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Cpl Jeff N.
8
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I will say what needs to be said. First, I am not a catholic so I have no concern about being tossed out of the church. This pope is an apostate. This declaration should be all the proof the catholic church needs to remove him from his office. He is trying to move the church backwards a thousand years to a time where only the priests could be heard and you had to go through them for everything including your salvation. The church was wrong then. The Protestant Reformation was started over this sort of mindset from the catholic church leadership.

His non stop political posturing is beyond the pale too. He wants to force catholic parishioners to only look to church leadership for all of their beliefs and relationship with Christ purely to control them. They got away with that sort of behavior before the printing press. Once common folks were able to read scripture they understood the relationship with Christ was personal and real and there needn't be anyone between them and Christ. I feel for those that have to put up with this sort if behavior. He will crater the church if he is no careful.
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CPT Jack Durish
CPT Jack Durish
7 y
It's as though Vatican II never happened
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Cpl Jeff N.
Cpl Jeff N.
7 y
CPT Jack Durish - He does seem to want to move the catholic church back to a time where priests and other church leaders controlled the congregation. Catholics should be asking themselves why he would want to do that and why he would be getting involved in temporal, political and social issues that have little need for church involvement.
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CMSgt Security Forces
3
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Edited 7 y ago
No offense to any religion but if you don't think religion is big business, you're fooling yourself. The Pope must be dissatisfied with the balance sheet and is doing his best CEO imitation.

I attended summer camp growing up. Every Sunday we would attend religious services provided at camp. The exception, Roman Catholics were bused to a local church. I always thought this was strange but as I became aware of the idiosyncrasies of the Catholic Church it made sense. Not bashing Catholic's, just saying the Catholic's seem to have the market cornered on the most rules when it comes to salvation. I recall attending a Catholic Christmas service on Christmas Eve. My expectation was a service celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. What I got instead was a one hour lecture on how to properly receive communion. The Catholic's church reluctance to punish priest involved in pedophilia is another example of "do as I say not as I do". I had respect for this Pope when he was first ordained, now not so much.
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PO3 Donald Murphy
PO3 Donald Murphy
7 y
A great comment. People forget that the Vatican is a "state" and the Pope is it's "leader." So the Catholic church is very political.
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Cpl Lawrence Lavictoire
3
3
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I dug this up:Pope Francis described as dangerous the temptation to believe that one can have a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ without communion with and the mediation of the Church. He was trying to say that we should not go-it-alone and we should use the Church to further our efforts in developing our relationship with Jesus, but it certainly has caused a lot of uproar!! What Pope said, is that it is a dangerous notion to seek a personal relationship with Christ outside the Church. In other words, as Christians our relationship with Christ, puts us into a relationship with the entire Body of Christ.

St. Paul talked about this in detail in Ephesians 3, being saved by grace through faith, we become part of the Body and are In Christ. In Corinthians he uses stronger language, saying the eye cannot say to the foot I don't need you. (1 Corinthians 12:21)

The Evangelical notion of being a Christian reduces it to me, Jesus, and my Bible and while we can not judge the ultimate salvation of any man, this notion is heresy. Certainly a personal relationship with Christ is necessary but, by definition, a relationship with Christ is a relationship with His Body, the Church.
My opinion, as a Christian; I gave my life to Jesus Christ accepting Him as my Savior, and "the true Living God! My relationship back then expanded with Jesus at a fantastic wonderful pace, and at that time, "I was without a Church! I watched Sunday preachers which I enjoyed. Than one day my wife and I both joined a Church. "You can go it alone (no Church), but your in sin-or- Join a Church as God commands. The sin is gone! Either way, your saved and you can, "not loose your salvation"!!!!!!
I'm getting off my soap-box now.
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SSG Robert Webster
SSG Robert Webster
7 y
And I would stand up and say that you are wrong.

The word church in the Bible comes from the Greek word ecclesia, which means a called out company or assembly. Wherever it is used in the Bible it refers to people. It can be a mob (Acts 19:30-41), the children of Israel (Acts 7:38), and the body of Christ (Ephesians 1:22; Ephesians 5:25, 32).
We see the word church used three different ways: First, as the body of Christ, the church is often defined as a local assembly or group of believers (1 Corinthians 1:2; 2 Corinthians 1:1; Galatians 1:1-2). Second, it is defined as the body of individual living believers (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13). Finally, it is defined as the universal group of all people who have trusted Christ through the ages (Matthew 16:18; Ephesians 5:23-27).

A few Christians associated together in observing the ordinances of the gospel are an ecclesia (Romans 16:5; Colossians 4:15).

And then the most telling quote from the New Testament: Matthew 18:20 "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I'm there with them."

Or you could go with how the Religious Society of Friends (also known as Quakers) view it: Quaker movements are all generally united in a belief in the ability of each human being to experientially access "that of God in every person", and therefore they profess the priesthood of all believers, a doctrine derived from the First Epistle of Peter.
And they are not the only ones, as referenced this particular belief goes back to the Protestant Reformation, where 'universal priesthood' is a foundational concept of Protestantism. And in this regard we can also point back to Mathew 18:20.
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SFC Ernest Thurston
SFC Ernest Thurston
5 y
Christ founded a church not a bunch of individuals.
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