Can you help me with belief in the pope vs belief in Christ?

[greeneyes]

I had a discussion yesterday with an ex-Mormon and was trying to explain why many mainstream Christian denominations do not accept the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) church’s claims that they are “just like other Christians”, but that most churches consider them to be a cult, because their faith and focus is on a man, Joseph Smith and not on Christ. He claimed that Mormon faith IS centred on Christ and not Joseph Smith, but agreed that if a person did not believe in Joseph Smith, that they were in fact, not a Mormon at all.

His then asserted if that faith and focus on Christ alone was the criteria for being considered “Christian” then the Catholic Church does not qualify as a Christian Church as the Catholic Church’s faith and focus was on the Pope and not solely on Christ. I did not agree as I know a number of practising Catholics who do not believe in the office or infallibility of the Pope. He suggested that the Church would not consider them real Catholics. I disagreed, but maybe I am wrong?

Can you help me better understand how belief in the Pope fits into Catholic doctrine and whether such belief is integral to one being able to call oneself Catholic? Is my friend correct that one cannot be a true Catholic without acknowledging papal office and infallability?

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Hi,

Despite its title as “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," the Catholic Church does not consider the Mormon faith to be Christian because it does not believe in the Holy Trinity, nor does it believe in the divinity of Christ as Christians do. That’s pretty basic. It uses many of the terms we use, but with very different meanings.

Joseph Smith is the founder of the Mormon faith. Jesus Christ is the founder of the Catholic Church. There is no other. The pope is the successor to St. Peter to whom Jesus gave authority to lead the Church He founded. This authority has been passed down to each of the successors of St. Peter to our current pope. But we don’t worship the pope. We worship Jesus Christ as God. The Mormons do not do this. The Church is protected from error only when the pope teaches on faith and morals—not because of his own state of soul, but because Jesus promised to remain with His Church to guide and protect it. For more on the pope, see:

oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Pope

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.