According to Catholic Answers, Protestantism is Heresy

Here's a tract offered by Catholic Answers: The Great Heresies. The tract outlines all the popular heresies, like, Gnosticism, Montanism, Sabellianism, Arianism, Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, to name a few... and included in their list is that dastardly sect, Protestantism.

Here's one of the key points:

To commit heresy, one must refuse to be corrected. A person who is ready to be corrected or who is unaware that what he has been saying is against Church teaching is not a heretic.

Depending on which defender of Rome you're talking to, you may be OK believing your Protestant heresy. I've come across some Romanists that say you are only committing heresy if you know that Rome is the true church, but still choose to believe something contrary to what she says. So according to these folks I'm not committing heresy because I don't believe Rome is the true church. Then there are those zealous defenders of Rome who long for the old days and realize the absurd qualifier just described is just that... absurd.

It's interesting to watch one of the less-ecumenical defenders of Rome on the Catholic Answers Apologetics forum clean up the ecumenical mess of recent Roman history:

That's for people who are absolutely clueless. They have to be innocently ignorant of this topic to qualify. It doesn't cover those who are NOT innocently ignorant. i.e. put little effort to learn the truth, or refuses to learn, or pretend to be ignorant, or are just hard of heart, or just plain stubborn, ( 1791 , 1859 ) they are NOT considered ignorant but culpable for their state. That's why the CCC states that Once someone "knows" 846 then they are required to act. And this knowlege is easy to find today. It's never been easier. (source)

For clarification Protestants are NOT the Catholic Church, no matter their stripe. Protestantism regardless the stripe, is listed in The Great Heresies "for those who knowingly and deliberately (that is, not out of innocent ignorance) commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine) or schism (separating from the Catholic Church and/or joining a schismatic church), no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in Catholic unity". We talked about the following just the other day. For those born outside the Catholic Church, aren't guilty of schism. But when they come to the knowledge of the Catholic Church, her founder, and necessity for being in the Catholic Church for salvation, would refuse to enter the Catholic Church, THEN they become guilty of that sin. Their Ignorance is no longer innocent. (source)

Luther Throwing James in the Fire, the Canon, and Heresy

Further musing from the Catholic Answers Forum:

Today, 11:14 am

TertiumQuid  Regular Member   Join Date: May 19, 2004 Location: New Jersey Posts: 741 Religion: Reformed

Re: Protestant Canon Quote: Originally Posted by Topper17  The throwing in the fire comment was not disrespectful? If not then what could be? There are at least two sources I'm aware of in which Luther is said to have wanted "to throw James in the fire." The first statement is a Tabletalk reference, which means Luther didn't write it, but is something he is reported to have said. The second statement comes from a 1542 writing in which it isn't clear at all that the actual book of James is in question, but rather a statue of Saint James. Regardless, the statements reflect Luther's frustration with his catholic critics who relied on James 2. Where I would fault Luther here is not for his fire / stove comment (which is nothing more than polemics), but rather the ease in which he gave up on the consistent harmonizing of James with Paul as a response to the critics. In the same context of the second statement, Luther admits to having interpreted James 2 previously according to the sense of the rest of scripture. In fact, one can actually find Luther presenting the typical protestant harmonization of James and Paul. Quote: Originally Posted by Topper17  There was relatively little disagreement on the canon until the Reformation, when Luther chose to question literally everything, showing very little deference to all those who had come before him. I've seen this particular topic debated endlessly over the years. As far as I can tell in terms of the Intertestamental books. there were two traditions running concurrently through the church, one accepting them, one rejecting them (I've seen both traditions argued as the prevalent one). This is why there were a group of excellent scholars at Trent arguing to exclude them. In regard to the New Testament books, I would agree that there probably was 'relatively little disagreement." What I think provoked 16th Century theologians like Cajetan, Luther, Erasmus, etc. was the recovery of Greek and Hebrew. Cajetan for instance, came under heavy attack from the Paris theologians for relegating the Latin Vulgate as inferior to the Hebrew and Greek. Cajetan questioned the authenticity of a number of New Testament Bible passages, and in his criticism he invoked Jerome's authority as support. To sum it up, the reason for questioning the New Testament canon during the 16th Century had a lot to do with the recovery of the original Biblical languages. Certainly Luther went a step further and attached a theological criteria, but once again there were no dogmatic parameters in place to prevent this. Quote: Originally Posted by Topper17  In addition, the Church grants those rights to the Doctors which it sanctions. Luther WAS sanctioned by the Church as a Doctor of Sacred Scripture. But then, beginning with his being released from his vows as a monk by Staupitz in 1518 (I think), and culminating with his excommunication from the Church, Luther no longer was a Catholic sanctioned Theologian. He was judged to be an unrepentant heretic and as such, from the time of his excommunication, he no longer had any rights a Catholic, not even as a lay Catholic. First, Trent never condemned Luther by name. That is, there is no infallible dogmatic pronouncement against Luther. In other words, a Catholic has no official judgment on Luther to which he is bound. This is why there is such a thing as Catholic Luther scholarship. Second, Jimmy Akin has an interesting article called "Identifying Infallible Statements." In that article he points out that Exsurge Dominae was not infallible, nor was Luther condemned for violating infallibly defined dogmas. Third, the Edict of Worms was decreed by Charles V deeming Luther a heretic, but to my knowledge, the statements of Charles V are not considered infallible by the Catholic church. Pope John Paul II exhorted his hearers one time to "meditate, in truth and Christian charity" on the Reformation period. This suggests to me that the same sort of allowances made for the theological errors of Erasmus and Cajetan could be extended to Luther on the extent of the canon. John Paul went on to say that the event of the Reformation can be "understood and represented better" when those of us in later centuries can look back and reflect on what happened What JonNC has been demonstrating is that if one takes the time to look at the actual historical situation of Luther's canon, he was certainly not alone. To allow Cajetan and Erasmus a free pass while condemning Luther on this issue could, in the minds of some people, demonstrate double standards or an underlying unjustified bias. "Where polemics have clouded the view, the direction of this view must be corrected and independently by one side or the other."- John Paul II on Luther and the Reformation

Clever satire exposing heresies of the Trinity

I thought this was clever and funny:



Since the Trinity is unique and the incarnation of the Son of God is unique, no analogy can fully illustrate the Trinity, or "Trinitas Unitas" or the incarnation and hypostatic union.  (the point made by James White, in his excellent critique of William Lane Craig using the Greek mythology three-headed dog of Cerberus for the Trinity and the modern movie of Avatar as an illustration of the incarnation and hypostatic union of the 2 natures of Christ.

HT:  From a Lutheran blogger.  (John the Lutheran)

Which I discovered by looking at a Conservative Anglican blogger who goes by Cranmer, here.   (Which I discovered by debating Muslims, when the issue came up that churches are dying in England and Muslims with lots of oil wealth from Saudi and Kuwait are buying up old and dead churches. )

About the Cranmer blog:  It is nice to see a conservative Anglican who believes in historic Christianity, and condemns racism, hatred, and bigotry; and also condemns political correctness; and also stands for Christian morality and conservative Christian positions in political matters.  Refreshing!

A very interesting discussion

A discussion between Pastor Saiko Woods (Reformed) and Fredrick Price, Jr. (Word of Faith - Name it Claim it Prosperity Health and Wealth Heresy)  I am grateful for Pastor Saiko Woods diligence and character in seeking to have a respectful discussion with a Word of Faith teacher.  Fred Price, Jr. is to be commended in at least being willing to discuss the issues.

Fredrick Price Jr., son of Fredrick Price, Sr., is the first Word of Faith/ Name it claim it teacher that I have seen who was willing to sit down and discuss theological issues with a Reformed pastor, or even another Evangelical who is not Reformed, but stands against the Word of Faith as a heresy.

I made a few comments:  (I have made a few changes; but not much.)

"Excellent Pastor Saiko - I really enjoyed watching and listening to that entire discussion you had with Fred Price, Jr.

One suggestion - I think at one point Fred Price, Jr. thought you were saying when we are dead in sin before regeneration, that we have no will at all. Reformed theology does not teach that the unregenerate man has no will at all; only that the will is so damaged that it is not able to choose good over evil, & we cannot repent and believe unless God awakens us first.

To help Arminians and folks like F.P, jr. understanding what we mean when we say, God "ordains sin" means - it means that God decided before to allow sin to happen; but God did not do the sin. That helped me.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 3, verse 1, “Of God’s Eternal Decree”

"God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass;yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin,nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 3, verse 1; and London Baptist 1689 Confession of Faith, chapter 3, verse 1.

Fred Price, Sr. made some very disturbing statements in the past - that the Holy Spirit does not want to live in a body with damaged limbs (Quadriplegics) and blindness of the eyes. (Is God glorified through sickness? - audiotape FP605 - quoted in Hank Hanegraaff's Christianity in Crisis, p. 260. He also said a lot of other disturbing things, but that one is the one I think is the most outrageous and cruel."
__________
I do personally think that many, if not all, of the Word of Faith teachers are heretics and they seem to me to be in it just to make money - it seems motivated by greed - like Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, and those like them seem to be operating from that kind of motivation.   But there does seem to be some Christians who go to these types of churches, but are sincerely unaware that this teaching is heresy.    Then there are many others, who because they want their desires fulfilled, that keep these heretics going by giving to them and listening to them.  2 Timothy 4:3  The false teachers will be judged. (James 3)  But many of the people who keep them going have a part to play in the spread and prevalence of these heresies.  

I saw this by Pastor Saiko Woods tweeting to Dr. James White and asking for his opinion.  This subject is very interesting to me, because I think the Word of Faith movement is one of the most damaging movements within Christianity that is around in recent years.  These heresies and greed and goofiness are being promoted overseas now and being translated into Arabic, Turkish and Farsi and beamed into the Muslim world.  It is very damaging to the believers in Iran, and very confusing to them; and a bad witness to real Muslims.

Because of these heresies and obvious greed, and goofiness, the name of God is being blasphemed among the unbelievers. See Romans 2:24; 2 Samuel 12:14; Isaiah 52:5. 

Addendum:
Early in the discussion, Pastor Saiko Woods mentions this disturbing thing that Leroy Thompson and Creflo Dollar did a while back.  Heresy, goofiness, greed, and sin. 

The Disturbing Greed of the Health and Wealth Heresy

Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Radio is right, this is probably one of the most disturbing things yet from the heretical and greedy Health and Wealth Teachers,(also known as "The Word of Faith Movement", the "Prosperity Gospel", "Name it Claim it' or "positive confession" teaching) In this video, false teachers Leroy Thompson and Creflo Dollar walk and run over the money that people put on the altar and think they can anoint the money with their feet! This video does not show how Leroy Thompson manipulated the people into giving and putting the money on the steps - I saw it months ago, but that video has been removed from You Tube. It seems they are embarrassed by it. It showed Leroy Thompson leading the audience in a claiming exercise by saying (shouting) several times that "money is coming to me" and pulling their greedy hands and arms into themselves, (how selfish! James 4:3-4 condemns this) - by giving to the heretics' "ministry", or tithing to this so called "church", these preachers manipulate people to give by promising them that God will give them 100 fold in return. Later, when it doesn't happen, and people question them, they say, "you don't' have enough faith". They learned the false teaching and manipulation tactics from other false teachers like Kenneth Copeland, the late Kenneth Hagin, and the late Oral Roberts. Other false teachers in this movement are Benny Hinn, Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, Jesse Duplantis, Eddie Long, T. D. Jakes, Paul and Jan Crouch of TBN, and many others.

Not only was that the goofiest, weirdest, nuttiest thing I have ever seen; it just oozes with greed and pride, which is part of what 2 Peter warns about in chapter 2.

"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep." (2 Peter 2:1-3 NASB)


". . . Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children; forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet." (2 Peter 2:10-16)

The Hermeneutic system of heretics is very old

Irenaeus around 200 AD described the Gnostic system, which is very similar to the system of modern heretics

I have been watching the latest Harold Camping videos over the last few days at the Ezekiel thirty three 3 You Tube site. [Added: May 24, 2011 - It turns out the guy who did this filming infiltrated into Harold Camping's ministry and this guy does not even believe the Bible at all; much less Camping's false teachings and predictions. wow.] I also also listened again to Dr. White's debates with Harold Camping that are from almost a year ago. At the time I first heard about this guy back around 1988, another guy was also predicting the rapture. I dismissed them easily as nuts, citing in my mind Matthew 24:36, Mark 13:32 and Acts 1:6-8. I have been amazed at all the followers that Camping has, I had no idea that this “movement” was that widespread. I am amazed at all the money that people have wasted on billboards and artwork and cars with professional signs. Truly amazing.

In his debates with Dr. White, Camping just ignored everything that Dr. White said and went on with his own interpretive system, allegory, numerology, subjectivism and connecting different passages together that have nothing to do with each other.

Irenaeus around 200 AD wrote of the Gnostics that did that, grabbing a verse here and connecting it with a verse somewhere else.

Sound Hermeneutics and theology and reading whole chapters and whole books of the Scriptures at a time for context are the great need in local churches.

It is obvious that all those large crowds of people that go to Joel Osteen or Kenneth Copeland or Benny Hinn meetings do not read their Bibles in large sections in context (chapters, paragraphs, books).

What is really ironic is that Camping told everyone years ago that the church age had ended, and that everyone should flee the churches, and yet he has, what appears to be a "church service" there, shown in the videos. (pulpit, audience, etc.)

It is incredible to watch him, and his followers, and to think that they really believe this stuff.


"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. Matthew 24:36 (see also Mark 13:32)

So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, "Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?"
He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

Acts 1:6-8

www.aomin.org (for Dr. White's debates with Harold Camping and other messages on his heresies.)

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1:8:1

In this passage, Irenaeus tells us the Gnostics do 2 things -

1. They gather information from sources other than the Scriptures.


Camping keeps claiming he does not do that (as other heretics also claim); but the way he connects numbers in different passages and "breaking down" the numbers is really outside from Scripture and also from his own mind. He is an outside source, using his strange system of how to connect verses and allegorical and mystical interpretations of numbers.

Chapter VIII.-How the Valentinians Pervert the Scriptures to Support Their Own Pious Opinions.

1. Such, then, is their system, which neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which they boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and, to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavor to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. . . .

2. They Connect different passages together without following the context or argument of either passage.

". . .
In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth. By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions. Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skillful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skillful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king's form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king. In like manner do these persons patch together old wives' fables, and then endeavor, by violently drawing away from their proper connection, words, expressions, and parables whenever found, to adapt the oracles of God to their baseless fictions. We have already stated how far they proceed in this way with respect to the interior of the Pleroma."

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1:8:1

I was amazed again listening to Harold Camping connect "the book" in Daniel 12 with Mark 4:33-34, I Cor. 2:13, and 2 Peter 3:8 and a verse from Genesis 41 and then add his thoughts and connections and "breaking down the numbers" and the repetition of "we know" and "its very clear" and "this means that" and "that number means that" and "only the Bible", etc.

These are the same methods that other heretical groups do, having sources outside of the Scriptures and connecting individual passages that have nothing to do with each other, and ignoring the context of verses.

The Word of Faith (Financial Prosperity and Healing/ Name it Claim it) movement and many on TBN does this. Just some of these false teachers: the late Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Paula White, Joyce Meyer, T. D. Jakes, John Hagee, Joel Osteen, Paul and Jan Crouch, Jesse Duplantis, Marilyn Hickey and Eddie Long. Their other sources came from the "New Thought" of E. W. Kenyon and other positive thinking mind over matter cults; and are their assumptions about positive thinking and the innate power of saying words and formulas; and their wrong ideas about God, that they get from their own greedy desires for money and wealth and success. Not only that, their messages lack citing verses in their context and they just jump from one verse on healing or God's blessing or prosperity or answered prayer in one passage, and jump to another completely different verse and connect them together wrongly. For example, they take a phrase from Romans 4:17, that God "calls into being that which does not exist" and connect it with Ephesians 5:1, "be imitators of God", and then say that we can create our own money, wealth, success, healing by imitating God the same way as God created things out of nothing in Genesis 1, "be, and it became"; and they even say things like "speak words to your wallet; you big fat wallet full of money"; and "body, I take authority over you and speak healing to you right now", etc. They, like Mormons, another cult and false religion, also take Psalm 82:6 and John 10 out of context and say "you are little gods" and you can call things into being which do not exist. It is amazing that so many people actually think that is good teaching.

Same thing that Roman Catholics do about Mary (and other issues), using sources other than the Scriptures (human oral traditions), and seeing her in the arc of the covenant, and connecting her to obscure verses in Ezekiel, etc. as others have pointed out.

Yes, the hermeneutical method of heretics is very old.

Index of recent argumentation regarding the Real Presence as monophysitism

I'd be lying if I said I didn't expect to provoke a lot of anger and vexation over my recent post: Is transubstantiation a Monophysite doctrine? But it was so much fun to write! And it's been even more fun to watch:
1) how fired up certain interlocutors became
2) how bad their arguments generally were
3) how little they actually interacted with the fundamental point - that Jesus, as both God AND man, is not multilocational but is, rather, always in one place at one time
4) how it made bedfellows out of practitioners of otherwise fairly hostile systems, such as Scott Windsor, loyal son of Rome, and Edward Reiss, fairly conservative Lutheran.

This index post is to serve as a collective reference point to see all the conversation that has gone down over this point.
First came Steve Hays' Anti-Incarnational sacramentalism.
I'd had my post written for some time but was waiting for a good time to post it, and figured that I should go ahead and strike while the iron was hot. So then came my post, which has accumulated more than 120 comments.

Scott Windsor added Transubstantiation Question, and I interacted a lot there.
Later he posted Transubstantiation Question II, and I interacted some there as well. Read these if you want a lot of strawmen and a failure on Windsor's part to even understand what I was saying.

And then you can see Matthew Bellisario post barely-relevant quotations from Thomas Aquinas over at his post: For Those Confused About Transubstantiation..., in which combox I interacted some.
As one philosopher (apocryphally) said: if you speak nonsense in Latin, you can write many books; if you speak nonsense in Saxon, you are found out at once.

Perry Robinson aka Acolyte4236 interacted extensively with me in the combox of my post, starting here.

Edward Reiss jumped in with How Jesus' body--even before the resurrection, is not "Just like ours", then Calvin's framing of the question about the Incarnation--i.e. Jesus' body, is flawed, as if I appealed to Calvin or care particularly what he had to say about this issue if it's irrelevant. Find a great deal of interaction there between us.
Later, Jesus as a "Spiritual reality", since it really seems that the monophysitism proponents in this discussion have a hard time admitting that the spiritual is real. Strange for someone who confesses to be a Christian, but you know.
Later, If St. Peter can do it, Jesus' miracles don't tell us anything special about Jesus as a man..., in which he attempts to assert that Jesus' status as God-man makes Him more buoyant, more cooperative with the surface tension of water than my status as regular man makes me.

TurretinFan had One More Response to Edward Reiss.

Finally, Steve Hays had numerous helpful things to say in his posts:
The Styrofoam Jesus, in which he mocks the buoyancy argument.
A Lutheran's unresponsive response
Lutheran cartoons
The Heisenberg compensator
The Real Presence of the Big Mac, a specific response to some of the comments from Perry Robinson, Acolyte4236 in the combox of my post.
Why Lutherans deny the empty tomb, a reductio on the Lutheran view Edward Reiss has been defending (and by extension, the Roman view).

Overall, a very interesting and satisfying exchange. It's good to be Reformed. Sort of funny how I'll be teaching through Eric Svendsen's curriculum on the Lord's Table starting pretty soon in my Sunday School class.

Is transubstantiation a Monophysite doctrine?

CrimsonCatholic and Perry Robinson participated a few months ago in a fairly technical but somewhat interesting discussion at David Waltz's blog.
CrimsonCatholic made a very interesting statement:

The key feature of Chalcedonian theology is that Christ's nature is exactly the same as ours, so what happens to the human nature in Christ happens to everyone who is "in Christ Jesus" (to use St. Paul's term) by grace, including the sharing of the divine glory.

I'd like to ask a few questions, if we're going to take this consistently with the rest of our theology.
So Christ's nature is exactly the same as mine. My nature is human. Part of being human (as opposed to being divine) is to be limited to a particular physical location at any one time, is it not? My body cannot be in more than one place at any one time. That's obvious.

Now, Christ Himself, at the time of His Incarnation, took upon Himself a human nature and a physical body. At the time of His Resurrection, His body became glorified and immortal; He doesn't necessarily have blood anymore, but He retains flesh and physical tangibility, among other properties. He can perhaps walk through walls, or perhaps not; John 20 simply says, "when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, 'Peace be with you.'" Maybe He created a key and let Himself in; maybe He knocked and they let Him in; maybe He passed through the door via "teleportation"; the text does not tell us. Obviously He can perform miracles such as walking on water and perhaps passing through walls, disappearing right in front of two disciples at dinnertime on the road to Emmaus, etc, but we never see Christ in more than one place at any one time.

CCC 1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."

1377 The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist. Christ is present whole and entire in each of the species and whole and entire in each of their parts, in such a way that the breaking of the bread does not divide Christ.

1378 Worship of the Eucharist. In the liturgy of the Mass we express our faith in the real presence of Christ under the species of bread and wine by, among other ways, genuflecting or bowing deeply as a sign of adoration of the Lord. "The Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration, not only during Mass, but also outside of it, reserving the consecrated hosts with the utmost care, exposing them to the solemn veneration of the faithful, and carrying them in procession."

1379 The tabernacle was first intended for the reservation of the Eucharist in a worthy place so that it could be brought to the sick and those absent outside of Mass. As faith in the real presence of Christ in his Eucharist deepened, the Church became conscious of the meaning of silent adoration of the Lord present under the Eucharistic species. It is for this reason that the tabernacle should be located in an especially worthy place in the church and should be constructed in such a way that it emphasizes and manifests the truth of the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

1412 The essential signs of the Eucharistic sacrament are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: "This is my body which will be given up for you. . . . This is the cup of my blood. . . ."

1413 By the consecration the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is brought about. Under the consecrated species of bread and wine Christ himself, living and glorious, is present in a true, real, and substantial manner: his Body and his Blood, with his soul and his divinity (cf. Council of Trent: DS 1640; 1651).

On any given Sunday, or really most any day of the week, Mass is performed at thousands of churches across the globe. On any given Sunday morning, to be sure, the Eucharistic host is transubstantiated in multiple locations, at the same time. How well does this match with the conception of Christ's body's substance? It is supposed to be of human substance, yet here it displays a trait better assigned to divinity, that of omnipresence. Christ's human body, it turns out, is NOT "exactly the same as ours", as I don't think CrimsonCatholic has ever been at two or more places at once. I know I haven't, much as I'd like to be; I could get a lot more accomplished!

And the situation seems to be even worse than that. Take a look at this from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

On the contrary, He continues His Eucharistic Presence even in the consecrated Hosts and particles that remain on the or in the ciborium after the distribution of Holy Communion.

Thus the red candle/light that one often sees perpetually lit on the altar of a Roman church - one or more transubstantiated hosts are still there. The real and substantial body of Jesus Christ is enclosed there. In many hundreds or thousands of churches across the world, simultaneously.

So, taking the doctrine that CrimsonCatholic has expressed and applying it consistently across the board, we run into a serious snag in the doctrine of the Eucharist. It would seem that, if transubstantiation is true, then the RC position leads to a denial of the true human nature of Christ, because the substantial, real human body of Christ is simultaneously in thousands of different places, thus applying a divine trait to Christ's human nature. Not Chalcedonian at all, then; more like Monophysite.

Rome offers a plenary indulgence

I'd like to note this in relation to what took place at the Svendsen-Pacwa debate during the Audience Questions section.
(Edit in green text)
Father Pacwa, answering an audience question...
Question: "Please comment on the view of today's Vatican regarding the selling of indulgences in history."

Pacwa (almost verbatim): "The Vatican hasn't said anythg about selling indulgences b/c it was condemned earlier in the C of Trent. There was abuse of selling of indulgences and the reason that Vatican didn't say anythg was b/c it's not being done."

First of all, that's awesome for our RC friends. In particular I'd love to know why such goodies as plenary indulgences are only granted from time to time rather than all the time. And why the RCC doesn't just go all the way and become Reformed, where the one sacrifice of Christ provides for a true plenary indulgence. As to the former, I wonder if Indulgentiarum Doctrina has anything to say?

In my review, I noted that Fr Peter Stravinskas disagreed w/ Pacwa's assertion, and apparently the Archdiocese of Philadelphia is coming down somewhere near Stravinskas' side as far as I can tell. So I guess here we have a problem between Stravinskas and Pacwa, and it leads to a few questions:

1. What is the difference between buying an indulgence with money and buying one with stuff you do?
2. Is this not demonstrative of disunity among RC clergy? (I know Mateo wouldn't agree that this is a big deal, but he's not the majority opinion so far as I've seen.)

Pretty good stuff. Either way, I hope all the Roman Catholics who can will take advantage. I sure would.
And what good fortune to die just a few hours after hooking one of these dandies!
I'm gonna go ahead and post screen shots of the article here b/c another link I found turned out to be dead just hours after I saw the article that links to it.