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

Please tone down the antagonism level in your posts. A flame war is not what I had in mind when opening up this discussion

 

You know, JS, I've been reading your posts, and they display an alarming anti-Catholicism and intolerance of Catholic doctrine that is all too common in a number of fundamentalist Protestant churches. I really do hope that you're not one of these people that genuinely believes that I'm going to hell just because I'm a Catholic...I had you pegged as being smarter than that.

 

Firstly you do not come across as Anti-Catholic. You are correct in saying Jesus uses scripture in his teaching, but it is not all he uses. The parables were all his own. He also quotes the deterocanonicals a number of times as do the apostles in their epistles. The deterocanonicals are the books Martin Luther removed from the cannon like Mcabes and such.

I thik a big objection here is that you do not know what I mean when I say tradition. Tradition is not some hollow earthly thing. It is the consistant teaching of the Church.

This is the tradition St Paul is writing about when he wrote to the Thesalonians So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter." (2 Thess. 2:15)

note that they taught by word of mouth these are the oral traditions that were handed down. Things that Catholics still hold to like the evils of contraception, the intercession of saints, and the imaculate conception of Mary.

To the Corinthians "I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you" (1 Cor. 11:2)

The verse in Timothy does not say that scripture in and of itself is sufficient. It says it is profitable. And it is. All the tradition in the world seems vain without scripture.

Think of this analogy. If you had a lemmonade stand that cost you 2000 bucks to run and earned you 2001 dollars you made a profit. Is that profit sufficient for you to live on.

We need tradition. If you read the writings of the early Christians they write about alot of things that the church taught that are not in the Bible. Some of them wrote before the Bible was written. Several of the fathers I quoted wrote in the first century. The Gospel of John and the Revelation of John were not written until the dawn of the second century.

Christ left the keys to the kingdom to Pope Peter for a reason, so that he and his succesors from Linus to Bennedict XVI could lead us and teach us what is true. He gave Peter the power to bind and loose and through Apostolic succession the Pope still has that power.

I don't need to see the word Pope in the Bible to know that Christ created the office. I don't need to see the word Purgatory to know that the earliest Christians beleived in it. I don't need to see the word Catholic to know that the early Christians were Catholic even if they did not call themselves that. I beleive Christ when he promised us a church against which hell would never prevail. Unless you beleive that Church did not exist untill some punk kid started hanging up fliers in the 1500s you beleive in the Catholic Church.

 

From newadvent.org: (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)

The deuterocanonical (deuteros, "second") are those whose Scriptural character was contested in some quarters, but which long ago gained a secure footing in the Bible of the Catholic Church, though those of the Old Testament are classed by Protestants as the "Apocrypha". These consist of seven books: Tobias, Judith, Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, First and Second Machabees; also certain additions to Esther and Daniel

INCORRECT! From http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/a/canon.html
C. AD 400: Jerome translates the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin (called the "Vulgate"). He knows that the Jews have only 39 books, and he wants to limit the OT to these; the 7 he would leave out (Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach [or "Ecclesiasticus"], and Baruch--he calls "apocrypha," that is, "hidden books." But Pope Damasus (500 YEARS LATER!) wants all 46 traditionally-used books included in the OT, so the Vulgate has 46. Jerome wanted to limit the Old Testament to the books officially used by the Jews (that makes sense, doesn't it.... the old testament testifies of the Old Covenant) but Pope Damasus ABOUT 500 YEARS LATER ordered the inclusion of the "apocrypha!"

 

from newadvent
The seven deuterocanonical books were added at the Council of Trent (1546) in order to justify Catholic doctrinal inventions.

This is a myth that always comes up but is simple to answer. At the Council of Rome in 382, the Church decided upon a canon of 46 Old Testament books and 27 in the New Testament. This decision was ratified by the councils at Hippo (393), Carthage (397, 419), II Nicea (787), Florence (1442), and Trent (1546).

Also from newadvent

Jerome appears to have rejected most of the deuterocanonical parts of Scripture. But he did accept portions and included all seven books in his Latin translation of Scripture, known as the Vulgate. Ultimately, he recognized that the Church alone had the authority to determine the canon.

Since there was disagreement between some Church Fathers, it became obvious that no individual could provide an infallible list of inspired books. The bottom line: "We have no other assurance that the books of Moses, the four Gospels, and the other books are the true word of God," wrote Augustine, "but by the canon of the Catholic Church."

Since it is unreasonable to expect every person to read all of the books of antiquity and judge for himself if they are inspired, the question boils down to whose authority is to be trusted in this matter. One must either trust a rabbinical school that rejected the New Testament 60 years after Christ established a Church, or one must trust the Church he established.

 

Red i explained a few posts up how Peter was commissioned by Christ as the first Pope.

 

Yes Peter was the first Bishop of Rome. Which is why his apostolic succesors have the keys to the kingdom. For an unbroken list of the Popes from Peter to present visit http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm

 

To lighten the mood