Roman Catholicism: The One True Church?

For years, growing up as a Roman Catholic, we were taught that we were members of the one true church. It was impressed upon us regularly by the parish priest during Mass while giving his homily; by the nuns all throughout my Catholic parochial school years of second through seventh grade.

It was impressed upon us during our preparation to receive for the first time the sacraments of Penance, Communion and Confirmation. And while attending CCD classes all the way through high school. (CCD is the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, an association established at Rome in 1562 for the purpose of giving religious education, normally designed for children.)

It was an established fact that we understood and we never questioned the validity of it. And to be honest, it was a matter of pride, that we were privileged enough to be members of the correct church, while all others had belonged to something else that didn’t quite measure up to the status of the Roman Catholic Church.

After all, how could it be possible that Roman Catholicism is not the one true church?

Look at what Rome has to offer: It has the priests, the nuns; the bishops; the cardinals; and of course, the Pope. They have the Sacraments; the statues; the holy water; the incense; the Stations of the Cross; the Eucharist - in which Chris supposedly physically manifests Himself into the wafer after the consecration by the priest during the Mass; the Marian apparitions—which appear mainly to Roman Catholics.

And they have the Vatican, where the Vicar of Christ (who they believe is Christ’s representative on earth), governs the faithful and makes infallible proclamations and doctrine. How can this not be the one true church? No other organization on the face of the earth comes close to offering to its flock what Rome provides for its faithful.

But, of course, to be true, one must adhere to what has been established as truth and not teach or practice what is contrary to the truth. We read in Scripture a few passages that declare what is truth and what is not. Jesus proclaimed in John 14:6:

“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me.”

Intellectual prowess is meaningless in God's economy.

That's true, but it really is more than that in this particular case. Here what we are witnessing is a virtually non-stop ride on the fallacy known as appeal to authority. This is not the same as actually using an authority to show by powerful reasoning the correctness of one's position. This is taking human credentials and using them as a mindless club to beat folks into submission (metaphorically speaking of course), without having to actually man up and win the argument fair and square.

I had three uncles. They were all brilliant men. They never got into credentials. When they wanted to win an argument, or solve a problem, they did it the old fashioned way. They just came up with real answers. My one uncle in particular was such a humble man. But he worked on the Manhattan project. His mind was like an organic computer of the highest order. In college he got through the most advanced math courses without a slide-rule (back in the day before calculators), because he could do all that in his head. His answers didn't ever rely on his credentials. He could just do the work and make the answer stick. And yet completely humble. A good and godly man. We miss him much.

Peace,

SR

While Cynicalbear inquires whether we Catholics must submit intellect and will” to the magisterium, springfieldreformer thinks that authority should not be used as a “mindless club to beat” folks into submission.

Springfielder, please the Catholic Church beats no one into submission. Indeed, it is Benedict and theologians like Aquinas who belief that reason and faith must be braided together. Faith without reason like Buddhism and Hinduism is mythological, and reason without faith consigns us to the limits of our human intellect. No one can deny that the Catholic intellectual tradition is second to none.

Cynicalbear misunderstands. It is precisely because the teaching of the Church is the true word of God grounded in faith (scripture, the sacred oral tradition, liturgy, ritual, and revelation) and reason that we have such a constellation of brilliant minds including leading Protestant theologians who converted to Catholicism. Indeed, the leading Lutheran scholar and teacher and certainly the pre-eminent American Lutheran theologian of his time, Rev. Richard Neuhaus upon his conversion to Catholicism said boldly he found “the fullest expression of Christ in the Catholic Church.”

Nor is there any mindless club to beat up on people. The opposite is true. The Catholic Church through the ages has been nourished by the blood of its martyrs, not unlike nearly all of the Apostles of Christ. All you have to do is check a short-list of independent minds that after serious study, and contemplation converted to Catholicism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_converts_to_Catholicism

As before, ealgeone speaks to the sins and pronouncements of individual popes and their remarks. None of this has anything to do with official Catholic doctrine as recited in the Apostles Creed at each Catholic Mass or the Catechism of the Church. This kind of deflection does not serve any purpose except for the cheap thrill of casting stones.

Likewise, metmom goes off tangent and off over the cliff to think that Catholic doctrine is not inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Church itself was born of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. It is quite a stretch to think that its long litany of saints, martyrs, and stigmatists who believed and practiced the Catholic faith were errant in their belief of God’s word. Her rebuttal, like so many Bible Christians, is to rain down disparate scriptural quotations just like Jim Jones, Joel Osteen, and Billy Graham do in offering “their” own definitive and often contradictory interpretations of these scriptural passages. Sadly, this explains the unfortunate and often unmerited sobriquet Bible Christians have earned for themselves as “bible-thumpers.”

Deprogramliberalism does one worse. He inquired about the biblical proof for Catholic beliefs. Thus, he is supplied not with a torrent of the the large treasure of Catholic thinking enough to stock the theology libraries of colleges and universities, but instead with a book written by a convert to Catholicism- Dave Armstrong- a former Protestant campus missionary who offers to meet his request.
http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Defense-Catholicism-Dave-Armstrong/dp/1928832954

Deprogrammerliberalism’s response to this is precious: He says: “I have nine books so far in the MetaChristianity series.” It is from this from this he gets his profound insights such as Why would Jesus say, “For God so loved the world” - past tense? Why would He not have said, “For God so loves the world” - present tense?

If he really is interested in something that is in-depth may we Catholics sugges?
http://www.amazon.com/Catholicism-DVD-Box-Robert-Barron/dp/B005J6U77Q

We can surely all believe that Christ taught ONE truth for all nations through all times. He commissioned, Peter (“feed my lambs, feed my sheep”) and his successors for this task. He founded one Church, empowered it with a “binding” authority and assured that the gates of hell shall never prevail against it.

For the first three hundred years, BEFORE the Church fathers sorted through hundreds of fragments of written texts and crosschecked these with the oral traditions and assembled the canonical texts including some writings while dispensing with others, we had the Catholic Church born of the Holy Spirit. That same Church grounded on Petrine authority exists today.

To iscool, this is a “fantasy.” Sprinfieldreformer labels “intellectual prowess as meaningless in God’s economy” as if literal Bible reading is all it takes.

In each of the towns we live in, we have several Protestant churches variously called First Calvary; Redeemer Lutheran, First Baptist; First Methodist, etc., and of course some mainline denominational churches with married gay and lesbian pastors as ministers. Thus the “Protestant” traveler has the option of hopscotching from one denomination to another until he/she finds “a” truth that he/she finds confortable with. This is the rotten heresy bequeathed us by Protestantism that allows for a menu of “truths” for grandma to choose from.

It is no insult but rather an evident truth to say that there are shoals of fish that swim in these shallow waters who are ready bait for just about any of these self-ordained pastors and preachers. Hence the swarm of Joel Osteens, “Bishop” TD Jakes and pastors of first AME Churches. This is now a lucrative vocation for all of them.

Sprinfieldreformer labels “intellectual prowess as meaningless in God’s economy” as if literal Bible reading is all it takes.

I am surprised you think of the evangelical hermeneutic as simplistic literalism. The more correct designation is the historical-grammatical method. Think of it as analogous to Constitutional originalism. We can find metaphor or concrete expression equally well. It depends on what the original communication entailed, not interpreted by anything other than ordinary linguistic and historical/cultural considerations.

This is why it is wrong to pigeonhole the historical-grammatical approach as pure literalism. It really isn't that. I believe the practice of calling it that evolved from the fundamentalism wars of the early 20th Century, where the "literalists" were those who accepted that the miracles of Scripture really did happen, like the virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus, etc. Whereas the "anti-literalists" were those who wished to accommodate the anti-supernaturalism of the Enlightenment and so could not accept the miracles of Scripture at face value, but felt compelled to mythologize them all into a shapeless pulp.

But no. We are not strict literalists in the "literal" sense. :) For example, when Jesus says He is the Door or the True Vine or the Bread of Life, we do not seen that as physically true, but as metaphors. But when we read of His resurrection, or Noah's flood, or the healing of the lepers, yes, we accept that all really happened, because we believe in a God who exists and has that kind of power. In both cases, it is accepting the ordinary meaning of language as intended by the original author that leads to these conclusions. Biblical originalism.

So you see, your fears that we eschew reason are much misguided. Reason is a wonderful tool, and we do not hesitate to use it to discover the original sense of the text. But reason is unable to discern divine truth apart from divine assistance. It is an error in understanding of the evangelical position to suggest that reason and the help of the Holy Spirit are at odds with each other. They are not. Both have their source in the Logos, the Creator of reason, and the object of our faith, Jesus Christ. There is no conflict between the two, when rightly understood.

Hope that clarifies matters for you.

Peace,

SR

Hence the swarm of Joel Osteens, “Bishop” TD Jakes and pastors of first AME Churches. This is now a lucrative vocation for all of them.

They've had excellent mentors!

Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.^[1]

Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.

Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy

Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy

Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.^[2]

Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.^[3]

Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony^[4]

Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Popes

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