What's the beef with Catholics?

[ithinkthereforeiam]

What is the beef other Christian denominations have with the Catholics? What do you have in common? What are the disagreements?

[micatala]

PS

Question: "Is prayer to saints / Mary Biblical?"

Answer: The issue of Catholics praying to saints is one that is full of confusion. It is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church that Catholics do not pray TO saints or Mary, but rather that Catholics can ask saints or Mary to pray FOR them. The official position of the Roman Catholic Church is that asking saints for their prayers is no different than asking someone here on earth to pray for you. However, the practice of many Catholics diverges from official Roman Catholic teaching. Many Catholics do in fact pray directly to saints and/or Mary, asking them for help – instead of asking the saints and/or Mary to intercede with God for help. Whatever the case, whether a saint or Mary is being prayed to, or asked to pray, neither practice has any Biblical basis.

From http://www.gotquestions.org/prayer-saints-Mary.html

From http://www.catholic.com/library/Praying ... Saints.asp

The intercession of fellow Christians—which is what the saints in heaven are—also clearly does not interfere with Christ’s unique mediatorship because in the four verses immediately preceding 1 Timothy 2:5, Paul says that Christians should interceed: "First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good, and pleasing to God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:1–4). Clearly, then, intercessory prayers offered by Christians on behalf of others is something "good and pleasing to God," not something infringing on Christ’s role as mediator.

"No Contact with the dead"

Sometimes Fundamentalists object to asking our fellow Christians in heaven to pray for us by declaring that God has forbidden contact with the dead in passages such as Deuteronomy 18:10–11. In fact, he has not, because he at times has given it—for example, when he had Moses and Elijah appear with Christ to the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). What God has forbidden is necromantic practice of conjuring up spirits. "There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. . . . For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed" (Deut. 18:10–15).

God thus indicates that one is not to conjure the dead for purposes of gaining information; one is to look to God’s prophets instead. Thus one is not to hold a seance. But anyone with an ounce of common sense can discern the vast qualitative difference between holding a seance to have the dead speak through you and a son humbly saying at his mother’s grave, "Mom, please pray to Jesus for me; I’m having a real problem right now." The difference between the two is the difference between night and day. One is an occult practice bent on getting secret information; the other is a humble request for a loved one to pray to God on one’s behalf.

"Directly to Jesus"



Some may grant that the previous objections to asking the saints for their intercession do not work and may even grant that the practice is permissible in theory, yet they may question it on other grounds, asking why one would want to ask the saints to pray for one. "Why not pray directly to Jesus?" they ask.

The answer is: "Of course one should pray directly to Jesus!" But that does not mean it is not also a good thing to ask others to pray for one as well. Ultimately, the "go-directly-to-Jesus" objection boomerangs back on the one who makes it: Why should we ask any Christian, in heaven or on earth, to pray for us when we can ask Jesus directly? If the mere fact that we can go straight to Jesus proved that we should ask no Christian in heaven to pray for us then it would also prove that we should ask no Christian on earth to pray for us.

Praying for each other is simply part of what Christians do. As we saw, in 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Paul strongly encouraged Christians to intercede for many different things, and that passage is by no means unique in his writings. Elsewhere Paul directly asks others to pray for him (Rom. 15:30–32, Eph. 6:18–20, Col. 4:3, 1 Thess. 5:25, 2 Thess. 3:1), and he assured them that he was praying for them as well (2 Thess. 1:11). Most fundamentally, Jesus himself required us to pray for others, and not only for those who asked us to do so (Matt. 5:44).

Now, I am not advocating that everyone should pray to saints. I am only saying that this is something about which Christians can reasonably disagree, and that we should not label those who disagree with out position with negative pejoratives like un-Christian, blasphemous, etc.

There is no requirement regarding how to pray or not to pray with respect to being saved. Romans chapter 10 makes it clear.

9That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."

Catholics subscribe to this verse. Those that follow this practice are saved. Period.

[scottlittlefield17]

They bow before them is the point. When the centurion tried to bow before Peter he said no. When John tried to bow before the angel the angel forbid it and told him to worship God. Jesus is our mediator before God not the saints. The saints have no power. God said that in place that even if Elijah Daniel and one other i cant remember where ask him he would not change his mind.

[micatala]

They bow before them is the point. When the centurion tried to bow before Peter he said no. When John tried to bow before the angel the angel forbid it and told him to worship God. Jesus is our mediator before God not the saints. The saints have no power. God said that in place that even if Elijah Daniel and one other i cant remember where ask him he would not change his mind.

Two things.

FIrst, in both the cases you cite, the people bowing seemed to be doing so with the belief that they were bowing before God, and they were doing it in the context of an awe-inspiring event.

Secondly, Catholics who pray to saints or Mary do not always bow when they are doing so. You seem to be putting an inordinate importance on physical posture, and less on the actual attitude of the heart or belief.

Again, I am not arguing that people should pray to saints or Mary, only that it is inappropriate to pejoratively label, especially to dismiss as un-Christian, those who do so.

I note that you did not directly address the passages in Romans that I cited.

[scottlittlefield17]

I think they new Cornelius knew that Peter was not God. The verses in Romans do are not talking about things that will keep you out of heaven. you shall not make a graven image "you shall not bow down to it OR worship it" there is a distinction bewteen bowing and worshiping and God says both is wrong. No they do not always bow but why not pray to your mother?

[micatala]

I think they new Cornelius knew that Peter was not God.

I'll accept they did not consider Peter equivalent to God

The verses in Romans do are not talking about things that will keep you out of heaven.

The point is that these verses indicate that those who accept Jesus will get into heaven. There are no other conditions. There are no, "except if you don't follow doctrine X." As far as being saved, I see no reason not to conclude these verses trump everything.

you shall not make a graven image "you shall not bow down to it OR worship it" there is a distinction bewteen bowing and worshiping and God says both is wrong. No they do not always bow but why not pray to your mother?

Again, you are mischaracterizing the Catholic position. Following your logic, a man who kneels down to a women to propose is worshipping her as a God.

Or consider that in many non-Catholic churches, there is a cross at the front of the church and as part of the service, people kneel before it. DOes a cross not count as a graven image? How is this "bowing" Ok and not Catholic bowing?

Catholics do not pray to saints or Mary as if they are God. It's that simple.

[scottlittlefield17]

What about the verses that talk about you getting your names in the lambs book of life. Or the lists that say if you are in these sins you won't go to heaven. It gives no exception if you have got saved or not. Now we are getting into eternal security.

[Goat]

What about the verses that talk about you getting your names in the lambs book of life. Or the lists that say if you are in these sins you won't go to heaven. It gives no exception if you have got saved or not. Now we are getting into eternal security.

Tell you what.. how about looking that up, quoting from ti, and looking it up in context.

Then, how about answering the point about John 20:23?

[scottlittlefield17]

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Revelation 21:8
It separates unbelieving from the rest.

[Goat]

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Revelation 21:8
It separates unbelieving from the rest.

How is that quote relevant?

[micatala]

What about the verses that talk about you getting your names in the lambs book of life. Or the lists that say if you are in these sins you won't go to heaven. It gives no exception if you have got saved or not. Now we are getting into eternal security.

I think part of the problem is that you are assuming that the entire Bible has to be considered a self-consistent whole, and that no discrepancy of doctrine can exist within the Bible. I do not share that assumption.

Thus, when you find one verse or a set of verses that supports your view, you feel this must mean that any verses, or interpretation of those verses, that runs counter to your view must be in error. For example, you have not addressed what is wrong with my reading of Romans chapter 8, you have only cited other verses which seem to run counter to it and which you believe allows you to essentially ignore the plain meaning of the text there.

Now, there are several ways around this problem.

One is we could accept that different books of the Bible, especially when those books are written by different authors, may give contradictory teachings. In this case, we must pick and choose in our own conscience which we are going to follow. No one believes Paul wrote Revelations, and it is also clearly a very very different kind of book than the letters of Paul. Thus, it might not be surprising that the author of Revelations takes a different view than Paul.

A second way is to attempt an honest reconciliation of the discrepant verses. This requires actually addressing all the passages in question and coming up with a single meaning consistent with all of them. So far, this has not been done. Rather, we both have essentially chosen which verses we want to use to support our positions. This is not a reconciliation, which really must honestly address all the verses, not simply allow one or more to trump the others.

A third way is to allow that while the Bible is useful for teaching and doctrine, it is not the ultimate authority. In this case, we can consider that other non-Biblical rationale might be more compelling, relevant, etc., than some Biblical passages. This approach has been taken by nearly every Christian on the face of the planet.

For example, NO ONE using only the Bible for his source of knowledge would ever come to any other conclusion than the sun revolves around the earth. It is ONLY because of the knowledge brought to us by science that any of us who are Christians accept a moving earth. Thus, modern Christians have allowed science to determine their view of the solar system over scripture.

One can certainly find other examples of this that apply to at least some Christians. These would include practices on divorce and remarriage, attitudes towards polygamy, attitudes towards women's roles in church and the larger society, banking practices, theories on the second coming of Christ (which are principally effected by the fact that it has not occurred yet), etc.

In fact, the issue you bring up of "once saved always saved" or not is one that there is much controversy among Christians, and not just between Catholics and non-Catholics. Same with "must be baptized or not." If there were one clear way to interpret scripture on these matters, than there would not be a controversy.


Now, my view is that we follow a biblically based solution to such controversies, and this is to follow the teaching in Romans 14. Surely it is not a good thing for Christians to allow themselves to be divided about such beliefs. Surely it is possible for Christians who have divergent views on these issues to do good works together. As Christ said, it is by our fruits we will be known. Is it not better to put aside such diffences and work for some common good end rather than put labels on each other that prevent us from working together to do good?


Keep in mind that I am speaking as a former Catholic who DOES have many issues with and criticisms of the Catholic Church. Still, I have respect for my Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ and the good work that many of them do. I would advocate that all Christians put aside such differences, at least to the extent that they acknowledge one anothers' rights to follow their own consciences in their relationship with God.