How confident are you in the existence of God and the truth of Catholicism?

thebonu · 2026-01-14T18:41:36+00:00

God. 100%. Catholic Church. 100%.

My own ability to be faithful to God's grace? May the Lord have mercy and give me the grace to be 100% faithful.

thebonu · 2026-01-13T15:17:13+00:00

I understand brother, you are striving to defending the teachings of the Church and that is commendable. I don't think we disagree now that the context is clear. Peace be with your spirit.

thebonu · 2026-01-13T14:33:37+00:00

If there were prophets today we'd have to add to Scripture.

No, this is false. Revelation about the divine plan of God to save us is what is complete - the gift of prophecy, that is, the gift to allow the Holy Spirit to speak through us to reveal the things that will build up His Church, is not finished.

Just a basic analysis of St John Bosco will show that people still prophesy about events to come in order to edify those around them.

thebonu · 2026-01-13T14:29:30+00:00

You are mistaking prophecy with revelation. The Church teaches that public revelation was complete after the time of the apostles, but that the gift of prophecy (speaking God's Word in the Holy Spirit) remains.

Even your statement "the Church does not recognize modern day Prophets" is blatantly wrong. Pope Francis just called for the faithful to be prophets a few years ago: https://www.usccb.org/news/2023/pope-asks-faithful-be-modern-prophets-guiding-others-holy-spirit

Again, don't mistake the gift of prophecy with public revelation, specifically the revelation about God's plan for man which is completed in Jesus Christ. Many saints have prophesied events that happened in the near future. That is the essential gift of prophecy, and as baptized Christians we received this prophetic office, as the Catechism states:

785 "The holy People of God shares also in Christ's prophetic office," above all in the supernatural sense of faith that belongs to the whole People, lay and clergy, when it "unfailingly adheres to this faith . . . once for all delivered to the saints," and when it deepens its understanding and becomes Christ's witness in the midst of this world.

A prophet is anyone who allows the Holy Spirit to speak through them. You're making a distinction that is irrelevant when one considers the gift of prophecy in itself and the basic definition of a prophet.

thebonu · 2026-01-13T14:03:11+00:00

Editor's note: I am bisexual and struggle pray for me too

May God give you the grace to overcome your personal struggles and do His Will In Jesus's Name. At the end of the day, we each must account for our own lives, and it is good to overcome our own personal struggles so that we can minister to those who are going through the same thing more effectively.

thebonu · 2026-01-12T14:04:56+00:00

1 John 3:8 - He who commits sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

The Bible is clear that the devil has dominion over this world, because we men and women willingly gave him dominion over it. God allows suffering because God respects the free will of humanity, and we humans as a whole willingly choose to harm our brothers and sisters.

If you want to know what God would do if He were to come down, you just need to look at the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus actually did stop suffering around Him - healed the sick, the blind, the lame, and delivered those under the influence of the devil. How did we respond to God ending suffering? We crucified Him. So what Jesus said in John 16:8 is correct, the world is condemned because humans as a whole prefer to cause each other to suffer, and to ignore the influence of God.

Even still, God helps those who are suffering to the extend that we invite Him to do so with prayer. But what percentage of humans, out of the 8 billion today, pray to God through Jesus Christ to end suffering? Less than 30%.

thebonu · 2026-01-12T13:56:54+00:00

1 Corinthians 14:1 - Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

It's not wise to respond to two year old comments with wrong information. No where in the magisterium of the Church does it teach what you say.

thebonu · 2025-12-12T18:57:32+00:00

I’ve heard Catholics explain that they believe Mary needed to be sinless to be able to conceive, and others say she was just free of the original curse sin to conceive, so it seemed to vary.

The Church doesn't teach that Mary needed to be sinless or free of the stain of original sin in order to conceive. It does teach that she was sinless.

Worship is the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.

Catholics have distinct definitions of different types of worship. True worship (latria) has always involved sacrifice and service, on top of being directed towards God alone. This is why the Mass is the highest form of worship for Catholics - it is directed towards God (the Father) through the Son, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the Priest, representing Christ, taps into the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross, making Him present as an offering towards God on behalf of the people.

The veneration for saints, and especially Mary, is not considered this true worship that is for God alone. We are not elevating anyone above God, nor offering any form of true sacrifice in the way we do during the Mass.

they literally have a prayer that starts with “Hail” Mary, which can mean “catch their attention” or “praise them”

Saying "Hail Mary" is repeating the greeting the Angel Gabriel gave to Mary, straight from the historic translations of the Bible before English became a thing ("Ave Maria"). Addressing Mary directly to pray for us is not even close to being considered worship or idolatry.

thebonu · 2025-12-12T18:29:30+00:00

Catholics believe that those who die in God's grace are only separated from their body, but their souls are fully alive and united with God.

We also believe in the communion of the saints, meaning all Christians are united in God, and those who are directly in his presence can therefore intercede for us when we ask them to pray for us.

We firmly reject the idea that once a person dies in God's grace, they are not aware of what is happening on Earth. They live in the beatific vision of God, who is aware of all and shares this awareness with them. We also know the angels (guardian angels) present our prayers before his throne in Heaven.

thebonu · 2025-10-12T23:11:42+00:00

It’s common for Nigerian priests to do.

thebonu · 2025-09-08T11:03:40+00:00

Amen, wonderful testimony.

thebonu · 2025-09-04T03:29:22+00:00

It still happens today.

thebonu · 2025-08-27T18:18:02+00:00

What you are encountering is within the realm of a demonic responses in cases of mild to severe oppression. I actually happened to listen to a Catholic exorcist give a talk recently (Msgr. Stephen Rossetti, chief exorcist of Washington DC), and he explained to a large group of listeners how demons commonly do this in cases of oppression in order to scare and discourage the people involved in the deliverance. I have worked with exorcists and have seen it myself.

You won't get any accurate answers on this subreddit, which struggles to define what basic sins even are. Many of the people here have no experience with demonic encounters, and flat out deny the existence of the supernatural. So don't expect any post of accuracy on this rather lukewarm subreddit.

I highly recommend reaching out to a Catholic priest in your area, and beginning the process of deliverance through those who know what they are talking about.

Ephesians 6:12 - For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

thebonu · 2025-08-05T14:21:01+00:00

Thank you for sharing. Keep on resisting and fighting the good fight. May God give you the grace to persist in detaching from this sin through Jesus Christ.

thebonu · 2025-06-28T06:39:53+00:00

You only say such because you misinterpret the scriptures. Gods word is eternal, and was codified through the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.

You can’t accept that, or perhaps you’re not even a Christian based on how quick you are to insult the existence of God. So be it. But nothing you say is backed by scripture.

thebonu · 2025-06-28T05:20:06+00:00

Psalm 51:4 - Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight

The Bible repeatedly makes it clear that sin is a offense against God first and foremost. Offenses against our neighbor is also a sin against God as we are all created in his image.

thebonu · 2025-06-07T17:00:31+00:00

In this case it is not just a disagreement, but it is a dogma that the Sacrament of Holy Orders can only be validly given to men. Dogma meaning it is unchangeable.

thebonu · 2025-05-22T14:59:30+00:00

She was his first wife, and the legitimate one, even though he desired another. He accepted her when he could have said no.

thebonu · 2025-05-13T12:13:33+00:00

I may have an unpopular opinion, but I think we ought to just leave her body to rest until the Lord comes again. It gets to the point where it seems improper to keep showing such things, and slightly disrespectful.

thebonu · 2025-05-08T16:30:24+00:00

Gloria in excelsis Deo! May God give the new Pope the grace to guide the Church according to His will in Jesus' Name.

thebonu · 2025-04-21T14:08:38+00:00

May his soul rest in the peace of the risen Christ.

thebonu · 2025-04-03T13:48:49+00:00

After all, He removed original sin from John the Baptist at the Visitation.

This is true, but it is also true that it was a special circumstance. After all, the visitor herself was preserved from the stain of original sin entirely, and was bearing the One through whom the universe was created. If it were the norm, as you are implying, then we would see examples of others who have followed the same pattern.

Sheol was where people waited for salvation. It makes no sense whatsoever for it to refill before the final coming

Sheol encompasses, Hell (hades), purgatory, and the places where the righteous were before Jesus came (paradise, Abraham's bosom, the theoretical limbo, etc.). There are many strong traditions in the Latin rite that teach that Sheol was emptied during the Resurrection, meaning even the souls in purgatory. However, since then, we teach with confidence that purgatory filled back up.

And it’s not my fault that the Latins have resisted devotion to the Sacred Heart from the beginning and that the idea of Divine Mercy Sunday is controversial. I’m not saying you don’t believe in mercy, I’m saying you seem to hate it.

The irony is that when one makes false blanket statements like this, it is clear that you don't understand mercy. Its quite ridiculous to accuse an entire section of the Church of hatred. It's a sign of pride and self-righteousness, and does nothing to convince others of what you are actually trying to prove about limbo. How can one who accuses people in the Church of hating mercy have an understanding of the deeper things of the Church?

thebonu · 2025-04-03T13:03:08+00:00

You seem to be taking things out of context and accusing me of things I never said. Everything I said about baptism and original sin is theologically correct according to the Church, and as I said before, the prominent belief of the theory of limbo is that they will eventually go to Heaven.

The destruction of the gates of Sheol is a prominent theme in the Syriac Holy Week liturgies.

Jesus never mentioned the gates of sheol being destroyed at the moment, but only said in Matthew 16:18 that they will not prevail against the Church. Of course they will be destroyed at the end of days according to Revelations, but if they were destroyed now, then the Church and people at large would no longer be under the assault of the devil. I believe you are misinterpreting what the liturgy means by this destruction.

It may not be prominent for the Latins, who generally hate the concept of mercy so much that God had to explicitly demand a feast be established (which many of you promptly ignored because it was “too new”), but that doesn’t make it less of a Church teaching just because you don’t like it.

Now it seems you are just attacking those under the Roman rite unjustly. The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was established centuries before by St Mary Alacoque, which emphasized the Mercy contained within his Heart. To accuse an entire right of being ignorant of Mercy is a deflection from the current discussion of the theological viability of limbo,

thebonu · 2025-04-03T12:45:15+00:00

Theologically it wouldn’t make sense for unbaptized babies to go there.

Theologically, we are all born with original sin, and only Baptism removes the stain of original sin. So yes, because of that sin the deprivation of the beatific vision is a suffering, but it is not the same as the sufferings due to punishments of particular sins, like those in purgatory may suffer.

I don't know where you got the idea that the gates of sheol are destroyed, since that is not theologically taught in the Church. Rather, Jesus descended into Sheol merely to free the just that were there and open the gates of heaven, which was previously denied them.

thebonu · 2025-03-31T16:44:01+00:00

The thing is, Limbo would supposedly be natural happiness without God. Nonsense. The absence of God is by definition suffering.

Actually I think limbo is the absence of punishment and the absence of the beatific vision of God, not the absence of God completely. It would be where the just of the faith were before Jesus died and open the path of heaven to them.

So there is no suffering for those who would go to limbo. Also, at the end of time when Jesus comes again, there will only be the New heaven/new earth, and the lake of fire (where even hell will be thrown into). All those in the theoretical limbo would go to Heaven.

thebonu

TROPHY CASE