Please!!!! Read Cardinal Newman on development of doctrine. It develops not changes. Look at the difference. You just want to argue.
I actually think you are the one that keeps wanting to argue simply because it appears you can't accept the fact that people leave Catholicism fully aware of what it teaches and the history it proposes it has come from. I find it quite telling, and sad, how many Catholics on this forum refuse to believe someone can be a completely committed and strong Christian and have the assurance of salvation that comes from that and NOT be a Roman Catholic.
There have been a few that have come right out and stated that former Catholics WILL NOT be saved no matter how much they love and follow Jesus Christ as long as they resist going back to the Catholic church. An atheist is given a better chance at salvation than an ex-catholic - imagine that! Shouldn't it be a goal of ALL Christians to lead people to faith in Jesus Christ rather than trying to get them to join a church? Isn't it possible that Almighty God is able to draw all mankind to Him through Christ and that church fellowship comes AFTER that relationship is started?
If you notice on these kinds of threads it isn't the non-Catholic Christians who are trying to get people to leave their local church to join theirs. What gets disputed here is what is seen as false doctrine - what are called damnable heresies Peter's epistle warns about:
That's what we are trying to battle against, not just picking on Roman Catholics. That a few RCs like to keep the pot of dissension stirred up between them and non-Catholics is pretty blatant - it's been going on for years. A few, I think, abuse the privilege of posting threads on this website by using it as a stand-in for creating their OWN site and I don't see many of their names on the donor lists every quarter, either. Now, perhaps they imagine they are doing the Lord's work by promoting Catholicism, I don't know. But what I do know is there are a LOT of good strong Christians on this site who are not Catholic and are offended by some of the threads that deliberately provoke. One of the things the Lord says He hates is he that sows discord, spreads strife and stirs up conflict in the community. (Proverbs 6:19) If Catholics truly want to participate on OPEN Religion Forum threads then it comes with the territory that their views may be argued against and challenged. We are remanded by Peter:
It's something we should ALL strive for don't you think?
And which sophist " Development of Doctrine" was the daughter of necessity in light of the increasing manifest contrast btwn historical reality and the wishful thinking that RC faith was the "faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all believed always by everyone, everywhere," as per the 5th-century exhortation by Vincent of Lérins in his Commonitory. Thus Newman was forced to admit,
It does not seem possible, then, to avoid the conclusion that, whatever be the proper key for harmonizing the records and documents of the early and later Church, and true as the dictum of Vincentius [what the Church taught was believed always by everyone], must be considered in the abstract, and possible as its application might be in his own age, when he might almost ask the primitive centuries for their testimony, it is hardly available now, or effective of any satisfactory result. The solution it offers is as difficult as the original problem. — John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., reprinted 1927), p. 27.
For in contrast to even RC papal propaganda, even Caths researchers, among others provide testimony against such, including Newman in explaining how the Peter of Scripture, the non-assertive, street-level initial leader among the 11, for whom no successors are promised, and to whom the NT church did not look to as the first of a line of exalted infallible heads reigning supreme in Rome, much less by RC voting, was become the Roman pope:
While Apostles were on earth, there was the display neither of Bishop nor Pope; their power had no prominence, as being exercised by Apostles. In course of time, first the power of the Bishop displayed itself, and then the power of the Pope. . . . St. Peter’s prerogative would remain a mere letter, till the complication of ecclesiastical matters became the cause of ascertaining it. . . . When the Church, then, was thrown upon her own resources, first local disturbances gave exercise to Bishops, and next ecumenical disturbances gave exercise to Popes; and whether communion with the Pope was necessary for Catholicity would not and could not be debated till a suspension of that communion had actually occurred… (John Henry Newman, Essay on the Development of Doctrine, Notre Dame edition, pp. 165-67).
Avery Dulles considers the development of the Papacy to be an historical accident:
“The strong centralization in modern Catholicism is due to historical accident. It has been shaped in part by the homogeneous culture of medieval Europe and by the dominance of Rome, with its rich heritage of classical culture and legal organization” (Models of the Church by Avery Dulles, p. 200)
Klaus Schatz [Jesuit Father theologian, professor of church history at the St. George’s Philosophical and Theological School in Frankfurt] in his work, “Papal Primacy ,” pp. 1-4, finds:
“New Testament scholars agree..., The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative.
That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the authority of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.”
If one had asked a Christian in the year 100, 200, or even 300 whether the bishop of Rome was the head of all Christians, or whether there was a supreme bishop over all the other bishops and having the last word in questions affecting the whole Church, he or she would certainly have said no." (page 3, top)
Catholic theologian and a Jesuit priest Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops (New York: The Newman Press), examines possible mentions of “succession” from the first three centuries, and concludes from that study that,
“the episcopate [development of bishops] is a the fruit of a post New Testament development,” “...the evidence both from the New Testament and from such writings as I Clement, the Letter of Polycarp to the Philippians and The Shepherd of Hennas favors the view that initially the presbyters in each church, as a college, possessed all the powers needed for effective ministry. This would mean that the apostles handed on what was transmissible of their mandate as an undifferentiated whole, in which the powers that would eventually be seen as episcopal were not yet distinguished from the rest. Hence, the development of the episcopate would have meant the differentiation of ministerial powers that had previously existed in an undifferentiated state and the consequent reservation to the bishop of certain of the powers previously held collegially by the presbyters. — Francis Sullivan, in his work From Apostles to Bishops , pp. 221,222,224
Paul Johnson, educated at the Jesuit independent school Stonyhurst College, and at Magdalen College, Oxford, author of over 40 books and a conservative historian, finds,
The Church was now a great and numerous force in the empire, attracting men of wealth and high education, inevitably, then, there occurred a change of emphasis from purely practical development in response to need, to the deliberate thinking out of policy. This expressed itself in two ways: the attempt to turn Christianity into a philosophical and political system, and the development of controlling devices to prevent this intellectualization of the faith from destroying it....
Cyprian [c. 200 – September 14, 258] came from a wealthy family with a tradition of public service to the empire; within two years of his conversion he was made a bishop. He had to face the practical problems of persecution, survival and defence against attack. His solution was to gather together the developing threads of ecclesiastical order and authority and weave them into a tight system of absolute control...the confession of faith, even the Bible itself lost their meaning if used outside the Church...
With Bishop Cyprian, the analogy with secular government came to seem very close. But of course it lacked one element: the ‘emperor figure’ or supreme priest... [Peter, according to Cyprian, was] the beneficiary of the famous ‘rock and keys’ text in Matthew. There is no evidence that Rome exploited this text to assert its primacy before about 250 - and then...Paul was eliminated from any connection with the Rome episcopate and the office was firmly attached to Peter alone... ...There was in consequence a loss of spirituality or, as Paul would have put it, of freedom... -(A History of Christianity, by Paul Johnson, pp. 51 -61,63. transcribed using OCR software)
Eamon Duffy (Former president of Magdalene College and member of Pontifical Historical Commission, and current Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge) and provides more on the Roman church becoming more like the empire in which it was found as a result of state adoption of (an already deformed) Christianity:
The conversion of Constantine had propelled the Bishops of Rome into the heart of the Roman establishment...They [bishops of Rome] set about [creating a Christian Rome] by building churches, converting the modest tituli (community church centres) into something grander, and creating new and more public foundations, though to begin with nothing that rivaled the great basilicas at the Lateran and St. Peter’s...
These churches were a mark of the upbeat confidence of post-Constantinian Christianity in Rome. The popes were potentates, and began to behave like it. Damasus perfectly embodied this growing grandeur. An urbane career cleric like his predecessor Liberius, at home in the wealthy salons of the city, he was also a ruthless power-broker, and he did not he did not hesitate to mobilize both the city police and [a hired mob of gravediggers with pickaxes] to back up his rule…
Self-consciously, the popes began to model their actions and their style as Christian leaders on the procedures of the Roman state. — Eamon Duffy “Saints and Sinners”, p. 37,38
For the so-called successor to Peter, as Damasus 1 (366-384) began his reign by employing a gang of thugs in securing his chair, which carried out a three-day massacre of his rivals supporters. Yet true to form, Rome made him a "saint.
Damasus is much responsible for the further unscriptural development of the Roman primacy, frequently referring to Rome as ''the apostolic see'' and enjoying a His magnificent lifestyle and the favor of court and aristocracy, and leading to Theodosius 1 (379-95) declaring (February 27, 380) Christianity the state religion.
Moreover,
The Bishop of Rome assumed [circa sixth century] the position of Ponlifex Maximus, priest and temporal ruler in one, and the workings of this so-called spiritual kingdom, with bishops as senators, and priests as leaders of the army, followed on much the same lines as the empire. The analogy was more complete when monasteries were founded and provinces were won and governed by the Church. - Welbore St. Clair Baddeley, Lina Duff Gordon, “Rome and its story” p. 176
Eastern Orthodox scholarship (while maintaining her shared accretion of errors of "tradition" as the "one true church") also adds voice to this,
Roman Catholicism, unable to show a continuity of faith and in order to justify new doctrine, erected in the last century, a theory of "doctrinal development. Following the philosophical spirit of the time (and the lead of Cardinal Henry Newman)... "
All the stages are useful, all are resources; and the theologian may appeal to the Fathers, for example, but they may also be contradicted by something else, something higher or newer. On this basis, theories such as the dogmas of "papal infallibility" and "the immaculate conception" of the Virgin Mary (about which we will say more) are justifiably presented to the Faithful as necessary to their salvation. - http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html
Other unscriptural developments included religious syncretism, as Newman confessed:
"In the course of the fourth century two movements or developments spread over the face of Christendom, with a rapidity characteristic of the Church; the one ascetic, the other ritual or ceremonial. We are told in various ways by Eusebius [Note 16], that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us."
"The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison, are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church." (John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Chapter 8. Application of the Third Note of a True Development—Assimilative Power)
Falsified history of the Roman church was also instrumental in the development of her unScriptural papacy and power. RC historian Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger:
In the middle of the ninth century—about 845—there arose the huge fabrication of the Isidorian decretals...About a hundred pretended decrees of the earliest Popes, together with certain spurious writings of other Church dignitaries and acts of Synods, were then fabricated in the west of Gaul, and eagerly seized upon Pope Nicholas I at Rome, to be used as genuine documents in support of the new claims put forward by himself and his successors.
That the pseudo–Isidorian principles eventually revolutionized the whole constitution of the Church, and introduced a new system in place of the old—on that point there can be no controversy among candid historians. - — Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, The Pope and the Council (Boston: Roberts, 1870) Then you have the unScriptural Development of the distinctive Catholic priesthood More by the grace of God.
And thus you have the recourse of no less than Manning:
It was the charge of the Reformers that the Catholic doctrines were not primitive, and their pretension was to revert to antiquity. But the appeal to antiquity is both a treason and a heresy. It is a treason because it rejects the Divine voice of the Church at this hour, and a heresy because it denies that voice to be Divine....I may say in strict truth that the Church has no antiquity. It rests upon its own supernatural and perpetual consciousness. Its past is present with it, for both are one to a mind which is immutable. Primitive and modern are predicates, not of truth, but of ourselves....The only Divine evidence to us of what was primitive is the witness and voice of the Church at this hour. — "Most Rev." Dr. Henry Edward Cardinal Manning, Lord Archbishop of Westminster, “The Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost: Or Reason and Revelation,” (New York: J.P. Kenedy & Sons, originally written 1865, reprinted with no date), pp. 227-228; ttp://www.archive.org/stream/a592004400mannuoft/a592004400mannuoft_djvu.txt.