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no “polemical statements”, just showing what the historical, orthodox Christian Faith is, as opposed to the new 16th century gospel so many on here seem to believe.

the Scriptures are very clear and the Church has taught and believed for 2,000 years that baptism is for the remission of sins, receiving the Holy Spirit, being placed “into Christ” and saving us. Neither Acts 10:43-47, nor Acts 15:7-9 mentions regeneration BEFORE baptism. Acts 11 tells us the Holy Spirit fell on the Gentiles as Peter began to speak. This did not occur as a result of the Gentiles believing in Jesus Christ. Luke tells us directly in Acts 2:38 and 22:16 that baptism is for the remission of sins.
Titus 3:6 tells us we are saved by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit ( baptism )
1 Peter 3:21 tells us baptism saves us, not for the washing of the outer body, but the appeal to God for a clear conscience.
This is the Faith taught by the Apostles, which was passed on to Ignatius, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Athanatius, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory, Thomas, etc. etc. up until today. It is the Universal Faith, believed everywhere and at all times.
Another “gospel” arose in the 16th century and claimed to be scriptural that taught baptism was just “ceremonial” and it wasn’t for the remission of sins, it was a first act of obedience and an outward sign of the salvation that has occurred already. Of course, none of that is from the Scriptures, it is all a 16th century tradition of men.
the Bible tells us false teachers would arise and lead many astray. the false always comes out of the true, true never comes out of the false. there were so many inventions of the 16th century that up until then, no one believed. the biggest 3 were:
1. denial of baptismal regeneration
2. denial of the Real Presence in the Eucharist
3. the 66 book Bible

so anyone today who believes the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith is attacked. we understand this, we have been attacked by Gnostics, Arians, Nestorians, Muslims, Jews all thru history, so Protestantism was nothing new.

the fact that in the last generation we are seeing a huge falling away from the Faith, unlike any in Church history, is powerful confirmation that the Church is the Body of Christ and Jesus is soon to return to earth at the end of the world.

one final note, Jesus takes attacks against the Church very personally. read Acts 9:4-5 to see how personally.

no “polemical statements”, just showing what the historical, orthodox Christian Faith is, as opposed to the new 16th century gospel so many on here seem to believe.

Actually you are just engaging in assertions, and not interacting with the Scripture evidence presented against this being New Testament faith, and thus more is not warranted, while as for historicity in the post apostolic age, most Roman Catholics are ignorant of what recent research has evidenced, such as on the early papacy.

► Jesuit Father Klaus Schatz on Priesthood, Canon, and the Development of Doctrine in his work, “Papal Primacy”:

..if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably “no” (page 1)

.. if we ask in addition whether the primitive church was aware, after Peter’s death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome, or in other words that the head of the community at Rome was now the successor of Peter, the Church’s rock and hence the subject of the promise in Matthew 16:18-19, the question, put in those terms, must certainly be given a negative answer. (page 2)

"If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no." (page 3, top). More

► Catholic historian and political conservative Paul Johnson in his 1976 work “History of Christianity” states:

By the third century, lists of bishops, each of whom had consecrated his successor, and which went back to the original founding of the see by one or the other of the apostles, had been collected or manufactured by most of the great cities of the empire and were reproduced by Eusebius…– “A History of Christianity,” pgs 53 ff.)

► American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar Raymond Brown says, “The claims of various sees to descend from particular members of the Twelve are highly dubious. It is interesting that the most serious of these is the claim of the bishops of Rome to descend from Peter, the one member of the Twelve who was almost a missionary apostle in the Pauline sense – a confirmation of our contention that whatever succession there was from apostleship to episcopate, it was primarily in reference to the Puauline tyupe of apostleship, not that of the Twelve.” (“Priest and Bishop, Biblical Reflections,” Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, 1970, pg 72.) More

► Patrologist Boniface Ramsey admits that the current Roman Catholic teachings on Mary and the papacy were not taught in the early Church:

“Sometimes, then, the Fathers speak and write in a way that would eventually be seen as unorthodox. But this is not the only difficulty with respect to the criterion of orthodoxy. The other great one is that we look in vain in many of the Fathers for references to things that many Christians might believe in today. We do not find, for instance, some teachings on Mary or the papacy that were developed in medieval and modern times.' — Boniface Ramsey, Beginning to Read the Fathers (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1986), p. 6.

And what for what it is worth, the fallible CFs can be seen as opposing Rome, and not settled or unified in all things, and the claimed and required “unanimous consent” of the fathers for Rome is not a literal reality (and thus the EOs for one enlist them against Rome).

As for the Reformation being novel, the New Testament is the standard which exposes the deviation of Rome which autocratically is its own standard, while as one researcher states,

►"Recent research on the Reformation entitles us to sharpen it and say that the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity...— Jaroslav Pelikan, (Lutheran scholar who later converted to Eastern Orthodoxy) The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959) p. 46

“If we keep in mind how variegated medieval catholicism was, the legitimacy of the reformers' claim to catholicity becomes clear. pp. 46-47).

“...To prepare books like the Magdeburg Centuries they combed the libraries and came up with a remarkable catalogue of protesting catholics and evangelical catholics, all to lend support to the insistence that the Protestant position was, in the best sense, a catholic position.”

"Substantiation for this understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures, but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable" ( 48-49).

“In the end, the Council of Trent ended up (in true Roman fashion) condemning the true heritage, and canonizing its own path. In its decrees, Trent "selected and elevated to official status the notion of justification by faith plus works, which was only one of the doctrines of justification [found] in the medieval theologians and ancient fathers. When the reformers attacked this notion in the name of the doctrine of justification by faith alone -- a doctrine also attested to by some medieval theologians and ancient fathers-- Rome reacted by canonizing one trend [the wrong one] in preference to all the others. What had previously been permitted (justification by faith and works), now became required. What had been previously been permitted also (justification by faith alone), now became forbidden. In condemning the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent condemned [the better part of] its own catholic tradition" (pp. 51-52).

What is new is Rome not physically persecuting those who dissent from her, as she has the most blood on her hands, as it is Rome which exalts herself as the OTC, and claims power to punish those members, ecclesiastical or lay, who have not conformed to its laws by physical means, and universal jurisdiction and then cries victim after a history of making souls such. But you left out some Catholic persecuters: http://www.the-pope.com/wvat2tec.html

one final note, Jesus takes attacks against the Church very personally. read Acts 9:4-5 to see how personally.

Indeed, and thus the pope should apologize for the persecution and murders it sanctioned, and not just for erring children, and for exalting itself as the one true church with its demigod popes, and “every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” (Lk. 18:14) And we all need to more.