A good article worth the read and discussion.
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/how-do-we-know-it%E2%80%99s-the-true-church
Some Churches may exercise some of the twelve traits, but only the Catholic Church is able to field all twelve as a foundation for decision-making. When the Catholic Church pronounces on any difficult question, the response is historical, but up to date. It is based on objective principles but applies to specific needs. The Church’s authority transcends space and time, but it is relevant to a particular place and time. The response will be intellectually profound, but expressed in a way that is simple enough for anyone to apply. Finally, it will express truths that are embedded in the human experience, but spring from divine inspiration.
This authority works infallibly through the active ministry of the whole Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that it is Christ who is infallible, and he grants a measure of his infallibility to his body, the Church. That infallibility is worked out through these twelve traits, but it is expressed most majestically and fully through Christ’s minister of infallibility: one person—the Rock on which the Church is built, Peter and his successors.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker is an American who has spent most of his life living and working in England. Fr. Dwight was brought up in an Evangelical home in Pennsylvania. After graduating from the fundamentalist Bob Jones University with a degree in Speech and English, he went...
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The Church, supposedly governed from the Vatican, is hardly a universal one. In creating a new religion based not on God, but on humanist fickleness, all tenets and rubrics were tossed out the window including the language that bound all 'Roman Catholic' Churches together. That, of course, was Latin.
Pointing out the fallacies of the Eastern Orthodox Churches is rather like the people living in glass houses tossing rocks at others.
The fact is that an entirely new religion was created due to and subsequent to Vatican II and those 'popes' following that heresy will have a rough time explaining to their Maker the necessity for allowing change after change after change to be enacted.
Excellent article. Thank you for posting it.
Conservative and active practicing Roman Catholic here. Fr. Dwight Longenecker has nothing to teach me and I have no use for what this Trump-bashing POS has to say.
With Popes like Francis, we might lose our grasp on that claim.
Catholicism has a real problem, a number of people, including some Catholics, are not even sure this Pope is not a fake Pope.
Is the Pope Catholic? used to be used as a rhetorical, of course.
It’s not rhetorical anymore.
Is the Pope Catholic?
Jesus condemned tradition and the Bible clearly teaches us to not rely on our own understanding but to trust in God for all things.
Good Article and info, Thanks!
Always amazing when a Roman Catholic posts an article claiming to be authoritative and proof, yet doesn’t include a single verse from the Bible to back up anything.
Then they high five each other about how good it is. This too, is telling.
All of the points are 100% made up and are simply an opinion of a former Anglican.
This is not a good article in that it misconstrues Protestantism, he writes from his experience rather than from what is true. It is also disinegenous to believe that there are not doctrinal differences/practices among local Catholic churches.
Of course that would mean that Roman Catholics agree on everything, yet we see constant warring factions inside of Rome.
I don’t think that a “Church” per say is what people believe in....
If you look at a Church as your religion, you have missed what religion is all about...
First of all, God’s Word is in the Bible, not the ‘Church’...yes we hear the words there, but remember, Jesus didn’t have a ‘Church’, his ‘Church’ was on the side of a meadow, in a grove of trees, by a lake, crossing over paths as He talked...
Churches are buildings that are man made...My ‘church’ is where ever I am, walking down the street thinking about how beautiful the landscape is that God built, how when I stand by a lake, the beauty of the mountains, trees, birds, deer, and other animals that God made...
You don’t need a ‘Church’ to believe in God...
Fr. Dwight Longenecker has given us interesting thoughts but they are incompatible with authority. Authority comes from God and yes His designated servants. Just because a council does not like what God has put in place does not give them authority to change it. I suspect that most people would like women to be ordained to the priesthood but if God says no, then no amount of discussion can make the answer “Yes” come from God.
While the Protestant world at least most of it claims scripture as their authority there are so many interpretations of scripture that in only the rarest of cases can the scripture be claimed as authority. Only the persons serving in their divinely appointed positions can say that “the scripture says this”!
Either the Pope is the conduit to Heaven or he is not if he is then nothing any other group has to say really matters, if he is not then the same holds true, then we are just making it up as we go along.
Roman Catholic church has not been true since 1965 or so..
It would be wonderful if Catholic apologists stopped propping up straw men of false statements about those they oppose so they can knock them down and claim victory. FR Catholics bitterly complain about "Catholic-bashing" threads but celebrate those that bash Evangelical Protestants. Why is that?
There IS no question begging WRT the Holy Scriptures because they ARE Divinely-inspired and no other inventions of men can claim the same. Whatever "warring parties" argue over, it remains true that Scripture alone is THE authority. The Apostle Paul said he did not fail to deliver the "whole counsel of God". We can trust that the doctrines we must believe are provided to us in the Holy Spirit revealed writings. Truth doesn't change.
This does NOT discount the place of pastors and teachers that God has given to the local churches so that through Scripture they can be edified, corrected, taught doctrine, reproved and instructed in righteousness so that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. These leaders are to be in submission to the word of God. Whenever there were doctrinal disagreements in the past, they were settled by Scripture.
It is disingenuous for the author to present the Roman Catholic church as the "true" Church based on some imagined ancient authority seeing as there have been numerous splits and schisms, disagreements and wars long before the Reformation happened. Even a cursory read of the "early church fathers" shows that they often warred and fought over doctrine. Several fell into heresy and were later declared heretics yet you will still find their names listed as "saints" of the church. The Holy Spirit is who leads us to all the truth. Job's friend Elihu said it well:
Who purchased the people who make up the assembly/gathering? When you take money to the store, who decides what you buy: you, or the items on the shelf? Jesus bought the people who make up the assembly at the price of His own blood. Shouldn’t He have the first and last word on who He bought?