Showing posts with label Protestants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Protestants. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Israel Withdraws Protestant Broadcaster's License Over Proselytism


Homepage of Shelanu TV, a Protestant television station that has had its broadcasting license withdrawn in Israel.

(Tel Aviv) The Christian television station is called Shelanu TV and, according to its own statements, was “wonderfully” granted a license to broadcast its program in Israel via cable. Shelanu TV started broadcasting on April 29, 2020, but the problems began after only a few days.

Shelanu TV produces its program in Hebrew. However, the crux of the matter from the very first broadcast days was that the television channel, according to the accusation, wanted to convert the Jews to Christianity.The television station belongs to the American company God TV and is Protestant and pro-Israeli. Nevertheless, there were complaints in the past two months, then protests against the broadcaster. It was accused of proselytism.

The discomfort became a political scandal when the station's director, Ward Simpson, emphasized the "importance" that viewers should convert to Christ.

The Israeli broadcasting agency announced to Shelanu TV on June 25 that the broadcasting license had been withdrawn. The drastic measure was justified by the fact that the broadcaster addressed primarily the Jews and not the Christians of Israel.

God TV claims to reach 300 million viewers worldwide by sharing the Gospel in numerous countries on every continent.

Proselytism is not fundamentally prohibited in Israel, at least not entirely. Officially, the law only provides for a ban on minors unless the parents have given their consent.

Shelanu TV describes the cancellation of its license as "unprecedented" and complains of "overt religious discrimination". After the media had already reported on the move by the Israeli authorities on June 28, it was confirmed by the broadcaster yesterday.


Text: Andreas Becker 
Image: Shelanu TV (screenshot)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

AMDG

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Dialog With the Lutheran World Federation at the Cost of Catholic Identity




Pope Francis with Munip Jounan, President of the Lutheran World
Federation on 31 October, 2016 in Lund.


With "Joint Declaration" of Lund, Pope Francis has signed a protestant document on 31 October 2016. In this way he brought the Protestants an ecumenical gift for the Lutheran Jubilee which he put in place of essential dimensions of  Catholic Church identity.
A guest contribution by Hubert Hecker.
October 31, 2016 is certainly considered the eve of the Protestant Reformation Jubilee. On that date Pope Francis traveled to the Swedish city of Lund. The Lutheran World Federation had been founded in 1947.  There are 145 Lutheran communities with 70 million Protestants are members included in this umbrella organization. In Lund, Pope Francis signed a "Joint Declaration" for the Catholic Church and Munip Jounan for the Lutheran World Federation.

Two texts in contradiction

In the introduction,
  • That "we begin with the memorial of 500 years of Reformation."
  • Furthermore, "we deplore before Christ that Lutherans and Catholics have wounded the visible unity of the Church . ...
  • Many members of our communities yearn to receive the Eucharist in a meal as a concrete expression of full unity . ...
  • If we commit ourselves to move from conflict to fellowship, we do this as part of the one body of Christ , into which we have all been incorporated through baptism. ... "
According to the Catholic catechism, believers are introduced into the Church through the sacrament of baptism as members of the body of Christ. According to the dogmatic Council document, Lumen Gentium No. 8 , the "Church" and "Body of Christ" are to be understood as follows: Jesus Christ wrote "His holy Church ... here on earth as a visible structure, and bears it as such unceasingly. ... The only complex reality - the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church ... " is the society equipped with hierarchical organs and the mysterious body of Christ, the visible assembly and  spiritual community. This Church is realized in the Catholic Church, led by the successor of Peter and the bishops in communion with him. This does not exclude that there are various elements of sanctification and truth outside their structure. "This is particularly true of the separate sister churches of Orthodoxy and the ecclesial" communities" of Protestantism.

The Ecumenism decree also states that only the Catholic Church has the full abundance of the means of salvation which the Lord has entrusted to Peter and the apostleship to constitute the Church as "the one Christian body on earth, to which all are fully incorporated who are already in some way a part of the people of God" (Unitatis redintegratio, No. 3).

The Pope signed a Protestant statement

Already, on the first close reading of the two published document excerpts, the impression appeared that they were contradictory in essential points. More precisely, the Joint Declaration reflects the Protestant church image, which is contrary to the Catholic understanding of the Church in the Council. It is precisely in the understanding of the Church that the "most serious dogmatic contrast" exists between Lutherans and Catholics, according to Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller in his lecture at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. The differences in questions concerning the Church, office, and sacraments should not be reduced to "striking formulas."
This is exactly what the Joint Declaration of 31 October is.  It seems to be the least common denominator in Church doctrine. However, a Lutheran-style church understanding has emerged. This means a weakening, if not a departure from the Catholic ecclesiology. Accordingly, the Pope has signed a Protestant statement. He brings an ecumenical guest gift to the Protestants at the Lutheran Jubilee, by displacing essential dimensions of the Catholic Church identity.

The EKD emphasizes the ecclesiastical identity of the Protestants ...

The EKD [Evangelische Kirche Deutschland] President Heinrich Bedford-Strohm warned at his Vatican visit in early February: "There should be" no homogenization, which eats one's own. We want to restrain Church dividing identity." (FAZ 7. 2. 2017). The Protestants emphasize their ecclesiastical identity - in contrast to Catholic doctrine. In the Lunder Declaration they have introduced their self-understanding of church. This is not to blame them. But the Pope and his advisers are accused of not having anchored the Catholic, "Church dividing identity" in the Joint Declaration. In so far as the pope signs the Lutheran image of the Church as a common denominator, the pope has permitted the "character" of the Catholic Church to be swallowed down in the supposedly "common," but actually Protestant decline.

... the Pope wants ecumenical dialogue at all costs - even his own identity.

This is shown in the individual statements of the Joint Declaration:
▪What is with the pope as the head of the Catholic Church commemorating the Reformation in the "We" modality? Luther wanted to replace the "devilish" Pope's Church at least in the "German nation" by his new-believing church. The result was the division and separation of his community from the Church.
▪Luther wanted to abolish the Catholic Church "as a visible structure" and replace it with an invisible church of the faithful assembled. Luther's contemporary, the humanist Gerhard Lorich from Hadamar, criticizes the reformer as a demolitionist of the Church. The complaint that "Lutherans and Catholics" had equally "wounded the visible unity of the Church" is wrong on both sides: Luther alone and his followers destroyed the visible church in their sphere of influence by separating themselves with their new ecclesial community. On the other hand, the Pope's self-condemnation is absurd that Catholics have "wounded the visible unity of the Church".
▪According to the doctrine of the Council, the Church founded by Jesus Christ is realized in the Catholic Church with Its sacramental hierarchical character. Luther and his followers did not want a Church in the classical sense but a non-sacramental, new-believing community. But there can be no second apart from the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. That is why the 145 members of the Lutheran World Federation are called and are merely "ecclesial communities".
The Joint Statement speaks of "members of our communities ...". Grammatically, the Catholic Church is also meant.  As a signatory, the Pope thus demoted the Church into one of the many ecclesiastical communities and thereby denied this. If, however, only the Protestant communities which desire a common eucharistic meal are meant, the sentence is a twofold presumption. In the case of their rejection of the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Consecration, and the Transubstantiation, the Lutherans want to receive Communion, and see it as an "expression of full unity."
▪It is a doctrine particular to the Lutherans that all the baptized members of the Protestant communities belong to the Body of Christ. According to apostolic-Catholic doctrine, the baptized are part of the people of God. But they do not constitute the Church in its visible and invisible-spiritual form of the mystical body of Christ. They are outside the Church, into which they should be incorporated for their salvation - according to the Council Decree Unitatis redintegratio .
The Pope and his advisers have the sacred duty of studying the doctrine of the Catholic Church, to take it to heart, and to explain it. This would prevent them from signing questionable new doctrines of the Protestants.
Text: Hubert Hecker
Photo: MiL
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
Link to Katholisches...
AMDG

Friday, December 7, 2012

Sex Abuse is a Bigger Problem With Protestants? You don't say?

Edit: just found this excerpt from Leonard Alt who commented on it and we think he raises an excellent point about the abuse hoax which keeps getting swept under the rug, enjoy and please reuse this information the next time you're confronted by people who still mistakenly think this is primarily a Catholic problem:

I apologize to my Protestant friends who do get it; this is not for you.This is for the few Protestants who don’t know the facts and then  make unfair cheap shots at the Catholic Church.
ROGER ASKED A GOOD QUESTION: IF the Catholic Church was the REAL CHURCH... Why do they PERMIT... Priests & Bishops.... TO MOLEST CHILDREN...?

LENNY ASKS A GOOD QUESTION AS WELL:  If the Protestant Churches were the REAL CHURCH…Why do they PERMIT…Protestant ministers & deacons TO MOLEST CHILDREN… and then criticize Catholics when Protestants have a larger problem in their own churches? 

Three insurance companies in the United States that provide liability coverage for 165,000 Protestant churches revealed data to the Associated Press that they typically receive 260 reports every year of children being sexually abused by Protestant clergy or other staff.

If these and the Catholic statistics are accurate, then on average, there are 32 more sex abuse cases per year in the Protestant church. As Father Jonathan stated in his news story, “The mainstream media has all but ignored the recent Associated Press report (April 30,2010 Karen Stephenson).



I have to admit I was surprised at a few of my Protestant friends who still wanted to stand in judgment of the Catholic Church even after they learned there was a bigger problem in Protestant Christianity.  They are acting like modern day Pharisees pointing out the sin of others while not acknowledging their own.
The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, , “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous –or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week, and I pay tithe on my whole income” (Lk 18:11-12).

The Evangelicals were busy confessing the sin of Catholics rather than their own sin.   But why do they do it when Jesus spoke against this?  The answer is simple; they were using it as a negative recruiting tool to get people out of the Catholic Church and into the Evangelical Churches.  In fact one Baptist minister said they wanted to gobble up all the Catholics they could get because of the scandal.   I am sure this worked to some degree more or less, but what happens when these people find out there is an even bigger problem in Evangelical Churches.

Even the mighty Jewish talk show host Michael Savage got on the band wagon and lambasted the Church for all those scandals.  It wasn’t long after that and one of Michael’s, Jewish rabbis was picked up in a sting operation where he was caught on tape soliciting underage girls.   This seemed to quiet Michael down a bit.

Roger and others will no longer be using pedophilia as a negative recruiting tool.  They will be too busy explaining to people in their own churches why they got out bad information and why their churches are having such a big problem.

And furthermore there is a problem in the secular schools that could be a hundred times larger then in Christianity and I can substantiate this statement.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

In the Protestant Church: Catholic Diocese Praises Womens' Ordination in Children's Story

Editor: Reminds us of the old saying, "we'll get to you through your children", or the Jesuit adage, "give us a boy till seven, and I'll show you the man" The following was translated from the website, "The Catholic Church in Germany" put out by the German Bishops, thank you very little. It's a children's book which features a visit by two friends of different confessional backgrounds to each others churches.


Lena is protestant. She and Laura are good friends. Last Sunday Lena asked: "Would you like to go with me to Protestant Service?" And Laura said yes.

There was a lady pastor here


Laura and Lena sit in the first bench. The organ began and a woman in a long black robe entered the church. "Is that a nun?", whispered Laura. "No, that is our Pastoress", answered Lena. Laura was astonished and wanted to know: "May women be Pastoresses with you?" "Yes", said Lena, "and they may also mary and have children."

No Sign of the Cross

The Pastoress announced what was new in the church community. Then the organ began to play the entrance hymn: "Where two or three gather in my name, then I am among them." "I know that!", exclaimed Laura. And she sang enthusiastically along. Laura wondered to herself. For the differences of the Services in the Protestant church didn't differ much with the Catholic Church. Actually, she liked some of the differences.

The Profession of Faith [sic]

The community stood up and prayed the Profession of Faith. Laura prayed with. Except for one single word, everything was the same. Catholics pray: "I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church..." in the Protestant church it goes "...the holy christian church..."


The Lord's Supper

.Laura learned that the Protestant Christians like those in the Catholic Church go to the altar and receive a Host. Lena exlained:"For us it isn't called Communion, rather The Lord's Supper. And we don't only receive the bread, rather we drink the win or juice from the chalice." Laura was careful to notice, as the Pastoress said the words of institution that Jesus had spoken at the last supper: "This is my body..." - "This is my blood...". "Just like us", thought Laura. Actually, at the consecration the Pastoress didn't raise the chalice and bread up. And there was no bell.

The Differences

After the Service the Pastoress stood at the church door. She gave everyone leaving a warm shake of the hand and wished them a beautiful Sunday. Laura smiled to her. The Pastoress spoke to her: "I don't think I know you." "I am really Catholic," answered Laura. "But today I'm with Lena here. She is actually my friend." Then Laura asked the Pastoress about the differences between Communion and the Lord's Supper. The Pastoress explained: "Bread and Wine are for us really the body and blood of Christ. But first then, only when someone has eaten the bread and drunk the wine or grape juice. And also only then, when he believes in it." Finally the bread is really ordinary bread. And the chalice has also normal wine or grapjuice. In the Catholic Church bread and wine are really the body and blood of Christ. And when consecrated Hosts are remaining, they are placed in a tabernacle." "I knew that", said Laura. "It is completely gold and looks like a treasure chest." "You may gladly return, if you still have questions", said the Pastoress. "Great", said Laura and departed. But on the next Sunday Lena will come for the first time to the Catholic Church. And then she can meet the Catholic Pastor, Locher, and pester him with questions. That pleased Laura and Lena very much. "


Illustration: Susanne Mix
Von Margret Nußbaum

H/t: summorumpontificum.de Where the above was given as an example of Protestantic relativism in connection with Father Finnegan of the Hermeutic of Continuity sojourn to Rome where he writes the following in his report on October 29th :


Yesterday I was given the altar of St Michael the Archangel for Mass at St Peters, and this morning I was pleased to be able to use the altar of St Pius X. Things have changed a lot since Summorum Pontificum there are now plenty of young priests around the Basilica first thing in the morning celebrating according to the usus antiquior. I like to go around a little before saying Mass and attend the consecration of various other Masses before saying my own.

So, the protestant relativism hiding out in German children's lit wasn't a lost cause after all.