I have written a 15 page answer to your question here:
dmar198.googlepages.com/This_Is_the_Good_News.pdf
Here is an important part that concerns you:
JESUS OF NAZARETH
About 2000 years ago, a child was born in Bethlehem, Judea, and was called Jesus, from the Hebrew name Joshua. His life is recorded in the second section of the Bible, called the New Testament, which is easy to read and shorter even than most novels. According to the New Testament, when Jesus was around 30 years of age, He commenced a ministry which his cousin, John, had begun. John had said that the arrival of the One whom God would send into the world - to save us from our sins - was imminent. John said that that One would save all people, bringing us back to a right relationship with God, but only if we would repent of our sins and go to Him for forgiveness. This repentance ministry which John started still continues today. …
Jesus encouraged every sinful person who came to him to repent of their sins and return to God. Only when all people forsake sin and turn back to God, He said, can they be saved. …
Those followers of Jesus who recognized His true relationship to God became His greatest friends. But those Jews who did not follow Jesus charged Him with blasphemy, because in saying that God was His Father, they thought He was dishonoring God. And so came the most horrible event in human history: the Jewish people sentenced the Son of God Jesus Christ to death, on the charge of blasphemy. They delivered Him over to the Roman guards, who inflicted on Him the most severe punishment of their time - death by crucifixion, preceded by flogging and other tortures. …
It is one of the most horrific and yet unflinchingly insisted teachings of Christianity that God Himself died for us. We must teach it because God Himself - in His Son Jesus the Christ - predicted that it would be, taught that it was, and reminded us afterward that it had been. What makes this even harder is that He did this for us, sinners who only rebelled against Him the whole time. “But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) So said Paul of Tarsis, one of the greatest Christian writers whose letters are included in the New Testament.
But the death of our Savior is not the end of the story. The climax occurs when we find that Christ rose again from the dead. After three days, death lost its grip on the God-made-man, and to life again rose Christ the Lord. He appeared to His friends, whom He had named His Twelve Apostles, and promised them that, just as He had been raised to glorious life, so would all who call on His Name be resurrected as sons of God through adoption. That is the most important promise that Christianity makes: new life with our Lord for all who call on His Name.
Jesus told His Apostles that He was to go back to His Father in Heaven, but He left them with the assurance that He would also remain with them. To that end He promised to send the Holy Spirit of His Father, whom we understand to be the Third Person of the Godhead, the divine, personal fellowship flowing from the communion between the Father and the Son, revealed by Jesus to have a personal nature unified with He and His Father.
With this Holy Spirit, Jesus promised His Apostles that they would continue His ministry on earth, calling all people to repentance and faith in the Son of the Living God. He gave them His divine authority to forgive sins, exert power over Satan and his demons, and lead all people to the life which Jesus offers.
THE CHURCH
After receiving the Holy Spirit, the Apostles went out at once, and began to tell all the people the things they had heard. Their followers grew in number every day, assembling together daily, especially on Sundays, to celebrate and give thanks to God. They all recognized the authority of the Apostles, listening to them and their teachings, and passing them on to others.
The Apostles passed on the authority that Christ had given them to certain of their own disciples, commissioning them to teach with their authority when they were absent (cf. 1st Corinthians 4:17, Titus 2:15). And after the death of the Apostles, those men continued to fulfill that ministry, preaching and teaching future generations. The hierarchy in the Church structure was explained by Paul (cf. 1st Corinthians 12:28, Ephesians 4:11-12) to consist of lay people and their ministries, with their pastors above them together with the Evangelists, above them the prophets, and highest of all the Apostles themselves. …
WHY BE CATHOLIC?
You should be a Catholic because the Catholic Church is sensible. She claims to have authority on religious matters, unlike any other Christian church, and can substantiate that claim. She preaches in the universality of Christian doctrine, a thing which no other Christian church currently does. She has the liturgy. Most of all, she has the Eucharist.
This is an age of a post-Christian world. Governments and people - even many Christians - have abandoned the teachings of Christ. And what are the effects? Murderers run rampant. Families split apart. Children are killed. People are starving. Diseases spread like plagues. In some countries, nearly all of the people lack education, water, sufficient clothing and shelter.
None of these would have resulted had Christian principles stayed in tact. We must keep Christ, or the world will kill itself! Even now, secular governments are promoting more problems, because they have abandoned the Christian Church. If you want to help stop this, visit a local Catholic parish, and talk to a priest! Spread the gospel to every nation, and let the world return to the God who saves!
