I suck at trying to convey my intent in this medium, so I apologize.
Spreading using the "best method" doesn’t actually mean the people are necessarily converted, are they? Telling people what they want to hear, they will be given this treasure or any worldly good might place people in the pews for a time; but what happens in the end? Or it might even contain a portion of the truth; but not the whole truth in its unadulterated version is not given, just a portion of the whole truth.
Speaking of Africa, they have the fastest growing authentic Catholic population in the world and its leaps and bounds above everyone else. I also presume you meant something like "one/ten million Africans during . . . ." but correct me if I am wrong.
edit - somehow I messed up the quote function, again ; )
Yes. The believers we acting counter to the instructions of their God and we thus being “bad” adherents to their faith. “Thou shalt not murder”, “turn the other cheek”, “if you love me why do you not keep my commandments” etc…
In other words that mob of believers were acting directly counter to the instructions of Christ as recorded in the new testament. So they weren’t being very good Christians.
Ah. I interpreted that sentence as them acting like jerks proved they were following an invalid religion. Which isn’t necessarily true. You meant they misunderstood it. Gotcha. Carry on.
You did not answer any of my questions (honest questions by the way) in a thread you started with the intent to challenge and questions you. Am I missing something here?
You mention Faith when talking about something as simple as whether the piece of bread is actually bread, or if it is a a piece of human flesh from a man who has been dead for 2000 years. There is a significant amount of evidence indicating it is a piece of bread, I’m wondering why you don’t believe that evidence. If the best you have is “faith” then I think the point is made, you have nothing but still choose to believe what you want. If that’s all that is needed for you, great, but that doesn’t work for me.
The Catholic Church as it is today will collapse and the heretics in the Church will be eradicated. Like cockroaches, the evil prelates of the Church will scatter and hide once the truth is shown to the world.
Cardinal Wuerl gave his letter for resignation to Pope Francis, something like three years ago, if I remember correctly a cardinal typically retires at the age of seventy-five. I’m glad the Church is getting rid of this guy, in fact he deserves to go to prison, not just retire in a life of comfort. He currently lives in a multi-million dollar mansion in one of the most expensive neighborhoods of D.C.
A better, more authentic faithful will build a bigger Church; than Her former days of glory.
He didn’t accept his resignation until the report came out.
Its disgusting. Peoples donations go to support a bunch of child rapists.
If this big of a conspiracy to commit rape were uncovered through out the management of a corporation, its assets would be seized to repay its victims and it would be wiped from the face of the earth.
Why should that not happen to the Catholic church?
You are right Drew1411, let me try that again shall we?
The bread is Blessed by a priest and after that moment the Bread is literally the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. The proof that this happens is when people can live for years. Take for example Alexandria Maria da Costa, she began an absolute fast which lasted for more than thirteen years, The fast stated on Good Friday of 1942.
Now a plug for Church Militant which I found through this site, but that’s another story ; ) In the Catholic Church; if the host is dropped on the floor, the Host is either eaten right away or it is placed in Holy Water to be dissolved. In such a case, there was an event "in Buenos Aires, Argentina [a number of] years ago. In 1996, when then-Bishop Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) was an auxiliary bishop there under Cdl. Antonio Quarracino. A consecrated Host was found on the ground and soon placed in a glass of water to dissolve. Days later, the Eucharist wasn’t dissolved at all — it had turned into bloody Flesh.
"Cardinal Quarracino and Bp. Bergoglio took a photograph of the bloody Host for the record, then stored it in a tabernacle to decompose. In 1999, three years later, that same bloody Flesh remained. That’s when Dr. Ricardo Castañón, a Bolivian neurophysiologist, was called in to have samples from the Host examined in a laboratory environment.
"Doctor Castañón took it to the San Francisco Forensic Institute without telling anyone there what it was or where it came from. After testing, he was told the samples constituted heart muscle, specifically from the myocardium of the left ventricle. Further, the tests showed the blood was human, with human DNA, and of the rare AB-positive type — the same as found on the Shroud of Turin.
"Following those results, the Host was taken to Dr. Frederick Zugibe, an esteemed cardiologist and forensic pathologist at Columbia University in New York. According to Dr. Castañón, Dr. Zugibe tested the samples he was given and said the person whose heart it came from must have been tortured. Further, Dr. Zugibe was reportedly amazed that when he studied the samples, they were pulsating like a living, beating heart.
"When Dr. Castañón first came across the miracle in 1999, he was an atheist. Today, he’s a Catholic.
"After that, the results of the tests were compared to samples from another Eucharistic miracle that took place in Lanciano, Italy roughly 1,300 years ago. The Body and Blood from that miracle are still preserved at a church in the town. In 1970, they were examined scientifically and, like the Buenos Aires sample, found to be from a human heart with AB-positive blood.
"The comparison indicated that the samples from both Buenos Aires and Lanciano must have come from the same man. They both had the exact same DNA.
"Church leaders are always careful to test potential miracles and rule out natural causes. Last year, in Utah, a Host that had been dropped and kept in water appeared blood red after days. However, after a thorough investigation, the red substance turned out not to be blood but rather mold. So the Church isn’t quick to label every case like this miraculous. But sometimes, after healthy skepticism and cautious investigation, there’s no other conclusion that can be drawn."
The Blessed Eucharist is literally the same genetic material, the rarest type of blood, the same tortured heart muscle and the two samples are separated by more than 1,300 years.
No, as in you literally didn’t answer the questions I asked.
Specifically: “If I gave you a piece of bread that has been blessed and piece that has not been ‘transformed’, would they be any different?”
There is quite a bit of evidence saying it isn’t, I think it would be very easy to prove it the bread was actually human flesh if this actually happened.
What?? No, that wouldn’t be proof, it doesn’t have anything to do with what we were talking about, it’s a lady eating a small amount of bread each day as a fast. How would that prove that a piece of bread is not actually bread, when there is evidence saying the bread is exactly what it was before the magical words were said.
Lol church militant website. A bishop “finding” bloody flesh days later (no possibly way that story could be made up, fabricated, or manufactured). My parents also told me that we needed to leave carrots for Santa’s reindeer, and after we left them out over night there were nibbles on the carrots! It proves Santa is real!
You can continue to believe reality is not what it is, but a random story from a fringe website is not proof of anything other than what you base your beliefs on. As I said previously, that may be good enough for you, but that doesn’t work for me.
Someone, let’s say roughly 2000 years ago, told his followers he was literally turning their wafers into pieces of a dead guys body, but it was literally impossible to tell, and that you needed to have faith that he wasn’t lying.
Fast forward to today. Do we give this man extra leeway because we spent 2000 years not questioning?
Did Jesus explicitly tell his followers converting bread into his body could be accomplished by anyone in the future that had been granted that power and that God would grant it to him? Serious question, I didn’t pay a ton of attention to religion in the couple years of Catholic school I attended.
Side question. If I lie to a group of people about being ordained, and proceed to spend my life passing out the body of Christ, would God consider them to have participated in communion?
I’m just saying, how does one get caught up on the body and blood thing? If we’re nutters it starts with believing in life after organic death. Belief in a God. Belief in objective good and evil. Inherent rights and moral obligations. Etc.
