torsdag 31 mars 2016

What is the Fourth Vow of the Jesuits?

According to the site of Bible Believers, the ceremony includes an INRI with explanation IUSTUM NECAR REGES IMPIOUS.

"When a Jesuit of the minor rank is to be elevated to command, he is conducted into the Chapel of the Convent of the Order, where there are only three others present, the principal or Superior standing in front of the altar. On either side stands a monk, one of whom holds a banner of yellow and white, which are the Papal colors, and the other a black banner with a dagger and red cross above a skull and crossbones, with the word INRI, and below them the words IUSTUM, NECAR, REGES, IMPIOUS. ..."

Webcite of their page:
http://www.webcitation.org/6gQ3n0yuu

Original adresse of their page:
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/jesuits.htm


According to the site Reformation, the ceremony also includes that:

"When a Jesuit of the minor rank is to be elevated to command, he is conducted into the Chapel of the Convent of the Order, where there are only three others present, the principal or Superior standing in front of the altar. On either side stands a monk, one of whom holds a banner of yellow and white, which are the Papal colors, and the other a black banner with a dagger and red cross above a skull and crossbones, with the word INRI, and below them the words IUSTUM, NECAR, REGES, IMPIOUS. ..."


Tried to make a webcite of their page, but here is the result:

The requested URL was rejected. If you think this is an error, please contact the webmaster.


Your support ID is: 7188385863339605353
http://www.webcitation.org/6gQ4CKE0Y
The requested URL was rejected. If you think this is an error, please contact the webmaster.


Your support ID is: 7188385863340951288
http://www.webcitation.org/6gQ49PvMz


So, I will quote only from their original url:

"When a Jesuit of the minor rank is to be elevated to command, he is conducted into the Chapel of the Convent of the Order, where there are only three others present, the principal or Superior standing in front of the altar. On either side stands a monk, one of whom holds a banner of yellow and white, which are the Papal colors, and the other a black banner with a dagger and red cross above a skull and crossbones, with the word INRI, and below them the words IUSTUM, NECAR, REGES, IMPIOUS. ..."

Jesuit Extreme Oath of Induction
http://www.reformation.org/jesuit-oath.html


Now, perhaps the reason why both quote the supposed vow same way is that both quote from same book:

The following is the Jesuit Extreme Oath of Induction given to high ranking Jesuits only. This oath is taken from the book Subterranean Rome by Carlos Didier, translated from the French, and published in New York in 1843.


OK ...?

Wait, was Carlos Didier very good at Latin?

In Latin there is no such word as "NECAR" and there is no such word as "IMPIOUS". There are words reading NECARE (with an E) and IMPIOS (without an U).

Also, one wonders if a text dating back to beginnings of Jesuit order would spell the first word as "IUSTUM" or perhaps rather as "IVSTVM" in all upper case. I think the latter.

Of course, Carlos Didier may have been honest even if he was bad at Latin.

BUT, since so little of it all is in Latin, even if he was bad, an original text would, one might presume, have been copied correctly, if Carlos Didier took the pains of reading it through, correctly.

Oh, the translation is somewhat faulty as well:

The meaning of which is: It is just to exterminate or annihilate impious or heretical Kings, Governments, or Rulers.


The correct translation is: it is just to kill impious kings.

Hmmm ... the English translation has as correct spelling the sequence which in original Latin would have been a wrong spelling.*

Could it be that the author was perhaps not very far removed from English anti-Catholicism (British, US and Commonwealth)?

Of course, Carlos Didier doesn't sound very English, does it?

Carlos sounds Spanish. Didier sounds French. Actually, I do find a Carlos Didier who seems genuine enough:

Carlos de Vasconcellos Didier (Rio de Janeiro, 1 de fevereiro de 1954), mais conhecido como Carlos Didier, é um engenheiro, musicólogo, violonista e compositor brasileiro.

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Didier


A Brasilian with French ancestors.

A Carlos Didier writing in French would be somewhat harder to imagine.

I also find Carlos Didier on more than one site connected to Subterranean Rome. English or some Slavonic languages. But not French, even if all of the sites or most state that Subterranean Rome, published in New York in 1843, was translated from French.

And I am already on page 14 of a google search where most answers have nothing to do with Subterranean Rome. Like a rugby or socker page where players are enumerated ... Carlos, Didier [someone else] ...

I'll refine the search. Instead of [carlos didier] now ["Carlos Didier"].

I find one who lives in Seine St Denis. Probably has "Carlos" first name from some immigrant stock or is Black.**

There is also a Carlos Didier Antonio Cruz in Mexico.

But a French writer (or a writer in France) who wrote in French before 1843 and who was in 1843 translated to English in New York, only references come via that English translation.

I think the Chick tract about Alberto Rivera, ex-Jesuit, who in that comic book is supposed to have taken that oath (with a dagger involved), as an equally probably fraudulent reference as any to a "Carlos Didier" writing in French up to 1843.

If anyone can verify all of the oath from a book in French printed before 1843 by Carlos Didier, I would be surprised. If someone can verify it from a book in French printed before 1843 by some other author, let's put it like this : Voltaire is NOT above suspicion.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Thursday of Easter Week
31.III.2016

PS: I forgot, but you can look it up yourself on internet, if you google "fourth vow" and look what Jesuits have to say about its content./HGL

PPS, VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE: Rome Souterraine actually does exist. It is a novel, not a documentary. It is also written by an anti-Catholic. Arguing for this oath as here depicted, is like arguing on evils of Manchester Capitalism with a novel by Charles Dickens as main evidence. Or less coherent, since the evils depected by Charles Dickens were not at all even supposed to be secret. He had seen a factory with his eyes, I don't think Charles Didier had seen any Fourth vow taken by a Jesuit in real life./HGL PPPS. Will be back with excerpts and link./HGL

* Correct Latin: reges impios, correct French: des rois impies, correct English: impious kings. "Carlos Didier's" Latin : reges impious.

** Theory A: Spanish or Latin American mother, hence first name Carlos, French father, hence last name Didier. Theory B: comes from either a black majority part of French commonwealth or from some other part where there are blacks (I mean ultimately, including if his family has been in France for three or more generations), and parents liked to mix languages when naming.

Third item of Lita's series on Psalms


1) Creation vs. Evolution: The Heavens don't have a voice, Lita? · 2) Great Bishop of Geneva!: Third item of Lita's series on Psalms

Here it is:

CMI : The Creator’s relationship with Israel and the Church
by Lita Cosner
Published: 31 March 2016
http://creation.com/psalms-3


Here is a quote:

However, the doctrine of creation emphasized in the Old and New Testaments is not only a matter of intellectual knowledge; it should be the foundation of our worship. It should inform our prayers to and our praise of the Creator, just as it did for David, Israel and the early church.


Let me get this straight.

There is Israel. Then there is The Early Church. Then there is us.

What happened to the Centuries between the Early Church and us? Lita doesn't tell.

I can tell you that psalms have been mainstay of worship outside the one more august item of Catholic worship, Holy Mass.

Hours in Coptic and other early monastic traditions : all 150 psalms every day.

Hours in Greek Orthodox and presumably Byzantine Rite Catholic tradition : all 150 psalms every week, starting with psalm 1 on first cathisma, there being twenty such overall, one Vespers (first or second Vespers of Sunday) lacking such.

Hours in Latin Rite: St Benedict rearranged the psalms after thematics, but still 150 psalms each week.

Other song ... how about this Ambrosian hymn?

Deus Creator omnium
polique rector, vestiens
diem decoro lumine
noctem soporis gratia ...

Deus - God
Creator omnium - creator of all
polique rector - and upholder of the pole (of the hinges of the universe)
vestiens - who clothest
diem decoro lumine - day with fitting light
noctem soporis gratia - night with the grace of sleep

Sure, this too is praising God as creator.

All centuries from St Ambrose to us.

Perhaps because, not only was there a visible people of God of old, Israel, but there is one now too, the Catholic Church.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Easter Thursday
31.III.2016

PS.: Just saw the article also quotes psalm 109, one which the Latin Rite Catholics sing on Sunday Vespers. And one which indicates that Holy Mass is a real sacrifice./HGL

lördag 26 mars 2016

The Penitents of Each would be Equally Absolved


1) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica: Were Heruli, Ostrogoths and Vandals the Three Uprooted Horns? · 2) Great Bishop of Geneva! : The Penitents of Each would be Equally Absolved · Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : And Dark Ages ....

Quote from Liguori.

If Christ and a priest were both hearing confession in a Church, both would say "ego te absolvo" over penitents, and the penitents of each are equally absolved.

Is this blasphemy?

"Who but God can forgive sins?"

Well, but the thing is the priest does not claim to have such power from himself, but from - Christ. Whom the pastor I am listening to* clearly admits is God and clearly admits had the power and clearly admits had the right to say "thy sins are forgiven" to the lame man.

Tomorrow evening, Gospel of John, chapter 20, verses 21, 22, 23:

[21] He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. [22] When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. [23] Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.

Christ - that is God - claims the Apostles can forgive sins, like God. Even claims they are sent to save the World, like He was of the Father; so they are not blaspheming, because they are obeying.

St Alphons Liguori was not blaspheming, because he had the power to forgive by a "laying on of hands" or ordination, from a bishop, who had this power from the Apostles.

Three Biblical Apostles and Disciples at least worked in Italy at some or other time. Sts Peter and Paul, who were martyred in Rome. St Barnabas founded Church of Bergamo by consecrating its bishop St Narn.**

There is no doubt whatsover that St Alphons Maria Liguori had privileged access to apostolic succession. Geographically privileged, that is. A Catholic priest in Sweden or US also has Apostolic Sucession***.

No, St Alphons was not blasp^heming.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris V
Easter Eve
26.III.2016

* On a youtube which offers no comment section. ** Narnus meant from the city Narnia. So, when CSL wrote seven chronicles of a land called so, he chose a very August city as name giver. Church of Bergamo founded by St Narn through consecration by St Barnabas, St Francis made a miracle there (it's close to Assisi and Aquino) and Nerva, who delivered St John from Pathmos was also a "Narn". *** At least unless passing through new rite of ordination, as per Vatican II aftermath.

lördag 19 mars 2016

What kind of Evangelical Was I?


1) Does the Catholic Church Approve of the Timothy Test? Or Not? Answering a Point by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati! · 2) What kind of Evangelical Was I?

The usual Evangelical has some relation to the Reformers, and these Reformers are described by Chesterton like this:

To this I owe the fact that I find it very difficult to take some of the Protestant propositions even seriously. What is any man who has been in the real outer world, for instance, to make of the everlasting cry that Catholic traditions are condemned by the Bible? It indicates a jumble of topsy-turvy tests and tail-foremost arguments, of which I never could at any time see the sense. The ordinary sensible sceptic or pagan is standing in the street (in the supreme character of the man in the street) and he sees a procession go by of the priests of some strange cult, carrying their object of worship under a canopy, some of them wearing high head-dresses and carrying symbolical staffs, others carrying scrolls and sacred records, others carrying sacred images and lighted candles before them, others sacred relics in caskets or cases, and so on. I can understand the spectator saying, "This is all hocus-pocus"; I can even understand him, in moments of irritation, breaking up the procession, throwing down the images, tearing up the scrolls, dancing on the priests and anything else that might express that general view. I can understand his saying, "Your croziers are bosh, your candles are bosh, your statues and scrolls and relics and all the rest of it are bosh." But in what conceivable frame of mind does he rush in to select one particular scroll of the scriptures of this one particular group (a scroll which had always belonged to them and been a part of their hocus-pocus, if it was hocus-pocus); why in the world should the man in the street say that one particular scroll was not bosh, but was the one and only truth by which all the other things were to be condemned? Why should it not be as superstitious to worship the scrolls as the statues, of that one particular procession? Why should it not be as reasonable to preserve the statues as the scrolls, by the tenets of that particular creed? To say to the priests, "Your statues and scrolls are condemned by our common sense," is sensible. To say, "Your statues are condemned by your scrolls, and we are going to worship one part of your procession and wreck the rest," is not sensible from any standpoint, least of all that of the man in the street.

From : THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CONVERSION
BY G. K. CHESTERTON


Nihil Obstat: Arthur J. Scanlan, S.T.D. Censor Librorum.

Imprimatur: Patrick Cardinal Hayes +Archbishop, New York.

New York, September 16, 1926.

Copyright, 1926 by MacMillan Company
http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/conversion.txt


In fact, Chesterton, is not just describing Reformers, but even some Evangelical controversialists and on top of that some Liberal ones too. Yessir, there are Liberals who will not admit the Bible condemns their own Old Age Theistic Evolutionism or their own sayings like "Christ shared some ignorance of His times, we need not take all He says literally". But who will still say that Bible condemns the Catholic habit of calling certain priests "Father".

But the point is, though I was in the main an Evangelical believer back after starting out as explicitly Christian (including handing my life over to God), I was never in the habit of defending particulars of this in controversy with Catholics.

Nor was I in the habit of refraining from all contact with Catholicism. On the contrary, mother being High Church, believing in Branch Theory, believing RC was right branch for Latins (and extreme south of Germans) like Orthodoxy for Slavs and Protestantism for Germanic nations (Swedes, English, Dutch, most Germans), when in Austria she sometimes went to Mass.

And so, I cannot confess to having been the kind of Evangelical who had this very illogical proposition about the procession which among other things included certain scrolls.

I was not. When "fellow" Protestants other than ma tried to foist an Anticatholic attitude on me, I resisted it. I still do, for what is NOT simply products of the very recent apostasy which had a real heyday from Vatican II to Liturgic Reforms, but which started earlier in high levels under Pius XII or even through him and developed after Liturgic Reforms, like in the readjustment of 1994 of Christmas proclamation (Christ is born 5199 after Creation, or sth very similar to that, not "unknown ages" after Creation, especially not after a Creation process longer than all the centuries after its completion).

So, I cannot identify with certain other converts, of whom I read one just today, saying

I was the one watching the Catholic procession go by and saying, “All of that is bosh, except those scrolls.”

Catholics Got It Wrong (Except for the Bible)
on the cordial catholic
March 15, 2016 by K. Albert Little 7 Comments
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/albertlittle/catholics-got-it-wrong-except-for-the-bible/


And therefore I cannot identify my Tota Scriptura with a Magisterium rejecting and Tradition rejecting and in some versions even Logic rejecting Sola Scriptura.

It is a great pity that people on CMI, attached, and rightly, to Tota Scriptura (though it is as Chesterton noted inconsistent to worship the scrolls after wrecking for one's own country or soul the rest of the procession - which will not be wrecked completely even by Antichrist, see Matthew 28:20 - this is a blessed inconsistency). Oh, yes, it is a pity that people rightly attached to Tota Scriptura should entagle that with unnecessary appeals to Sola Scriptura.

It is an even greater pity that they do not distinguish the two things they cling to, and that they when expressing, as most often the case, an appeal to Tota Scriptura, which St Robert Bellarmine would have lauded (and certainly did laud in his conroversies with King James the VI and I), they shroud this appeal in a purely decorative or "patriotic" attachment to Reformers with their infidel and illogical Sola Scriptura.

But, greater than these pities it is, when Catholics, rejecting, and rightly, in their oral confession, the heresy of Sola Scriptura, deluded by this bad Protestant habit and inane through insufficient traditional catechism, or even insufficient-LY traditional catechism, but plenty of it, shall mean by this verbally correct rejection in their minds a rejection of the Tota Scriptura, which was indeed part of this "procession" from Pentecost to Harmageddon. And remains so, despite the apostates who changed liturgy in 1994.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
St Joseph's Day
19.III.2016

torsdag 17 mars 2016

Does the Catholic Church Approve of the Timothy Test? Or Not? Answering a Point by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati!


1) Does the Catholic Church Approve of the Timothy Test? Or Not? Answering a Point by Dr. Jonathan Sarfati! · 2) What kind of Evangelical Was I?

What does the Catholic Church Really Teach?

Here is what CMI thinks (or thought) it teaches: someone who thinks "the Timothy test" can mislead is repeating its error that Scripture cannot be properly understood except by the Church.

First, what I am quoting three pieces from:

D. Russell Humphreys' Cosmology
and the 'Timothy Test' :
A Reply
JONATHAN D. SARFATI
CEN Tech. J.,vol. 11, no. 2, 1997
http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j11_2/j11_2_195-198.pdf


  • First, what is the Timothy test?

    As Russell Humphreys puts it, in what he calls the 'Timothy test':

    -'To make these points [of a plain meaning of Scripture] a little clearer, imagine a Jewish Christian of the first century who understands Greek, Hebrew and the Scriptures well.

    Let's call him "Timothy" since Paul's protege waslike that.

    But let's also imagine that this Timothy knows nothing of the advanced scientific knowledge of his day, such as Aristotle's works.

    All that Timothy knows is from either everyday experience or careful study of Scripture, which Paul says is sufficient for wisdom (2 Tim. 3:15). Now if Scripture really is straightforward and sufficient, then the meaning Timothy derives from the words is probably the meaning that God intended for everybody to get.


  • Second, someone has (basically, in their view) disagreed with it:

    CAN THE 'TIMOTHY TEST' MISLEAD?

    Phillips' whole thrust is to answer 'yes' to this. ...


  • Third, he compares this someone, Phillips, to the Roman Catholic Church:

    ... However, he is repeating the errors of the Roman Catholic Church. This church teaches that ordinary people cannot understand Scripture without the guidance of the 'infallible' Church of Rome led by the Pope. Phillips says that ordinary people cannot understand Scripture without the insight of modern interpretations of chronology from biased and fallible scientists.


There are a few things one could say about this Timothy test.

One would ask oneself why there is this contrast between everyday experience and Aristotelic philosophy. After all, Aristotelic philosophy takes great care to model its conclusions as long as possible on ... everyday experience.

Or Scriptures and Aristotle, since Aristotle took note of Homer ... which is also a corpus of Scripture other than his philosophising.

One could ask why one takes a hypothetic Timothy thought to have no knowledge of Aristotle rather than the historic Timothy, who was a learned Jew, which we know from St Paul's words - this NOT just an ordinary man.

One can ask whether the Timothy test (as stated) would lead to Geocentrism, I think it does. The non-heliocentrics on CMI being about as disingenious as Phillips on literal six days.

One can ask if either Timothy test (probable historic Timothy, or Timothy test of Russell Humphreys) would lead to Flat Earth. Probably a really unlearned man in any secular learning apart from everyday experience (such as Alexander identifying further shore of Ganges as Gibraltar or Eratosthenes measuring sun shadow at Assuan and Alexandria - in one case by procuration of a slave is NOT) might have taken certain ambiguous texts in the more obvious flat earth sense - though they admit both senses.

But one thing we need NOT just ask, we can TELL: the third point about Catholic Church teaching that "ordinary people cannot understand Scripture without the guidance of the 'infallible' Church of Rome led by the Pope" is in fact wrong.

Here is the passage which comes closest to it, in Trent:

Furthermore, to check unbridled spirits, it decrees that no one relying on his own judgment shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions,[5] presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and interpretation,[6] has held and holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, even though such interpretations should never at any time be published.

From THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
Session IV - Celebrated on the eighth day of April, 1546 under Pope Paul III
http://www.ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TRENT4.htm#2


Trent is NOT describing an ordinary man. Trent is describing a man with unusual confidence in his own original perception of things and - which is the point - one applying this to Scripture.

Trent is not saying Papacy with bishops is a a corps of experts and everyone below that corps is just lost about understanding the Bible. Trent is saying that Church (where a tradition transmitted bt Pope and other bishops is a doctrinal backbone), including all faithful simple Catholics loyal to the Church, is right, and that dissenters from the Church are wrong.

Not because they are too ordinary. But because they are not ordinary enough.

An ordinary man who sees a sentence he doesn't understand doesn't just ponder for himself about it, he checks and doublechecks with other literature and with the men who are supposed to know the matter. An ordinary Christian would never have imagined, as people like Luther did, that they were basically the first Christians for centuries (with few exceptions like Hussites, of whom Luther approved, or Waldensians who were kosherised by Calvinists in return for accepting their theology) who understood this or that passage correctly (like Luther with Romans' Road passage) all the while they knew that the Church had been reading this passage .... wait, the Romans Road is not even a passage.

The first verse on the Romans Road to salvation is Romans 3:23, Romans 3:10-18 gives a detailed picture of what sin looks like in our lives.

The second Scripture on the Romans Road to salvation, Romans 6:23, ...

The third verse on the Romans Road to salvation picks up where Romans 6:23 left off ... Romans 5:8 declares ...

The fourth stop on the Romans Road to salvation is Romans 10:9 ... Romans 10:13 says it again ...

The final aspect of the Romans Road to salvation is the results of salvation. Romans 5:1 has this wonderful message ... . Romans 8:1 teaches us ... Finally, we have this precious promise of God from Romans 8:38-39 ...

From: GotQuestions : What is the Romans Road to salvation?
http://www.gotquestions.org/Romans-road-salvation.html


3:23, back to 3:10-18, on to 6:23, back to 5:8, on to 10:9, skip a few verses to 10:13, back to 8:1, on to 8:38-39. NOT how an ordinary reader would read Romans! Unless told, by someone he looks up to.

Actually, the outline as such is not wrong. It is just that the isolated verses may overdo the extent to which non-regenerate are a "massa damnationis". Which they are, but that is not all that there is to them. And of course, a reader who cuts and pastes these verses together is not really the "ordinary reader". It is instead some kind of "intermediate" between God and soul. If not an ordained priest, who is ordained by a consecrated bishop (both ordination and episcopal consecration are cheirotonia in the NT, but they were distinct from start) in communion with other such and with the Pope, then a protestant pastor with no real claim of his ordination going back to the Apostles. So, the Romans Road would perhaps not pass the Timothy test.

But, if early Church continued Jewish tradition where not explicitly differing from Pharisees or adding by the last and final Revelation in Christ, it stands to reason that the Timothy test as formulated leaves out the factor of tradition. But add tradition to it, and the Trentine Council is FOR it.

On an anniversary of Galileo trial (the one in 1616, by St Robert Bellarmine, concerning only the first book, not the person), a Jesuit at Vatican observatory complained that St Robert's attitude came too close to the Timothy test!

Well, obviously St Robert knew that canon of Trent better than that Jesuit!

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
St Patrick's Day
17.III.2016

PS, I suspect the Harp on the Irish coat of arms inspired Lita Cosner's reflection on Psalm 104 (meaning of course 103!). But she missed that the Psalm also clearly teaches angelic movers at about every level of creation, not just heavenly bodies.

Update next day:

I, an exemple of why Protestant Reformers were NOT plain, ordinary readers

The Trindentine proposition of faith is not unlike that required of Berengarius a half millennium before. “The holy council teaches,” declared Trent, “and openly and straightforwardly professes that in the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is truly, really and substantially contained under the perceptible species of bread and wine.” But then Trent added, with characteristic vigor, that this is the plain meaning of Christ’s words when at the Last Supper He said, “This is My body. This is the chalice of My blood.” Consequently the faithful were told “it is an infamy that contentious evil men should distort these words into fanciful, imaginary figures of speech that deny the truth about the body and blood of Christ, contrary to the universal understanding of the Church.”

The Reality of Christ in the Eucharist therefore is no figure of speech. It is no fanciful rhetoric. It is, in the clearest words that can be expressed, the Incarnation extended into space and time. It is literally the Emmanuel made flesh – the God-man who is here and now living in our midst.

From : The Guardian Angel: In the Eucharist is present the Totus Christus, and why we adore.
Posted by Donald Hartley - March 17th, 2016 - on Deeper Truth blog
http://www.deepertruthblog.com/blogsite/the-guardian-angel-in-the-eucharist-is-present-the-totus-christus-and-why-we-adore/


Warning against appreciative style of antipopes "Paul VI" and "John Paul II", alias Montini and Wojtyla.


And here is "Father" Paul Gabor "SJ" (too young for older rite of ordination), expressing his disgust for exegesis of St Robert Bellarmine and Melchior Cano (along with a false history of Quadriga Cassiani as if it had meant "allegorical sense ONLY" or sth):

I suspect that Cano and Bellarmine reflected some of their era's spirit when they desired clear-cut reading of Scripture. In fact, they would have expected God to make sure that Scripture could be read with no recourse to metaphor. As we have said before, throughout the history of the Church, the norm was to interpret Scripture using a very sophisticated art focused on intertextual references. Luther did not like it, and Cano and Bellarmine also found it unappealing and unconvincing. I believe it was an effect of the early modern esprit which was suffusing the air of the time.

From: The Catholic Astronomer : Heliocentrism Condemned: 400 Years Ago this Sunday
February 28, 2016 Fr. Paul Gabor
http://www.vofoundation.org/blog/heliocentrism-condemned-400-years-ago-this-sunday/


When I omit or forget to give reference, as yesterday due to time dearth, I try to make up for it later./HGL

tisdag 8 mars 2016

Dwight Makes a Calmer Attack on Catholic Fundies


1) New blog on the kid : As Someone Said : You Catch More Flies with Honey than with Vinegar, 2) Creation vs. Evolution : A Pretty Vile Attack on "Christian Fundamentalists" - but a Parodic One, 3) Great Bishop of Geneva! : Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994, 4) Dwight Makes a Calmer Attack on Catholic Fundies

Commenting on:
Ten Traits of Catholic Fundamentalism
March 7, 2016 by Fr. Dwight Longenecker
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2016/03/ten-traits-of-catholic-fundamentalism.html


[First thing you see : portrait of angry teen with braces on teeth, shouting out with a crucifix in one hand and a Bible in the other. Unless you are new to the blog and see Dwight first.]

Dwight : I Private Interpretation
Protestant fundamentalists rely on their own private selection and interpretation of the Scriptures. Their interpretation is always the right one. Catholic fundamentalists rely on their own selection and interpretation of church documents. Like the Protestant fundamentalists they know better than the Pope.

HGL responds
False. Fundamentalist core issues are Patristic interpretation. This is even true of Protestant Fundamentalism, except for the parts that are also - a distinct phenomenon - Anti-Catholics. They have an extra core issue which is not Patristic.

Dwight : II Cafeteria Christianity
The Protestant fundamentalist picks and chooses which parts of the Bible he wants to adhere to. Catholic fundamentalists do the same. They pick which parts of Catholicism they consider “authentic” and ignore or denigrate the rest.

HGL responds
Non-Fundies are picking and chosing on what parts to take literally and what Patristics to patronise with a "but they didn't know X back in the days of Y"

Obviously, anti-Fundamentalist parts of "Magisterium", like that thing from Biblical Commission in 1994, are not really part of Magisterium, since contradicting Trent and Church Fathers.

Dwight : III Private Prophets
Protestant fundamentalists alway raise up their own preachers and prophets. Mini demagogues–they cultivate a celebrity status and promote them as infallible mini popes. Catholic fundamentalists fall down before their own prophets and preachers who they also raise to a status of authority that supersedes the bishops and even the Holy Father.

HGL responds
Possible. But "prophet" is a misnomer, I hope. Intellectual celebrities can be used as prophets above the Church, but if they are Catholics, they do not want it.

Their opponents may as easily accuse them of seeking or getting a prophet status.

And one intellectual celebrity very popular among Catholics, including both me and quite a few non-fundies, is Chesterton. Unfortunately, Ratzinger had, before resigning, given Chesterton a "prophet" stamp - when Chesterton never pretended to prophetise in the charismatic sense and so Ratzinger had contributed to the confusion by such sloppy language well before resigning.

I recently learned he had also made an ugly attack on Fundamentalism well before his pseudo-election to "Benedict XVI".

One more on this one, a kind of protestant herd mentality or rather evangelical such, has given people like Kent Hovind such a status, whether he wants it or not. And since many admirers of Sungenis are ex-evangelicals, like himself, he is getting his share of this. I am myself an admirer of his, but a critical one.

Dwight : IV Fortress Mentality
Protestant fundamentalism thrives on the fortress mentality. The little group gets together and builds walls and peers over them at al the “sinners” who are outside the enclave. Catholic fundamentalists practice the same ghetto mentality. “We few, we faithful few!” We are the Remnant of faithful ones who remain. Their response to this blog post, for instance, will be to retreat further into their self made holy fortress and throw stones over the parapet at me–not addressing my points, but resorting to name calling.

HGL responds
According to St Augustine, fortress mentality belongs to Christianity. [The city which is called a fortress will not give up its fight. De Civitate Dei, I think.] Even if Gaudium et Spes and similar apostatic writings of pseudo-Council Vatican II made "fortress mentality" an ugly word.

Then again, one can have it with fairness to opponents or with very great partiality. This varies and the great partiality is certainly there in quite a few anti-fundies as well.

Dwight : V Invincible Self Righteousness
Protestant fundamentalists are totally convinced they are right. There is no argument or discussion. Catholic fundamentalists are the same. The have their proof texts. They have their watertight world view. No discussion. No dialogue. It’s their way or the highway. Their response to this blog post will prove my point, for the ones to whom I am referring will not engage my points, but dismiss me and my message.

HGL responds
I am actually engaging point by point.

Also "being right" and "being righteous" are two very different things.

Perhaps they appear the same to a Protestant to whom all true Christians are BOTH right AND, since born again, righteous. Dwight used to be of that school some years before becoming a Catholic.

And of course to people to whom Papal infallibility is absurd, since Popes sin. Dwight used to be like that too, back then.

Dwight : VI Anger and Violence
Fundamentalism is always tinged with anger. There’s no sense of humor here. There’s no joy. There’s no laughter. Especially there is no sense of humor about themselves. Fundamentalists are angry and aggressive, and given enough rope they will move from verbal violence to physical violence. The Catholic fundamentalists who bother to read this far and react in anger to this blog post, for example, will prove my point and they will not even be able to see this themselves.

HGL responds
Your own post here is not very joyful. Being angry and being joyful are also not always opposed. Have you heard of one "vala" based loosely on St Michael, in Valaquenta? Tulkas. The angriest as well as the most laughing of valar. AND somewhat of a moral self portrait of JRRT himself ... or rather of his ideal.

Dwight : VII Fear and Loathing
Protestant fundamentalists are fueled by fear and loathing. Catholic fundamentalists are the same. There is little light, joy, peace and confidence in their lives. Instead life is narrowed down by fear and loathing. Where there is fear there is darkness.

HGL responds
I have heard Protestants describe Catholics that way.

I have not found such a description to be generally true of either Protestant or Catholic Fundamentalists. There are things we DO indeed both fear and loathe, when given occasion, that does not mean we spend all of our times in that fear or loathing.

If you, rightly, fear abortion and loathe contraception, will you admit atheist pundits to be right about your spending your life in fear and loathing of such things, just because they don't fear and loathe it?

Dwight : VIII Suspicion and Separation
Those who are outside the group are the sinners and suspect ones, but those who seem to be inside the group, but do not share the group think are suspected even more. The only ones who are worse than the sinners outside are the sinners inside the fortress. Therefore everyone inside must conform constantly, and anyone who steps outside the rules or exhibits the wrong attitude will soon be shunned, then excluded.

HGL responds
I have seen some such tendencies, but not extrememy strong ones, among fellow Geocentrics, since opposing Sungenis on parallax and angelic movers. However, I saw the exact same behvaiour from non-fundies twice over when I took fundie decisions : from Lutherans of a half modernist tinge while being pro-Catholic and Creationist, in my early teens, and from the normal Catholic parish in Lund (St Thomas, of course, since run by Dominicans) when taking sides for Lefebvre in 1993. I did it late, since Wojtyla had already committed the abhomination of Assisi II, after which the Bosnian war became even worse for a time. Banja Luka was after that peace prayer. But my excuse is that I had so many problems with my dying and then dead granny that early 1993 left me little to no space for keeping up with Church business.

Dwight : IX Conspiracy Theories
the atmosphere of suspicion and fear inevitably breeds conspiracy theories. The big, dark nefarious secret powers are always thought to be behind the scenes planning some sort of hostile attack on the select few of the faithful.

HGL responds
Well, aren't there conspiracies?

For instance, one will hear the quip "If there’s really good evidence for Design, then why don’t you submit papers to a secular peer-reviewed scientific journal and gain the support of the mainstream scientific community?" (or, against common descent, or against long ages or for insecurity of dating methods, or against heliocentrism, which the author here is not mentioning), but the behaviour of these peer reviewed journals indicate there is a kind of ban on publications of a certain type. I have this example from :

CMI : Scientific paper credits ‘the Creator’ for human hand design
Journal is forced to retract after outcry
by Paul Price, Published: 8 March 2016 (GMT+10)
http://creation.com/hand-design-peer-review


The recent example being "hand" pointing to an intelligent designer or even creator.

And Chesterton ALSO decried conspirational politics of certain papers, including one he had worked for.

Most people not agreeing are obviously not portrayed as conspirators, but as manipulated by such - or by a culture of incompetence, ultimately perhaps fostered by such, and also sometimes fostering such. At least by me.

Dwight : X Persecution complex
Fundamentalists do just about everything possible to make themselves obnoxious and unlikeable, then when people dislike them or get down on them they love to play the persecuted victim. It is almost as if they are not only looking for persecution, but are anticipating it with a sick kind of thrill.

HGL responds
Sorry, but some of the accusations about doing just about everything possible to make themselves obnoxious and unlikeable come from people disliking one anyway. Or from people who very easily take dislike ... and fear ... and loathing to people.

Dwight :
Furthermore, as we approach Holy Week, remember that it was this kind of religion which drove the Scribes and Pharisees who eventually scapegoated Jesus and made sure he was killed.

HGL responds
I heard that much from Lutheran and Anglican progressives. And, more recently, from Bergoglio, who was the friend of one such, it would seem : of Tony Palmer.

Actually, this is slander.

No place where Christ and the Pharisees clash can be described as Pharisees having Fundamentalist beliefs about hagada and Christ rejecting them.

Furthermore it is a very moot point if they even had Fundamentalist legalism about halacha, more than Jesus.

Some pilpuls which prone laxism may be more what Christ meant with "traditions of men". In the case of marriage, Pharisees were for easy divorce, with Hillel, while Encyclopaedia Judaica considers His opposition to divorce was the argument of ... Shammai. The rigorist rabbi.

The point about tithes and honouring parents can be read as Pharisees being more legalistic, in the usual sense of exacting, but in fact it seems they sometimes used "ecclesiastic business" as a pilpul for avoiding obeying a parent - that is, for less exaction.

Dwight :
I know what I’m talking about because, on my worst days, I see that kind of Catholic looking back at me from the mirror.

HGL responds
Could your worst day be when you actually attack Fundies? I have certainly seen a better job on other occasions, that is why I follow the blog. Note, if I am tired, it is more easy to write about your blog when I have something to refute. But this doesn't mean there aren't lots of articles where on good days I would have linked with the comment "Dwight, Novus Ordo possible priest, had a great article on this issue".

One more thing on the last, I don't consider speaking of "Wojtyla, Ratzinger, Bergoglio" and of "Novus Ordo" or "Vatican II Sect" in any way means disrespects to Holy Mother Church.

I think we have another Pope and he resides in Kansas. Was "Paul VI a great man"? Pope Michael considers him the Antichrist. Topeka locuta est, causa finita est.*


Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre University Library
St John of God
8.III.2016

* Notwithstanding, we have another one. Bergoglio. Or False Prophet, perhaps.

torsdag 3 mars 2016

Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994


1) New blog on the kid : As Someone Said : You Catch More Flies with Honey than with Vinegar, 2) Creation vs. Evolution : A Pretty Vile Attack on "Christian Fundamentalists" - but a Parodic One, 3) Great Bishop of Geneva! : Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994, 4) Dwight Makes a Calmer Attack on Catholic Fundies

Great Bishop of Geneva!: Apostatic Rejection of "Fundamentalism" in 1994 · New blog on the kid John Shelby Spong and Joseph Ratzinger

Scripsit Ratzinger:

Ratz. 1994
= THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH
Pontifical Biblical Commission
Presented on March 18, 1994
http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.htm
The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself. As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human. It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources. For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit. It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods. It pays no attention to the literary forms and to the human ways of thinking to be found in the biblical texts, many of which are the result of a process extending over long periods of time and bearing the mark of very diverse historical situations.

Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth. It often historicizes material which from the start never claimed to be historical. It considers historical everything that is reported or recounted with verbs in the past tense, failing to take the necessary account of the possibility of symbolic or figurative meaning.

HGL
Let us break this down.

Ratz. 1994
The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself.

HGL
It seems that Ratzinger is here by "full truth of the incarnation" referring to a recent heretical view on it, called The Kenotic Heresy by Jonathan Sarfati Ph. D. and contradicting the view of St Thomas Aquinas saying that Christ as Man was certainly ignorant, in his human capacity, but never but never in error.

Ratz. 1994
As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human.

HGL
On the contrary. Ratzinger proposed a "closeness" where the divine, when coming to man, dilutes itself with error. That is, ceases to be divine.

Ratz. 1994
It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources.

HGL
On the contrary.

Precisely because the revelation is inspired in human language, it means that it must be intelligible to us. THerefore that its significance in precisely human language is inerrant.

The six days, one way or another, have to be what human language calls days.

There is no use pretending that "day in God's language might mean millions of years" or unknown ages, precisely because God is expressing the six days as days in precisely human language.

Ratz. 1994
For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit.

[my emphasis]

HGL
Let us confer Providentissimus Deus, §20:

For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true.

[I copied above from the site of the Vatican itself.]

Ratz. 1994
It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods.

HGL
No, only that the conditioning by such and such a period induced the original hearers or especially hagiographers in what is actually an error, which we should reject as such.

For instance, Feminist theologians in Swedish Lutheran sect have insisted that Christ chosing only male disciples to be present at Last Supper, was "conditioned by his times". Therefore the exclusion of women from priesthood, whether they say so much or not, is in fact treated as an error to be now corrected.

Ratz. 1994
It pays no attention to the literary forms and to the human ways of thinking to be found in the biblical texts, many of which are the result of a process extending over long periods of time and bearing the mark of very diverse historical situations.

HGL
Simply slandering.

The people on CMI pay great attention to any due question of literary forms - even when given undue answers by non-fundamentalists.

Ratz. 1994
Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, ...

HGL
No, with God as real author of the text, the details are also inerrant.

Ratz. 1994
... especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth. It often historicizes material which from the start never claimed to be historical. It considers historical everything that is reported or recounted with verbs in the past tense, failing to take the necessary account of the possibility of symbolic or figurative meaning. ...

HGL
As to six days being as long as 6*24 h. as opposed to 6 nanoseconds in which angels apprehended what God did in a single moment, sure, fundamentalists tend to think St Augustine was wrong, but so did most of the other Church Fathers.

As to the fall involving a Literal Adam, a literal Eve, both literally taken from virgin soil, as opposed to being for instance developed from other previous life forms on an old and scarred earth, yes, they do. And so did Church Fathers.

And, I would like to forward what CMI has quoted in this about professors of Hebrew, by one:

‘… probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

  • creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience

  • the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story

  • Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.’


After which CMI gives this reference:

James Barr, Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture, Oxford University, England, in a letter to David C.C. Watson, 23 April 1984. Barr, consistent with his neo-orthodox views, does not believe Genesis, but he understood what the Hebrew so clearly taught. It was only the perceived need to harmonise with the alleged age of the earth which led people to think anything different—it was nothing to do with the text itself.

Taken from: CMI : Oxford Hebrew scholar, Professor James Barr, on the meaning of Genesis
http://creation.com/oxford-hebraist-james-barr-genesis-means-what-it-says


I note the year. In 1994, I was safely outside direct obedience to Wojtyla and therefore his then "Cardinal" Ratzinger, by having accepted SSPX. I was sinning, but I was NOT in communion with THAT Rome, not that directly. Thank God!

I also note that for the year 1994 the Christmas proclamation was changed:

Creation vs. Evolution : Newspeak in Nineteen - Eighty ... er Sorry ... Ninety-Four
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2013/12/newspeak-in-nineteen-eighty-er-sorry.html


The post I linked to starts a series rather much about the dating question. Read it if you like.

Meanwhile, on this blog dedicated to Catholic Apologetics against Protestant Errors, I note that the passage about Fundamentalism from 1994 is NOT a masterpiece in this genre.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
Thursday after III Lord's Day in Lent
3.III.2016