As a cradle Catholic I have deepened my faith in Jeusu as I enter into my old age. At the same time, I find myself more appreciative of the strong sense of witnessing for Christ that is found in many Protestant Christians.
The term ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic church’ refers to not only the RC church but the entire Body of Christ. In such times of distress as we see today, it behooves us all to respect each other as Christians.
As a lifelong Roman Catholic myself, I look upon my protestant brethren as fellow Christians every bit as much as my fellow Catholics. With the Islamic dangers facing us today, this is no time for internecine squabbling. Bless you all and our Jewish family as well.
Respect of course. But the doctrinal differences are irreconcilable. There can be only ONE truth and ONE Church.
In AD 382 the Synod of Rome on the basis of infallible Petrine authority assembled the canonical texts- the same texts we use to this day. If authenticating the Word of God after nearly three centuries of sorting out various writing (and many of them as the author in the article points in John 21: 25 were the spoken albeit unwritten Word of Christ) is the highest duty accorded the Church, this infallible authority to interpret did not suddenly disappear ELEVEN centuries later with the unfortunate events of Protestantism.
In the words of the brilliant essayist Hillaire Belloc, unlike previous heresies, “Protestantism spawned a cluster of heresies.”
Just look around fro the doctrinal interpretations of the Moonies, Jim Jones; David Koresh; and Jeremiah Wright to the vapid nonsense of Billy Graham; Joel Osteen, the TD Jakes and every other scam artist like the Jimmy Swaggarts and Benny Hinns to parlay their Protestant beliefs in amassing personal fortune for their families and in-laws. And of course, like the author tells it there are thousand of other varieties of Protestantism and their own off-shoots. Today, with mainline Protestant faiths having ordained married gay and lesbian pastors, Protestation has become a caricature.
No serious thinker can embrace its beliefs with any level of rationality. To do so would upend the works of Augustine, Aquinas, Newman, and Benedict.
St. Augustine himself remarked that were it not for the authority of the Church, he would not be a Catholic.
This is why like the author, droves of Protestant theologians, scholars, and preachers have left there former indefensible beliefs and converted to Catholicism. In the meanwhile Protestants still in the pews, keep swimming in the shallow end of the theological pool and are barely able to stay afloat except for citing out of context snippets of scripture for her and there to cast doubt on Church teaching.
At the end of the day absent Petrine authority, so well explained by the author, we descend into a chaos where every Tom, Dick, and Harry and their grandmother and your local Foursquare Church pastor cracks open the pages of the Bible and purports to offer his/her cockamamie “definitive” interpretation of scripture which is starkly at odds with that of the early Church fathers (some of whom were contemporaries of the Evangelist John) charged with assembling the canonical texts.
How absurd could this be?
Good thoughts as long as we focus on Jesus and not any churches “teachings”. God’s word trumps all, and is really all we need to know Jesus-who is really ALL we need in the end.