F
fred_conty
Guest
Quite right, here is something quite interesting from one of our early church fathers.I don’t know, wrongly or rightly, I’ve always felt that Christians were people of Christ. Those that believe in Christ and that He is the Son in the Holy Trinity.
Catholics definately believe this.
I mean, if you are a person of Christ, how can you NOT be a Christian?
“In the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. And so, lastly, does the name itself of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house. Such then in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic Church, as it is right they should. . . With you, where there is none of these things to attract or keep me. . . No one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion. . . For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.”
St. Augustine