Why I Have Decided to Leave the Catholic Church

timstaples.com ^ | April 1, 2016 | Tim Staples

[Berlin_Freeper]

I am letting you be among the first to know. It is true. I am leaving the Catholic Church. I want you to know that this has not been a decision made in haste or without serious and intense research and consideration. But I can no longer remain in a church that I no longer believe in.

Let me explain.

I will be writing more about this soon, but for now let me just say there are five main reasons why I am leaving the Catholic Church:

1. I believe the sole rule of faith for Christians has to be Scripture. The Holy Bible is the only unchanging and definitive word of God that a Christian can build his or her life upon. Everything else, including the Catholic claims to authority, in the end, amount to ever-changing and ultimately sinking sand.

2. I believe works or any sense of salvific cooperation with God’s grace as constitutive to a Christian’s eternal life is unbiblical. “… not of works” (cf. Eph. 2:8-9) means not of works.

3. The idea of Mary and the saints being involved in the salvation of a Christian is tantamount to a denial of the sufficiency of Christ’s redeeming work on Calvary’s cross.

4. #3 can also be said of Purgatory, the “sacrifice” of the Mass, the Catholic view of salvation/justification, and more. These and more of the elements of Catholic teaching result in a denial of the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ. More to follow in a more detailed post.

5. What Catholics call the “veneration” of Mary and the saints is actually idolatry.

These are just for starters here. Many of you know that for the last 28 years I have defended the above teachings and more from the Catholic Church. I can no longer do so in clear conscience.

And by the way, just so you know…

April fools!

[kinsman redeemer]

Ave Maria

Ave Maria, maiden mild
Oh, listen to a maiden's prayer
For thou canst hear amid the wild
'Tis thou, 'tis thou canst save amid, despair

We slumber safely till the morrow
Though we've by man outcast reviled
Oh maiden, see a maiden's sorrow
Oh mother, hear a suppliant child

Ave Maria

Ave Maria gratia plena
Maria gratia plena
Maria gratia plena
Ave ave dominus, dominus tecum

The murky cavern's air so heavy
Shall breathe of balm if thou hast smiled
Oh maiden, hear a maiden pleadin'
Oh mother, hear a suppliant child

Ave Maria
Ave Maria

Complain all you want. By now, everyone should "have decided to leave the Catholic Church." That institution is leading people to hell. Blind is no way to go through life.

[piusv]

I’m not interested in blaming anyone.

[metmom]

ouch......

[ealgeone]

I guess you're not going to address my original question to you regarding the catholic translation of Genesis 3 and Luke 1.

That's all I need to know.

[ealgeone]

The man:God ratio

Protestant songs got it reversed

I almost coughed up my breakfast when I read this. A catholic complaining about the man:God ratio in a song. And it's just a song....not official teaching of any church.

Perhaps catholicism should compare the Mary:God ratio in its teachings.

[MHGinTN]

Thanks be to God, our assurance is based upon the Promise of God, not our presumption. Praise The Lord!

[daniel1212]

If you had any intellectual honesty in you, you would admit that the link is vastly more useful than anything I could type out myself. Mostly, I posted the link because you are a bore, like your fellow bores, always demanding the same five Scripture verses in response to your same five questions. Here’s my answer to the stupid Protestant questions: My mother loved me from the day I was conceived. She slaved for me and prayed for me. I reject the idiotic Protestant idea that the day my mother died, she turned into a doorstop, unable or unwilling to love me, and pray for me, and even help me in some manner now and then. Got that? The Protestant notion that my mother is a doorstop is stupid, and UGLY.

Rather, If you had any intellectual honesty in you, theb unless you are ignorant, or dealing with a fringe idea, you should admit that you are restoring to a strawman to deal with a basic fundamental practice for which you have ZERO examples or evidence.

For the contention is not that your deceased mother is turned into a doorstop, unable or unwilling to love you, and pray for you or even help you in some manner, if indirectly, though even that lacks any evidence, but the argument is that they are not to be prayed to, and that the Holy Spirit provides approx. 200 prayers in Scripture and examples of making supplication to Heaven, but all of which are addressed to God, except by pagans.

And that it is inconceivable that a common basic practice would have no examples, in addition that in any instruction on prayer to Heaven, it is to God, "our Father," not "our Mother," and that only God is shown able to hear all prayers to Heaven, and that Christ being prayed (Acts 7:59; 1Co. 1:2) is proof of His deity and oneness with the Father. Meanwhile, from what i see any two-way communication btwn created beings from their respective realms of Heaven and earth was personal, visible, and required both to somehow be in the same realm, as in the holy mountain.

And that Christ is set forth as as the only heavenly intercessor, (1Tim. 2:5) and that in expressly dealing with heavenly intercession, it is Christ who makes unceasingly intercession, and able to help those who come to God by Him, and by His sinless shed blood believers have direct access to the holy of holies. (Heb. 2:19ff; 4:15; 7:25; 10:19) No deceased saint or angel enters the picture, except as examples of faith. (Heb. 11)

And that one would have a hard time in Bible times explaining kneeling before a statue and praising the entity it represented in the unseen world, beseeching such for Heavenly help, and making offerings to them, and giving glory and titles and ascribing attributes to such which are never given in Scripture to created beings (except to false gods), including having the uniquely Divine power glory to hear and respond to virtually infinite numbers of prayers individually addressed to them

Which manner of adulation would constitute worship in Scripture, yet Catholics imagine that by playing word games then they can avoid crossing the invisible line between mere "veneration" and worship.

Moses, put down those rocks! I was only engaging in hyper dulia, not adoring her. Can't you tell the difference?

[daniel1212]

Refutations of his have been shown to be wrong, many even here and here and here and elsewhere . Let me know if anyone posts some more to refute by the grace of God. .

[daniel1212]

No one believed that a person could be saved while remaining an unrepentant grave sinner who merely honored Jesus with his lips. But these ugly, irrational notions were propagated by the fornicating, murdering heresiarchs Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.

More ignorant or fallacious slander. Show where Luther was what you charge, and that he was a pope, and that RCs do not have popes who were what you charge. Search here before posting parroted propaganda, and here: REFORMATION FAITH + WORKS

[papertyger]

The catholic has been indoctrinated to believe whatever the magesterium has taught them.

And you have not?

Bear in mind, I'm not agreeing with your claim of "establishment." I'm just using that as a starting point as you have said nothing yet that acknowledges there IS any controversy, or why a Catholic would disagree beyond the inference that you are intellectually honest, and Catholics are not.

That seems rather supercilious to me.

Until you admit your presumption and lack of knowledge of the Catholic counterpoint, you are guilty of having a mote in your own eye, and relying on a de facto magisterium of your own.

[papertyger]

But you know what they say about tolerance toward evil ...

You first have to establish a thing IS evil.

Declaring something evil to justify ones own abandonment of Christian virtues is wickedness on par with Matthew 18:32.

[papertyger]

Arrrgh!

[papertyger]

As I said: go and learn...

[Syncro]

Or the eucharist vs actual God ratio

Your point is well taken, Mary seems to be more prominent in Catholicism these days than Jesus.

And substituting a wafer for Jesus is a close second.

[Syncro]

Let me know if anyone posts some more to refute.

Better still, perhaps you could boil down a single point that doesn't require becoming a neo-gnostic Christian to appreciate?

Clever little dig to divert the conversation, but I fixed it.

Would you like to be shown the simple Biblical scriptures that lead to everlasting life and a personal relationship with Jesus? I would be pleased to quote them for you straight from God's word, the Holy Bible.

[Syncro]

...any Protestant/Catholic interfaith discussion that leads to strife and insult is nothing but the expression of vanity and conceit of the participants.

Threads like this one are posted for just that purpose.

So it seems your statement should have been also pointed at those that post threads out of vanity and conceit.

Perhaps you could speak to those of your faith that keep posting these contentious threads.

[boatbums]

Go and do the same.

[papertyger]

I’m always amused when posters are so determined to find malfeasance they neglect to entertain authentic questions.

[boatbums]

They DO so love their strawmen, don’t they?

[papertyger]

Would you like to be shown the simple Biblical scriptures that lead to everlasting life and a personal relationship with Jesus? I would be pleased to quote them for you straight from God's word, the Holy Bible.

Been there, done that, but thanks for the offer!