Debating a Protestant

[DylanO]

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2. What They Teach About The Priest

With in the Roman Catholic system their priests are referred to as “Father So & So” which is in contradiction to the teaching of Matthew 23:9, “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”

We don’t need any priests on earth to be our go-between or representative before God. The Bible teaches on the priesthood of the believer (1 Peter 2:5,9; Rev.1:6). As believers in the Lord we have direct access to God. In fact, we have Jesus Christ as our High Priest (Hebrews 2:17; 3:1; 4:14; 8:1; 9:11-12).

It is believed that as the Catholic priest offers the mass, the wafer literally becomes the body of Christ and the wine literally becomes the blood of Christ by or through the hands of the priest. This is idolatry where the Catholics worship a god made by human hands. The mass is central to Catholic worship. It is not a memorial to remember the death of Christ but instead it is a sacrifice of Christ again and again by the priest on the altar. The problem with this is that the Bible teaches that there is to be no continual sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ as offered once and for all (Hebrews 7:27; 9:25-27; 10:10-12). According to 1 Cor.11:25-26, the observance of the Lord’s Supper was to be done in remembrance; it was to show His death, not repeat it. Another practice of the Catholics is that they go to their local priest to confess their sins which is in violation of 1 John 1:9 and 1 John 2:1 Only Jesus Christ the righteous, our Advocate, has the authority and the ability to forgive us of our sins.

3. What They Teach About The Penance

Penance is one of the seven sacraments taught to be practiced as a means of obtaining salvation. To quote from one Catholic catechism: “Penance is the means by which sins committed after baptism are forgiven through the absolution of the priest.”

The Bible teaches that only God can forgive sin (Mark 2:5,7; Luke 7:48) and that salvation is only by the grace of God (Eph.2:8-9).

4. What They Teach About Purgatory

Catholics claim that the purpose of purgatory is to punish an individual fully for his/her sins before he can enter heaven. To quote from their own writings: “The pains of purgatory are very severe, passing anything endured in this life. According to the Holy Fathers of the Church, the fire of purgatory does not differ than the fire of hell except in point of duration.”

The truth is, the Bible never mentions a place called purgatory. It does talk about “a great gulf fixed” (Luke 16:26) and about “paradise” (Luke 23:43), but no place of suffering called purgatory. The only place that is taught in the Bible that is described as unbearable torment and suffering is hell. For the believer, 2 Cor.5:8 teaches that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Even in Phil. 1:23 the apostle Paul mentions about his desire to depart and be with Christ. No such hint of a place called purgatory. In fact, if a person is really born again, saved by the grace of God, he will never have to suffer for his sins because One suffered for him on the Cross of Calvary (1 Peter 3:18). Thank the Lord for Hebrews 10:17 which says, “And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.”

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[DylanO]

…Continued from above…

5. What They Teach About Their Praying

Most Roman Catholics practice what they call the “Rosary.” They are supposed to repeat this prayer 50 times and keep count by using beads.

The words of the prayer are as follows: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed be the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of death. Amen.”

Calling Mary the mother of God and praying to her started as far back as 431 A.D. The Bible never exalts Mary to a position higher than everybody else. Luke 1:28 makes reference to her as a woman blessed among women, not above. She even admitted to the fact of her need in life of a Saviour (Luke 1:47). Mary had to be saved the same way as any other lost sinner – through trusting in the finished work of Christ on the cross.

We don’t need Mary to intercede for us as believers because we have the Lord and His Spirit interceding on our behalf (Romans 8:26-27,34; Hebrews 7:25). The Bible teaches that when God’s people pray, they are to pray to the Heavenly Father, not Mary (Matthew 6:7-9). When God’s people pray, they are to pray in the name of Jesus, not Mary’s (John 14:13-14; 16:23-24).

Conclusion

The only defense against the damnable heresy of false doctrine is a solid grounding in the Word of God. As a tree without roots is easily blown over in the slightest breeze, even so a Christian without a foundation of knowledge established upon the Word of God is susceptible to being moved about by whatever direction the current doctrinal wind is blowing.

We are warned in Colossians 2:8 to not be “spoiled” (seduced, carried away) with philosophy, vain deceit, tradition of men, and rudiments of the world. Roman Catholicism is involved in all four of these areas. It has incorporated the philosophy of paganism, the vain deceit of fabricated fables that have no Biblical basis, the traditions of men that have been exalted to the position above the Bible, and rudiments of the world are evident to the extreme in the sacramental system and human effort to obtain God’s saving grace.

Is Roman Catholicism Christian? Not according to the Bible. To be Christian one must be a follower of Christ and His teachings. There is no such thing as a “Christian Catholic.” Do we hate Catholics? No. Our hearts go out to those who have been blinded by the god of this world, lest they see the Light and believe in the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ, which is able to save their souls. Our prayer is that for all Roman Catholics to be delivered from the power of darkness and be glorious saved through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Baptist Pillar

Being a Catholic, I know these claims are ridiculous but, I’m not sure how to refute them.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

…Continued from above…
Being a Catholic, I know these claims are ridiculous but, I’m not sure how to refute them.

Dylan, have you seen the Bible Christian Society webpage? There is a link there called 2-Minute Apologetics that has answers for all of these claims, and then some!

Also, if you’re dealing with Baptists, here are a couple other sources for you:

Bible Truths for Baptists

Some Baptists adhere to a “Landmark” history which claims that the early Church was Baptist and they link themselves to just about every heretical and schismatic group in history to prove it. Losing the Trail refutes that theory.

 

[mercygate]

Karl Keating’s book, Catholicism and Fundamentalism.

This book is a MUST for all Catholics who encounter stuff like this. It’s all in there. Ever notice how these people fail to read what the Church REALLY says? In the passage quoted about penance it says sins are forgiven “through the priest.” Well, :doh2: . They make the assumption that Christ cannot work through the ministry of his Church. I guess this comes under the heading of “one mediator”. Again, they see the word “mediator” in its current English sense, not realizing that the “mediation” of Christ is the hypostatic union. Our being “in Christ” brings us into His mediation. They just don’t take their thinking that far. It stops at the first thing they think contradicts Catholic teaching.

They never ask as question as Our Lady did: “How can this be?” Instead, ‘leaning unto their own understanding’ (Prov 3:5), they just declare: “This can’t be!” and remain in their own earthbound little closet.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

Karl Keating’s book, Catholicism and Fundamentalism.

This book is a MUST for all Catholics who encounter stuff like this. It’s all in there.

Absolutely! His “What Catholics *Really *Believe” is very good, too. It’s in Q/A format so you can easily find what you’re looking for.

 

[Akiliana]

I love debates with anti-Catholic Protestants. Nothing like one to remind me of why I love my church.
I’ve noticed a lot of the same old questions that come up and the same old narrow limitations in which they expect you to defend the church. To be honest I love when they bring up things like the Inquisition… it’s like Godwins law for Catholic appologetics.
They glorify protestant Christianity for being made of common men and fail to see that Catholicism is also made of…bum bum bum… men.
When bringing up the past shortcomings of the Catholic church they are casting the first stone without realizing that they have just as much horror marring their own histories. During the black plague the flagellates (which opposed the Catholic Church loudly and violently) were responsible for burning people at the stake, torture to bring about confessions of crimes and curses which they believed to be causing the plague and were also very corrupt before the Catholic church said “Enough!”
The flagellates generated their large following through sensationalism and blaming the Catholic church for all that was going wrong at the time… sounds a little familiar.

I do my best not to get into one-up types of debates though, nothing is really learned when all that is done is pointing out eachother’s faults. I’ve just been lucky, people that are that eager to destroy the Catholic church usually can be proven wrong even through their own arrogant guidelines.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

**“Be it known to all men that the year of our Lord God 179, **Lucius the first Christian king of the land then called Britain, founded the first church in London. That is to say the church of St Peter upon Cornhill and he founded there an archbishop’s see or seat and made the church the metropolitan or chief church of the kingdom. So endured the space of 400 years unto the coming of St Augustine the apostle of England: the which was sent into the land by St Gregory the doctor in the church at the time of king Ethelbert”.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=203334

First, he is assuming that a king starts a church. Well was not Jesus a King? Did he not start the church? You need only show him that the Roman Catholic Church was established before 325 AD.

This quote says his church started in 179 AD, not eariler as he claims.

Second use the other church that claims to be Culdee, which is a form of catholic church.

peak.org/~culdee/Concord.html

peak.org/~culdee/creed.html

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=185951&page=3

Challenge him for Primary Documents, writings of his Church Fathers from that day.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

I am saying confront him with contray claims by others who call themselves the original Celtic church.

Saint Lucius was a legendary figure and mythical king of the Britons in the 2nd century AD. In Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, he was the son of King Coilus and ruled in the manner of his father. Leaving no heir, his death led to a struggle between the people of Britain and the power of Rome.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_of_Britain

Yes, it is true that Lucius is a myth. I only pointed out the quote because it sets a different date for the founding of the Celtic Church. You need to push him for primary documents of his early church. After all, if his church did exist before Augustine went to Britian, then there would be writings of his church fathers in existence. Simply put, where are they?

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

Confront his main myth that Constantine started the roman catholic church.

Constantine: Founder of the Catholic Church?
ancient-future.net/constantine.html

catholic.com/library/cracking_da_vinci_code.asp

 

[Pixie_Dust]

Confront his main myth that Constantine started the roman catholic church.

Constantine: Founder of the Catholic Church?
ancient-future.net/constantine.html

catholic.com/library/cracking_da_vinci_code.asp

St. Ignatius of Antioch in 110 AD said, “Where there is Christ Jesus, there is the Catholic Church.” That’s a bit before Constantine’s time. Ignatius’ use of “Catholic” in that phrase suggests that it had been in usage for some time as the way to refer to Christ’s Church.

 

[DylanO]

My so-called “friend”, whom I’ve helped convert to Christianity wrote about the RCC in regards to Ian Paisley of Northern Ireland, saying that the RCC wants to take over all of Europe and force everyone to be Catholic. I responded to his post with this:

Ian Paisley is a known anti-Catholic bigot with the same sort of inflammatory rhetoric as Jack Chick, given more attention by his position as First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). He started a paper the Protestant Telegraph, a strongly anti-Catholic paper.

But again, there is no proof of such claims. Rather, he seems to be influenced by his hatred of Catholicism, and seems to get his ideas from ignorant Jack Chick pamphlets like The Deceived (alleged the Vatican created Islam to control the Middle East).

His response was:

So because he’s anti-Catholic his opinions are wrong? Thats quite a twisted mindset Dylan.

You sound like the anti-fa man, in your description of you throw in words like “bigot”, “Inflammatory”, “Rhetoric”, “hatred”, “ignorant”…

Maybe your the biggot.

What an arrogant jerk and after I’ve helped him with converting to Christianity. I’m kind of frustrated right now, could someone help me with a response to this?

 

[Pixie_Dust]

My so-called “friend”, whom I’ve helped convert to Christianity wrote about the RCC in regards to Ian Paisley of Northern Ireland, saying that the RCC wants to take over all of Europe and force everyone to be Catholic. I responded to his post with this:

Ian Paisley is a known anti-Catholic bigot with the same sort of inflammatory rhetoric as Jack Chick, given more attention by his position as First Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). He started a paper the Protestant Telegraph, a strongly anti-Catholic paper.

First of all - take several deep breaths and do not ever again respond immediately (also called a knee-jerk reaction) to any of his accusations. That’s where you tend to throw words like “bigot” and “ignorant” around and it is not the best reflection of the love of Christ. Yes, I know that John the Baptist and even Christ Himself called the Pharisees some nasty names but they were talking to them directly, not about them behind their backs.

Really, all it appears you did was attack the character of Ian Paisley by calling him the Irish version of Jack Chick, without addressing his specific accusation at all. You said there was no proof of his claims, when what you might have done would be to ask your friend to show you some proof from official Vatican documents or the Catechism that what Mr Paisley says is true. If Mr Paisley is telling the truth about that he should have a cited source for that bit of information in his paper. If not, then your friend might try contacting the paper to ask for a source for that information. If the source isn’t anything officially from the Church, then it’s pretty obvious it’s a false claim.

Remember, a good apologist will answer a question with a question. Make them think about what they’re asking rather than attacking their question.

 

[Gamera]

If you do not have a copy of The Babylon Connection?
ralphwoodrow.org/books/pages/babylon-connection.html I suggest you get a copy because it refutes the methodology used by Hislop in his two bablyons which is this nonsense.

Thanks for this link. I might order this book and also the “Reckless Rumors” book. It is astonishing how many such wack-job rumors I have seen repeated online as if they were the Gospel truth. My favorite is the one about the pope allegedly wearing a “fish-shaped” hat on honor of the Philistine fish god Dagon.

BTW, kudos to Ralph Woodrow for having the guts to publicly retract his previous statements once he realized the truth.

 

[mercygate]

BTW, kudos to Ralph Woodrow for having the guts to publicly retract his previous statements once he realized the truth.

**SERIOUSLY! **That was an act of great humility and courage. Can you imagine what this must have felt like?

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

St. Ignatius of Antioch in 110 AD said, “Where there is Christ Jesus, there is the Catholic Church.” That’s a bit before Constantine’s time. Ignatius’ use of “Catholic” in that phrase suggests that it had been in usage for some time as the way to refer to Christ’s Church.

And, where do you see the words “roman catholic” in that quote?

simply claiming that the word “catholic” means “universal” still does NOT put the word “roman” in the quote.

 

[Daniel_Marsh]

I am protestant, and I don’t take Ian Paisley seriously.

google.com/search?hl=en&q=Ian+Paisley+silliness

 

[Pixie_Dust]

And, where do you see the words “roman catholic” in that quote?

simply claiming that the word “catholic” means “universal” still does NOT put the word “roman” in the quote.

The Catholic Church is much bigger than just the Roman Rite. The claim is that the Catholic Church was founded by Constantine. It’s historically impossible, in light of the fact that the Church existed in Rome prior to Constantine.

 

[Gamera]

And, where do you see the words “roman catholic” in that quote?

simply claiming that the word “catholic” means “universal” still does NOT put the word “roman” in the quote.

Right. Our Church is not the “Roman Catholic Church.” That title was bestowed upon us by Anglicans and meant derisively. The term “Roman Catholic” has crept into common useage now even among Catholics, but the proper name of the Church headed by the Pope is “the Catholic Church.”

 

[mercygate]

And, where do you see the words “roman catholic” in that quote?

simply claiming that the word “catholic” means “universal” still does NOT put the word “roman” in the quote.

As others have noted, the term “catholic” pre-dates Constantine but as we use the word today, it refers to the Church whose historical and doctrinal roots go back in an unbroken line to the SAME Church Ignatius was referring to. Even in his day there were “Christian” sects – gnostics and such – not in Communion with the Apostolic Church. The “catholic” Church was the Church whose bishops traced their Orders and their teaching directly back to the Apostles.

 

[Gamera]

One suggestion is to quote his own beliefs to him fromt he Catechism of the Catholic Church. For example, had he quoted this to me:

The term “pontiff” is also unscriptural because “there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).

my reply would have been:

That’s exactly what Catholics believe. “Christ Jesus [is] the one mediator between God and men,” CCC 1544. “Only Christ is the true priest, the others being only his ministers,” CCC 1545. “Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church a kingdom, priests for his God and Father. The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly.” CCC 1546.

With respect to this part:

By the way, Peter could not have been the first Pope because he was married (Matt.8:14), he refused to be worshipped (Acts 10:25-26), and he was rebuked by the apostle Paul (Gal.2:11). Neither was the N.T. church built upon Peter.

He makes several errors.

1). Marriage doesn’t disqualify anybody from being pope. Celibacy is not required in all rites of the Catholic clergy, and even within the Roman rite it didn’t begin until later centuries. Priestly celibacy is not a Catholic doctrine, it’s just a Catholic practice.

2). All popes refuse to be worshipped. Catholics worship only Jesus.

3). Popes can be rebuked. Nobody says they can’t.