"The fact a government is anti-Catholic doesn`t mean its power is unlawful. You have to distinguish the legitimacy of the government from the legitimacy of its laws.
Catholic countries like Spain (under Franco and Pius XII) joined the UN..."
You aren't making me any more fond of Pius XII in this thread, let me tell you Cristian.
Well it is not my intention, but I wish you´d love him as much as I do :)
Anyway, Franco also de-Catholicized the government due to a request from Paul VI, does that make what he did right?
Ups! You said it… Paul VI! You know the axiom “Lex iniusta non est lex” do you?
The argument going on here between what represents God's permissive will and his positive will is a hard one to settle. Apparently the Jєωιѕн exile in Babylon was not just due to his permissive will, but was his actual command.
Yes it was His command to send them there II Chron 36:
“17 For he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, and he slew their young men with the sword in the house of his sanctuary, he had no compassion on young man, or maiden, old man or even him that stooped for age, but he delivered them all into his hands. 18 And all the vessels of the house of Lord, great and small, and the treasures of the temple and of the king, and of the princes he carried away to Babylon. 19 And the enemies set fire to the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burnt all the towers, and what soever was precious they destroyed. 20 Whosoever escaped the sword, was led into Babylon, and there served the king and his sons, till the reign of the king of Persia, 21 that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, and the land might keep her sabbaths: for all the days of the desolation she kept a sabbath, till the seventy years were expired.
In other words, the reason why the Jews were taken 70 years (no less no more) is that each seven years they had to let the land rest (Lev. 25, 5 and 26, 34) and they didn´t do it during 490 years, so they “ought” God 70 years, that´s why they were taken out of the Holy Land during 70 years. Interesting isn´t it?
Therefore other kinds of exile may express God's positive will, I don't know. I'm no expert on that subject. What I can say is that, though even the exile in Babylon may have been part of God's positive will, that doesn't mean he approved of Babylon! Rather, putting the Jews there, or allowing them to be cast away there, was his punishment of them. But if it was his positive will to send them there, it was also his positive will that they suffer while they were, to the point where they wouldn't even sing their usual hymns and canticles because they were lamenting their fate.
True!
Yet you would have us believe, it seems, that God doesn't just allow Israel, or positively will that the Jews re-take Israel as a punishment to the CHRISTIANS, but is Himself pro-Israel... And that is where you go too far by any standard. Might as well say he's pro-Babylon or pro-Vatican II.
Well I never said or implied it was “as a punishment to the Christians”, although it may be related in a sense:
We know that “24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captives into all nations: and J
erusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles till the times of the nations be fulfilled.” (Luke 21)
And that “14
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations: and then shall the consummation come.” (Mt. 24)
My doubt is (not a rhetorical question): Are the “time of the nations” the same in which “the gospel will be preached in the whole world” and will the trodden down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles end with the coming back of the Jews at the end times? It is interesting that I once read that the Gospel was already preached to all nations under Pius XII and also, and this can easily be demonstrated and I think we all agree on this, that after him apostasy came.
What do you mean by pro-Israel? We know Our Lord pray for them while at the cross, and that His prayer will someday be answered.
I must confess that you and others have what sounds like a good point when you say that the Jews no more "stole" Israel than other nations who conquered on the killing fields did. That's hard to argue with, except that they didn't win in a fair fight, but through skulduggery and trickery engineered with their vast financial resources which they used to buy up the governments and install their puppets in places like the UN. That is what makes it especially nauseating. The boundaries of Europe were often in flux, so there was nothing shocking or untoward or undiplomatic about Spain trying to take a piece of France, or vice versa, but for one ethnic group to simply insert themselves somewhere that they hadn't been for a long time, well, that is unusual, let's put it that way. Still, it does come down to might makes right, as has happened many times before.
Well I´m not even sure if they stole that land.
Where you wander into very novel territory is when you try to fit all these Old Testament prophecies into a future conversion of the Jews. That is downright disturbing and you are really going out on a limb of your own here. Eamon quoted the Douay-Rheims gloss on the Ezekiel passage
I already responded to this, I guess you saw it after you wrote this post :)
and you say you have other books that interpret it as referring to the future conversion of the Jews. Yet you didn't cite any of these books... Are they, perhaps, written by JEWS? Just wondering.
I couldn´t help to smile when I read this :). I thought it was obvious I meant Catholic authors, but thank for asking! Do you know Fillion, Crampon, Pirot,? (There are others too but they wrote in Spanish, so you probably don´t know them, that´s why I don´t quote them)
It refers to spiritual Israel, the Catholics, who will be formed from among the Gentiles, just as Eamon shows it has been interpreted. Whatever other source you have, it won't beat his. It also plays on the Babylonian captivity. The reason for "nations" in the plural could just be poetic, Babylonian standing in for all the nations that surrounded this tiny group of chosen people.
I responded this on page 9.
Your interpretation presumes God is actually guiding the Jews RIGHT NOW and that He is using His power to aid the Jews in their capture of Israel, which is just plain obscene when you consider how this was done and how ungodly their methods are.
I insist with the distinction of the legitimacy of the state and the legitimacy of their laws, measures etc.
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