Article in the Guardian

[Sausagenbacon]

An article in the Guardian today , where I don't think the writer has taken much trouble to educate themselves about what xtians think (and don't mean the references to Mary). I'd be interested to hear what others think

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/05/mary-not-co-redeemer-vatican-pope-leo-catholic-church

I'm not sure what you mean. The article is interesting - what is it you're not happy about?

I am not catholic so I don't really understand the Mary stuff in that article.

Do we believe in hellfire now?
And I believe that Christ's death on the cross AND resurrection saved me

I assume the hell fire bit is directly from edict from The pope and again as a non Catholic I have no idea how important hellfire is in Catholicism.

I was baptised in a Catholic church as a child and went to Catholic school from 4 to 19. I don't think mentioned Mary as being a co-redeemer at all. Perhaps this is more modern. I left in the early 90s. I don't think this is perhaps intrinstic to the Catholic faith. I am a non demontional today but can worship in any church and prefer being non demontional. I don't disagree with any of the Catholic faith and still at times go to my childhood Catholic church as I find one of the safest places for me to be in the world.

I think they are doing this as social media is taking the mick and they are trying to guard against this abuse. The plans of Satan will not overtake the church Jesus said. Changes need to be made to this social media abuse in other areas to like some telling us we can worship our own Temples and that is it as we have them.

I too believe that Christ became the sacarfical atonement and saved me and gave me the opportunity to try and have eternal life through him as well some of us he will say he didn't know us, so I said try as we all do.

Not a Catholiic but agree that Mary is not a co-redeemer, only Christ can redeem. She was truly a blessed woman though! Incredible. I had not heard of Mary as a co-redeemer but again, I'm not a Catholic so I guess I wouldn't.

Yes I firmly believe in Hellfire, where non-believers will go. Not a pleasant thought at all!

It would be useful if may be if someone could define what a co-redeemer means to them-as sometimes how we think of something may not appear exactly as it seems.

I had a look at that article I saw a baby black Jesus and Mexican looking mother. I looked into it and saw the Pope praying in front of a black Jesus and mother to perhaps redress some imbalances in the past. Me I am not european and had little to no racism in my life and when asked opinion in church over it I have never had one as I have not experienced. I try and take time for others who have.

We have to be careful about social media and there was a fake Pope channel on Youtube using AI an obscure carnal words as his slogans. It is was not good.

As I wrote I am not european origin, but for me I would prefer to see more ethnic backgrounds being Saints all over the world and not so european just in origin than obtaining black statues. We have a few like Saint Felicity and Saint Thea Bowman. That moves me more than just black statues and some have gone dark in a process due to dust in the environment and they then paraded outside as black to come inside later and dusted of to be real colour. May be they are trying to get more diverse saints.

May be at that Vatican they may have two statues of the Lord, for those who may want it to be traditional. They could be working on this, but outwardly it hasn't been shown much in numbers and also God can make anyone who gets to heaven a Saint and even give them this process- but I still have a thing that process to of becoming a Saint that happens in the Catholic faith.

I just thought of something about what I wrote above-
The Jewish people God made them severed for himself, his people. We all now all equal before him (Galatians 3:28). Jesus came from people who was set apart by God to be Holy. This is then and not now. The different icons all around the world, they didn't come from severed people. I find it interesting. We don't worship the statues and are just reminders, but their origin is not from severed people before God at that time.

@Sausagenbacon The article says ...[The Vatican decree] says Jesus saved the world through his sacrificial death on the cross and that while Mary paved the way for the redemption by giving birth to him, she was not a “co-redeemer”

Quite right too! 'co-redeemer'! Pah! It is stuff and nonsense, anti-Biblical lies of the enemy! To even think otherwise, is anti-Christ. Our Saviour's earthly mother was hugely blessed by God, but was as human and flawed as any other person.

@Justmerach Along with others, I am one of many world-wide, universal, all-encompassing, catholic (katholikos), living saints (hagios); part of the body of Christ; the Church, and set apart for the Lord. I am not a (Roman) Catholic. To be blunt, I do not want to hear about any so-called 'co'redeemer! There is no such thing!

I want to feed my heart and brain and soul with God's Truth - I will give the enemy no foothold and will never give anti-Biblical 'stuff and nonsense' any house-room! Matt 16:23; Mark 8:33 'get behind me, satan!'

Thank the LORD for the Spirit of Discernment. 🙏

May these words of my mouth keyboard, and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my (ONLY) Redeemer. 🙏.

This is very good Thegreatestoftheseislove that you are doing this. There is conscreated single life to which I am looking into this myself.

You are missing the point. I specifically said I wasn't referring to the part of the message about Mary

Wasn't 100% clear as the article is primarily about Mary so understandably most of us got waylaid by that!

Do we believe in hellfire now?

Yes, as I said earlier, I do believe in Hell, do you not? There are biblical references to it, but again, opinions differ.

“Do we believe in hellfire now?”

wait!
do you not?🤔

”Luke 16:23–24
In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

Matthew 25:41
Then He will say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Matthew 13:49–50
So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Revelation 21:8
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

need I go on? 🤔

No.

The only way to not believe in the reality of hell is to not believe in the Bible.

How then does a Christian believe anything? 🤔

Jesus spoke more about hell than anyone else in the Biblical record.

You haven't stated what you think or believe.

What do I think about hell, I don't think about it much but it exists and is in the Bible and well, I just focus on trying to do good things and follow the Bible and pray to try and protect myself. Hell is the eternal absence of God and there is a pit of hell where demons go. I think those who were good but didn't know God should just probably live on earth as it is again but that is unlikely to happen.

We have so many beautiful things of nature that I would be a bit sad to see it thrown away. I see those were good people who didn't know good living like an open prison and those in pit will be hardened demons. There is spiritual wickedness and most of my life I avoided the topic and kind of pretended it didn't exist.

It's a bit like only believing in Jesus and not in Satan. Only believing in Heaven and not Hell. Like you would only want to believe in nice things and not the ugly ones. Sorry, but Satan and Hell do exist. Bible is the proof of that.

I think those who were good but didn't know God should just probably live on earth as it is again but that is unlikely to happen.

The problem is that those who don't know Christ as saviour aren't 'good'. I know this is a big stumbling block because we all know nice people who aren't Christians and do good things. But it's the motivation, the things they do aren't for God's glory. They still have a sin nature and God cannot abide that. So there literally are no 'good' people in existence.

Also, God is going to make a new Heaven and Earth, this one will be destroyed.

We have so many beautiful things of nature that I would be a bit sad to see it thrown away.

God will re-create all of it, and it'll be even more beautiful! Plus, no weeds! 😆

Fine, you do Christianity your way. Respect my decision to do it mine.
The point of my post was that i don't believe most xtians accept hell. And I, personally, believe that we are saved by Christ's death AND resurrection.
And I think the article was written by someone who had no understanding of Christianity.

Jesus said that there are many paths and some he will say he did not know you. All of these people had rest on him, but he will not know everyone said and not everyone will get through. He said so himself. Some things work for different people. I don't think much about hell, but I think that it exists and trust the Bible.

Hi everyone, Jesus told us to come to him through the narrow path or through the strait gate to get to him to receive salvation to eternal life. This path as we know isn't easy for us to stay on. We need to be on this path at the end of our live to reach him s or if we don't Jesus Christ said to us that he could say to us at the end that he didn't know you (Matthew 7: 21-23).

There are other paths such as the wide gate which we do not want to be on in life which do not lead to salvation. The Lord prepares us to get through and persevere to end of our journey on earth with our comforter-the Holy Spirit in life which he promised to equip us as Christians on our journey which Jesus he would send believers after his rescurrection (John 14:26).

In your journey I want to remind you of this. In Revelations 2 Jesus had a message for us that some of us had lost their first love and passion for the faith. I remind you here to hold onto this as it appears critical to reaching your salavation "Don't forget their first love for the faith as there was people who had done great things for the church-but they had lost their passion for the faith and Jesus asked them to nurture this.

Fine, you do Christianity your way.
Imo this is not a space for evangelising, just for Christians to have respectful discussions with each other.
Please take your soapbox elsewhere.

I am struggling to make out what you mean as you don't quote people and disagree with the words of the Bible and say it is a soap box, it is not my words. I quoted this as you wrote that we all have rest in Christ and all get through as Christians if we all believe in Jesus then why did he say that he will not know some of us who are Christians at the end as it void this. In this he saying not all of us who believe in him will get through and if rest in Christ means we all get through it at odds with there being many paths to him and that is his word. You say that you want to discuss, it does not seem so.

It is biblical, some strong ministers he said in Revelations will too not get through.

I'll leave you to it. Bye

I will post as once we post, anyone can post in a thread, but I am not directing anything towards you..

Moving on-
I was thinking perhaps someone can tell us the true meaning of Hebrews 4 as it seems to being missued by people. This rest in Christ to suggest that we all are going to get through as Christians almost and just rest and forget anything and rest and trust in Christ at the widest end.

For me I like the Gospels. If you take out the narrow path and spiritual treasures and you just rest in Christ you take a lot of the Gospel out to replace it by Hebrew 4 just rest in Christ.

Me, Christ asked us to share our light too with world to try and help others and be of loving kind service to them. Again saying there is rest and no works frees anyone from helping others.

The true meaning of Hebrews 4?
(Hebrews 4:1) “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.” This scripture is also used to support not upholding the Sabbath. This scripture does not ask us to stop upholding the Sabbath, but it questions us and guides to enter into a deeper spiritual relationship with Jesus rather than just worshipping and not developing your spiritual life. Developing spiritually through the Holy Spirit helps you to develop your spiritual journey with Christ.

I found this online which promotes just full out resting in Christ so need for ministers at church?

I think perhaps if you have a minister and want to find out if hell is real or we all get through ask them than to discuss it online if unsure perhaps.

I found this online which might give someone the idea we should suspend everything and we all get through-

In Hebrews 4, "Christ's rest" means
entering a spiritual and eternal rest by ceasing from self-reliant "works" to trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ for salvation. This rest is not simply a physical or daily break but a profound and active trust in God's provision through Christ, bringing an end to the anxiety of trying to earn salvation and a deep peace with God. Entering this rest requires active faith and obedience to God.

Meaning of Christ's rest

• Ceasing from works: The rest is about stopping the effort to earn righteousness through your own works and instead resting securely in what Christ has already done for you.
• Trust in Christ: It is entered through active faith, which means trusting, relying on, and clinging to Jesus Christ.
• An eternal rest: This is a deeper, "Sabbath rest" that God provides, a rest that is ultimately found in heaven but impacts daily life through a soul at rest in God.
• An active rest: Entering this rest requires effort—the effort to place your trust and faith in God actively, not passively.

Please don't go @Sausagenbacon . You have started a really interesting conversation and I would really like to hear more about your perspective. I completely agree with you that we are saved by Christ's death and resurrection.

I am interested to know what you think happens to non believers when they die? Do they just cease to exist?