I am refering to Dana Pintos post w.r.t. Fr. Mousinho Athaide's letter in the HERALD. In todays (25th Feb) HERALD edition our father in the Vatican says that "God asked me (him) to retire". He also says that God told him to devote himself to prayer. There are some practical aspects that we RC's find confusing. Fr. Mousinho says Pope Benedict should have decided according to the collective conscience of the entire Church. Can all the church members worldwide decide this and how? Catholics' conscience varies from person to person.. Fr. Athaide says that the Pope is the father of the Church. How can he prove this? The Church also says that Mary the "mother of God" is also the Mother of the church. Often we wonder the prayerful if the repetition to "mother of god" is Scripturally correct as how can an UNCREATED God have a created mother? The Holy Tritinity is ONE GOD. Can the Trinity (God) has a "mother?" We can safely say "mother of Jesus" God who incarnated. He was the eternal son, EXISTED ALWAYS. He will continue to be so eternally. He will also return not like a lamb but as a Lion. Can we play around with so many terms and confuse people?
The latest news that God has asked the pope to retire, one wonders how God talks to the Pope. Did He talk to the pope in a vision, in a dream or an angel appeared to the pope ? Or someone wispered from behind a curtain? To simple people like yours truly, my only authority is the written word of God which is the Bible the books of Torah and the Psalms besides the Epistles and the Gospels and of course the Last book called the REVELATION. I can draw factual historical affirmations and inferences. Like Jesus is a historical figure, in the Book of Ephesians Jesus Himself is the Head of the Church. The early church had no pope really. It had started in Jerusalem and spread to Judea, thence Samaria and to the ends of the world. The Apostle Peter was never commanded or ordained by Jesus as the Head of the church, many people wrench a Bible verse out of it's context to make a pretext and the gullible accept it with a slurp! When I eat a McDonalds sandwich I make sure in India there is no coachroach in it. We need to be Biblically literate and not taken for a jolly good ride. If that is so, there were two Popes. Pope Paul and Pope Peter. Both these individuals were commanded by our Lord Himself as Peter the Apotle to the Jews and Paul to the Gentiles like us Goemkars and non-goemkars. Ganttis and Dalits. All w ere and have the right to be "children of God". Salvation is extremely and individual affair. Fr. Athaide discovers that the "structure of the Church, governed by esoteric theology, doctrine and dogma." The Bible not only condemns occult practices but it is dangerous to dabble in something which we do not understand in the supernatural. Hence we have the right to ask which "god" spoke to our Pope? For those who have been confused with various theologies of both Protestant, RC and a million of other "christian sects" simplicity is the next best policy and a reality. Our Lord commended the "faith of a child" in his object lesson (See Mathew chapter 18:v1-3). In the Book to the Hebrews it reads as: Hebrews chapter 1 verses: 1God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, Do we need anything else besides the One who purged our sins and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high? Yours truly, Petra. (small stone) :) Message: 5 Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:44:33 +0530 From: "Edwin/Diana Pinto" <eddipi...@gmail.com> To: <goanet@lists.goanet.org> Subject: Re: [Goanet] Fr. Mousinho Athaide's letter in the Herald Message-ID: <3B09FD7C52E143B0A6B4C4894BD2C925@CCPC> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="utf-8"; reply-type=original Fr. Mousinho Athaide makes two interesting comments in his letter ?Pope?s Resignation?. He feels that Pope Benedict should have decided according to the collective conscience of the entire Church rather than his own personal conscience. He also expresses the view that the Pope is the father of the Church rather than just an administrator. These views of course, are entirely in consonance with the highly rigid and patriarchal structure of the Church, governed by esoteric theology, doctrine and dogma. While it is true that a father remains a father always in our human families, we do not entrust upon aging and ailing fathers the responsibility and onus to lead,
