What People Are Commenting
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Medjugorje, Celtic Spiral & Apocrypha
It Doesn't Matter if Our Lady Appeared or Not...
Please read the following news report about the lack of seriousness of the Holy See on Medjogorje. For the new post-Vatican II church it doesn't matter if Our Lady appeared or not...
The representative of the Pope goes there to take advantage of the situation, not caring whether it is right or wrong. It is not only pragmatic, it is cynical.
Keep up the good work.
A.S.
Pilgrimages to Medjugorje are consistent with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) Archbishop Hendryk Hoser confirmed in his first sermon at St. James Church in Medjugorje on 22 July.
Pope Francis nominated Archbishop Hoser as special apostolic visitor to the parish in Medjugorje for an indefinite period on 31 May. Hoser had already spent several months at Medjugorje after being appointed special envoy in February 2017.
His mission is not to study the veracity of the alleged apparitions, which began in 1981 and which the Holy See has not recognized, but is “exclusively pastoral”.
“The mission of the apostolic visitor has the aim of assuring a stable and continuous accompaniment of the parish community of Medjugorje and of the faithful who go there on pilgrimage, whose needs require special attention”, the Vatican communiqué said. Thousands of pilgrims and priests visit the shrine in southern Bosnia each year.
The pivotal question one should ask was why so many people flock to Medjugorje each year, Hoser said in his sermon. “The answer which springs to mind is the following: They come to meet someone, to meet God, to meet Jesus Christ, to meet His mother.”
In Chapter 8 of the Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, the Council had underlined that the Church encouraged Marian devotion, as it led to the worship of Christ, Hoser recalled.
During his first week in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hoser also met Ratko Peric, Bishop of Mostar-Duvno, whose diocese includes Medjugorje, according to the Croatian daily Vecernji List. Peric again explained that he did not believe that any of the apparitions in Medjugorje were credible.
Original here
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Celtic Spiral in Papal Vestments
They couldn't find anything better to decorate the Pope's vestments on his trip to Ireland for the World Meeting of Families than the Celtic pagan 'triple spiral.' Especially since this symbol has been adopted by satanists and is one of the main symbols of Celtic Reconstructionism paganism, a modern day approach to Celtic neopaganism. The new paganism cult interacts with the 'Otherworld' and makes acts of worship and offerings to the Celtic 'deities,' better said - devils, It is another public concession to paganism and Satanism.
“It’s (the triple spiral) the whole notion of the journey into the divine, and almost like eternal life too” said Father Damian McNeice, master of ceremonies for the papal event. So the pagan symbol leads us to the divine and eternal?
It is not the death penalty that is 'inadmissible," but this type of concession that is ever more frequent in the Vat II Church.
Thank you for your good and essential work.
In Jesu et Maria,
M.G.
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Apocrypha & the Bible
I'm contacting you regarding an apologetics question that I can't seem to get an answer to because most "Catholic" apologetics websites are run by modernists who deny the historicity of Scripture and would therefore be useless in attempting to address the objection in question. What I mean is, these are the same type of people who deny the creation account in Genesis in favor of theistic evolutionism which, ultimately, guts the whole purpose of the Catholic religion since they believe in death before sin.
When asking them how to refute claims of alleged "contradictions" and historical "anachronisms" in Scripture, these are also the type who retort with, "The Bible isn't a history book," and basically just brush off any attempt to defend Scripture. So, knowing other traditional Catholics do not hold such modernist views, I figured perhaps I would contact traditional Catholic sites such as yours, which might be able to help me since I can't find any resources regarding the specific issue anywhere on the internet. Anyway, on to my questions.
I've been debating a Protestant woman for the past month or so, and it's getting rather repetitive because she refuses to answer simple questions regarding which early Christians held her beliefs. When I keep pressing her on this issue, she only responds with obfuscation by attempting to change the subject with further objections to Catholicism and hoping that something sticks, while never answering my own questions to her. This time her most recent objection is to the so-called "Apocrypha," or rather the deuterocanonical books. She is copying and pasting from a judaizing website called nccg.org;
"How I know the Apocrypha does not have authority: None of the books in it claim to be inspired, for one. Not once is there a, “Thus says the Lord,” or language like, “The word of the Lord came to me, saying…” In fact in the prologue of Ecclesiasticus it confesses possible interpretation errors: “Ye are entreated therefore to read with favor and attention, and to pardon us, if in any parts of what we have labored to interpret, we may seem to fail in some of the phrases.” (If this alone doesn’t make you wonder why you hold it equal to scripture, I don’t know what will.) Jesus nor any of his disciples ever quoted from or explicitly referred to any writings in the Apocrypha. The Old Testament was quoted from and alluded to one thousand times in the New Testament, but never the Apocrypha.
Philo never cited from or even mention these documents. Josephus rejected them. Neither Origen or Tertullian recognized these books as canonical. FF Bruce said that there was “no evidence that these books were regarded as canonical by any Jews.” My point is, they were not widely accepted.
The originated during an era when no inspired documents were being given by God. Malachi’s prophecy explicitly says there would be no prophet from God until the coming of John the Baptist.
Errors: "Tobit is said to have lived 158 years (Tobit 14:11) yet he was alive when Jeroboam revolted against Jerusalem (931 BC) and was still around when the Assyrians invaded Israel (722 BC), making a span of 210 years! 2 Mac 1 claims Antiochus died by being cut to pieces in a temple and a few chapters later says he ended his life in the mountains. These are just TWO errors but there are many!"
How would you respond to these objections? Particularly the objection to the alleged historical anachronisms in Tobit as well as her argument about the Book of Malachi? If this type of apologetics work isn't in your field, could you perhaps refer me to someone you may know that could help me refute these objections?
Thanks in advance.
Pax
W.M.
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TIA responds:
Hello, W.M.,
Thank you for your e-mail.
Although we are not experts in exegesis, we believe that yes, you are right when you say that the historical method of interpretation of Scriptures, which actually is against the historicity of the Bible, was condemned by the Catholic Church under the name of historicism. In TIA we point out the main condemnations she issued in the critique that Atila Guimarães wrote against a modernist/progressivist Vatican document under the direction of then Card. Joseph Ratzinger. The booklet is The Biblical Commission on the Jews, Changes in Doctrine & New Anathemas (cf. chap II).
Regarding the apocrypha, our approach is that they should not be taken into consideration in any scholarly study of the Scripture. There are an enormous number of apocrypha regarding the Old or the New Testaments that come from Jews, gnostics and various hreretics. You may check the list of them and studies made on each in the Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, compiled under the direction of Vacant & Mangenot (in French).
St. Jerome carefully studied all the documents of the Bible and disregarded all those that were not authentic. The Catholic Church accepted his conclusions and considered the resulting books to be her official Bible; it is called Vulgata, or the Vulgate.
A scholar who can assist you in your studies is the great commentator Fr. Cornelius a Lapide, S.J., who analyzed all the books of the Scriptures and also the apocrypha. We highly recommend that you seek the solution for your problems in his monumental work Commentaria in Scripturam Sanctam. The main problem for many is that it is in Latin and only the New Testament has been translated to English, available here.
These are the general isuggestions we can give to help you.
As a side final note: Do not lose too much time discussing this with Protestants. Most of the time they do not have the humility to admit that they are wrong and the honesty to accept the real interpretation of a text, especially when it appears to be contradictory.
Cordially,
TIA correspondence desk
Posted August 23, 2018
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The opinions expressed in this section - What People Are Commenting - do not necessarily express those of TIA
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Good people visit Medjugorje, are grossly deceived, and Rome doesn't care. (Read the next posting)
But this fits in with the modern Church's attitude toward non-Catholics: they are deceived, remain in false religions, and the Church doesn't care.
Or again, good people join cults like the Neo-Catechumenal Way or the Focolare Movement or Opus Dei, etc., are deceived, and Rome doesn't care.
But harbor a kind thought towards anything traditional, and someone in the Church will excoriate you.
Patrick O'Brien