Born Irish, in a family of eight, my early childhood was fulfilled and happy. My father was a colonel in the Irish Army until he
retired when I was about nine. As a family, we loved to play, sing, and act, all within a military camp in Dublin.
Jesus promised to build His church. Did He mean the Roman Catholic church, with Peter as the first pope? Lets examine the claims.
I refer to the article on BBC news, Vatican text angers Protestants.
It begins by saying, “Pope Benedict has approved a new text asserting that Christian denominations outside Roman Catholicism are not true Churches in the full sense of the word.”
And further, concerning this document:
“Other Christian denominations, it argues, cannot be called Churches in the proper sense because they cannot trace their bishops back to Christ’s original apostles.”
It is good for the Roman Catholic church to state their position openly, wh
Once again, from the Catholic Catechism, we read:
“In order that the full and living Gospel might always be preserved in the Church the apostles left bishops as their successors. They gave them ‘their own position of teaching authority.'”35 Indeed, “the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved in a continuous line of succession until the end of time.”36
This is a VERY important claim of the Roman Catholic church.
In the Catechism of the Roman Catholic church on the U.S. Catholic bishop’s site, it writes:
“Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason.” http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect1.htm#36
Is the Roman Catholic church correct in saying that it is the mother of all believers?
One of the most plausible arguments in favor of traditional churches like the Roman Catholic church is that they have a long history. They argue that they can trace their roots back right to the apostles. They argue that the bishops received special grace and authority from the original apostles. Before these bishops died, they ordained other bishops and so on. This process continued to the present day. It is argued that only those in this chain of succession have true authority in God’s church.
While these doctrine has a certain appeal, it is not directly taught in the Scriptures.
Some people believe that their church speaks for God – that if the church has spoken, God has spoken. Others reject organised religion totally and trust more in their own inner spirituality for guidance. How can we know what God is really saying? In this article I give my own perspective on some of the very important questions people must look at if they seek to find God’s will in the midst of the spiritual confusion that exists today.
Does the Church Speak for God?
By God, I mean the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth. If atheists are right, the question itself is foolish.
"Let it be known to you all … by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the
dead … This is the ‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ Nor is there
salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts
4:10-12)
"For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom
for all." (1 Timothy 2:5,6).
The simple answer is that Jesus Christ founded the church which began at Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost and continued in the lives of those who truly belonged to Him and put their faith in Him, no matter what their relationship was to any particular leaders in the visible church structure.
Sadly, institutional church leaders transformed the expression of Christianity from what it was in the days of the apostles – a family of royal priests who knew God personally, to a kind of hierarchical religious institution which came to dominate the people of God and wrote the history books of
At the heart of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theology we find what may
be called the "sacramental" view of salvation. In this view, true
salvation from sin and the judgment of God can only come through certain
rites and rituals of the church – the "sacraments". These rites and
rituals are seens as channels through which the saving grace of God must flow.
According to this view, the rite of baptism, for example, confirms upon the
recipient the status of being "born again", while partaking of the
Eucharist (i.e.
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