/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

Protestant here, so a Catholic will have a better answer. But a safe guess is

1. Liturgy

2. Paperwork

Believe it or not, this guy is more or less right >>638484

There are shittone of various offices that deal with liturgy, canon law, dialogue with non-catholic, diplomatic missions, archives and all that any other state and diocese do but it have whole universe under it's jurisdiction. But what St. John XXIII anserwed to "How many people work in Vatican" question i.e. "Half of them" is true.

And there of course liturgy. At noon pope comes to the people and pray Angelus with them and give short homily. And there are mass in St. Peter's Basilica everyday iirc.

And I really, really doubt that "The Vatican is the only thing that prevents me from becoming a Catholic" for that means that you already believe not in Scripture alone, in Catholic sortieology but more than than in Catholic Ecclesiology. And that means that you accept Pope. But if you do belive in office then you are little to no concerned with Vatican as something more than his Cathedra..

>What's really going on inside the Vatican?

>>638484 and >>638522

The odd scandal too, I might add. Let's be totally honest.

>I believe that the only Protestant denomination I trust now and that will gentrify well (Churches of Christ, not the ICOC, but just the Churches of Christ) is 'lacking' something that the Orthodox and the Catholic Church have.

Legitimacy? Apostolic Succession? Valid Sacraments? Not copping out to the demands of the world?

The thing is if your argument against becoming Catholic is because of what the Vatican is like (i.e. full of sinful fallible humans, imagine my shock), then you might need to rethink why you are even a Christian at all. We are all scum. Only Christ can save us.

>>638485

>no sources, and two edgelords talking utter shit

lel

Abp Fulton Sheen once stated that "There aren't a hundred people in the USA who hate the Catholic Church, only what they believe the Church to be. If they knew the Truth, they would join Her instead".

We know that the Church has been infiltrated, but when our Lord said the gates of Hell shall not prevail, we take Him at His word. Fortunately, it is now being counter-infiltrated by a younger and more aggressive generation of trads and faithful who are clawing it back one step at a time.

>>638473

>What's really going on inside the Vatican?

Non-stop EDM rave party. You must not have been invited.

>>638537

I thought they played this 24/7

>>638536

The Pope and world religion

The pope joining Religion

https://hooktube.com/watch?v=-6FfTxwTX34

https://web.archive.org/web/20180130081312/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/pope-francis-assures-atheists-you-don-t-have-to-believe-in-god-to-go-to-heaven-8810062.html

>Responding to a list of questions published in the paper by Mr Scalfari, who is not a Roman Catholic, Francis wrote: “You ask me if the God of the Christians forgives those who don’t believe and who don’t seek the faith. I start by saying – and this is the fundamental thing – that God’s mercy has no limits if you go to him with a sincere and contrite heart. The issue for those who do not believe in God is to obey their conscience.

https://web.archive.org/web/20180401174754/https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2013/09/30/big-heart-open-god-interview-pope-francis

Hes a Jesuit

>“I wanted something more. But I did not know what. I entered the diocesan seminary. I liked the Dominicans and I had Dominican friends. But then I chose the Society of Jesus, which I knew well because the seminary was entrusted to the Jesuits. Three things in particular struck me about the Society: the missionary spirit, community and discipline. And this is strange, because I am a really, really undisciplined person. But their discipline, the way they manage their time—these things struck me so much.

Says God doesn't condemn Gays

>“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing

http://archive.is/hj79e

http://www.inquisitr.com/1579903/creationists-are-upset-over-pope-francis-pro-evolution-statements/

>Last week, the 77-year-old head of the Catholic church expressed his endorsement for the theory of evolution while speaking at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He also stated support for the Big Bang theory as the explanation for the origin of the universe, adding that both the Darwinian evolution and the Big Bang do not conflict with the idea of God as the creator of life and of the universe.

>Pope Francis further criticized the common imagination of God as a “magician” that can spin the cosmos at the swish of a magic wand.

>“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so. He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment.”

Pope says that having a personal relationship with Jesus is Harmful And Dangerous.

https://hooktube.com/watch?v=v_bvGTc6SM8

Inb4 nice ((sources))" or "lol alternative media"

>>638473

Be aware of what conspiracy spreads to you, and what you hear around the internet. A LOT of what is spread about the Vatican is crap made up by protestant branches and the baptists, to throw dung at the Catholic Church.

>>638624

I'm not even a Francis fan, but your arguments are mostly bogus.

Francis in the first video promotes dialogue between religions, not combining all religions together into a hybrid religion or religious indifference.

There is nothing wrong with being a Jesuits. Protestants just hate Jesuits because the Jesuits wrecked then back in the Counter-Reformation (e.g. St. Edmund Campion btfo the English so hard, they censored their transcript of his debate https://articulifidei.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-jesuit-challenge.html ). That's where all the Jesuit conspiracy paranoia comes from. The Jesuits are lousy on the whole today, but their are still good ones out there.

Francis doesn't say God doesn't condemn gays. He gives a non-answer saying that they should be treated with mercy, mercy of course meanint that they have need of mercy for something… Francis has more explicitly affirmed the Church's teachings against homosexuality elsewhere.

Francis does not deny God's omnipotence. His point in that quotation is that God does not just work as an immediate cause, but also through secondary causes. Although, if you believe Young-Earth Creationism is an essential doctrine of the faith, I'm afraid the pope probably is not a YEC.

>Pope says that having a personal relationship with Jesus is Harmful And Dangerous.

Even though you are phrasing it in a strawmanny way, this is the Biblical apostolic teaching, summarized by the Latin phrase extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. You can't be a good Christian and deliberately separate yourself from the one, true, hierarchical Church.

OP, it would help focus discussion of you clarified what you meant about the Vatican? Are you concerned about corruption in the Vatican? Are you confused about the functions of the Vatican's various departments?

>>638633

>Francis in the first video promotes dialogue between religions

You're just giving me a basic interpretation, that doesn't correct what i posted. The video says "seeking God or meeting God in different ways", it's obvious that it's going against an objective God. If i were to pray to the Jewish Shekhina the male and female aspect of God, if i were worship a man called the buddah. if i pray to 'Allah', i would be 'seeking' the authentic God?

>There is nothing wrong with being a Jesuits

>there is nothing wrong with entering a mystery schools secret society that practices mysticism.

The Jesuits were started by Ignatius of Loyola who was mystic.

>Francis doesn't say God doesn't condemn gays.

>>when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?

[ ] with love

[ ] condemn this person

His non-answer had two choices, and it's clear which he was implying and which he wasn't.

>Francis does not deny God's omnipotence.

>>“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything.

If it's as you say, there is no reason for him to include God not being able to do everything.

You repeated the intention without acknowledging what he said.

>You can't be a good Christian and deliberately separate yourself from the one, true, hierarchical Church.

>Exodus 19:5 Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; 6 and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”

The term ekklsia was used before the Christian era, before the greek translation of the bible it was qahal to mean an assembly, not a building. If i'm wrong can you show me where in the bible it refers to a building?

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/6951.htm

http://biblehub.com/text/acts/7-38.htm

Because i know Catholics more than any other Denom, i know you will become offended at this, if i am wrong than tell me so, I am trying to find the truth. that is why I'm writing these essays, to understand. I don't like pissing people off, but that's simply the nature of understanding, asking questions will piss people off, and Catholcis haven't changed in 20 years in that regard, you still get angry at questioning. But i still personally don't hate Catholics, i am trying to understand them.

>>638632

nobody needs to throw dung on the RCC, basic truths can be hard to accept anon

>>638633

>There is nothing wrong with being a Jesuits.

I forgot to mention, for an in depth look at the Jesuits watch Ex Jesuit Alberto Rivera and others Speak on Jesuit infiltration (video related). Don't just dismiss it just because they're used to cover up the jews.

Dude >>638484 got it right. Additionally, they also manage Church finances, do more paperwork because the Vatican is also an official state, more liturgy in form of audiences and Catechesis and so on and so forth.

This thread is full of conspiracy theories and I'm not entirely sure why this is allowed to exist, because there are literally no sources and obviously the neo-pelagians and gnostics are at it again.

Friendly reminder that youtube videos and interviews of people claiming to be "ex-Jesuits" as "reliable sources" go into the trash without second thought.

The Catholic Church is the Truth, because it is the body of Christ which He Himself instated. If you're having a problem with that then so be it but don't try to slander where's nothing to slander.

>>638688

>Alberto Rivera

>Ex Jesuit

How to kill your credibility in ten seconds, by anon

>>638701

>Admitting to being ignorant

>>638704

He didn't even mention Peter.

>>638718

Wrong video. He was an ex-Jesuit 'priest', this is the video one where he speaks out specifically about being an ex-Jesuit Priest. Also i automatically lose all credibility once i question that denom, because not everyone has the legalistic religious authority to question it.

>>638728

>Alberto Rivera

>Ex Jesuit in any form

How to kill your credibility in ten seconds, by anon

According to the Cornerstone exposé,[1] Rivera had a 'history of legal entanglements' including fraud, credit card theft, and writing bad checks. Warrants had been issued for his arrest in New Jersey and Florida, and he was wanted by the Spanish police for 'swindles and cheats'. While in the U.S. in 1967, he claimed to be collecting money for a Spanish college, which never received this money. The details of his religious claims changed over time. For example, in 1964 he claimed that he had left the Catholic Church in July 1952. Rivera later put the date at March 20, 1967 - an almost 15 year discrepancy. Despite this second claim of conversion from Catholicism in March 1967, Rivera was still promoting Catholicism in a newspaper interview of August that same year. Although supposedly placed involuntarily in the sanatorium where he claimed to have nearly been murdered in 1965 and held there for three months, he gave the date of his release as September 1967. This leaves a period of more than a year unaccounted for in Rivera's narrative.

The document exhibited by Rivera to prove his status as a Catholic priest was fraudulent. The Catholic Church denies his claim of having been a Jesuit priest, or another claim that he was a bishop. He had only one sister in London. She was not a nun, and she did not live in a convent, so the claim that his sister the nun nearly died in a convent in London was problematic. In an employment form dated 1963, Rivera stated he was married to Carmen Lydia Torres, and the couple had two children in the U.S. In his narrative, Rivera claimed that he was a priest living in Spain in 1963.

Cornerstone also questioned Rivera's claim to various degrees, including three doctorates (Th.D., D.D., and Ph.D.), reporting that his known chronology did not allow enough time to have completed these degrees. Rivera allegedly admitted that he had received these degrees from a non accredited entity sometimes referred to as a diploma mill located in the state of Colorado.

>>638754

>Not even getting into the fact that Rome incorporated than subverted a couple hundred years after Christianity was already a thing.

<*Laugh with Ignatius and Polycarp*

>>638677

- Yes, someone can believe false propostions about God or how to seek him and still be meaningfully said to be seeking God. Peter Kreeft gives among the standard arguments for the existence for God, the "argument from Bach," which is basically if there is no God, how could the sublime music of Bach exist. That might sound stupid, especially if you're not a musician, but the point is that even something like music points to transcendent qualities, and moves people to conversion more often than you might expect. For people who practice false religions, it might not avail them of salvation, but it that doesn't mean that they are not seeking after God (even if they misunderstand God), and in some cases they may even come to genuine conversion.

Also, as an aside, Buddhists do not worship a man Buddha. If they view him as just a man, they do not worship him, and those who do worhip the Buddha (or multiple Buddhas) view the Buddha as a divine figure, not just a man.

- There's nothing wrong with "mysticism." Have you read anything that St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote?

- If you want to split hairs, what Francis implied in that sentence was that God loves the "existence" of that person, which is an objective good even for the most evil person, not their homosexual inclinations or any homosexual acts.

- You are reading too much into words that were likely either off the cuff or not prepared with much thought. Again, he didn't say that God was unable to do everything, he said that God was not a magician with a magic wand able to do everything. He does not say that God cannot do everything, but not as a magician with a magic wand. The intent is not to deny God's omnipotence, but to affirm God's use of secondary causes. And in this quotation, I suspect that the English translation is not a great representation of the original Italian.

>The term ekklsia was used before the Christian era, before the greek translation of the bible it was qahal to mean an assembly, not a building. If i'm wrong can you show me where in the bible it refers to a building?

Did I ever say that the Church is a building? The Church is a body of people, those who belong to Christ throughout the world, and can be outside or inside. However, the Church is a visible, not hidden, body and it is hierarchical with different roles and positions of authority.

>But i still personally don't hate Catholics, i am trying to understand them.

If you want to understand Catholics, instead of parsing cryptic newspaper quotes from Pope Francis, you would be better off reading the writings of the saints.