Over Half of South Jersey's Catholics Believe Jesus Sinned

[Hansc]

"Although the sinless life of Jesus Christ is a foundational tenet of the Christian faith, a study recently released by the Diocese of Camden found that 60 percent of practicing Catholics in southern New Jersey believe Jesus sinned during his time on Earth.

"The number of Catholics who have a very flawed, a seriously flawed, understanding of who Jesus is, that's troublesome," Bishop Joseph Galante of the Diocese of Camden said during a press conference, USA Today reports. "We've got to re-focus on how we teach and inform people. Jesus is the foundation of who we are as Catholics."

The study was commissioned by the diocese with the hope that the results would . . ."


Christian Post

[historyb]

Ah the product of Vatican 2 and bad, very bad catechesis.

[Titus]

Ah the product of Vatican 2 and bad, very bad catechesis.

Bless my heart. Here I was thinking catholic teaching never changed. LOL

[RoyS]

Bless my heart. Here I was thinking catholic teaching never changed. LOL

Not only that, but it's 'infallible'.

[historyb]

It doesn't. Liberals took V2 out of context just like they do everything else

[dave]

Barf! Yeah, this is the result of "...let's not step on anyone's toes because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings..." and "...let's not point out sin because we don't want to judge..."

Since the '60's Catechesis has been terrible at best in the larger part of the Church. I was a victim of this myself, growing up wihtout the slightest idea what the Church taught, never knowing that we have a duty to one another to help ech other grow in a life with Christ, etc... It wasn't until my mid-20's that I started to find things out for myself.

Anyway, the poll is disguntingly accuarate to describe that part of the nation's lack of understanding. I hope that Dioceses there leanrns the lesson and steps up and proclaims the Word of God instead of the loosely defined "human respect" message of man. My gut, however tells me that they'll try to fix it by emphasizing "love your neighbor" and "make everyone feel welcome by not poiting out sin" instead of giving people the Truth they need to hear.

[Unclaimed Treasure]

If polled, I am sure that there are many Protestant Christians who also believe that Jesus sinned.

I live in a town that is predominantly Catholic. It's been a while since I did the research, but the community is just a little above national averages, at 58% of the population, when it comes to regular church attendance. Of those folks, half are Catholic. So I'm rubbing shoulders and in conversations with many of them on a regular basis.

As mentioned before, I sub in the Catholic school system as well as the Lutheran and public school systems and I'm even entrusted with handling religion classes in the middle and high school. One thing that impresses me about the curriculum, no, not really the curriculum, but the commitment of the teachers, is a strong emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They also do a very good job in fairly presenting the teachings of Luther, Calvin, Billy Graham, John and Charles Wesley, D. W. Moody and so forth, at appropriate age levels.

One thing I see in common in all of the private schools is a bell curve when it comes to attitude about faith. There are a few students in each class that are on fire for God, who are interested in knowing what and why they believe and making it a part of their lives. There are a few students in each class, even as young as the sixth grade, who make no bones about their lack of faith, whether in the Catholic church in particular or in God in general. Then there are the majority of students in each class who are only interested in memorizing the information long enough to pass their tests and make no effort to incorporate what they are learning into their daily lives.

Then there are the parents... Again, there is a bell curve. There are a few parents that are sendingn their children to Christian schools (Catholic, Lutheran or non-denominational) because of their love for God and their desire to see their children grow in faith. Then there are the parents, some Buddhist, Hindu, LDS, and even one Muslim family, who send their kids to the Catholic schools because they don't like the public schools and are not personally equipped to homeschool. (BTW, the local Catholic school system requires ALL students to take religion classes and attend Mass, no matter their denomination or religion). And then there are the majority of the parents who are sending their kids so that they don't have to be bothered teaching them about their faith...and usually are not great church attenders themselves.

Now one would think that the devout parents would be the ones with the devout kids and vice-versa, but while that is common, it doesn't always pan out that way.

But I've got to say...even when the kids get things "wrong" regarding what they are being taught, in the local Catholic schools, they hear that Jesus loves them every single school day. And they are taught about the Bible every single school day, so I would put up any one of the sixth through twelfth graders in a contest about Biblical knowledge, even those that pronounce themselves atheists or otherwise non-believers, against any of the sixth through twelfth graders that I taught in Sunday school when I was part of the Methodist church, who if they did not receive faith instruction at home, only received 45 minutes of instruction, once a week. (And of that 45-minute class time, at least half was taken up with artsy-craftsy stuff rather than learning about the Bible, doctrine and God.)

[Hansc]

If polled, I am sure that there are many Protestant Christians who also believe that Jesus sinned.

I live in a town that is predominantly Catholic. It's been a while since I did the research, but the community is just a little above national averages, at 58% of the population, when it comes to regular church attendance. Of those folks, half are Catholic. So I'm rubbing shoulders and in conversations with many of them on a regular basis.

As mentioned before, I sub in the Catholic school system as well as the Lutheran and public school systems and I'm even entrusted with handling religion classes in the middle and high school. One thing that impresses me about the curriculum, no, not really the curriculum, but the commitment of the teachers, is a strong emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. They also do a very good job in fairly presenting the teachings of Luther, Calvin, Billy Graham, John and Charles Wesley, D. W. Moody and so forth, at appropriate age levels.

One thing I see in common in all of the private schools is a bell curve when it comes to attitude about faith. There are a few students in each class that are on fire for God, who are interested in knowing what and why they believe and making it a part of their lives. There are a few students in each class, even as young as the sixth grade, who make no bones about their lack of faith, whether in the Catholic church in particular or in God in general. Then there are the majority of students in each class who are only interested in memorizing the information long enough to pass their tests and make no effort to incorporate what they are learning into their daily lives.

Then there are the parents... Again, there is a bell curve. There are a few parents that are sendingn their children to Christian schools (Catholic, Lutheran or non-denominational) because of their love for God and their desire to see their children grow in faith. Then there are the parents, some Buddhist, Hindu, LDS, and even one Muslim family, who send their kids to the Catholic schools because they don't like the public schools and are not personally equipped to homeschool. (BTW, the local Catholic school system requires ALL students to take religion classes and attend Mass, no matter their denomination or religion). And then there are the majority of the parents who are sending their kids so that they don't have to be bothered teaching them about their faith...and usually are not great church attenders themselves.

Now one would think that the devout parents would be the ones with the devout kids and vice-versa, but while that is common, it doesn't always pan out that way.

But I've got to say...even when the kids get things "wrong" regarding what they are being taught, in the local Catholic schools, they hear that Jesus loves them every single school day. And they are taught about the Bible every single school day, so I would put up any one of the sixth through twelfth graders in a contest about Biblical knowledge, even those that pronounce themselves atheists or otherwise non-believers, against any of the sixth through twelfth graders that I taught in Sunday school when I was part of the Methodist church, who if they did not receive faith instruction at home, only received 45 minutes of instruction, once a week. (And of that 45-minute class time, at least half was taken up with artsy-craftsy stuff rather than learning about the Bible, doctrine and God.)

UT, I think you bring out some very good points. I have known several Catholics that had the Spirit of God and without a doubt were on their way to heaven. I have also known several Catholics that were not saved.

I recently read a study from France, which stated that around 30% of the Catholics in France did not actually believe in God, although they still self-identified as Catholics. Interesting the atheist Jean-Paul Sartre would fall into that camp.

But to be fair to the Catholics, I also read a Barna poll which stated that around 30% of Evangelicals did NOT believe in the literal physical resurrection of Christ. Hence, they have NOT actually meet the Biblical requirements for salvation.


I have a fairly recent study on belief in America from Baylor, maybe I'll share some of that data. Baylor reports are considered some of the best studies on what people in America actually believe.

[Jed]

Catholics do not follow the Bible..the Holy word of God..they have their own Bible..that is probably why they have the perverted beliefs they do...The Holy word of God says "Call not man on earth your Father, only the Father who is in Heaven"...not only do Catholics call priests Father, but the pope has to be called Holy Father...how blasphemous is that? They also say Peter was the first pope, and was not married...Peter was dead for two hundred years before the Roman church got going, and he was married ..the Bible says Jesus went to heal Peter's mother in law...the roman church changed God's holy seventh day Sabbath, which is the fourth commandment, to the first day of the week without any Biblical authority...they introduced dec 25th, and easter, which are pagan in origin and have no Biblical authority, they initiated massive killing of humans during the inquisitions, crusades and recently Irish war with the protestants..contrary to Jesus commandment to "love you neighbour as yourself"? which He identified as your enemies..."pray for your enemies, love your enemies" He also said do not fight evil with evil, but evil with God...so the credibility of the Roman church is very questionable on a lot of fronts...so for them to have blasphemous opinions is not surprising!

[Hansc]

Jed,

how do you account 30% of evangelical Protestants NOT believing Jesus rose physically from the dead?

Catholics do not follow the Bible..the Holy word of God..they have their own Bible

They don't have the same New Testament as Protestants?

They also say Peter was the first pope, and was not married

I've never actually heard that they don't believe Peter was married, where did you hear this?

...the roman church changed God's holy seventh day Sabbath

As Christians, we do not celebrate the Sabbath, we do not celebrate a day, Christ is our Shabbath, we worship Him in spirit and celebrate His resurrection on all days. Naturally, we also understand from the Biblical example that the early Christians held many of their group meetings on the day that Christ rose from the dead, the first day of the week---Sunday.