Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060223/2006-02-23T175457Z_01_L2369100_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-RELIGION-VATICAN-MUSLIMS-DC.html" target="_blank">http://reuters.myway.com/artic le/20060223/2006-02-23T175457Z_01_L2369100_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-RELIGION-VATICAN-MUSLIMS-DC.html</a> >>After backing calls by Muslims for respect for their religion in the Mohammad cartoons row, the Vatican is now urging Islamic countries to reciprocate by showing more tolerance toward their Christian minorities. Roman Catholic leaders at first said Muslims were right to be outraged when Western newspapers reprinted Danish caricatures of the Prophet, including one with a bomb in his turban. Most Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous. After criticizing both the cartoons and the violent protests in Muslim countries that followed, the Vatican this week linked the issue to its long-standing concern that the rights of other faiths are limited, sometimes severely, in Muslim countries. Vatican prelates have been concerned by recent killings of two Catholic priests in Turkey and Nigeria. Turkish media linked the death there to the cartoons row. At least 146 Christians and Muslims have died in five days of religious riots in Nigeria. "If we tell our people they have no right to offend, we have to tell the others they have no right to destroy us," Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican's Secretary of State (prime minister), told journalists in Rome. "We must always stress our demand for reciprocity in political contacts with authorities in Islamic countries and, even more, in cultural contacts," Foreign Minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo told the daily Corriere della Sera. <<
Originally Posted By Elderp Because we know historically Muslims and Catholics have been so intune with eachother... I am sorry but both sides on this issue stopped listening to eachother milenia ago.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Darkbeer I love your topics. I almost don't have to read the newspaper. I am impressed that the Vatican would take sucha stand though. It says a lot about the state of the Papacy <--- sp? and tho I am not Catholic, I do have a personal opinion that the Catholic Church is the keeper of the faith in general.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad I mean to me it's like the Supreme Court is the keeper of the constitution. Um, someone smack me, I am blabbing.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>I am sorry but both sides on this issue stopped listening to eachother milenia ago.<< Actually, 1000 years ago, in Spain, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived side by side. It wasn't until the reconquest that things like the Spanish Inquisition reared their ugly head.
Originally Posted By cmpaley Actually, the Inquisitions (the Spanish Inquisition wasn't the only one) were conducted to ensure that Jews and Muslims weren't faking at being Christians. This was actually a problem in the middle ages. If you were a Jew or Muslim who openly practiced your faith, then you weren't bothered with. If you were a Jew or Muslim who was pretending to be a Christian, then the Inquisition would come looking for you.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer That may have been true in Spain, but it wasn't true in other parts of the world. The Byzantine Empire was constantly under assault by military Islamic forces from all sides. The entire northern coast of Africa and Egypt had been Christian up until the Muslim armies moved in during the 8th Century. The Muslim armies tried to move north out of Spain to conquer the rest of Europe, but were stopped by Charles of Martel at Tours. That didn't stop the Muslims from trying to conquer Europe from the east once they replaced the Byzantine Empire in the 15th Century. There may have been a brief period in history when the Jews, Muslims and Christians lived together in Spain, but that certainly wasn't the norm.
Originally Posted By mele <<If you were a Jew or Muslim who was pretending to be a Christian, then the Inquisition would come looking for you.>> And why was it a problem if people were faking?
Originally Posted By TomSawyer It's not cheap to give out free wine and bread. They didn't want the fakes coming around. They still don't - no free wine and bread for you unless you're Catholic. A couple of bad apples in Spain 500 years ago ruined it for everyone.
Originally Posted By cmpaley >><<If you were a Jew or Muslim who was pretending to be a Christian, then the Inquisition would come looking for you.>> And why was it a problem if people were faking?<< Because fake Christians could become priests and the like and spread dissention and false doctrines to the faithful. One of the Church's jobs is to protect the faith and the faithful from false teachings. Let's bear in mind that we're talking about the middle ages, not our post-modern age. Things worked quite differently in those times.
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>It's not cheap to give out free wine and bread. They didn't want the fakes coming around. They still don't - no free wine and bread for you unless you're Catholic. << I believe that, in the time in question, only the Sacred Host was distributed to the faithful. The Precious Blood was consumed only by the priest. The theology behind Holy Communion in the Catholic (and Orthodox and Lutheran) Church is that partaking of Communion in a Cahtolic (or Orthodox or Lutheran) Church, you are publicly proclaiming that you believe everything taught by the Catholic (or Orthodox or Lutheran) Churchs and that you are not in a state of mortal sin. Remember, for the Catholic (and Orthodox, and to some extent, Lutheran), the elements become the true Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. Tom, do you believe that the host and what is in the chalice is truly the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ? Or are they just symbols?
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>Tom, do you believe that the host and what is in the chalice is truly the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ? Or are they just symbols?<< I'm going to take advantage of my Anglican faith and say that I simply don't know. We're comfortable with mysteries and the limitations of trying to understand the divine with human brains. I do know that the Eucharist has a transformative effect on those who share it.
Originally Posted By cmpaley From the Anglican 39 Articles of Religion >>28. Of the Lord's Supper The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the mutual love that Christians ought to have among themselves. Rather, it is a sacrament of our redemption through Christ's death. To those who rightly, worthily, and with faith receive it, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and similarly the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ. Transubstantiation (the change of the substance of the bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved from holy Scripture, but is repugnant to the plain teaching of Scripture. It overthrows the nature of a sacrament and has given rise to many superstitions. The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only in a heavenly and spiritual manner. The means by which the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is by faith.<< Mm-kay.
Originally Posted By TomSawyer The key difference isn't in whether or not the host is holy, but whether it becomes actual blood and actual flesh when it is consumed. The host is infused with the spirit of Christ in our interpretation of the Eucharist and is treated as reverently as it is in other traditions. We just don't make the leap that it takes on the physical properties of blood and flesh, which is uncomfortably close to idolatry for some of us. We don't share the Eucharist to consume Christ; we share it to remember how he spilled his blood and broke his body to save us. Anglicans and Episcopalians are welcome to believe in transubstantiation or not - for us, the important thing is in the coming together and the sharing of the Eucharistic feast.
Originally Posted By cmpaley Doesn't your statement, Tom, deny Article 28, though? After all, Transubstantiation (the doctrine that the substance of the bread and wine change into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ) is absolutely condemned and you say that it's a choice. Also, it would appear to be idolatry...if it were still just a piece of bread. But since Catholic doctrine is a complete package, you can see where we're coming from: Jesus is God incarnate...one person with two natures, one human, the other divine. Jesus, being God, instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist, declaring that the bread is His body and the wine is His blood. Since He's God, His words are creative...especially when He's doing something as important as instituting a whole sacrament. If He says "this is My body" and "this is My blood," then they become so. He did this in the presence of the Twelve, eleven of whome He made Priests in John 20 when He instituted Holy Orders (bet you didn't see that coming Since the priest acts in persona Christi, when the priest proclaims the words of Christ with the bread, the bread becomes the Body of Christ and when he proclaims the words over the wine, the wine becomes the blood of Christ. Since you cannot separate Christ's human nature from His divine nature, where His body is, His divinity will be also. Thus, the Blessed Sacrament is Jesus Christ appearing to us under the appearance of bread and wine...true God and true Man. And yes, that's why we "reserve the Sacrament, parade it about," incense it, put it in monstrances and all that. The Blessed Sacrament IS Jesus, thus it IS God. It's all about the holistic nature of Catholicism... The best analogy I've found is that of a beautiful tapestry. You pull one thread and you start unravelling the whole thing. That's why there are 30,000 protestant denominations all claiming to be lead by the Holy Spirit while preaching many contradictory doctrines...yet there is ONE Catholic Church that has remained substantially unchanged from the time of the apostles. Oh, it's grown and the doctrines have developed as we've had time to thing them through, but it's still the repository of the "faith delivered once unto the saints." WHICH IS NOT TO SAY that only Catholics will be in heaven. That's ludicrous.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I keep wondering why, oh why, it need be so complicated. All the pagentry and stuff. Jesus lived a simple life. Carpenter. Modest. Didn't seem to go for all the falderal. Didn't go around wearing beautiful tapestries. Spoke to the people in simple, clear, loving, understandable ways, like a father to His children. I've said it before, but the little experimental Catholic church in the late 60's/early 70's I attended in what was an a dusty former auto repair shop, with a bunch of young people in kind of worn out cable-knit sweaters playing folk music on acoustic guitars felt like it was really on the right track.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I really don't mean any disrespect for what makes you happy, cmpaley. I'm just sayin'.... well, know whutImean?
