[fr_freak]

Yep. How about Christ's teachings? Read the bible and see what it actually says rather than letting a hierarchy of popes, cardinals, monsignors, priests tell you.

A couple of points:

1) The Catholic Church has been guiding people in matters of Christ since before the ability to read was common, and before printing presses. The system was set up long before the "read your Bible" mantra would even have made sense. The Church has brought more people to the word of Christ than all the Protestant churches combined, and they've been doing it for 2000 years.

2) While each person should certainly take the time to read and understand his own Bible, the creative interpretations of the Bible that we're seeing now from many (now apostate) Protestant churches shows the down side of having an interpretive free-for-all. The advantage that the Catholic Church has is theology rooted in 2000 years of intense study, which is not so easily changed according to the latest political or cultural fad.

[rom]

While I agree with Point #1 — to quote from Spiderman (don’t know what Chapter or Verse, lol): “With great power comes great responsibility”

Most of my friends and family who are Roman Catholics have been told by their Priests and Church hierarchy that the Bible is a collection of stories and things like, “The Plagues in Exodus was just myth(!)” Two people as disparate in space and time as my mother in law, my wife’s best friend both have been taught this.

This confuses me greatly, because I know that is not official Catholic teaching. So how does this happen?

So I’m sorry — that’s just as wrong headed as the apostate Protestant churches and so shows that no human organization is without error. And now we start seeing splinter Charismatic Catholic Churches as well.

So no denomination is free of error, but if we have our Bibles to search the truth — we ourselves can spot heresy.