>Also, if you genuinely want to know the real, official teachings of the Catholic Church, and many of the extensive Scripture references that support those teachings,"
"Are you saying the Catechism is an infallible document, that cannot err? And or that it is infallibly interpreting the (relative cursory) Scripture references it provides, and that these teachings do not require some interpretation?" <
No, I'm saying that if a person wants to attack the teachings and beliefs of the Catholic Church, they should at least make use of the best document available which clearly explains what those teachings and beliefs are, which is "The Catechism of the Catholic Church".
If that is what you meant then i understand that “the real, official teachings” of the (Latin) Catholic Church does not mean the reader must be certain that all that is taught is infallible truth, or that Catholic teaching cannot open to some degree of interpretation, but that the CCC works to limit that, and that there may not be some errors or faults in a CCC which need correction.
Now, regarding your phrase "the (relative cursory) Scripture references it provides", I certainly hope you are being facetious there. In the "Index of Citations" section, in the back of the Catechism, there are 32 pages (with double columns), listing all the direct scriptural references in the Catechism. There are many references listed for every single book in the New Testament, and the same for nearly every single book in the Old Testament.
The issue is not how many there are, but how many in relation to the scope of its teaching and whether they really do substantiate it. You are right that the CCC gives many references (if hard to find online as one collection and linked to the subject), but cursory in one sense refers to being “not thorough” in sometimes only giving superficial support to what is taught. An instance i had in mind is in support of purgatory (http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2N.HTM) in which it lists only 5 verses (1Cor. 3:15, 1Pt. 1:7, Mt 12:31, 2 Macc 12:46 and Job 1:5) and the first two only support fire as being cleansing, yet while it is a given that fire purifies, the doctrine it is supporting is one that has believers being purified and sins expiated (satisfaction made) “through fire and torments or purifying' punishments.” (INDULGENTIARUM DOCTRINA; cp. 1. 1967) And (without getting into this as extensively as i have before), 1Cor. 3:15 contextually refers to the material which a believer built the church with being burned up, and which test happens to all, and occurs at the Lord's return, not commencing at death, and the ones who suffer loss are saved despite that, not because of it.
The second reference (1Pt. 1:7) is to the faith of believers being purified during their sojourn on earth, which is where Scripture always shows is where it takes place, so that “it might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ,” which is when “every man have praise of God,” (1Cor. 4:5) and after which all believers shall “forever be with the Lord.” (1Ths. 4:17) Thus the approved notes in the official Roman Catholic Bible (for America) says “The text of 1 Cor 3:15 has sometimes been used to support the notion of purgatory, though it does not envisage this.” (http://www.usccb.org/bible/1corinthians/3)
Mt 12:31 is the only text given to support sins before forgiven in a postmortem purgatory, though the text should really be or include Mt. 12:32, and it is good they only include one, as postmortem suffering and forgiveness is not what is taught in the wresting attempts others make, and “the world to come” in Mt 12:32 was not an postmortem state, but an age (aiōn) to come, and can be easily seen to refer to the Lord's reign on earth, God having dealt with the Jews once again (which aspect the CCC teaches), and in which the temple Ezekiel describes is rebuilt, and those who do not worship the King are punished. (Zech. 14:16,17) Meanwhile, all descriptions of the postmortem state of N.T. believers are that they are with the Lord. (Lk. 23:43; 2Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23; 1Thes. 4:17)
The apocryphal book of 2 Macc 12:46 is the closest Rome can come to a text supporting a purgatory, yet this problematic as those who had offerings made for them were slain due to idolatry, (2Mac. 12:40) a mortal sin, thus requiring RCAs to minimize the consecrated idols which caused their death, or postulating they may have repented at the last. However, the New Catholic Answer Bible, as well as my NAB on 12:42-46 states, “The statement is made here, however, only for the purpose of proving that Judas believed in the resurrection of the just (2 Mc 7,9. 14. 23. 36)....His belief was similar to, but not quite the same, as the Catholic doctrine of purgatory.
Finally, support for helping those who have died is sought from Job 1:5, which simply refers to Job acting as a proto Levitical priest of his family in offering up sacrifices for his living sons, while what is conspicuously absent in any of the laws regarding sacrifice for sins, or in any sanctioned example, is that of offering sacrifices to the dead, which was a pagan practice as was offering up prayers for them, which some in Jews apparently fell into shortly before the birth of Christ. (http://www.lightshinesindarkness.com/purgatory_history_1.htm)
Thus, while the CCC gives an appearance of Scriptural support in this case, what it has done is shows references which do not teach what they are referenced for, either by themselves or as a whole.
I am sure i could go with others, but “relative cursory” was also in relation to the breadth and scope of what is covered, which often needs more comprehensive Scriptural support, though i will say my characterization was overbroad and i should have qualified it as here as i does supply many, and often just as we would in the many things we concur with.
(If you were actually being serious, I would simply challenge you to show me one Protestant book with that many Scripture references in it, such as the books of Billy Graham, or Jimmy Swaggart, or Joel Osteen, or any single Protestant denomination, or anybody.)
This indicates a lack of familiarity with the teachings of the opposition, as the teachers you list hardly represent classic comprehensive Protestant Bible scholars or teachers (versus message preachers), especially the perfectly pleasing preacher Joel Osteen, while classic Bible commentators teaching Protestant doctrine such as Mathew Henry, Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Adam Clarke, John Gill, Albert Barnes, Keil & Delitzsch, etc. provide abundant supporting Scripture references as they comprehensively go through the Bible verse by verse, of which comprehensiveness Rome has little that comes close (Haydock), and for sheer number of supporting verses you will find far more Scripture references in the beloved Matthew Henry's commentary (for one) than in the CCC. I would suggest the free E-sword Bible program to which you can add these free resources and many more,, and which offer more (as in book and chapter comments) than the one line version.
But to compare with the CCC what you are looking for is a statement and explanation of beliefs, which the second edition of the Westminster confession (1647) is a well known example of. And in which you will find plenty of Scripture references relative to its size, though they also could be more comprehensive, yet providing many accompanying Scripture references does seem to be a recent practice among past catechisms, Catholic or Protestant.
>"Have you ever debated a sedevacantist?"<
No. While there are a number of differing small groups of them here and there, there aren't really that many of them around, even in all such groups taken together, and I view them as just being a different flavor of a sort of modern "Protestantism". Even the "SSPX" folks believe the sedevacantists are plainly wrong in their views, and they argue on the web against those peculiar views. (Do a search on "SSPX" and "sedevacantist" to read their arguments.)
I mentioned them as the Roman Catholic argument is one that conveys there is no such substantial variations due to interpretations, as the magisterium works to prevent that, yet when one digs deeper then you find not only different interpretations of what is official teaching, and whether the catechism or some of Vatican Two is consistent with past infallible teaching, or past catechisms and teachings, but also which teaches are infallible. And then you have groups not in full communion with Rome, and which are represented here on FR.
Both the sedevacantist and the SSPX are not accepted by Rome as in full communion, and while the former are in formal schism as the more radical, and interpret “Cum ex apostolatus officio” as disallowing modern popes. In summing up his analysis of sedevacantism, Richard Cure states, “So we see today that in standing against the modernists who are in control of the Church one may be required to look like a schismatic in order to practice the one true Faith. The line is very thin and hard to define. The hard-core sedevacantists are way over the line even though they may not be able to see it.”
However, they both see modern Roman Catholicism to be in critical conflict with historical Roman Catholicism.
SSPX pages (http://www.sspx.org/SSPX_FAQs/q14_new_catechism.htm; http://sspx.org/New_Catechism/new_catechism__is_it_catholic_I.htm) criticize the 92 catechism on different grounds and many aspects, concluding, “this Catechism is not an authority of Catholic belief because of the modern deviations which it encompasses.”
(http://www.sspx.org/miscellaneous/sedevacantism/is_sedevacantism_catholic4.htm)
Regarding your views on "infallibility", I respectfully have to say that I believe you are looking at that term in the wrong way. That pertains to very limited areas of "faith and morals", where the Magisterium, guided infallibly by the Holy Spirit, and making full use of pertinent Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, express some teaching on faith and morals to the faithful of the Church.
I am quite aware of the criteria, but my point was that in contrast to what is too often conveyed when attacking Protestants for their lack of assured infallibility, the fact is that Catholics not only make a fallible decision to trust in an asserted assuredly infallible magisterium, but they make fallible judgments as to which out of potentially hundreds of infallible statements are infallible, as well as to varying degrees some of what they and non infallible teachings (which may make up the bulk of Catholic faith and practice) mean.
And that thus Roman Catholics can and do substantially disagree with each other (including priests), in addition to dissent which is not supposed to be allowed, but which overall sees no real discipline can be said to even fostered by honoring the Ted Kennedy type Catholics in life and in death.
Therefore you have the angst of the SSPX types, which i somewhat respect as i think they have a good case in this issue, but whose more fundamental stance makes the unScriptural nature of certain Roman Catholics teachings more manifest than the Vatican Two type versions and its mixed-multitude statements by committee, which at best allows both sides to use them. (http://www.the-pope.com/wvat2tec.html)
">Please answer these yourself, while in regards to “the many glaring misconceptions you have about the Church that Jesus Christ founded” that Roman Catholics often charge their opponents with having (not without some warrant), i find RCs themselves can vary somewhat in their interpretation of what Rome officially teaching, and even on what is “official” teaching." <
For starters, consider the misconception that a number of posters here have been erroneously expressing, that the Catholic Church teaches the worship of Mary as some sort of "goddess". Please show me in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (again, the official teachings of the Church) where that is taught. (I'll tell you now -- it isn't there. It is a falsehood, and you know who the father of all falsehoods is...)
You have a misconception of what they are expressing, which is not what Rome officially teaches, but what it effectually does, in this case that of fostering a hyperdulia of Mary that in many cases is indistinguishable from “latria,” and overall is contrary to Scripture. While little that is typically understood as infallible is taught on Mary, unless all that is in encyclicals are, as some seem to hold, yet outside that we see Mary being given more adoration, more honorific titles and more praise than to Christ without any real restraint to, and instead we see this as fostered, while what is censured is reproof of such excess as being Scriptural unwarranted, thinking of her above that which is written. (1Cor. 4:6)
For therein we see no one bowing down to Mary in particular, but worshiping the child (Matt. 2:11; cf. Lk. 2:16) and which Peter would not even allow towards himself, and which does not refer to her as sinless, and assumed and enthroned as Queen of Heaven with almost unlimited power and having the ability and function to process virtually unlimited prayer requests, and even a more immediate and superior recourse for help than Christ Himself.
(I really wanted to answer your questions before I have to return to work now, but I will try to check back in sometime later today or maybe tomorrow to see if you replied here or in FReep Mail.)
That is fine. Its been covered here before by me more than what is said here, and i have other things needing attention by God's grace.
I’m late to this thread
Anyhow, thanks for this post.