Jesus established a visible Church, not an invisible one. In Matthew 18, Jesus tells His disciples to "tell it to the Church" if a brother sins and refuses to repent. Where is that "invisible" Church that you speak of? Naturally, when Jesus gives the Apostles the power to forgive sins in John's Gospel, people are meant to go to THEM, not an invisible, unknown group. Thus, it is only the Apostolic Churches that continue to remain substantially Christ's visible Church on earth. Despite your opinion, Christ worked through this visible Church to pass on the traditions, both oral and written, to the Christian communities. How can the word be preached without a Church to preach it? Jesus calls us to Him through the Church, not despite it!
Christianity has excisted outside and inside the RCC for 1500 years protected by Christ, many times from the RCC
Any "Christianity" outside of the Catholic Church that honored the Bishop of Rome with primacy of position was not considered part of the Church. Your thinking is anachronistic. Consider reading how the orthodox Church Fathers, both in the East and the West, considered those heretics who you today call Christian. The Catholic Church was and is the fullness of the faith. Those who willingly separate themselves from this fullness were considered outside, even in Scriptures - Paul himself tells us this in Galatians - that anyone teaching another Gospel, let him be cast out of the Church. Referring to my last posts regarding the Salvation of those outside the visible Church, individual people living inside of heretical sects MAY have been saved, but those wolves in the sheepfold were certainly not. There is only one faith and one Body.
Just because Luther made a visible seperation from the RCC does not mean he left any Christianity behind. He got out of that vehicle and got in the one that was always there.
I would like to see your Scriptural proof that a person can teach a gospel other than that given by the Apostles. Where is your precedent? What "vehicle" was he "entering"??? It was one he invented, not from God.
There have been churches with apostolic succession out side the RCC since pentecost. There is a group in india that still have a strong Christian identity through the apostle Thomas.
They continue to follow the Apostolic faith and are "separated" from Rome in the early years because of politics. India and Rome are quite distant apart. They did not "leave" the Church. Many, now that times have changed, have re-established this link to Peter. Some continue to exist, such as the Coptics. Yet, they do not possess the fullness of the faith, nor do Protestants (to an even lesser degree). There is one complete truth. Not many truths. Yet, these men, despite some errors, continue to walk with Christ. But this does not give anyone the RIGHT to choose parts and pieces of God's revelation to follow and ignore the rest. God will judge each one of us on how we accepted His Word.
I encourage all Catholics who happen to be christians to work towards the reforms that B16 seems to be suggesting in reading the scriptures for themselves.
ALL Catholics ARE Christians. A person is a Christian when he is baptized. He becomes a child of God, an adopted son. All sin is washed away. He (or his parents by proxy if an infant) has accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. All Catholics are "saved" at that moment (though we use different terminology - we are justified or made righteous as a result of God's Spirit during Baptism). And when the Pope suggests reading the Scriptures, he is not telling anyone to make up their own theologies in contradistinction of the Church. "Knowledge of the Gospels is knowledge of Christ", said St. Jerome. By reading the Scriptures with the Church, we come to the knowledge of the truth.
Your church is not the guardian of truth.
You wouldn't have a point of reference of what to believe if it wasn't for the Catholic Church. If all you had were ALL the religious writings from the past without a guardian of the truth, how would you discern which were spurious and which were true? The Gospel of Matthew or the Gospel of Thomas? They have different points of view on who Christ was. Which would be the correct one? You take way too much for granted when you cast aside the role of the Church in protecting the truth as passed down from the Apostles. Even Martin Luther admitted as much.
Regards