There was a time when I might have agreed with you. But after reading these many threads and comments over the years on FR, it’s become clear that at the heart of Rome’s error is its elevation of men to the status belonging to God alone.
The priest is not “another Christ.”
Mary is not a “co-redeemer.”
Dead saints now in heaven are not “mediators between God and men.”
And all of this is made known to us in Scripture, particularly in the teachings of Paul which RC apologists on this thread have rebuked.
Thus when RC apologists accept these erroneous, anti-Scriptural suppositions as fact, they leave themselves vulnerable to ignoring, excusing, defending and/or denying the obvious sins of the pederast priest and the papal bureaucracy that hides it.
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INDEED.
I was MUCH more compassionate, consciliatory, understanding and forgiving toward the whole Vatican institution before I read sooooooooooooooooo MUCH and soooooooooooo OUTRAGEOUS a bunch of stuff hereon about what they believe, why and what they practice.
I was initially quite shocked. Then grieved. Now, it’s kind of a troublesome duty to help lurkers realize at least some degree of the outrageousness involved.
"The priest is not “another Christ.”
The priest acts in the place of Christ.....duh!
Mary is not a “co-redeemer.”
The Catechism refers to Mary as the "Mother of the Redeemer". Nowhere does it refer to her as a co-redeemer or redemptrix as you have blathered so often.
Dead saints now in heaven are not “mediators between God and men.”
The Catechism states: "480 - Jesus Christ is true God and true man, in the unity of his divine person; for this reason he is the one and only mediator between God and men." It reiterates this exact phrase no less than 12 times.
If somebody steps on my finger, my FIRST response might be "Get OFF me, you're hurting me!" Then I might say, "You stepped on my finger!"
So being a member of Christ's Body, each Christian is, in some sense alter Christus. I would have thought that was not controversial. Jesus does not say to Saul, "Why persecutest thou my members?" but "Why persecutest thou me?"
So, and this would be the controversial part I guess, our sacramental theology is a special case of what is given to all members of the body -- bone of His bone, flesh of His flesh. And that's why the moral character of the priest does not touch the efficacy of the Sacraments. It is, we think, not what the priest himself, qua indiwiddle, brings to the Mass or Reconciliation. As I said earlier, if it were, who would dare?
It is rather, we think, because the priest, a minister (that is, someone who is less) is in a limited and very specific sense alter Christus that an effective absolution is given or an effective Mass is offered.
Not only, therefore, is there an argument from the Church's being the Body of Christ, but also there is one from the meaning of "apostle," of our being sent. Jesus says, on Easter Evening, "As the Father sent me, so I send you." (And Dawg trots off to find his Greek Testament.) ἀπέσταλκεν -- πέπμω are the words in question. This sending is a sending as agents, and as I say often the maxim is "The principle is responsible for the acts of his agent." If I make you my agent to buy a piece of land, you can seal the deal, And I must pay the price. So the quality of the priest's being 'another Christ' is that of being Christ's agent.
And again this is not so very different from our agency as lay-folk. Because we hate and yield to anger and avarice, Christ's whole body suffers. When we are generous and clement then people can see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.