Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 8:13am

PopeWatch: Council of Jerusalem

 

 

The Pope takes a look at the Council of Jerusalem to accuse those who oppose him of trying to impose ideology rather than doctrine:

 

 

The Holy Father was commenting on the First Reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. He noted that even in the first Christian community “there were jealousies, power struggles, a certain deviousness that wanted to profit from and to buy power.” There are always problems, he said: “We are human, we are sinners” and there are difficulties, even in the Church. But being sinners leads to humility and to drawing close to the Lord, as Saviour who saves us from our sins. With regard to the gentiles who the Spirit called to become Christians, the Holy Father recalled that, in the reading, the apostles and the elders chose several people to go to Antioch together with Paul and Barnabas. The reading describes two different kinds of people: those who had “forceful discussions” but with “a good spirit,” on the one hand; and those who “sowed confusion”:

“The group of the apostles who want to discuss the problem, and the others who go and create problems. They divide, they divide the Church, they say that what the Apostles preached is not what Jesus said, that it is not the truth.”

The apostles discussed the situation among themselves, and in the end came to an agreement:

“But it is not a political agreement; it is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that leads them to say: no things, no necessities. Only those who say: don’t eat meat at the time, meat sacrificed to idols, because that was communion with the idols; abstain from blood, from animals that were strangled, and from illegitimate unions.”

The Pope pointed to the “liberty of the Spirit” that leads to agreement: so, he said, the gentiles were allowed to enter the Church without having to undergo circumcision. It was at the heart of the “first Council” of the Church: the Holy Spirit and they, the Pope with the Bishops, all together,” gathered together in order “to clarify the doctrine;” and later, through the centuries – as at Ephesus or at Vatican II – because “it is a duty of the Church to clarify the doctrine,” so that “what Jesus said in the Gospels, what is the Spirit of the Gospels, would be understood well”:

“But there were always people who without any commission go out to disturb the Christian community with speeches that upset souls: ‘Eh, no, someone who says that is a heretic, you can’t say this, or that; this is the doctrine of the Church.’ And they are fanatics of things that are not clear, like those fanatics who go there sowing weeds in order to divide the Christian community. And this is the problem: when the doctrine of the Church, that which comes from the Gospel, that which the Holy Spirit inspires – because Jesus said, “He will teach us and remind you of all that I have taught’ – [when] that doctrine becomes an ideology. And this is the great error of those people.”

These individuals, the Pope explained, “were not believers, they were ideologized,” they had an ideology that closed the heart to the work of the Holy Spirit. The Apostles, on the other hand, certainly discussed things forcefully, but they were not ideologized: “They had hearts open to what the Holy Spirit said. And after the discussion ‘it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.’”

 

Go here to read the rest.  Of course in ruling that Jewish ritual purity laws did not apply to Christians, the Council of Jerusalem was merely following what Jesus said.

 

Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable. 16And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding? 17Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? 18But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. 19For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: 20These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.

Matthew 15: 15-20

When it comes to granting communion to Catholics in adulterous marriages the Pope lacks the fidelity to the word of Christ that was shown by the Council of Jerusalem

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Dave Griffey
Dave Griffey
Monday, May 22, AD 2017 4:58am

Isn’t it a bit ironic that he always accuses others of creating divisions. Let that sink in.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Monday, May 22, AD 2017 5:38am

Brevity is the soul of wit. Distilled Papa Foxtrot said, “I am right because . . . SHUT UP.”

Dale Price
Dale Price
Monday, May 22, AD 2017 8:36am

A film critic once said that every bad movie contained a line of dialogue that worked as a review of the film itself.

Likewise, everyone one of his pontifical rants is an ironic self-indictment.

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Tuesday, May 23, AD 2017 2:51am

Pope Francis is a word twister who accuses others of what he himself is guilty.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, May 23, AD 2017 11:22am

I am right because…SHUT UP. Pope Francis’ teaching Magisterium

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