Heitanen,
You are on a traditional Catholic forum! I think most of us here are striving to live a good Catholic life! What right do you have to call us heretics and tell us we are in mortal sin?
I don't call people sinners or heretics unless I have talked to them and they have admitted to their heresies or their mortal sins. You, for example, defends NFP, denies the dogma on the absolute necessity of water baptism, and you have yet to retract your erroneous statements which was wholly refuted. So, you are a mortal sinner and a heretic. This is something I know from talking to you.
A question. Do you believe that practising Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, etc, through no fault of their own, can be saved?
In my lifetime, I have met people like you. Everything is a mortal sin (by their judgement and false misguided interpretations of Church teachings usually put forth by lay theologians who have NO mission or authority from the Church to teach). .
Everything is not a mortal sin, and I have never said that. Some people go to far, indeed, but that is beyond the point.
But most people in truth, have always been mortal sinner, which is why few are saved. Most people do say that what is sinful is not sinful, and what is illicit is licit. If it weren't for the fact that people are sinful, God would not have abandoned us to this great apostasy or let the ungodly take this much control.
Many here acts as if sin does almost not even exist. Those who thinks like that are sadly deceiving themselves.
My position in todays situation, and about many things today that are sinful or not sinful, etc, is written in this article. Read it!
http://www.catholic-saints.net/spiritual/If you just read it, you will see that most things is truly written. You won't hear these things from most of your priests, I assume.
Your guy in Sweden from the website link is one of the self appointed teachers... They all have a following of misguided souls that hinge on their every word. Each of these "teachers" have a slightly different twist on their false beliefs, and NONE of them would ever consult a priest before publishing their writings, as lay people are REQUIRED TO DO! THIS IS NOT A CATHOLIC ATTITUDE!
You seem to argue that we should rather follow heretical priests or bishops opinions before our own understanding, when we today have the capacity to study and learn the Catholic Faith?
If you want to be that stupid, that is up to you. I have already showed you the dogmas refuting baptism of desire, it is not hard to understand them, the problem is that you are not a Catholic, and therefore you you reject the dogmas and instead follows the opinions of heretical priests, bishops or societies.
Laypeople are required to consult the Church for publishing books, etc, in normal situations. But today, is this principle abrogated since almost no priests or bishops exists, and since we have no pope. It's just that simple, and only someone who is willingly blind would fail to see this.
The Catholic Church is based on authority, and altho reduced in numbers, legit authority is sill functioning in the form of priest and bishops who believe and adhere to ALL the truths the Church teaches. They are the experts, not misquided lay people, who have NO authority to teach in the name of the Church!
Only real Catholics=non heretical people, have authority in the Church. You don't understand this, for you have no interest in studying and learning the Catholic Faith, even though you could do so.
Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum (#15), June 29, 1896: "it is absurd to imagine that he who is outside can command in the Church."
Therefore, it is most certain that a heretic cannot have any authority in the Catholic Church, or that he can licitly consecrate the Eucharist or give valid confession, because it is absurd to imagine that one who is outside the Church can command in the Church.
Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi (# 22), June 29, 1943:"Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed."
You also affirm that every opinion from a priest or bishop is Church teaching. WRONG, not everything a Catholic priest says are Church teaching, but if he is a Catholic, then has it authority and should be followed unless it contradicts dogma.
But the priests and bishops you are referring here to is not Catholics, but heretics, and they are members of heretical societies and deny many dogmas. No wonder then that you are deceived, if you have as opinion that everything these heretics says or do is Church teaching and have authority - just because they call themselves by the name of "Catholic" and go by the name of priest... Since you have this opinion, no wonder you accept NFP, or that you deny the dogma on the absolute necessity of water baptism - for your society and priest does the same, doesn't they? What society do you belong to, Emerentiana?
So, since almost all priests and bishops today deny the salvation dogma, do you deny it as well? Tell me, do you deny the salvation dogma? Do you believe practicing Jews, Muslims, atheists, can be saved? ANSWER!
Many of the people I have met who have had the misfortune to follow these lay theologians (BTW, most have been counseled not to by priests and rejected the counsel) ended up dying "home aloners", without the last sacraments of the church, or a requiem mass . They were put in the grave in a secular cemetary with prayers offered by a laymen in their group.
I know you can't understand this, but keeping the faith whole and inviolate is more important then receiving blasphemous, invalid and illicit sacraments. No heretic can licitly consecrate the Eucharist, but does so illicitly, and he sins mortally every time he confect the sacraments, because he is a heretic. Also everyone that knowingly and obstinately approach heretical priests for the sacraments, sins mortally. Heretical priests can neither give a valid confession, since they lack jurisdiction. Only Catholic priests have jurisdiction and can absolve. Heretics are not Catholics. So, you have invalid confession, and illicit Eucharist. So, what is there to go to mass for? Not for the sacraments, that's for sure!
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Supp., Q. 38, Art. 2, Obj. 1: "The effect of absolution is nothing else but the forgiveness of sins which results from grace, and consequently
a heretic cannot absolve, as neither can he confer grace in the sacraments."
So, what's important is to keep the Faith in this great apostasy, that is what matters. There have also been many instances when true Catholics couldn't go to mass when their country fell into schism or heresy. The Anglican schism is one example. But you just couldn't care, for the faith is not important for you - only an outward appearance of faith is what matters for you, a church building, a mass, a heretical priest, etc, all this do you care about - but the faith, which saves you, do you not care about! What stupidity!
TAKE IT FROM A SAINT. MAYBE YOU WILL LISTEN THEN;
St. John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria, 7th Century AD: "Another thing the blessed man taught and insisted upon with all was never on any occasion whatsoever to associate with heretics and, above all, never to take the Holy Communion with them, 'even if', the blessed man said, 'you remain without communicating all your life, if through stress of circuмstances you cannot find a community of the catholic Church. For if, having legally married a wife in this world of the flesh, we are forbidden by God and by the laws to desert her and be united to another woman, even though we have to spend a long time separated from her in a distant country, and shall incur punishment if we violate our vows, how then shall we, who have been joined to God through the orthodox faith and the Catholic Church -- as the apostle says: 'I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ' (2 Cor. 11:2) -- how shall we escape from sharing in that punishment which in the world to come awaits heretics, if we defile the orthodox and holy faith by adulterous communion with heretics?"
"For 'communion', he said, 'has been so called because he who has 'communion' has things in common and agrees with those with whom he has 'communion'. Therefore I implore you earnestly, children, never to go near the oratories of the heretics in order to communicate there.'" - [Three Byzantine Saints, "The Life of Saint John the Almsgiver",Translators: Elizabeth Dawes & Norman H. Baynes, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, Crestwood: 1977; p. 251]
There is a large group of them in the Spokane/ CoeurdeAlene area of the pacific Northwest. They inch toward death, their souls languishing for the Sacraments. Some are former friends of mine that attended mass in years past. To them, every one is in sin, the priests and bishops are not legit etc! Actually they are in sin. They sin against the Holy Ghost by believing that God has taken away all priests and authority in the church, and that THEY alone are Catholics.
My advice to you is quit posting your condemnations on this forum. God reserves judgement to Himself!
Not all priests are heretics, there are some independent priests around the world who is not heretics, these priests and the faithful non-heretical laypeople are the Catholic Church. Heretics are not. Get this fact through your obstinate head now!
A similar situation have happened before, Emerentiana. If it was this bad during the Arian crisis as explained below, how bad will it be in the last great apostasy? Think about that.
“At one point in the Church’s history, only a few years before Gregory’s [nαzιanz] present preaching (+380 A.D.), perhaps the number of Catholic bishops in possession of sees, as opposed to Arian bishops in possession of sees, was no greater than something between 1% and 3% of the total. Had doctrine been determined by popularity, today we should all be deniers of Christ and opponents of the Spirit.” (W.A. Jurgens, The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 2, p. 39.)
In the 4th century the Arian heresy became so widespread that the Arians (who denied the Divinity of Christ) came to occupy almost all the Catholic churches and appeared to be the legitimate hierarchy basically everywhere.
St. Ambrose (+382): “There are not enough hours in the day for me to recite even the names of all the various sects of heretics.” (The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 2, p. 158)
Things were so bad that St. Gregory nαzιanz felt compelled to say what the Catholic remnant today could very well say.
St. Gregory nαzιanz (+380): “Where are they who revile us for our poverty and pride themselves in their riches? They who define the Church by numbers and scorn the little flock?” (“Against the Arians,” The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 2, p. 33)
This period of Church history, therefore, proves an important point for our time: If the Church's indefectible mission of teaching, governing and sanctifying required a governing (i.e., jurisdictional) bishop for the Church of Christ to be present and operative in a particular See or diocese, then one would have to say that the Church of Christ defected in all those territories where there was no governing Catholic bishop during the Arian heresy. However, it is a fact that in the 4th century, where the faithful retained the true Catholic faith, even in those Sees where the Bishop defected to Arianism, the faithful Catholic remnant constituted the true Church of Christ; and therefore, in that remnant, the Catholic Church existed and endured in her mission to teach, govern and sanctify without a governing bishop. This demonstrates that the Church of Christ's indefectibility and mission to teach, govern and sanctify does not require the presence of a jurisdictional bishop.
St. Athanasius: “Even if Catholics faithful to Tradition were reduced to a handful, they would be the true Church.”