It's interesting you are using a picture of the stained-glass window from St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican as the picture in your post. This depiction of the Holy Spirit is the stained-glass window in the Monument Cathedra Petri (Altar of the Chair of St. Peter) and was created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1666). It signifies the descent of the holy spirit on Pentecost (33AD) the beginning of the Church's mission to the world. Pentecost is considered the Church's "birthday". Peter BAPTIZED 3,000 that day. Baptism is the sacrament of initiation into God's family, the church. It is how we become Children of God. Pentecost celebrates the empowerment of the Apostles to preach the Gospel and the giving of the Holy Spirit to believers. On Pentecost, Peter and the Apostles were strengthened by the Holy Spirit to witness to Christ to teach and to sanctify in His name. To "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them ALL that I have commanded" That was when the Catholic Church began, established on the rock of Peter who was the first leader, pastor and Pope of the Catholic church (protestant denominations did not appear until over 1500 years later).
Peter was not the pope, and he certainly wasn't infallible in doctrine, as Galatians 2 illustrates. If he was the founder of Catholicism, then Catholicism would adhere to what he taught, and it doesn't. And yeah, Protestant denominations did not appear until after the Reformation - thus the name "Protestant" as in "we protest your false teaching."
The division of Jesus’ church is not something to be proud of. It was pride that caused the reformation. Division and confusion is not from God. It is from the evil one. We know from scripture that “there is only one body and one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all. Ephesians 4:4-6.
In the Great Commission, Christ gives the apostles the authority to baptize and teach the nations to observe everything he has commanded. You can see that in Matthew 28, verses 18-20. Christ even goes so far as to say that the glory given to him by the Father, he has given to the apostles. And from the gospel of John 17: 22. “the glory which thou has given me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.”
Christ instituted his church that it would endure to the end of the world. (despite sins of human authority) Jesus stated he would not leave us orphans. He died and shed his blood for the Church; he would not leave the church with insufficient means to go on after he ascended. Christ gave Peter the authority to be the Chief Shepherd of his church on earth. When Peter died, the rock did not die. That was passed on to other successors of Peter.
The Catholic Church has held true to the deposit of faith (Apostolic Tradition), that was passed on from Jesus to the Apostles for 2,000 years. Not changing with relativism and the whims of this world. And the passing on of the faith did not end at the death of the apostles. The “apostolic age” refers to the fact that there is no public revelation from God after John passed away. There is only private revelation.
On your last point, the Catholic Church has always taught, we are “justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.” The Church teaches that we can be saved only by God’s grace. The Catholic Church does not teach, and has NEVER taught, that someone can be SAVED by their own works. No amount of prayer, Rosaries, fasting, charitable works, etc., on their own, will ever take anyone from not justified, to justified. If someone has told you that is what the Catholic Church believes, they are gravely mistaken. The belief that you can earn your salvation by doing good works is actually a condemned heresy by the church called Pelagianism. Pelagius was a lay monk that lived in the 5th century – He taught that salvation could be achieved by man’s effort alone. Pelagianism says that you are climbing toward God through your own strength and power that you can earn your salvation. That’s not what the church teaches you cannot earn your salvation by doing good works. We don’t do good works to earn Gods love we do these things because he loves us and we love Him.
The Catholic life is really extraordinarily simple. It is sad that so many, through misinterpreting Scripture, and slandering the Church, have missed so many great truths.
The Reformation was a rescue mission to a church that was dying in its own corruption. It is not a point of pride, it is a point of history. And Janet, Catholicism is the opposite of simple. You have priests and incense and Mass and confession and a big old City to yourself over there in Italy and all manner of things added to God's Word and given equal weight with it. This exact mindset is what led to the many abuses the predated the Reformation. You elevate some believers over others - your leaders hold out their hands so you underlings can kiss their rings! All while claiming to be demonstrating humility. This doesn't compute. How can you claim that only Catholics have been on the right track all this time when so much of what they teach is wrong, like the idea that the Bible is only part of what people must obey. What about when Catholics were literally torturing and killing people for wanting to have and read their own Bibles? What about the gross sin of selling indulgences? Or building cathedrals on the backs of poor peasants? Catholicism was in desperate need of reform, for sure. And reform it did, to some extent. However, this idea that there's a straight line from Jesus through the pope system doesn't wash, not to mention that it's
unproveable historically. And, many Catholics seem to be under the impression that so long as they attend Mass or occasionally hit the confessional, they're "all good." This may not be what your church teaches explicitly, but it's certainly what many of your parishioners have "caught." Of course, as I've said before, if you claim that anything else has the authority of Scripture, then you're in a position where you can make up anything you like.
The Catholic Church isn’t perfect, no church is, and that is because churches are run by humans who make mistakes. Judas was one of the twelve, handpicked by Jesus and walked with Jesus as did the other apostles. Judas betrayed Jesus, should the other apostles have left Jesus, and not walked with him? There has always been a serpent in the Garden of Eden – should Adam and Eve left the garden because the serpent was there? The “reformers” should have stayed with Christ’s church and assisted with the reformation. (The church did go through reforms during the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563) but instead pridefully started their own churches. This has resulted in 38,000 Protestant denominations, each with its own interpretations of Scripture and theological doctrines. This is evidence of the "anarchy" it has caused. Anarchy is not from God. The terrible truth about the Reformation is that it was (and remains) a profound tragedy that has inflicted a deep and gaping wound to the Body of Christ.
In the Acts of the Apostles, we find the Church as a clear-cut organization. It has officials, such as Matthias and Timothy, who were consecrated by the laying-on of hands–deacons, priests, and bishops. “If a man cannot rule his own household, how is he to rule the Church of God?” (1 Tim. 3:5). When the apostles met in council in Jerusalem (Acts 15), the Church was already a fully constituted society intent on converting the world. It had disciplinary rules, officials, ceremonies, sacraments, and official teaching.
That same Church must be in the world today because Christ said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commended you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20).The Catholic Church alone of Christian bodies today corresponds exactly to the religion established by Jesus Christ.
I am certain that if Protestants saw the Catholic Church as it really is, most would enter it at any cost; not as a “change of denomination” but as a perfection—a completion—of the faith they’ve held as a non-Catholic Christian. I see it every day as a teacher of the true faith to protestants who enter the Catholic church through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults when the light bulb finally goes on and they see the light!
Your accusations of the Reformers being prideful is amusing since Roman Catholicism is so prideful it thinks it is the only way to God. It's not like the Catholics were just having a few little problems here and there. They were in outright apostasy and corruption, and yes, people were tortured and killed for not parroting Catholic doctrine (a perfect example, by the way, of what happens when a church and a government join hands in authority over people). You're also grossly overstating the degree of Protestant "disagreement" - on the contrary, Protestants tend to agree on most core doctrine - there are not thousands of different interpretatins or theological positions on the fundamentals. And most of us agree that Catholics are wrong on church authority, Mary, and a host of other issues. You are also mistaken that Catholicism "corresponds exactly to the religion established by Jesus Christ" because He didn't establish a religion. He came to show the Jews the Way, and make a way for them and all of us to come to Him. Acts 2 shows what that looks like. Church authority is for local pastors, not a Vatican embossed with gold. There is nothing biblical about any of that. As for people moving into Catholicism - if their experience of God is weak and unbiblically grounded, the ritual and rules of Catholicism may appeal. But it is moving toward falsehood, not away from it. And surely you know that countless Catholics have moved the other way, into authentic relationship with Jesus unencumbered by priests or Mass or rituals etc. As for your additional comment regarding the Bible. I'm not disputing that some people upheld the idea that the Bible should be more accessible. But that was the hardly the trajectory of the Catholic church at large, and it is historically accurate to say that many many people were tortured and killed, not for unChristian speech or behavior, but for not agreeing with the Catholic Church. Your history is bloody and unpleasant, and no amount of equivocating can change that. THAT was the world in which the Reformation happened, so please don't pretend that the "inferno of dissension" wasn't a direct result of Catholicism's overarching corruption and abuse.
The Inquisition is a handy stick for Catholic-bashing. Congratulations! The Church contains within itself all sorts of sinners and some of them obtain positions of responsibility. Paul and Christ himself warned us that there would be a few ravenous wolves among Church leaders (Acts 20:29; Matt. 7:15). just what do you think the existence of the Inquisition demonstrates? That Catholics are sinners? Guilty as charged. That at times people in positions of authority have used poor judgment? Ditto. That otherwise good Catholics, afire with zeal, sometimes lose their balance? All true! Exactly what are you trying to prove?
The first Protestants, who also tried to root out and punish those they regarded as heretics. Luther and Calvin both endorsed the right of the state to protect society by purging false religion. In fact, Calvin ordered Catholicsto be executed for “heresy” (e.g., Jacques Gouet, tortured and beheaded in 1547; and Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553, Thomas Moore beheaded by King Henry VIII's for refusing to acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.). In England and Ireland, Reformers engaged in their own ruthless inquisitions and executions. Thousands of English and Irish Catholics were put to death—many by being hanged, drawn, and quartered—for practicing the Catholic faith and refusing to become Protestant. An even greater number were forced to flee to the Continent. I think it's fair to say that both sides understood the Bible to require the use of penal sanctions to root out false religion.
The fact that the Protestant Reformers also created inquisitions to root out Catholics and others who did not fall into line with the doctrines of the local Protestant sect shows that the existence of an inquisition does not prove that a movement is not of God. Sorry...you cannot make this claim against Catholics without having it backfire on yourself. Apparently, it was the way of the time.
You throw out old falsehoods by a man-made religious denomination that was not started by God, but instead by prideful men (Luther, Calvin, John Smith etc..) who thought they knew better than the Apostles. "I will not serve!" the cry of Satan...that splintered the church Jesus established on earth.
LOL there were no local Pastors in the first century...you just have to learn church history to know they were CATHOLIC Bishops and priests. There were no Protestant "pastors" until the 16th Century.
Also, your assertion that the Catholic Church was keeping bibles away from the people until Luther came along is untrue. Let’s examine the facts. Before Luther’s translation (1530) there were already at least 33 printed German translations, many of them translated from the original Greek and Hebrew. In fifteenth-century Poland [a century before the Reformation] the Bible was translated into the vernacular at the request of the Catholic Queen Hedwig; a second version was translated soon after by Andrew Jassowitz. In Spain, King Alfonso the Wise (1221-1284), also a Catholic, commissioned the Bible to be translated into Castilian, and Boniface Ferrier translated it into the Valencian dialect in 1405.
In France, at least sixteen translations were known to be extant before 1547. Archbishop Giacomo a Voragine of Genoa translated the Bible into Italian around 1220. A Swedish translation was made as early as the mid-fourteenth century, and Iceland had its own translation by 1279. The monk Nicolo Malerimi’s Italian translation had been reprinted at least thirteen times before the so-called “light of the Reformation” had ignited Europe into an inferno of dissension.
It's interesting you are using a picture of the stained-glass window from St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican as the picture in your post. This depiction of the Holy Spirit is the stained-glass window in the Monument Cathedra Petri (Altar of the Chair of St. Peter) and was created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1666). It signifies the descent of the holy spirit on Pentecost (33AD) the beginning of the Church's mission to the world. Pentecost is considered the Church's "birthday". Peter BAPTIZED 3,000 that day. Baptism is the sacrament of initiation into God's family, the church. It is how we become Children of God. Pentecost celebrates the empowerment of the Apostles to preach the Gospel and the giving of the Holy Spirit to believers. On Pentecost, Peter and the Apostles were strengthened by the Holy Spirit to witness to Christ to teach and to sanctify in His name. To "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them ALL that I have commanded" That was when the Catholic Church began, established on the rock of Peter who was the first leader, pastor and Pope of the Catholic church (protestant denominations did not appear until over 1500 years later).
Peter was not the pope, and he certainly wasn't infallible in doctrine, as Galatians 2 illustrates. If he was the founder of Catholicism, then Catholicism would adhere to what he taught, and it doesn't. And yeah, Protestant denominations did not appear until after the Reformation - thus the name "Protestant" as in "we protest your false teaching."
The division of Jesus’ church is not something to be proud of. It was pride that caused the reformation. Division and confusion is not from God. It is from the evil one. We know from scripture that “there is only one body and one spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all. Ephesians 4:4-6.
In the Great Commission, Christ gives the apostles the authority to baptize and teach the nations to observe everything he has commanded. You can see that in Matthew 28, verses 18-20. Christ even goes so far as to say that the glory given to him by the Father, he has given to the apostles. And from the gospel of John 17: 22. “the glory which thou has given me, I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.”
Christ instituted his church that it would endure to the end of the world. (despite sins of human authority) Jesus stated he would not leave us orphans. He died and shed his blood for the Church; he would not leave the church with insufficient means to go on after he ascended. Christ gave Peter the authority to be the Chief Shepherd of his church on earth. When Peter died, the rock did not die. That was passed on to other successors of Peter.
The Catholic Church has held true to the deposit of faith (Apostolic Tradition), that was passed on from Jesus to the Apostles for 2,000 years. Not changing with relativism and the whims of this world. And the passing on of the faith did not end at the death of the apostles. The “apostolic age” refers to the fact that there is no public revelation from God after John passed away. There is only private revelation.
On your last point, the Catholic Church has always taught, we are “justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.” The Church teaches that we can be saved only by God’s grace. The Catholic Church does not teach, and has NEVER taught, that someone can be SAVED by their own works. No amount of prayer, Rosaries, fasting, charitable works, etc., on their own, will ever take anyone from not justified, to justified. If someone has told you that is what the Catholic Church believes, they are gravely mistaken. The belief that you can earn your salvation by doing good works is actually a condemned heresy by the church called Pelagianism. Pelagius was a lay monk that lived in the 5th century – He taught that salvation could be achieved by man’s effort alone. Pelagianism says that you are climbing toward God through your own strength and power that you can earn your salvation. That’s not what the church teaches you cannot earn your salvation by doing good works. We don’t do good works to earn Gods love we do these things because he loves us and we love Him.
The Catholic life is really extraordinarily simple. It is sad that so many, through misinterpreting Scripture, and slandering the Church, have missed so many great truths.
The Reformation was a rescue mission to a church that was dying in its own corruption. It is not a point of pride, it is a point of history. And Janet, Catholicism is the opposite of simple. You have priests and incense and Mass and confession and a big old City to yourself over there in Italy and all manner of things added to God's Word and given equal weight with it. This exact mindset is what led to the many abuses the predated the Reformation. You elevate some believers over others - your leaders hold out their hands so you underlings can kiss their rings! All while claiming to be demonstrating humility. This doesn't compute. How can you claim that only Catholics have been on the right track all this time when so much of what they teach is wrong, like the idea that the Bible is only part of what people must obey. What about when Catholics were literally torturing and killing people for wanting to have and read their own Bibles? What about the gross sin of selling indulgences? Or building cathedrals on the backs of poor peasants? Catholicism was in desperate need of reform, for sure. And reform it did, to some extent. However, this idea that there's a straight line from Jesus through the pope system doesn't wash, not to mention that it's
unproveable historically. And, many Catholics seem to be under the impression that so long as they attend Mass or occasionally hit the confessional, they're "all good." This may not be what your church teaches explicitly, but it's certainly what many of your parishioners have "caught." Of course, as I've said before, if you claim that anything else has the authority of Scripture, then you're in a position where you can make up anything you like.
The Catholic Church isn’t perfect, no church is, and that is because churches are run by humans who make mistakes. Judas was one of the twelve, handpicked by Jesus and walked with Jesus as did the other apostles. Judas betrayed Jesus, should the other apostles have left Jesus, and not walked with him? There has always been a serpent in the Garden of Eden – should Adam and Eve left the garden because the serpent was there? The “reformers” should have stayed with Christ’s church and assisted with the reformation. (The church did go through reforms during the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563) but instead pridefully started their own churches. This has resulted in 38,000 Protestant denominations, each with its own interpretations of Scripture and theological doctrines. This is evidence of the "anarchy" it has caused. Anarchy is not from God. The terrible truth about the Reformation is that it was (and remains) a profound tragedy that has inflicted a deep and gaping wound to the Body of Christ.
In the Acts of the Apostles, we find the Church as a clear-cut organization. It has officials, such as Matthias and Timothy, who were consecrated by the laying-on of hands–deacons, priests, and bishops. “If a man cannot rule his own household, how is he to rule the Church of God?” (1 Tim. 3:5). When the apostles met in council in Jerusalem (Acts 15), the Church was already a fully constituted society intent on converting the world. It had disciplinary rules, officials, ceremonies, sacraments, and official teaching.
That same Church must be in the world today because Christ said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commended you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt. 28:18-20).The Catholic Church alone of Christian bodies today corresponds exactly to the religion established by Jesus Christ.
I am certain that if Protestants saw the Catholic Church as it really is, most would enter it at any cost; not as a “change of denomination” but as a perfection—a completion—of the faith they’ve held as a non-Catholic Christian. I see it every day as a teacher of the true faith to protestants who enter the Catholic church through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults when the light bulb finally goes on and they see the light!
Your accusations of the Reformers being prideful is amusing since Roman Catholicism is so prideful it thinks it is the only way to God. It's not like the Catholics were just having a few little problems here and there. They were in outright apostasy and corruption, and yes, people were tortured and killed for not parroting Catholic doctrine (a perfect example, by the way, of what happens when a church and a government join hands in authority over people). You're also grossly overstating the degree of Protestant "disagreement" - on the contrary, Protestants tend to agree on most core doctrine - there are not thousands of different interpretatins or theological positions on the fundamentals. And most of us agree that Catholics are wrong on church authority, Mary, and a host of other issues. You are also mistaken that Catholicism "corresponds exactly to the religion established by Jesus Christ" because He didn't establish a religion. He came to show the Jews the Way, and make a way for them and all of us to come to Him. Acts 2 shows what that looks like. Church authority is for local pastors, not a Vatican embossed with gold. There is nothing biblical about any of that. As for people moving into Catholicism - if their experience of God is weak and unbiblically grounded, the ritual and rules of Catholicism may appeal. But it is moving toward falsehood, not away from it. And surely you know that countless Catholics have moved the other way, into authentic relationship with Jesus unencumbered by priests or Mass or rituals etc. As for your additional comment regarding the Bible. I'm not disputing that some people upheld the idea that the Bible should be more accessible. But that was the hardly the trajectory of the Catholic church at large, and it is historically accurate to say that many many people were tortured and killed, not for unChristian speech or behavior, but for not agreeing with the Catholic Church. Your history is bloody and unpleasant, and no amount of equivocating can change that. THAT was the world in which the Reformation happened, so please don't pretend that the "inferno of dissension" wasn't a direct result of Catholicism's overarching corruption and abuse.
The Inquisition is a handy stick for Catholic-bashing. Congratulations! The Church contains within itself all sorts of sinners and some of them obtain positions of responsibility. Paul and Christ himself warned us that there would be a few ravenous wolves among Church leaders (Acts 20:29; Matt. 7:15). just what do you think the existence of the Inquisition demonstrates? That Catholics are sinners? Guilty as charged. That at times people in positions of authority have used poor judgment? Ditto. That otherwise good Catholics, afire with zeal, sometimes lose their balance? All true! Exactly what are you trying to prove?
The first Protestants, who also tried to root out and punish those they regarded as heretics. Luther and Calvin both endorsed the right of the state to protect society by purging false religion. In fact, Calvin ordered Catholicsto be executed for “heresy” (e.g., Jacques Gouet, tortured and beheaded in 1547; and Michael Servetus, burned at the stake in 1553, Thomas Moore beheaded by King Henry VIII's for refusing to acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.). In England and Ireland, Reformers engaged in their own ruthless inquisitions and executions. Thousands of English and Irish Catholics were put to death—many by being hanged, drawn, and quartered—for practicing the Catholic faith and refusing to become Protestant. An even greater number were forced to flee to the Continent. I think it's fair to say that both sides understood the Bible to require the use of penal sanctions to root out false religion.
The fact that the Protestant Reformers also created inquisitions to root out Catholics and others who did not fall into line with the doctrines of the local Protestant sect shows that the existence of an inquisition does not prove that a movement is not of God. Sorry...you cannot make this claim against Catholics without having it backfire on yourself. Apparently, it was the way of the time.
You throw out old falsehoods by a man-made religious denomination that was not started by God, but instead by prideful men (Luther, Calvin, John Smith etc..) who thought they knew better than the Apostles. "I will not serve!" the cry of Satan...that splintered the church Jesus established on earth.
LOL there were no local Pastors in the first century...you just have to learn church history to know they were CATHOLIC Bishops and priests. There were no Protestant "pastors" until the 16th Century.
Also, your assertion that the Catholic Church was keeping bibles away from the people until Luther came along is untrue. Let’s examine the facts. Before Luther’s translation (1530) there were already at least 33 printed German translations, many of them translated from the original Greek and Hebrew. In fifteenth-century Poland [a century before the Reformation] the Bible was translated into the vernacular at the request of the Catholic Queen Hedwig; a second version was translated soon after by Andrew Jassowitz. In Spain, King Alfonso the Wise (1221-1284), also a Catholic, commissioned the Bible to be translated into Castilian, and Boniface Ferrier translated it into the Valencian dialect in 1405.
In France, at least sixteen translations were known to be extant before 1547. Archbishop Giacomo a Voragine of Genoa translated the Bible into Italian around 1220. A Swedish translation was made as early as the mid-fourteenth century, and Iceland had its own translation by 1279. The monk Nicolo Malerimi’s Italian translation had been reprinted at least thirteen times before the so-called “light of the Reformation” had ignited Europe into an inferno of dissension.