But how do sins get forgiven?
I'll grant you that the packaging of the concept is different, and that is what separates the Catholic Church from Protestantism. On the other hand, it really boils down to pretty much the same thing if you follow the rabbit all the way to the end of the trail.
Who wants their religion boiled down?
Is faith about the absolute minimum amount of information that we must confess in order to be spared damnation?
Or did God want us to know more?
SD
Dear Brilliant,
"On the other hand, it really boils down to pretty much the same thing if you follow the rabbit all the way to the end of the trail."
I guess I'm a bit reluctant to follow the rabbit, if you will. It's time-consuming, it's been done, and I'm not necessarily the best interlocutor with which to attempt it.
The question of justification was precisely that to which DManA referred. The supreme authority of the Catholic Church did not conclude that it all "...boil[ed] down to pretty much the same thing if you follow the rabbit all the way to the end of the trail."
I'm not really willing, inexpert that I am, to try to retrace all the steps taken by the Catholic theologians and the Lutheran theologians, and then retrace the steps of Pope John Paul II to get to this conclusion, especially in the hope that I might come to a different conclusion.
However, it would be wrong to think that there could be communion with the Catholic Church if there were complete agreement on the issue of justification. There are more essentials to Catholic Faith than just justification.
sitetest