{"id":1923,"date":"2015-04-22T16:20:14","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T20:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/66.147.242.160\/~stumbli4\/?p=1923"},"modified":"2015-04-22T16:33:54","modified_gmt":"2015-04-22T20:33:54","slug":"pope-francis-revises-the-concept-of-martyr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/?p=1923","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis Revises the Concept of Martyr"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Unitarian<\/a>

Unitarian Universalist?<\/p><\/div>\n

Nigerian Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme has just announced the most devastating strategy<\/a> to thwart the Islamist world takeover that’s been heard in years.<\/p>\n

Other than that, nobody seems to be doing anything besides crying <\/a>and ‘pontificating<\/a>.’<\/p>\n

Vatican Radio writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Drawing inspiration from the First Reading of the Act of the Apostles which tells of the stoning and martyrdom of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, the Pope remembered \u201cour brothers whose throats have been slit on the beaches of Libya\u201d, he spoke of \u201cthe young boy who was burnt alive by his companions because he was Christian\u201d, he recalled \u201cthe migrants who were thrown from their boat into open sea\u201d because, they too, were Christians.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Pope is very vocal about the now widespread slaughter of Christians, praising their courage and their faith, and comparing them to past martyrs and saints like Stephen.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod\u2019s Word is always rejected by some. God\u2019s Word is inconvenient when you have a stone heart, when you have a pagan heart, because God\u2019s Word asks you to go ahead trying to satisfy your hunger with the bread which Jesus spoke of. \u00a0In the history of the Revelation many martyrs have been killed for their faith and loyalty towards God\u2019s Word, God\u2019s Truth\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis continued comparing the martyrdom of Stephen to that of Jesus: he too \u201cdied with that Christian magnanimity of forgiveness, praying for his enemies\u2019.<\/p>\n

And those who persecuted the prophets – the Pope pointed out \u2013 believed they were giving glory to God; they thought they were being true to God\u2019s doctrine.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday \u2013 the \u00a0Pope said \u2013 I would like to remember that the true history of the Church is that of the Saints and the martyrs,\u201d of so many who were persecuted and killed by those who thought they possessed the \u2018truth\u2019- whose heart was corrupted by \u2018truth\u2019:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, what does Pope Francis mean by that?\u00a0 Did the truth have some corrupting effect on the hearts of those persecutors?\u00a0 I thought they became corrupted by lies, or worldliness or other temptations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn these days how many Stephens there are in the world! Let us think of our brothers whose throats were slit on the beach in Libya; let\u2019s think of the young boy who was burnt alive by his companions because he was a Christian; let us think of those migrants thrown from their boat into the open sea by other migrants because they were Christians; let us think \u2013 just the day before yesterday \u2013 of those Ethiopians assassinated because they were Christians\u2026 and of many others. Many others of whom we do not even know and who are suffering in jails because they are Christians\u2026 The Church today is a Church of martyrs: they suffer, they give their lives and we receive the blessing of God for their witness\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Around the world in places like Nigeria, Christians slaughtered by Muslims are Catholics, but in most of the Middle East they are schismatic separated Christians.\u00a0 They are more faithful and virtuous than many Roman Catholics, but they are still not united to the Church to which St. Stephen belonged.\u00a0 Where we may be removed through sin and false catechesis, they are separated in a different way.<\/p>\n

Their churches vary in teaching from the Truth in matters like marriage and authority.\u00a0 This is heresy, and heresy like any other sin committed in ignorance or not, is never right.\u00a0 The Pope makes it seem like it’s all one Truth and one Church; as if it didn’t matter.<\/p>\n

Will all non-Catholic men and woman who choose to confess Christ in the face of death go to Heaven?\u00a0 They may be ahead of the rest of us, but what if they’ve lived distorted misguided lives?\u00a0 What if, like most Protestants, they’ve rejected the Sacraments?\u00a0 At what point are they dying for something that is not really the Truth, but they nevertheless consider Christian?\u00a0 Pope Francis seems to believe they still die for the Truth anyway.<\/a><\/p>\n

Islam itself was born of the Arian Heresy.\u00a0 They can’t technically be called Christians but that misused word can be a pretty low bar.\u00a0 The Qur’an is full of references to Jesus and Mary.\u00a0 Are Muslims martyrs when they kill each other?<\/p>\n

Can Mormons be martyrs?<\/p>\n

Were the Yazidi’s martyrs?\u00a0 They died for being Yazidis, another form of NOT Muslim.\u00a0 Not enough, right?\u00a0 But Protestantism is.<\/p>\n

Unitarianism?\u00a0 Quakers?<\/p>\n

Either way, isn’t Pope Francis muddying already black waters here by constantly holding up Protestants killed by Muslims as examples of Catholic martyrs?\u00a0 These brave Christians are dead now.\u00a0 The rest of us have to live on with true examples of men and women who were actually Catholic and died for the Christ’s Church.\u00a0 Must we underestimate the necessity of true unity with the Church Militant at every turn, dropping important truths and picking up heresies here and there as we go along in one big ‘ecumenism of blood’ (whatever that means)?<\/p>\n

The Pope plays so loose with hard Catholic concepts in an effort to distort!\u00a0 Oscar Romero is made martyr because undefined right-wingers shot him at Mass ending his nationwide alignment with Communist guerillas, i mean, ‘the poor.’<\/p>\n

And now we have special ‘hidden martyrs.’<\/p>\n

The Pope also pointed out that there are also many \u201chidden martyrs: those men and women who are faithful to the voice of the Spirit and who are searching for new ways and paths to help their brothers better love God\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said they are often viewed with suspicion, vilified and persecuted by so many modern \u2018Sanhedrins\u2019 who think they are the possessors of truth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This sounds familiar.\u00a0 I think we’ve found something that’s definitely NOT<\/em> a martyr in FrancisChurch.\u00a0 It’s an actual Catholic!<\/p>\n

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Nigerian Bishop Oliver Dashe Doeme has just announced the most devastating strategy to thwart the Islamist world takeover that’s been heard in years. Other than that, nobody seems to be doing anything besides crying and ‘pontificating.’ Vatican Radio writes: Drawing inspiration from the First Reading of the Act of the Apostles which tells of the …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[132,221,233,235,234,85,19,232],"class_list":["post-1923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-catholic-church","tag-ethiopian-christians","tag-hidden-marytrs","tag-libyan-boat-people","tag-libyan-christians","tag-martyr","tag-pope-francis","tag-st-stephen"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1923"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1947,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1923\/revisions\/1947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stumblingblock.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}