Catholics ADMIT to illegally changing...

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by wordsponge

Catholics ADMIT to illegally changing
....
Catholic Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger:
He makes this confession,
as to the origin of the chief Trinity text of Matthew 28:19.
"The basic form of our (Matthew 28:19 Trinitarian)m
profession of faith took shape
during the course of the second and third centuries,
in connection with the ceremony of baptism.
So far as its place of origin is concerned,
the text (Matthew 28:19) came from the city of Rome.
“The Trinity baptism and text of Matthew 28:19,
therefore did >> not originate from the original Church
that started in Jerusalem around AD 33.
It was rather, as the evidence proves,
a later invention of Roman Catholicism,
completely >> fabricated.
Very few know about these historical facts.
*
The Catholic Encyclopedia, II, page 263:
"The baptismal formula was changed,
from the name of Jesus Christ
to the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
by the Catholic Church in the second century."
*..

Once again the person responsible for this collection of quotes has added in remarks that are not found in the original source, and these added words shamefully alter Ratzinger’s intended meaning. It is hardly surprising that no bibliographical information is provided to facilitate checking into this quotation. In spite of this authors’ best effort, I have located the source of the quotation. Once this quote is read in context it becomes apparent that Ratzinger is not saying that the text of Matthew 28:19 formed or took shape or originated in the second and third centuries in Rome. Rather, he was saying that the Apostle’s Creed took shape in connection with the way baptism was administered in the ancient Church. Here is what Ratzinger wrote:

All that we have said so far has done no more than attempt to answer the formal question of what belief as such is and where in the world of modern thought it can find a starting point and a function to perform. The more far-reaching problems relating to its content thus necessarily remained open—with the whole subject perhaps looking only too pale and ill-defined. The answers can only be found by looking at the concrete shape of Christian belief, and this we now mean to consider, using the so-called APOSTLE’S CREED as a guiding thread. It may be useful to preface the discussion with a few facts about the origin and structure of THE CREED; these will at the same time throw some light on the legitimacy of the procedure. The basic form of our profession of faith took shape during the course of the second and third centuries in connection with the ceremony of baptism. So far as its place of origin is concerned, the text comes from the city of Rome; but its internal origin lies in worship; more precisely, in the conferring of baptism. This again was fundamentally based on the words of the risen Christ recorded in Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” In accordance with this injunction, three questions are put to the person to be baptized: “Do you believe in God the Father Almighty? Do you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God…? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit…?” The person being baptized replies to each of these three questions with the word “Credo”—I believe—and is then each time immersed in the water. Thus the oldest form of THE CONFESSION OF FAITH takes the shape of a tripartite dialogue, of question and answer, and is, moreover, embedded in the ceremony of baptism. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, [1990], 2004), pp. 82-83.) (Uppercase mine)