How do we know Catholicism is the right religion?

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Even human bodies get diseases, viruses and cancers inside them that try to overcome the body from within. Ditto with the Body of Christ.
 
Brittany said:
Jesus promised his church would not be overcome by the gates of hades, and I believe that. So whatever Church Christ started is still here. It has to be, or else Christ is a liar.
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Yes and if someone else has faith in what the human writers penned, certainly they can believe hades won’t prevail in the end too. Blessings on your journey.
 
Struggling1 said:
Many other faiths can point to spiritual leaders and old sacred texts and some are way older than Christianity/Catholicism how do we prove that we are right besides just saying it’s in the Bible? The only reason I’m trying to find other reasoning is that you can’t just write something and then claim it as fact usually there are multiple sources to support a statement for example George Washington’s life was documented outside his biography and with the Bible being written in multiple types of writing how do we guarantee any of it to be true?
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Newman made a simple and true phrase popular

“to be deep in history is to cease being a Protestant”

Taking that phrase and looking at history

I follow Jesus. Jesus is the whole reason for everything ANYWAY. He is the cause of everything that is. And to be deep in history then is to be Catholic, in His Church that He established on Peter and those in union with Peter and remain there. And THAT’S history, easily provable, using evidence that is all there, that can be properly referenced.

Jesus is the one who guarantees.
 
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One answer. Church history.

To know is to believe. Compare what you know of the Church today to the Church that existed in the Bible.
 
Shakuhachi said:
And you see this Kingdom as the Catholic Church?
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Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:9, 13-14)
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And after the sixty-two weeks, an **anointed one [messiah] shall be cut off, ** and shall have nothing; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war; desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall cause sacrifice and offering to cease; and upon the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.” (Daniel 9:24-27)
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Assume the “doctors of the law and prophets” knew Scripture and the book of Daniel.

They knew:
  1. The Messiah was to come during the time of Roman rule. Messianic expectation was very high during that time precisely because Daniel was known to be speaking of the fourth kingdom as Rome.
  2. They knew that references to the “son of man” in Daniel was to someone who would be more than merely human – “coming in the clouds of heaven” and “seated at the right hand of power.”
  3. They were aware that Daniel had prophesied that Messiah would be “cut off,” that is, killed.
  4. They knew that the time when Messiah was killed was to be associated with a “prince” that would come and destroy “the city and sanctuary,” i.e., Jerusalem and the Temple.
  5. They knew that when the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed, the prince would cause “all sacrifice and offering to cease.” The Temple was the sole place of offering and sacrifice and the priestly class led by the Sanhedrin was clearly in jeopardy if the Temple were destroyed and sacrificial offerings ended. (Cf. John 11: 48) If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.”
  6. They knew that Jesus was claiming to be something more than merely the “son of David,” because he stated at his trial that they would see him coming on the clouds of heaven and seated at the right hand of power, both of which were claims to divinity.
Continued…
 
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  1. Jesus repeatedly claimed to be divine, explicitly in the Gospel of John, but implicitly in the Synoptics, as well. He was repeatedly alleged to be saying blasphemous things, including in front of the whole Sanhedrin which is why he was found to be deserving death.
  2. Jesus bringing together i) the keys (the authority of the Davidic chief steward) and ii) the rock (the stone carved by no human hands that would strike the foot of the Roman Empire) and assigning both those roles to Peter is an example of standard Rabbinic practice of mashing together two diverse texts of Scripture to express a key teaching, i.e., to open the eyes of those who have difficulty seeing the truth.
And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, nor shall its sovereignty be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever; just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.” (Daniel 2:44-45)
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All that well said for Jesus. But his Church is not necessarily confined to or limited to the Catholic Church.
 
You are referring to the Bible as if it is just one book, by one author, instead of what it actually is: a collection of writings by different authors from different years all supporting the same premise. When taken with the other writings from the same time period not included in the Canon, there is overwhelming evidence of the existence of Jesus.
Is it true? The best evidence is from the apostles themselves. The apostles of the Gospels are not the apostles of Acts. The apostles of the Gospels were scared, ran away–cowards if you will. After the resurrection and Pentecost, they were fearless. They went to their deaths proclaiming the Gospel of Christ, in many instances they could have been spared if they would have renounced their claims. The idea that they were willing to die instead of deny the faith is very compelling. The idea that they were willing to die for a false claim is absurd.
As for Catholicism versus Protestantism, one need only read the early Church writers. I know a great many Protestants who converted, and many did so after studying early Christianity and coming to the realization that believing as they did as Protestants, they would not have been welcome in the early Church of the Apostles and those who followed them.
 
Go to a Neocatechumenal catechism at your parish or someplace in the neighborhood. There is no purely rational or speculative answer to your question. It is the experience and personal contact with the spirit of the kerygma that brings you understanding. Eventually, you believe in the Catholic denomination among all the Christian because you became a Catholic!
 
Struggling1. I thought I had clicked on the reply to his post. My fault for not making sure it showed that.
 
Shakuhachi said:
All that well said for Jesus. But his Church is not necessarily confined to or limited to the Catholic Church.
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The Eucharist, the sacraments, Apostolic succession and the Magisterium are, however.
 
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Truly, unless we understand the unseen, we shall observe in obedience, the command of our Most Gracious Lord! Seek out the blessings of the Lord and there shall be no challenge.
 
Struggling1 said:
Many other faiths can point to spiritual leaders and old sacred texts and some are way older than Christianity/Catholicism how do we prove that we are right besides just saying it’s in the Bible? The only reason I’m trying to find other reasoning is that you can’t just write something and then claim it as fact usually there are multiple sources to support a statement for example George Washington’s life was documented outside his biography and with the Bible being written in multiple types of writing how do we guarantee any of it to be true?
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Outside of the bible then, what sources have you investigated for answers?
 
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True. I guess I just don’t need the Catholic Church to be The one true church. It is my church and I will never leave it but I don’t want it to limit God.
 
Catholic is just a word for “universal”. As in, the church of all nations and languages.
 
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