A.M.D.G.e.i. H.M
- Pat, you have completely ignored the Scripture I showed you referring to a visible Church - a Church to whom one might appeal for a decision, when one has an issue with his brother that cannot otherwise be settled (Matt. 18). How can this Scripture make any sense at all if there is no visible Church?
- The presence of sinners in the Church doesn’t nullify the existence of the Church. Chrisy built his Church out of sinners.
*Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. *
*"The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’
" ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.
"The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
" ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest.* At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ " Matthew 13.24-30 (Emphasis added)
Christ foresaw that among the good fruit in the Church, there would be those who did not bear good fruit. But he also prophesied that that would be the case until the harvest - it isn’t going to change.
- Notwithstanding what I have just said in point 2, the Catholic Church would agree with you that in a sense, the Church consists only of the elect (ie. those going to heaven)
“A person foreknown to damnation is never part of the holy church, even if he is in a state of grace according to present justice; a person predestined to salvation always remains a member of the church, even though he may fall away for a time from adventitious grace, for he keeps the grace of predestination.” (Council of Constance 1414-15, Sentence of degradation against J. Hus, nr. 5)
- Only the Catholic Church has a mechanism for casting out someone who refuses to listen to the sound teaching. You are complaining about the absence of a way to remove “tares” - well the “invisible” Church has no way of doing this, but the visible Catholic Church does - excommunication.
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.(Matt 18.17)
- I would ask you not to say that I am making the Church building an essential part of what the Church is. I have explicitly rejected that in my previous posts, yet you still purport that belief to me, and I think it is adding to the confusion here.
Once again it seems that you are absolutising certain tracts of Scripture. There are parts of Scripture which talk of an invisible/mystical Church and there are also parts that speak unmistakably of a visible, authoritative Church. Only the Catholic Church synthesises these scriptures.
May God Bless you!