Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Sun, 23 Aug 1992 03:19:35 EDT
From:         Marty Helgesen <MNHCC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Catholicism
              22 Aug 1992 15:18:51 EDT from <AMZIMM01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>

Angela,

Thank you for your comments.

Either you Catholic friend misspoke or you misunderstood.  Just as I
can and do pray to the Father and to the Son (and to the Holy Spirit)
I can ask someone else to pray to them for me.  This is true whether
I ask the Virgin Mary, St. Paul, St. Polycarp, or the readers of
Christia.  In all cases I am asking them to intercede with God for
me.  There is nothing wrong with that.  St. Paul wrote, "I exhort,
therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions,
and giving of thanks be made for all men." (1 Tim 2:1)  Some people
like to quote 1 Tim 2:5 about Jesus being the sole mediator between
God and men as if Catholic practice and teaching contradicted it.
They fail to notice that 1 Tim 2:5 is part of a discussion that began
with 1 Tim 2:1.

There are psychological benefits to confessing one's sins to a
priest, but they are secondary.  The primary purpose of confessing
one's sins is to obtain Christ's forgiveness.  (This is not the only
way of obtaining Christ's forgiveness.  Catholics are urged to exam-
ine their consciences and ask for forgiveness of their sins every
night as part of their night prayers.)

The direct scriptural basis for priests forgiving sins in the name of
Christ is: "Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you:  as my
Father hath sent me, even so send I you.  Then when he has said this,
he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive the Holy Ghost;
Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose
soever sins ye retain, they are retained." (John 20:21-23)

The theological explanation of why Christ chose to make His forgive-
ness available through the ministry of His priests is connected with
the concept of the Communion of Saints, and particularly the idea of
the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ.  See 1 Cor 12, especially
v. 26: "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with
it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it."  My
sins are an offense against God's majesty and holiness.  They are an
offense against Jesus in His physical body because they contribute to
His sufferings on the Cross.  They are an offense against Christ in
His mystical body, the Church, because, as St. Paul indicated, my
sins damage the spiritual well being of the body as a whole.  There-
fore, God has chosen to make His forgiveness available through the
instrumentality of His priests.  St. Paul emphasizes throughout the
chapter that different members (today he might write "cells") of the
Body have different functions for the body as a whole.  Forgiving
sins in the name of and with the authority of Christ is one of the
functions of priests.

To move on to your next posting, in the order in which I received
them, which may not be the order in which you posted them, the Catho-
lic Church teaches that no one comes to the Father except through
Jesus, but does not teach that only Christians go to Heaven.  The
Church recognizes the possibility of Baptism of Desire.  This means
that if someone's disposition, resulting from God's graces, is such
that he would believe and be baptised if he knew that God wanted him
to, will receive the graces necessary to get into Heaven.  Many
theologians hold that such a person receives an illumination about
Jesus at the moment of his death so he can make an explicit act of
faith.  However, regardless of the details of how God arranges it,
such people are saved only through the merits of Christ's Blood shed
on the Cross.

Marty Helgesen
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