My deceased friend Kevin Sigurd Johnson, in whose memory I created "Echoes of Mount Carmel," was rather less friendly to Roman Catholicism than I am. I try not to set up any exclusionary barriers which GOD HASN'T required me to set up. Still, if THE OTHER GUY raises needless barriers, I will challenge them.
Just minutes ago, I saw where a Catholic gentleman posted a call for "unity"-- but with the implicit stipulation that it HAD TO BE a unity in which the Vatican called all the shots. This gesture of "friendliness, my way OR ELSE" did not make warm fuzzies in my heart. So I replied as follows:
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And guess what? WE CAN BE ONE in the presence of Christ HIMSELF, without any mortal man claiming he holds the authority to have me, for instance, burned at the stake for translating the Bible. We can do without a "unity" enforced by murder.
You say this doesn't happen anymore? The one and only reason why it doesn't happen anymore is because enough people REFUSED TO STAND FOR IT anymore. If you'll pardon the expression, "Once burned, twice shy."
I will GO TO Catholic churches-- now that I know I won't be regarded as charcoal briquets there. In fact, my first wife WAS a Catholic. I went to Masses with her. And I never urge any Catholic to quit the Church of Rome. But I did not, do not, and will not swallow anyone telling me their preferred communion is exclusively coterminous with the whole eternal Body of Jesus. And don't even start with "--upon this rock," because Paul makes it clear in Ephesians two that ALL the apostles AND all the Old Testament prophets, not only Peter, are foundation stones.
