snotty remarks? i laugh when Obama tries to quote Ronald Reagan against the Republicans, as if Reagan was a liberal. in the same vein, i laugh when i read St Athanasius, a great Doctor of the Catholic Church and defender of orthodoxy, quoted by those he would have considered heretics and outside the Church, in an attempt to make it seem he was not Catholic. pretty funny.
the question those who attack the Church can’t seem to deal with is, how did the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church come into existence? was it due to man or God?
the answer is comtained in the Bible and in history.
After Jesus gave the Apostles the great commission in Matthew 28 and later sent Paul to the Gentile world, the Apostles went throughout the known Roman world preaching Jesus Christ, making disciples in all nations, baptizing them and teaching them. After all the Apostles died, the men they ordained continued in the Apostles doctrine, whether they received the teaching by letter ( Scripture ) or by word of mouth ( Sacred Tradition ) Obviously the majority of what Paul and the rest of the Apostles was taught orally, as most of the Apostles never left any writings and Paul preached over 30 years after his conversion.
now, the local churches planted by the Apostles soon compared notes with each other, compared and shared what they each received from the Apostles and what did they discover? THEY RECEIVED THE SAME FAITH, WHETHER ONE WAS IN JERUSALEM, CORINTH, INDIA, GREECE, TURKEY, EGYPT OR ROME. this “universal” Faith became known as the Catholic Faith, since it was universally believed everywhere and had the Holy Spirit guiding it. these Catholics were able to trace their Faith directly back to the Apostles, something their opponents such as the Gnostics could not do ( and opponents can not do to this day ) Their Bishops were laid hands on by those who had been ordained by the Apostles and they in turn ordained others, which again continues to this day. They were the custodians of the Scriptures, since it was to the Church that the NT was written to and it was the Church that compiled the books of the NT, using the oral Tradition to determine the genuine books from the spurious. so the Church is divinely instituted and MUST be on earth CONTINUOUSLY from 33ad until Jesus returns at the end of the world.
now, what do we know about the advent of new doctrines. we know when a new false doctrine is introduced ( Arianism for example ) we can trace from history it’s source and the controversy that ensued. the Church was very firm in guarding the deposit of faith it had received.
so where do we find any controversy on infant baptism in Church history? the answer is we don’t until the 16th century.
does anyone doubt that if tomorrow morning a Baptist minister in Houston TX got up in front of his people and informed them he was going to baptize an infant, THERE WOULDN’T BE A GREAT CONTROVERSY? of course there would be, he would be fired in a hear beat. Does anyone not believe the same thing would have happened in the 1st or 2nd century if infant baptism was not an Apostolic teaching, received by the Universal Church everywhere?
so Catholics join the great St Athanasius in holding fast to the doctrines received from the Apostles by the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
we pray that others will read John 17 and stop attacking this Divine Institution.