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Jon_Hus
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Oh, The Sledge Hammer Approach to conversion. I like it.
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jake23
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I was once a protestant who when to school to become an pastor and instead came out Catholic. The educated protestant pastors are in grave danger of damnation. They teach scewed scripture and manipulate vistims into believing there interpretations. When man became vein through personal interpretation is when poeple started thinking they do not need the Catholic church and Protestants began. Everything points to the Catholic church as being THE Church! all of the poorly interpreded scriptures read against the Catholic church are misconstrude in the favor of the protestant. A house devided cannot stand! Look at how many contradicting protestant churches there are out there these days deviding poeple and causing confusion! We need the church because it was Gods plan to keep us as one universal body that followed the teachings of Christ handed down to the apostles and so on only throu the Catholic church.
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Jon_Hus
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This must have been before the invention of spell check.
Triumphalism, Liza. I have no problem with you believing what you say. I’m just saying your approach will not convince anyone. And even though I know you don’t mean it this way, it comes off as arrogant and self-righteous. I don’t believe that Lutheran and Catholic leaders use your methodology in dialogue.
I absolutely agree that there cannot be many truths. I do believe, however, that in many areas our two communions may be expressing the one truth in different ways, ways that lead us to believe the other is wrong. Instead of saying to each other, “I’m right, you’re wrong. You must submit”, our goal should seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance to come to agreement on an expression of His truth.
This is a factually incorrect statement, even from a Catholic perspective. The Orthodox, PNCC, Old Catholics, all have recognized apostolic succession, and therefore valid sacraments. And to my knowledge, Rome has not denied the validity of Lutherans who are in succession, such as those in Scandinavia.
As for Lutherans who are not, Cardinal Ratzinger said the following:
usccb.org/seia/koinonia.shtml
Now, how does that statement compare do your statements here, not in terms of doctrine, but instead tone? The man who became pope holds what appears to be a reasonable amount of respect for Lutheran practices. You and I both know he doesn’t believe our sacrament is equal to yours, but his approach holds out hope for reconciliation.
Thanks, R_C. You are spot on with your comments here. There is but one Church, one Truth, one Lord and Savior. Amen.
For a thousand years than has been schism, 500 years of separation in the western Church. The “I’m right -you’re wrong” approach doesn’t work. I’ve said here before, if it is too difficult for us to take each other’s hand, then let’s each take the Holy Spirit’s hand, and allow Him to guide us together.
Jon
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lizaanne
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It’s nice to see we are keeping this all grown up and polite. Neener neener neener back at you too.…and stop insulting me by insinuating that’s what I believe (although you’re “not trying to be nasty…”) Unless you want “You worship Mary, therefore you are idolators” thrown back at you…
Sheesh.Sorry - I don’t like being baited. I’m not going to re-write what has been said for a century, and at least a million times here on CAF. Your attitude alone is enough to tell me it would be falling on deaf ears. You lost me with your comment quoted at the top of this post. I never insinuated anything.
~Liza
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chaunceygardner
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Do we need THE Church? Depends on what that means. If we mean the institutional church made up of a centralized bureaucracy, nope. Jesus never instituted that kind of church. No buildings, no heirarchy, no thousands of arcane rules (in fact, He seems to have preached against that!). If we mean the church built on faith in God and love for one another, the church that Jesus showed us, taught us about, and led us toward through his life, death and resurrection, then YES. We do need that church.
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Publisher
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You speak my mind!
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lizaanne
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So - you do not believe in the hierarchy of the Church. I wonder what the Church Fathers would have thought about that. If we have no hierarchy, we have no priests. If we have no priests, we have no Eucharist. Priests can not act independently, otherwise they might as well be store front Protestant preachers making up their own “church”. We need our Bishops to lead them and us, and they need a head, who is the Pope. Do you really think that Peter was just one of many? That when Christ said, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”, that he really didn’t mean Peter?
So - as a Catholic - tell me how you feel we really don’t need this hierarchy, and how the Church that Christ left us would function on a global scale, consistently and in a common manner, without it.
Which “arcane rules” do you have an issue with? I’m curious what you feel you can do away with in your Catholic Faith. What do you deem to be disposable?
~Liza
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OneTrueCathApos
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What I could never understand on these forums are the non-Catholics who just cannot except the answers from Catholics here in spite of historical and Scriptural evidence. It just baffles me.
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lizaanne
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And this is my point exactly. We are told that we don’t say it the right way, or we don’t show them the right way, or they don’t feel welcome, or any number of endless excuses - but in the end it is only selfish arrogance that keeps them from accepting the Truth.
The reason they don’t accept is because if they did it would mean that the vast majority of them would have to change how they live. They would have to stop contracepting, living together, divorcing, aborting - and they just don’t want to change how they live their lives. So they reject the Truth out of convenience and call it something else.
There really is no other reason for it. Every single last argument has been refuted with reams of evidence and explanation. No other conclusion makes sense.
~Liza
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Sellers1
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That’s a pretty nasty and largely unfounded statement.
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Sellers1
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How could you possibly read Scripture and come to the honest conclusion that the Roman Catholic church is the one holy catholic and apostolic Church? If you were truly honest with yourself, you could not come to this conclusion.
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chaunceygardner
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So - you do not believe in the hierarchy of the Church. I wonder what the Church Fathers would have thought about that. If we have no hierarchy, we have no priests. If we have no priests, we have no Eucharist. Priests can not act independently, otherwise they might as well be store front Protestant preachers making up their own “church”. We need our Bishops to lead them and us, and they need a head, who is the Pope. Do you really think that Peter was just one of many? That when Christ said, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”, that he really didn’t mean Peter?
So - as a Catholic - tell me how you feel we really don’t need this hierarchy, and how the Church that Christ left us would function on a global scale, consistently and in a common manner, without it.
Which “arcane rules” do you have an issue with? I’m curious what you feel you can do away with in your Catholic Faith. What do you deem to be disposable?
~Liza/QUOTE
Years ago I borrowed a copy of Canon Law from a Priest. I was amazed at the tremendous number of rules and details it went into. What rules did Jesus have? He even reduced the ten commandments down to the two most important. He did not give faith-filled people rules to stumble over, rather He showed us the Way.
There was no hierarchy in the earliest decades. Each community had its own group of followers, they selected their leaders (not priests) and those who would serve the assembly (deacons) from within. The Bishops, when they appeared later as the Church grew, were also selected by their own people (and later appointed by secular leaders when the Christian church became a state church in some places). No one Bishop had predominance over another.
We need Bishops and a Pope? Why? The Pope was not the Pope for hundreds of years; originally he was the Bishop of Rome. In fact, overall church leadership was not vested in Rome for quite awhile. In the first few hundred years the Eastern Church was dominant. Rome, the Vatican and all that came much later and it took hundreds, actually over a thousand years for it all to solidify into what we have today. Our current church structure is actually relatively new. Until Vatican I it was the Bishops of the church acting together who were the arbiters of faith.
People created the hierarchy, the system, the bureaucracy, and the rules and laws we have today. Not Jesus. If He were here today He would not recognize today’s Catholic church as the descendant of what He began. Neither would Peter, Paul, or any of the early disciples.
Note: Peter never thought of himself as the one leader of the church. He worked with the other disciples in his apostolic efforts, and actually seems to have deferred to James and Paul at times. He was never the Bishop of Rome or the Pope simply because there were no such offices in his time.
It was not that long ago that each diocese, in some places each community, trained their own Priests. They were truly “sons of the Church” since they lived and served in the same areas in which they were born and raised. Today many communities have lost their parishes and priests are moved from place to place at will, even around the world.
Finally, you wonder how the church could survive without all the rules and bureaucracy. Well, it did at the beginning, and it grew and flourished against all odds, because people dedicated themselves to God and to spreading the Word. Then we were a Church of faith, of love, and of trust in Jesus; today we are a church of rules.
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OneTrueCathApos
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lizaanne;5483486:
What are you talking about? St. Peter was Bishop of Rome for 25 years. There are letters of evidence, Scriptural proof and so forth…what is it you just don’t seem to get here? Have you been to Rome? I have and it speaks for itself.So - you do not believe in the hierarchy of the Church. I wonder what the Church Fathers would have thought about that. If we have no hierarchy, we have no priests. If we have no priests, we have no Eucharist. Priests can not act independently, otherwise they might as well be store front Protestant preachers making up their own “church”. We need our Bishops to lead them and us, and they need a head, who is the Pope. Do you really think that Peter was just one of many? That when Christ said, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”, that he really didn’t mean Peter?
So - as a Catholic - tell me how you feel we really don’t need this hierarchy, and how the Church that Christ left us would function on a global scale, consistently and in a common manner, without it.
Which “arcane rules” do you have an issue with? I’m curious what you feel you can do away with in your Catholic Faith. What do you deem to be disposable?
~Liza
Today many communities are FLOURISHING in their churches, not lost their parishes. The FEW that were closed is because there are several churches in one city. We don’t need that many churches.
And furthermore, Jesus had to leave us authority (The pope), to govern in his absence. He would never abandon us, this is all Scriptural evidence. Even the ECF have wrote numerous letters. Christ established the church, Catholic in belief. Accept it and move on. Either join it for the sake of Christ, or just keep on questioning it and coming to your own conclusions. Other denominations (30,000+) have confusion and chaos. I doubt Jesus wanted all these contradictions. **He founded one church, one universal church for all to join. The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church. **These are the four marks of the true church. ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLl Scriptural.
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lizaanne
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Are you honestly sure you are Catholic?
Because that post does not resemble anything even remotely close to what a Catholic should be saying/believing/understanding about the Church. If you are this ignorant of history then I can’t possibly engage with you.~Liza
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chaunceygardner
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To answer your question - I believe so. I also do not believe I am ignorant of history at all, although I cannot claim to be an expert in Church or any other history. I am sorry if what I wrote disturbs you so much. My intent was to put the institutional church into perspective, and to point out that there was no “church” as we know it today during the time of Jesus or for the following couple of hundred of years. All of the structure that we have today was developed over time.Are you honestly sure you are Catholic?
~Liza
In the first few hundred years there were several centers of Christianity, including Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople and Carthage in North Africa. In fact (if you care to look it up) many of the early great teachers and “Church Fathers” came from those places. It is in all the church histories that I have read.
In the 400’s there was great discussion about the powers of the various Bishops, and whether whatever discipline they imposed could be over ruled by others. It was only later that the Bishop of Rome attained Primacy and the ability to direct other bishops. Also, major decisions were made at meetings and councils of the gathered leadership, not by one man. That is in church history as well.
Another post said Peter was Pope for 25 years. That is quite a trick, since there was no such thing as a Pope then. The first Pope to be given the title “Pope” was Boniface III, in 607 A.D. It is accepted that Peter was the leader of the church in Rome, but we really don’t know for how long, exactly. And there were Apostles and leaders in other communities as well at the same time, and if you asked any of the Christians in those communities who their leader was, they would not have said Peter. He was at the Church of Rome, while they were members of the Church of Ephesus, or of Antioch, or of Sinope, or of Damascus, or of Smyrna.
Please don’t call ME ignorant, when you are the one who seems to think Jesus plopped a fully functioning, totally organized, pre-fab church structure and hierachy right into the midst of the first disciples. He did not leave us a church like that, that church evolved over the centuries.
And understand that the reason it wasn’t a structured organization was that the first disciples expected Jesus to return very soon, within most of their lifetimes. Their focus was not on building a church structure, but on preaching and converting all peoples to the Word. That’s why Paul and others traveled many miles, to many places, spreading the Gospel. They didn’t think they had much time. Certainly not time to build an institutional church.
I would suggest that YOU read some church history, and learn what Catholic Theologians, Bible Scholars and Historians say about these things. It will likely be very enlightening.
The original question was “Why do we need THE church?” My response is still that we do need, and want, the “church” of Jesus, because that is the Way to God. That to me is different that THE Church of today in terms of its structure and heirarchy. That’s the church you appear to be thinking of, the one created by people. I am more concerned with and interested in the Church that is the Living Word of God and present to us in the Holy Spirit.
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OneTrueCathApos
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St. Peter was indeed Bishop of Rome AND for 25 years:
**St. Iranaeus, “Against Heresies”, 3, 1, 1, 180 A.D., J208
“…In their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were evangelizng at Rome, and laying the foundations of the church”.
St. Irenaeus, “Against Heresies”, chapter III
“…the very ancient, and universally known church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul; as also (by pointing out) the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops.”
Tertullian, “The demurrer against the heretics”, chapter XXX, I, I
“…like the church of the Romans where Clement was ordained by Peter.”
St. Damasus I, “the Decree of Damasus”, 3, 382 A.D.
“The first see, therefore, is that of Peter the Apostle, that of the Roman church, which has neither stain nor blemish nor anything like it.”
There are many other writings of historical proof that Peter reigned in Rome as Bishop for 25 years.**
I would also like to add that the church came before the bible, before the New Testament:
**2 Cor 1:1
Galatians 1:13
Ephesians 1:22, and many more
Phillipians 3:6 and 4:15
Colossians 1:18, and many more verses
1 Thess 1:1 (this was the first book written in about 51 A.D.)
2 thess 1:1
1 Timothy 3:5, 3:15 and 5:16
Titus 3:15
Philemon 1:2
Hebrews 2:12 and 12 :23
James 5:14
1 Peter 5:13
3 John 1:6 and 1:9-10
Revelation 2:1, plus six more in the same book
**Since all of these books mention the word church, the church had to have been in existence already for years before they were written.
Jesus also said His church to a city, which, set upon a hill, “cannot be hidden”.
(Mt. V, 14)
And, since Protestant churches did not exist prior to the Reformation, where was the true church then?
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Wesley7
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That would be the local Catholic Church accessible in your hometown.
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chaunceygardner
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Clarification of the prior post regarding the title of Pope.
That title appears to have been first used after Christianity became the official church of the Roman Empire, at the time of Constantine. The title was derived from a Latin title for the 'chief priest" in Rome’s pagan religion. The first Pope to claim supremacy was apparently Stephen I around 255, and around that same time Cyprian advocated the same. Pope Innocent I and other Popes of the 400’s also claimed supremacy. But that claim was not universally accepted within the Church at that time, and it wasn’t until even later that the Bishop of Rome truly became the head of the entire Church. I did not want to cause confusion over two somewhat different ideas and occurrences: One, the use of a title signifying the Bishop of Rome as the Supreme Pontiff, and the point at which Papal Supremacy became the rule.
My point remains that there was no such position as “Pope” and no one who was called that or who claimed overall supremacy until hundreds of years after the time of Peter.
That title appears to have been first used after Christianity became the official church of the Roman Empire, at the time of Constantine. The title was derived from a Latin title for the 'chief priest" in Rome’s pagan religion. The first Pope to claim supremacy was apparently Stephen I around 255, and around that same time Cyprian advocated the same. Pope Innocent I and other Popes of the 400’s also claimed supremacy. But that claim was not universally accepted within the Church at that time, and it wasn’t until even later that the Bishop of Rome truly became the head of the entire Church. I did not want to cause confusion over two somewhat different ideas and occurrences: One, the use of a title signifying the Bishop of Rome as the Supreme Pontiff, and the point at which Papal Supremacy became the rule.
My point remains that there was no such position as “Pope” and no one who was called that or who claimed overall supremacy until hundreds of years after the time of Peter.
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OneTrueCathApos
Guest
The papacy started when Jesus commanded St. Peter “What you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, what you loosed on earth will be loosed in heaven.” THAT my friend started the papacy, and has been UNBROKEN for 2,000 years.
Early Christian writings tell us that Peter’s successors, the bishops of Rome (who from the earliest times have been called by the affectionate title of “pope”
which means “papa”, continued to exercise Peter’s ministry in the church.
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