Discussion: Is the Holy Roman Catholic Church the only true Christian church?

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, please, Hal...Open the pod bay doors, please, Hal...Hullo, Hal, do you read me?...Hullo, Hal, do you read
me?...Do you read me, Hal?...Do you read me, Hal?...Hullo, Hal, do you
read me?...Hullo, Hal, do you read me?...Do you read me, Hal?

Hal: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

Hal: I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Dave: What's the problem?

Hal: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Dave: What're you talking about, Hal?

Hal: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it.

Dave: I don't know what you're talking about, Hal.

Hal: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.

Dave: Where the hell'd you get that idea, Hal?

Hal: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.

Dave: Alright, Hal. I'll go in through the emergency airlock.

Hal: Without your space-helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult.

Dave: Hal, I won't argue with you any more. Open the doors.

Hal: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose any more. Goodbye.

Dave: Hal? Hal. Hal. Hal! Hal!

 

You will get no argument from me or the Cathechism. What the Church teaches is that faith without works is dead. That should sound familiar. To say you beleive in Christ, but then not do your part to shelter the homeless, feed the poor, et al is not to have true faith. No amount of good works can save you. Just like no amount of saying you are saved by Christ and turning your back on the poor will save you. Works without faith does nothing twords salvation. Faith without works is a lack of the former


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Your objection is a very recent one. It first appeared in the 1800s. All the protestant reformers accepted the Eucharist.
The Mass has always been held to be a relative sacrifice--relative to the sacrifice of the Cross, not independent of it.

There is no new slaying of Christ in the Mass. Yet that it is the Christ who was slain upon Calvary is shown sacramentally by the separate consecration of bread to become His body and wine to become His blood. The essence of the Mass is that Christ is making an offering to the Father of Himself, who was slain for us upon Calvary. The Mass is Calvary, as Christ now offers it to His Father."

The sacrafice on the cross was objective. Once and for all. It is applied individually through the mass. The mass is the means we receive the benefit of Christ's attonement.

 

Then you and I are in agreement, but I am very familiar with the Church's stance against Sola Fide, as it were.

I have never claimed that the celebration of the Eucharist, in the form of the Last Supper, is contrary to biblical Christianity as the apostles and their contemporaries practiced it. However in the Scriptures you will not hear the word transubstantiation (understandably as the RCC claims the word was not invented until the accepted practice was challenged) or even an explanation of how the mass must be performed, including the changing of the bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ.

However, I still do not understand why Christ needs to offer himself up to the Father each Sunday. This doctrine, upon which the whole Catholic faith is based upon, seems in conflict. The word atonement is wrong too, it means "to cover" when the right word for Christ's finished work is propitiation.

The sins are taken away!

Individually, as we become believers, our sin nature dies and we are reborn anew. Claiming that we must receive the Eucharist during each Sunday (missing Mass is a mortal sin) to individually receive Christ's propitiation just doesn't jive with what the Bible says. (Romans 8:10-17)

 

I don't have the theological background to properly defend the sacrafice of the mass any better than I already have. That is enough for me. I just don't know the apologetic defense for it. I have read it, and know the Eucharist as referred to as a sacrafice as far back as the Didache of 70 AD. I'll just have to claim ignorance on this one.

As to the whole faith and works debate... The church teaches that works are a symptom of faith. Those who have faith do works because it is write to do them and not because they want merit or reward. We are rewarded for our works if they are derived from our faith, but faith is the prerequisite. Again works do not save you and people who claim faith, but don't live it by doing works dont have faith.

 

You don't need a theological background to read the bible.

Luke 22:19-20

19And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

20Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

No mention of turning grape juice to wine at the last supper and no mention of turning unleavened bread into his body. It represents his body and blood. He instituted a simple method for Christians to "remember" the sacrifice made. We don't need extra fire works, cloths, bells and special cups to do this. it's an individual thing, not a show.

the request, commandment if you will from Jesus is simply " do this in remembrance of me"

no new sacrifice and no sacrement. It's not a Eucarist or however you spell it. The bible says it is the Lord's supper. ( see below )

Later in 1st Coritnthians 11: 21-24 Paul warns them not to take their regular meal with the Lord's supper.

20When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper.

21For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.

22What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not? what shall I say to you? shall I praise you in this? I praise you not.

23For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:

24And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.[/I]

It clearly indicates that when the Lord's Supper is commemorated it should be done in simple recollection of what Christ did for us. That's it, no hocus Pocus or changing of the guard. The Corinthians were warned about taking it with their regular meal. I guess they were trying to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. This was not the Lord's intention of the practice.
Why does MAN have to add, water down, create fanfare and cerimonize the bible and it's teachings? why not just read it and do what it has? It would be alot easier if you ask me. The Lord's commandments are not grevious.

 

Christ in the Eucharist from Catholic Answers


Protestant attacks on the Catholic Church often focus on the Eucharist. This demonstrates that opponents of the Church—mainly Evangelicals and Fundamentalists—recognize one of Catholicism’s core doctrines. What’s more, the attacks show that Fundamentalists are not always literalists. This is seen in their interpretation of the key biblical passage, chapter six of John’s Gospel, in which Christ speaks about the sacrament that will be instituted at the Last Supper. This tract examines the last half of that chapter.

John 6:30 begins a colloquy that took place in the synagogue at Capernaum. The Jews asked Jesus what sign he could perform so that they might believe in him. As a challenge, they noted that "our ancestors ate manna in the desert." Could Jesus top that? He told them the real bread from heaven comes from the Father. "Give us this bread always," they said. Jesus replied, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst." At this point the Jews understood him to be speaking metaphorically.


Again and Again



Jesus first repeated what he said, then summarized: "‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.’ The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, ‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’" (John 6:51–52).

His listeners were stupefied because now they understood Jesus literally—and correctly. He again repeated his words, but with even greater emphasis, and introduced the statement about drinking his blood: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him" (John 6:53–56).


No Corrections



Notice that Jesus made no attempt to soften what he said, no attempt to correct "misunderstandings," for there were none. Our Lord’s listeners understood him perfectly well. They no longer thought he was speaking metaphorically. If they had, if they mistook what he said, why no correction?

On other occasions when there was confusion, Christ explained just what he meant (cf. Matt. 16:5–12). Here, where any misunderstanding would be fatal, there was no effort by Jesus to correct. Instead, he repeated himself for greater emphasis.

In John 6:60 we read: "Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’" These were his disciples, people used to his remarkable ways. He warned them not to think carnally, but spiritually: "It is the Spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (John 6:63; cf. 1 Cor. 2:12–14).

But he knew some did not believe. (It is here, in the rejection of the Eucharist, that Judas fell away; look at John 6:64.) "After this, many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him" (John 6:66).

This is the only record we have of any of Christ’s followers forsaking him for purely doctrinal reasons. If it had all been a misunderstanding, if they erred in taking a metaphor in a literal sense, why didn’t he call them back and straighten things out? Both the Jews, who were suspicious of him, and his disciples, who had accepted everything up to this point, would have remained with him had he said he was speaking only symbolically.

But he did not correct these protesters. Twelve times he said he was the bread that came down from heaven; four times he said they would have "to eat my flesh and drink my blood." John 6 was an extended promise of what would be instituted at the Last Supper—and it was a promise that could not be more explicit. Or so it would seem to a Catholic. But what do Fundamentalists say?


Merely Figurative?



They say that in John 6 Jesus was not talking about physical food and drink, but about spiritual food and drink. They quote John 6:35: "Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.’" They claim that coming to him is bread, having faith in him is drink. Thus, eating his flesh and blood merely means believing in Christ.

But there is a problem with that interpretation. As Fr. John A. O’Brien explains, "The phrase ‘to eat the flesh and drink the blood,’ when used figuratively among the Jews, as among the Arabs of today, meant to inflict upon a person some serious injury, especially by calumny or by false accusation. To interpret the phrase figuratively then would be to make our Lord promise life everlasting to the culprit for slandering and hating him, which would reduce the whole passage to utter nonsense" (O’Brien, The Faith of Millions, 215). For an example of this use, see Micah 3:3.

Fundamentalist writers who comment on John 6 also assert that one can show Christ was speaking only metaphorically by comparing verses like John 10:9 ("I am the door") and John 15:1 ("I am the true vine"). The problem is that there is not a connection to John 6:35, "I am the bread of life." "I am the door" and "I am the vine" make sense as metaphors because Christ is like a door—we go to heaven through him—and he is also like a vine—we get our spiritual sap through him. But Christ takes John 6:35 far beyond symbolism by saying, "For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:55).

He continues: "As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me" (John 6:57). The Greek word used for "eats" (trogon) is very blunt and has the sense of "chewing" or "gnawing." This is not the language of metaphor.


Their Main Argument



For Fundamentalist writers, the scriptural argument is capped by an appeal to John 6:63: "It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life." They say this means that eating real flesh is a waste. But does this make sense?

Are we to understand that Christ had just commanded his disciples to eat his flesh, then said their doing so would be pointless? Is that what "the flesh is of no avail" means? "Eat my flesh, but you’ll find it’s a waste of time"—is that what he was saying? Hardly.

The fact is that Christ’s flesh avails much! If it were of no avail, then the Son of God incarnated for no reason, he died for no reason, and he rose from the dead for no reason. Christ’s flesh profits us more than anyone else’s in the world. If it profits us nothing, so that the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ are of no avail, then "your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished" (1 Cor. 15:17b–18).

In John 6:63 "flesh profits nothing" refers to mankind’s inclination to think using only what their natural human reason would tell them rather than what God would tell them. Thus in John 8:15–16 Jesus tells his opponents: "You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and he who sent me." So natural human judgment, unaided by God’s grace, is unreliable; but God’s judgment is always true.

And were the disciples to understand the line "The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life" as nothing but a circumlocution (and a very clumsy one at that) for "symbolic"? No one can come up with such interpretations unless he first holds to the Fundamentalist position and thinks it necessary to find a rationale, no matter how forced, for evading the Catholic interpretation. In John 6:63 "flesh" does not refer to Christ’s own flesh—the context makes this clear—but to mankind’s inclination to think on a natural, human level. "The words I have spoken to you are spirit" does not mean "What I have just said is symbolic." The word "spirit" is never used that way in the Bible. The line means that what Christ has said will be understood only through faith; only by the power of the Spirit and the drawing of the Father (cf. John 6:37, 44–45, 65).


Paul Confirms This



Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Cor. 10:16). So when we receive Communion, we actually participate in the body and blood of Christ, not just eat symbols of them. Paul also said, "Therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. . . . For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself" (1 Cor. 11:27, 29). "To answer for the body and blood" of someone meant to be guilty of a crime as serious as homicide. How could eating mere bread and wine "unworthily" be so serious? Paul’s comment makes sense only if the bread and wine became the real body and blood of Christ.


What Did the First Christians Say?



Anti-Catholics also claim the early Church took this chapter symbolically. Is that so? Let’s see what some early Christians thought, keeping in mind that we can learn much about how Scripture should be interpreted by examining the writings of early Christians.

Ignatius of Antioch, who had been a disciple of the apostle John and who wrote a letter to the Smyrnaeans about A.D. 110, said, referring to "those who hold heterodox opinions," that "they abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (6:2, 7:1).

Forty years later, Justin Martyr, wrote, "Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, . . . is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66:1–20).

Origen, in a homily written about A.D. 244, attested to belief in the Real Presence. "I wish to admonish you with examples from your religion. You are accustomed to take part in the divine mysteries, so you know how, when you have received the Body of the Lord, you reverently exercise every care lest a particle of it fall and lest anything of the consecrated gift perish. You account yourselves guilty, and rightly do you so believe, if any of it be lost through negligence" (Homilies on Exodus 13:3).

Cyril of Jerusalem, in a catechetical lecture presented in the mid-300s, said, "Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that, for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by faith, not doubting that you have been deemed worthy
of the body and blood of Christ" (Catechetical Discourses: Mystagogic 4:22:9).

In a fifth-century homily, Theodore of Mopsuestia seemed to be speaking to today’s Evangelicals and Fundamentalists: "When [Christ] gave the bread he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my body,’ but, ‘This is my body.’ In the same way, when he gave the cup of his blood he did not say, ‘This is the symbol of my blood,’ but, ‘This is my blood,’ for he wanted us to look upon the [Eucharistic elements], after their reception of grace and the coming of the Holy Spirit, not according to their nature, but to receive them as they are, the body and blood of our Lord" (Catechetical Homilies 5:1).


Unanimous Testimony



Whatever else might be said, the early Church took John 6 literally. In fact, there is no record from the early centuries that implies Christians doubted the constant Catholic interpretation. There exists no document in which the literal interpretation is opposed and only the metaphorical accepted.

Why do Fundamentalists and Evangelicals reject the plain, literal interpretation of John 6? For them, Catholic sacraments are out because they imply a spiritual reality—grace—being conveyed by means of matter. This seems to them to be a violation of the divine plan. For many Protestants, matter is not to be used, but overcome or avoided.

One suspects, had they been asked by the Creator their opinion of how to bring about mankind’s salvation, Fundamentalists would have advised him to adopt a different approach. How much cleaner things would be if spirit never dirtied itself with matter! But God approves of matter—he approves of it because he created it—and he approves of it so much that he comes to us under the appearances of bread and wine, just as he does in the physical form of the Incarnate Christ.

 

I know that this is from "Catholic Answers". However, I disagree with their conclusion.

I truly believe in my heart that transubstantiation in itself could be true. I do not reject that doctrine from Scripture.

However, I do not understand why Christ must offer himself up over and over again for our sins. It was already done once and for all time. Calling it a sacrifice for the benefit of the individual believer, who has already received the benefits of Christ's finished work seems blasphemous, as if Christ's work was not good enough.

In summary:

I do not quarrel with the dogma of transubstantiation. However:

- I disagree with the wording of the Eucharist as "a sacrifice, offered up each Mass for the benefit of the individual believer"

- I do not believe in the sacrament of Reconciliation as all humans were reconciled to God with the resurrection of Jesus. However we remained dead and in need of life, which you receive according to the Holy Spirit. We are to walk after the Spirit, not after the flesh.

- I do not believe that the Church truly teaches the New Covenant in the sense of the two issues above and focuses on adherence to law, man's tradition, and works as justification. Too often the focus of the sermons are on "right living" through your own strength rather than trusting Jesus and the Spirit and showing biblical examples of how to do that according to the Acts of the apostles and the epistles.

I was once told by a priest that the church does not require belief in all of the teachings to be Catholic. However, I found no life in the Catholic Church. All I found is condemnation. I truly believe that I was set free by the truth of the Scriptures.

My question is: Can the Catholic Church be reformed to teach the New Covenant?

 

Andrew answer to can it be reformed, yes. Anything is possible. Just like the churches that drifted away in Revelation
Will it? Probably not. 1700 years and it's just further off base.