Catholic Secretariat launches “Right to Health” Campaign

Catholic Secretariat launches “Right to Health” Campaign

A precis about Matthew Harris' views on whether gays are born gay or become gay or can change their orientation.  He says being gay used to be something one did, not something one is, and I have read that ancient Greeks and Romans as well as all other European cultures from those times up until 20 years ago thought the same.  Now the gay lobby is pushing for a complete negation of any kind of gender self-awareness in spite of one's actual biological body ... Only one entity is pushing for this drastic re-shaping of human nature, a being who loathes mankind and wants each member of it in Hell with him.http://pjsaunders.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/matthew-parris-iconoclast-once-more-but.html?spref=bl

Brief article on slavery

I found this article helpful although rather skimpy on detail:  There are saints in the Catholic Church who are famous for their opposition to slavery and the help they gave to slaves.  One that springs to mind immediately is Saint Pierre Toussaint and another is Saint Peter Claver but there are others: http://users.binary.net/polycarp/slave.html

The Bible only or Jesus' & the apostles oral teaching together with the Bible?

A FB friend who is a Sola Scrittura fan and I assume from her language she is an Evangelical Fundamentalist, posts all manner and kinds of biblical quotes on FB with which I entirely agree - because I agree with everything the Bible says according to the Catholic Church’s interpretations of the texts  - because the Bible was preserved and collated by the Catholic Church that had already put into practice the doctrines given by Jesus to his followers, (and handed down verbally at first by them in their evangelising missions and sermons.)  At this point, I will quote from David B. Currie’s book, “Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic.”  I learned some new stuff about Sola Scrittura thinking from his book, which I recommend for its simple, clear language.  During Currie's pre-Catholic days, he had been trying to convert a Catholic friend.  The friend asked him why he only quoted verses from St. Paul and never quoted verses from Jesus.  Later, Currie learned:

Quote A, p.119: “Catholics unashamedly start with the Gospels and base their soteriology on Jesus’ teachings.  They look upon all the rest of the New Testament as an expansion on Jesus, which must be understood in the light of his teachings.  Evangelicals start their study of soteriology with the Pauline epistles.  They relegate all the rest of the Bible to being a footnote to Paul, including the teachings of Jesus.  This may sound like a harsh generalisation but a check of the Evangelical literature bears this out.  This approach to Scripture bears an uncomfortably close resemblance to the Marcionite heresy.”

Quote B, p.61:  “The Evangelical starts with the Assumption that Scripture existed first and that tradition was slowly and incrementally added to it as time progressed.   What I had reluctantly come to recognise was that the original deposit was given to the disciples years before Scripture was ever penned.  The Church was founded on this truth from Christ.  Some of this deposit was then written and became Scripture, some was scrupulously passed from bishop to bishop as oral tradition and some was later clarified as dogma by the agreement of the bishops in the councils of the Church.”  The relevant point is that Scripture is not contradicted.  He continues:  “If the Church teaches something as true, it is justifiable to check that it is not contradicted by Scripture.  But if the Church teaches something and the Bible is silent or ambiguous, that does not mean the teaching is any less truly a part of the original deposit of faith given to the apostles.  ........  “The first is always contained in the second, but all of the second is not necessarily contained in the first.” 

Quote C, p. 62:  “When an Evangelical asks, ‘Where is that doctrine in the Bible?’ my response is usually ‘First show me from Scripture why you believe all Christian doctrines must be in the Bible.”  It can be frustrating to Evangelicals to confront this issue, but it is important for them to understand the lack of biblical basis for their question.  Truth is at issue here.”

 Mr. Currie obtained his Master of Divinity at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago and worked for years in full time Protestant Christian ministry as did his wife.  He came slowly and reluctantly to Catholicism via his earnest study of the Bible and by reading the Church Fathers and other ancient historical texts and the Catechism of the Catholic Church in which he learned what the Church actually teaches and not what outsiders think it teaches. 

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/117331.David_B_Currie

Christian Medical Comment: The demographic time bomb and euthanasia

Christian Medical Comment: The demographic time bomb and euthanasia: I have previously warned that unless something is done to reverse current demographic trends, economic necessity, together with the ‘cultur...

Christian Medical Comment: Matthew Parris, iconoclast once more. But will the...

Christian Medical Comment: Matthew Parris, iconoclast once more. But will the...: Mathew Parris has featured on this blog before for his comments about the Christian faith , but last week he once again challenged the dogm...

4 Myths about the Crusades

Brilliant book by Paul F. Crawford. Read this and you'll understand why Christians do not need to apologise for the Crusades. Muslims need to apologise to us for stealing our lands, over and over, with violence of every kind. They are now trying again to get back into Europe, and the craven politicians who lead us are stalling from confronting militant Islam, preferring to believe the majority of Muslims believe in peaceful co-existance. They do - a peaceful existance for themselves, doing what they want to do and how they want to do it, including dhimmitude for non-Muslims, and including female oppression and the horrifying torture of cutting out the clitoris and inner vaginal lips, usually done to little girls of about nine years old on a household table or even the floor without anaesthetic, then sewing everything tightly together to create a massive, hideous scar that a future husband has to try and break with his penis. (If he can't - by the way, imagine the pain this gives to his bride), she has to be taken to hospital... Let us stand up for ourselves at last, stand up for the Christian way of thinking that is kind to women and children, kind to the stranger (but not obliged to host traitors!), and kind to the sick and the elderly and disabled.