The One True Church?

Now Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.This week’s item is from MSNBC News Services July 10, 2007, with a headline:Catholic Church Reasserts It’s Authority, the following are excerpts.Pope Benedict the 16^th has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic church approving a document released Tuesday that says, Orthodox churches were defective, and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.Benedict approved the document from his old offices at the congregation for the doctrine of the faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians.It was the second time in a week the Pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the 2^ndVatican Counsel, the 1962 to 65 meetings that modernize the church.Benedict, who attended Vatican 2 as a young theologian has long complained about what he considers the erroneous interpretation of the counsel by liberals, saying it was not a break from the past, but rather a renewal of church traditions.The latest document restates key sections of the 2000 documents the Pope wrote when he was Prefect of the congregation.Dominous DeAsus, which set off a fire storm of criticism among Protestants and other Christian denominations because it said that they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities, and therefore did not have the means of salvation.Christ established here on earth only one church, the document said, the other communities cannot be called churches in the proper sense because they do not have apostolic succession, the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ’s original apostles.Despite the harsh tone of the document it stresses that Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue.

Tom:

Dave, lots of problems with this document.First of all, it’s not surprising to us.When the church has a counsel it is, according to the church, the Roman Catholic church—Oh, and by the way, for those listeners who may be interested, I was a Roman Catholic for 30 years, and really a pre-Vatican II Catholic.I left the church some time after Vatican II, but it really never affected me.But Vatican II, as a counsel of the church, is infallible, according to the church, so they can’t make mistakes, they can’t change anything.

Dave:

And it just quotes prior counsel.

Tom:

Exactly, but what was different about Vatican II, is the interpretations, which now Pope Benedict the 16^th is straightening out.The liberal interpretation was—Well, you could kind of do things really based on your conscience more than based on what the magisterium of the church taught. So, a lot of ideas developed within, what you would call liberal Roman Catholicism.

Dave:

Tom, this whole document that Gary just read, it’s an insult to anyone with any intelligence, especially that Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue.Now, after he just told you that all other churches are wrong and the Catholic church is the only one—Oh, but we’ll discuss it further, guys, but they’ve given you the bottom line.So what is the ecumenical dialogue, what is the point?It’s just nonsense.And then, the paragraph before:You guys can’t trace yourselves back through apostolic succession, but we can—Tom!Is this a joke book he’s writing?

Tom:

Not for those who have accepted it totally because the church says so, and that’s what I did for 30 years, Dave.

Dave:

But Tom, still, what does the church say?He’ll take you back to—Oh, yes, there was a time when there were three popes—Oh yeah, well, I guess this pope fought against that one and this one bought his way in, and this one, it was the Emperor who threw him out and put in another pope.Apostolic succession?Now, if there apostolic succession, they came from Peter and Peter would lay his hands on the next guy and he would lay his hands on the next guy.No, Tom, well, you know as well as I do, this is—What a Story!There were popes who had, I don’t know how many—

Tom:

—sons who became popes.

Dave:

Yeah, right.

Tom:

How does that work with the so-called sacraments of holy orders.

Dave:

They married their children in the Vatican there in St Peters.They were some of the most evil monsters that ever walked this earth, there’s no question about that.

Tom:

Right!And this is history, Dave, you’re not making these things up, this is church history.

Dave:

Tom, it’s such a well established history it cannot be refuted.So then how can, Benedict the 16^th, how can he say, Oh, but we trace our apostolic succession back to Peter.It is a fraud!Tom, Oh my, there were popes who had, more than one pope who had both the mother and daughter as his concubines, or whores or whatever, mistresses.They were popes who were murderers.

Tom:

Dave, lets shift gear here, very quickly with the time that’s left.What about movements within Evangelical Christianity like Evangelicals and Catholics together?What would you think this would do, or is doing, to that kind of dialogue?

Dave:

Tom, words don’t mean anything today.

Tom:

They can say or do anything.They will just keep plugging away, keep undermining The Faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

Dave:

It doesn’t matter what you say, we’re going to be friends and we’re going to work together.Well, actually we can work against abortion together, we can child abuse together, and so forth.So that will unite us, but that didn’t unite to in Christ.So Tom, I’m sorry, I get just a little bit upset because they are contradicting themselves.

Tom:

Yeah, but you’re making some people out there upset too, probably.But explain this, just simply:Rome has a false gospel, a gospel that denies what Jesus Christ actually accomplished for our sakes.

Dave:

Absolutely.Outside the church of Rome there is no salvation and you cannot—

Tom:

There’s documents that supports that idea.

Dave:

—and you cannot be saved apart from the church.You don’t get the benefits of Christ’s death and resurrection on your behalf by faith in Him, you must go through the priests, you must go to the mass where Christ is being offered again—

Tom:

It begins with baptism.

Dave:

Absolutely, you’ve got to be baptized even to get in.

Tom:

So, this is a false gospel, that’s our great issue here, and for this man and this document, which is just reiterating the way its always been, you’ve known that, I’ve known that, that the Roman Catholic church claims to be The Mother Church, it is The Church, and everybody outside of that is either, Vatican II calls them separated brethren, but really second class citizens.

Dave;

Well, they’re not going to get to heaven.

Tom:

Exactly.