Should Roman Catholic's follow the Pope before the Head of State of their country?
In my opinion, your not a true Catholic if you don't accept that the Pontiff is the successor to Saint Peter and therefore Jesus' appointed representative on Earth.
Thusly, I would put the decrees of the Holy Father before that of the House of Commons or the Queen. Is this unreasonable?
In all theological and religious matters (including political actions from the Church; e.g a call to arms) I would follow the pope and magesterium without question. But on national matters and nation-specific topics, it has been Church practice to allow nations to make their own decisions in that regard. So unless there is a specific decree from the Vatican on a nation-specific issue, a Catholic should follow the head of state (unless there is sin, of course).
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
Assuming they do believe that only through following the orders of their chosen master (the pope) they can receive eternal salvation, I'd advise them to indeed follow his rules over state law. Though, I'd also tell them that they should consider the possibility that their belief is crap and that breaking the law does tend to have unenjoyable consequences.
Well in such case, yes. One's eternal salvation is more important than his temporary comfort in a nation. Look at the early Church in Rome; laymen as well as clergy were persecuted because they followed the Pope's orders over those of Nero. As a result, the pagans became interested in why so many Christians did not fear death, and Rome converted in the next several hundred years.
Last edited by Transfinitum on Jun 7th, 2008 at 08:25 PM
However, thats about weighing up the possibilities.
Question: Follow the Pope before the State?
Outcome 1: The Pope is not Christ's representative and thus your punishment in jail for breaking the law is not going to be compensated. You may loose your liberty or life and all for nothing.
Outcome 2: The Pope is Christ's representative and thus your punishment in jail for breaking the law will be compensated. You may loose your liberty or life but you will receive tenfold in heaven.
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
Yep. Weighing the risks. Though including the likelyhood. To me, the likelyhood that the pope is right is about 0. 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000001%. I take those odds. You probably don't think so. But as I said. if I'd believe it 5% or even 90% I'd take his orders over the states.
Well, since I happen to be anarchist, I don't believe in merit of state laws anyways. It's all just a big calculation though, isn't it?
I thought it was supposed to be outcome 3: The Pope may be Christ's representative but - while you still adamantly believe in Christ, and thus should be saved by his crucifixion - you're aware of human fallacy in interpretation, have free will and the ability of independent decision making, and thus would not break laws that are presumably put in place for the general well-being of the commonwealth.
If you adamantly believe in Christ, you accept the Holy Scriptures. And the Scriptures tell you that Christ elected an infallible representative on earth to "build his church on". Matthew 16:18:
Peter's name literally translates to "Rock" and so we can see that God granted authority to Peter to lead his church, and because God can have no error, His church cannot as well. Then when Peter went out ordaining bishops and priests, the line of authority held, all the way to the present.
I don't particularly care about the etymology of Peter literally meaning rock anymore than I care about the etymology of Apple literally meaning apple in determining the infallibility of a mythological figure's earthbound surrogate or whether Gwyneth Paltrow's spawn will be the anti-christ, respectively.
Well the important point to note here is that God Himself created the Catholic Church, and by definition God can have no error. Because of this, the pope (when using the doctrine of infallibility) has direct confirmation from God incarnate that what he is saying must be true.
The Pope is just a man as fallible as any other man elected by a group of men as fallible as any other men, head of a church that has shown its fallibility numerous times.
The average citizen can do what ever trips his trigger. Once elected to state or federal office, to do otherwise would likely be against their oath of office.
As for Kennedy, it was said of him, and it was wrong.
__________________ "If I were you"
"If you were me, you'd know the safest place to hide...is in sanity!
Gender: Unspecified Location: With Cinderella and the 9 Dwarves
He might have created it to test the intelligence and faith of people in their individual morals, as a sort of "if you believe in this, you should be put in hell". Really, there's NOTHING to suggest that the catholic church and the pope in particular have any authority over anyone.
3- yes, secularistic IDEOLOGIES do. {differentiate ideologies from implementation and perhaps see that the criteria that most relegiouns use for FAIR is always majorly biased in their favour and steps on the rights of others}
The problem with your post is that you present certain factoids as though they have not been heard, considered and internalized by the very people you're arguing against. Common sense does not enter the equation when common sense was abandoned in favor of their own illogial conclusions or sycophantic certainties, to begin with...
__________________ "If I were you"
"If you were me, you'd know the safest place to hide...is in sanity!
KMC Community Forums
Jun 7th, 2008 08:08 PM
