#anticatholicism

[victusinveritas]

[apenitentialprayer]

So anti-Catholics will literally make anything up to make us look crazy, won’t they?

[lily-of-christ]

Oh, Russian Orthodox met non-Christians for tolerance? Well, nevermind. Long ago. Totally not a heresy. Only anathemised Rome is guilty of heresy and spreading the message of the Antichrist in the world. They are rightfully called out by the world for the heaviness of their sin. Papacy is of the Antichrist. Anathema on Catholics. Now, look at our aesthetics that Rome is lacking. Become Orthodox.

[adaeyzjha]

God.

I struggle with the belief in god.

I will NEVER follow the Bible.

I do not believe in Jesus Christ or that story.

I see god as a higher supernatural being/all knowing power or an immensely wisely perfected, pure, and intelligent version of myself.

It’s more of an “It” instead of a “He.”

I don’t think I should call it a “He” because it’ll adhere to societal views of western adopted Catholicism/Christianity. For all I know, she could be black. So I don’t associate any race or gender to it.

[victusinveritas]

Really bringing the 1920s KKK hits back.

[apenitentialprayer]

Today I learned that there are, in fact, still some Lutherans who view the Papacy as the Antichrist - specifically, WELS Lutherans.

[apenitentialprayer]

John Milton, Limbo, and Anti-Catholicism

As Satan flies towards earth, he must travel through the vast expanse of space; it is here, in the emptiness, and “not in the neighb’ring moon, as some have dreamed” (IV.459) that the half-damned will one day inhabit. Some background information; as long as baptism has been considered essential to salvation, there has been a question of what happened to those who died without baptism. One solution to this dilemma was the articulation of the concept of Limbo, a place in which rested the souls of those who did not reach Heaven but were not quite bad enough for Hell. Popular Christian thought has shifted away from this idea, but it was very much alive in the Catholic circles of Milton’s time. John Milton embraces this idea, it seems, after a fashion; it is in this void that the half-formed will inhabit “till final dissolution” (IV.457a). He mentions ‘traditional’ inhabitants, like the souls of miscarried babies and the mentally handicapped; he includes extinct monsters and the haunting spirits of the Nephilim; and, among these “embryos [and] idiots” are... “eremites and friars, / White, black, and grey, with all their trumpetry” (474-475). Among the souls of humans that Milton would have considered only half-formed are the souls of Christians that Milton would have considered only half-formed! Catholics are idolators, in Milton’s eyes, unsaved individuals who don’t even realize just how un-Christian they really are. And John Milton takes a kind of glee in using their own imagery and beliefs in criticizing them. Why is all of this in space? Because the Catholics, “sure of Paradise, [...] pass the planets seven, and pass the fixt, / And that chrystalline sphere whose balance weighs / The trepidation talk’d, and that first-mov’d” (478b, 481-483). In other words, the souls of Catholics, under the impression they are saved, are heading towards Heaven. They are cut short, though, and John Milton uses another common Catholic image to do so: the idea of Saint Peter at the gates. Catholics, seeing Peter as first Pope and holder of the keys of the Kingdom [Matthew 16:17-18], sometimes picture Peter as standing at the gates of Heaven, ready to let them in. Not Milton’s Peter, however: he stands guard, and as the Catholics approach, a gust of wind “blows them transverse, ten thousand leagues awry” (488). Milton takes special delight in describing the Limbo that idolatrous Catholics will inhabit, a “Paradise of Fools” filled with papal bulls, indulgences, reliquaries, sacramentals, and rosaries, not to mention the many souls of the clergy and Catholic devout (476-497). It’s a clever use of Catholic ideas and symbolism to attack Catholicism. Although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little incensed at the time, this creative type of polemics is probably the most interesting to read.

[apenitentialprayer]

Queens, New York, July 10th, 2020. I am seething. I pass this statue on my way to school every day. This is right outside a high school seminary. Do penance, ask God for forgiveness for whoever did this.