Unity

It isn't meant as a defense, it's an explanation for the conditions that you cite.

A "Catholic" who is not in unity with the teachings of the Church is a Catholic in name only.

BTW, there is room for personal beliefs among Catholics which are not the offical teachings of the Church provided that the are not in conflict with the authoritative teachings of the Church.

 

The fact of the matter is, the Church does not have the power over either the people or its priests that it once enjoyed. A good example of this is Quebec, Canada. At one time the local priests controlled everything local, including politics and when the people would attend services. To-day it is not so.

In the 50's, Catholic priests had the power to have Baptist ministers put in jail for distributing gospel tracts in the streets. We had 4 Baptist pastors so jailed. This would be unheard of to-day.

Then, there have always been theological differences in the RC Church. Read a few of the former theologians and you will readily see this. Where they (RC's) had unity was in the authority and headship of the Pope, the Mass and such fundamentals that go with it. There were always different ideas on celibacy, mission, theological hang-ups and the like. Compare the Jesuits with the Fransican monks; compare Bishop Sheen with Cardinal Newman.

Unity in Christ, yes, but not unity at any price.

Cheers,

Jim

 

Neal

"Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' 28He said to them, "An enemy has done this.' The servants said to him, "Do you want us then to go and gather them up?' 29But he said, "No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn."


There are certainly a lot of tares that claim the Catholic faith but live a false faith, they will be burned.


The Church teaches without apostolic authority and you see a consistent faith proclaimed for 2,000 years. Dissenters have latched onto the protestant idea that their own individual interpretations of religous issues are somehow authoritative. These men have no authority and the Church often tells them so and warns these dissenters of the spiritual risk they put themselves in.

Protestantism does not make any serious apostolic claims. In general protestantism seems to encourage humanistic anarchy by encouraging the right of every believer to authoritatively interpret religous matters for themselves. This is a major difference which makes your comparison about dissenters within both groups inappropriate.

The Catholic dissenters are warned directly that this humanistic approach is the wrong path. Protestant are encouraged to go down this wrong path of individual human authority but are then criticized as dissenters when they get too far ahead of the main group on this wrong path or when they blaze new trails off the wrong path.

Yet this should be expected, as individual authoritative interpretations are greatly effected by time and the shifting social morality and that is why you do not see a historically consistent protestant faith.

The deposit of faith given by Jesus through the apostles has been guarded by the Church, nothing may be taken away from this deposit and only occasionaly do we see a non-contradictory clarification of what has been deposited (ie the Trinity in the 4th Century).


God Bless

Dennis

[ March 24, 2004, 02:33 AM: Message edited by: Born Again Catholic ]