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NOT TRUEYour whole post starts off as a lie. The churches of Egypt and turkey, even the Greek churches were established long before the Catholic Church and none existed while Christ was still alive. The apostles scattered to the four winds to spread the word after Christ's death.
fake informationPaul was setting up churches at the same time Peter was. Coincidentally, only Paul's churches are addressed in Revelation and are the candlesticks that will reside with Jesus in Jerusalem in the Temple... The Catholic church is not among them...
Well, you are misled, is all i can say. There are too many issues in your post to address all of them. It would help greatly if you would (I say this for the 1000th time to non Cahtolics) go to a RCIA class.. but where would u go? Again.. things are very confusing in this day and age. The SSPX are closer to being the True Church than the NO Church but any moron can see that.. assuming said moron has studied the matter.He said His FOLLOWERS (will be, future tense) will receive the same treatment He and His disciples received. That's Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, any one who is a believer in Christ.
Example:
Young girl in Columbine school had a gun stuck in her chest and she was asked if she believed in Jesus. He didn't ask her what church she attended. She said yes, and was killed on the spot. Before her body hit the ground she was in Heaven receiving her martyr's crown. Her denomination is totally irrelevant.
The Catholic church has many issues, which have caused a decline in it's popularity. That has NOTHING to do with what Christ was talking about. People hate pedophilia, so, does that mean that all pedophiles belong to Christ because they are hated? No. That is convoluted logic.
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that only Catholics go to Heaven, unless they added that later. The only way to Heaven is through Christ, not the Vatican...
Show me where the Bible says most children go to Heaven. That is 100% anti-Biblical. ALL children under the age of accountability go straight up. By Biblical standards that murdered child was martyred for Christ's sake. Read Revelation to discover where martyrs are residing. It pinpoints the location.Well, you are misled, is all i can say. There are too many issues in your post to address all of them. It would help greatly if you would (I say this for the 1000th time to non Cahtolics) go to a RCIA class.. but where would u go? Again.. things are very confusing in this day and age. The SSPX are closer to being the True Church than the NO Church but any moron can see that.. assuming said moron has studied the matter.
But.. and speaking of LOGIC.. The NO Watch people showed me how illogical is the SSPX notion that if fake popes canonize people, it proves the canonization process is not infallible. That does not make sense and I didn't know the sspx believed such..
Anyway, I am at this time feeling a little o/whelmed so I will leave it at that. But you have, i have to add.. a lot of nerve saying someone is in Heaven.. Yes, that little girl likely is but there is NO way you can know. The Church lets us know as much about that kind of thing as possible, through the canonization process, and etc.. Plus the Church teaches that most children go to Heaven.. or used to.. Again.. the topic at hand is WHere is the true Catholic Church
I made a BIG mistake in the title of my last thread (about not knowing where the true Catholic Church is).. should have said "Catholics only..."
God knows where any given person is at spiritually whereas humans don't know much of anythingDiscussions like this prove that Pascal's Wager is a joke. It's not enough just to believe in the Christian God. No, He wants His Jollies in a very specific way, and He never left any definite instructions for them. Since there are 30,000 to 40,000 different sects of Christianity, there are 30,000 to 40,000 different interpretations of what tickles His Divine Fancy. So you have a 1 in 30,000 to 40,000 chance of picking the correct one. Choose poorly, and you'll burn and suffer with the Heathens and Atheists.
I never said it was in the Bible, did I?Show me where the Bible says most children go to Heaven. That is 100% anti-Biblical.
How do non-Catholics keep coming up with statements like the above!One of the most egregious things that the Catholic Church did was convince parents that if their child dies without the last rites, <also not biblical, their poor baby has to go to purgatory, there to work their way into Heaven.
I ddn't know this. ThanksHow do non-Catholics keep coming up with statements like the above!
The question from parents was, "What happens if a child dies without being baptized?" The Church looked to scripture and apostolic tradition for answers to this question. There is nothing in either scripture or Apostolic tradition that addresses that question. The Church said that on that point, we are in limbo (meaning we are on the edge of no answer to this question). Later, the Latin developed the meaning of that edge/boundary between heaven and hell--where no answer exists.
Purgatory doesn't enter into the equation of a child under the age of reason having to undergo purification/purging of wrong-doing/purgatory.
Around the time of Vatican II, the Church stopped using "limbo" because people (Catholics included) pictured it as a place filled with unbaptized babies instead of the place where there are no answers to some spiritual mysteries/questions.
The nuns explained this to us when I was a kid. The class was curious about how a place that held babies could cease to exist and where were the babies now. We were also amazed the Church didn't know something, but rather impressed that the nuns did!I ddn't know this. Thanks
Well, the Church is made up of humans who don't know all even after 2000+ years..The nuns explained this to us when I was a kid. The class was curious about how a place that held babies could cease to exist and where were the babies now. We were also amazed the Church didn't know something, but rather impressed that the nuns did!
Why I am Catholic
(A brief excerpt from the booklet “Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth”)
QUOTE:
Among the Christian churches, only the Catholic Church has existed since the time of Jesus. Every other Christian church is an offshoot of the Catholic Church. The Eastern Orthodox churches broke away from unity with the pope in 1054. The Protestant churches were established during the Reformation, which began in 1517. (Most of today’s Protestant churches are actually offshoots of the original Protestant offshoots.)
Only the Catholic Church existed in the tenth century, in the fifth century, and in the first century, faithfully teaching the doctrines given by Christ to the apostles, omitting nothing. The line of popes can be traced back, in unbroken succession, to Peter himself. This is unequaled by any institution in history.
Even the oldest government is new compared to the papacy, and the churches that send out door-to-door missionaries are young compared to the Catholic Church. Many of these churches began as recently as the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. Some even began during your own lifetime. None of them can claim to be the Church Jesus established.
The Catholic Church has existed for nearly 2,000 years, despite constant opposition from the world. This is testimony to the Church’s divine origin. It must be more than a merely human organization, especially considering that its human members— even some of its leaders—have been unwise, corrupt, or prone to heresy.
Any merely human organization with such members would have collapsed early on. The Catholic Church is today the most vigorous church in the world (and the largest, with a billion members: one sixth of the human race), and that is testimony not to the cleverness of the Church’s leaders, but to the protection of the Holy Spirit.
FOUR MARKS OF THE TRUE CHURCH
If we wish to locate the Church founded by Jesus, we need to locate the one that has the four chief marks or qualities of his Church. The Church we seek must be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.
The Church Is One (Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 10:17, 12:13)
Jesus established only one Church, not a collection of differing churches. The Bible says the Church is the bride of Christ (Eph. 5:23–32). Jesus can have but one spouse, and his spouse is the Catholic Church. His Church also teaches just one set of doctrines, which must be the same as those taught by the apostles (Jude 3). This is the unity of belief to which Scripture calls us (Phil. 1:27, 2:2). Over the centuries, as doctrines are examined more fully, the Church comes to understand them more deeply (John 16:12–13), but it never understands them to mean the opposite of what they once meant.
The Church Is Holy (Eph. 5:25–27, Rev. 19:7–8)
By his grace Jesus makes the Church holy, just as he is holy. This doesn’t mean that each member is always holy. Jesus said there would be both good and bad members in the Church (John 6:70), and not all the members would go to heaven (Matt. 7:21–23). But the Church itself is holy because it is the source of holiness and is the guardian of the special means of grace Jesus established, the sacraments (cf. Eph. 5:26).
The Church Is Catholic (Matt. 28:19–20, Rev. 5:9–10)
Jesus’ Church is called catholic (“universal” in Greek) because it is his gift to all people. He told his apostles to go throughout the world and make disciples of “all nations” (Matt. 28:19–20). For 2,000 years the Catholic Church has carried out this mission, preaching the good news that Christ died for all men and that he wants all of us to be members of his universal family (Gal. 3:28). Nowadays the Catholic Church is found in every country of the world and is still sending out missionaries to “make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19). The Church Jesus established was known by its most common title, “the Catholic Church,” at least as early as the year 107, when Ignatius of Antioch used that title to describe the one Church Jesus founded. The title apparently was old in Ignatius’s time, which means it probably went all the way back to the time of the apostles.
The Church Is Apostolic (Eph. 2:19–20)
The Church Jesus founded is apostolic because he appointed the apostles to be the first leaders of the Church, and their successors were to be its future leaders. The apostles were the first bishops, and, since the first century, there has been an unbroken line of Catholic bishops faithfully handing on what the apostles taught the first Christians in Scripture and oral Tradition (2 Tim. 2:2). These beliefs include the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the forgiveness of sins through a priest, baptismal regeneration, the existence of purgatory, Mary’s special role, and much more —even the doctrine of apostolic succession itself. Early Christian writings prove the first Christians were thoroughly Catholic in belief and practice and looked to the successors of the apostles as their leaders. What these first Christians believed is still believed by the Catholic Church. No other Church can make that claim.
Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth
Man’s ingenuity cannot account for this. The Church has remained one, holy, catholic, and apostolic—not through man’s effort, but because God preserves the Church he established (Matt. 16:18, 28:20). He guided the Israelites on their escape from Egypt by giving them a pillar of fire to light their way across the dark wilderness (Exod. 13:21). Today he guides us through his Catholic Church.
The Bible, sacred Tradition, and the writings of the earliest Christians testify that the Church teaches with Jesus’ authority. In this age of countless competing religions, each clamoring for attention, one voice rises above the din: the Catholic Church, which the Bible calls “the pillar and foundation of truth” (1 Tim. 3:15).
Jesus assured the apostles and their successors, the popes and the bishops, “He who listens to you listens to me, and he who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:16). Jesus promised to guide his Church into all truth (John 16:12–13). We can have confidence that his Church teaches only the truth.
END EXCERPT QUOTE
EXCERPT SOURCE: Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth
The false premise is that the Catholic church was in place originally, and in fact it surely was not . . . .
. The early believers lived following just the ways of Jesus, as was still taught by those who were with him. Hardly anyone lives like that now. Church systematics corresponding to the Catholic church came about, completely separate from those ones, who were put in a bad light, centuries later.
. . . . . The very Presence, the TANGIBLE Presence of Christ abides in the Catholic Church and nowhere else on Earth . . . . .
You sound totally delusional. Everyone has their weaknesses , your's is believing in religion. None of them are real.And you know this, how?
It is untrue. And this is how I know it is untrue: The very Presence, the TANGIBLE Presence of Christ abides in the Catholic Church and nowhere else on Earth. How do I know? I've been to nearly every other place on the planet. Sure, you will argue that I'd have to have gone to absolutely every country and city and etc in order to know this, but no, you don't. Jesus said that He would be with His people "until the end".. that He would nver leave nor forsake us (Mt 28:20, etc). This means that His PRESENCE will never leave us. He did not leave behind mere words about him (the modern Bible as we know it)
So here's the thing: Jesus would not give us Himself.. this Real Presence except in HIS Church... I mean, this is how one knows that it is indeed His Church, if nothing else convinces one.
If you don't agree, that just means you haven't been in that tangible Presence... and what an absolute pity that is!
There are none so poor and deprived....
