvious shortcomings.
https://admin.patheos.com/blogs/albertlittle/what-i-wish-id-known-about-catholics/


After all,  like St. Peter said, “Lord, where else can I go?”

If the Catholic Church was the one, holy, and apostolic church that Christ founded then what other option was there?
https://admin.patheos.com/blogs/albertlittle/this-one-quote-convinced-me-to-be-a-catholic/

But there’s lots wrong with the Catholic Church.
http://admin.patheos.com/blogs/albertlittle/i-love-being-catholic-but-i-dont-always-like-it/

And even if, as Christ promised, the “gates of Hades” would never prevail against it that doesn’t mean we should ever, even for a second, grow complacent with our faith or with our Church.

Our faith, after all, should be attractive.

Not because it fulfills the precise desires that the world holds up as important—not because the Church can get us rich quick, give us a happy and spotless life, or offer is the wide and easy road to ultimate success.

Rather, the Church should be attractive because it offers precisely what the culture lacks, but what we all, deeply, desire most.

Does the Catholic Church truly offer this?

I would argue, emphatically, yes.

If the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Christ and if Christ is really who he said he was than the Church should be the most fully, ultimately fulfilling thing on earth.


But does it always does its job?

Is the Catholic Church really attracting non-Christians, and our non-Catholic Christian believers?

After all, Evangelicals are becoming Catholics but why not in hordes?

Why is there no massive influx of non-Christians pounding down the doors of the local parishes churches, demanding to have what we have because it’s so counter-culturally attractive?

I think the problem is fundamental, yet shockingly simple to solve: If the Catholic Church believes that she is what she says she is, she needs to explain it better, know it better herself, and live it out.


Teaching Christians What Catholics Believe

The Catholic Church is incredible.

The longer that I’m Catholic and the more I read and write the more I realize that this is merely the tip of an enormous iceberg; an iceberg I intend to spend a lifetime slowly scraping away at.

Because I love the Catholic Church and I couldn’t have fathomed its length and depth when I first began my conversion process.

That said, as an Evangelical Protestant who considered himself fairly well read in matters of faith, theology, and religion I knew incredibly little about the Catholic Church before I made a conscious effort to dig in deeper.

What I did know, for the most part, was always almost nearly backwards. In the end, I knew essentially nothing.

In fact, what I learned about the Catholic faith was often exactly contrary to what I’d thought before.

Fundamentally, non-Catholic Christians don’t know what Catholics believe, and if they think they do, like I did, they’re most likely wrong.

And this is a problem.

If the Catholic Church is going to attract Christians who love Jesus and are seeking after Him, if the Church is going to attract non-believers as well, it needs to become better at explaining what it believes.

Because, like I said, the Catholic Church is immense. For the Christian deeply devoted to Christ there is so much to love.

There are myriad of ancient, rich devotions; an incredible depth of literature and prayers; a beautiful and holy rhythm in the liturgical calendar; and the availability of fulsome daily devotion like the Liturgy of the Hours and the opportunity for Eucharistic Adoration and Daily Mass.


When I began to read about Catholicism from Catholics authors themselves it became clear to me that what I’d known about Catholics was mostly wrong.

Instead, the Catholic Church was incredibly appealing and made a lot of sense. 

But earnest Christians, and non-believers alike, don’t give the Catholic Church a second thought because they don’t understand, I’d wager, what the Catholic Church believes.
In the Catholic Church is the fullness of Christ.

Catholics need to say this and then keep on explaining.

Make the claim, stake out that ground, and then explain what exactly that means.

Because the Catholic Church can’t be ashamed of being so bold-faced in making that claim, and Catholics can’t shrink back from explaining how we can receive such grace from the sacraments and from the Catholic faith life because, as Catholics, we must want all Christians, and everyone on earth, to share in this, these incredible gifts.


Teaching Catholics What We Believe

Likewise, the Catholic Church, as I’ve written before, needs to do a much better job at explaining to Catholics what it believes.

What they believe, as members of that Church.


Here’s what I mean.

In my journey so far I’ve met a dozen or so incredible Christians who, by their own admission, used to be Catholic.


So what’s the Catholic Church doing wrong?

In large part, the Catholic Church simply isn’t doing a great job at teaching Catholics what they believe and why it makes sense.

Because it does make sense, on the deepest levels.

Because what’s happening in the sacraments like Baptism, Confirmation, in the Celebration of the Mass, and in Confession, just for example, is incredibly biblical, incredibly symbolic, and unfathomably rich.

I’m talking about weighty, historic references to the Old Testament, tied together with the words of Christ and the symbolism of something like water, wine, or bread.

There’s rich stuff going on in the Catholic Church and its buoyed by two thousand years of thinking, teaching, and rich theology, but not all Catholics know about it.

As a devout Christian, I’ve found such fulfillment and beauty in what others, who were born and raised Catholic, had no notion of. How you can go thirty or forty years in a pew at Mass and not realize that when the priest holds up the Host during Communion he is harkening back to the journey of the ancient Israelites, the fulfillment of scores of prophecy, and divinely and cosmically linking the whole congregation back to the Upper Room during the First Communion ever celebrated.

It’s mind-blowing, as a convert, to peel back layers like an almost infinite onion, but so seldom understood by the average Joe Catholic.'


The Catholic Church needs to teach it’s members what they believe.

Catechesis and spiritual formation needs to take a dominate role in both the parish church and in the family.

Catholics need to talk to each other and, most important, begin to live out what they learn.



Believing What We Believe

This, then, is the final step and without a doubt the most difficult.

We must believe what we believe, and live that out.

Fundamentally, we Catholics attract no one to the faith by our own efforts.

We win no one by having the best arguments or the wittiest retorts.

But we pray, provide opportunities, and respond to the gentle push of the Holy Spirit.

So we must pray and, likewise, act accordingly.



This is both easy, and very hard.

We must learn about our faith, be able to speak eloquently about our faith, and then attractively live out our faith daily.

And it’s that attractive living that’s so important.

It’s that evangelization which is the Kingdom of God.

If we believe, as Catholics, that we have access to God’s grace through the sacraments and membership in what we believe is the very real, physical Church that Jesus Christ founded then we need to live accordingly.

That means that being Catholic should be the most exciting thing in the world, right?

After all, we’re working in tandem with the plan of the Creator of the Universe if we cooperate.


The Catholic Church needs to explain itself better to non-Catholic Christians and to unbelievers alike.

It needs to explain itself better to itself—to Catholic Christians.

And, it needs evangelical Catholics who are ready to really believe in what they learn, and to live that out.

This is the essential missionary posture of the Catholic Church and this, I humbly submit, is what’s needed to help swing those doors open just a little bit wider and let that much more light shine in.

Because, at the end of the day, what we have here is good.

It is very good.

And it is to be shared.

Rose42

I was looking at old threads and see Doc is quite the avid defender of demonic doctrine. I didn't know it was that bad. Wow.

Doc110 Loc: York PA

Wow rose, you didn't even get a rise from me.

You're a lilliputian of a protestant person.

And your one of satan's minions, how does it feel following one of Satans sycophants and being a lackey the devil . . .

Is that the best you can come up with, your a minion's ass . . .