BK: Pope Pius IX infallibly defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (that she was from her very conception free of original sin and its consequences) in the 1850s. As Catholics, we DO have to believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. She apparently never died (She went to sleep and was taken body and soul to heaven by angels) and never suffered the pangs of Childbirth since those are specific consequences of original sin (inherited by the rest of us from Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience to God).
Amen!!
Your post raises a technical question that i want to ask, as a way of understanding how a church claims a path back to the original church. I don’t mean this to be confrontational, as I’m not trying to make a point about doctrine with this question, just about process.
Presuming that the Pope defined Imacculate Conception in 1850s (I say that because I have no certain knowledge of that, so I’m jsut accepting it as a premise — really my question would work with a hypothetical as well). Suppose a significant part of the Church had decided at that time to reject that teaching, and had made their own church but otherwise held to every tenet of the Catholic faith and tradition.
Now, it’s 200 years later, and you have these two churches. Which one gets to claim they go back to the original church? The one with the name “Catholic” and the Pope, which now preaches the Immaculate Conception? Or the one which is exactly the same except that they don’t accept the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which means they still practice the faith just as it was for 1822 years after the foundation of the church?
I would argue that the 2nd church as a better claim to the bloodline.
Which would mean the argument over which church is the “original church”, to the degree such an argument has any value, would not be based on the name, but would require close examination of the changes in doctrine and dogma over the years, to determine which church most closely held to the same doctrine and dogma as the original church.
We see that happening in the Episcopalian church — which ones have claim to the origins, the one with the name but who accept gay priests, or the ones who are splitting off to remain true to the previous doctrine?
In my opinion, no church seems to have a pure bloodline of doctrinal teaching that mirrors the original church — but that is an opinion based partly out of ignorance of the details of doctrine of every church in the world.
But in what way does a church which has changed it’s doctrine, sometimes significantly, many times, claim exclusive rights to the bloodline?
There's your problem right there...We have the written words of God but yet your religion follows a man (group of men) who claim they and they alone have an inside track to the truth and revelation from God...
And this immaculate conception idea doesn't even come from the early tradition of your religion...It's a later invention...
You are following men in a man made religion and claim it's from God...It's the church Jesus founded...
Your religion defies scripture...
1Co 1:12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
1Co 1:13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
1Co 3:22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
1Co 3:23 And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.
The followers of the supposed sucsessors of Peter are nothing... We, who are in Christ are Christ's...