Dr. Cooper's Ratio: Lutheranism's Contingent Existence and Rome's Achille's Heel

[@criticaloptimist7961]

I never had any relation to Lutheranism other than my time as an evangelical Reformed Protestant, but I found this video to be thoughtful and amusing. I think somewhere in this vein of thought belongs a discussion of Anne Catherine Emmerich vision of the two popes. The way i understand her vision is that the removal of images and pagan elements from the Church in the early years was disasterous on the faith and devotion of people. Would love to see a video of your thoughts on it.

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@criticaloptimist7961 I have to reacquaint myself with Emmerich. I remember vaguely her vision of two popes, but not the part about iconoclasm. There was a significant amount of iconoclasm during the reformation which helped to further demythologize the Church as the west moved toward rationalism. Then again after V2, Garry Wills reports that statues of Mary were literally dragged out and smashed in the church parking lot. In both instances, faith suffered. I'll brush up on Emmerich and get back to you

[@criticaloptimist7961]

@Catholic-Perennialist I mean the way I interpret her vision might not be the typical interpretation. But I find it undeniable that the basic message of her "revelation" is that the soul benefits from images and symbols. It pribably isn't too far off to suggest that iconoclasm is demonic in origin.

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@criticaloptimist7961 Yes, if one takes pleasure in destroying images of man, then it follows that he would destroy the image of God in his neighbor, which is what we find amongst the rabid iconlasts of the Saracens et al.

[@exquofonte]

This was excellent, your articulation of why Catholics become Catholic is dead-on. The Catholics who try to make every dot and tittle consistent are the weird ones. And yes there is certainly a part of us that craves veneration of the feminine. Jung said it well -- "The feminine, like masculine, demands an equally personal representation."

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@exquofonte Yes, and attempting to justify Mary's veneration intellectually always comes off as post hoc, because it is. The cult of Mary came first and simply was never going to be suppressed.

[@didymussumydid9726]

When you do your next Q&A, I'd appreciate it if you could talk about synodality. From my reading it seems to be an unavoidable conclusion that authority was originally distributed throughout the West: bishops elected by popular acclamation, bishop of rome first among the apostolic sees, the emperor lending his authority to ecumenical councils, later princex exercising authority over candidates to the episcopate in their lands, etc. etc. etc. After the hildebrandian reforms and after trent and after vatican I, the tendency has been to concentrate authority in the bishop of rome and the vatican. the "right-wing" of the church was all for this until the "left-wing" became dominant, and now they are crying and moaning and trying to say that the West was always synodal. But of course they can't logically roll back the concentration of power in the papacy when it was done through technically orthodox means, which means they have by necessity accepted as orthodox. I see this tension bubbling below the surface in a lot of trad arguments between Sedevacantists and the R&R, but everyone seems a bit reluctant to discuss the issue openly since it would require an akcnowledgement that the church has fundamentally changed how it operates (i.e an "evolution"), apart from scripture or tradition. I'm not sure if I explained myself properly but I think you will get what I mean (no wrongthink here, youtube. please allow this comment to post unmolested.)

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@didymussumydid9726 Synodality as driven by the francis regime is suspect in the same way as when Federal representatives speak so highly of "our democracy." Centrally implemented synodality is likely just a ruse to produce the political capital necessary to implement unpopular policy. If you control the synod, however indirectly, you control the concensus. Be that as it may, the more genuine move against centralized papal authority is coming from the trads now that they've lost the papacy to the Jesuits. But as in all tyrannies, there no longer exists the means to reign in authority other than leverage. And you cannot leverage against the church that doles out necessary sacraments and groundless excommunications. I think the Vatican knows that the trads are well under 5% and the church could survive excommunicating all of them if need be. What the trads don't know they're waiting for is a weakening of central authority, even a crisis. For instance, a kinetic conflict with the Bear that engulfs Rome in a conflagration would leave each bishop as "pope" of his own diocese until a council could be convened and the papacy reconstituted. But it would be reconstituted on more favorable terms with power spread more evenly if for no other reason than to produce a hydra with many heads, impervious to local cataclysms. The other problem faced is the vitiation of V1 on grounds of bad process etc. Parts of V2 as well. The problem the church faces is its own propaganda as the unchanging infallible institution. It doesn't leave much room for amendment. Ideally this will all unravel in a way that the Church saves face. I'll address this in the next q&a, but please remind me if I forget.

[@didymussumydid9726]

As the demonstrated by the comments on his anti Catholic videos by his fans and supporters, Dr. Bored’n Coper isn’t fooling anyone

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@didymussumydid9726 He has his sycophants. But I sense under his veneer a real anxiety about the Tiber that is exacerbated by so many converts within his sphere.

[@didymussumydid9726]

@@Catholic-Perennialist I meant that some of them were outright telling him “dr. Cooper I like you but these aren’t t very good reasons for rejecting Catholicism.” That’s rough. If it weren’t for the controversy over bergoglio, if there was another ratzinger in Rome right now, moderate lutheranism would absolutely be an endangered species

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

​​@@didymussumydid9726Yes, that was certainly true under Benedict and the migration would have accelerated with the recent failures of LCMS leadership I saw a few instances of the commenters you describe, but they're quite outnumbered by his die-hard supporters. I'm not certain what his goal is, but saving lutheranism will require babies, not theological abstraction.

[@andreashoepfner9465]

​@@didymussumydid9726 ja das stimmt da haben sie recht.

[@TheMorning_Son]

So people are Catholic because of feelings??..isn't that not much different than lutherans ???

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@TheMorning_Son As protestants, Lutherans are very conscious of their raison d'être, which is to protest the excesses of Rome. Soul-feeling is secondary because Lutheranism, as most protestantism, is a thing reasoned into existence, whereas in Catholicism, the religion comes into formation first, then the theology follows as justification for the collective soul-feeling.

[@TheMorning_Son]

@Catholic-Perennialist you're talking about lutherans who don't consider themselves Protestants? at least the ones I've heard don't call themselves that.

[@TheMorning_Son]

@@Catholic-Perennialist catholicism? The universal chruch or the Christian cult of the imperium??

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@TheMorning_Son Lutherans are the original protestants. It really doesn't matter what they call themselves. The protestant reformation begins in 1517; you know why. And there is no line that can ve drawn to demarcate the early church from the Imperial church. The same clergy were maintained through the transition and they all agree on orthodox trinitarianism at Nicea, and there were no Lutherans or Baptists in attendance.

[@TheMorning_Son]

@Catholic-Perennialist The conscience of the New Testament church isn't the religion of the empire.. also, its hebriac tradition doesn't originate in the Roman imperium either. ...the divine head of the chruch isn't the emperor. The church didn't seek approval of the empire (ecumene) for their theology because the New Testament church was separate from the imperial religion. Nicene creed? That is more from the confused thinking of Alexandria, which is near egypt.. which is what is causing the distortion of how jesus is god and man.. Catholic/ orthodox are a faithful continuity of what exactly?

[@thelonelysponge5029]

Yo dude, just be normal and pray the rosary and believe in the dogmas of the Church, not whatever strange Gnosticism this is.

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@thelonelysponge5029 Tried being normal. It didn't last long.

[@thelonelysponge5029]

@@Catholic-Perennialist why didn’t it last long? 😮

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@thelonelysponge5029 Because I can't self-lobotomize. I see paterns everywhere that beg for inquiry. Surface comprehension is always false.

[@thelonelysponge5029]

@@Catholic-Perennialist self-lobotomy? Sounds painful, but what aspect? The moral? Faith? Assent to the magisterium?

[@Catholic-Perennialist]

@@thelonelysponge5029 It's easier to simply say that Christianity is the mist successful mystery cult of late antiquity. All else is accretion of greater or lesser legitimacy