SpiritMeadow,
I can understand where you can come to that feeling that these types of discussions get rediculous. As these discussions go on, it becomes very difficult for Catholics to continue to have discussion at all in the face of closemindedness, sole belief of non-C’s in what their Church teaches and has taught them. When you have spent a lifetime learning what you believe, and against Catholic teachings, it would have to be virtually impossible to buy into/believe/be open to Catholic teaching/interpretation.
That said, the Catholic Church is the Early Church. That is historically proven. The Catholic Church still believes and teaches today what every single Early Church Father believed and taught. Every single member of a non-C Church today HAS to believe that the Catholic Church was not the Early Church. They have to believe that we apostocized, fell away, was not the Church that Christ founded, doesn’t know the Truth, never knew the Truth, Peter wasn’t given authority or the keys to the Kingdom, the authority died when Peter or the last apostle died, etc… All of these beliefs have to be true to justify every single non-C Churches founding and existence and to justify their teaching that the Catholic Church doesn’t have authority.
We are not trying to “show Protestants that they are second class Christians.” We are defending our faith against heresy. Every single non-C denomination/Church was founded on man, the idology/beliefs of man. Christ founded a Church in his lifetime, not over 1,500 - 1,900 years later. He founded One Church and taught One Truth. He left his Deposit of Faith with His Church - the Early Church that became the Catholic Church. There are writings in 107AD that used the word Catholic. By the use of the word then, it was obvious that it was well understood and had been in use for a long time. The reason the Early Church had to give herself a name it to distinguish herself from the heresy/sects that were being established at that time. So, the “Catholic Church came much later” belief just makes it easier to discount the Catholic Church and not believe in it’s authority. The Catholic Church is still the Church left standing teaching the same One Truth after all of the infighting. There was no other Church, period, that could EVER make the claim that they were even there or that could ever make the claim that they were the Church that Christ established. He did establish a Church, on a “rock” - Peter, and gave her the ability to bind and loose, gave her the keys to the Kingdom, promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against her because he would be with her to guide and protect her until the end of time. The Church did not make that up. Those were words from Jesus’ mouth! He said those words, and we believe him. Any other explaination, understanding or opinion is from man and from man’s individual/self interpretation of what he wants/thinks Scripture to mean.
Non-C Churches don’t study or teach the history of the Catholic Church because they teach their own ideology and doctrine. The Catholic Church has recorded it’s history all the way back to the apostles. It is there for every individual to read if they want to. They don’t because they believe the individual interpretations and teachings/beliefs of their Church and it’s leaders. Individual interpretation is condemned in the Bible, but yet that is the practice of non-C churches. Why is that? Now, some non-C churches are discussing the need for an “authority” as to stay true to it’s teachings. There has ALWAYS been an authority - the Catholic Church. We have always known, interpreted, taught and protected the Truth. Jesus gave His Church His Authority to teach his Truth and promised to always guide and protect His Church until the end of time. He either did or did not keep his promise. We believe that he kept his promise because he is God. Would God lie? Is it foreshadowed or recorded in Scripture that God would change his mind?
Nothing is more divisive that the hundreds/thousands of denonimations out there that think that they are the correct interpreters of Scripture and that are the Church founded by Christ. With the millions of interpretations of what the Scriptures really mean, comes the divisiveness. Opinions/individual interpretations are just that, opinions/personal interpretation/understanding on one’s own power. Jesus didn’t give ANYONE that power/authority except the apostles and their successors when he breathed on them and told them to go forth and teach. There can only be One Truth, One Church, and it is the Truth and Church that was passed on from Peter and the Apostles through their successors through every generation. Eroneous acts by fallible men in the middle ages did not constitute a Reformation. These actions were being eradicated and reform was being made before Trent and corrected before the actual Reformation. Luther was too full of himself, his ideology and his political influence to turn back.
You are right, Luther didn’t return the Church to some original place. He did seriously re-invent and twist theology and teachings to reflect what he wanted his church to teach and what he wanted his believers to believe. It most certainly IS WRONG! How could it not be? He wasn’t Jesus. He wasn’t Peter. He wasn’t given any power or authority by Jesus. He originally didn’t want to break away from Catholocism, but only to bring some reform in regards to the sale of indulgences most importantly. He didn’t have a problem with Catholic teachings, Catholic interpretation, Catholic doctrine and dogma. It was only after he became full of himself and gained political influence that he became his own pope and figured he knew better than the Church that had received the Deposit of Faith from Jesus himself, carried forth and safeguarded those teachings with the protection of the Holy Spirit, determined the canon of the Bible and penned the Bible, and had continued to teach the same teachings and interpretations that it had always taught for 1,500 years to break away from Catholocism to found his own Church. That is wrong. Man was never given the authority to go around founding their own churches because they don’t like something that the Church teaches. That is exactly what happened with Luther and has happened in the founding of every single Church since the Reformation. They have had to create stories like “Jesus took the Church away from earth only to return it to a righteous man” types of beliefs. Protestant theology is not what Jesus created. Protestant theology is changed, re-defined, personally interpreted understanding of Scripture. It is wrong. Scripture tells us it is wrong and not to do it! The best thing that Protestatism has done has been to seperate off of Christ’s One, Church on it’s own ideology and splinter into hundreds/thousands of different denominations that continue to re-define Scripture and doctrine.
I am sorry if this is hard-line. I am also not being rude. I am defending the Catholic faith against the opinions and personal beliefs of non-C’s and from the eroneous teachings of non-C Churches in regards to the Catholic Church and her teachings. No one today could possibly know better than the ECF’s and Christians from the time of the death of Jesus and forward. No man in the 1500’s or the 1,800’s had the knowledge that the ECF’s and Christians had in the first century or had any authority to teach anything different than what the Catholic Church-Christ’s Church had taught for 1500-1800 years before them.
So these discussions get rediculous over time because Catholics are continually asked to “prove” why we believe what we believe by Christians who took our Bible, altered it, self interpreted it to mean what they think it means or want it to mean, then ask us to prove our beliefs against theirs. That is what is rediculous.
