With Pope Francis O, the hits just keep on coming.
According to The Drudge Report, His Holiness was speaking privately with an atheist friend of his, Eugenio Scalfare. In this private conversation, the atheist asked the Pontiff what happened to “bad souls”. Francis reportedly said “nothing happens, they just disappear.”
This means of course that there is no hell. This also means that the Roman Curia had to bring out the poor fellow who sweeps up after the elephant yet again. You know it must be true given that the Vatican had to issue an immediate “clarification”.
Pat Buchanan immediately pounced upon this latest papal misstep. In his words, the Pope’s words make a mockery out of settled Christian doctrine. http://www.wnd.com/2018/03/does-the-pope-believe-in-hell/ To add further fuel to the fire, bits of plaster fell from the ceiling in St Peter’s Basilica today (Western Holy Thursday). Fortunately, no one was hurt.
I’m an Orthodox Christian, like I believe most of you all are. Still, this doesn’t make me happy. If anything, it solidifies in my mind my observation that Catholicism is on its last legs. But that’s my opinion. That and fifty cents will buy you a cup of coffee.
Anyway, what to do? Perhaps execute another “Benedict Option”? Pope Benedict XVI is “Pope Emeritus” and living in a monastery on the Vatican grounds. Well, why not give him a call? If not that, then issue a formal apology to Jesus of Nazareth. He didn’t have to undergo the Mel Gibson treatment.
Yet another nail in the coffin of the ecumenical movement.
Man alive!
It is getting harder and harder and harder to keep up with this Pope
But let me see if I can try –
Next logical question for Pope Francis:
Would a baptized backslidden Muslim Atheist alien dog go to hell?
No, because it’s a dog.
The Jesuit order was once banned. It ought to have stayed that way. There are also reports this week of a prof at a Jesuit university openly promoting a view that Jesus was a homosexual, among other things.
Francis has rebuilt the curia in his own image, so his successor will probably be even worse.
I’ve seen a lot of RC’s quoting Padre Pio: “They’ll believe in hell when they get there.”
George,
Let’s forget this pope stuff; you never answered my question. Did you or did you not support the invasion of Iraq in 2003?
I did answer, Costa. I supported it because I believed the Corporate Media/neoconservative lies that were spewed forth by republicans and democrats alike.
Mea culpa.
Any clarification or retraction needs to come from Francis himself. Otherwise it’s clear the Vatican is just in damage control.
Universal Audience of Ultimate Truth for Salvation
Ultimately all ethics depends on individual consideration, mandated in Leviticus 19:18 “Love your neighbor as yourself,” also found in Confucius Analects 12:2, Buddhist Udana Vagna 5:1 and Matthew 7:1. Consistency is the hobgoblin of limited minds as God and Truth are incomprehensible (Isaiah 40:25) and dogma and ideology are idolatry which detracts from evidence based realism. This is why the only answer can be a question. All creativity and science is divine (1 Cor 3:5-9). Jesus opposed traditionalist Sadducees and fundamentalist Pharisees but embraced syncretic Samaritans. Jesus was nothing if not anticlerical “Do as they say, not as they do” (Mt 23:1). Isn’t it odd the fundamentalists quote scripture by number as if lawyers? Meek means tranquil, not humble. Meekness is devoid of the passion of just war which divides and obfuscates. (Jer 17:9, Eph 2:3)
Hades (Sheol) was a holding place from which Jesus freed us, not a banishment. “gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn”. (Matthew 3:12 ) There is no purgatory, burning is into oblivion. “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43 ) Today! Saints intecede! If Jesus told us to be like the children (Matt 18:3) how could he believe them to have Original Sin? Mary CHOSE, by Free Will, to be sinless and surrendered herself to the service of God, as God long awaited. Luther said “Mary is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God” (24:107) and “There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know.” (10:268). God lived in the Temple (Exodus 36:8) so as Mary bore God she replaced the Temple which was destroyed when she rose exactly on Tisha B’Av, the original lent of eating only fish because fish survived Noah’s flood.
God is beyond time and reason, not being limited by the dimensions that govern our world (Isaiah 57:15). God’s perspective on time is far different from man (Psalm 102:12, 24-27). God sees all of eternity’s past and eternity’s future, hence free will and predestination do not contradict. Since He is the Alpha AND the Omega, there can be no historical progression which is satanic anthropolatry. Parable of Talents (Matt 25:14-30) confirms the glory of capitalism over slothful envy of socialism. Parable of Warehouse is about being obsessed with what we have so we stop living. Superachievers aren’t concerned with accumulation but with constant achievement, seeking to ever use their gifts to the fullest (Calvin Institutes 3.7.5). James 2:14-18,26 shows that while faith is the essential prerquisite, you cannot escape the need for works as well. Half the planet worships to the Psalms of David so stop renaming them as your own hymnals. A Republic of Judges was preferred by God over the Reign of Kings. (1 Sam 8:6-18) The clothing and responsibilities of the Cohens (chief priests) resembles the early bishops (overseers) and of rabbis with the pastors (presbyters, elders). Paul’s word for fornication meant prostitution instead. Paul’s word for masturbation meant malady. Paul’s word for sycophant meant slander. Magog meant Mongol. Jesus came to fulfill not repeal the Law (Matt 5:17) as Pharisees were condemned because they syncretized vindictive Roman natural law over Jubilee redemptory Deuteronomy law. Moneychangers were racist about Roman coins. Redemptory confession is from 2 Chron 7:14 and Resurrection from Dan 12:2, Ezek 37:12-17, and Isaiah 26:19. Forgiveness is found in Isaiah 33:24, Isaiah 55:7, Jeremiah 3:22, Numbers 14,15, Leviticus 6,19,2 Samuel 14:14. Jesus used the lunar calendar, so why do you use the calendar of those that slew him and stole his religion.
The only answer is not a question but a person, Jesus Christ and our interrelationship with Him in Love. On this stand all the Law and the Prophets. He fulfills them and all of the doctrine. That is why we Orthodox do not have much doctrine except about who He is and strive to validate that in experience through prayer, fasting, repentance and almsgiving while attending on the Holy and Life Giving Sacraments. Giving thanks for all things.
THis M E Scott sounds like a millenial Peter Gilchrist, no?
I liked Mel’s movie. That said, Orthodoxy has the virtue of being the only actually (in some ways verifiably) true form of Christianity. Now, there is much to love in some of the Latin rites, the Sarum missal, etc.
However:
http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/rome_orth.aspx
We have to remember that we are dealing with papists, or perhaps more precisely a papacentric Christian confession. In elevating the bishop of Rome the way they do, they open a pandora’s box of unintended consequences. It is the main defect in Roman Catholicism, along with the filioque. In toying around with the Trinity and Headship of the Church, they create an untenable situation for themselves. That is the fate of heresy – self destruction under the weight of its own defects.
https://www.impantokratoros.gr/PaulBallaster_Convolier.en.aspx
Misha, agree 100% on this one.
I liked Mel’s The Passion of the Christ as well. Big tears never fail me when I witness the scene going back and forth, when The Theotokos runs to toddler Jesus when he falls on a hill, and then then flashes to her running later to adult Jesus as he falls, carrying his cross, a heart broken mother can only stare at her child and hold him, while he says to her,”See, mother, I make all things new.”
Yes I know that was the Mel’s input taken from (Revelation 21:5-6) but it works perfectly with the timing of beaten, and bloody Jesus and his mother, face to face ,in the humiliation of his rejection, condemnation ,suffering , death, and coming resurrection that Christ renewed the face of the earth with his Love.
But where I always really lose it, sniffles and tears, can’t stop no matter what:
After Peter denies Jesus thrice, and is weeping bitterly, Mel really wallops us, by bringing the Theotokos face to face with Peter, as she is searching for her son. Peter’s shameful expression, tears and pain, falling to his knees, not allowing the Theotokos to touch him, out his great shame, crying to her,”I have denied him!” OOUCH!
That scene cemented it for me. If I were to be any of the apostles, I would be Peter. So much Love given to me, so much Love shown, so many miracles and yet I continue to deny Christ in my words and actions everyday. My shame on my knees will be no different than Peter’s, when i sit on the Judgment seat of Christ, but tears of joy also come with his Resurrection! Lord have mercy on me a sinner.
It was a powerful movie, Dino.
Well you have Human Life Expectancy in US it is about 80 years. On the French Riviera around 90. Poorer countries about 70. Life Span is 120, maybe an exception or 2. Then we are dead. And if the End of the World has not happened by 2068 then for most of us it has anyway, few young centenarians notwithstanding.
“Hell is a mystery” .. personally, what would be really hell for me, especially when you have
visibility of all 21 beautiful colors not just the seven we see now, that you do not get to go there. St. Seraphim of Sarov he said somewhere all you need to do to reach some measure of “spiritual perfection” is read the Lord’s Prayer thrice daily, Once for the Father and Son and Spirit.
Ecumenical Patriarch: “Oh, crap!”
I was Latin Catholic for 38 years……and uniate for seven years. I thank God every day for permitting me to enter the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church eleven years ago…..the Holy Orthodox Church. But I feel really bad for all my traditional Roman Catholic friends who are reeling and twisting in the wind because of Jorge.
Well George
What do you expect
The Roman Pope already has most the world celebrating the resurrection Easter/Pascha on April Fools Day
This Sunday, as the Catholic mass is celebrated in the bascilica of St. Peter and televised throughout the world
I’m really hoping Mork lands and pops out of a giant UFO egg and immediately gets baptized by the Pope via banana cream pie explosion to the face.
I recommend you stop seeing this as trajedy. I mean, it is truly horrible – but it’s also a comedy gold mine
Perhaps someone can give my Ancient Faith booklet to the Pope?
Heaven and Hell: Within the Divine Fire of God’s Love
BOTH heaven and hell are real.
Here is the link:
http://store.ancientfaith.com/heaven-and-hell-the-divine-fire-of-gods-love/
Good to hear from you Fr!
I guess the aphorism “is the Pope Catholic?” bites the dust now. Oh well, we’ve still got the one about
the bear defecating in the woods”.
Father James
That is a good booklet of yours and I recommend it to anyone, sincerely.
However,
Do you happen to have a booklet that addresses the issue of whether or not alleged outer space aliens should be baptized?
Also,
Can I interest you in a booklet of mine?
It is a comparison of preferred methods of baptism
Billy Jack Sunday,
I am very interested in your booklet.
I hope you will be interested in my book also. My almost completed magnus opus will be a hefty 1,940 page tome entitled Doorstops and Paperweights published by Chopped Down A Tree Press. It will only come in a quality leatherbound hardcover edition with gilded edges on 135# archival paper.
The cost will be higher than most, but for all practical purposes it will be well worth it.
Put me down for a copy!
Joseph Kipper
If you are so inclined
I will tap my treasurer and have my accountant transfer some monies around (privately off record, of course)
We’ll just say it was monies earmarked for foreign missions in Guam and/or Latin America
Then we will then invest in a specialized marketing company that produces real results.
It will diversify mass sales throughout the country, giving the illusion that your book is an absolute success and in high demand – with the goal to rig the statistics to make it qualified as a NY Times best seller.
Then that status alone will bring more sales.
Then you will be famous and your next book will be highly anticipated and in demand before you even write its first sentence.
I expect to be handsomely compensated for giving you this boost, but will take no more than 15% cut in sales.
Not long after we start dipping into resources, we will need to excite local parishioners regarding missions in order to help keep cash flowing for other projects.
If you have good Photoshopping skills, we can insure that these random foreign villages get the food, water, medicines, education as well as spiritual instruction.
Think of it like Sims – but for cash
If this doesn’t appeal to you, we can just start a variant UFO cult that venerates Tom Cruise
We will need an email list, popcorn and a Netflix account. Satellite cells will be easily spawned
Why Tom Cruise?
He can call channel aliens by his front tooth.
“What??!!” – you say?
Tom Cruise has a tooth dead center on his top row of teeth. Look up pictures of him. You will see it immediately
Then, you will never be able to unsee it
He channels aliens with it
You will need to follow up the success of this book, however, to keep the momentum as well as the cash flowing
May I suggest the subjuct of potential but exclusive usefulness of unaccredited Bible College degrees as bathroom tissue?
Joseph Lipper
If you are so inclined
I will tap my treasurer and have my accountant transfer some monies around (privately off record, of course)
We’ll just say it was monies earmarked for foreign missions in Guam and/or Latin America
Then we will then invest in a specialized marketing company that produces real results.
It will diversify mass sales throughout the country, giving the illusion that your book is an absolute success and in high demand – with the goal to rig the statistics to make it qualified as a NY Times best seller.
Then that status alone will bring more sales.
Then you will become famous and your next book will be highly anticipated and in demand before you even write its first sentence.
I expect to be handsomely compensated for giving you this boost, but will take no more than 15% cut in sales.
Not long after we start dipping into resources, we will need to excite local parishioners regarding missions in order to help keep cash flowing for other projects.
If you have good Photoshopping skills, we can insure that these random foreign villages get the food, water, medicines, education as well as spiritual instruction.
Think of it like Sims – but for cash
If this doesn’t appeal to you, we can just start a variant UFO cult that venerates Tom Cruise
We will need an email list, popcorn and a Netflix account. Satellite cells will be easily spawned
Why Tom Cruise?
He can call channel aliens by his front tooth.
“What??!!” – you say?
Tom Cruise has a tooth dead center on his top row of teeth. Look up pictures of him. You will see it immediately
Then, you will never be able to unsee it
He channels aliens with it
You will need to follow up the success of this book, however, to keep the momentum as well as the cash flowing
May I suggest the subjuct of potential but exclusive usefulness of unaccredited Bible College degrees as bathroom tissue?
Dear Father Bernstein,
I bought your autobiography years ago and enjoyed it immensely. I need to read it again.
Mark Elmer Scott (MES): “ultimately all ethics depends on individual consideration, mandated in Leviticus 19:18 “Love your neighbor as yourself,”
Yes, but we are told to love God first, and when loving God, especially in the strictest sense, means something ecumenists don’t understand, then neither are they on the mark when loving neighbour as ourself comes second.
MES: “also found in Confucius Analects 12:2, Buddhist Udana Vagna 5:1
Good for them, but we don’t compare apples with oranges, just as we don’t compare Christianity with other religions. If we want to know what’s Christian, we look to what’s Christian and compare everything else against it. Note that the Bible, for one, was written by the Church, for the Church, and only the Church knows how to interpret it. Imagine you and a friend define and then create a mission statement that only the two of you could possibly understand and then some man on the street comes along and says you’re wrong. The audacity would be breathtaking.
MES: “Matthew 7:1. Consistency is the hobgoblin of limited minds as God and Truth are incomprehensible (Isaiah 40:25)”
This understanding is woefully formatory, having no appreciation at all of the inner dimension of Orthodoxy; for if it were otherwise, then you would see that passive consistency is the problem, whereas active consistency (read deep stability) is the goal – that which has no beginning and no end.
MES: “and dogma and ideology are idolatry which detracts from evidence based realism. This is why the only answer can be a question.”
Funny, MES, how in saying things can only be a question, you’ve then proceeded to give the answer. You contradict yourself so badly and a house against itself cannot stand.
MES: “All creativity and science is divine (1 Cor 3:5-9).”
And yet evil also exists, doesn’t it MES?
MES: “Jesus opposed traditionalist Sadducees and fundamentalist Pharisees but embraced syncretic Samaritans.”
What jesus opposed was crossing oneself before dinner, for instance, and thinking we are doing God’s work, without even giving a thought to how we might actually try, with God’s help, to really be grateful for the food we receive. This is what the law vs the spirit means, and this is why Christ condemned the Pharisees etc. That Eastern Orthodox still follow laws is no indictment – not when we safeguard the spirit of them.
As to the Samaritans, why did Jesus not just preach the Samaritan religion? Where in the Gospel does it say, “forget being Jews, just go be Samaritan, they already have a ready-made and effective religion that I needn’t die and rise again for?” And as for helping Samaritans, this is simply a continuation against actual fundamentalism i.e. a religion that hates and doesn’t love. Eastern Orthodoxy doesn’t hate. And those that do aren’t the measure. They simply don’t live up to the ideal.
MES: “Jesus was nothing if not anticlerical “Do as they say, not as they do” (Mt 23:1).”
This denies that good clericalism can exist. And this is false. Does Christ not also laud the Priesthood of Melchizedech?
MES: “Isn’t it odd the fundamentalists quote scripture by number as if lawyers?”
What, like you’ve quoted scripture by number? Whatever the case, the only issue here, in terms of legalisim vs spirit, is that the spirit of the law is understood. When this happens, we most certainly don’t do away with outer forms, but use them, if I can put it that way, as an expression of the spirit. Anything else, on either side, is dead.
MES: “Meek means tranquil, not humble. Meekness is devoid of the passion of just war which divides and obfuscates. (Jer 17:9, Eph 2:3)”
Be careful not to think that fine sounding words like ‘love’ and ‘unity’ and ‘tolerance’ aren’t just the devil making out to be an angel of light. Much needs to be understood about our weaknesses before we can discern between true Love, true Unity and true Tolerance. Failing that, we may just find ourselves in the midst of a ‘just war’ that we never knew we were in.
Suffice it to say for now, Eastern Orthodoxy, in its appreciation for both humility and tranquility, justifies no shedding of blood – seeing it, at most, as a sometimes necessary or unavoidable evil. Ecumenism, on the other hand, shares not in this beauty, having come down to everyone on the back of the French revolution (culminating in communism) and slaughtering literally hundreds of millions in the process. If ecumenists don’t treat this side of things so openly, this is for very good reason.
MES you need to brush up on your knowledge on the history of ideas.
MES: “Hades (Sheol) was a holding place from which Jesus freed us, not a banishment. “gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn”. (Matthew 3:12 )”
You’re trying to say here that a profession of faith in Christ -and perhaps not even that – is enough for salvation, thanks to His life, death and resurrection. This is incorrect. As all relevant denominations agree, Christ’s offer of salvation is a gift. What needs to be added here is that it’s not just any old gift but a GOOD one. This emphasis on GOOD needn’t be explained. As with all good gifts, it can only be given to those who want it, and there can be no wanting it without not wanting it; and there’s no not wanting it without consequences – obviously.
MES: “There is no purgatory, burning is into oblivion. “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43 ) Today! Saints intecede!”
The Eastern Orthodox Church agrees that there’s no purgatory. That aside, the example you’ve given needn’t do away with purgatory when it can just as easily be seen as referring, in particular, to the thief, and all others who are in the same boat; which is to say that not everyone necessarily goes straight to paradise. In support of this I can cite the general resurrection and the Last Judgement, which must be done away with if everyone goes straight to heaven.
So where are those who don’t go straight to heaven? Personally I don’t know, except to say that they’re not in heaven or purgatory – the latter admitting to repentance after death, which Eastern Orthodoxy denies.
MES: “If Jesus told us to be like the children (Matt 18:3) how could he believe them to have Original Sin? Mary CHOSE, by Free Will, to be sinless and surrendered herself to the service of God, as God long awaited.”
This is Augustinian (Traditional Roman Catholic) thought you’re contradicting and if that’s right to do, it still doesn’t negate Traditional Eastern Orthodoxy which is neither Augustinian nor Pelagian, thanks to the explanation I gave above about the unavoidable need to cooperate with Divine Grace, in order to receive the gift of salvation.
I can see, MES, that in denying hell but then endorsing free will, you’re nursing a confusion of ideas. This is bound to happen when Truth doesn’t abound. Truth calls a thing for what it is. There can be no contradiction in that. But when falsehood calls this by that and that by this, then only chaos ensues. Truly Christ (the Eastern Orthodox ‘one’) is the Truth and so is known as the Prince of Peace. But the devil, he lies and distorts all things, and is a murderer from the very start.
MES: “Luther said “Mary is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God” (24:107) and “There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know.” (10:268). God lived in the Temple (Exodus 36:8) so as Mary bore God she replaced the Temple which was destroyed when she rose exactly on Tisha B’Av, the original lent of eating only fish because fish survived Noah’s flood.”
Are you saying here that there’s now no need for churches i.e. physical buildings to worship in? If you are, then you’re wrong. Just as we never deny the right and the need for the name of Jesus, which is surely a symbol, neither do we deny the valid symbolism of the Church (Temple) i.e. the womb for the Holy Spirit to bring about the real presence of Christ. Don’t like it? Then throw away all your symbols, including the name of Jesus and the Gospel.
MES: “God is beyond time and reason, not being limited by the dimensions that govern our world (Isaiah 57:15). God’s perspective on time is far different from man (Psalm 102:12, 24-27). God sees all of eternity’s past and eternity’s future, hence free will and predestination do not contradict.”
This still doesn’t support the Novus Ordo Church or ecumenism, but is, at best, the usual mixing of truth with falsehood, which is no truth at all – there being, after all, no such things as half truths; not when truth is absolute.
MES: “Since He is the Alpha AND the Omega, there can be no historical progression which is satanic anthropolatry.”
I see. So we’re supposedly evolving are we? Learn this: truth is first. Everything else comes after. For this reason, something is logical because it’s true and not true because it’s logical. This is important to understand if we’re dealing with meaning, which I know we are, thanks to the understanding we seek out in this discourse. Thus, the law I’ve stated above applies, and no other.
Now, Truth as we know is God. God therefore comes first and creation after. But is creation God? No! For God is perfect and creation isn’t and never was – heavens, even a serpent existed in paradise! What this illustrates is that evolution doesn’t exist. For how could creation, mankind included, possibly move forward to the truth when truth is only to be found by GOING BACK (to God)?
We can really be sure, then, that the course of history has been sullied by the devil, as creation moves ever forward and away from God.
MES: “Parable of Talents (Matt 25:14-30) confirms the glory of capitalism over slothful envy of socialism.”
Make no mistake, the Novus Ordo Church and ecumenism/syncretism is horribly rooted in socialism. What else could some false equality, based on quantity and not quality, be about? To learn more, study something of Roman Catholic Liberation Theology and see how up to its neck the NORC is and will be in socialist ideology.
Note also that Lutheranism is no better, but if anything is the harbinger of false equality – having, as it does, a deep hatred for hierarchy and authority.
MES: “Parable of Warehouse is about being obsessed with what we have so we stop living. Superachievers aren’t concerned with accumulation but with constant achievement, seeking to ever use their gifts to the fullest (Calvin Institutes 3.7.5).”
This is a grossly material/anti-spiritual perspective. The depths of actual Christianity know that a monk who sits, contentedly, day and night in silent prayer, actively not being taken away with automatic thoughts, feelings and desires, is 100, 60 or 30 times more alive and prosperous than anyone running round in the world.
The Kingdom of Heaven is within.
MES: “James 2:14-18,26 shows that while faith is the essential prerquisite, you cannot escape the need for works as well.”
This still doesn’t support the Novus Ordo Church, Lutheranism or ecumenism; not when coupled with so many misunderstandings.
MES: “Half the planet worships to the Psalms of David so stop renaming them as your own hymnals”.
The Bible, as I said above, was written and compiled by the Church for the Church. The Church (Eastern Orthodoxy) therefore says what it will. To be unable to accept this is the same as saying that Christ came down for nothing, and could just as easily have made everything a ‘free for all’. But He didn’t. Because truth doesn’t mean a ‘free for all’, but rather definite lines between itself and falsehood. Why, then, it’s so hard for people to accept that He established only one true Church, against which all others could be dubious, is not something I’ll treat any further right now.
MES: “Republic of Judges was preferred by God over the Reign of Kings. (1 Sam 8:6-18)”
And yet Christ is the King of Kings.
MES: “The clothing and responsibilities of the Cohens (chief priests) resembles the early bishops (overseers) and of rabbis with the pastors (presbyters, elders).”
Your point is missed on me, but if the validity of the Novus Ordo Church, Lutheranism and ecumenism rested on it, I’d be surprised.
MES: “Paul’s word for fornication meant prostitution instead. Paul’s word for masturbation meant malady. Paul’s word for sycophant meant slander.”
Again, the Bible was written and compiled by the Church, for the Church. Therefore, just as you couldn’t condone someone thinking they could just come along and say whatever about your deepest truths, neither should you find any decency in doing it to others’. “Do unto others..”
Nevertheless, do try and not go to prostitutes, engage in malady and slander. This will be a good start, I think, in understanding what else fornication, masturbation and sycophancy mean.
MES: “Magog meant Mongol”
Whatever the case, the meaning remains the same.
MES: “Jesus came to fulfill not repeal the Law (Matt 5:17) as Pharisees were condemned because they syncretized vindictive Roman natural law over Jubilee redemptory Deuteronomy law.”
I wouldn’t go basing a whole case on this. It’s one thing to disband meanness and quite another to declare a ‘free for all’. Among so many other examples I could give, St Paul himself says that God is both kind and harsh. Just how these warnings, which are as many as the blessings in the Gospel, are missed on people is beyond me.
MES: “Moneychangers were racist about Roman coins.”
So Christ flogged them to get with the promiscuous program of multiculturalism?That’s a new one.
MES: “Redemptory confession is from 2 Chron 7:14 and Resurrection from Dan 12:2, Ezek 37:12-17, and Isaiah 26:19. Forgiveness is found in Isaiah 33:24, Isaiah 55:7, Jeremiah 3:22, Numbers 14,15, Leviticus 6,19,2 Samuel 14:14.”
Great. And in parts too numerous for my liking right now, we ought to get with the program of appealing to His kind side.
MES: “Jesus used the lunar calendar, so why do you use the calendar of those that slew him and stole his religion.”
Oh, I don’t know, probably because Christ cared enough about the Romans to flog the moneychangers for being mean to them
And now a question for you: how does Lutheranism etc., with its Sola Scriptura position, justify itself when there’s nothing in the Bible – real or imaginary – that supports this? Seems to me to be an ‘extra-biblical’ idea being used to support the one of ‘Bible only’. That’s fishy
There may not be a purgatory in the Latin conception of it, but Orthodox doctrine agrees that a soul which is oriented towards God, but which is also not pure enough to live in God’s presence, will have to undergo a purification.
My understanding is that we object to the material flame aspect, but not to the concept of purgation.
This is all hearsay about the Pope not believing in hell, and it should be regarded as such. This was reported by a 93 year old athiest journalist who merely relies on his memory, doesn’t take notes or use any recording devices.
If it’s not true, then hearsay like this is from the devil and the depths of hell.
Until the Pope himself declares he doesn’t believe in hell, I won’t believe it, and none of us should.
The Vatican went into damage control and claimed that the interview was done with an atheist (albeit an old friend of Jorge) and the translation was askew. However, they did not disavow that Jorge said that there is no hell.
Until Jorge himself declares that he believes that there is a hell, I won’t believe the Vatican’s damage control story, and none of us should.
Joseph, we think we ARE hearing from Pope when the press reports these things. I didn’t know the story came from a 93-year-old atheist. If I did know, I wouldn’t necessarily assume he got it wrong. I’m STILL not sure he got it wrong. The solution isn’t to blame the reader who can only take what’s reported at face value. The solution is for Pope to stop communicating off the cuff to the press, especially about theology.
St Paul’s Basilica roof COLLAPSES after Pope forced to deny saying ‘Hell DOESN’T exist’
“A LARGE section of St Paul’s Basilica had to be cordoned off by the Vatican after the roof partially collapsed above shocked worshippers, just hours after the Pope was forced to deny claiming that Hell does not exist.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/939429/The-Pope-Vatican-Hell-doesn-t-exist-St-Paul-s-Basilica
And you all gave me crap for telling you there was some weird energy connected to this Pope!
There’s some weird energy at the Vatican for about a thousand years.
I am not a huge fan of this papacy (nor do I have to be, as a Catholic). But the pope has repeatedly, strongly, clearly, and unequivocally affirmed the existence of Hell. A simple Google search will bear this out in five seconds flat.
Is he wrong to keep giving interviews to Scalfari? Yes IMHO. But he is certainly not a proponent of universalism — I have actually seen that view promulgated more among my Orthodox brethren, frankly — and he most certainly believes that Hell exists. He has also repeatedly warned about the reality of Satan.
Must we bear false witness in order to score polemical points?
Catholic MamaBama, the advantage we have is that even if some bishop somewhere, even a Patriarch, is deluded or stupid enough to say things contrary to the Apostolic teaching, as happens often, the rest of us following the Holy Spirit do not have to care a bit.
Since the office of the Papacy has arrogated to itself unwarranted authority, what the Pope says, particularly as reported by the western press full of laspsed, apostate and embittered Catholics, it matters to people’s faith.
The RC faith has become both an ideoligical weapon and a straw man punching bag. This Pope makes it worse.
Bishops die, babuskas live forever.
The entire Vatican press office should fired, then. Their statement should have said, “Of course the Pope believes in hell. This is silly.”
I don’t think a professed belief in the devil necessitates a belief in hell. The devil isn’t in hell right now, he is roaming the earth.
Catholic BamaMama, I read today that Scalfari got it wrong. We weren’t bearing false witness because we didn’t know the reports were false. These off the cuff discussions, especially with Scalfari, are a mistake.
Gail, I’m not so sure that Scalfari got it wrong. What we’re seeing I suspect is a variation of the old Vatican dance move known as the “blowback/walk-back two step”
The Vatican does not claim the material of the conversation did not indicate that he doesn’t believe in hell. They only claim the quotes do not accurately reflect the particular words that were said.
Well, I’m back to the “I don’t know what to think” position. If it is this hard to figure out where the Pope stands, one wonders if it is reasonable to assume he is incapable of making any kind of possible impact. I am tired of trying to figure him out and I can’t be the only one.
I asked friend and fellow parishioner who was once a RC priest about the Pope and figuring him out. He said, “Its not my monkey, not my circus. I have been out of that circus for a long time.”
A former RC priest who’s now a layman in the Orthodox church? That’s quite a switch. I’m curious as to what motivated him to make the change and I’d be interested to see what his take would be on the points made in this discussion, in particular the one I made about the dogma of papal infallibility being essentially self-negating.
Well, his journey is a long and complicated one. It does not behoove me to share it. What I can say is that the reason he became RC in the first place is that he felt that the Pope offered the best guardian of the Apostolic Truth.
Yet, he read Lossky’s book in seminary and was deeply attracted. When the election of Cardinal Ratzinger occurred, he began looking East. Then that coincided with some really unpleasant personal/career situations. He got suspended by the RC bishop for some trumped up reasons that were slander.
Then he fell in love with a really good friend of mine, a former RC whom he knew and had recently migrated to us. He followed. They got married and they have a young son.
My friend’s experience in the RC has left him understandably cynical. I suspect he would not comment much on these matters.
A quote I came across a while ago by Met. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
Hell is not the absence of God, but His presence as fire.
Our God is a consuming fire. It will purify you if you let it.
There may be a silver lining in all of this. A Pope who can tacitly deny the existence of hell (and for the sake of argument I’m assuming this happened), can just as easily, for example, affirm that grace is the uncreated energy of God as opposed to a created substance. He could repudiate the dichotomy between “natural” and “revealed” theology. He could affirm hesychasm as a viable spiritual discipline. He could even reconceptualize the dogma of papal infallibility so as to render it essentially meaningless and obsolete.
Implicit in the dogma of papal infallibility appears to be its own negation. An infallible pope could bring the entire Roman church back into the Orthodox fold without the latter having to lift a finger.
Perhaps, but it won’t be Bergoglio. Being a Jesuit, he has no time for dogma, only for sowing chaos and confusion.
That’s true. Vatican I is not Orthodox but it does give the Papacy a way to dissolve itself and return the Roman church to Orthodox Catholicism.
Interesting point. Perhaps the prophecy of St Malachy, that this pope would be the last one, is coming true? Just a thought.
Some would say Pius XII was the last pope.
Personally, I would not want Francis in the Orthodox Church in any capacity but a layman. Or maybe a monk. Even if he kissed the feet of the EP and crowned him with the papal tiara. Certainly not as Primus Inter Pares.
George,
I am wary of lending much credence to “prophecies” like St. Malachy’s but he was devout and God visits even the heretics who do their best to devote themselves to Him, at least in some ways.
St. Malachy’s predictions are uncanny and despite dectractors and rationalizations about the nebulous character of the verses he wrote, there are those who have found support for most if not all the identities he projected.
Indeed, Francis would be the last. Petrus Romanus:
“Peter the Roman, who will pasture his sheep in many tribulations, and when these things are finished, the city of seven hills [i.e. Rome] will be destroyed, and the dreadful judge will judge his people. The End.”
The wording is interesting, “. . . pasture his sheep in many tribulations . . .”.
The source of the “tribulations” is not indicated. Could be The Tribulation. Could be tribulations that afflict the Roman confession near the end. Could be from the outside or self-inflicted.
Who can say?
Better to just fast and pray.
Behold a pale horse as it rides on the wind, the sky is pale pale blue and the clouds pale grey and grim.Following behind them as they cover the good earth, are the death of lives of the good fruits of the earth. The power of the winds comes not from God. but the industries of men. Still the pale clouds emit a faint pale glimmer, caused by tiny nano metals which every breath inhales and blankets all our dinner. Hades now follows what free evil will sows and reaps. God will not remove our free will ,a promise the Only Holy One will keep. It cannot be escaped this sign in the sky, an don’t bother to ask the Holy God, why? The weight of a talents all in this uniform weight, denote the industry of man, which nature cannot not fake. We have the hail coming, made and sent by man. Do not blame the Only Good One for what will befall, humanity choose to ignore His Merciful Call.