[MarkBsnr]

Our differences are founded in this very thought. Protestants believe the Holy Spirit speaks directly to individual believers through Scripture and prayer. To read the Bible is to know this for a fact. We're instructed to worship God as a congregation of believers, to study Scripture together and rightly divide the word of God, but we are never to doubt the Holy Spirit is leading our study. It's true that some men think they are being led when they are not. But that does not negate the absolute fact that some men, by the grace and will of God alone, are being led in righteousness to all truth.

I will not question that last statement. I believe it to be true. But I believe that the vast majority of men have so much spiritual static and have so much of their own egos and personal lusts in the way that the Spirit doesn't get through. I have been to many Bible studies both Catholic and non-Catholic; and I've talked with well-meaning non Catholics and it is very obvious that many of them are not being led by the Spirit to their conclusions.

I have had the unfortunate experience of having had a distant relative committed to mental hospital in my home town. While visiting her, I have had the privilege of meeting Jesus Christ (probably a dozen of them), John the Baptist (twice), Napolean, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and either Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield. The little voices told them, too.

How can one show that it is the Spirit moving through them, and not demonic voices or internal whims? Even Satan can quote Scripture for his own ends. Answer: the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church - the one that Jesus Christ founded. Jesus did not leave Scripture. He left His Church that the gates of Hell will not prevail against.

I do not intend to say that all non Catholics are driven by the Devil; rather that the Devil delights in the creation of multiple churches rather than the One Church and in the private interpretation of Scripture rather than the One Church's teachings. That way, the message is garbled, people can be subtly misled and therefore trapped eternally in Hell. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I have had the unfortunate experience of having had a distant relative committed to mental hospital in my home town. While visiting her, I have had the privilege of meeting Jesus Christ (probably a dozen of them), John the Baptist (twice), Napolean, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and either Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield. The little voices told them, too.

LOL. What makes you so sure they weren't Catholic?

From the Protestant perspective, it is heresy to believe men on earth can forgive sins; that there is any head of the church but Jesus Christ; that men should fall to their knees to wooden icons; that men should pray to other men who have died; that earthly relics possess any supernatural powers; that by a simple invocation and raising in height, bread and wine can be transmogrified into the Son of God; that confession should be made to anyone other than God; and that there is any possible mediator between men and God but Jesus Christ.

And the funny thing is, the people who believe these deadly, delusional, anti-Scriptural errors aren't locked up in mental institutions.

Go figure.