Born Again Issue (Religious Debate Part II)

I don't enjoy or am interested in engaging religious debates for it does nothing beneficial to me. However, it challenges my commitment and attachment to my Catholic faith and at the same time, tries my knowledge about my religion which is a way of life.

Religious debates/discussions in the end has no finality but rather continue in a parallel direction like a railway. After all, it's just like a "dispute" between Mac lovers and Windows users --- my brand is my brand, yours is yours.

BORN AGAIN ISSUE

Dora correctly says that unless one is born again, s/he cannot be saved. That is also what John the evangelist says but Dora differs from my understanding. For me, to be born again means to be baptized. Baptism transforms us as the children of God, gives us a passport to inherit heaven. It also reansforms us as apostles preaching the Good News.

Dora's rough concept is to know Christ first, turn away from a childhood religion and be baptized again to a newly-found religion. Shes does not believe in infant baptism although she believes in original sin. From the Catholic point of view, without baptism or Christian initiation, one cannot receive other sacraments. She said that we must follow Christ who was baptized when He was already an adult.

Christ did not need baptism for He did not need a savior. We do for we are sinners. Jesus was baptized to initiate the sacrament. If we follow the example of Christ's baptism, He was baptized only once.

Dora, a fellow searcher of truth has been a Catholic, an Iglesia ni Cristo and now a Baptist. She was baptized three times. I asked her if my baptism when I was an infant was invalid. That is answerable by a yes or no but she was evasive hinting that my Catholic faith is false.

If Dora believes that she is already saved became she is now a born again and that faith alone is necessary for salvation, I wonder why she still goes to her church. Her being "born again" did not make her unique that she no longer sins.

No other religion among thousands can trace their roots from the time of the Apostles other that Catholicism.

CONFESSION

Dora said that there is no need to confess sins to a fellow sinner. Instead, confess directly to God. That is correct for the priest in the confessional box cannot and does not forgive the sins of a penitent. At the end of his counsel the priest says, "Through the ministry of the Church I ABSOLVE you from your sins . . . etc."

I though that she is reading her "true" Bible. If she is, probably, she has not yet encountered the verse where Christ said to Peter after entrusting (empowering)him the keys of heaven saying "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Take note that the wording of the empowerment is absolute --- without any condition.

It is true that some priests are black eyes of the Church but no matter how bad they are, their faculty to absolve sins remain intact through the power of their ordination to the holy orders.

Christ forgives sins but priests absolve sins because that is a part of their job description given by Christ.

To be continued . . .