Where does 36,000 denominations come from?

[Rm_Catholic]

arcturus:

Michaelp, great points…you’ve basically taken the words right out of my mouth regarding the RCC just being another of the 36,000 denominations no matter what is claimed otherwise. Now there you are in Frisco and I’m on the other side of the country…I’ve never even met you, and here we are in complete unity, bro! Amazing how that works.

Pete2, thanks for your honesty regarding something that a lot of Catholics on message boards don’t like admitting to. As a former Catholic, and having Catholics for relatives and in-laws, you are right on the money. As devout and regular church attenders as they are, there is no unity in reality based on their picking and choosing what to believe and the way they live various aspects of their lives in defiance of the RCC.

I just finished reading John Cornwell’s “Breaking Faith.” The amount of disunity in the RCC that he detailed at ALL levels of RCC laity and hierarchy was depressing, even for me.

I was at a typical RC church recently for my niece’s first communion. When it was time to sing the first hymn, my kids were astounded that few were actually participating. They just couldn’t figure out how hundreds of people could produce such little volume!!! This may seem a trivial point to Catholics who care little about those that surround them in the pews. But it is very revealing regarding the reality of RC “unity.” We had to explain to our kids afterward that this is typical in a Catholic church where it is often a sense of obligation, culture, or custom that drives the majority of its members to attend, as opposed to a real unity in the person of Christ and a desire to worship Him as true brothers and sisters.

The dominant sense I have had in every Catholic church I have ever been in since chiuldhood is that the congregation is composed of people who are mostly strangers to each other; that the concept of being brothers and sisters in Christ is not a living reality to them.

By the way, I get a kick out of the revelry over the quaint “Bible thumper” cartoon guy. I have observed that attempted expressions of disdain for evangelicals by Roman Catholics often come in the form of Biblical association…as if being linked to God’s Word is something to be embarrassed about! Ironic as well as revealing.

Arcturus and Michaelp:

Do you belive that the Church was established by Christ himself??? If you do, than Luther, Calvin and every other Denominational founder were 1500 years too late.

One rebutle to that could be that those beliefs always existed but were not “well-known” until the reformers spoke out (I’ve heard this one a lot)!!! Unfortunatly, thats wrong for two reasons. One- Jesus said His Church would be like a house on top of a hill. His church was meant to be visible and recognizable to all who wished to follow Him in His Church. Two- Can you really believe that Jesus insisted that His people follow Him through His Church, and then hide it for 1500 years? What about all those Christians between Christ establishing His Church and the Reformers “revalations”??? I could never be a protestant. (Not in a bigotted sense)!!! I could not bring myself to believe so illogically and unscriptually as you do? Why do you deny the existence of one Church? If you don’t, why then do you think that the true Church just sprang up 1500 years later???

 

[Church_Militant]

Arcturus,
You make some serious rash generalizations and allegations about Catholic life and practice that you you’d know better if you really had been Catholic. What parish was that and where? I’m sure that if you name it we can find someone from that parish here on the forum to refute you.

I was at a typical RC church recently for my niece’s first communion. When it was time to sing the first hymn, my kids were astounded that few were actually participating. They just couldn’t figure out how hundreds of people could produce such little volume!!!

I, on the other hand have been in n-C services in Baptist and Assembly of God and non-denoms that have been ridiculously loud and full of emotion and yet as one of their deacons they did diddly squat and knew beans about their faith and did less still on the outside for the needy. I left one church when they wanted me to vote to excommunicate a member for allegedly having an affair, but refused my request to go talk to him and try to get them straigtened out. They refused to follow the NT about confronting a brother…and excommunicated him over my protest. My letter of resignation was 10 pages long.

Volume and emotionalism are not indicative of spirituality.

This may seem a trivial point to Catholics who care little about those that surround them in the pews. But it is very revealing regarding the reality of RC “unity.” We had to explain to our kids afterward that this is typical in a Catholic church where it is often a sense of obligation, culture, or custom that drives the majority of its members to attend, as opposed to a real unity in the person of Christ and a desire to worship Him as true brothers and sisters

.

This is nothing more than your disparaging remarks about Catholicism. We may just be human, but my parish is anything but what you have described. I personally think that you never were a Catholic since you display a bad lack of real knowlege of Catholic teaching and practice. You really shouldn’t try to speak to “issues” that you have no knowlege of.

And if you were Catholic then you had to be one of those pew warmers that didn’t do squat and now you wanna blame the church for your lack of commitment to Christ and failure to follow Him. in l;ooking back, I can see that there was plenty of opportunity for me to get right with God…but I was the problem…not the church.

The dominant sense I have had in every Catholic church I have ever been in since chiuldhood is that the congregation is composed of people who are mostly strangers to each other; that the concept of being brothers and sisters in Christ is not a living reality to them.

Ah but my real experience is that among the n-C churches that I was part of they all talk a good talk but very very few carry it beyond the church doors. Worse. I found that they are were great about smiling in your face and then stabbing you in the back with gossip or power struggles to control the pastor and the church as a whole. In the A/G I was in it was run by one family (that had broken off from a nearby church) and they reveled in their control.

Theses are facts…not opinions. I was there…and I hated it the and I hate it now. My Catholic parish is not like that at all.

By the way, I get a kick out of the revelry over the quaint “Bible thumper” cartoon guy. I have observed that attempted expressions of disdain for evangelicals by Roman Catholics often come in the form of Biblical association…as if being linked to God’s Word is something to be embarrassed about! Ironic as well as revealing.

Hey thump away…but you offer nothing to make it worth me turning away from Catholicism. I know truth and love the Holy Spirit’s guidance as well as love for my Brothers and sisters in the faith.

BTW it’s not the Evangelicals or the Prots, or the non-denoms that I disdain: It’s your Bible-thumping self-righteous anti-Catholic attacks that you come in here trying to dress up as “Love for all my catholic brothers and sisters” and “questions & discussions”. I ask again…why are guys like you here? It’s not for information…that’s available on the ma(name removed by moderator)age library and on the Vatican website and the NCCB site and lots of others. If you’re here to attack Catholic belief…(as I believe that you are) and to “show us the light”, then I suggest that your motives are wrong and that you abuse our tolerance.

Say what you will…those of us who know our faith are unified in following the church…the rest are running…to either catch up or to escape from the moral responsibility of the truth.

Answer me this…do you belong to a church that says it is morally wrong to artificially contracept? That’s one real good indicator… obey or disobey?
It’s really that simple.
Pax vobiscum,

 

[arcturus]

Church Militant wrote:

Arcturus,
You make some serious rash generalizations and allegations about Catholic life and practice that you you’d know better if you really had been Catholic. What parish was that and where? I’m sure that if you name it we can find someone from that parish here on the forum to refute you.

Well, seems to me, CM, you can dish out your own observations and opinions with little care for any offense, but have a hard time taking those from an opposing view.

If you want to believe me a liar that is fine with me, I won’t take it personally.

However, for the record, here is my Roman Catholic resume: Born in St. John’s (a Catholic!) hospital, Detroit, Michigan. Baptized Roman Catholic at St. Peter the Apostle (Harper Woods) and raised at St. Joan of Arc parish (St. Clair Shores). Sometimes attended St. Lucy’s in St. Clair Shores. Attended catechism past my confirmation which took place at St. Matthew’s in Detroit. Attended St. Louis parish in Mt. Clemens during high school years. During college years attended St. John’s (E. Lansing, where I was involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Work of Christ for a year) and later Holy Redeemer (where “the Rosary Murders” was filmed) in southwest Detroit. I worked with Catholic youth ministers at Our Lady of Good Council (Detroit), St. Edmund’s (Warren), Assumption Grotto (Detroit), St. Sylvester’s (Warren), and St. Louise (Warren). Helped plan and coordinate Catholic weekend retreats and special programs for high school students in the metro area. Through my older brother became acquainted with a couple of seminarians at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit (very enlightening). After graduation attended St. Florian’s in Hamtramck. Married at St. Matthias Church (Sterling Heights, ceremony featured three priests and a Lutheran minister!) After marriage attended Shrine of the Little Flower and St. Columban’s (cosmic, man) in Royal Oak, Our Lady of LaSalette in Berkley, and St. Andrew’s in Rochester Hills. My wife and I were godparents at my nephew’s baptism at St. Vincent Ferrer in Madison Heights and attended classes for that. In addition, my mentally handicapped sister lived at a former convent/halfway house connected to St. Gertrude’s in St. Clair Shores and my mother worked as a cook for Our Lady of Good Council in Detroit (some interesting stories indeed). My family as well as my wife’s are still predominantly Roman Catholic. Churches that they are members of where we have attended mass include St.Therese of Liseux (Shelby) and St. Blase (Sterling Heights). I’ve been at Catholic masses at Notre Dame University as well as in California and Texas where I have relatives.

I, on the other hand have been in n-C services in Baptist and Assembly of God and non-denoms that have been ridiculously loud and full of emotion and yet as one of their deacons they did diddly squat and knew beans about their faith and did less still on the outside for the needy.

I am sorry you were offended by the zeal that the congregation displayed in singing praises to their Savior. Also, it is indeed unfortunate that there are folks in all of those supposed 36,000 denomations that claim to be Christians who don’t live up to what they should be. I could also go into detail on the pedophile priests I knew, the Capuchin seminarian who denied the Resurrection, etc. Or worse, I could dip into a history of the medieval and Rennaissance popes. But what would that prove? Hopefully we believe what we do because we are convinced of truth, not because a number of people fail with the truth. For myself, I reject Catholicism for reasons other than that there are sinners who claim to be Catholic.

 

[arcturus]

Church Militant, cont:

Volume and emotionalism are not indicative of spirituality

Amen to that, but neither is inhibition and silence.

This is nothing more than your disparaging remarks about Catholicism.

These are my opinions based upon a lifetime of direct personal involvement as well as continuous observation of friends and relatives, as well as literature, and statistical and polling data of Catholics in general. I could give you a litany of anecdotal examples, but in the end you would probably just shrug them off as irrelevant anyway.

We may just be human, but my parish is anything but what you have described. I personally think that you never were a Catholic since you display a bad lack of real knowlege of Catholic teaching and practice. You really shouldn’t try to speak to “issues” that you have no knowlege of.

Well, for your sake I am happy that your parish is an exception. I hope my “resume” has dispelled the notion that I was never a Catholic. Don’t you think it is ironic that Catholic Answers is always putting its converts on display, but the notion that Christians can go the other direction is simply unacceptable and unbelievable? And yet in my life I have personally known only 1 Christian who went from a non-RC denomination back to the RCC, (and his testimony, ironically, appears in the first “Surprised by Truth” book). On the other hand, I have known dozens of Christians who have left the RCC for non-C churches.

And if you were Catholic then you had to be one of those pew warmers that didn’t do squat and now you wanna blame the church for your lack of commitment to Christ and failure to follow Him

On the contrary. After I became a Christian I still hung out for quite a while at Catholic churches as indicated above. How often I could hear my own voice so clearly echoing among the smattering of other participants in a vast congregation. Not much has changed from my observations in over forty years. As far as your judgment of my commitment to Christ, well, I hope you’ll forgive me if I say that it was out of a desire to grow in relationship with Him that I ultimately sought fellowship elsewhere. And it was from sources like Catholic radio, Catholic apologists, and message boards like this that I really became elightened as to how far off track the Catholic belief system has gotten. Otherwise, truthfully, I would have left the RCC a lot sooner.

I ask again…why are guys like you here?

Well, I think I stated on another thread that this is an apologetics forum, isn’t it? How are you folks going to learn and grow without healthy debate? You should be grateful that there is the occasional non-RC Christian wandering about.

Answer me this…do you belong to a church that says it is morally wrong to artificially contracept? That’s one real good indicator… obey or disobey?
It’s really that simple.

Well, that sounds like a topic for a whole new thread and I would be happy to oblige. But basically, the RC position is untenable because of its contradictory posture with NFP (as long as it isn’t an abortifacient, birth control is birth control, whether artificial or “natural”), so it is really an ineffective debating point, unless you can show me where Jesus or the apostles expressly forbid it. If it matters, all of my wife’s “devout” Catholic family practices contraception, including one sister that teaches Catholic catechism at her local parish.

 

[arcturus]

Catholic Dude wrote:

Arcturus,
In what chruch did you find the fullness of Truth? The History, Authority, Apostolic Roots, Theologians, Early Christian Writings??
The Catholic Church has the fullness of all of those.

Jesus, as revealed by the Word of God, IS the Truth. For RCs to say one can have Jesus, but somehow be lacking something is a bit presumptuous, seems to me.

His Word, left by the Holy Spirit-inspired Apostles (do Christian writings get any earlier?) is my final authority and rule of faith. If you can prove to me that there is an authority higher than the Go-breathed words of the Lord Himself, then you may have a case for your magisterium.

With regard to your theologians, well…Assumption of Mary, Immaculate Conception, the papacy and papal infallibility, etc…I would say your are talking not fullness of truth, but some creative addendums to it.

At any rate, I think we are getting off topic again. We were discussing 36,000 denominations…

 

[Catholic29]

23,000 or More Protestant Denominations: a Myth of Catholic Apologists or a Documented Fact? By Dave Armstrong and Al Kresta:

web.archive.org/web/20001217080800/http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ429.HTM

 

[Catholic29]

RobbyS:

Railing against Protestants is not called for, but certainly it is germane to point out that there is division in the Church because the Protestant principle of private judgement in matters of faith and morals has taken hold. More than that, the loyalty to Christ that we find among Protestants is not to be found among liberals, who say that one reilgion is as good as another, and that religious truth is illusory. So the Reformation enterprise, which was to increase faith, has ended in a general skepticism, at least toward Christian claims. So we seen an abandonment of
the morality that Christians labored for a thousand years to imbue in the peoples of the West.

Now that is an illuminating insight, and an observation which kept me an agnostic for the first 20 years of my life.

You have a Presbyterian Church on one street, a Lutheran Church a couple blocks down, and an Assemblies of God a street over. This pretty much describes a part of my town almost exactly, and from quite early on in my life I recognized this inconsistency of belief in Christianity which kept me away.

Until I discovered through some research that Catholicism was by far the largest Christian body in the world which possessed any sort of doctrinal consistency. So I unanimously decided if I were to convert to Christianity, Catholicism was where I would go, and is where I have been for 9 years running.

 

[Mickey]

arcturus:

If you want to believe me a liar that is fine with me, I won’t take it personally.

No one is calling you a liar, only decieved.

arcturus:

However, for the record, here is my Roman Catholic resume:

I am saddened that you you have had bad experiences which caused you to leave the fullness of truth.

arcturus:

I could also go into detail on the pedophile priests I knew, the Capuchin seminarian who denied the Resurrection, etc…

Pedophiles and heretics (sinners), exist in every walk of life. This is a quick anti-Catholic jab.

arcturus:

Or worse, I could dip into a history of the medieval and Rennaissance popes. But what would that prove?

Again, another A/C jab. People sin, doctrine does not.

arcturus:

Hopefully we believe what we do because we are convinced of truth, not because a number of people fail with the truth.

The Church that Christ founded, the Catholic Church, has revealed the truth to us.

arcturus:

For myself, I reject Catholicism for reasons other than that there are sinners who claim to be Catholic.

99 out of 100 Catholics who leave the Church, do so for personal reasons. 99 out of 100 non-Catholics who convert to Catholicism, do so for doctrinal reasons.

 

[Mickey]

arcturus:

These are my opinions

Yes, and only your opinions.

arcturus:

Well, for your sake I am happy that your parish is an exception.

Church Militant’s parish is not the exception, it is the rule. Again, I am saddened that you had difficult experiences.

arcturus:

I How often I could hear my own voice so clearly echoing among the smattering of other participants in a vast congregation.

Did you know that many Catholic parishioners are so completely immersed in prayer and contempletion, that they may not interupt this prayer to sing a praise hymn? It’s called worship.

arcturus:

As far as your judgment of my commitment to Christ, well, I hope you’ll forgive me if I say that it was out of a desire to grow in relationship with Him that I ultimately sought fellowship elsewhere.

Perhaps you need to take one step backward to take two steps forward. Everyone’s journey is different.

arcturus:

And it was from sources like Catholic radio, Catholic apologists, and message boards like this that I really became elightened as to how far off track the Catholic belief system has gotten.

Good luck trying to prove that one.

arcturus:

Well, I think I stated on another thread that this is an apologetics forum, isn’t it? How are you folks going to learn and grow without healthy debate?.

I thought we were helping you to learn and grow.

arcturus:

If it matters, all of my wife’s “devout” Catholic family practices contraception, including one sister that teaches Catholic catechism at her local parish.

With all due respect, they are not really Catholic. Perhaps you could urge them to read the CCC.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

arcturus:

…Born in St. John’s (a Catholic!) hospital,…
…my mentally handicapped sister lived at a former convent/halfway house connected to St. Gertrude’s
…my mother worked as a cook for Our Lady of Good Council …

First of all how many Protestant Churches run Hospitals? How many run houses for the needy/disabled? Almost 0% of prot denominations. How many run any form of charity, almost 0%. There is no group that matches the level of charity than the Catholic Church. The majority of Prots can barely pay the salary and electric bills, so much for the helping the poor.
.

I could also go into detail on the pedophile priests I knew, the Capuchin seminarian who denied the Resurrection, etc. Or worse, I could dip into a history of the medieval and Rennaissance popes. But what would that prove?.

The difference between the CC and the other guys is that when someone does something bad it reflects on all of the Church…when a prot does something bad the church either closes down or the guy is fired and the whole thing is forgotten and nobody cares because there is nothing to point the finger at. I would love to “dip into history” on another thread, but remember you cant go back too far beacuse your church didnt exist yet. Finally debating the issues would prove a lot.

These are my opinions based upon a lifetime of direct personal involvement as well as continuous observation of friends and relatives, as well as literature, and statistical and polling data … but in the end you would probably just shrug them off as irrelevant anyway.

Trust me, we will start any debate thread you want and all through it you guys will be the ones “shrugging it off”. Oh, yea, whats this “literature”, “data”?

On the other hand, I have known dozens of Christians who have left the RCC for non-C churches.

Its not the “RCC” its the Church. They left because they had the Burger King “have it your way” mentality, one more thing, how many of them left to only one church and are still there? I bet they have been church hopping ever since or even dont attend at all.

After I became a Christian …
… it was out of a desire to grow in relationship with Him that I ultimately sought fellowship elsewhere. And it was from sources like Catholic radio, Catholic apologists, and message boards like this that I really became elightened as to how far off track the Catholic belief system has gotten. Otherwise, truthfully, I would have left the RCC a lot sooner.

Christianity101 fact: You became Christian when you were Baptized.
You know that “relationship” is used because thats all prots have left to say about their connection to Christ? They threw out or invalidated almost every road to Christ via the sacraments? That word is a shallow word to use, I know you didnt come up with it, but in this day and age people are worried about the warm fuzzy feeling and “relationships”, thats at the very heart of how the prots destroyed America. They were more interested in “relationships” than commitment and sticking it out to the end, thats why they have drive thru weddings and divorce.

How are you folks going to learn and grow without healthy debate? You should be grateful that there is the occasional non-RC Christian wandering about.

The amount of times we see a good debate are too few and far between. We would love to see what you got.

Jesus, as revealed by the Word of God, IS the Truth. For RCs to say one can have Jesus, but somehow be lacking something is a bit presumptuous, seems to me.

Yes Jesus is the Truth, and the Bible does teach that, so what are you saying, both sides agree with this. Oh, wait, I get it, yep Jesus is the Truth, so we dont need anything else, we can do what ever we want, especially if Jesus never explicitly mentioned it in the Bible.

His Word, left by the Holy Spirit-inspired Apostles (do Christian writings get any earlier?) is my final authority and rule of faith. If you can prove to me that there is an authority higher than the Go-breathed words of the Lord Himself, then you may have a case for your magisterium.

So do the writings stop after “Revelation”? Are other writings deemed worthless?
So who decided what was “inspired” to be worthy of the Bible? The original Apostles NEVER used the Bible, the NT didnt exist yet. And why do so many prots disagree if you all use the Bible?

With regard to your theologians, well…Assumption of Mary, Immaculate Conception, the papacy and papal infallibility, etc…I would say your are talking not fullness of truth, but some creative addendums to it.

Oh, Im sorry I was talking more along the lines these terms like: “Trinity”, “Bible”, “Protestant”, “Sacraments”, “Church”, “Bishops”, etc.

So what was the name of your church? I didnt see it.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Peter2,

The people of the Church are deeply divided on a number of issues.

The opinions of the taught church do not equal the doctrine of the Teaching Church. You are mixing apples and oranges.

If you were to compare the opinions of the taught Catholic church to the opinions of the taught Protestants, you would find much more variation in the latter. Even Martin Luther admitted as much.

I believe it is more significant to compare the doctrines of the teaching Catholic Church (magisterium) to the doctrines of the teaching Protestants. Instead of asking, what do Baptists believe, for example, one should ask what do Baptsits teach. I could care less what the guy in the pew rejects or accepts from the preaching of the pastor. I wan’t to know the doctrines of the pastor. For example, Southern Baptists don’t teach that everyone goes to heaven, although some Southern Baptists may believe this. Do you see the difference? If I’m to sit and hear the Word of God and the commentary of a pastor, I wan’t to know what it is that denomination’s commentary teaches. Are they universalists? Unitarian? Calvinist? Armenian? Theology matters to me.

When I was looking for a church to call my own, I really could care less about the theological understanding of the people in the pews, as this will vary significantly from parish to parish no matter what denomination you are in. What I wanted to know was the official teaching of a particular denomination. I was astonished to learn there is no official teaching of many Protestant denominations. It’s whatever the pastor says. For example, there is a very popular Protestant church in Colorado Springs (11,000+ members), run by Ted Haggert as pastor. A friend of mine had some ecumenical disuccsions with a group of his assistant pastors and he asked these asst pastors the following question: Do you teach eternal security, “once saved always saved?” The pastors could not answer, saying that they didn’t know. Each had their own view, but they never sat down to discuss whether one view or the other was part of their official teaching. This was amazing to me. 11,000 members and there was no way of knowing as to whether “once saved always saved” will be preached to you or not on any given Sunday.

In contrast, I pick up a Catechism of the Catholic Church, and it gives me an official compendium of Catholic teaching from the lead pastor of the Church. The lousy Catholics in the pew next to me may despise the teaching of the Church, but that matters very little to me. I want to know what the pastor is going to teach, or at least is SUPPOSED to teach, according to HIS pastor. If he teaches something contrary, I have recourse to HIS pastor to resolve the situation, per the Constitution of the Church. I can know the official teaching of the Catholic Church. I don’t know this in Protestantism, because is seems quite often even the pastors themselves make it up as they go.

 

[Church_Militant]

Well…thanks for the resume. We face so many people who claim they were Catholics and yet sound like they don’t know what the heck they’re talkin’ about. I appreciate the time you took to fill in those blanks. I stand corrected…you aren’t lying you have been a Catholic.

However…having left the faith at 17 and then returned over 34 years later, my experiences are just as valid as yours, right?

I am glad I had no long litany of people and groups that messed me up. The fact is that I returned to Catholicism because I am convinced of it’s truth and the inaccuracy of the n-C church teachings.

I don’t really care if everyone else is dead as a door knob, so far as my personal faith is concerned. I know the truth and that truth is 100% Catholic and I will say with Joshua. As for me and my household. We will follow the Lord." Please bear in mind that I do indeed care deeply about those around me and I get to know more and more of them each week. I loved RCIA with my wife and it was great to hang out with Catholics who love Our Lord and love His church. One thing that you say is really inaccurate though. Catholics are not inhibited in our worship…(among those I hang out with), we seek to be deeply reverent. The emotionalism that I witnessed in the churches I was part of appeared to mostly be a smokescreen to insure that others noticed that you were “on fire for the Lord” or “filled with the Holy Ghost.”
The number of times that A/G members disobeyed the discipline of the NT concerning the proper use of tongues in the services was endemic and habitual.

My first thought upon reading your answers to my posts was, “How in the world did this guy ever get so messed up that he left the church?” The same could well have been said of me… but I can’t se how you can resolve all the divergent factions and doctrines that plague n-C churches and abandon the one true church that really teaches what the NT church taught. I couldn’t do it. They don’t know what’s right and yet they all tell you they are. I looked into it and it just ain’t so… Starting with Sola Scriptura- every other error in the book cascades right down from that. I don’t care what anyone else says, even dissenting or disobedient Catholics like your “devout” family members. That doesn’t change the truth or excuse their sins which is between them and God. I don’t have to answer for them…I have to answer for me.

(BTW…NO Christian denom ever accepted artificial birth control until 1930 and then all the rest fell in like sheep going astray. NFP is not artificial and abortifacient contraception…it’s self control. So don’t even try that one on me. All Christians are called to self control (Fruit of the spirit isn’t it?) so it can’t be immoral them can it? Even the NT speaks of married couples remaining celibate for a time by agreement, aso that just sort of shoots holes in your premiss there IMO.)

Since moral failings by members do not invalidate the truths of Catholicism, then in the end the only issue is will you or won’t you honestly commit to follow the truth at all costs? That’s what I did and that’s why I’m a Catholic and will never change. I’ve seen both sides of this and I know that Catholicism is right. There is no compelling argument against the faith, and believe me I’ve heard every one of them. I believe that if Sola Scriptura is false then all of churches founded upon it are dead wrong and should abandon their false positions and return to Catholicism. Truth is truth.
Pax vobiscum,