My January Rant

Wow!  Being on some of these "discussion" groups where protestants and Catholics are debating, can be so tiresome.  Them repeating the same anti-Catholic propaganda, day after day, forum after forum.  When do they ever listen?  When will it stop?  Even the Scriptures and doctrines that aren't just Catholic are now being denied.  Here is a sampling:

1.  The Body of Jesus is not a miracle.  His body is human like every one else's; only his conception was a miracle.

A:  Really?  So there was NOTHING different about Jesus' body?  Nothing, say, like housing God's soul, right?  Nothing like everything He endured, beating, whipping, torture for hours on end before He was forced to carry His own cross, before He died, nailed to that same cross.  Any body could have done that?

2.  Manna, bread from Heaven, was not the type of Jesus' Body but the type of our faith in Him.

A:  Really?  So, when Jesus talks about manna as the bread from Heaven, then calls Himself the Bread from Heaven, He does not actually mean that comparison.  He's just joking.  He says, "You must eat My Flesh...Drink My Blood...to enter Heaven."  But, He didn't really mean what He said.  One (manna actually eaten in the desert) has nothing to do with the other (Bread from Heaven, His Body, is to be eaten).  Wow!  Are you blind if you can't see that!

3.  Physical baptism isn't "technically necessary."

A:  Really?  So, He didn't really mean it when He told His disciples to "Go, preach and make disciples of all people, BAPTIZING them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."  Guess He was just kidding about that, too?  And there really was no reason, at all, that He was baptized Himself by His cousin St. John.  And they call them selves Bible believers, and/or sola scripturists (Bible alone)?  But when push comes to shove they just completely ignore Christ's own words--His commands--and make up their own doctrine.  "Baptism saves us now."  Obviously that line in the Bible MUST be ignored!

4.  Repetitious prayer is a sin.  Catholics always repeat prayers so they are sinning.

A:  For one thing St. Paul was talking about PAGAN prayers to PAGAN gods.  He was not talking about heartfelt prayer to God.  Isn't Jesus the One Who said the one who asks and asks and asks will be answered?  I do believe it was.  Funny thing is, when I was a protestant we repeated the "Doxology" every Sunday.  That is not repetitious prayer?  Many prot churches repeat The Lord's Prayer.  That is not repetition?  Memorized prayer is for the faithful, especially the young and immature in the faith, to have a way to pray from the heart especially when one cannot find your own words or your own expressions to God.  God wants to hear from us, no matter what the form. 

5.  Praying to saints is a sin.

A:  Number one, Catholics (BTW, Orthodox and other churches pray to saints also) ask the saints to pray for them;  we all know they cannot do anything on their own.  One is erroneous in thinking Catholics do anything but ask a member of the family--God's family--to pray for them.  If you object to this, then you better NOT be asking ANYONE to pray for you--your mother, wife, pastor, friend--ANYONE--because you are doing the EXACT SAME THING you are accusing us of--asking someone else to do your praying for you. 

Number two, Catholics do not worship any but the true God.  Never have, never will.  Have there been Catholics and other Christians who have done this wrong?  Of course, there have.  There has never been a Protestant who has had his "flock" kill themselves, follow them out into the desert to wait for Christ on a certain day, follow him to hell?  Of course, there has.  But all Catholics, at all times, must be perfect or the Church is blamed.

Number three, saints are our family.  Statues, paintings, icons, stained glass windows are the EXACT SAME THING as your FAMILY PORTRAITS--EXACTLY THE SAME.  I know that a lot of prots don't want to see it that way.  That is their problem and their error.  If you have a picture of your grandmother on a shelf, stop by it and think of her, you are just as much an idol worship as a Catholic who stops in front of a statue of Our Lady and thinks of her and asks for her prayers.  It is the same thing.

I really get so sick and tired of prots who say, "Show us where it says that in the Bible."  We do.  Then they do their little prot dance, close their eyes, plug their ears, and say, "La, la, la, la, it's not there, it's not there, it's not there."  All Catholic doctrine was developed in the Early Church long before the NT Scriptures were collected by the Church and put into a Bible.  All the beliefs, all traditions,  and all practiced can be seen in the Scriptures and in the writings of the early Church.  We still believe and practice what the 1st century Church did.  Those who cannot and will not believe that, deceive themselves.