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Catholic Discussion Thread; Questions, and answers? Discuss...
Topic Started: May 5 2005, 08:05 PM (271 Views)
Sgt. Jaggs
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How about a Voyager Movie
I do not understand what the deal is with the Pope 'choosing' a Pope name.
Pope Benedict has a given name and chose Benedict as his new name. Why is this?
All this time I thought Pope John Paul was a guy named John Paul. :ermm:

Also, are there any other Denomonations which bless and dip hands into 'holy water'? As Lutherans we never did this.
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Swidden
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Adm. Gadfly-at-large; Provisional wRench-fly at large
As far as why they choose new names, that's a very good question. From my understanding it stems back to the early days of the church, but I don't know exactly when it began. Names taken are often those of one of the twelve apostles (Paul, John, etc). Others might take the name of a saint, or other important figure in the history of the church. Some have taken names that reflect their beliefs (i.e. a number of pope were named "Pius"). In the case of the most recent pope, he was the second man to take the name John Paul (the first was elected pope only about a month before John Paul II, but died suddenly).

Certain Orthodox faiths (Greek, Russian, and Serbian Orthodox for example) also dip their hands in holy water. The dipping hands bit is more than that for Catholics. Once we dip our hands into a holy water font upon entering a church, we then make the Sign of the Cross. Bless ourselves by lightly touching our forehead, heart, left then right shoulder while saying "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen." In many of the Orthodox (sometimes called "Easter Rite") faiths, the touching of the shoulder order is reveresed and the left hand is used.
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Fesarius
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Admiral
Quote:
 
In many of the Orthodox (sometimes called "Easter Rite") faiths, the touching of the shoulder order is reveresed and the left hand is used.

Swidden,

I have frequently wondered about this. I used to think it was a sign of disrespect. Thanks for the clarification. (BTW, the Eastern Orthodox also have a few different books in their bibles--different from both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches.)
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Swidden
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I'd heard that about the bibles, but have not had an opportunity to examine one (haven't created the opportunity is more like it, but one of these days I will...).
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Hoss
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Don't make me use my bare hands on you.
The pope renaming thing may have caught on because some of the given names were considered pagan names and the person to become pope chose a different name to honor a person in the past or a name with meaning that that person wished to immulate.
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Fesarius
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Admiral
Quote:
 
I'd heard that about the bibles, but have not had an opportunity to examine one (haven't created the opportunity is more like it, but one of these days I will...).

Swidden,

Well, once that library of yours is completed (or those books all unpacked), there will be no excuse. :D :Fes:
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Swidden
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^^^
Thing is, if I go about collecting all the books I want, my wife will likely put me in storage just to have room to move...
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Fesarius
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Admiral
^^^
LOL. Yeah, books are wonderful, but they don't compare to one's spouse. :)
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Sgt. Jaggs
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How about a Voyager Movie
Two more questions.
My wife met a Catholic woman who said that they pray to Saints, and their prayers have been snswered. :ermm: I am confused. Why would one pray to another Man?
Second, what are 'last rites' as given upon ones deathbed, and is THIS also exclusive to Catholics?
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Intrepid2002
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UNGH!
^^^

Sometimes I think SOME Catholics are confused about the matter of praying to saints. In all actuality we as Catholics aren't supposed to pray to saints or even worship them (but sometimes when I visit a church and see some people talking to these statues I begin to wonder).
What it is actually is that you're supposed to ask these saints to intercede for you. Sort of like a middle man putting in a good word for you to the Big Guy.

I don't think the Last Rites are exclusive to Catholics. You'd have to ask someone who isn't Catholic I guess. :)

Anyway, back to the term "Last Rites", it's really very misleading. It gives the connotation that the person truly is about to die. When I was growing up it was called the "Annointing of the Sick". It actually is a sacrament. It is my understanding that when a person is sick a priest annoints you with holy oil and it gives you spiritual health if anything. My mother always told me some people always waited till the last minute so that there would be no opportunity to sin again before one dies. But that's what she says....
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Swidden
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Jag
May 6 2005, 06:14 PM
Two more questions.
My wife met a Catholic woman who said that they pray to Saints, and their prayers have been snswered. :ermm: I am confused. Why would one pray to another Man?

Let's take these one at a time.

As far as praying to the saints goes. This is an error that even many Catholics make. Anyone who dies and goes to heaven is, by definition, a saint. Now, the second error, again one that many Catholics can be included in, is that one does not actually pray to a particular saint. The saint does not answer your prayers. Rather what happens is this: The saint is in heaven and as such may intercede on your behalf before God (essentially plead your case). Now if you were to closely examine and formal prayer to a given saint, you would find this to be so in the way they are worded.

Quote:
 
Second, what are 'last rites' as given upon ones deathbed, and is THIS also exclusive to Catholics?


Last Rites is a misnomer, it is actually a Sarament called the Anointing of the Sick. The Catholic Church believes that Christ ordered Seven specific sacraments: Baptism, Reconciliation (aka Penance or Confession), Holy Communion, Confirmation, Marriage, Holy Orders (becoming a priest or nun) and Anointing of the Sick. Most catholics will participate in 6 out of the 7, since generally you cannot marry and enter the priesthood (or become a nun, but there are some occasional exceptions).

Anointing of the Sick can be administered on a variety of occasions (i.e. you are very ill, you are dying, or about to undergo surgery)
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Fesarius
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Admiral
Swidden,

Was this ('annointing of the sick') referred to as 'Extreme Unction' many years ago? I recall learning this term when growing up.
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Swidden
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It's possible. Some sacraments have been retitled over the years.
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Swidden
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It would appear so...

Extreme Unction: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05716a.htm

Catholic Encyclopedia
 
Extreme Unction
A sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ to give spiritual aid and comfort and perfect spiritual health, including, if need be, the remission of sins, and also, conditionally, to restore bodily health, to Christians who are seriously ill; it consists essentially in the unction by a priest of the body of the sick person, accompanied by a suitable form of words. The several points embodied in this descriptive definition will be more fully explained in the following sections into which this article is divided: I. Actual Rite of Administration; II. Name; III. Sacramental Efficacy of the Rite; IV. Matter and Form; V. Minister; VI. Subject; VII. Effects; VIII. Necessity; IX. Repetition; X. Reviviscence of the Sacrament.

I. ACTUAL RITE OF ADMINISTRATION

As administered in the Western Church today according to the rite of the Roman Ritual, the sacrament consists (apart from certain non-essential prayers) in the unction with oil, specially blessed by the bishop, of the organs of the five external senses (eyes, ears, nostrils, lips, hands), of the feet, and, for men (where the custom exists and the condition of the patient permits of his being moved), of the loins or reins; and in the following form repeated at each unction with mention of the corresponding sense or faculty: "Through this holy unction and His own most tender mercy may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed [quidquid deliquisti] by sight [by hearing, smell, taste, touch, walking, carnal delectation]". The unction of the loins is generally, if not universally, omitted in English-speaking countries, and it is of course everywhere forbidden in case of women. To perform this rite fully takes an appreciable time, but in cases of urgent necessity, when death is likely to occur before it can be completed, it is sufficient to employ a single unction (on the forehead, for instance) with the general form: "Through this holy unction may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed." By the decree of 25 April, 1906, the Holy Office has expressly approved of this form for cases of urgent necessity.

In the Eastern Orthodox (schismatical) Church this sacrament is normally administered by a number of priests (seven, five, three; but in case of necessity even one is enough); and it is the priests themselves who bless the oil on each occasion before use. The parts usually anointed are the forehead, chin, cheeks, hands, nostrils, and breast, and the form used is the following: "Holy Father, physician of souls and of bodies, Who didst send Thy Only- Begotten Son as the healer of every disease and our deliverer from death, heal also Thy servant N. from the bodily infirmity that holds him, and make him live through the grace of Christ, by the intercessions of [certain saints who are named], and of all the saints." (Goar, Euchologion, p. 417.) Each of the priests who are present repeats the whole rite.

II. NAME

The name Extreme Unction did not become technical in the West till towards the end of the twelfth century, and has never become current in the East. Some theologians would explain its origin on the ground that this unction was regarded as the last in order of the sacramental or quasi-sacramental unctions, being preceded by those of baptism, confirmation, and Holy orders; but, having regard to the conditions prevailing at the time when the name was introduced (see below, VI), it is much more probable that it was intended originally to mean "the unction of those in extremis", i.e. of the dying, especially as the corresponding name, sacramentum exeuntium, came into common use during the same period.

In previous ages the sacrament was known by a variety of names, e.g., the holy oil, or unction, of the sick; the unction or blessing of consecrated oil; the unction of God; the office of the unction; etc. In the Eastern Church the later technical name is euchelaion (i.e. prayer-oil); but other names have been and still are in use, e.g. elaion hagion (holy), or hegismenon (consecrated), elaion, elaiou Chrisis, chrisma, etc.


See what you made me do... :Fes:
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Swidden
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Jag, this may answer your question in part about whether or not it is administered to non-Catholics.

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The teaching of the Council of Trent is directed chiefly against the Reformers of the sixteenth century. Luther denied the sacramentality of extreme unction and classed it among rites that are of human or ecclesiastical institution (De Captivit. Babylonicâ, cap. de extr. unct.). Calvin had nothing but contempt and ridicule for this sacrament, which he described as a piece of "histrionic hypocrisy" (Instit., IV, xix, 18). He did not deny that the Jacobean rite may have been a sacrament in the Early Church, but held that it was a mere temporary institution which had lost all its efficacy since the charisma of healing had ceased (Comm. in Ep. Jacobi, v, 14, 15). The same position is taken up in the confessions of the Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies. In the first edition (1551) of the Edwardine Prayer Book for the reformed Anglican Church the rite of unction for the sick, with prayers that are clearly Catholic in tone, was retained; but in the second edition (1552) this rite was omitted, and the general teaching on the sacraments shows clearly enough the intention of denying that extreme unction is a sacrament. The same is to be said of the other Protestant bodies, and down to our day the denial of the Tridentine doctrine on extreme unction has been one of the facts that go to make up the negative unanimity of Protestantism. At the present time, however, there has been a revival more or less among Anglicans of Catholic teaching and practice. "Some of our clergy", writes Mr. Puller (Anointing of the Sick in Scripture and Tradition, London, 1904), "seeing the plain injunction about Unction in the pages of the New Testament, jump hastily to the conclusion that the Roman teaching and practice in regard to Unction is right, and seek to revive the use of Unction as a channel of sanctifying grace, believing that grace is imparted sacramentally through the oil as a preparation for death" (p. 307). Mr. Puller himself is not prepared to go so far, though he pleads for the revival of the Jacobean unction, which he regards as a mere sacramental instituted for the supernatural healing of bodily sickness only. His more advanced friends can appeal to the authority of one of their classical writers, Bishop Forbes of Brechin, who admits (Exposition of the XXXIX Articles, vol. II, p. 463) that "unction of the sick is the Lost Pleiad of the Anglican firmament. . .There has been practically lost an apostolic practice, whereby, in case of grievous sickness, the faithful were anointed and prayed over, for the forgiveness of their sins, and to restore them, if God so willed, or to give them spiritual support in their maladies".
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