Is Jesus Christ and the Roman Catholic Church the only way to salvation?

[DixieDaisy]

The pope is the spiritual head of the Catholic Church on earth. As such, he functions - for lack of a better term - as the “prime minister” of Christ in His Kingdom. The pope does not have ‘complete’ spiritual authority - he must take into account the entire Church and His bishops, as he himself is a bishop. Together with the bishops he completes the Teaching Magisterium of the Church. The special charism that the pope has is that, when speaking on Faith and morals, he exercises papal infallibility - which means that he cannot err in these matters because of the special relationship to the Holy Spirit. This has always been a teaching of the Church, and it is also Scriptural, beginning with Peter.

I was having a senior moment and couldn’t think of ‘infallibility’ and I can tell you that is a scary word to a nonCatholic. The thought of trusting my soul on the spiritual "infallibility’ of someone else is enough to make me faint. If you are taught to trust him from childhood maybe it doesn’t seem that way but it is a biggie to me!

You also have to come to see the scriptures as saying what you believe them to say. I am a long way from being there so it isn’t that simple. I just have a hard time going from believing that my relationship with God and my salvation through Christ is a simple, sweet, personal and uncomplicated thing to a complicated, convoluted, multiruled, gotta go through the Pope, Priests, acts of contrition (Christ already paid for my sins, right?) and then Purgatory before I can be with my Heaven Father when I die.

do you see my boggle?

Daisy

 

[PBP]

I was having a senior moment and couldn’t think of ‘infallibility’ and I can tell you that is a scary word to a nonCatholic. The thought of trusting my soul on the spiritual "infallibility’ of someone else is enough to make me faint. If you are taught to trust him from childhood maybe it doesn’t seem that way but it is a biggie to me!

You also have to come to see the scriptures as saying what you believe them to say. I am a long way from being there so it isn’t that simple. I just have a hard time going from believing that my relationship with God and my salvation through Christ is a simple, sweet, personal and uncomplicated thing to a complicated, convoluted, multiruled, gotta go through the Pope, Priests, acts of contrition (Christ already paid for my sins, right?) and then Purgatory before I can be with my Heaven Father when I die.

do you see my boggle?

Daisy

I will suggest you read books by Catholic writers such as Scott Hahn. You have all the same questions with all the same wrong answers as do many people who mistakingly think they know what they are speaking of. There is also the RCIA process which you can participate in. It does not mean you must commit to a conversion to Catholicism although this is the proper channel to do so. You will find through study of sound Catholic teaching and reading a bible with all the books included, that the church is exactly about a close personal relationship with Jesus. You will learn of a covenental relationship with Jesus and becoming one flesh with him and offering yourself with him to GOD as living sacrifices. You will become aware of your selfishness and what that does to the relationship. You will learn the ordinary means in which you may repair that relationship. You will see the mass unfold in Revelation and the error in your mocking of the men in white robes carrying incense.
Have a nice day

 

[DixieDaisy]

I will suggest you read books by Catholic writers such as Scott Hahn. You have all the same questions with all the same wrong answers as do many people who mistakingly think they know what they are speaking of. There is also the RCIA process which you can participate in. It does not mean you must commit to a conversion to Catholicism although this is the proper channel to do so. You will find through study of sound Catholic teaching and reading a bible with all the books included, that the church is exactly about a close personal relationship with Jesus. You will learn of a covenental relationship with Jesus and becoming one flesh with him and offering yourself with him to GOD as living sacrifices. You will become aware of your selfishness and what that does to the relationship. You will learn the ordinary means in which you may repair that relationship. You will see the mass unfold in Revelation and the error in your mocking of the men in white robes carrying incense.
Have a nice day

I was doing fine with your response until I got down to the part where you said I was mocking the men in white robes carrying incense. I don’t RELATE to this sort of worship but it shocked me to find that you read it as mocking:

“I guess that is one reason I would make a bad Catholic…I’m not a pomp and ceremony person. Everybody sits there so stiff when all those people in robes and carrying incense are going down the aisle. Well actually, I have never been to a Catholic service, just an Episcopalian one. Everything was so stiff and formal. And everyone takes communion from the same cups. We use separate cups in our church”

There were young boys in the procession also…my reason for saying people. Maybe that was what made it sound mocking…I don’t know.

My church is being called ‘Illegitimate’ but that is how the Catholic Church sees it…I knew that before I came here so I try not to take offense. Anywhere I feel that I could get into a heated conversation, I just say, “Let’s agree to disagree”. Once again I will say, I didn’t come here to bash the Catholic Church. I may accidently say something to step on someone’s toes (as I did your’s apparently) but that is different.

There have been some things that I could have taken offense at since I have joined this website but I am determined to ignore them and try to stay pleasant. I have already learned that I have to be careful about letting my sense of humor show because it is easily misunderstood.

I hope you have a nice day, too.

 

[peary]

I’m not a pomp and ceremony person. Everybody sits there so stiff when all those people in robes and carrying incense are going down the aisle. Everything was so stiff and formal. And everyone takes communion from the same cups. We use separate cups in our church.

Daisy

**Wow, then you’ll be bored in Heaven too! The robes, the incense - it’s all there, in the Bible, in Revelation. And that ‘cup’ - Christ shared ONE cup with his apostles at the last supper; they didn’t use separate ones. and THAT’S in the Bible too! **

 

[PBP]

I was doing fine with your response until I got down to the part where you said I was mocking the men in white robes carrying incense. I don’t RELATE to this sort of worship but it shocked me to find that you read it as mocking:

“I guess that is one reason I would make a bad Catholic…I’m not a pomp and ceremony person. Everybody sits there so stiff when all those people in robes and carrying incense are going down the aisle. Well actually, I have never been to a Catholic service, just an Episcopalian one. Everything was so stiff and formal. And everyone takes communion from the same cups. We use separate cups in our church”

There were young boys in the procession also…my reason for saying people. Maybe that was what made it sound mocking…I don’t know.

My church is being called ‘Illegitimate’ but that is how the Catholic Church sees it…I knew that before I came here so I try not to take offense. Anywhere I feel that I could get into a heated conversation, I just say, “Let’s agree to disagree”. Once again I will say, I didn’t come here to bash the Catholic Church. I may accidently say something to step on someone’s toes (as I did your’s apparently) but that is different.

There have been some things that I could have taken offense at since I have joined this website but I am determined to ignore them and try to stay pleasant. I have already learned that I have to be careful about letting my sense of humor show because it is easily misunderstood.

I hope you have a nice day, too.

My advice to you was firm and charitable. You are among posters on a site who know and live their faith and can defend it and maybe thats what made you uncomfortable with my response. There is much trash spread about Catholicism by people who dont care to know if it is accurate. I definitely want you to learn about the church established by Jesus Christ in 33 AD and come into a full communion with it. I want to be certain you read or listen to sound Catholic teaching and not mistakingly absorb garbage.
Have a nice day

 

[Lampo]

As a Baptist, I believe Christ paid the price for my sins and I get salvation through belief on Him and accepting Him as my Lord and Savior. Because of that should I WANT to do works for Him. I don’t work for what He has already given me (salvation). Our works are what we lay at His feet when we get to Heaven and shows our love for Him.

In order to make it to Heaven, must your sins be forgiven by God? Must you forgive others that have sinned against you in order for the Father in Heaven to forgive your sins? If you answer in the affirmative to both questions, that answer demonstrates more than just believing in Christ, His death on the Cross for our sins and accepting Him as your personal Lord and Savior.

 

[jmcrae]

Especially Southern Baptists! I guess that is one reason I would make a bad Catholic…I’m not a pomp and ceremony person. Everybody sits there so stiff when all those people in robes and carrying incense are going down the aisle. Well actually, I have never been to a Catholic service, just an Episcopalian one. Everything was so stiff and formal. And everyone takes communion from the same cups. We use separate cups in our church.

Daisy

In my experience, Catholics don’t sit stiffly or walk stiffly at Mass. I think maybe the reason the Episcopalians seem stiff is because they are afraid they might get something wrong, because the “rules” of it are coming from somewhere outside themselves.

In the Catholic Church, this is our thing, so it’s not like we could ever get it “wrong” - it’s coming from inside ourselves because we are Catholics; we’re not just trying to imitate Catholics - so the kids are carrying the incense, cross, and candles, and the priest is wearing the robes, but it’s not “stiff” - they always look to me like they think it’s fun to do this.

 

[jmcrae]

As a Baptist, I believe Christ paid the price for my sins and I get salvation through belief on Him and accepting Him as my Lord and Savior. Because of that should I WANT to do works for Him. I don’t work for what He has already given me (salvation). Our works are what we lay at His feet when we get to Heaven and shows our love for Him.

It seems that isn’t the Catholic belief from what has been written.

Well, we believe that salvation is a work in progress.

We won’t know whether we’re saved until the Judgment Day, because that’s when God is going to make the final decision of whether we’re saved or not (hence the term “Judgment Day”).

Since God hasn’t even decided yet whether we’re saved, how can we know?

You could be in a state of grace at this moment in time (meaning that if you died at this moment, you would go to Heaven), but you can’t predict whether you might commit a sin in the future - people often do commit sins after they’ve made a commitment to Jesus, and that’s actually worse than the sins that came before, because they should have known better, afterwards.

…] The biggest issue is the complete spiritual authority of the Pope though.

Here’s what may seem like a totally off-topic question for you. Have you guys ever heard of Bill Gothard? He does a Youth Seminar, that has a section in it on the subject of Biblical Authority.

Now, obviously, Bill Gothard isn’t Catholic and doesn’t believe in the Pope. But it was after I did the exercises on Authority in the Youth book by Bill Gothard that I started to understand how the Pope gets his spiritual authority, and how someone could believe it.

One of his main points is that authority has to come from authority. You cannot set yourself in authority; nor can someone who has no authority set you in authority - only someone who has the same authority already that you want to have, (along with the authority to confer that authority to others) can give it to you.

God gives certain kinds of authority directly - for example, parents receive authority over their children directly from God. Someone who creates a business from scratch receives authority over his business from God, and if you write something or paint a picture, your authority over your creation comes from God.

When you establish a business, you’re the one who confers various different kinds of authority on to your employees, because God has given you the authority to do that, by virtue of the fact that it’s your business that you created. None of your employees can confer authority on to themselves, or even on to each other unless you have specifically given them authority to do that - you have to confer it on to them. When you decide to sell your business or pass it on to someone else, you confer your authority over the business to your successor - either the person who buys the business, or your heir who inherits the business. But nobody could just come along and take over your business without your permission.

When God establishes a nation, He Himself places the first ruler of that nation as its head, but the first ruler is the one who decides who succeeds him in that position, and over time, a system is developed for deciding the succession. God doesn’t step in every single time someone is needed to fulfill that office, because He gave authority to the first ruler to do this, and that same authority gets passed down along with the position itself. But again, nobody can just come along and decide to be the King, without being appointed to the role in a way that recognizes that kingly authority is being passed to that person.