“There is only one Church, and it is not your sect. You belong to a sect invented sometime after 1500. You, therefore, cannot be Catholic and cannot hold a faith that could possibly be called “catholic” because it belongs to nothing but a particular sect founded in the last few centuries with a new gospel, no history beyond 1500, and no mandate from Christ Himself. Do my words offend you? The truth often does offend people.”
It seems your words would offend the Pope. I’ve been told here frequently that Vatican 2 recognized someone can be a Christian without being ‘Roman Catholic’.
Were the folks who posted that lacking in understanding?
(sigh)
I don’t know when it was that I first realized it - a decade ago perhaps - but it seems to me that anti-Catholics really don’t know how to read. Case in point:
you wrote:
“It seems your words would offend the Pope.”
Nope.
“I’ve been told here frequently that Vatican 2 recognized someone can be a Christian without being ‘Roman Catholic’.”
First, where did I ever say that someone CANNOT be a Christian unless he is a Catholic? Where did I say that? I’ll help you: I have never, ever said that anywhere, anytime. Never. Not even once. Second, the Church has ALWAYS recognized that there are people outside the Church who believe in Christ. Always. It was not suddenly hit upon at Vatican II or any Church council for that matter. It was ALWAYS believed. Donatists were not Catholics? Were they considered Christians? Yes. Lutherans are not Catholic. Are they Christians though? Yes. Has the Church always recongnized this? Yes. Third, anyone who has ever made anything even approaching a serious study of the Catholic faith would have to know this. You did not. What does that tell us? Fourth, you are apparently completely unaware about Dominus Iesus. It was written under then Cardinal Ratzinger (the current pope) and issued by Pope John Paul II. In it you’ll see that the Church recognizes Protestant Christians as Christians but also acknowledges that they are not in the Church but in sects instead. This means your comment, “It seems your words would offend the Pope” is silly and ill-informed to say the least. You apparently have never heard of this document, never read it and have no familiarity with what’s in it. No surprise there.
“Were the folks who posted that lacking in understanding?”
You are. You are so lacking in understanding that I cannot even necessarily believe you have gotten right what other posters have told you in the past.
Why can’t anti-Catholics READ?