Explain Satanism In Italy?

[debrand]

reachitaly.com/?page_id=8

 

I was looking up missionaries to Europe and found this page.

 

 

Quote

Only 1,500 of Italy’s 33,500 communities have an established evangelical witness.

*The northeastern Veneto region with the cities of Venice, Padova, and Verona has almost 4.5 million residents, but maybe no more than 2,000 evangelical Christians.

*The northern provinces of Umbria, Trentino, Lombardia, and Emilia-Romagna have less than 0.1% evangelical Christians.

*The city of Torino (Turin) is a major global center for Satanic activity, which includes praying for the removal of all evangelical missionaries from the country.*Approximately 100,000 people throughout the country are believed to be practicing magicians (psychics, witches, and fortune tellers). This is more than the number of Catholic priests and 324 times the number of evangelical missionaries.

[debrand]

yetzeritaly.com/Italypage.html

Here is another family. Why would the misionaries call their host country a 'dark' land. Isn't that offensive to the people that they are trying to win over? I would not be happy if missionaries from Europe came to the United States and said that my country was a dark land. I'd tell them to go back to their own damn country.

I can't copy and past but their site says that at one time, Italy was a religious country but has 'dimmed to a dark land"

jonnywhitman.com/why-italy/

Here are more missionaries to Italy

Though many would claim to be religious, and most of them claim to be Christian, less then 1% claim to be evangelical, thus are trusting a works based salvation to get them to heaven.

and even during someone's funeral, they won't let up on the mourners

However, the most remarkable thing was that Tiziano had a lot of unsaved friends. Our church can comfortably hold 150 people. With standing room only we can fit 200. However Saturday, at Tiziano’s funeral, there were still another 100 people standing outside! All 300 people, of which 250 were unbelievers, heard the gospel three times during the course of the funeral. Tiziano himself shared his testimony through a video.

In the days preceding his death, Tiziano was continually witnessing to people as he sat in his bed, awaiting the inevitable.

We don’t know what fruit we will reap because of Tiziano’s death, but we certainly can say that his dying has been a clear witness to many people. People were still asking for copies of his video testimony as we watched his body be interred. Accustomed to the hopelessness and grief present in the funerals of unbelievers, they saw what it was like for a Christ follower to pass into a certain, joyful eternity with God.

[Guest Anonymous]

If I was native Italian, I'd pray too for the continued absence of evangelicals from my country.

[persuas1ve]

So they only count as official Christians if they are evangelical? Nice...I'd better let my husband know that his religion is nothing but papist filth & he's going straight to hell...

What happened to accepting Jesus?? Now you have to accept the right Jesus...crazy

[Anxious Girl]

Catholocism = bad due to praying to saints who send messages to God for certain help (animals getting better Francis of Saint Assisi, Saint Anne for mothers, and Saint Joseph for fathers) = sinning, but using Evangelical Christianity to claim persecution when they're actually ministering in 3rd world countries and taking away their culture is a-ok! (Please correct me if I'm wrong. :oops: )

[Arete]

Only thing wrong there is that Italy is a First World, not a Third World country.

People like this are the reason evangelicals are universally DESPISED in southern Europe. Some countries had laws on the books that said proselytism was against the law. Those anti-proselytism laws were put on the books when those countries first became independent nations because they were being targeted by missionaries. You had to have people make a police report to get the law enforced.

[Hane]

Catholocism = bad due to praying to saints who send messages to God for certain help (animals getting better Francis of Saint Assisi, Saint Anne for mothers, and Saint Joseph for fathers) = sinning, but using Evangelical Christianity to claim persecution when they're actually ministering in 3rd world countries and taking away their culture is a-ok! (Please correct me if I'm wrong. :oops: )

Dear Fundies: No, Catholics don't "pray to" saints. I mean, that's not the official doctrine--saints are supposed to be seen as holy examples to follow. If Catholics are praying to saints, they're doing it rong.

[Arete]

In Orthodoxy the Church is considered to have 2 parts, the church militant and the church triumphant. The church militant is those here on earth. The church triumphant is those already with God. You can ask a saint to pray for you, in the same way you can ask a person on earth to pray for you. That is the actual theology in Orthodoxy regarding the intercession of saints. You don't pray to a saint, you ask for their intercession to God.

Of course in folk religious practices, people do pray to saints for specific problems. This may not be theologically correct, but it is hardly santanic.

[Anxious Girl]

In Orthodoxy the Church is considered to have 2 parts, the church militant and the church triumphant. The church militant is those here on earth. The church triumphant is those already with God. You can ask a saint to pray for you, in the same way you can ask a person on earth to pray for you. That is the actual theology in Orthodoxy regarding the intercession of saints. You don't pray to a saint, you ask for their intercession to God.

Of course in folk religious practices, people do pray to saints for specific problems. This may not be theologically correct, but it is hardly santanic.

Same think here in Roman Catholocism, ArteJo! :D At least in my experience, anyway. In my family it's sorta half-joke for us to pray to Saint Francis if we lost something and need to find it desperately, and a lesser known Italian Saint, Padre Pio, is a saint my whole immediate family and family on my mom's side prays to in times of worry, and it helps us feel better. (Padre Pio came from the same province as my mom's side of the family.) Sorry if I'm going off topic, but can you explain the difference between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholocism? I think it's the same beliefs (aside from the Orthodox's Patriarch and the Roman Catholocism's Pope,) but with different rituals.

(Please correct me if I'm wrong.) I always find Orthodox Churches very beautiful! :D

[Arete]

Ah, the differences between Orthodoxy and Catholicism! A book in and of itself. Well, I'll give a brief overview my best shot.

The nucleus of both churches is the Hellenization (making in line with Greek philosophical thought and writing in Greek) of the early church. The church starts as a movement within Judaism, and eventually has it's first break off away from Judaism with Hellenization. It's important to note that the two religious movements that come out of the destruction of the Second Temple are Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. The early church has 5 power centers: Rome, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Constantinople. The Orthodox Church grew out of Constantinople (modern Istanbul) and the Catholic Church out of Rome. Initially these churches all had the same liturgies and decided matters of theology in councils. The theological schisms in Christianity first break off Alexandria which becomes the center for the Coptic Orthodox Churches in Africa. Antioch as an ancient city is destroyed. Jerusalem is destroyed and Rabbinic Judaism becomes pre eminent among the survivors. This leaves Constantinople and Rome as the leaders of the Christian world for nearly 14 centuries. They started as the same church, but of course culture starts diverging them.

Here is what EOs and RCs have in common- 7 sacraments, a ritual priesthood, belief in saints, veneration of Mary the mother of Jesus, "baptizing" pagan festivals and intergrating them into the Christian calendar, The Apostle's Creed, Jesus as the son of God, the same Bible (we share books in our Bibles that are not in Protestant Bibles i.e. Book of Tobias, Macabees (1-4), Susanah, Wisdom of Solomon, etc. Both churches have monastic orders for men and women.

Here is where we start to diverge-

EOs do not believe in the Doctrine of Original Sin. Mankind is not responsible for the sins of our first ancestors. The world can be messed up because we move away from God, but we have no share in the sins of Adam and Eve. The doctrine of Original Sin was initially developed by St. Augustine in the West (RC) and was never accepted in the East (EO). Along the same lines, Jesus's death is not a blood atonement in EO theology. I'm not sure if blood atonement is a Catholic doctrine or only a Protestant one. The Crucifixion is not looked at as a "payment" or "sacrifice" to God in Eastern Orthodoxy. The crucifixion is only important because it sets the stage for the ressurection. The EO church believes that the mission of Jesus was to not only to refocus humans in their relationships toward each other and God, but to demonstrate that death is not an immovable wall or even an end.

EOs maintain a married priesthood. A priest can be married before he is ordained. Culturally, EOs prefer that their parish priests be married, even though they can be celibates. A married priest is considered to have a better grip on the realities of family life. Once again, that is a cultural, not theological position. Theologically EO think a celibate is just as good as a married. The people on the ground think otherwise. EO priests can also not be promoted to bishops, metropolitans, or patriarch. The upper echelons of power remain with celibate men the same as the RCC.

EO liturgy is essentially the same as the RC, except we do everything you do at least 3-40 times more. :roll: With all due respect, we also have way prettier vestments. ;) Liturgy is only celebrated once a week with communion. There are services that are performed every day, but we only need a cantor to get those going. EO priests face east toward Jerusalem when celebrating a liturgy, RC priests turn to face their congregations.

EOs do full immersion baptism. That is why our babies tend to be a little older at baptism (start at around 4 months), because EO woman fear they will catch colds. No kidding. Like RCs, EOs do infant baptism. Unlike RCs, your baptism, first communion, and anointing (confirmation) all happen on the same day. After that you are a member in good standing until you choose to walk out the door. In EO confession, you are face to face with a priest, it is not anonymous. Culturally, EOs do not go to confession at anywhere near the rate of an RC of roughly the same piety. EOs also use confession to work through problems, so it was a form of primitive psychotherapy.

Abortion is only allowed in EO to save the life of the mother, and culturally it is pretty much required you abort in those cases because existing life and existing children having a mother take precedence. There is no firm teaching on birth control in EO. A lot of theologians are against, some are for, but having a married priesthood changes the facts on the ground for us culturally. Married priest overwhelmingly teach that birth control is fine to space children in a marriage or prevent pregnancy where it would be dangerous. Like RCs, sex outside of marriage is a big theological no-no, so there is no reason to talk about birth control in those instances. :roll:

Like RCs, we love our mothers, our saints, our festivals, and our drink. No one ever got through Greek Orthodox Sunday School without learning Jesus's first miracle was changing water into wine at a wedding so people could keep partying. :dance: We listen to lectures right before Lent from our priests that Mardi Gras is pagan and not at all sanctioned by the church, and then turn around and have Mardi Gras parties and costume extravaganzas so we can have one last party before buckling down for the business of Lent. :mrgreen:

The official schism between EOs and RCs was in 1054. We are always in talks.

For far better history and theology, you can read Hans Kung's Christianity: History and Essence for a good scholarly Catholic view, and on the Orthodox side, anything by Alexander Schmemann or Kallistos Ware.

[Cran]

Dear Fundies: No, Catholics don't "pray to" saints. I mean, that's not the official doctrine--saints are supposed to be seen as holy examples to follow. If Catholics are praying to saints, they're doing it rong.

No, this isn't true. The Catholic Church teaches intercessory prayer, i.e. the saint you're praying too will also pray for you to God, but has no power to fulfil the prayer on his/her own, so saints are not put in the place of God in Catholicism.

The correct distinction would be that saints are venerated while God alone is adored/worshipped.

[ElphabaGalinda]

Praying for the evangelicals to leave their country isn't satanist, it's good old fashioned common sense. They're in a first world country where most people are already Christian, but they don't count that because they're not the exact same kind of Christian too. And they call it a dark country because their kind of fundie doesn't exist there and is seen as strange. Apparently the whole Jesus thing is unimportant to these people. proselytism is something I hate, but this particular kind seems particularly stupid for some reason.