Value of Catholicism in comparison to other christian religions?

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Okay I’m going to establish that I will remain catholic and never will change.

I just got out of a mini relationship because I was catholic and the other side was baptist.

I know that catholicism gives us the sacraments, the saints, etc–like the basic catholic answers, as well as being apart of Jesus’s established religion–which I guess is ultimately the answer to every comparison question I feel like.

Bishop Robert Barren has referred to us as “privileged Christians,” and is that what we really are?
Like I know that if you believe in Jesus Christ you are “saved,” ultimately unless you’re in a state of mortal sin. I also know, after speaking with Trent Horn once at a conference, he talked about how God judges us on how much truth God exposes to us.

I am struggling because people around me are craving the Eucharist and are so afraid of the times that we live in. I have not really had that desire to receive the Eucharist like other Catholics around me. I guess like what truly makes Catholicism the heart of it in comparison to other Christian religions? Hopefully, this question will give you a break from other coronavirus questions.
 
When the C-r-n- virus has abated, I strongly suggest that you go before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. Only Catholics and Orthodox Christians have the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ in the Eucharist. Many others wrongly believe that they do. But the Sacraments - the Blessed Sacrament first of all - are channels of God’s grace.

All Christian denominations have truth in them, but all are less than the Church which Christ founded. They believe less. They have less, even scripture! They are more passionate and more emotional, but so often they are just flat out wrong.

But, we can argue against someone’s intellect, but not against their ego. And the so-called “reformation” had an awful lot of ego in it. Like rock groups, the leaders had “creative differences” and all very soon split off and did their own thing. One day, they will have to face the music.
 
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The value of Catholicism compared to other types of Christianity, is that Catholicism is true. (to give you the Catholic answer, on Catholic Answers Forums).
 
hannah12343 said:
I am struggling because people around me are craving the Eucharist and are so afraid of the times that we live in. I have not really had that desire to receive the Eucharist like other Catholics around me.
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First of all, craving the Eucharist and being “afraid of the times that we live in” do not go hand in hand. I miss the Eucharist very much. I’m not particularly afraid of the times I live in, either before this happened or now. Fear and anxiety are mental conditions for the most part and some people either don’t have them or have developed coping strategies, which can include receiving Eucharist frequently when it is available. Being “afraid of the times we live in” is a whole separate issue that’s not really relevant to missing the Eucharist.

Second, if you didn’t have a big devotion to the Eucharist before this happened, you won’t miss it as much. If you are lacking that devotion and don’t understand why it’s really so important, perhaps this is something you need to pray over and ask the Lord to enlighten you. I guess I can kind of understand because I went through many years not really putting the Eucharist in an important position in my life, but for the last few years I have tried to receive almost every day and sometimes even twice a day and it has just naturally evolved into becoming something important to me, this interaction with Jesus.
 
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To grossly oversimplify, in many corner “churches” and mega this and that, you have two building blocks:
  1. Me.
  2. Jesus.
I will grant that many, even most go well beyond this, but how many no longer baptize! Christ commended it! How can they claim to be Christian when even their pope (Paul) states clearly that we are baptized into Christ’s death so that we may share in His resurrection? I say that, by our Lord’s own words, and by Saint Paul’s, they are not Christian! Is baptism so unneeded, so objectionable, so…Catholic… that it must therefore be rejected?
 
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For us Catholics the Sacraments are definitely the most important distinction from others, but for those other Christians the reality of the Sacraments aren’t acknowledged. So they don’t consider it to be such a huge difference as we Catholics do.

What I’ve heard many non-catholics praise Catholicism for is the highly developed prayer traditions we have. The sheer number of different
Catholic devotions is one thing, but also the mystic literature and theology about prayer is beyond that of any other Christian branch.

Another thing that I personally think Catholicism has that no one else has, is Catholicism. Catholicism means Universality, and when I look on all other branches of Christianity and all the good in them, there seems to always be a catch regarding the inclusiveness.
No other Church has such a wide variety of Saints, or such a wide tolerance for all qualities in a person or a thing that is judged to be good. We are not a sect of intellectuals, of warriors, of ascetics, of pacifists, or of any other one thing, but all such are welcome and well represented. The Catholic Church is open to everyone, because God’s Salvation is for everyone, and that is certainly a rare trait in a religion, if it is not unique.
 
I need to explain something to you–and you need to understand it. This is probably the most important thing you will learn on this site.

When it comes to spirituality you cannot, you cannot, you cannot compare yourself with others. Everyone is different when it comes to their relationship with God. You cannot look at someone else’s spiritual life, feelings, thoughts, emotions, etc, and assume that because you do not feel that way, think that way, pray that way, etc, that there is something wrong with you.

When it comes to the Mass and how we approach the Mass, everyone is different. The Eucharist is at the core of what and who Catholics are, this is true. But each person will approach the Eucharist differently. Each person is at a different state of growth in their relationship with God in the Eucharist.

While all Catholics must believe the Catholic Faith, that does not entail that every Catholic will relate to the truths of the Faith in the same way. This includes the Eucharist. Whatever you do, never, never, never compare yourself to someone else when it comes to spirituality and prayer. Never get discouraged just because you don’t feel or think like someone else. Prayer is about your unique relationship with God, not someone else’s.
 
The Church is the ship. Jesus is the ship master, Saint Peter is the chief mate, his fellow bishops (and priests and deacons) are the officers, the rest of us have our place according to our particular state in life. The protestant revolt was a mutiny. They recognize Jesus as the Master, but believe that there is some disconnect between what He is saying and what the chief mate and officers are telling everyone. Since they can’t take over the ship, they board the life boats and remain tethered to the ship, but are not on the ship.

By leaving the ship, protestants cut themselves off from the Eucharist, the banquet which the Master has generously given us. Their food instead is the fish that they manage to catch or whatever scraps the ship tries to send to them (the food being grace). They also cut themselves off from the care of the ship’s doctor and the medicine which He possesses, again relying on the scraps that make it to them. And when storms come, their smaller boats and weak connection to the ship leave them vulnerable, and if they survive the ordeal, it is because the Master steered the ship in front of them to take the brunt of the injury. Through all this, hopefully they come to see that the Master is doing all of this in spite of their rebellion, because they so desperately need His help, and hopefully they also see that the officers had to follow His orders in order for these things to happen and will return to the ship.

The clear benefit of the Catholic Church- the ship- is that we are secure. Jesus doesn’t need to swim out to us or go to extraordinary lengths (more than He already has) to serve us, and we receive the first fruits, and receive them intentionally.
 
Explain why, if the ship is the CC who has the promise of never sinking, why did it have life boats attached to it?
 
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Jon Jon Jon, by now you should know better! Your fave reformer completely reinvented Christ. Fact. Live with it. Don’t think so? Ask the Orthodox! They rejected the"reform" as well!

Ego yes! But wholesale doctrinal change and the dissolving of Holy Orders; the instigation of division?

No - one thousand times!

Am wondering when you will let go of innovative European religion and trace the Church back to her roots?

May I live so long! Ehhh, maybe not.
 
OrbisNonSufficit said:
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Wannano:
Explain why, if the ship is the CC who has the promise of never sinking, why did it have life boats attached to it?
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Because some did not believe that promise.
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I did not mean attached to it as in tethered to it. I meant a ship that has God’s promise to never sink would not have need to have life boats along period.
Furthermore, if you want to refer to the people in the lifeboats as those who did not believe that promise, it is doubtful that they tethered themselves to the ship, for if they believe the ship is going down they also will be drug down by the tethers.

If this analogy has any validity, then it needs to be shown that the boat people were not tethered at all or if they are, it is against their own will.

Which groups of Protestants do you feel have tethered themselves to the Catholic ship in order to sustain their existence.
 
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po18guy said:
May I live so long! Ehhh, maybe not.
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Live long and prosper.
po18guy said:
Jon Jon Jon, by now you should know better! Your fave reformer completely reinvented Christ.
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Not according to modern Catholic theologians. Sure, the Lutheran reformers expressed differences, and some are significant. But to say he reinvented the faith is just polemics.
po18guy said:
Ego yes! But wholesale doctrinal change and the dissolving of Holy Orders; the instigation of division?
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Ah, so you agree with my statement.
Thank you.
Lutherans did not dissolve Holy Orders. Please read the Confessions, not Catholic apologists.
po18guy said:
Am wondering when you will let go of innovative European religion and trace the Church back to her roots?
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That’s a rhetorical question. Any Lutheran worth his/her salt knows we trace the Church, of which our tradition is part, back to Pentecost.
 
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Wannano said:
Explain why, if the ship is the CC who has the promise of never sinking, why did it have life boats attached to it?
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For the mutiny, of course. Also, international law demands it.

Or perhaps more satisfactorily, they made the boats out of materials from the ship, considering that the protestants came from the ship to begin with.
 
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You say so.

The primary reformers all called the Pope the antichrist. The Church named after Luther still officially does! But which one of the 266? All of them?

Catholic polemics, huh?

Q: Which Pope denied that the Christ has come in the flesh?
(1 John 2)

A: Zero.
 
Wannano said:
Furthermore, if you want to refer to the people in the lifeboats as those who did not believe that promise, it is doubtful that they tethered themselves to the ship, for if they believe the ship is going down they also will be drug down by the tethers.
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Wow. Then some other people might have not believed in ship never sinking (those who converted with some reservations or because of cultural reasons but not because of real faith, or any cafeteria Catholics, or private heretics), but some of them never used them (they later found true faith and remained in the Church as full Catholic Christians). However, lifeboats were left there. Protestants picked those lifeboats left by others and used them to start their ecclesiastical communities.

There you go 😃
Wannano said:
If this analogy has any validity, then it needs to be shown that the boat people were not tethered at all or if they are, it is against their own will.
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Oh not at all. What I wrote above quite explains it without doing either and analogy has validity… hence your statement is false.
 
It is hard to abide those who preach division. I know who incites this.

My life will probably re required of me - sooner than later. Truth matters. It is not relative.

So, for the sake of peace, I will let reformers chase me away.
 
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