Take the Scriptures with a grain of salt

[Spiderman]

An Agreement with the Catholic Church

Catholics did a lot to save Jews as well.

Even Pope Pius the 12th who people call "Hitler's Pope" helped save hundreds of thousands of Jews
860,000 Lives Saved - The Truth About Pius XII & the Jews

 

[Deeje]

Catholics did a lot to save Jews as well.

Even Pope Pius the 12th who people call "Hitler's Pope" helped save hundreds of thousands of Jews
860,000 Lives Saved - The Truth About Pius XII & the Jews

You might want to read about those who openly opposed Hitler and refused the do the salute.
From the same site.

Jehovah's Witnesses in the Holocaust

 

[Riders]

They split hairs on which bible to read bible is contradictory and considering the bibles of old like the King James bible of 1600 thats on display of in England is shockingly different then our KIng James suggests to me that Christianity is not the true religion.

 

[metis]

An Agreement with the Catholic Church

I have long been fully aware of that but what you have done is to conflate what that agreement was about and why the CC was willing to strike it.

Contrary to what you wrote, it did not involve the CC in any way endorsing or supporting the NAZI's but had to do with the church trying to decide whether to have the curia and the pope stay at the Vatican or to move temporarily into a safer haven. With this agreement, the Church stayed out of politics (you should be able to relate to that, right Deeje?) under the agreement that the NAZI's wouldn't take over the Vatican or attack the churches.

As it turned out, the pope did indeed give statements condemning both the war and the various atrocities being done but he didn't use names. However, anyone back then with an IQ higher than a turnip would have been able to figure out which elements he was referring to.

Therefore, it simply is untrue that the Church endorsed the NAZI's, and also let me remind you that the NAZI's destroyed many Catholic churches, imprisoned many priests, bishops and nuns, and also executed many of them. After the war was over, NAZI documents showed that after the "Final Solution" was complete, the next plan was the eradication of the Catholic Church in Europe.

So, the idea that the CC somehow endorsed the NAZI cause is patently false. Remember, I studied the Holocaust in Poland and Israel back in 1991, being sponsored by the Holocaust Memorial Center, and I taught a 3-week unit on it in my poli sci course. While doing that, our team talked with both political and religious leaders in both Poland and Israel, and the above is just a small part of a much larger picture.

 

[metis]

You might want to read about those who openly opposed Hitler and refused the do the salute.
From the same site.

Jehovah's Witnesses in the Holocaust

If my memory is correct, I think it was about 30% or so of JW men that, when drafted into the military, complied. However, to the credit of JW's, that is a significantly lower figure than with all other religious groups.

 

[metis]

I pointed to the Catholic Church because of its public record of supporting Hitler....Protestants did not expose the slaughter nor did they oppose Hitler either.

As mentioned, this is patently false.

There was no "Pope" in the first century

He wasn't called "pope" back then but was the head of the Roman congregation as being the "Bishop of Rome" (obviously I'm using English words).

But the larger point you keep on missing, and I frankly think you do this intentionally, is that the process of the early church moving as an organized unit is very clearly spelled out in the Bible, especially Acts and some of the epistles and especially in Paul's letters (his references to there being only "one body").
I've connected you to links from non-Catholic sources, such as Wiki, and yet you keep coming back and writing falsehoods like the above. Even if one were to dispute which "pope" was which and when, the fact remains that the church saw itself as being one and that the Twelve led that church and then appointed others to replace them, and it's right smack dab found in your Bible.

 

[metis]

BTW, as WWII ground on, Hitler found his greatest resistance in Catholic-majority Germany and also Catholic-majority countries. Over his last two years, Hitler would not attend any public appearances in Bavaria because of possibly being assassinated.

 

[exchemist]

As mentioned, this is patently false.

He wasn't called "pope" back then but was the head of the Roman congregation as being the "Bishop of Rome" (obviously I'm using English words).

But the larger point you keep on missing, and I frankly think you do this intentionally, is that the process of the early church moving as an organized unit is very clearly spelled out in the Bible, especially Acts and some of the epistles and especially in Paul's letters (his references to there being only "one body").
I've connected you to links from non-Catholic sources, such as Wiki, and yet you keep coming back and writing falsehoods like the above. Even if one were to dispute which "pope" was which and when, the fact remains that the church saw itself as being one and that the Twelve led that church and then appointed others to replace them, and it's right smack dab found in your Bible.

True, but I think it only fair to point out that the bishop, or Patriarch, of Rome in the very early church was just one of several authorities. I think I recall there were patriarchs in Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and Jerusalem, as well as in Rome. (In fact there is still a Coptic pope in Alexandria, if I'm not mistaken.)

So to assert there was "no pope" in the c.1st, in the sense of no acknowledged, single authority, seems to me at least an arguable proposition. According to MacCulloch's "History of Christianity" it seems to have been a bishop of Rome called Stephen who, in 256 AD, first invoked the Gospel quotation "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church", to cement his authority.

Later, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), Pope Leo's "Tome" was put forward as authoritative concerning the Nestorian dispute about the natures of Christ, creating a schism between Chalcedonian Christians and the others who did not accept it. So the pope of Rome became more and more the single leader of the Latin church, but at the expense of separation from those who would not accept his leadership.

It seems impossible to pin down a date at which the papacy as we know it took final shape.

 

[metis]

True, but I think it only fair to point out that the bishop, or Patriarch, of Rome in the very early church was just one of several authorities. I think I recall there were patriarchs in Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and Jerusalem, as well as in Rome. (In fact there is still a Coptic pope in Alexandria, if I'm not mistake

Yes and no. Each local congregation had it's own "overseer" ("bishop"), but by the end of the 1st century, the general church realized that it had to retain a more centralized leadership or the church would fragment into small pieces (local jurisdictions) with literally nothing being organized at any level, thus Paul's teaching that there must only be "one body" would be impossible to achieve.

Because of this, and because of Peter and Paul being martyred in Rome, it was decided that this is where that "authority" should reside. Where we see it in writing is Ignatius' letter to Clement stating as such, which was written around the turn of the century.

Now, as you correctly imply above, the power of the Bishop of Rome was more of a "leader amongst equals", thus the Bishop of Rome had no real binding power on the others. But yet there was that general recognition of there needing to be such a centralized leader, although some of the churches in further out areas pretty much became more run on their own, such as the Thomasite churches in India, that included varying teachings and also even different canons.

Even some Protestant theologians have come to accept that had this rallying around the informal leadership from Rome not taken place, the survival and success of Christianity would be very questionable. Martin Marty (Lutheran) has been one of them.

 

[metis]

According to MacCullogh's "History of Christianity" it seems to have been a bishop of Rome called Stephen who, in 256 AD, first invoked the Gospel quotation "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church", to cement his authority.

Exactly, which is sorta funny in that it took the church that long to put 2 and 2 together. It's quite possible that Jesus play-on-words eluded them, or that maybe some noticed but never got listened to. Remember that the key word ("Kephas") to that apparent play-on-words was actually in Aramaic and not Greek, and the church moved out of eretz Israel and was increasingly run by gentiles who maybe didn't understand the Aramaic. In Greek, there has to be a differentiation between "Petros" and "petra" because of the use of gender in that language.

 

[Spiderman]

@metis, you never cease to amaze me.

You do a much better job than me or so many Catholic apologists.

Sorry for more flattering, but I can't help but at least attempt to give due props