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Message Subject Catholicism is filled with witchcraft and evil!
Poster Handle Anonymous Coward
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chrissie, professing her "church of one" is going to explain the history of Catholicism. But, Jesus
said He would never leave His Church in Matthew 16:18-19?

In your "church of one" it's easy. You get to pick the
day to go to Church, that is if you go, to keep God's Commandment. Can't give a number, the Protestants have renumbered the Commandments and will object. You've chosen Saturday. You forget Scripture, the reason, God has changed that day to Sunday. We are in the New Covenant.
 Quoting: Anonymous Coward 1431202


protestants changed them, is that what you have been taught?? here they are, the Hebrew catholic and protestant commandments, campared, can you spot the differences????...


...protestant and hebrews both kept the second commandment as it was. But hwere is it in the catholic church? Oh right, it has vanished. Why? Because the catholic church decided to adopt idol worship and statue worship into their dogma. they couldnt keep that commandment after that.
the protestants did not count the hebrew first commandment as a commandment because it did not actually command anything. they say the second commandment as containing two seperate commandments, and numbered them thusly.
 Quoting: chrissiel123


No, I said "renumbered" Your protest of "idol worship" to
explain the difference isn't true. Thank you Jimmy Akin,
Catholic Apologist for your explanation, it is clear and
a help.

Let me ask you chrissie, you sound pretty happy about agreeing with the Hebrew, to come against Catholicism, why do you not follow the Jewish belief in a place of purgation after death, Purgatory?

+ + +


The Abbreviation of the Ten Commandments

For a couple of reasons, Christians have historically aided memorization of the Decalogue by using an abbreviation of the commandments. Thus the <Catechism of the Catholic Church> notes:

Catechism paragraph 2065 Ever since St. Augustine, the Ten Commandments have occupied a predominant place in the catechesis of baptismal candidates and the faithful. In the fifteenth century, the custom arose of expressing the commandments of the Decalogue in rhymed formulae, easy to memorize and in positive form. They are still in use today. The catechisms of the Church have often expounded Christian morality by following the order of the Ten Commandments.

By nature, an abbreviation must leave out certain material, and since the Church has most typically used the Augustinian division of the Decalogue, the section of the Decalogue which says:

"You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Gets abbreviated to:

"You shall have no other gods before me.

This abbreviation has led anti-Catholics to virtually explode with rage, declaring that the Catholic Church has "hidden" or "removed" from the Ten Commandments the prohibition of idolatry. This assertion stems from two sources: (1) their misinterpretation of the idolatry command as a prohibition of all religious images and (2) their intense hostility toward the Catholic Church.

However, the falsity of the charge can easily be shown by pointing out that:

1. Luther himself abbreviated the no false gods/no idols commandment this way.

2. Jews—who today are even more opposed to religious representations than Protestants—abbreviate this command in this way.

3. Protestants themselves, even those who separate the two parts of the command, abbreviate them for catechetical purposes, showing that catechetical abbreviation is perfectly fine in principle and is in no way an attempt to "hide" or "remove" any of the Ten Commandments.

4. Teaching the faith to others, especially children, <requires> an abbreviation of the Ten Commandments for easy memorization since they are otherwise a very long block of material to memorize, longer than any of the commonly recited creeds. It would take a <great> deal of effort to memorize the Ten Commandments in unabbreviated form. And while God certainly wants each Christian to <know> the Ten Commandments, he certainly does not expect every Christian (including the billions of illiterate ones in world history) to <memorize> them in unabbreviated form. That is <not> an essential Christian duty, and thus Luther, the Jews, and Protestants in general have used abbreviations to aid in memorization.

5. Another reason—besides their sheer length—for abbreviating the Ten Commandments is that they contain a lot of historical material that is simply not directly applicable to modern Gentile Christians. Thus God tells the ancient, Jewish audience that he is the Lord, "who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Ex. 20:2), that they must honor (lit., "glorify") their parents so "that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you" (Ex. 20:12), and that "You shall remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out thence with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day" (Deut. 5:15). Besides these, there are also numerous cultural-historical references which no longer apply to the overwhelming majority of Christians today—such as having male and female slaves, cities with gates and walls, oxen, asses, and fields—while they did apply to what might be called "the Hebrew middle class" in ancient Palestine.

6. Finally, the fact the Church is not trying to "hide" or "remove" any of Ten Commandments by abbreviating them in the memorization formula is indicated by the fact that <everywhere else> the Church uses them in <unabbreviated> form. They are there, in all their unabbreviated glory, in every Catholic Bible, including the Vulgate, which was used for a thousand years before the Protestant Reformation, as well as in all the vernacular translations of Scripture before and since the appearance of Protestantism. They are read out unabbreviated during the Scripture readings at Mass (and always have been). And, finally, when catechetics is done and people are taught the Ten Commandments, they are always read and shown the unabbreviated form before being asked to learn the memorization formula.

In short, there is simply no basis whatsoever to the charge that the Church is trying to "hide" or "remove" any of the Ten Commandments. Rather, the Church is trying to make them easier to memorize and thus help people learn and internalize them better. One may well ask in which communion an average, catechized person is more likely to know the Ten Commandments by heart. Is a catechized Catholic more likely to be able to name the commandments in order, or is a average, catechized Protestant more likely to be able to name them in order? Which communion <really> stresses the Ten Commandments more in its catechesis? The group that says it is a mortal sin to violate them or the group that is more prone to say, "That is just Old Testament. Today we have grace"?


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