As a Catholic by definition and by experience, I’m wading in in support of Hisalone on this one. The entire investment of the Church is in the illusion of consistency and originality of doctrine. In fact, all you have to do is read even the fathers of the church on this one. The Catholic church is neither original since even Trent nor consistent since the time Jesus alleged ministry.
I’m not saying He wasn’t, or didn’t, but that what the church has to say in the matter is constructed and conjectural. Even Eusebius admitted that his history omitted everything harmful to the church and embellished everything that made its leaders look good.
This is why I have come to the conclusion that the church is in fact materialistic in nature and origin, an that it and its members simply have a dramatic stake in not admitting the actual origins ans history of the church. As we well know, all of the elements of the Jesus story have been around in pretty much that form since 3000 years before He walked the Earth.
Incarnation, the passion, death, and resurrection, are all real and tangible dynamics. But not as the church describes them. Those descriptions have wandered from the Way of Truth and have become effective prophylactics, as evident by the not only the unwillingness, but the habitual inability of the church or its members, to look at themselves dispassionately.
Such an examination may be exceptionally uncomfortable and disturbing, as it was for me. Nevertheless, it is good advice to use what God gave you between your ears and look critically at how humans acquire and sustain belief systems, including in this case, the posture of Catholicism. Such an examination will do absolutely nothing to change God or The Son as they actually, in Fact, are. CS Lewis’ dictum about prayer might well apply here: “I pray not to change God, but to change myself.” We might do well, all of us, to follow that dictum as to discovering our Real relationship with Deity and see through the structures of the church, even if we wish to continue to partake in them, which is fine, of course. The point is to be Awake, not to be dogmatically correct. It may be the differences between Life and death. Life? Or dogma? Hmmmm…