German conservative Ratzinger is new Pope Benedict XVI

Finally, the dates of the manuscripts are important in this debate. Textual critics point out that church fathers before the fourth century "unambiguously cited every text-type except the Byzantine."(15) If the Byzantine text-type comes directly from the original writings, one would expect unambiguous quotations of it from the beginning. They also point out that there are no Byzantine manuscripts older than the fourth century, whereas there are copies of other text families older than that.

In response to this, King James supporters note that the New Testament manuscripts began to be altered very soon after they were written. Eusebius, the ancient church historian, reported that heresies sprang up early after the turn of the second century, and proponents of these heresies sometimes altered Scripture to accord with their beliefs.(16) Thus, antiquity is not the crucial test. That there are no copies older than the fourth century can be explained by the fact that the material manuscripts were written on was fragile; it's reasonable to conclude that the early copies probably wore out through frequent handling.

Summary and Concluding Thoughts

To summarize, those who support the King James/Received Text tradition emphasize the number of manuscripts, the church's history with the Byzantine text, and God's interest in preserving His Word, whereas those following Westcott and Hort say that the variants in the manuscripts - even between those in the Byzantine family - prove the need for the textual criticism of the New Testament. The results of their analysis along with the ages of the manuscripts leads them to believe that the Byzantine family is just one text family that can lead us back to the originals - or close to it - but it is not the one best text family.

So, which way should you go on this debate? If you are concerned about the issue, I suggest that you study it more. The texts cited in the notes will give you a place to start. If not, I would recommend using a version that is as close to the Greek text as possible while being understandable to you. But whichever version you choose, be very sure of your arguments before insisting that others use it, too. It seems to me that, with all the difficulties we face in our often hostile culture, we should not erect walls between Christians on the basis of Bible versions. We are not taking God's Word lightly here. We are simply calling for a more well-reasoned discussion and for the rule of love to govern the debate.

coluber2001 wrote:

The pope is actually a political leader and not a spiritual leader or authority, an absurb concept in its own right, for how can there be an authority on the spiritual?

Who says so?

VATICAN CITY Pope Benedict XVI used his first papal Mass on Wednesday to send a message of openness and reconciliation to his Roman Catholic followers, to other Christian churches and "to everyone, even to those who follow other religions or who are simply seeking an answer to the fundamental questions of life and have not yet found it.".
He said that, like his predecessor John Paul II, his "primary commitment" would be to work toward "the full and visible unity of all Christ's followers," and added: "Theological dialogue is necessary." .
It was a striking shift in tone from two days ago, when he entered the conclave in the Sistine Chapel as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a theologian who had served for the last 24 years as the oft-feared chief interpreter - and enforcer - of Roman Catholic doctrine. .
In a homily just before the conclave began Monday, Ratzinger denounced what he called a "dictatorship of relativism" and "new sects" that indoctrinate believers through "human trickery."

Well, so there are 1.2 billion 'eskimos' believing this - as a few hundred did nearly 2,000 years ago.

I heard someone on NPR say that the conservative catholics will form a closer bond with the conservative protestants and evangelists while the liberal catholics with bond with the liberal protestants.

> This is not the first time that the Papacy has influenced American
> politics. There is the too little known story of the Church's influence
> on
> our immigration laws.
>
> Holy warriors
> Cardinal Ratzinger handed Bush the presidency by tipping the Catholic
> vote.
> Can American democracy survive their shared medieval vision?
>
> By Sidney Blumenthal
>
> April 21, 2005 President Bush treated his final visit with Pope John
> Paul II in Vatican City on June 4, 2004, as a campaign stop. After
> enduring
> a public rebuke from the pope about the Iraq war, Bush lobbied Vatican
> officials to help him win the election. "Not all the American bishops are
> with me," he complained, according to the National Catholic Reporter. He
> pleaded with the Vatican to pressure the bishops to step up their activism
> against abortion and gay marriage in the states during the campaign
> season.
>
> About a week later, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent a letter to the U.S.
> bishops, pronouncing that those Catholics who were pro-choice on abortion
> were committing a "grave sin" and must be denied Communion. He pointedly
> mentioned "the case of a Catholic politician consistently campaigning and
> voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws" -- an obvious

> reference to John Kerry, the Democratic candidate and a Roman Catholic. If
> such a Catholic politician sought Communion, Ratzinger wrote, priests must
> be ordered to "refuse to distribute it." Any Catholic who voted for this
> "Catholic politician," he continued, "would be guilty of formal
> cooperation in evil and so unworthy to present himself for Holy
> Communion." During the closing weeks of the campaign, a pastoral letter
> was read from pulpits in Catholic churches repeating the ominous
> suggestion of excommunication. Voting for the Democrat was nothing less
> than consorting with the forces of Satan, collaboration with "evil."
>
> In 2004 Bush increased his margin of Catholic support by 6 points >from
> the 2000 election, rising from 46 to 52 percent. Without this shift, Kerry
> would have had a popular majority of a million votes. Three states --
> Ohio, Iowa and New Mexico -- moved into Bush's column on the votes of the
> Catholic "faithful." Even with his atmospherics of terrorism and Sept. 11,
> Bush required the benediction of the Holy See as his saving grace. The key
> to his kingdom was turned by Cardinal Ratzinger.
>
> With the College of Cardinals' election of Ratzinger to the papacy, his
> political alliances with conservative politicians can be expected to
> deepen and broaden. Under Benedict XVI, the church will assume a
> consistent reactionary activism it has not had for two centuries. And the
> new pope's crusade against modernity has already joined forces with the
> right-wing culture war in the United States, prefigured by his
> interference in the 2004 election.
>
> Europe is far less susceptible than the United States to the religious
> wars that Ratzinger will incite. Attendance at church is negligible;
> church teachings are widely ignored; and the younger generation is least
> observant of all. But in the United States, the Bush administration and
> the right wing of the Republican Party are trying to batter down the wall
> of separation between church and state. Through court appointments, they
> wish to enshrine doctrinal views on the family, women, gays, medicine,
> scientific research and privacy. The Republican attempt to abolish the
> two-centuries-old filibuster -- the so-called nuclear option -- is only
> one coming wrangle in the larger Kulturkampf.
>
> Joseph Ratzinger was born and bred in the cradle of the Kulturkampf, or
> culture war. Roman Catholic Bavaria was a stronghold against northern
> Protestantism during the Reformation. In the 19th century the church was a
> powerful force opposing the unification of Italy and Germany into
> nation-states, fearing that they would diminish the church's influence in
> the shambles of duchies and provinces that had followed the breakup of the
> Holy Roman Empire. The doctrine of papal infallibility in 1870 was
> promulgated by the church to tighten its grip on Catholic populations
> against the emerging centralized nations and to sanctify the pope's will
> against mere secular rulers.
>
> In response, Otto von Bismarck, the German chancellor, launched what he
> called a Kulturkampf to break the church's hold. He removed the church
> from the control of schools, expelled the Jesuits, and instituted civil
> ceremonies for marriage. Bismarck lent support to Catholic dissidents
> opposed to papal infallibility who were led by German theologian Johann
> Ignaz von Dollinger. Dollinger and his personal secretary were
> subsequently excommunicated. His secretary was Georg Ratzinger,
> great-uncle of the new pope, who became one of the most notable Bavarian
> intellectuals and politicians of the period. This Ratzinger was a champion
> against papal absolutism and church centralization, and on behalf of the
> poor and working class -- and was also an anti-Semite.
>
> Joseph Ratzinger's Kulturkampf is claimed by him to be a reaction to the
> student revolts of 1968. Should Joschka Fischer, a former student radical
> and now the German foreign minister, have to answer entirely for
> Ratzinger's Weltanschauung? Pope Benedict's Kulturkampf bears the burden
> of the church's history and that of his considerable family. He represents
> the latest incarnation of the long-standing reaction against Bismarck's
> reforms -- beginning with the assertion of the invented tradition of papal
> infallibility -- and, ironically, against the positions on the church held
> by his famous uncle. But the roots of his reaction are even more profound.
>
>
> The new pope's burning passion is to resurrect medieval authority. He
> equates the Western liberal tradition, that is, the Enlightenment, with
> Nazism, and denigrates it as "moral relativism." He suppresses all
> dissent,
> discussion and debate within the church and concentrates power within the
> Vatican bureaucracy. His abhorrence of change runs past 1968 (an
> abhorrence
> he shares with George W. Bush) to the revolutions of 1848,the "springtime
> of nations," and 1789, the French Revolution. But, even more momentously,
> the alignment of the pope's Kulturkampf with the U.S.president's culture
> war has also set up a conflict with the American Revolution.
>

I do not have the link.

After the election of Pope Benedict XVI, America ran an editorial that said: "A church that cannot openly discuss issues is a church retreating into an intellectual ghetto."

THis was to be expected au.

Quote:

After the election of Pope Benedict XVI, America ran an editorial that said: "A church that cannot openly discuss issues is a church retreating into an intellectual ghetto."

So true! More and more people will realize that the catholic
doctrines are not something one should follow wholeheartly.