Protestants - When did the Catholic Church Begin?

[Contarini]

I disagree, the Catholic Church, although full of erring, sinful people,along with many saints, has never TAUGHT error. If it had, then the gate of Hell would have prevailed against it.

Of course you disagree. I said most *Protestants.

*Edwin

 

[Mannyfit75]

Edwin:

I think most Protestants would agree with me in answering that there was never a time when the Church was totally free from error. The Scriptures are free from error, but the Church of the Apostles’ time was not.

Edwin

I disagree, the Catholic Church, although full of erring, sinful people,along with many saints, has never TAUGHT error. If it had, then the gate of Hell would have prevailed against it.

I like to add the Church during the time of the Apostles did not error. If it did, it would not setup the Council of Jerusalem to settle the issue concerning circumcision for the Gentiles. The guidance of the Holy Spirit prevented the Church from making erroneous statement.

It’s kinda foolish for Protestants to make the claim that the Church is capable of error even though in Scripture the Church is the Body of Christ. Remember Jesus said to Saul before his conversion. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecution.” So if you do believe the Church can error, then you must also believe Jesus error.

You Protestants got yourself in a major problem here by claiming such statement that the Church can error.

 

[Indianbear]

As this is my first post here I just want to say hello to all.

Manny, I thank you for all of your “cut and paste” pieces of information from the early Fathers of the Catholic Church. No matter how you “cut” it truth is truth. Truth does not change simply because someone holds a personal opinion to the contrary.

Satan is the master of what I call the “BIG lie.” Once you believe the big lie about something, any number of “little” lies become very easy to accept. There are as many little lies as there are people to spread them.

The BIG lie Satan started about Africans not really being “the same” as other people, gave birth to slavery in America and all the little lies that went along with making it ok to put another human being in chains.

The BIG lie about Jews not really being “the same” as other people resulted in the holocaust and the death of millions.

One of today’s BIG lies of Satan is that the child in a mother’s womb is not really “the same” as a full fledged human being, so it can be disposed of if its existence is inconvenience. Again, that lie has resulted in the death of millions.

It would seem that at least one of the BIG lies involved here is that the Catholic Church is “NOT” the church started by Jesus Christ. Once you believe that lie, then anything goes. If you believe that particular lie of Satan then the topic of this thread “When did the Catholic Church Begin?” becomes moot. Why even discuss the starting date of something that (from the viewpoint of the BIG lie) doesn’t even exist?

As the truth of who and what Jesus Christ is can only be given to us by God himself (not simply by the words of another person) I have personally experienced that the truth of the Catholic Church can also only be given to us by God.

From my viewpoint Manny, your posts make the reality of the beginnings (and continual existence for over 2000 years) of the Catholic Church quite clear. It is notable that the majority of those who have stated “opinions” to the contrary have not even bothered to address the writings of the early Church Fathers that you have shared.

I don’t remember the poster, but I read one comment that simply shrugged all those writings off as being “wrongly interpreted” or something of that nature. Hey, with that viewpoint I can shove any amount of evidence out of the way and comfortably continue to believe what I like.

Manny, believing a BIG lie of Satan also means that that person is blind to the truth of the matter. That blindness is a natural “goes with” that automatically accompanies the BIG lie “Ya got one, ya got the other.".

It isn’t that someone is making a conscious choice to refuse the truth, they are simply blinded by the lie that they believe.

As a former non-denominational Christian who has personally lived both sides of this issue (and once believed just about every lie about the Catholic Church that is in existence) I know from where I speak. Until Jesus was kind enough to reveal the truth of His Church to me no amount of recorded or spoken evidence to the contrary had any effect on me at all.

For the last 30 years I have been blessed with living in the truth of the Catholic Church. With respect to my separated brethren, now (apart from crediting the Grace of God) I can hardly understand how I could ever have believed, and practiced, anything else.

Don’t worry Manny, we have the word of Jesus that “the gates of Hell will not prevail” against his Church; much less the gates of liberalism, relativism of any other “isum” that comes and goes with the times.

Thanks again Manny; and thanks to all who have in their own postings made it clear that to them the Catholic Church, started by Jesus Christ, is not an “issue” but a living and vibrant truth.

Indianbear

 

[ahem]

I love the church, whatever expression (Coptic, Catholic, Messianic, whatever) and have no problem celebrating it.

We have some people who are ex-Baptist, ex-Pentecostal, ex-Orthodox, ex-Catholic, ex-pagan. I take your decision seriously and am sure you have your reasons. I honor you as my brother/sister.

I rejoice when a person enters the kingdom of God, as Jesus described in John 3 to Nicodemus as the desired condition.

 

[geraldffff]

Indianbear, Glad to see you here welcome. As I read these posts I wonder how many of the detractors of the Catholic Church Have read the City of God and the Confessions, of Augustine. It seems to me if they were honest seekers of the historical Christianity they would have all read these great works. In one of these Augustine describes Rabies in the modern sense of a disease. I was amazed to read his description of Rabies and do not doubt he would have been amazed by one poster’s Comparison of the Church with the development of canine species. I invite the detractors to read Augustine because if you are Christians it contains a unique summery of the history of the world including the pagan and Christian religions This description is unmatched by anything written in modern times and there are no new age political historical revisionist motives in these books. That is to say what was written then is a whole lot more authentic than any writtings that have come at a latter date. www.newadvent.org/fathers/1201.htm
Augustine was born at Tagaste on 13 November, 354.

 

[ahem]

Indianbear, Glad to see you here welcome. As I read these posts I wonder how many of the detractors of the Catholic Church Have read the City of God and the Confessions, of Augustine. It seems to me if they were honest seekers of the historical Christianity they would have all read these great works. In one of these Augustine describes Rabies in the modern sense of a disease. I was amazed to read his description of Rabies and do not doubt he would have been amazed by one poster’s Comparison of the Church with the development of canine species. I invite the detractors to read Augustine because if you are Christians it contains a unique summery of the history of the world including the pagan and Christian religions This description is unmatched by anything written in modern times and there are no new age political historical revisionist motives in these books. That is to say what was written then is a whole lot more authentic than any writtings that have come at a latter date. www.newadvent.org/fathers/1201.htm
Augustine was born at Tagaste on 13 November, 354.

I’ve read these, and many classics and histories. I am also intimate with the stories of Athanasius, Chrysostom all the way up to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and MLKJr.

I have no compulsion to chop up the faith. I truly celebrate the many expressions of the kingdom of God.

 

[Stevenson]

Again with the “Protestants don’t agree” tack…

Why should they?

You’re barking up entirely the wrong tree.

The standard should not be confessional concord among so diverse and divergent a group; it should be apprehension of the historical truth; i.e. the facts of the matter.

And frankly, the facts are sketchy but some conclusions can be drawn.

We’ve heard the strident grandstanding of people like Harsalter and we’ve heard the bizarre position of a tiny minority of Protestants represented and ridiculed.

What has gone largely unnoticed though were the careful and thoughtful contributions of the gentler souls (to name a few, Ahem, Contarini, LutheranStudent).

I’ll just say that Contarini and LS have presented the usual “Protestant” position pretty well.

It’s not as exciting or inflammatory as the CoC nonsense but it does have the virtue of being held by a far larger majority of actual Protestant Christians (as well as being historically accurate).

The Church began when Christ established it. It came to be called “Catholic” very early on in order to distinguish it from heterodox groups also claiming to be the church that Christ founded. The adjective “Catholic” was, it seems, a kind of short-hand designation for “trinitarian” (See the Quicunque Vult)

It has never been perfect or without error (by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed).

There are so many questions relating to this one that it is difficult to know where to go from here, but this is probably the more interesting question for thoughtful people, why is this so? Why is the church subject to error this way? Why do Christians err? If our Lord promised indefectibility to His church can it really be guaranteed by human fiat? Is it really useful to just deny it? To interpose false distinctions between individual church leaders and the institution they represented?

But again, these are serious questions. I doubt that many here will find them particularly entertaining.

 

[Steadfast]

Again with the “Protestants don’t agree” tack…

Why should they?

You’re barking up entirely the wrong tree.

The standard should not be confessional concord among so diverse and divergent a group; it should be apprehension of the historical truth; i.e. the facts of the matter.

And frankly, the facts are sketchy but some conclusions can be drawn.

We’ve heard the strident grandstanding of people like Harsalter and we’ve heard the bizarre position of a tiny minority of Protestants represented and ridiculed.

What has gone largely unnoticed though were the careful and thoughtful contributions of the gentler souls (to name a few, Ahem, Contarini, LutheranStudent).

I’ll just say that Contarini and LS have presented the usual “Protestant” position pretty well.

It’s not as exciting or inflammatory as the CoC nonsense but it does have the virtue of being held by a far larger majority of actual Protestant Christians (as well as being historically accurate).

The Church began when Christ established it. It came to be called “Catholic” very early on in order to distinguish it from heterodox groups also claiming to be the church that Christ founded. The adjective “Catholic” was, it seems, a kind of short-hand designation for “trinitarian” (See the Quicunque Vult)

It has never been perfect or without error (by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed).

There are so many questions relating to this one that it is difficult to know where to go from here, but this is probably the more interesting question for thoughtful people, why is this so? Why is the church subject to error this way? Why do Christians err? If our Lord promised indefectibility to His church can it really be guaranteed by human fiat? Is it really useful to just deny it? To interpose false distinctions between individual church leaders and the institution they represented?

But again, these are serious questions. I doubt that many here will find them particularly entertaining.

 

[jackangelo]

THE Catholic Church began when JESUS gave St. Peter the keys or job of starting it, the change come by the phoney protesters making tiny sects who are not true cATHOLICS. AS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW, THERE IS one religion on earth ,and thats Catholicism.

 

[guanophore]

I haven’t seen a protestant post yet in this thread. I guess they have nothing to say.

It is in the wrong forum, so they probably never saw it. It needs to be over in the non-Catholic religions forum.

 

[guanophore]

It could be argued that the Catholic Church as we now know it was born in Vatican 2, and has had numerous rebirths, including the Counter Reformation with the Council of Trent.

My thought is that it most originally conceived with the filioque clause as it began to separate from the Eastern Church, but I doubt there is a single moment in time.

That is my view, and I find some civil Catholics, especially among my friends, but some others seem insecure, as though they feel personally responsible for defending Catholicism. I am not an anti-Catholic, but I would never waste my time defending Protestantism either. Both have really spotty histories.

I’d rather proclaim the kingdom of God, which Catholics equate to the church, but I do not.

This probably belongs on another thread, but how do you see them different?

 

[guanophore]

The Catholic Church did not “separate” itself from any Church. The Eastern Church left the Roman Catholic Church.

Let’s be fair. Each left the other. There were faults on both sides.

 

[Contarini]

I like to add the Church during the time of the Apostles did not error. If it did, it would not setup the Council of Jerusalem to settle the issue concerning circumcision for the Gentiles. The guidance of the Holy Spirit prevented the Church from making erroneous statement.

It’s kinda foolish for Protestants to make the claim that the Church is capable of error even though in Scripture the Church is the Body of Christ. Remember Jesus said to Saul before his conversion. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecution.” So if you do believe the Church can error, then you must also believe Jesus error.

You Protestants got yourself in a major problem here by claiming such statement that the Church can error.

It’s the same problem we’re all stuck with. You guys get out of it only by a weird definition of what “Church” means, so that only Official Teachings very carefully defined (and redefined over time) count. In effect you have your own version of the “invisible Church.” If you define Church in a more commonsense way as a specific group of people, then obviously every Church (i.e., every group of Christians) is guilty of many sins and errors, both individually and communally.

Your “problem” is really a reason for giving up on Christianity altogether. I don’t think it’s enough of a reason, but at least I’m honest about it. I don’t create a fantasy “Church” carefully defined so that it can’t ever possibly be shown to be in error.

Edwin

 

[Mannyfit75]

It’s the same problem we’re all stuck with. You guys get out of it only by a weird definition of what “Church” means, so that only Official Teachings very carefully defined (and redefined over time) count. In effect you have your own version of the “invisible Church.” If you define Church in a more commonsense way as a specific group of people, then obviously every Church (i.e., every group of Christians) is guilty of many sins and errors, both individually and communally.

Your “problem” is really a reason for giving up on Christianity altogether. I don’t think it’s enough of a reason, but at least I’m honest about it. I don’t create a fantasy “Church” carefully defined so that it can’t ever possibly be shown to be in error.

Edwin

I don’t give up on Christianity. I believe Protestants need to stop professing man-made doctrines like Bible Alone, Faith Alone, Rapture, OSAS, and come back to into the fold whom Jesus Christ founded. Protestants need to become Catholic prior to the Reformation. When I desire unity with Protestants, they need to cease to be Protestants and be Catholic in full communion with the Pope. To me that is Christianity unity.

As for the Eastern Orthodox Church, perhaps sometime in the future the two shall form a ecumenical council and formally declare that the Catholic Church and Eastern Church are now in full communion with one another. Protestants are invited the wedding feast of the Lamb, but they refuse to give up their man-made doctrines and traditions.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Again with the “Protestants don’t agree” tack…

Why should they?

It is in Protestant’s nature to disagree. That is why there 30,000 denominations of you.

You’re barking up entirely the wrong tree.

The standard should not be confessional concord among so diverse and divergent a group; it should be apprehension of the historical truth; i.e. the facts of the matter.

The historical truth is this. The Church in the beginning is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. This Church is the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI sits at the Chair of Peter.

And frankly, the facts are sketchy but some conclusions can be drawn.

We’ve heard the strident grandstanding of people like Harsalter and we’ve heard the bizarre position of a tiny minority of Protestants represented and ridiculed.

What has gone largely unnoticed though were the careful and thoughtful contributions of the gentler souls (to name a few, Ahem, Contarini, LutheranStudent).

I hardly these individuals have produce valid claims. They preach erroneous historical fact with their Protestant bias on history.

I’ll just say that Contarini and LS have presented the usual “Protestant” position pretty well.

It’s not as exciting or inflammatory as the CoC nonsense but it does have the virtue of being held by a far larger majority of actual Protestant Christians (as well as being historically accurate).

Not really. Their presentation is poor. I give them an F.

The Church began when Christ established it. It came to be called “Catholic” very early on in order to distinguish it from heterodox groups also claiming to be the church that Christ founded. The adjective “Catholic” was, it seems, a kind of short-hand designation for “trinitarian” (See the Quicunque Vult)

It has never been perfect or without error (by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed).

Another attempt at distorting the truth. Though you are sincere on your effort. There was only One Church then and that Church is Catholic Church. Catholic means universal. They had a Pope then started with St. Peter then Linus down to the current Pope.

There are so many questions relating to this one that it is difficult to know where to go from here, but this is probably the more interesting question for thoughtful people, why is this so? Why is the church subject to error this way? Why do Christians err? If our Lord promised indefectibility to His church can it really be guaranteed by human fiat? Is it really useful to just deny it? To interpose false distinctions between individual church leaders and the institution they represented?

But again, these are serious questions. I doubt that many here will find them particularly entertaining.

Protestant view on history is distorted facts. Your Protestant friends here prove it. I think Cardinal Newman said it best, “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

 

[Grace_Seeker]

The fact is there are 23 Rites and Protestants need to know that. I didn’t know that there were Eastern Catholics in full communion with the Rome until I came to this forum. I do consider it offensive and it offend Eastern Catholics. Don’t call Byzantine, Ruthenians, Meronites, Caldeaneans and others as Roman. They are belong specifically to their own specific rite and have their own Code of Canon Law.

Most Eastern Rite Catholics do not adhere to Code of Canon Law in the Roman Rite. In fact, in the Eastern Rite, praying the Liturgy of the Hours meets the Sunday obligation. In the Roman Rite, it is not. A Catholic in the Latin Rite has to go to Sunday to meet his obligation. This include Mass being said at 1700 on Saturday.

Manny, that’s fine. I don’t intend to call Byzantine Catholics “Roman”. But among those 23 rites, one of them, unless I am all messed up is a Roman Rite. Those folks are Roman Catholics are they not? What is wrong with talking about Roman Catholics when we mean Roman Catholics?

I seem to recall something about Baptism that was different in yours and my belief on a previous thread. What was it?

I don’t recall your beliefs in particular, but given that you are Catholic, I would doubt if they are substantially different: infant or adult; by sprinkling, pouring or immersion; in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; a means of grace; God is the actor (the initiator of the sacrament) not the priest nor the person being baptized; a sign of God’s love that comes to us even before we have an awareness of his presence; and seal of the Holy Spirit that we are now part of God’s family yet which the individual still has the power of free will to reject and walk away from but which God never will; witnessed to and affirmed by the Church which also re-affirms its own relationship to God in baptism in solidarity with the baptizee.

 

[Steadfast]

It is in Protestant’s nature to disagree. That is why there 30,000 denominations of you.

So you never tire of telling us.

Now ask us if we care. This is not even a blip on our radar.

Sure there are crazies. Your church deals with them by introducing extra definitions and placing them outside, creating a rather baroque structure of institutional common by-law.

The crazies then go on to form their own churches.

Actually, that last part is not so much different than how we deal with it as well.

The historical truth is this. The Church in the beginning is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. This Church is the Catholic Church and Pope Benedict XVI sits at the Chair of Peter.

Again, you tell us this all the time.

But we don’t really care and we tell you all the time that it’s just another in a long list of unsubstantiated claims that we find neither compelling nor, really, even sensible.

I hardly these individuals have produce valid claims. They preach erroneous historical fact with their Protestant bias on history.

Okay.

Not really. Their presentation is poor. I give them an F.

Again, who cares how you grade anyone or what you think of them?

Let me give you a grade:

For temperament, I give you a C+, you’re usually pretty gentle but you do occasionally lapse into that all too Catholic tendency to grandstand and triumphalize.

For content I give you a solid B, you are only hamstrung by your prejudices but these are largely forgiven for the sake of thoroughness and clarity.

For effort I am happy to give you an A. You always try really, really hard and your stamina is unparalleled.

Your average grade is a B+.

Protestant view on history is distorted facts. Your Protestant friends here prove it. I think Cardinal Newman said it best, “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.”

Well, that’s nice, but as we like to say, “To be deep in history is to discover that Popes and councils actually can and have erred”.

The typical Catholic view of history as shown on this board is deeply flawed as well, most starkly by the perennial penchant for revising everything in the light of much later events and the effort to unsay or explain away more knotty problems.

The fall back position of just loudly laying claim to the specific and sole institution of your church by Christ is really adorable.

Absolutely unconvincing, but really darling.

 

[Grace_Seeker]

It is in Protestant’s nature to disagree. That is why there 30,000 denominations of you.

That’s just rudeness, disinformation, and slander. Like saying that Catholics are arrogant and walk around with an air of superiority because they think they are IT, the only one.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Manny, that’s fine. I don’t intend to call Byzantine Catholics “Roman”. But among those 23 rites, one of them, unless I am all messed up is a Roman Rite. Those folks are Roman Catholics are they not?

They are called Latin Rites or Roman Rite. You can call them Roman Catholics. Roman Catholics or Latins make up the majority of the Catholic Church.

What is wrong with talking about Roman Catholics when we mean Roman Catholics?

Because it that doesn’t describe the Church as whole. If you want to describe the entire Catholic Church in full communion with the Pope, the Eastern Catholics need to be included. That is why it is politically correct to call the Churches in communion with the Pope as the Catholic Church instead of Roman Catholic Church.

Here is a summary of the Eastern Catholics:

We, the Mother of God Catholic Church, are part of the Byzantine-Ukrainian Rite (1 of 23 Rites in the Catholic Church) that is in full communion with and obedient to the Pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Rome. Most of the Rites in the Catholic Church are considered Eastern Rites. Pope John Paul II has compared the Western and Eastern Rites of the Church to our left and right lungs and that for the Church to thrive it must breath with both lungs.

The Latin (or Western) Rite is more commom the United States and Latin America. Latin Rite Catholics can fully participate in the Eastern Rite Divine Liturgy (the Mass) and the Sacramants of Reconciliation and Holy Communion.

As Eastern Christians we have a particular style of Christian living all our own. We especially stress:

A belief in our call to be divinized;
Union with God through the Holy Mysteries;
A ‘public’ life of worship, fellowship, service;
A ‘secret’ life of prayer, fasting and sharing; and
The need for ‘spiritual warfare’.
The Christian Church was born in the Holy Land, what we call the Middle East today. As it spread, the Church took on the ways of the nations which accepted it. In this country, the United States, most Christian churches are ‘western’ because their roots are in western Europe, and their ways reflect the culture of the German, Irish or Italian immigrants who founded them.

Some American churches, including ours, were started by people from Eastern Europe or the Middle East. They still keep the ways of the Holy Land (Jerusalem, where Christ founded His Church; Antioch, where the name Christian was first used; Damascus, where Saint Paul was converted) and their daughter Churches in Eastern Europe. Because our ways reflect this Eastern culture, we are called ‘Eastern’ Churches.

At the time of the early Church, there were several rich cultures in the Middle East and each of them has given rise to a different church tradition. The traditions of this church reflect the Greek or Byzantine culture, and so we are called Greek Catholics or Byzantine Catholics (from Byzantium, the ancient name for Constantinople).

Greek Catholics in the Middle East were also nicknamed ‘Melkite’ because they followed the faith of the Byzantine emperor, or melek. In addition, many Greek Catholic Churches are identified by their national origin, such as Hungarian, Romanian or Ukrainian.

Our most important belief is that we are called “to become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), not just to be ‘saved’ from sin. We see ourselves as invited to live the very life of God, to become intimately related to God, to be physically united to Christ and to have the Holy Spirit dwell within us! The Church Fathers saw this as the reason for Christ’s coming: “God became man so that man might become God.” (St. Athanasius).

motherofgodchurch.org/mog/eastern.htm

 

[mtr01]

I know this is somewhat off-topic, so I’ll be brief. In the course of this thread two thoughts have been brought up by non-Catholics that just make no sense to me, and I doubt ever will.

First, that the Church can err. We know that Our Lord founded a church. We know that He commissioned the apostles to teach all nations. We know that He sent the Holy Spirit to lead them to all truth. We also know that He said He would be with them until the comsummation of the world. Now, it makes absolutely no sense to me at all that Our Lord would make all of these promises and do all of the above just to let the church fall into error and potentially lead many souls astray. It just seems inconceivable to me that Our Lord and God would found a church without ensuring that it would indeed be incapable of error and unable to lead souls astray.

Second, that the Church is only an invisible church. Of course there is the directive from Our Lord that if brothers can not settle a dispute, they take it to the church, and if they don’t listen to the church that they be treated as heathens and publicans. How does that work with an invisible-only church? Obviously, if Our Lord intended for us to take disputes to the Church, there must be some kind of visible ecclesial structure to approach (and of course by visible church I am not referring to a particular church building). Furthermore, in conjunction with the above point, if the church is indeed incapable of error, there must needs be a visible structure in place to ensure that true doctrine is being taught, for as we know many false teachers will arise among us. If the Church were merely invisible, there is no way to ensure that we will not be swept up in the winds of false doctrine.

Anyhow, just my $.02 on a couple of issues. You may resume your regularly scheduled discussion…