June 28, 2016, Steve Jalsevac, LifeSiteNews
This is a good news report in that it presents some clear, wise, and extremely well-informed teaching excerpts from a book interview with a holy Cardinal of the Catholic Church. The comments are especially timely considering all that has happened as a result of the massive confusion that has come out of the two synods on the family.
Cardinal Robert Sarah came from the very simple life in one of the smallest villages in Guinea, Africa, endured great hardships and the persecutions and violence of a Marxist dictatorship, was appointed as a bishop of the Catholic Church at the age of 34, and rose to be an influential and yet still genuinely humble and intensely spiritual-focused Cardinal in the Vatican.
Sarah’s early years of formation left him especially disposed to understand corruption and manipulations, the importance of a deep spiritual life, and the need to courageously speak necessary truth with simplicity.
In the midst of the swirling storm of confusion shaking the Church in 2015, Sarah’s book, God or Nothing, A Conversation on Faith, was released. The 284-page published interview with the cardinal, currently Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and formerly the head of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, which oversaw all the Church’s aid agencies in the world, is a treasure trove of wisdom, and unambiguous teaching on faith-related issues of the day – it is a pleasure to read. He does not avoid addressing even the most controversial issues.
I have been reading the book for the past few weeks and have been so impressed that I am including below some notable excerpts for the benefit of LifeSite readers. I believe you will appreciate the excerpts. Better still, buy the book.
During the 2014 Synod on the family, Cardinal Walter Kasper made demeaning remarks about the African cardinals who were frustrating his and others’ efforts to impose their modernist, relativist changes to the Church’s core moral teachings.
Kasper was recorded telling a Zenit News Agency reporter that African cardinals “should not tell us too much what we have to do” and that they are “very different, especially about gays.” That translated in many minds into, “they are still faithful, whereas we more advanced Europeans don’t believe all that morality stuff anymore.” Kasper went on a bit more to indicate he believed the Africans to be out-of-date simpletons.
God or Nothing reveals that Cardinal Robert Sarah, one of those African bishops who actively opposed Kasper’s proposals, is a highly aware, soft-spoken, intelligent and learned prince of the Church. This man, whose humble demeanor seems similar to that of the brilliant and holy Pope Benedict, understands well the machinations of the world, but also, unlike Kasper, he strives to maintain a constant spiritual link to His Lord to guide his every action and word.
After reading God or Nothing, one cannot help but conclude how very wrong Cardinal Kasper is about the intelligence and wisdom of the African cardinals such as Sarah.
I start first with a series of excerpts of Sarah’s answer to an initial question from his interviewer, Nicolas Diat: What are the most worrisome signs today, and your opinion, for the future of the church? Quotes following that are related to other questions that were not necessary to re-print.
As head of Cor Unum, Cardinal Sarah witnessed the scandalous leftist ideological and political emphases of most Western bishops’ conferences’ international aid agencies, such as Canada’s Development and Peace and the US Bishops’ Catholic Relief Services. But there were many more as well, such as the German bishops’ agency, that were every bit as distant from their mandate to be in the service of the Gospel. Sarah, together with Pope Benedict, undertook major reforms to attempt to redirect the agencies back to their Catholic mission.
Cardinal Sarah (book page of each quote section is noted):
p. 112 – There is a missionary trend that emphasizes political involvement or struggle and social-economic development; This approach offers a diluted interpretation of the gospel and of the proclamation of Jesus.
p. 114 – A priest who has interiorized his priestly life is careful to communicate his encounter with God in a comprehensible way. He will be capable of speaking simply. Some have intellectualized and complicated the Christian message so much that a great number of people are no longer touched by or interested in the teaching of the church.
p. 115 – Fathers of the church knew how to express themselves in a moving way and succeeded in converting whole populations to Christ. Through vivid expressions and beautiful images, they merely communicated their own spiritual experiences.
– One of the major difficulties at present is found in ambiguities or personal statements about important doctrinal points, which can lead to erroneous and dangerous opinions. These bad habits disorient many of the faithful. Sometimes contradictory answers to very serious questions are given by the clergy and the theologians. How can the people of God help but be disturbed by such behaviour? How can the baptized be certain of what is good or bad? Confusion about the right direction to take is the worst malady of our era.
– Contrary to the surrounding subjectivism, the church must know how to tell the truth, with humility, respect, and clarity.
– God did not ask us to create personal projects to transmit the faith. Men of God are conveyors, not interpreters; they are faithful messengers and stewards of the Christian mysteries. Much will be demanded of those who received much.
p. 116 – The first missionaries never separated the proclamation of the word of God, the celebration of the sacraments, and charitable service. Today, we have the tendency to emphasize socio-political involvement and economic development, while excluding evangelization.
– We are misusing the social doctrine of the church without understanding it correctly. It becomes a tool for political action.
p. 117 – The Church would betray Jesus by becoming actively involved in political life.
p. 130- Ideologies coarsen, crush, and destroy men.
– The ideological spirit is the opposite of the Gospel spirit. That is why priests who choose to follow or to propagate political ideas are necessarily on the wrong path, since they make sacred something that is not supposed to be. Ideology is by nature disconnected from reality, and it is necessarily a source of division, since you cannot win the lasting allegiances of people who are still anchored in reality, in good times and bad.
On Gender ideology (same page continued)
– Today [the Church] must address gender ideology, which John Paul II did not hesitate to describe as a “new ideology of evil”. Moreover gender, the product of reflection by American structuralists, is a deformed child of Marxist thinking. In his last book, Memory and Identity, John Paul II had already written: “I am thinking…of the strong pressure from the European Parliament to recognize homosexual unions as an alternative type of family, the right to adopt children. It is legitimate, even necessary to ask whether this is not the work of another ideology of evil, more subtle and hidden, perhaps, intent upon exploiting human rights themselves against man and against the family.”
– Gender ideology conveys a crude lie, since the reality of the human being as man and woman is denied. The lobbies and the feminist movement promote it with violence. It has rapidly been transformed into a battle against the social order and its values. Its objective does not just stop at the deconstruction of the [human] subject; It is interested above all in the deconstruction of the social order. It is about sowing discord over the legitimacy of social norms and introducing a suspicion over the model of heterosexuality; for [proponents of] gender [theory], it is necessary to abolish Christian civilization and construct a new world.
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
“..gender, the product of reflection by American structuralists, “
“American Structuralists” invented gender, did they? I didn’t know that. Anyone got any names?Chomsky, perhaps?
“One of the major difficulties at present is found in ambiguities or personal statements about important doctrinal points, which can lead to erroneous and dangerous opinions. “
Which puts me in mind of this, from Unamuno*:
“The real sin – perhaps it is the sin against the Holy Ghost for which there is no remission – is the sin of heresy, the sin of thinking for oneself. The saying has been heard before now, here in Spain, that to be a liberal, that is, a heretic – is worse than being an assassin, a thief, or an adulterer. The gravest sin is not to obey the Church, whose infallibility protects us from reason.”
….Mind you, that only applies in Spain.
*”The Tragic Sense of Life”
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/144915.Tragic_Sense_of_Life
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“American Structuralists” invented gender, did they? I didn’t know that. Anyone got any names?Chomsky, perhaps?
It’s generally a theory of literary structuralism, true, where the necessarily superficial contents of writing are viewed as defining the “structures” of masculinity or femininity in narrative, but I’ve no idea who might have been confused enough to propose this as being applicable to real life, so that femininity could somehow be “defined” not by biology but by clothing, haircuts, and lipstick.
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Without solid foundations buildings fall down.
Dogma builds on Dogma. The Old Testament isn’t negated by the New its fulfilled and reinvigorated with the Revelation of the Trinity. Building blocks with a distinctive goal in mind which is the restoration of Paradise that had been lost to Man. O
The Body of the Church is three fold. Militant that’s here on Earth, Suffering that’s in Purgatory, In Glory thats Heaven. These three form the mystical Body Of Christ. In the End there will only be Heaven.
So reference to the Church needs qualifying doesn’t it? If we are talking of the Church Militant then we are looking at a place of exile and Free Will with a choice between two goals. One leads to God the other to an Eternity of separation from God. These two roads are the only alternatives recognised by the Faith. The question then is roads that lead away from God and those that lead to God and this is where Papal Infallibility is so important.
The Word was made Flesh!
Man is flesh. What then is the foundation of Man since if this foundation is flawed the whole building falls down (no mystical Body, no Heaven etc..)
Unamumno?
“..de Unamuno’s philosophy is not the stuff of a rarefied realm but an integral part of fleshly, sensual life, metaphysics that speaks to daily living and the real world..”
Nothing here of the spirit is there?
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“..de Unamuno’s philosophy is not the stuff of a rarefied realm but an integral part of fleshly, sensual life, metaphysics that speaks to daily living and the real world..”
Nothing here of the spirit is there?”
There is plenty, if you actually read it, Robert – which you won’t (or so I rather doubt) . The key word you are missing here is, “integral.”
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exactly toad, and BTW spirit/matter dualism is heretical too, which has already been pointed out to Roger several times
The world of matter is intrinsically good, because it is of God’s Creation
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Yes Jabba the world as Created is intrinsically good!
But you forget the Fall and original Sin and Man’s exile. The Anathema on Adam and Eve Death. Sin and Gods Justice. The reason for the Passion and the purpose of the Sacraments etc.. etc.. etc.. Sin is the cause of Man’s woe’s Sin.
Heresy? Dualism? Rubbish!
This is St Vincent Ferrer!
“..
it must be understood that God created man in his substantial being different than other creatures. Man is a composite, substantially with respect to the soul, and materially with respect to the body. Not so the angels, who are only spiritual substances, nor the animals which are material substances. Because of this man is similar to the angels and animals, because he has both.
..”
Catholic Encyclopedia
“..
First, the name has been used to denote the religious or theological system which would explain the universe as the outcome of two eternally opposed and coexisting principles, conceived as good and evil, light and darkness, or some other form of conflicting powers.
..”
“..
Second, the term dualism is employed in opposition to monism, to signify the ordinary view that the existing universe contains two radically distinct kinds of being or substance — matter and spirit, body and mind. This is the most frequent use of the name in modern philosophy, where it is commonly contrasted with monism. But it should not be forgotten that dualism in this sense is quite reconcilable with a monistic origin of all things.
..”
“..
Christianity rejected all forms of a dual origin of the world which erected matter, or evil, or any other principle into a second eternal being coexistent with God, and it taught the monistic origin of the universe from one, infinite, self-existing spiritual Being who freely created all things
..”
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As for so called and alleged Heresy of Dualism rubbish! You should be ashamed of yourselves.
You walk headlong into and are justifying the treatment of Man as an animal ignoring His living Soul.
You confuse Dualism (pagan Dualism) with Revelation which is Man created (flesh) and given a living soul. Man CREATED not Evolved!!
.
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I cannot remember the name of the saint who once pronounced that the Angels – such superior created Beings to Man – are envious of Mankind (not sinfully “envious”, of course), for through our bodies we have been given the possibility to render such great glory to God! I love this idea. It reminds me of the words of St Paul:
“Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
This should be our mission in life: to honour and glorify God through His great gift of our human bodies.
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Exactly Kathleen!
The Word was made Flesh.
We should see in Man the Divine soul in Gods image! That includes the conceived,, the so called Gay, the pagan, poor sinner, whatever?. Man a creature, of flesh AND a Eternal Soul in the image and likeness of God.
Death came into the material world through Adam’s Sin (this is the Faith) so what was created as good has been marred by Sin!.
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Even the pagans know that Spirit/Matter dualism is Heretical.
http://h2g2.com/entry/A889310
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Jabba
What is a Man?
Dualism the Heresy?
Dualism is a theology based on the belief in two gods: a good god of light and immaterial things, and an evil god of darkness and material things.
•Elements of Dualist belief are incorporated into Judaism around 600 BC (When the Jews are exiled to Babylonia, then part of the Persian Empire). It is from this period that Jewish writings (including what Christians call the Old Testament) regard Satan as an adversary of God, rather than an angelic servant of God in his heavenly court.
Now Satan is a chained Fallen Creature (Angel)
Concupiscence
Adam’s Sin brought devastating consequences: death and the upset of the harmonious balance between God, man, and creation. In addition, the will of man is forever weakened by the first sin. Original sin, the loss of original justice and holiness, impacted the progeny of Adam and Eve through weakness of will. Man no longer harbors original justice and holiness and instead is drawn toward evil and selfish pleasures. We call this weakness of the will concupiscence. The continuing temptations of Satan and the loss of the gifts of original holiness and justice marred the soul of Adam, and as he is the head of the human race all of his descendants were likewise convicted. The stain of original sin is inherited by all humans at the moment of conception and brings its effects of ignorance, concupiscence, death and suffering
Now St Vincent Ferrer was a Dominican.
Bishop Diego and St. Dominic adopted extreme austerity and began preaching the truth that all things, even material things, are good and are created by the only source of creation, God.
(not note evolution)
Aquinas.. the soul has its own act of existence which it communicates to the body, but that, without the body, it is not a complete substance (since it has an essential relation to the body). (S.C.G II, 68) Consequently, without the body it cannot exercise any of its natural activities. Thus, the rational soul can exist without the body, but it cannot do anything in, what is for it, an unnatural state. The separated soul, then, needs God either to reunite it with its body, or infuse it with knowledge, both of which would be supernatural gifts.
Ferrer
“..
it must be understood that God created man in his substantial being different than other creatures. Man is a composite, substantially with respect to the soul, and materially with respect to the body. Not so the angels, who are only spiritual substances, nor the animals which are material substances. Because of this man is similar to the angels and animals, because he has both.
..”
Perhaps you dislike the word dual but it has the same meaning as composite in this case.
Note what an Anti Christian world is “‘.. Man no longer harbors original justice and holiness and instead is drawn toward evil and selfish pleasures. ..”
You would like a modern Heresy Americanism
Condemned by Pope Leo XIII on his letter Testem benevolentiae nostrae in 1899
“..
A group of related heresies which were defined as the endorsement of freedom of the press, liberalism, individualism, and separation of church and state, and as an insistence upon individual initiative, which could be incompatible with the principle of Catholicism of obedience to authority ..”
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Dualism is a theology based on the belief in two gods
No, it’s a theology that falsely presents the Spirit and the World as being opposed to each other.
You would like a modern Heresy Americanism
Another of the most objectively evil Heresies of present times.
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“Dualism is a theology based on the belief in two gods..”
Not Cartesian Dualism. …And that’s the regular sort.
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Jabba spiders spin webs and set traps!!!!
Genesis 1 (Creation)
[31] And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day.
However then comes the Fall of Adam and Eve Original Sin and Gods Anathema
Die the Death. Dust thou Art and into dust thou shalt return (thats Flesh).
Death that separates the animal(flesh) and the soul in Man (sic read . July 6, 2016 at 18:00)
Without Christ this is will be for Eternity!
Genesis 2
[17] But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.
Genesis 3
[17] And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work; with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life.
[18] Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the earth.
[19] In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return..
What then is God’s Justice on those that reject Christ? Die the Death!! This is the fruit of those who think man is only an animal!
Douay Notes Romans 8
“That now after Baptism we are no more in state of damnation, because by the grace which we have received, we are able to fulfill the Law: unless we do willfully give the dominion again to concupiscence”
Romans 8
1 There is now therefore no damnation to them that are in Christ Jesus: that walk not according to the flesh.
2. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath delivered me from the law of sin and of death.
3. For that which was impossible to the Law, in that it was weakened by the flesh: God sending his son in the similitude of the flesh of sin, even of sin damned sin in the flesh,
4. That the justification of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
5. For they that are according to the flesh, are affected to the things that are of the flesh, but they that are according to the spirit: are affected to the things that are of the spirit.
6. For the wisdom of the flesh, is death: but the wisdom of the spirit, life and peace.
7. Because the wisdom of the flesh, is an ‘enemy’ to God: for to the law of God it is not subject, neither can it be.
8. And they that are in the flesh, can not please God.
9. But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, yet if the Spirit of God dwell in you. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is not his.
10. But if Christ be in you: the body indeed is dead because of sin, but the spirit liveth because of justification.
11. And in the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwell in you: he that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead, shall quicken also your mortal bodies, because of his Spirit dwelling in you.
12. Therefore brethren, we are debtors: not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
13. For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die. but if by the spirit, you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live.
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Your Protestant theology is of little real interest.
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Jabba Dualism? take your pick!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism
In the meantime for those that know that God is Love and Loves the world here is St John
John 3
[16] For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.
[17] For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.
[18] He that believeth in him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
[19] And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil.
[20] For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved.
Sadly a world that is Anti Christ is a world that has rejected Christ and will die the death. Their human reason is darkness and they cannot come to the Light.
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they cannot come to the Light
Heresy and Blasphemy.
In fact you cannot dictate who will and who will not be saved, and you CERTAINLY cannot dictate whether the Light shall come to these and not to those on the basis of whatever very dubious Protestant theologies that you seem to have picked up.
Your use of erroneous Protestant translations to support your heretical dualistic claims is most noteworthy —
John : {3:20} Omnis enim, qui male agit, odit lucem, et non venit ad lucem, ut non arguantur opera eius:
{3:21} qui autem facit veritatem, venit ad lucem, ut manifestentur opera eius, quia in Deo sunt facta.
It simply means that evil actions do not lead to the Light, Christ, and God, whereas truthful actions are done within the Work of God and so lead to the Light, Christ, and God.
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“It simply means that evil actions do not lead to the Light, Christ, and God, whereas truthful actions are done within the Work of God and so lead to the Light, Christ, and God.”
Dear Jabba, in all fairness to Robert/Roger, I think this is, in a sort of roundabout way, exactly what he is saying too.
(The source of that link you gave yesterday @ 14:19 on Dualism was highly dubious! The author made some evident errors in his understanding of Catholicism.)
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kathleen, that link is clearly not a Catholic source, far from it, but I was in a hurry and digging out the actual texts of condemnation would be more work than usual.
Roger, as far as I can see, is saying that some are destined to be saved and others destined to be damned, which is NOT Catholic, as well as suggesting that the world = evil and the spirit = good which is quite directly heretical.
Roger’s Errors are essentially neo-Gnostic, because it was the Gnostic dualism in particular that most directly resembles what he was saying, for they too falsely believed that all men are destined to damnation because of an intrinsically evil material nature, and that only the spirit could be saved by a uniquely exclusive conversion against the flesh and to the spirit — which is BTW extremely close to the Errors of Islam.
Whereas in fact Creation is intrinsically good in Nature, and God is Sovereign in His Will to save whomsoever He should Desire, including outside the earthly Church despite that it is the surest pathway to God and to that salvation as being the One true Church of Christ in the world.
———————–
http://catholiccounselors.com/yoda-ism-an-ancient-heresy-in-new-clothes/
Flesh vs. Spirit
The human body is not “crude matter” housing our true “luminous” selves! This is the heresy of “dualism” which introduces a false split in the human being between body and soul. In the authentic Christian view of things, the human being is an incarnate spirit or a spiritualized body. As the Catechism says, “The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the ‘form’ of the body: that is, it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body.” Furthermore, “spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature” (CCC, n. 365).
John Paul II insisted that the “body can never be reduced to mere matter: it is a spiritualized body, just as man’s spirit is so closely united to the body that he can be described as an embodied spirit” (Letter to Families, 19). It is only because of original sin that we experience a rupture within us between the physical and the spiritual. Lacking the reintegration of spirit and flesh to which we are called in Christ, we inevitably lean towards one side of the divide or the other, towards “angelism” or “animalism.” One promotes a “spiritual” life at the expense of the body and the other a “carnal” life to the neglect of the spirit.
Animals or Angels?
Angelism views the human person as a spirit merely housed or even imprisoned in the body. Since the “real person” is something purely spiritual, angelism not only considers the body external to the person, it tends to view the body as an obstacle to spiritual fulfillment. The angelistic moral code is rigorism; it tends towards prudishness and a fearful repression of bodily feelings and desires. Many Christians throughout history have fallen prey to this distortion. Even today people make the calamitous mistake of considering this “holiness.”
Animalism, on the other hand, stifles the spirit so that it can live a “carnal” life unhampered by the voice of conscience. Its moral code is permissivism, condemning any manifestation of temperance as a hindrance to freedom. Animalism promotes bodily pleasure as man’s ultimate fulfillment. Hence, it encourages men and women to indulge their (disintegrated) bodily impulses without restraint, leading toward the indecent and the shameless. All we need to do is turn on the television or the Internet to see how prevalent this distortion has become.
Dualism attacks the very foundations of Christianity. Christianity, at its core, involves the incarnation of spiritual reality. How do we recognize the anti-christ according to St. John? He is the one who denies Christ come in the flesh (see 1 Jn 4:2-3). Don’t get me wrong. I’m not concluding that Yoda is the anti-christ. But I am saying we should be aware of the subtle and not so subtle ways our culture promotes a dualistic view of the human person. So the next time someone says to you, “Aw, you’re an angel.” Say, “No, I’m not. I’m an incarnate spirit …and you’re a heretic.”
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Yes Kathleen I KNOW
You will find the whole subject of dualism somewhat sparse!
St Ferrer was a Dominican (as I pointed out) and of course the story of St Dominic and the Cathars (a Christian dualist or Gnostic revival) of France is well known. So St Ferrer was obviously NOT preaching Dualism!
“It simply means that evil actions do not lead to the Light, Christ, and God, whereas truthful actions are done within the Work of God and so lead to the Light, Christ, and God.”
No rather more profound than that. Gods Anathemas are very real and bind in Heaven and Earth (Christ Authority given to St Peter). These Anathemas bring changes to this fallen world. Changes are a feature of God’s relationships with His creatures! Look at Die The Death! Dust Thou Art And To Dust Shalt Return! The Confusion of Tongues! The three year drought in Abels time! Sin! Disobedience which is hatred..
That evidence of Original Sin is that Adam and His descendants suffer the Death of the Body! The Resurrection of Christ wasn’t lost on a Generation of Faith who believed in Creation but today is played down (because of guess what?) .
Our Lord restores All things but Not all at once and in His time. The Apoc is about the triumph of the Lamb and His return. Paradise will be restored to Man and Death overcome!
So if we put on Christ! Then we will be Resurrected (Man regains His immortality through Christ).
Christ and only Christ is the acceptable Sacrifice (the world can’t exist with the Holy Mass) that appeases God for Sin. Man without Christ remains under the Anathema of Adam and since His Passion Mans Rejection of Christ threatens the very existence of Man!
Look how Genesis has been termed a myth (its a very very difficult Book because it is written from the perspective of Eternity ).
The denial of the Soul of Man (and I hope you can understand that modern research is trying to argue that Evolution is responsible for the Mind of Man!) this leaves Man the Animal.
Cardinal Manning fought against Darwin for very good reasons! Denying the Creator leaves Man bereft of Christ and under God’s Anathemas!
Man’s rejection of Christ is endangering the existence of the Life of Creatures! The reason is because Christ and only Christ is the acceptable sacrifice offering to God for Sin. The Apostacy of the Gentiles after 2000 years endangers Creation.
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Actually Jabba
St Paul points out that Man has three parts Flesh, Spirit and Soul.
Spiritualised matter exists forever? Oh Yes I know!
But then what about the Soul Jabba?
Our Lord explained Death! That a man could be dead (flesh) and obviously in the spirit (since this is the lot of demons) but ALIVE (thats His Soul).
Man can be alive BUT his soul Dead.
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The translation is douay rheims
But as you know the Douay New Testament translation was used in the greater part by King James version. The Douay Rheims was approved by Trent. The great feature of this are the notes which were provided by the translating Fathers.
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I have NO IDEA why I’m having all of this evolution stuff thrown at me.
No rather more profound than that
So it’s “more profound” than the reality of Faith and Works within Divine Grace in God’s Plan towards our purpose of eternal Salvation ? LOL
—
I have *always* been greatly suspicious of the Douay-Rheims, which most certainly is based on a Protestant translation (the KJV), especially because every single time it has been quoted at me, I have seen blatant errors of translation.
St Paul points out that Man has three parts Flesh, Spirit and Soul
Nowhere is it legitimately claimed that these are separate from each other.
So St Ferrer was obviously NOT preaching Dualism
I cannot recall having suggested any such thing.
Look how Genesis has been termed a myth
It cannot be helped that most people, including perhaps yourself, fail to understand what a “myth” actually is.
Our Lord explained Death! That a man could be dead (flesh) and obviously in the spirit (since this is the lot of demons) but ALIVE (thats His Soul).
Man can be alive BUT his soul Dead.
You’re clearly not very good at understanding the purposes of metaphor, paradox, and allegory.
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“Death came into the material world through Adam’s Sin (this is the Faith) so what was created as good has been marred by Sin!.”
God knew this would happen, or so we are told. [All the following REDACTED]
[Moderator – Oh come on Toad, you have asked all these old questions about predestination hundreds of times already. Take a rerun of earlier posts and get your answers there.]
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Oh, all right.
But, then let’s also stop keening interminably on how evil abortion is, because we’ve said so millions of times – and also what a shame the priest is no longer protected from the people by sturdy altar rails.
We’ve kicked that one to death, too
[Moderator – A wide variety of topics will reappear from time to time to be discussed again, quite often together with recent news. That is not equivalent to the asking of the same old questions, despite having been proffered the same old answers, time and time again. It is your problem, not ours, if you chose not to accept them.]
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Roger, the Council of Trent finished in 1563, the first part of the DR version wasn’t published until 1582.
The translators relied heavily on work by Tyndall and Coverdale and while one can find similarities in the text of AV and DR versions, this is, at least in part, down to their common heritage.
On mind/body dualism, it looks as though Jabba has you – the Council of Vienne seems to have settled the case against dualism; a position reflected in the Catechism.
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Raven
Do you actually know the story of the translators of the DR Bible.This is wiki but the story is accurate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douay%E2%80%93Rheims_Bible
“..this translation was principally the work of Gregory Martin, formerly Fellow of St. John’s College, Oxford, close friend of Edmund Campion. He was assisted by others at Douai, notably Allen, Richard Bristow, and Thomas Worthington, who proofed and provided notes and annotations ..”
These were amongst the finest scholars in their day.
Perhaps you think Cardinal Allen did this on a Whim? The DR obeys Trent
[The Moderator – Link removed. Roger, the website you’ve linked to is promoting literature that has been explicitly and conclusively denounced as heretical by the Church.]
“..The Latin Vulgate Bible has been read and honored by the Western Church for 1500 years! It was declared by the Council of Trent to be the official Latin version of the original. Hear what the Sacred Council decreed: “Moreover, the same Holy Council … ordains and declares that the old Latin Vulgate Edition, which, in use for so many hundred years, has been approved by the Church, be in public lectures, disputatious, sermons and expositions held as authentic, and so no one dare or presume under any pretext whatsoever to reject it.” (Fourth Session, April 8, 1546). As Pope Pius XII stated in his 1943 encyclical letter Divino Afflante Spiritu, this means the Vulgate is “free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals.” And the Douay-Rheims bible is a faithful, word-for-word translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible of St. Jerome.
In their translation, the Douay-Rheims translators took great pains to translate exactly. Contrary to the procedure of the modern Bible translators, when a passage seemed strange and unintelligible they left it alone, even if obscure, and “let the chips fall as they may.” The modern Bible translators, on the other hand, will often look at an obscure passage, decide what they think it means, then translate into words that bring out that meaning. The result is that the English is usually (not always!) easier to understand, but it is not necessarily what the Bible says
..”
Jabba Haven’t a clue where you are coming from.
St Ferrer
Adam as Created by God is a composite of Body (animal) and spirit(spiritualised matter) Yes or No?
That God breath into Adam a living soul? Yes or No?
Genesis 2
7 And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul.
So as St Paul points Man is spirit, soul and body.
1 Thess 5
[23] And may the God of peace himself sanctify you in all things; that your whole spirit, and soul, and body, may be preserved blameless in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
Do you Raven and you Jabba believe this? Man was Created and God breathed a living soul into Man.
Our Lord expressly later did this to His Disciples.
John 20
22 When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost.
St Paul and the spirit of God?
THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST! THE SPIRIT OF GOD!
What was breathed into Adam? what was breathed into the Disciples?
What is the spirit of God? Its not spiritualised matter is It? Perhaps Man is Born confirmed?
Romans 8
[9] But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
[10] And if Christ be in you, the body indeed is dead, because of sin; but the spirit liveth, because of justification.
Jabba
“..
You’re clearly not very good at understanding the purposes of metaphor, paradox, and allegory.
..”
I can’t help you because Our Lord’s Passion, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, The Sacraments, The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception are expressly because of Adam’s SIn..
The Gospels have Christ (Man God) lineage back to Adam (who was of God).
Where is the metaphor, paradox and allegory in that linage?
Matthew I [1:16]
The genealogy of Christ from Abraham through to Joseph
[17] So all the generations, from Abraham to David, are fourteen generations. And from David to the transmigration of Babylon, are fourteen generations: and from the transmigration of Babylon to Christ are fourteen generations
Luke 3 [23:38]
Thats Christ linage back to Adam (Adam lineage GOD)
[38] Who was of Henos, who was of Seth, who was of Adam, who was of God.
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Roger,
I am very well acquainted with the history of the translation of the Bible, thank you; I’m also passingly familiar with the various English versions that preceded the DR and can see some of the borrowings. I read Challoner’s version of the DR pretty much every day.
And the DR may well obey Trent, but it was not approved by Trent (which is what you had claimed) and while the original 1582 and 1603 editions may have been rather more
slavingslavish in their following of the Latin text, the version that we have used for the last400300 years has been considerably “Englished” (to use Mgr Knox’s term).As to mind/body dualism, the Church teaches that the soul and body are of one single substance while they are united, not two substances commingled. You are just misusing a raft of quotations that don’t support your underlying point.
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“…the Church teaches that the soul and body are of one single substance while they are united, not two substances commingled.”
That is incomprehensible, to me. How can an immaterial soul – be a “single substance” with the physical body?
It’s as if you said that a computer, and the electricity that runs it, are a single substance.
Isn’t it?
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I would have thought that a computer and its operating system would have been a better analogy, Toad!
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Raven
You are acquainted with Gilbert Ryles Concept of Mind. Its old now but was highly controversial in its Day. The argument is that the Mind is part of the material Body. The Evolutionists will cite organisms sic Monarch Butterfly that pass through several states and yet have a migratory knowledge as it were built into them in their various states and stages including the final migratory Butterfly stage. Dawkins works is to attempt to show how a complex organism can as it were blindly develop over eons. But then comes the matter of selective positive mutations within the organism itself. That this is material organic information is passed on generationally.
As for the known weaknesses in Darwins Evolution these are in part cited in the New Scientist article I have referenced.
St Ferrer that Man is a unique composite of animal and spirit.
DR fulfils what Trent set out to the letter and was used! Whom else would or could produce an English version that fulfilled Trent? DR has the copious Notes sourced from the minds and understanding of the Doctors of the Church. These illuminate the Bible.
Genesis is the most complex book in the Bible. The DR Fathers noted that Moses was the author of Genesis and like St John (Apoc) had Revelations Moses as well had knowledge of sacred Traditions . The two pillars of the Faith are sacred Tradition and the Bible.St Augustine said “he could not believe the Gospel, except the Church told him which is the Gospel” The Old Testament was confirmed by the Authorities of those empowered by God in their Day.
Moses is at Our Lord side at the Transfiguration as was Elias..Can there be a greater confirmation of Moses and Genesis than the Man God?
St Paul Hebrews 11 (set out and explains Faith, by which we live)
Our Lord Matthew 14
[4] Who answering, said to them: Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female? And he said:
The Creation of Man Genesis 1
[26] And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness:..”
[27] And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.
DR “..in this work (Creation of Man) God first insinuateth the high Mystery of the B. Trinity, or plurality of Persons in one God (because man is to believe the same) signifying the plurality of Persons by the words Let us make, and to our: and the unity in substance, by the words Image and likeness, the first in the plural number, the later in the singular. ..”
.
It is the New Testament that revealed the Trinity (and thus illuminated Gods words in Genesis) The words used are let US and in OUR image and likeness..
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Your are very confused
“…the Church teaches that the soul and body are of one single substance while they are united, not two substances commingled.”
Actually the animals have material souls and bodies!
Man is flesh and spirit (that is spiritialised matter not flesh) to which is added a living soul
Thus impossible for an animal to evolve into MAN!!
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the Douay-Rheims bible is a faithful, word-for-word translation of the Latin Vulgate Bible of St. Jerome
No it isn’t. This is to a great extent because a more accurate understanding of 5th Century Late Latin was not regained in the West until the latter half of the 20th Century.
ontrary to the procedure of the modern Bible translators, when a passage seemed strange and unintelligible they left it alone, even if obscure, and “let the chips fall as they may.” The modern Bible translators, on the other hand, will often look at an obscure passage, decide what they think it means, then translate into words that bring out that meaning. The result is that the English is usually (not always!) easier to understand, but it is not necessarily what the Bible says
..”
Such flaws are common to virtually all modern translations, and the Douay-Rheims is no exception. The best modern translation that I’m aware of is the new French Liturgical Bible, created for official use in the French-speaking Church.
Jabba Haven’t a clue where you are coming from
From Orthodoxy, as well as from the fact that the Vulgate is my preferred Bible, that I have read it entirely in its original Latin, and that it is THE best translation of the Bible ever made, albeit that familiarity with Late Latin is needed to read it properly, and that a critically established text not marred by extraneous punctuation marks is essential for proper reading.
I can’t help you because Our Lord’s Passion, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, The Sacraments, The Dogma of the Immaculate Conception are expressly because of Adam’s SIn..
You are deluded if you imagine that these fundamentals of Christian Faith might be “unknown” to anybody in here, or if you think that they might magically “justify” your ongoing statements of objective Errors and Heresies.
Raven : As to mind/body dualism, the Church teaches that the soul and body are of one single substance while they are united, not two substances commingled. You are just misusing a raft of quotations that don’t support your underlying point.
Exactly.
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DR fulfils what Trent set out to the letter and was used
False — Trent established the Latin Vulgate as a canonical text, not any translations thereof.
Your are very confused
“…the Church teaches that the soul and body are of one single substance while they are united, not two substances commingled.”
Actually the animals have material souls and bodies!
Overt denial of the teachings of the Catechism, via claims that cleaving to them is “confused” ?? Why am I not surprised …
It is heretical to claim that animals have souls, and in fact you are subjected in such a claim to the very same dualism that you deny. If animals have souls, then Man is no different to a brute beast.
Man is flesh and spirit (that is spiritialised matter not flesh) to which is added a living soul
Thus impossible for an animal to evolve into MAN!!
Your “to which is added a living soul” is grotesquely heretical.
Your tediously ignorant, both scientifically and theologically, continuous rantings about evolution have no basis whatsoever in Catholic Dogma, and it is extremely clear that they are of US Evangelical Protestant origin, i.e. they have been invented by objective material Heretics.
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That is incomprehensible, to me. How can an immaterial soul – be a “single substance” with the physical body?
Toad, this is central to the Eucharist, the Trinity, and the Incarnation — as much God’s Incarnation in the Person of Christ, as the incarnation of our own immortal souls as human beings.
It might only seem “incomprehensible” to you if you have been convinced, as so many have, by the rampant neo-Gnostic body-mind dualism that has pervaded nearly every corner of contemporary Western society.
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This is to a great extent because a more accurate understanding of 5th Century Late Latin was not regained in the West until the latter half of the 20th Century.
And BTW the first textually accurate Vulgate Bibles in close to a Millennium did not even exist until about the 1990s, when the developments of Information Technology had made it materially possible via exacting comparative analyses to purify the text of the vast majority of copying errors and (rare) apocryphal passages that mar most mediaeval manuscript copies.
No 16th century published version nor translation of the Vulgate (with the exception of a bare handful of rare mediaeval manuscripts) can possibly be considered to be as reliable as the text published by Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.
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If nothing else, at least this thread discussion constitutes an anecdotal illustration of Cardinal Sarah’s : One of the major difficulties at present is found in ambiguities or personal statements about important doctrinal points, which can lead to erroneous and dangerous opinions.
Men like Roger should simply cleave faithfully to the teachings in Catechism, not devise their own personal uncatholic theologies from out of their own heads nor from the false teachings of the Heretics.
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“Men like Roger should simply cleave faithfully to the teachings in Catechism,”
How about men like Jabba? Should they cleave, too?
“..the rampant neo-Gnostic body-mind dualism that has pervaded nearly every corner of contemporary Western society.”
Well to put it crudely. I believe the body and the “soul” are inseparable. Body dead = soul dead,
and vice versa. No dualism there. Dualism, to me, indicates that the soul can somehow function independently.
…Goes for all animals, not only man.
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Heretics and schismatics and the rest would not even exist if there was zero goodness in them. Both God and Nature abhor a vacuum.
I suggest that their existence is tolerated by God because they inspire great debate and eloquence in their interlocutors?
God is a perfect Father, not a genocidal maniac.
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How about men like Jabba? Should they cleave, too?
Obviously so, which is exactly why I do.
Well to put it crudely. I believe the body and the “soul” are inseparable. Body dead = soul dead, and vice versa. No dualism there. Dualism, to me, indicates that the soul can somehow function independently.
Toad, quite apart from the fact that you’re describing a false notion that came into my own head when I was five years old, you’re completely ignoring the existence of a notion of mind-body dualism in contemporary atheist culture, which is fostered by an implicit position in atheist and pagan philosophies that the existence of the soul must require that it be separate in some manner (in life) from the flesh and the mind.
You’re wrong about the soul not being eternal and not surviving death, let alone “not existing”, but so too are those who claim that only the soul survives or variations thereof, because if that were so then the Incarnation, the Eucharist, the Resurrection, the Apparitions of the Saints and Angels, and all else would be impossible, except that I can report from personal experience that these fundamentals of the Faith are true.
I can do no more than report on their truth, of course, and you only have my report that I have been at the centre of several major divine or supernatural interventions (for what reasons or purposes or graces I haven’t the foggiest, except for my conversion), including events in external reality whereby material causality was directly bypassed.
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Hmm – very interesting debate I’ve just been catching up on between Jabba and The Raven on one hand, and Roger/Robert on the other. That link you gave at 09:38 yesterday morning, Jabba, (in reply to me) was really excellent with its clarification of the heresy of ‘Dualism’.
I had to laugh at your final:
“If nothing else, at least this thread discussion constitutes an anecdotal illustration of Cardinal Sarah’s : One of the major difficulties at present is found in ambiguities or personal statements about important doctrinal points, which can lead to erroneous and dangerous opinions”.
So true. We are all fated to misunderstand each other in some way or other, I fear – but it is of vital importance that “doctrinal points” are not open to misunderstandings, but laid out and explained with the utmost clarity. Therefore, thank you.
Talking about translations of the Bible – and here I am very grateful for your and The Raven’s erudition in this field – I am a bit concerned to hear of the er, weaknesses (for want of a better word) you mention in the earlier Douay-Rheims translation. I have a treasured old DR Bible I inherited from my father, and although the language can appear somewhat archaic at times, I had always thought it was the most accurate of the many translations available. (My Latin is far from good enough to be able to read it in this language I’m afraid.) What version of the Bible would you recommend therefore? When ‘googling’ a reference on Bible Hub there are so many versions to choose from.
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Toad,
Every time we recite the Creed we pronounce: “I believe in the resurrection of the body…”. IOW, we are acknowledging that at death the body and soul are separated for a time. The Catechism of the Catholic Church answers the question:
How do the dead rise?
“997 – What is “rising”? In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus’ Resurrection.” (my emphasis)
This Opus Dei link lays it out quite well I think.
http://opusdei.org/en-au/article/topic-16-i-believe-in-the-resurrection-of-the-body-and-life-everlasting/
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Jabba @ 12:18
“I can do no more than report on their truth, of course, and you only have my report that I have been at the centre of several major divine or supernatural interventions (for what reasons or purposes or graces I haven’t the foggiest, except for my conversion), including events in external reality whereby material causality was directly bypassed.”
Yes, your conversion primarily, but also for all the help and guidance you have given to so many over the years for a deeper and better understanding of Our Glorious Faith.
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kathleen, Ron Conte is a dubious theologian, but his Latin translation skills are extraordinarily good, and his online edition of the Vulgate — http://www.sacredbible.org/vulgate2009/index.htm — as well as his English translation from the Latin — http://www.sacredbible.org/catholic/ — are both excellent. Very unwieldy and not terribly durable trade paperback print editions are also available.
The best original language Scripture printings however are found here — Hebrew, Greek, and the excellent Latin translation of St Jerome : http://www.scholarly-bibles.com/Original-Texts
Or if you like, the large Catholic book shop shop at Place Saint Sulpice in Paris keeps the essential texts (Hebrew OT, Septuagint, Greek NT, Vulgate, Vulgate NT) always in stock, next time you’re there.
But kathleen if you’ve the French for it, this version is beyond excellence : http://www.bibleliturgie.com/ — it is THE best Bible translation I’m aware of except the Septuagint and Jerome’s.
There isn’t a single English-language one currently that I’d trust 100%, because despite Ron Conte’s marvellous effort, it’s still a translation of a translation. It’s also still my basic source for English Bible quotations, because the other versions are simply even more flawed.
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“But kathleen if you’ve the French…
I haven’t unfortunately, dear Jabba. I wish I had. The only foreign language I’m fluent in is Spanish. I can speak French well enough to get by in an ordinary conversation, and I watch films in French (with subtitles underneath in case I miss something) but in a more highbrow or deep philosophical discussion, I am lost! 😦
Thank you very much all the same, and bless you, for the rest of the information you give me, and that I shall certainly take into account.
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I really ashamed at times of this Site!
The purpose of the DR was the intensive training and formation of priests (often with little or no scholastic education) and to send them into a England (and in some cases martyrdom) to argue against Heretical texts and tracts in English. DR wouldn’t have happened without Trent.
Trent and seminaries and DR.
“..
No reform had been more urgently pressed upon the bishops who took part in the Council of Trent than the proper preparation for the priesthood. The principal means suggested for the education of the clergy was the erection of seminaries wherein they might, under proper care and safeguard, be educated in that science, human and divine, which their office and dignity required. And it speaks volumes for the loyal obedience to the Church which filled the soul of DR. ALLEN, no less than for his foresight and zeal for the spiritual good of his country, that he was the first in all Christendom to give effect to the salutary decree of the Council. Thus it was that scarce ten years after ELIZABETH’S accession a college or seminary was opened at Douay with the blessing and encouragement of ST. PIUS V
..”
Vulgate understand that before the printing press copies were manually collated and typos etc were a common problem. There are various extant Codex (including Codex Vaticanus ) but these were plagued by errors.
The oldest know Bible text (not vulgate) is Codex Sinaiticus.
Trent 1545-63 affirmed the Vulgate as its official Latin Bible which was rather like closing the door after the Protestant (printed versions had appeared) after the horse had bolted!
Now think for one moment how many breviary’s, Missals, devotions, printed copies of the Bible have been poured out for centuries. On this site we are advise they are protestant??
The Popes have encouraged the study of the Bible especially since Trent. (not restricted of course to Latinist)
Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903 AD) Providentissimus Deus : Encyclical Of Pope Leo XIII On The Study Of Holy Scripture
Its really sensible to let God tell you in HIs own Words in His own Book. The Faith is Creator, Man Created !
For those who I know understand and for those who cannot follow through the inevitable logic and consequences of their reasoning.
THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH
Here is a Nice comment on the internet!
I will point out again that St Dominic opposed the Dualism of the French Cathars! The Dominicans (Aquinas and Ferrer were Dominicans) were Used in the Inquistion and obvious know all about Heresy. St Paul wasn’t a Heretic and Gospel means Gospel (and that is being polite).
“..
There has never been a defined doctrine on the souls of animals. Thomas Aquinas taught that all life was a soul but only humans have an immortal soul. However, a priest friend said many years ago the Church has never said Thomas Aquinas was infallible and apparently Aquinas never had a dog or pet of any kind.
I have had other priest indicate, we really don’t know.
Now the Bible doesn’t mention the souls of animals because the Bible is salvation history. It deals with Man’s fall from grace and Man’s redemption. There would be no need to deal with the souls of animals.
So if any Catholics out there says they don’t, I would like to know what makes them so sure – not that Sister Mary Ignatius told you so. ..”
[The Moderator – No more creationism, please.]
Now Me personally? The Rosary that enclosed Garden, that Paradise on Earth, the weapon against error and hatred. The Rosary properly understood is the foil to ambiguities on doctrine and dangerous opinions.
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Roger
This is rubbish.
The DR was composed so that the laity had a properly Catholic bible to read – priests were taught and educated in Latin and many of them were graduates of Oxford or Cambridge in any case; the priest-missionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were genuinely the flower of English academia. This is one of the reasons for Walsingham’s persecutions: the Protestant cause was manifestly failing among the best educated young men in the Kingdom.
Codex Siniaticus is only the oldest complete codex of the Bible that we possess, there are many more ancient copies of the Gospels and other books of the New Testament.
And translations into the vernacular were not the product of the Council of Trent: the French and Spanish bishops authorised translations into their respective languages in the fifteenth century. The problem in England was the infiltration of bible texts that contained copious dollops of Luther & Calvin’s commentaries on the bible (not to mention the heresies that some of their translation choices made).
The stuff about St Dominic seems so far from the point (and a long way detached from English) that I don’t know why you’ve included it.
I loved your description of the Rosary though, very beautiful.
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I will point out again that St Dominic opposed the Dualism of the French Cathars
You are not St Dominic.
On this site we are advise they are protestant?
No, those texts neither contain nor support your own exciting claims.
Vulgate understand that before the printing press copies were manually collated
The printing press was invented in the 15th century, so that this attempt at anachronistic diversion falls flat.
PS Gutenburg was a devout Catholic publisher of a Latin Bible FYI.
There has never been a defined doctrine on the souls of animals
Catechism : 363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person. But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.
Fido is not mentioned.
355 “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.” Man occupies a unique place in creation: (I) he is “in the image of God”
Fido was not so created
2418 …. One can love animals; one should not direct to them the affection due only to persons.
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Kathleen
I rather love Mgr Knox’s translation (available from Baronius Press in a very nice edition) and the original RSV CE is a very true translation (the Ignatius Press study bible is a brilliant edition), I would suggest that you stick with the DR if you already love that version!
The “better” modern translations might make some of the Psalms a little less obscure, but the differences are relatively minor and if, as a properly formed Catholic, well instructed in the Faith, you’re not going full-on sola scriptura, the differences are very unlikely to make much difference.
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Jabba
July 8, 2016 at 05:12
“..It is heretical to claim that animals have souls, and in fact you are subjected in such a claim to the very same dualism that you deny. If animals have souls, then Man is no different to a brute beast. ..”
St Ferrer (a DOMINICAN)
“..
it must be understood that God created man in his substantial being different than other creatures. Man is a composite, substantially with respect to the soul, and materially with respect to the body. Not so the angels, who are only spiritual substances, nor the animals which are material substances. Because of this man is similar to the angels and animals, because he has both.
..”
“..
In 1990, Pope John Paul II proclaimed [in a general audience] that ‘the animals possess a soul and men must love and feel solidarity with our smaller brethren’. He added that all animals are ‘fruit of the creative action of the Holy Spirit and merit respect’ and that they are ‘as near to God as men are’. The Pope emphasized that ‘animals possess the divine spark of life – the living quality that is the soul’
..”
St Aquinas (DOMINICAN)
“..
For Aquinas, an essential difference in activity indicates an essential difference in an organism. The vegetative soul is the seat of a plant’s ability to absorb nutrition and grow by cell multiplication. Animal life reveals itself, not only in acts of nutrition, reproduction and growth, but also in sensation, motion, consciousness and self-direction. Since animals have a wider range of activities than the vegetative soul, Aquinas attributes to them a ‘sensitive soul’. Human life encompasses all the previously mentioned activities but is distinguished from other life forms by reasoning and choosing freely. The human soul, accordingly, is called the ‘rational soul’.
..”
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it really is extremely tedious …
Why can’t you just accept Dogma instead of needing to constantly denounce it ?
—
“At the centre of the whole of creation, He placed us, human beings, with our
inalienable human dignity. Although we share many features with the rest of the
living beings, Almighty God went further with us and gave us an immortal soul,
the source of self-awareness and freedom, endowments that make us in His image
and likeness (cf. Gen 1:26-31; 2:7).”
—from Pope John Paul II, Common Declaration on Environmental Ethics, Common Declaration
of John Paul II and the Ecumenical Patriarch His Holiness Bartholomew I, Monday, 10 June 2002
—
“We read that, after having formed man from the dust of the ground, the Lord
God ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being’
(Gen 2:7)…In man there is a breath or spirit similar to the breath or spirit of God.
When the Book of Genesis speaks in chapter two of the creation of the animals (v.
19), it does not hint at such a close relationship with the breath of God…Other
texts, however, admit that the animals also have a vital breath or wind and that
they received it from God. Under this aspect man, coming forth from the hands
of God, appears in solidarity with all living beings.”
—from Pope John Paul II, The Creative Action of the Divine Spirit, General Audience, January 7,
1990
oooooh look, no he did NOT “proclaim” that animals have “souls”.
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Raven
There was an excellent book on cardinal Allen and the English College. Yes I know the translators were the great Catholic scholars driven out of Oxford, Cambridge.
I can’t remember the name of the book!!!
The DR grew out of lectures. The Bible was literal covered twice through cover to cover with the express intent to tackle Protestantism over a two year period, hence the need for copious notes!
There was an urgent need for priests. The postulants only required enough Latin to adminster the Sacraments.
The intent was Counter-Reformation not biblical scholarship.
The English College and DR are genuine fruits of Trent!
“..
The purpose of the version, both the text and notes, was to uphold Catholic tradition in the face of the Protestant Reformation which up till then had overwhelmingly dominated Elizabethan religion and academic debate. As such it was an impressive effort by English Catholics to support the Counter-Reformation
..”
The Bible is an extrodinary book and the Church is constantly feeding Us with the Old and the New the Gospels. Of my head again (I am really busy) a saying that has stuck in my head. Praying is speaking to God!
Reading is listening to God!
Spiritual material is so so important. So many start praying the Rosary (talking) but don’t listen (read and feed ). and they end up claiming they are dry and arid and stop praying!
A sentence or a word will spring out and what you thought you understood becomes illuminated. I will give you an example.
Genesis 1
[26] And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.
[27] And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them.
The Trinity was revealed in the New Testament so that Us and Our Image and likeness has a much deeper profoundity for US!
Anyway must press on! Its nice really to have brought out the English College and a glimpse into their story!
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Roger
I don’t know your source, but it is badly mistaken: in England men studying for the protestant ministry were taught in Latin – Latin was the medium of tuition from the earliest days of grammar school up to the highest academic degrees throughout Western Europe at this time; a “vernacular first” approach to education didn’t start until the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century.
The DR may very well have grown out of the lectures given at Douay and Rheims, but the books themselves were primarily intended for the laity, not for the training of priests; one of the key teachings of Trent (and before that, Cardinal Pole) was that it was not good enough for a priest to be able to dumbly mouth words in Latin to say Mass: the teaching of Trent was that priests must have a full grasp of the liturgy and sacred scripture. How do you think that they were supposed to understand the readings in their breviaries if they couldn’t understand the Latin that they were written in?
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Jabba
You well know De Anima and the Greeks looking and observation of Life. What animates!
You talk of Dogma But this whole area is will one Day be the subject of the Great Council.
The Truth must all be revealed before the End. How can this be achieved without a Great Council.
Genesis and Paradise. This Earth is a place of Exile, Where is Henoch? where is Elias?. If they are not in Heaven where are they? Why did Our Lord tell Dismus this day you will be with me in Paradise. Our Lord didn’t ascend into Heaven until after His Resurrection! So there is so much we do not know!
What is this Earth of Paradise from which Adam is formed? What is this Fire of Purgation? Adam and Eve were exiled from Paradise and this world of exile we know is subject to change and its Laws reflect Gods Anathama’s and Blessings. Justice and Mercy with God are Good.
Man as Created will live for ever. But without Christ he cannot enter Heaven because of Adams Sin. .
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this world of exile we know is subject to change
Yes well, we’re already aware that you do not shy from radical self-contradiction in your desire to “win” a discussion.
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I have been through this blog again in baffled disbelief.
The Heresy of Dualism? (this is found in various pagan religions)
” Dualism is a theology based on the belief in two gods: a good god of light and immaterial things, and an evil god of darkness and material things.”
Raven mentions Dualism in the Council of Vienne.
(dualism was never mentioned at that Council! )
The Council of Vienne (1311-1312) solemnly defined the proposition that the human soul, is
“per se and essentially the form of the body.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church unambiguously reaffirms this teaching: “spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.” What is per se and essentially a form is necessarily distinct from the whole. Thus, the Church teaches that the body is an essential part of the person, not a distinct being with which the person or the self interacts.
BUT
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God—it is not ‘produced’ by the parents—and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.” In his address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996, Pope John Paul II said, “It is by virtue of his spiritual soul that the whole person possesses such a dignity even in his body. Pius XII stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God.”
St. Thomas Aquinas is sometimes described as opposing dualism. Indeed, as a follower of Aristotle he at times is readily thought of as claiming that the soul is the mere form of the body. But for St. Thomas the soul is no mere form as in shape; it is a subsistent being, requiring a special creation by God and capable of existing independently of the human animal body. In Summa Contra Gentiles, St. Thomas writes: “Now, it pertains to the human soul distinctively, in contrast to other forms, to be subsisting in its being….But since the human soul does not have matter as part of itself, it cannot be made from something as from matter. It therefore remains that the soul is made from nothing. And thus, it…is created immediately by God alone.”
If human persons are literally the very same things as their animal bodies, then the annihilation of their bodies must count as an annihilation of them. The whole idea of praying to a saint whose body you are venerating would make no sense if the saint is the animal body and not also a soul that is capable of existing independently of the body.
if Jesus Christ is (literally) the very same thing as the animal body born to Mary, then he did not pre-exist that animal body. It is because most Christians believe in the soul that they believe that the incarnation was literally an incarnation, the taking on of flesh and blood by the one who existed before the moment of incarnation and who dwelt in the world as the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth.
As I have already pointed out
THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH
St. Thomas Aquinas held—as we(I) do—that the human soul subsists (has its existence of itself and not through the existence of the whole human being) and could not have emerged from matter and material forces but must be directly created by God. But he(and I) also vigorously defended the propositions that the human soul is incomplete in its nature and that the human person is not the soul but is rather the composite of body and soul. Commenting on St. Paul’s assertion that if there is no resurrection then our faith is in vain, St. Thomas wrote that this is because I am not saved unless my body is saved. Why? St. Thomas squarely faced the question and could not have been clearer in answering it: Because “my soul is not I.”
The Soul (in Man) per se essentially is the form of the body.
However the human soul subsists and could not have emerged from matter and material forces but must be directly created by God! Else the Saints cannot be in Heaven can they!!!
When faced with a mystery of the Faith you bow your heads in awe.
Our Lord proved the Resurrection of the Body when His human soul was reunited with His Body. Thats Man Body and Soul. But the Soul can subsist without the Body! (as Aquinas said “my soul is not I” I am my body and my soul!
WHAT THEN IS SELF?
Man was created to serve and to adore God.
But He has Free Will and this means he can place HIMSELF BEFORE GOD and HIS NEIGHBOUR.
Self is mans enemy (hence the serpents seduction of Man to be like God). St Ferrer deals with the worship of the Body and the Mind. The mind can’t physically kneel and adore CAN IT? The Body can’t contemplate CAN IT?
So what I have discovered is an argument created OUT OF NOTHING frankly one or two persons complete understanding of the Dogmas of the Faith. When faced with a great mystery God Our Fathers Creation of Man.
jabba
July 8, 2016 at 18:08
this world of exile we know is subject to change
Yes well, we’re already aware that you do not shy from radical self-contradiction in your desire to “win” a discussion.
The Faith isn’t a game!!!
This world isn’t a Paradise and Anathema’s are Gods Justice. Elias prayed for and obtained a drought! I could go on. Change is a constant feature in this world of exile.
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If human persons are literally the very same things as their animal bodies, then the annihilation of their bodies must count as an annihilation of them
You are attempting to rationalise that which has not been made known to us through Revelation.
However, it is extremely clear that you cling stubbornly to the proclamation of your heresy —
Council of Vienne : We, therefore, directing our apostolic attention, to which alone it belongs to define these things, to such splendid testimony and to the common opinion of the holy fathers and doctors, declare with the approval of the sacred council that the said apostle and evangelist, John, observed the right order of events in saying that when Christ was already dead one of the soldiers opened his side with a spear. Moreover, with the approval of the said council, we reject as erroneous and contrary to the truth of the catholic faith every doctrine or proposition rashly asserting that the substance of the rational or intellectual soul is not of itself and essentially the form of the human body, or casting doubt on this matter. In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a heretic.
———
But he(and I) also vigorously defended the propositions that the human soul is incomplete in its nature and that the human person is not the soul but is rather the composite of body and soul.
Your claim that the human person is a composite of body and soul is heretical — As for Aquinas, every time previously that I’ve seen anyone try and justify whichever outlandish claims of heretical, or philosophically erroneous, nature by reference to Aquinas, consultation of his writings in their original Latin has demonstrated such “justifications” to be flawed, often to the extent that those making them have twisted his words into their diametrically opposite meanings.
When faced with a mystery of the Faith you bow your heads in awe
Your reaction OTOH has been to devise, cling to, and intentionally, repeatedly, and obstinately proclaim heresy.
But the Soul can subsist without the Body
You’re just making things up, on the basis that you haven’t the foggiest notion about these questions.
what I have discovered is an argument created OUT OF NOTHING
You are deluded if you think that anyone but yourself has created arguments ex nihilo.
Meanwhile it is extremely clear that you have been publishing heresies into this website.
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It’s a pity that you didn’t read down to the second half of the First Things article that you’ve c&pd here, Roger; as the second half contained the orthodox response to the heterodox suggestion in the part of the article that you’re relying on.
And it’s exceedingly bad form to quote without citing sources or using quotation marks!
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http://readingthesumma.blogspot.fr/2013/08/question-75-essence-of-human-soul.html
It’s always important to try not to interpret Aquinas in terms that apply to later philosophical ideas; this is especially true in the field of philosophical psychology covered by this treatise. For example, although Aquinas identifies the soul as a subsistent form, he is not a substance dualist in the sense of Descartes. Aquinas believes that the soul is the form of the body and that although the soul is subsistent, one should not interpret the soul and the body as being substances with an independent existence. Likewise it’s important to note that Aquinas uses terms such as intellect, mind, imagination, appetite with precise meanings that slot into his particular psychology. One should not read into his thinking elements derived from modern use of similar terminology.
…
If one is a substance dualist, there is a danger that one may believe the body to be only a sort of container for what is really me; my soul. Similarly, an overemphasised spirituality will tend to downplay the role of the body in the human person. Having shown that the human soul is subsistent, one might also think that Aquinas would lean this way. But he will have none of this; I am not my soul, I AM THE COMPOSITE OF SOUL AND BODY.
“surprise”, “surprise”, Roger is in fact promoting heretical ideas that are also diametrically opposed to Aquinas’ thinking.
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“..one should not interpret the soul and the body as being substances with an independent existence. “ Indeed we shouldn’t. That seems to clearly indicate that the soul cannot “exist” independently from the body. It’s an illusion
“I am not my soul, I AM THE COMPOSITE OF SOUL AND BODY.”
Like marriage, really. You can’t have one without the other.
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“One of the most popular heresies of all time is called Dualism, that is separating the spirit (which is thought of as being good and coming from God) and the body (which is thought of as being bad and coming from the devil).”
If this quote from a link provided by Jabba is a definition of the heresy of Dualism, then I can’t for the life of me see where Robert subscribes to or promotes this. Like me, he may not express himself as succinctly as some but to accuse him of heresy is a step too far.
Perhaps the time has come to bring this fruitless and confusing discussion to an end.
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I don’t think there’s any one definition of dualism that describes it completely accurately for every variegated form that it has taken over the Millennia.
Roger is still professing doctrines of the soul in its relation to the body that have been formally denounced as being heretical. He most likely fails to comprehend what “form” and “essence” mean, but this compounds rather than mitigates the Error of his claims in the face of corrections, due to his insistence that he is right and the Catechism somehow wrong.
Error continues to have no rights.
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[The Moderator – MMVC agreed!]
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