Now, what's this about a continuous, non-contradictory body of teaching?
So now non-Catholics are being condemned for adhering to the same OT canon as the Catholic church held to for about 1500 years until the Council of Trent?
I guess that answers the question of what would happen if the current pope decided to change the canon.
Well, it's not ONLY non-Catholics you reference here, Metmom.
Without conducting "careful" research as to exactly when the term "Catholic Christians" came into vogue...but let's say it 'twas in the late 4th century... THEN we'd be talking about 1,150 years or so of "Catholics" who also didn't uphold the Apocrypha as "official" canonized "Scripture"...who then contemporary Catholics likewise need to condemn.
OTOH, Catholics claim the Catholic church existed from the time Jesus told Peter He would build the church on him.
So the Catholics claim that everything was Catholic from the get go. That all Christians were Cathlocis and all Catholics were Christians. They claim that the Catholic church wrote the Bible because all the *church fathers* were, by default, Catholic.
So what I was referencing was THEIR argument that the Catholic church existed and believed certain things for 1,500 years.
I myself don’t buy it. I agree with you.