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all of the Catholic churches have statues of Jesus and angels and saints
The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) taught that idolatry is committed "by worshipping idols and images as God, or believing that they possess any divinity or virtue entitling them to our worship, by praying to, or reposing confidence in them" (374).
"Idolatry is a perversion of man’s innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who ‘transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God’" (CCC 2114).
The Church absolutely recognizes and condemns the sin of idolatry. What anti-Catholics fail to recognize is the distinction between thinking a piece of stone or plaster is a god and desiring to visually remember Christ and the saints in heaven by making statues in their honor. The making and use of religious statues is a thoroughly biblical practice. Anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know his Bible.
and to know that they go to confession to confess their sins before "Priests".
Luke 16:24: And he (the rich man) called out, "Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame."
Abraham is clearly a "religious leader." And Jesus is not alone in referring to him "father." St. James refers to Abraham as "father" in James 2:21, while St. Paul refers to Abraham as "father" seven times in Romans 4:1-18. If you believe in the inspiration of Sacred Scripture, St. James and St. Paul cannot contradict Jesus in Matthew 23:9.
I John 2:13-14, St. John refers to the leaders of the church in Ephesus to whom he is most likely writing as "fathers" twice. And notice he gives them the title "father."
I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning…
Notice, he does not say they are "fathers" because they are married with children. They are "fathers," spiritually speaking. And they are presumably "on the earth."
In Acts 7:1-2, St. Stephen, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls both Abraham and the elders of Jerusalem "father" in the same breath: And the high priest said, "Is this so?" And Stephen said: "Brethren and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham…"
And in I Corinthians 4:14-15, St. Paul refers to himself as "father": I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
He was using hyperbole (exaggeration to make a point) to show the scribes and Pharisees how sinful and proud they were for not looking humbly to God as the source of all authority and fatherhood and teaching, and instead setting themselves up as the ultimate authorities, father figures, and teachers.
Christ used hyperbole often, for example when he declared, "If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell" (Matt. 5:29, cf. 18:9; Mark 9:47). Christ certainly did not intend this to be applied literally, for otherwise all Christians would be blind amputees! (cf. 1 John 1:8; 1 Tim. 1:15). We are all subject to "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life" (1 John 2:16).
Since Jesus is demonstrably using hyperbole when he says not to call anyone our father—else we would not be able to refer to our earthly fathers as such—we must read his words carefully and with sensitivity to the presence of hyperbole if we wish to understand what he is saying
I am going to release all the Vaticans hidden secrets.
BornOfSin
I am going to release all the Vaticans hidden secrets.
All the coding of the Bible.
All the truth of the Biblical stories.
I would just like to add that goading a person who speaks like the OP into smiting another member probably isn't the safest idea.
With the interwebz being what it is, this is not a good thing to do. I'm not saying the OP is deranged but he's not exactly the garden variety "prophet" we normally have on ATS, either. Let's lay off the "made it through the night alive" talk.
InhaleExhale
Why isn't your suggestion more along the lines of why cant we all agree to disagree, or why cant OP simply brush off any opposition like he does here and there, he doesn't respond to every post, some he dismisses or doesn't read.
Or why not suggest to tone down the hellfire talk for not believing or hearing what OP has to say?
Cuervo
Mostly because you are the obviously sane and mature one. Telling the OP to chill out is sort of pointless and I think you know why. It's a waste of time.
Of course the way he's talking is out of line but he's... you know.
In any case, I enjoyed your challenge to him but I was just saying to maybe not continue poking somebody who might not be in the same emotional and mental category of sanity as the rest of us.