Brother2;5459539:
First, what Michael is doing violates CAF rules. A non Catholic poster may not post against the Catholic Church on these forums. You may ask questions or even debate a specific point of faith, but not try to dissuade someone from the Catholic faith.
That being said, let us with charity and truth, as the Holy Father’s encyclical suggests, clear up some points in Michael’s post.
The actual belief that has been handed down through the ages is that the fullness of truth subsists within the Catholic Church; however, other Christian traditions share in that truth to some degree. Because every Christian tradition still has truths that are found in the Catholic Church that the Protestant reformers took with them and handed down to their disciples through generations.
This is a biblical impossibility. There cannot be one church that includes many churches.
**The Church is one because of her source: **
In fact the Church has encouraged praying with the scriptures since the first generation of Christians. Look at the Liturgy of the Hours. It is all scripture. It is made up of psalms, canticles from the bible and readings from different books of the bible, including the Gospel and the writings of Paul. These are used as the official prayer of the Catholic Church.
The bible did not create or start the Church. The bible was put together by the early Church to reflect what she believed. The early Church chose from the many writings available and gathered those books and letters that reflected what the Apostles had taught the faithful and left the rest behind. The bible is a collection of sacred writings that reflect the faith that was handed down by the Apostles to the first generation Christians.
As you see, the Church existed before the bible. It was always the case that men and women of faith went to the Apostles to clarify the faith for them. After the bible was collated, several hundred years after the death of the last apostle, people were still going to the successors of the Apostles to clarify the meaning of scripture and to settle disputes. It was always understood that the Holy Spirit spoke to them “where two or three were gathered in [His] name.
They don’t have to visit the pope. They visit him because he is the head of a nation of over 2.1 billion people. Every Catholic around the world is also a citizen of Vatican City. So, in territory it is the smallest nation on earth. Yer, in numbers it competes among the largest nations of the world.
This is an excellent question. The person who occupies that chair of Peter is no more special than anyone else. They can be the most godly or the most sinful. Think of it like the person who occupies the chair of the President of the USA. He can be the most honest or the most corrupt.
But just as we respect the Presidents and Prime Ministers of nations, the world respects the Pope. He is the leader of a nation, as I have pointed out above. He is the direct successor of Peter, which historians accept. He has been elected to occupy the most important position in the Christian world, the Chair of Peter. The leaders of other Christian communities also understand this and are always very respectful to the Holy Father.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
Hi Br JR, OSF. I take your point about the rules of the Forum I am always sorry when I offend people and in this case maybe broke Forum rules.
However I have to say that you are certainly clever with words to explain away the errors in the Roman Church. But as i have said many times I still respect you for your beliefs even though I disagree with some, though I agree with some also, the Truth the Roman Church has retained from the early Church of Scripture.
Protestants have also retained some errors from Rome and that is why there are so many Protestant Churches, still trying to purge these errors…
Well I like to be kind and say the whole Christian Church which is fragmented due to the Devil’s work of sowing tares…I still ask why this fallen archangel is never mentioned in the Forum…he is the arch enemy of our Lord and his Church and do you think he has left it alone this past 2000 years??? Look at the damage he had wrought on the Jewish ‘Church’, loaded down with so many rules and regulations the people could hardly move for breaking them. The Jews were God’s Church on earth charged with preaching the Gospel to the world, yet the devil soon stopped that by making them so insular and proud of being God’s chosen people!! Therefore God had to reject His chosen people when our Lord was crucified and the Christian Church took over the task of taking God’s good news to the world.
But of course Lucifer could not have that he soon got in on the act and spoiled the Church, surely the apostles warned of heresy, and wicked men coming into the Church even in their day!!! So I feel I have the right to point out his work of sowing error in the Christian Church. It has been splintered into hundreds of pieces as a result, making it very hard for people to know what is true and what is false!!
But I apreciate the rules of the Forum and will try and remember you chastisement on that issue.
I respect you sir, and every Roman Catholic!
Do you not see his work…and don’t day in the Seventh-day Adventist Church ha ha ho ho…so greeting brother and I take your point, but I feel obligated to warn people about the devil’s work within God’s Church on earth, the Christian Church as I call it!!
Shalom. May God bless all here. Michael.
