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No, but my teenaged daughter is, as she never fails to remind me.
There must be something about Catholicism that protestants covet. They sure do dwell on us.
This clown is looking for an excuse to make it up as he goes along.
The only guy that was, was crucified in 33 AD, although there's a muzzie moron in the white hut who fancies himself so.
Because Christ told us so.
There can only be one Truth. But the men of the Protestant ‘reformation’ – breaking away after 1,500 years from the Church Christ established – discovered a ‘new’ truth and introduced false teachings.
Paul warned us about those introducing false teachings, "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Tim. 4:3–4).
The protestant “reformation” is simply not Biblical:
“I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ."
Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 1Cor 1:10-17
You could easily read the above as “One of you says, "I follow Luther"; another, "I follow Calvin"; another, "I follow Wesley"; still another, "I follow Christ."
Christians cannot be “perfectly united in mind and thought” when they have different beliefs on, say, the necessity of water baptism, while others believe “This is my Body” means “This is a cookie”
There can be only one ‘Truth’ – Christ is THE way, THE truth, THE life. One, not many.
And what if you have a disagreement with a brother as to what is ‘The Truth?’ Where do you go to resolve your issue? Scripture tells us what to do:
"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the Church; and if he refuses to listen even to the Church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
Right – the Church.
“But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” 1Tim 3:15
God bless in your journey to the truth.
Not according to the Apostle John who explicitly wrote, “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name”?
But since nobody is infallible, how do you know that's really true? How do you know the Apostle John really "explicitly wrote" it, anyway? How do you know there was an "Apostle John"? How do you "know" what "to know" means?
Reminds me of the Thirty-Nine Articles, which blithely assert that "Popes and Councils hath erred, blah, blah, blah". How do we know the Thirty-Nine Articles "hath not erred"? How do we know they hath not erred in the very act of telling us that "Popes and Councils hath erred"?
The Catholic Church is the work of Divine Providence, achieved through the prophecies of the prophets, through the Incarnation and the teaching of Christ, through the journeys of the Apostles, through the suffering, the crosses, the blood and the death of the martyrs, through the admirable lives of the saints. When, then, we see so much help on God's part, so much progress and so much fruit, shall we hesitate to bury ourselves in the bosom of that Church? For starting from the Apostolic Chair down through successions of bishops, even unto the open confession of all mankind, it has possessed the crown of teaching authority." -- St. Augustine of Hippo, Advantage of Believing, ca. AD 391
I trust the founder, Jesus Christ’s words in Scripture. Thou art Cephas(Peter) (rock) and on this rock I build my Church. Gates of Hell will not prevail against you. Whatever you bind on earth, will be bound in Heaven.
I do not trust words of Luther, king Henry, Calvin and all their splinters who claim to rely on Scripture and history yet deny that.
I might understand these objections had the Catholic Church used it so much.
However, the Romans have hardly used in their history. Only once after it was formally defined in the Vatican I council.
If the pope wasn’t “Infallible” when speaking on faith and morals what need would there be for him? IOW anyone of us could say or do what we wanted and still say we were following God’s laws as we see them. Free range Christians, or as some would call them, Muslims.
I note that the commenter, shortly after he posted that link was banned from posting any more replies to the blog post. I won't comment on that decision by Mr. Culliton; it's entirely possible that the commenter in question was as uncivil as Mr. Culliton claims (I didn't read all the posts there). But it would have been interesting to see any of the Protestants there, Mr. Culliton included, comment on the following below (taken from the link above) which directly, and in my opinion, clearly demonstrates the weakness of the type of argument Mr. Culliton employs here.
Note, the following (italicized) arguments taken from the Catholic Legate site are addressing the issue of "is it possible to demonstrate there is a NEED FOR, an infallible authority here on Earth with regards to Christian teaching/doctrine/dogma. These arguments alone (just the ones below) don't address whether or not "Rome" is the "true Church". For more on that, see the link.
Challenge 1: Tell us how you came to decide that Rome was the "true" church without engaging in the very private judgment that Rome condemns as illegitimate.
Response 1: Rome has never condemned private judgement per se. It condemns the error that sometimes comes from private judgement. St. James no doubt uttered his private judgement when he said, “Therefore, my judgement is….” (Acts 15:19). His judgement was singular, and therefore was private.
The question essentially reduces to the infallible-fallible card that Protestants try to play against Catholics. Catholics rightly ask Protestants to guarantee that they are preaching the ‘true gospel’ since there are many of them out there (Cf. Galatians 1:6-9). No Protestant, however, can guarantee the truthfulness of his gospel since it would mean calling in the question of the speaker’s infallibility. In order to validate his interpretation over his Protestant opponent, the first Protestant must claim something that his opponent does not have; namely, the charism of infallibility. For the Gospel to have any true and definitive meaning (which it must), the Protestant must be able to appeal to a source which *cannot* be common to everyone. This source must be *outside* of the bible to show that any one Protestant’s interpretation is correct. If indeed the Gospel is God’s inspired, infallible Word, then what good is it if Christians cannot be certain that they are indeed hearing the true Gospel preached? If God did not make sufficient provision for the Gospel message to be declared infallibly, then God would not be God, He would be a sadist.
But, the Protestant will say, the Catholic is in the same position since he must make a private, fallible judgement on the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. He will claim that the Catholic is simply substituting one alleged infallible source (the Bible) with another (the Church). So we have the fallible Protestant reading an alleged infallible bible, and we have a fallible Catholic listening to an alleged infallible Church.
But is the Protestant construction of the problem a fair one? Nope. You see, some propositions are manifestly infallible by their very nature. For instance, there are plenty of historical, mathematical, and scientific facts which are beyond speculation. Likewise, I propose that it is a naturally manifest and infallible fact that the Roman Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ. Now, there are not too many Churches that even claim such a charism so I will restrict myself to simply proving from reason alone that one must believe that God established an infallible Church. Once this is conceded, then we may turn our attention to try and find out which Church it is.
The following arguments, obviously, presuppose that I am addressing this question to a Protestant who believes in God. Of course, I would have to prove a few of these premises if I were addressing an atheist which is not within the scope of this examination.
Argument 1
Premise 1: God exists.
Premise 2: God is omnipotent.
Premise 3: The Holy Scriptures teach the truth.
Premise 4: The Holy Scriptures cannot be infallibly interpreted by any human authority today.
Conclusion: God does not want the truth contained in the Holy Scriptures to be known infallibly (or He does want the truth to be known but has not provided the means - an impossibility give premise 2)
Argument 2
Premise 1: The truth can be known..
Premise 2: God does not want the truth contained in the Holy Scriptures to be known infallibly. (Conclusion of Argument 1)
Conclusion: Therefore, God wants the truth in the Holy Scriptures to be known ONLY fallibly.
Overall Conclusion
Since God wills the gospel message to be known only with the possibility of error (that is, fallibly), then God wills the possibility of error in communicating His truth. The conclusion therefore is that God has contradicted His very being by willing something that cannot be; namely, willing something other than the truth.
It is important to distinguish between the mere existence and tolerance of error versus the normative declaration and existence of it in communicating the Gospel message. We are not talking about simply willing the possibility of error. Obviously, God has, by definition, done that through free will. The implication of the above conclusion is not simply that God tolerates error, but that He also wills the possibility of error IN COMMUNICATING THE GOSPEL MESSAGE ITSELF. God can tolerate error ON OUR PART, but He cannot, by definition, even allow the possibility of it when He speaks about what is Truth. Now, the question for [any Protestant] is this: In order to reject the conclusion, which premise does he reject?
[To remain a Christian, one must reject Premise 4 in Argument 1. If this premise is rejected, however, sola scriptura is also rejected, and an infallible human authority is conversely conceded, which means I have at least proven that we require an infallible teacher. [The Protestants'] challenge specifically asks if Rome is that ‘true’ Church. I will address that issue in Challenge 3. This response at least establishes the necessity of having a true and infallible church in the first place, which represents half the battle.]
As I said, more at the link.
I re-post this here because it's something that comes up from time to time here, and these arguments weren't addressed (that I can see) in the blog's replies section. I'd be interested to hear how one replies to these, staying within the boundries of the arguments (that is, not trying to obfuscate the issue by bringing up Mary's sinlessness, or, how can we know that "Rome" is the true church [ for more on that see the link ]). I'd just be interested in replies that address these arguments. All others will be ignored by me for being off-topic.
Thanks,
If you were: born of woman and ‘pooped’ at any time in your existence, within your undergarments, you are not infallible.
Interesting article. Protestants object to a number of Catholic beliefs.
1. The praying to/worship of Mary, which is idolatrous. If I understand it correctly, they must pray to Mary because Christ won’t deny her anything, and Christ has God’s ear. But it doesn’t appear here that she had any special hold over Him.
Mat 12:46 While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him.
Mat 12:47 Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.
Mat 12:48 But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?
Mat 12:49 And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren!
Mat 12:50 For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.
2. Calling men “father” as an honorific.
Mat 23:9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
3. Hail Mary’s or other repetitious prayers.
Mat 6:7 But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
4. Catholic tradition that countermands/supersedes God’s Word.
Mar 7:9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.
Etc.
That last one, tradition countermanding/superseding God’s Word, is how Mary can be worshiped, how men can be called “father,” and how vain repetitions can be prayed. Significantly, all these passages denying these things are Christ’s own words.
Is it within the power of God to confer the charism of infallibility on a man?
I don’t mean, HAS God done this, I mean, COULD God do this?
What doctrines do Protestants here agree on?
False, and completely so.
You need to get into early church history. Christ's church predates the New Testament in its present form by several hundred years.
Keep up the good work mom.
That’s ok, there are people who actually believe there’s a book that is inerrant.