“Of course, non-Catholics would never excoriate the Roman Church as “not a true church.”
And here is the difficulty, one Christian Protestant may say that, or even a whole Seminary may teach that, but that is their teaching.
When the Pope puts forward that position, he is literally speaking for the entirety of Catholicism.
For myself, the Roman Catholic Church is a “true” church, why would it not be? Why wouldn’t a Baptist Church be a “true” church, do they dispute Christ’ Birth Passion Death and Ressurrection?
BTW, all of this is part of the reason why I avoid “religion”.
Well, yeah ... that is, after all, his exact job description.
And here is the difficulty, one Christian Protestant may say that, or even a whole Seminary may teach that, but that is their teaching.
Fine ... but when their teaching is different from that of the Catholic Church it implies that one or the other teaching is incorrect (assuming, of course, that either is correct in the first place).
Given that churches are intended to prevent the accumulation of false teaching -- which we know takes place -- it seems to me a fundamental responsibility of any church to point out false teaching when it finds it. That's never easy to do, of course, because human frailties keep getting in the way of things.
A lot of blood has been spilled in the name of correcting false teaching -- it comes as a result of people being more concerned about their rules, than about the real Gospel message. We see that at work on this and similar threads, not to mention the world at large.
BTW, all of this is part of the reason why I avoid “religion”.
Which is really just another way of saying that you're your own denomination, on the same level as Baptists or Catholics.