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"We are Christians because we belong to the Church." Pope Francis

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Fat:
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - "We are not isolated and we are not Christians individually, each on his or her own". Instead, we are all part of the Church, "a large family, where one is welcomed," where "one learns to live as believers and disciples of the Lord Jesus," Pope Francis said.

Speaking in the last general audience before the July break, the Holy Father devoted his catechesis to the Church before a crowd of 35,000 in St Peter's Square. Despite a few drops of rain, he walked extensively among the assembled faithful.

In his address, he warned against those who "think they can have a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside of the communion and the mediation of the Church."

In the Church, he noted, there is no "do it yourself", no "free agents." For him, "Our Christian identity is belonging! We are Christians because we belong to the Church. It is like a surname. If the name is 'I am a Christian', the surname is 'I belong to the Church'." Such sense of belonging was born from the alliance between God and Abraham, to whom he donated a great people for his loyalty.

"God's relationship to his people comes before all of us, it comes from that time," and thus, "in this sense, our thoughts go first, with gratitude, to those who have gone before us and who welcomed us into the Church. No one becomes a Christian by himself! Is this clear? Nobody becomes a Christian by himself. Christians are not made in a lab. Christians are part of a people that has come a long way. Christians belong to a people called the Church and the Church makes us Christians on the day of our Baptism. Of course, then comes the catechesis and so many [other] things. But no one, no one becomes a Christian by himself. "

"If we believe, if we know how to pray, if we know the Lord and can listen to his Word, if we feel him close to us and recognise him in our brothers, that is because others before us lived the faith and then passed it onto us: the faith we received from our fathers, our ancestors, who taught it to us. If we think about it, who knows how many loved ones are passing before our eyes at this very moment: Maybe the face of our parents who asked the Baptism for us, that of our grandparents or another relative who taught us how to make the sign of the cross or recite our first prayers."

"I will always remember the face of the nun who taught me catechism. I can always see her face - She is certainly in Heaven because she was a saintly woman. I always remember her and thank God for this nun - or that of the parish priest, and that of another priest or a nun, a catechist, who passed on the content of the faith and made us grow as Christians. "

"There is no 'do it yourself' in the Church, no 'free agents'. How many times did Pope Benedict describe the Church as an ecclesial 'us'! Sometimes one can hear people say, 'I believe in God, I believe in Jesus, but I do not care for the Church . . . 'How many times have we heard that? And that is no good. "

Some "think they can have a personal, direct, immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside of the communion and the mediation of the Church. Such temptations are dangerous and harmful. They are, in the words of the great Pope Paul VI, absurd dichotomies."

Indeed, "walking together is challenging, and can sometimes be laborious. Some brother or sister might cause a problem, or a scandal . . . But the Lord entrusted his message of salvation to humans, to all of us, to witnesses. It is through our brothers and our sisters, with their gifts and their limits, that he comes to us and makes himself known. This is what it means to belong to the Church. "

"Let us ask for," the pope said in concluding, "the grace of never falling into the temptation of thinking we can do without others, without the Church, and save ourselves on our own."

"We cannot love God without loving our brothers and sisters; we cannot love God outside of the Church; we cannot be in communion with God without being in the Church; and we cannot be good Christians if we are not with all those who seek to follow the Lord Jesus, as one people, one body. And this is the Church."

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/For-pope,-we-are-Christians-because-we-belong-to-the-Church,-one-cannot-love-God-outside-of-the-Church-31455.html
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Note from Fat

Pope Francis seems lacking in giving credit to the work of the Spirit and gives all credit for salvation to the RCC, he is not referring to what we call the Church or body of Christ when he states, Christians belong to a people called the Church.

Read this article and see who he gives the creadit for your salvation to, is it Christ?

JB Horn:

--- Quote from: Fat on July 03, 2014, 06:27:55 pm ---the faith we received from our fathers, our ancestors, who taught it to us.
--- End quote ---

Romans 3:22 KJV
Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe : for there is no difference:

Romans 10:17 KJV
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Romans 12:3 KJV
For I say , through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think ; but to think soberly , according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.

1 Corinthians 2:5 KJV
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

2 Corinthians 1:24 KJV
Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand .

2 Corinthians 13:5 KJV
Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves . Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates ?

Galatians 2:20 KJV
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Galatians 3:22 KJV
But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe .

Galatians 3:25, 26 KJV
But after that faith is come , we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:8 KJV
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Ephesians 3:17 KJV
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

2 Thessalonians 1:4 KJV
So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure :

1 Timothy 1:14 KJV
And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 3:15 KJV
And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Titus 1:1 KJV
Paul, a servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness;

Hebrews 11:1 KJV
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for , the evidence of things not seen

macuser:

--- Quote ---"God's relationship to his people comes before all of us, it comes from that time," and thus, "in this sense, our thoughts go first, with gratitude, to those who have gone before us and who welcomed us into the Church. No one becomes a Christian by himself! Is this clear? Nobody becomes a Christian by himself. Christians are not made in a lab. Christians are part of a people that has come a long way. Christians belong to a people called the Church and the Church makes us Christians on the day of our Baptism. Of course, then comes the catechesis and so many [other] things. But no one, no one becomes a Christian by himself. "
--- End quote ---

So much that is wrong with this statement .
Pray for him, he is getting old and even Billy Graham steps in it because of his age.

Fat:
You have to understand that the way the pope lays out the church, makes him the most powerful man in the world. In fact one could argue that it makes him more powerful than the Holy Ghost.

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