[Conservative til I die]

This, of course, is ultimately the issue. Most RCC adherents will readily concede that their devotion to/worship of Mary is based upon their organization's 'tradition' and not upon the Scriptures. The RCC, like the Mormon church, is unabashedly accretionist, i.e. their respective organizations have established mechanisms to add to (or change)their belief structure. as time goes along, beyond those concepts found in Scripture.

The risks of an accretionist church, of course, is that, like the old children's game of 'telephone', by the time the story gets filtered through the 'tradition' of each of the carriers on its way around the circle, it bears little or no resemblence to the original message. The advantage of the accretionist approach is that it can readily adapt to cultural and scientific developments, but the disadvantage is that no effective mechanism has been found to keep the accretions 'tied to' and limited by the original message.

The Anglicans have always muddled along somewhere in the middle between the accretionists and the non-accretionists, granting some (undefined) role to 'tradition'. All that is changing here is that (apparently) some segment of the Anglican church is swinging toward complete accretionism.

For those of us with a high view of Scripture (versus man-made accretions), this is sad. For the accretionists, obviously, it is a cause for celebration and an old-fashioned "I told you so."

That's why the Catholic Church is fortunate to have the Holy Spirit guiding her. The Holy Spirit does not guide any other Church.

[Blessed]

>That's why the Catholic Church is fortunate to have the Holy Spirit guiding her. The Holy Spirit does not guide any other Church.<

The holy Spirit guides the elect of God not churches.

[winstonchurchill]

That's why the Catholic Church is fortunate to have the Holy Spirit guiding her.

Others would suggest perhaps another 'spirit' is 'guiding' it.

The Holy Spirit does not guide any other Church.

The Holy Spirit guides individual believers, not organizations. All human organizations are corrupt (certain the RCC is far from an exception); only the relative degree varies. The RCC's recent scandals with pedophilia and homosexuality reflect upon the corruption of the organization, but of course not upon the Holy Spirit or those RCC adherents who are Christians (and I believe there are some).