I did not mean to rip on the Protestants but I was making a point based upon hearing that, after the Reformation got in full swing, there was rampany immorality. Satan knew it would not be the Holy Spirit that would guide individual people’s readings of Scripture. There are thousands of denominations and denomination hoppers. The Holy Spirit would never inspire different things to different people any more than He would inspire different faiths with contradictory beliefs about salvation (He certainly would not inspire indifferentism that says at least I’m not Catholic–which, BTW, has to be Satan inspired in that you don’t hear of preachers talking trash about the Eastern Orthodox, who are almost like us in beliefs). We now have that feeling from some and from others, that not only does the twice-mentioned wish that women remain silent in Church is considered legalism, but so does homosexuality, abortion, birth control etc–and many of these ideas are borne from the passions and not intellectual misunderstandings of scriptures. God blessed our Church that we don’t have that problem officially.
The point is that many clerics have taken up those beliefs as if officially and have thus scandalized, purposefully or in confusion, the laity . Still, without them, it could have happened much sooner in our Church history without a hierarchy and, of course, the Magesterium (which I failed to recall last time) which cannot make errors in formal teaching on faith and morals. Priests/monks running off with nuns or clergy, homosexual or perverted from lax living oand.or teaching, molesting minors could have not only happened earlier but could have also been allowed officially. It also would not be treated without schism as is happening in denominations (BTW Catholicism is not a denomination of Christianity if it is the name of the Bride of Christ, which is the Body of Christ, and is such, the name of the person of Jesus, the body of whom is visibly manifested on Earth; otherwise, it would be like the name of Jesus being separated from the person of Jesus). What I’m saying in a nutshell is, if left to a group of people who cannot formulate formal teachings that last or that cannot be assured to be protected by the Holy Spirit from error when making those decisions, instead of The Church, the abominations listed above would likely become official because man, with his capacity for human errors made in the passions (for social justice or the flesh) of the time, cannot run God’s kingdom without God’s assistance and God can only prevent one Church, the one started in the Bible, from error and can only have one separate ministry by which to make infallible statements in His name.
