# Refuting Answers to 'Catholic myths'



## MichaelNZ (Apr 8, 2016)

The other day I came across an article on Catholic365.com which supposedly addressed 10 things that Catholics were tired of hearing. Only one was actually a myth, that Catholics can pay their way to heaven. I went to the trouble of answering the article here.


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## Tom Hart (Apr 8, 2016)

Well done. However, under myth no. 3, is it not that Catholics believe the 24 elders to be the deceased saints in heaven offering the prayers of God's people on earth. That's how I understood it as it was explained to me by a Catholic acquaintance.

That said, I think it's curious that Catholics turn to Revelation for justification for much of their doctrine. Revelation might just be the toughest book to interpret, and thus the Catholics think they can twist it more slyly to suit their purposes. For example, Revelation 12 as about Mary. Or the sacrifice of the Lamb in heaven (ch. 5), which Catholics take as implying some kind of continuous sacrifice in order to justify the heresy of the mass as an atoning sacrifice.


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## Reformed Fox (Apr 8, 2016)

Do you have a source for when you say Cajetan did not recognize four books of the apocrypha? I had not heard that before (though I am not surprised).


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## Bill The Baptist (Apr 8, 2016)

Excellent stuff. I was having a similar discussion with an Eastern Orthodox gentlemen who made the argument that praying to saints was no different than asking your friend to pray for you. I responded with an analogy that was perhaps a bit crude, but effective none the less. I told him that his argument was the equivalent of someone being caught commiting incest and defending their actions by arguing that husbands and wives do the same. It is a very weak argument.


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## Tom Hart (Apr 8, 2016)

Bill The Baptist said:


> Excellent stuff. I was having a similar discussion with an Eastern Orthodox gentlemen who made the argument that praying to saints was no different than asking your friend to pray for you. I responded with an analogy that was perhaps a bit crude, but effective none the less. I told him that his argument was the equivalent of someone being caught commiting incest and defending their actions by arguing that husbands and wives do the same. It is a very weak argument.



It's quite absurd to even suggest that praying to dead saints is akin to having family pictures on the wall. It is equally ridiculous to say that it's like talking to an older sibling! You don't even have to be Protestant to be aware of this. It's so painfully obvious that it's sometimes a wonder we are even debating it.

But here's the trouble: once they change definitions, then we're not even arguing about the same things. So they don't 'pray' to Mary, they 'venerate' her. Such semantic nonsense is casually employed only to justify wicked and blatantly unbiblical practices. 

Sent from my SM-G710K using Tapatalk


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## MichaelNZ (Apr 10, 2016)

Reformed Fox said:


> Do you have a source for when you say Cajetan did not recognize four books of the apocrypha? I had not heard that before (though I am not surprised).



Here is the quote from Cajetan's commentary on the OT historical books:

"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed among the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the _Prologus Galeatus_. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned canonical. For the words as well as of councils and of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorized in the canon of the bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clear through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage. (_Commentary on All the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament;_ cited in William Whitaker, _A Disputation on Holy Scripture_ (Cambridge: University Press, 1849, 48.)"

I came across the quote in one of Dr James White's articles which contained a fictional dialogue mostly between an ex-Protestant convert to Rome and a well-read Protestant. The article, which I highly recommend, can be found here.


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## MichaelNZ (Apr 10, 2016)

I'm not sure what the typical Catholic interpretation of Revelation 5:8 is, but that is their 'go-to' verse (along with Rev 8:3-4) to "prove" the intercession of the saints in heaven for those on earth. Here is a quote from a Bible commentary written by George Leo Haydock, a popish priest:

"Ver. 7-8. He....took the book,[3]...and when he had opened it, or was about to open it, (in the Greek is only, he took it: which was a sign that he would open it)...the four and twenty ancients fell down before the Lamb, to adore him, as appears by what follows, ver. 13. --- Having every one of them harps to celebrate his praise, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints: which shews that the saints in heaven offer up before the throne of the Divine Majesty the prayers of the faithful. (Witham) --- Harps, &c. These harps are symbols of the praise which good men render to God; and the vials full of odours represent the prayers of the saints. In conformity with this idea, St. John wishes to represent these four and twenty ancients as so many senators, who present to the Almighty the prayers and homages of good men on earth. (Estius; Clement of Alexandria) --- This also is an imitation of what was practised in the temple, in which were always around the altar, in times of sacrifice, Levites with musical instruments, priests with vials to contain the wine and blood, and censers to hold the incense (Calmet) --- The prayers of the saints. *Here we see that the saints in heaven offer up to Christ the prayers of the faithful upon earth*. (Challoner)" (Emphasis mine).


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