What Catholics believe about Prostestants

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Steadfast said:
Are Protestants part of the Body of Christ?

Careful now.
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According to the Catholic Church yes, they are. Through their baptism, they have become the member of the Body of Christ, which we Catholics call the Mystical Body of Christ, which is invisible.

In material terms, Protestantism is divided because compared to Catholicism. They cannot agree upon certain moral issues and sometimes faith issues.

I like to point out the following.
  1. There are Protestant Churches which allow their members to have an abortion, while at the same time, there are those who don’t allow it.
  2. There are Protestant Churches that openly ordain gay bishops and priest. There those who do.
  3. There are Protestant Churches that believe the neccessity of baptism infants. There are those who do not.
I can go on. When there is division in the Catholic Church, the Vatican or the local Church issue warnings of execommunication like those women nuns who were ordain as priests, which the Vatican said their ordination is invalid, and time and time again, the Vatican always issue response or the local ordinary diocese.

When issue arises, the Church in most cases always step in either by making a statement.
 
Steadfast said:
Please note that I said Protestants err when they divide over nonessentials, and “feelings” are non-essentials.

The real difference is over the insistence that the church is essentially an institution and the idea that it is essentially a community, a communion of saints.

It certainly is an institution, but the RCC errs when it emphasizes this over communion and it does exactly this when it castigates its separated brethren over their fragmentation.
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In no way does the Catholic church emphasize the institution over the Communion of Saints. They are coterminous, this side of Heaven.

As a convert, I see little castigation from the Catholic Church over the fragmentation. But the fact remains that the Catholic Church stood fast in the face of radical doctrinal shifts that put the reformers outside the pale.

Your statement reminds me of when the ordination of women first began to emerge in the Episcopal Church. We who held the ground on the Apostolic position were labeled obstructors of the Holy Spirit, violators of unity, and disturbers of the peace. I guess that’s just the natural dynamic of dissent.
 
Steadfast said:
My faith is that the Church belongs to Jesus, it’s His Body and He will guide it into all truth.

The Church is every believer everywhere and in every time.

I see no need to ridicule or deride others who belong to Him as well.

I believe my church to have the truest and surest expression of the faith once delivered to the saints, but I don’t suppose thereby that all others are not Christian and I certainly don’t presume to whack them over the head with every mistake they’ve ever made in order to aggrandize myself.
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How may I ask did you come to the conclusion that your church holds the most truth?
 
BrianH said:
New groups form as well from those who adhere to doctrines other than Sola Scriptura.
I also believe we are one church as well. I know that is hard for you to accept.
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Yeah, but you probably believe Catholics are part of that “one church” – so that already puts you on a different planet from those who still consider the Pope the AntiChrist and the Church the Whore of Babylon. Admittedly, the mainstream denominations have toned down on this kind of rhetoric, but it’s still out there.

Frankly, I think it’s essential to Protestantism. If the Catholic Church is NOT the whore of Babylon, then you really have to give it consideration, if only on historical grounds for the preservation of Christianity and for the continuity of developed doctrine. It is much more logically consistent to assert that the Church is NOT the true Church in any sense.
 
BrianH said:
Whether I like it or not?:confused:
I do notice your capitilization and have participated in discussions about that before.
The power of punctuation…
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🙂 Some protestant folks don’t like the idea that they are part of the Catholic Church by claiming a christian faith.
 
mercygate said:
Frankly, I think it’s essential to Protestantism. If the Catholic Church is NOT the whore of Babylon, then you really have to give it consideration, if only on historical grounds for the preservation of Christianity and for the continuity of developed doctrine. It is much more logically consistent to assert that the Church is NOT the true Church in any sense.
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I think a lot of us have given it serious consideration.
As far as what is logicially consistent, it always boils down to the underlying presuppositions. Depending upon what one holds to be true, most people find their faiths logically consistent…it goes without saying 😉
 
BrianH said:
I think a lot of us have given it serious consideration.
As far as what is logicially consistent, it always boils down to the underlying presuppositions. Depending upon what one holds to be true, most people find their faiths logically consistent…it goes without saying 😉
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Maybe you are closer to being ‘logically consistent’ – at least because you acknowledge reason as one leg of your platform. Others hold that the Holy Spirit is all the logic they need since logic comes under the heading of “vain philosophy.”

BTW, since you are a Methodist (have I got that right?), may I refer to you all the Catholic bashers who pile up on us over the title, “Mother of God”? Since y’all accept that (along with Lutherans, Anglicans, and Presbyterians), it would be a big relief to ask the anti-Marian contingent to take it up with their Protestant brethren, whom they are more likely to trust.
 
BrianH said:
Whether I like it or not?:confused:
I do notice your capitilization and have participated in discussions about that before.
The power of punctuation…
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what is your opinion of catholics? are they all false christians or are there true christians among them?
 
BMSODM said:
How may I ask did you come to the conclusion that your church holds the most truth?
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I compared its doctrine with the Bible and the history of the people of God.

But even if I hadn’t, it wouldn’t matter.

Many millions are born into one faith or another and never reach the kind of crisis which would require such a validation.
 
Steadfast said:
I compared its doctrine with the Bible and the history of the people of God.
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Did you start with History and work your way to the Bible or did you use the bible and work your way back “through” the History?
 
BMSODM said:
Did you start with History and work your way to the Bible or did you use the bible and work your way back “through” the History?
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I started as a Roman Catholic having converted to that religion at the age of 16. There was no reason for my doing so other than that I wanted to.

Later I came to evangelical convictions through the ministry of a different church tradition and saw these convictions validated by Scripture.

But there remained a certain tension.

On the one hand, I saw clearly from the Bible that a man got a gracious God solely through Christ by faith alone without works and so on, but I had, along with this, been force fed some rather paranoid assumptions about history that just didn’t bear out.

Being someone with a strong historical bent I studied and realized that the church was an historical entity, it was really a communion across time and that its history was wrinkled with changes in practice and institutions but that the faith of the apostles couldn’t really change.

This (along with marrying a Lutheran) brought me to Lutheran convictions. For me, being catholic has meaning. I stand with my church in the stream of western catholic Christianity and realize more and more clearly every day that if “conservative Protestants” have hi-jacked the word “Evangelical”, even more so have they hi-jacked the word “Protestant” and have bled both of them of their original meanings.

Today I use the words but I don’t always mean what most people mean by them. When I say “Evangelical” or “Protestant” I am speaking of a Western Christian whose tradition stems through the Reformation to Augustine and all those faithful Christians in every age and beyond them to the Apostles. This implies, among other things, some subscription to the great credal formulations of the early church.

ETA: Lutherans, if they are faithful to their doctrine, stand outside what most people think of “Protestantism” and “Evangelicalism” but are both Protestant and Evangelical if the words are permitted their original, more technical meanings.
 
Steadfast said:
I compared its doctrine with the Bible and the history of the people of God.
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We have done the same thing, as have countless Catholics throughout history. What makes your particular interpretation more authoritative than ours? I converted from Protestantism to Catholicism about six years ago. My parents are still Protestants. I admire their faith and am grateful for my upbringing in loving Christ. I do feel, though, that when my father tells me that a belief of his is based in the Bible that he really does not have a good argument against someone who reads that passage differently. What can he say? That the Holy Spirit speaks to him perfectly?

Also, in the case of Protestants, I wonder what gives the Bible its authority in their eyes. I believe that the Bible is the word of God. But that is because it is a part of Sacred Tradition. The Catholic Church declared what was true scripture and what was not. If Protestants deny the authority of the Church and of Sacred Tradition then how do they get the authority of the Bible?

And for that matter, what did Christians do before the Bible was fully assembled and made canon? The letters of St. Paul were letters to churches of Christians - in other words, they were Sacred Tradition.

It is good when anyone has an interest in the scriptures and in history. I only urge that they do not let any a priori ideas they might have get in the way of their research.
 
Steadfast said:
My faith is that the Church belongs to Jesus, it’s His Body and He will guide it into all truth.
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I agree completely. This is the promise that He made to St. Peter in Matthew 16:18-19.
The Church is every believer everywhere and in every time.
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How do we define a “believer”?

Can you really be a “believer” if you doubt or outright deny core tenets of the Faith, as handed down by the Apostles to the Church? Does a “believer” remove books from the Bible, because they don’t suit his personal opinions? Does he remove himself from the Church and start up his own organization because of obstinate doubt about core teachings of the Apostles and their successors? Can the followers of such a man really be considered to be in full communion with the Church? 🤷
 
Steadfast said:
ETA: Lutherans, if they are faithful to their doctrine, stand outside what most people think of “Protestantism” and “Evangelicalism” but are both Protestant and Evangelical if the words are permitted their original, more technical meanings.
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Tell that to the your fellow Lutherans who just ordained an openly lesbian priest. This is not being faithful to their doctrine. Unless your Lutheran Church believes the sin of homosexuality as a morally grave.
 
Steel,

Your last paragraph is excellent advice we would all be wise to take. It has been a difficult lesson for me but I think I’ve internalized it pretty well.

As for the rest of your post all I can tell you is that what I have found satisfies me. I am sure you would say the same for what you have come to believe. I would hope anyone would.

While it is true that where we differ only one of us can be right, I do not believe we will in this life know which one that is. Until then we have only our consciences.
 
Mannyfit75 said:
Tell that to the your fellow Lutherans who just ordained an openly lesbian priest. This is not being faithful to their doctrine. Unless your Lutheran Church believes the sin of homosexuality as a morally grave.
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They’re not my Lutherans. I am as saddened as you are by this.

Or at least I hope you’re saddened and not merely gloating.

For the record, my church doesn’t even ordain women, much less lesbians.
 
Lutherans are fairly divided now. I believe that ELCA and the Euro state Churches are the one ordaining women or being cool with same sex unions or abortion on demand.
 
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