Zundrah:
I see that, on the website
allaboutmormons.com, in the Recent Questions/Answers, you posed much the same question with which you started this thread and that you received a fairly detailed answer with links to additional information. Do you feel that you received a reasonable answer to your question? If so, perhaps you might want to refer others here at CAF to that answer.
In your Post #185, you say, in effect, that Latter-day Saints consider the Roman Catholic Church to be a “fraud”. Latter-day Saints uniformly know of and understand the Great Apostasy. That is a predicate to knowing and understanding the Restoration. However, Latter-day Saints understand that, during the Great Apostasy, there were worthy people striving to follow Christ. We also understand that, during the Great Apostasy, not all true knowledge of Christ was lost. It is true that some of the teachings of our church, particularly during the 19th Century, have emphasized what was lost more than what was retained during the Great Apostasy. My own supposition is that such emphasis reflects that, particularly in the 19th Century when the Restoration was first being brought to mankind, there was a need to explain the necessity of the Restoration. With the Restoration now well-established, there is more opportunity to reflect upon the constructive role and accomplishments of the Roman Catholic Church and other churches during the Great Apostasy. Consider the following by Steven Danderson in an August 9, 2008 blog posting for
ww.fairlds.org, the Foundation for Apologetics Information & Research:
"In my early days as a member of the Church, I had thought, like James Talmage in his book, The Great Apostasy, that the Roman Catholic Church had fallen away from the true Christian Church, and that other non-LDS Christian Churches were corruptions of a corruption. I have found that my opinions have, …, um, …, evolved. Rather than being the Great Apostasy, I now regard the Roman Catholic and other non-LDS Christian Churches as pious humans’ valiant attempts to salvage true Christianity from the Great Apostasy; attempts that were, for the most part, successful–significantly more successful than I had previously thought.
Don’t get me wrong. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is still the only one with God’s unmitigated authority, and there is still the Great Apostasy. The hallmarks that I found still mark the Church as true, and I have found nothing that shakes my faith about God’s relationship with His Church. I have found, though, that I must assimilate new data.
*t is remarkable how much of the true Church was salvaged. For one thing, they salvaged the Books of the Holy Bible–with only about 10% corruption [Don Stewart and Josh McDowell, in their book, Answers, give a 10% difference in the earliest texts (p. 45).]. God says in D&C 91:1 that even the Apocrypha is most correct. And, of course, God refers to non-LDS Christians as being in a “saved condition” [D&C 132:17]. It is only the creeds that God found abominable–insofar as they spread incorrect doctrines [JS-H 1:19]. No wonder that Joseph Smith said that non-LDS Christians had much truth [HC 5:517]–and Brigham Young confirms it [JD 7:283]!"
I hope that, in light of the foregoing, it is apparent that Latter-day Saints do not regard the Roman Catholic Church, or other churches, as a “fraud”. Rather, what we have to say to Catholics, and other Christians, is “bring all of the good that you have and see for your self if we can add to it.”
Have you visited
www.lds.org? If you are interested in learning more about our faith, you might want to go to that website, an official website of the Church, and look in Gospel Library-Support Materials-Family Support Materials at the online versions of the short reference book “True to the Faith” and the introductory Sunday School course book “Gospel Principles” or other materials.
–Murdock*
I’m not going to force you, but I will just ask the LDS missionary I know instead. There is also a very good website called allaboutmormons.com that is quite helpful too for any one who wants to know more.
But seriously, they call the catholic church a fraud because they deny the pope is a genuine descended from peter. …since they claim that Christ took the covenant away from them and gave it to Joseph Smith instead. 
