by Nathan Natas 39 Replies latest jw friends
Tom Cabeen
Each time we made a change, it has been a matter of us discussing things and coming to mutual agreement. Sometimes the initiative for a change was mine, sometimes it was hers.
Watch out Tom, at the rate you're going, you may find yourself with the Jehovah's Witnesses again!
RR
I'm a cradle Catholic who returned to Catholicism for a short time after leaving the JWs. I studied Catholicism in depth before rejecting it.
Re: hell. Hell is absolutely taught to be a place of eternal torture, 'physical' torture, as well as seperation from God. Catholics are taught that one 'chooses' hell themselves by their actions. However, commiting a "mortal sin" without receiving absolution from a Catholic priest before one dies, lands one in hell. An example of a mortal sin would be missing Sunday mass on purpose, ie, without being ill or forgetting it was Sunday. If you die before you confess that mortal sin and receive absolution, you are sent to hell to be tortured forever. Catholics can try to sugarcoat it all they want, but that's what the Catecism states.
From my study of religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, I have come to the conclusion that most people who feel a need to worship God as a member of some form of organized religion do so because of an emotional/psychological componant of their personalities. I'm not saying that they are inferior to someone who does not need religion - just different. Something within them needs the validation of a religion to tell them that they are "right" and that God approves of them more than someone else. It's difficult to use common sense when you have to check the catecism first.
I have the utmost respect for Tom Cabeen. He is a scholar who has been publicly honest about his beliefs throughout his journey out of the WT. Maybe this is just a phase . But I'm still planning to watch the EWTN show :)
GGG
I think there are many teachings one has to overlook to become a Catholic. Here is an interesting post from channelC
Tor
http://www.channelc.org/cgi-bin/eboard30/index2.cgi?frames=no&board=Main&mode=Current&message=26179
Posted by RudPersson on Mon - May 5 - 03:11am:
Reading about ex-JWs becoming catholics made me shed tears.
I am one one of those posting here with a clear anti-catholic stance, and I have studied catholicism and the catholic church to such an extent that I refuse to accept being called ignorant by catholic ex-JWs.
I remember Tom Cabeen posted here for me the idolatrous picture of Mary that is distributed by a certain catholic group in Holland. At the time he indicated to me that the catholic view about Mary was an obstacle for him. So I was sursprised later when I learned that he did actually join the catholic church. It was then joked that he would better close working with the JW-outfit he had been connected with so as not to prolong his agony in purgatory.
Several other ex-JWs have indicated here that they, too, have become catholics. And from what is stated in other posts below I would not be surprised if still another conversion is due.
That will never happen with me, I can promise. The RCC is the last big apostate church that I would like to be associated with. A movement coming with false claims is out of the question. The false claim I am thinking of here is that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, as clearly stated in par. 882 in the current catholic catecism. The equally old orthodox church rightly rejects that claim. It also rejects the roman catholic teaching about idulgencies, which teaching alone would suffice for me to reject the RCC.
Mary idolatry - so well documented and still practiced - is what makes me most upset, however, together with making all kinds of less than Christian people "saints" in the church. Here I am thinking particularly of the 14th century Swedish "saint" Birgitta or Bridget as she seems to be called in English. She had "revelatins" from Mary and Christ making up several bulky volumes. She had a revelation - from the abyss I am sure - that the Swedish king should start a military crusade against Russia! Nice people those saints! Another pious catholic who actually ended up as a canonized special teacher in the church is Alfonso Maria de´Liguori who lived in the 18th century. His blasphemous book THE GLORIES OF MAY is still distributed with Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur in several languages. I have quoted it at length here several years ago. Liguori is honored on August 1 in the RRC calandar.
The late pope John Paul II, undoubtedly an impeccable authority on catholicism, prayed to and praised Mary as if she was God in Guadalupe in Mexico on January 22, 1999. A plainer example of idolatry can hardly be found. I have presented this prayer verbatim here earlier. It is documented in a good RCC source.
Maybe what happens with people who are drawn to the RCC is that they gradually fall in love with the church, not unlike the process when people are drawn to the JWs. One grows less and less dependent of facts, and at some stage no damaging facts will carry any weight whatsoever. One good example is the calculation of the Gentile Times as 2520 years. Not a few people studying with the JWs make objections when first confronted with the calculation - it is after all only the Emperors new clothes without a shred of evidence. The subject is then put aside until later, and at that later time the person is more inclined to accept the calculation, although he or she does not see the points claimed. By now that individual is more deeply in love with the Watchtower organization and WANTS it to be the true church, the true organization. Inconvenient facts are put aside and ignored.
I have seen that process even in a former JW here in Sweden turning catholic about 10 years ago. The guy couldn´t understand why the JWs accepted everything unchallenged and yet this was the actual attitude this person came to show toward catholicism. He even withdrew from contacts with people like myself, clearly being afraid that we might present facts he would have to reject in order to go on with his Roman catholic romance. That romance is now showing signs of coming to en end.
If I have hurt anyone here I am sorry, but I have to speak my mind like others have done also.
Rud
Here is another one that really says it all with very good links in support. I dont see how the Catholics can claim they dont practice Idolatry . Very telling.
http://www.channelc.org/cgi-bin/eboard30/index2.cgi?frames=no&board=Main&mode=Current&message=26178
Posted by Scorpion on Mon - May 5 - 02:17am:
In Reply to: Addendum posted by JimWhitney on Sun - May 4 - 6:06pm:
Thanks for the links Jim. I am not sure the information you provided though IMO could be said to dispel what you cassified as "common myths" of the Catholic Church.
Papal infallability.
The following statement was formally determined by the Vatican Council, Sess. IV, Const. de Ecclesiâ Christi, c. iv:
"We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable."
///
Exclusively the Only True Church:
"Catholic Book of PRAYERS" edited by Maurus Fitzgerald and published by CATHOLIC BOOK PUBLISHING CO., New Jersey. It is copyrighted 2003 and has both Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur by proper Catholic authorities. It is said to be the best selling catholic prayerbook in America now. Note the following claims on pp. 236,237, quoted verbatim:
"The Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church is the only flock of which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the only Shepherd. To hear the teachings of the Church and to submit oneself to its laws is to hear Jesus Christ and to obey Him. To refuse to submit to the decisions and laws of the Church is to refuse to submit to Jesus Christ. He himself has expressly said to His Apostles: He who hears you, hears Me; and he who rejects you, rejects Me; and he who rejects Me, rejects Him Who sent Me.
///
Does the Catholic Church still use the above book?
Btw, here's a press commentary about a recently issued papal document saying, in essence, that they are the only true Church:
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20070711/NEWS02/707110335/-1/s
///
Praying to St. Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and praying to the Saints:
There is extensive material on this subject, mainly from Catholic sources that leads me to draw the conclusion that the prayers deliverd to the Saints and Mary are a form of idolatry.
The CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, Doubleday, 1995 (copyright 1994, United States Catholic Conference, Inc.) contains 2865 paragraphs of catholic teaching.
It calls Mary "all-holy" at least 7 times. (493, 721, 829, 1138, 2030, 2677, 2827). Wouldn't you view this as blasphemy.
The last part of 2677 states:
"By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the "Mother of Mercy," the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present momemt, to surrender "the hour of our death" wholly to her care. May she be there as she was at her son´s death on the cross. May she welcome us as our mother at the hour of our passing to lead us to her son , Jesus, in paradise."
According to this it is Mary, not Jesus, who is in charge at death. And so it is deemed absolutely vital to invoke Mary. As "the All-Holy one" she is viewed as a goddess, and the veneration showed her here amounts to idolatry, no matter what is said to the contrary.
Prayers are directed to Mary in a way that the Jew in OT-times and the Christian in NT-times would only direct to God and Christ. And the songs of praise are such as should only be directed to God and Christ. The situation is not very different from that prevailing in the Watchtower organization. It is claimed that the organization does not set dates, and when the hard evidence to the contrary is presented, strenuous efforts are made to explain away and even deny the obvoius.
In what year did the Catholic Church institute praying to Saints? Was this a practice by early Christians shortly after the death of Christ?
How can a saint hear hundreds or thousands of prayers at one time? No matter how great a saint they were, they are not omniscient nor can they answer our prayers (it is a known fact there are more prayers offered to Mary than to God by Catholics). This is seen by the statement by Bishop Liqouri “We often more quickly obtain what we ask by calling on the name of Mary than by invoking that of Jesus. She...is our Salvation, our Life, our Hope, our Counsel, our Refuge, our Help” (The Glories of Mary by Bishop Alphonse de Ligouri (Brooklyn: Redemptorist Fathers, pp. 254, 257).
///
To tell you the truth, what religion you or Tom or anyone else belongs to is your choice and I am sure you have made this choice with much prayer and thought. When an individual either joins or belongs to a certain religious group, one thing I look for in the individual, if they have indeed done their homework, is to see if the person is truly being honest about their faith and what it and or the leaders teach as doctrine to be adhered too by the followers.
More often than not I have found not just Catholics, but others who belong to a certain faith ignorant to the designs and teachings of the religion. I do not think for a moment that you, Jim, are ignorant about what the Catholic Church teaches or has taught.
What puzzles me is that you would call these Catholic Church doctrines and teachings a Myth when the Church has indeed taught as truth the teachings of Mary and the Saints, the Only True Church, Papel infalibility, etc etc.. as is quoted above in just a few instances.
Of course maybe this is just one of those cases with the Church of do as we say, but don't really believe all that is written by us, because at times we may contradict what we said at another time.
What one believes spiritually is personal between them and God. Myself, I have to be honest with where I am with God and where I worship, what is and has been taught and who is doing the teaching. I have yet to find any religion that would resemble something that I would deem "God's true Church"
I hope I have not been too forward in my response. It is nice to see you posting on this forum again Jim.
Stan
We loved the Episcopal liturgy and the local parish was wonderful, but the Episcopal church here in the US has really serious problems.
By "really serious problems," he presumably refers to the highly publicized rift between Episcopalians who welcome gays and lesbians into the church and those who view them as immoral sinners to be judged.
Tom, thanks for posting here!
Tell us more about the juicy tidbits you know that happened in Bethel while you were there, please.
hi tom.... thx for your answer. i have watched you a bit on channel c, and now am watching here. will probably continue to watch with interest, but mostly have not been around. wish i could get that cable channel. you may remember having dinner with my husband and me in milford a few years ago. when we met you were a baptist elder and i was just returning to my spiritual search. all of the religions and denominations and differences are mostly confusing for me. your embracing the catholic church too is confusing, bc i so respect your intelligence and reasoning and motives, yet catholicism seems so alien to the truth (old conditioning?) so nothing is new. i began to attend a cbs bible study a few years ago -- it is non-denominational, everyone is respected, and it is the most comfortable place i have found to date -- although i have my questions there too, of course. sometimes i feel like i am back at square one -- just too dumb to figure it all out. these days, despite all of my questions, doubts and confusion, i just trust the Lord. i believe in His surpassing love and mercy and that gives me great comfort. it is great that you have a mate who is loving and supportive of this spiritual search -- and smart too --, and seemingly pretty much on the same page. not that mine isn't, but you know, he was born and raised catholic, studied for the priesthood, and catholic at heart he will most likely always be. so as much as he tries to understand, he just cannot "get" my wanting to just get it right and the turmoil i feel when things are obviously wrong. my very best wishes to you and gloria. nowisee
Hey Willie,
The problems connected with sexuality that the Episcopal Church is going through is but the tip of the iceberg. Ultimately, they have a problem of authority. Since they are structured as a democratic church (the Episcopal Church's structure was used as the pattern for the US government, with its Senate and House of Representatives, plus a President), at the end of the day they have no way to resolve doctrinal or practical disagreements. So their bishops can do outrageous things such as appointing an openly gay bishop, or promoting rank heresy (Google Bishop Jack Spong's suggestions for a new reformation to see what I mean) and no one has the power to say "That's enough!" "No more." So they are in the midst of a huge crisis. It will most likely result in the complete fragmentation of the American church.
Tom
Hi See,
Yes, I remember you and your husband. We met at my office, had dinner together and an enjoyable evening of talking.
Regarding the Journey Home program, if you have a reasonably fast Internet connection, you can see the program on EWTN live, at 8pm EST. (http://www.ewtn.com/journeyhome/index.asp)
I had much the same conditioning. As I have said before, I would probably never have investigated the Catholic Church if I had not been influenced by another former JW (David Bercot) to read the early Christian writings. He convinced me that the early church did not go off track immediately after the death of the apostles. My interest was piqued and I started reading the writings known as the Ante-Nicene Fathers. I was so enthralled by their explanations of Christianity, I really fell in love with it. Only much later did I find out how similar their teachings were to those of the Catholic Church. I couldn't NOT investigate further. That is the story in a nutshell.
And you cannot go wrong trusting in the Lord. But if you ask him for truth, he will give you what you ask for. You simply have to be ready to accept it. That is sometimes the hardest part.
Tom
Hey Min,
"Juicy tidbits"? Whatever could you be talking about?
T
