Robert Teague

@B3901293 @shagbark_hick I assumed - incorrectly it seems - that you wanted to attend a Catholic Mass. If you’re not Catholic and want to attend a liturgical service of your choice, regardless of whether it is in union with the Church, my advice doesn’t apply. I pray you find the Church however.

@RFTeague @shagbark_hick Your point was that if Jesus actually is present the I should just get over myself and go. That’s a lousy standard because it also applies to Orthodox, Old Catholic, and some Anglican liturgies so why not go there? It also applies to Black Masses with a priest. It’s just stupid

Eventually you have to ask yourself whether you're more Catholic than you are "trad." There's a point at which trad ideology draws a hard line. Either you're in this small, obscure "Church within the Church" that is somehow better than 99% of all Catholics, or you're not. There's something apocalyptic about believing that 99% of Catholics are lost, fallen, wrong, demon-possessed, or whatever. It's a dark worldview that seems to have a poisonous effect on the spirit. Even if there are valid critiques to be made of the Novus Ordo, the Second Vatican Council, or the many post-council teachings that muddied the waters, this idea that the ONLY way to Christ is through a handful of scattered Latin Mass communities cuts away at the universality of the one true Church. It also distracts from the reality that so many non-TLM, ordinary run-of-the-mill Parishes are experiencing a genuine revival in the Liturgy. I travel constantly and am constantly at Novus Ordo Masses -- more and more people are receiving on the knee, on the tongue, more and more young Priests are saying parts of the Mass in Latin, using incense, even doing Ad Orientem. This is the direction that everyday Catholicism is heading, and it can be hard to see it from within the trad TLM world. Nothing wrong with preferring the Latin Mass at all. But to ever be so trad that you'd deny the validity of the Novus Ordo, speak ill of the Pope, or have this doom-and-gloom mentality about the state of the Church? This is usually not good, not warranted, and I invite those who feel that way to come out into the wider Church to see the amazing changes taking place. If the average trad were to visit 25 random Novus Ordo Churches around the country, I think they'd be surprised at what they'd see. It may not look quite like LifeSiteNews would say it'd look -- and it definitely wouldn't look the way it did 15 or even 5 years ago.

@B3901293 @shagbark_hick A ‘Black Mass’ - which in fact isn’t a Mass at all - isn’t an approved rite of the Church.

@RFTeague @shagbark_hick Jesus is present when a valid priest says a Black Mass or when an Old Catholic or Anglican with a Roman touch says Mass too.

@B3901293 @shagbark_hick Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the main actor at Mass - regardless of rite - and that you are brought to Calvary, and that He offers you Himself, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity? If so then, with respect, you need to get over Ember Days etc and get a grip.

@shagbark_hick Oh, I've been to the Shrine in Hanceville and Mass at Star of the Sea in SF. I know what good people are doing. But the 3/2 reading cycle and lack of Tenebrae, Ember Days, Rogation Days, Septuagesima, etc. It's still got huge holes. Once you see what's missing, you can't un-see.

@NickFreiling @shagbark_hick Absolutely. The more extreme forms of Tradism are, at root, manifestations of Protestantism. The individual stands in judgement over the Church which must conform to their preconceived notion of authentic Christianity.

Half of all TLMs celebrated globally every week happen in the US. This is bizarre, because the US represents only ~7% of world Catholics. This is a *massive* disproportion, and it places TLM squarely within the tradition of American religious "entrepreneurship." From the Second Great Awakening on, the American pattern has been to "recover" something pure that the mainstream church allegedly lost, build a fervent subculture, and then either institutionalize or flame out. It's an American art form. I think Mormonism its most successful product, but the landscape is littered with Millerites, Campbellites, etc. Baptist/Evangelical "fundamentalism" also fits this bill, too (I think). Americans have always loved to one-up their neighbors with a purer, holier church than what everyone else is doing. TLM fits this pattern, in the way its proponents tend to promote it now – a liturgical restorationism, convinced that the "real thing" was lost and only a small remnant has preserved it. I have nothing against TLM, but the fact is that most of these movements end up being fads. I did OCIA with three guys from our TLM community some years ago, and none of them attends anymore (one left the Catholic Church altogether).

@Whi79226Anthony @swamthetiber25 No Catholic believes grace can be earned. By definition.

@swamthetiber25 A theology where you earn grace? That's the opposite of beautiful. That directly contradicts scripture - Rom 11:6.

Taco won’t bother addressing any of these I’m sure… Problems with the Penal Substitution Atonement theory (PSA): PSA implies opposition between Father and Son, contradicting Trinitarian doctrine: the three Persons share one undivided essence, will, and love, acting in perfect harmony. The idea of the Father turning against the Son in wrath fractures the seamless unity of the Triune God. God cannot simply forgive out of love but instead requires a violent sacrifice to satisfy His anger or justice. This makes forgiveness conditional on punishment rather than a free, merciful act. PSA can suggest God is constrained by a higher principle of retributive justice that even He must satisfy, limiting divine freedom and portraying Him as less sovereign or merciful than Scripture depicts. If the just penalty for sin is eternal separation from God, as some suggest, how could Jesus’ finite suffering, hours on the cross, followed by death and resurrection after three days, possibly pay that full, infinite/eternal penalty? PSA portrays God as punishing the innocent. Justice requires that only the guilty face punishment, and guilt cannot be transferred. Yet in PSA, Christ— perfectly innocent—is punished for humanity’s sins, making God appear unjust. Old Testament sacrifices weren’t about transferring punishment from the guilty to an innocent victim. They were mainly about purification and restoring the relationship with God. The Passover lamb, for example, wasn’t punished for sin; it was eaten as a sacred meal. The New Testament wouldn't break from the Old Testament typology of what sacrifices accomplished. Penal substitutionary atonement was largely absent from the early Church and only became prominent after the Reformation. Even medieval theologians like Anselm, who spoke of Christ satisfying what was owed for sin, did not promote the idea that Christ received punishment from the Father. That idea developed very late in Christian history. Scripture shows death as the result of turning from God, not a punishment he imposes. If death is a consequence, not a penalty, there is nothing for Christ to “take” in our place. He enters death to defeat it, freeing humanity from sin and restoring our life with God, not simply satisfying a legal sentence. objections: Propitiation: The New Testament word hilasterion, often translated “propitiation,” can mean cleansing or the mercy seat rather than appeasing God’s wrath. Romans 3:25 emphasizes Christ removing sin and restoring fellowship with God, not satisfying a legal penalty. The Bible never says Christ was punished by the Father to satisfy divine wrath, so PSA reads ideas into the text that were never there. Isaiah 53 Isaiah 53 is a central prophecy for defenders of penal substitutionary atonement, yet it is often taken out of context. Nowhere in Isaiah does it say that the Father is punishing Christ. Verse 4 tells us that although he “bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” Reworded, this reflects humanity’s perception that he is afflicted by God, not that God has actively punished him. Verse 5 says, “by his stripes we are healed,” not “by his stripes the Father is appeased.” A literal translation from the Septuagint makes this even clearer: “The one our sins bore and on account of us he was grieved. And we considered him to be a misery, and for calamity by God, and for ill-treatment. But he was wounded because of our sins and was made infirm on account of our lawless deeds.” Isaiah 53, properly read, is a prophecy of Christ’s healing and restorative work, emphasizing his solidarity with human suffering and the redemption he brings, rather than a narrow focus on satisfying divine wrath.

Coming from an evangelical background, I always thought the Augustinian tradition on sexuality—and Humanae Vitae in particular—was prudish, overly restrictive, and out of touch. It seemed like the Church was policing something that didn't need policing. Then I spent years prosecuting sex crimes. What I saw was the full downstream consequences of a culture that had systematically detached sexuality from its proper context, from permanence, from fidelity, from openness to life, from the dignity of the other person. The people I prosecuted weren't monsters who appeared from nowhere. They were the products of a logic that, followed to its end, produces exactly what Paul VI warned it would produce in 1968: the reduction of the human person to an object of use. Humanae Vitae reads differently when you've seen what it's describing. The document isn't prudish; it's prophetic.

@WalkerMarcus He hasn’t abandoned Just War Theory; he thinks this war isn’t just.

Interestingly this is further to the Left than anything any CofE bishop has said, and a pretty fundamental departure from well established Christian doctrine (Just War Theory, for example). I will be interested, as an outside observer, to see how this is dealt with on here.

@real_AdRen69 @Rblv73 @WesleyLHuff Absolutely no chance of that! He’d be exposed within minutes. Far easier to pontificate without challenge.

@Rblv73 @WesleyLHuff, it would be great to see you publicly debate Scott Hahn, John Bergsma, or Francis Beckwith, why not have substantive debates with them - Truth benefits from open dialogue.

Bible “scholar “ that avoids debating legitimate scholars pretends he doesn’t have an agenda-sure😂😂😂

@SebGzy88 @Samanth09611221 Yes - OGs

@Samanth09611221 Why do Americans separate Catholicism from Christianity? Isn’t it like the original Christianity?

Religion of famous Hollywood Actors

@PnlChelsea @LewisClarke_ @LexyTopping @AHunterGuardian Sporting advantage? The lowest spenders in the EPL. It was the stadium cost that caused the problem.

@LewisClarke_ @LexyTopping @AHunterGuardian Stop crying. You got lucky. You gained a sporting advantage that may have kept you up and you got a 2 million quid financial penalty for it. Disgusting really, but there you go.

Our @AHunterGuardian nails it here. Football fans, Evertonians in particular, are not naive enough to think the Premier League will be fair and well-governed but the shamelessness of the double standards on display this week is still breathtaking

@AlaskaBird__ History clearly isn’t your strong point.

@SwordMasterPub @MarkWebb1274 How do you know he meant it spiritually and not physically?

@MarkWebb1274 Indeed. But spiritually so, not physically.

John 6 is not about the Lord's Supper.

@PaulinusOfTrier What is the Pope demanding of you?

If you’re a Catholic, what would the Pope have to demand, for you to refuse ? Where is the line in the sand?

@kylegpeters @TheophorusJB @JoshuaTCharles @DeaceOnline Catholic Church was there before a word of the NT was written, Kyle. It’s not a question of ‘deriving’ beliefs from the Bible. It was lived out from the beginning and developed over centuries. No one who starts by deriving beliefs from the Bible agrees on what those beliefs are.

Irenaeus is simply wrong about the history here, read Paul’s epistle to the Romans for yourself and you’ll see that Paul did not found the church at Rome. Here’s another tradition allegedly handed down from the apostles that Irenaeus got wrong: that Jesus lived to 50 during his early ministry. Also absent from Irenaeus: the concept of a pope.

I used to think the same thing, Ryan. But God used the witness of the Church Fathers, their unpacking of Scripture, and many other things (including my close reading of the Bible since I was a boy) to reveal to me that I had been deceived. I came into the Catholic Church when I was 31. It was the best decision of my life. I have never loved the Bible more. It is so much more rich now than it was for me as a protestant—though I am very grateful for what I did learn during those years. So many of the questions I had asked for so long, including to my various protestant mentors and great theologians (without satisfying answers), have now been answered, thanks to the Church’s teaching, and the witness of Her Saints. It has been like going from black and white to 4K color resolution. I pray you become willing to consider the possibility that you, likewise, may be deceived, and if you have not taken serious time to listen to the Church Herself, and the Fathers, to do yourself a favor and do so. My deception was rooted in the fact that I only ever heard and took the enemies of the Church seriously. Once I began to actually listen to the other side, the scales fell from my eyes. I would be happy to discuss further at some point if you would like. God bless. eternalchristendom.com

@PaulinusOfTrier @DanSanchezV Hope you find your way home to the Catholic Church one day, Henry.

You now have a deluge of advice. When I began that same search, I started out with two connected principles: 1. Two contradictory propositions cannot both be true and 2. Therefore there can only be one true Church. After far too long, the penny also dropped that liturgy and doctrine are so closely bound together that one cannot think of liturgy as a merely aesthetic choice. Then I started reading the earliest known church texts and made some inroads into Thomas Aquinas and other writers. Two modern books which made a vast impression on me were Willtgen's The Rhine Flows into the Tiber and Dom Alcuin Reid's The Organic Development of the Liturgy. At that point it became practically self-evident that a western Christian should align himself with the traditional Latin Mass and all the doctrine that goes with it.

I am still searching for a church to call my home, but recent discoveries about the doctrines and behavior of many Christians—especially as they relate to war and eschatology—have repelled me from evangelical denominations and drawn me toward the Catholic Church.

One of the great things about being Catholic is that you can belong to the world's oldest and most venerable institution and to history's most subversive movement at the same time.

@SSPXEnjoyer @SarahDaz14 @NiwaLimbu1988 @Card_R_Sarah The doctrine of the Church is absolutely clear to anyone who looks for it with sincerity. If you mean there are a lot of people who don’t know it or are confused then I agree with you. Undermining legitimate Church authority really doesn’t help.

@RFTeague @SarahDaz14 @NiwaLimbu1988 @Card_R_Sarah Well, obviously (from my handle) I disagree that they do that - in fact, I think they are usually quite measured in their critiques. However, I am not naive enough to think I can convince you of that. Regardless, I think think the doctrinal crisis today is extremely serious.

SSPX Update 22.0: The SSPX has responded to @Card_R_Sarah Op-Ed published last Sunday. This was typed out by Father Étienne Ginoux, the prior of Our Lady of Sorrows Priory in Africa Here are some quotes: "One is entitled to wonder whether it is really the souls of the faithful who frequent the chapels of the Fraternity that are in danger, or whether one should not be more afraid for the salvation of those who follow the 'prelates who renounce teaching the deposit of faith' or the 'wolves in sheep's clothing', rightly denounced by the prelate." ""Every Catholic should then accept what comes from the Pope without ever disobeying. However, this is not as simple as it seems, for is it not precisely from Rome that we have recently seen the opening of Eucharistic communion to divorced and remarried Catholics, the blessing of irregular couples, the assertion that God wills the plurality of religions, the questioning of titles traditionally attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary and used by many popes, and even the attempt at the long-term suppression of the traditional missal? Yet Cardinal Sarah himself opposed many of these innovations in the name of Tradition." "On the one hand, he shows us the example of the good fight for the faith, Catholic morality, and liturgical tradition; on the other, he invites us to obey those who are the source of the evils we are fighting." "What can we conclude, if not that we have no other choice, before assenting, than to distinguish between teachings faithful to the faith of all time and those that are the expression of a new thought, irreconcilable with the previous magisterium?" "Saint Paul publicly opposed Saint Peter in Antioch, before the first pope acknowledged his error. Saint Athanasius, while the majority of bishops were close to the heresy of Arius, was excommunicated by Pope Liberius but continued to preach and enlighten souls." "Your Eminence, we implore you to use your authority, your renown, and your writing skills to persuade the Holy Father to put an end to the doctrinal, moral, and liturgical crisis that the Holy Church is experiencing. Then the Society of Saint Pius X will no longer be forced to ordain bishops without papal mandate. Then there will be true unity and perfect communion in the Church of God: unity and communion in faith." fsspx.africa/fr/news/repons…

@SSPXEnjoyer @SarahDaz14 @NiwaLimbu1988 @Card_R_Sarah The Church is always in need of reform to a greater or lesser extent, and criticisms can always be made. What I object to is when SSPX deliberately overstate and exaggerate the reality to bolster their position, causing confusion and scandal in the process. 2/2

@SSPXEnjoyer @SarahDaz14 @NiwaLimbu1988 @Card_R_Sarah I have my own thoughts about that letter, and they are perhaps not too far from your own. However, the teaching of the Church on this matter has not changed and the implications of the letter are far more nuanced than Fr Ginoux’s letter acknowledges. 1/2

@SSPXEnjoyer @SarahDaz14 @NiwaLimbu1988 @Card_R_Sarah Exactly - and none of those documents say what he implies they say,

@RFTeague @SarahDaz14 @NiwaLimbu1988 @Card_R_Sarah Thanks for clearing that up for us! I thought we had Amoris Laetitia, Fiducia Supplicans and Mater Populi Fidelis - I must have been mistaken.