Did Christ found a visible church?

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GannyDrant

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How would you explain the Catholic stance to someone who believes that the “Church” is just an invisible idea that consists of all of christians on the Earth? Please be kind to the newb! I believe that the Catholic Church is the church that Jesus founded I just want to be able to explain a little better to someone else when the need arises. Thanks guys!
 
Thank you. I knew another thread had to be out there somewhere. My B for not looking hard enough before posting.
 
The Church has two parts, visible and invisible. The invisible Church which consists of all baptized persons in Christ. The visible Church is those who belong to the visible community which Christ set up to lead and guide the invisible Church in truth.

If the Church was purely invisible, then why do we have churches or pastors, are they not visible? A purely invisible Church would only consist of those who are baptized in Christ, which wouldn’t be possible if there wasn’t a visible body to baptize. Any church is a visible part of the Church, even if not in full communion with the same visible Church that Christ founded. Even a Christian household is part of the visible Church.
 
Jesus said a lot about the church, but I think it was very high-level stuff. It didn’t include anything about parking lots, Sunday socials, K of C breakfasts, stained glass windows, and all that.

As our new Pope Francis is highlighting, we should be concerned about widows, orphans, and the poor. That’s a good sign of the Church.
 
GannyDrant said:
How would you explain the Catholic stance to someone who believes that the “Church” is just an invisible idea that consists of all of christians on the Earth? Please be kind to the newb! I believe that the Catholic Church is the church that Jesus founded I just want to be able to explain a little better to someone else when the need arises. Thanks guys!
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He either created a visible Church or He created thousands of churches that often disagree significantly with each other on the faith generally based on private erroneous interpretation of scripture which itself is made possible by an original error: that scripture, alone, is authoritative on matters of faith. They’ve often disagreed to the point of splitting off from a former church. So we have to ask ourselves which way we think God would do things.
 
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