What is the Catholics final authority?

Question

How important is the Bible to the Catholics? How do they decide what they believe?

Answer 1

One cannot have God for his Father, who will not have the Church for his Mother, and likewise, one cannot have the Word of God for his faith who will not have the Church for his teacher. It is the infallible teaching authority of the Church, as promised by Christ, which alone preserves God's Word from erroneous interpretation.

Christ did not say, "Sit down and write Bibles and scatter them over the earth, and let every man read his Bible and judge for himself." If Christ had said that, there would never have been a Christianity on the earth at all, but a Babylon and confusion instead, and never one Church, the union of one body. Hence, Christ never said to His Apostles, "Go and write Bibles and distribute them, and let everyone judge for himself." That injunction was reserved for the Sixteenth Century, and we have seen the result of it. Ever since the Sixteenth Century there have been springing up religion upon religion, and churches upon churches, all fighting and quarreling with one another, and all because of the private interpretation of the Bible.

Christ sent His Apostles with authority to teach all nations, and never gave them any command of writing the Bible. And the Apostles went forth and preached everywhere, and planted the Church of God throughout the earth, but never thought of writing.

Answer 2

The Bible is the inspired word of God and is inerrant.

In the 4th century a council of Catholic bishops came together and looked at all of the religious writings out there and compiled a list of writings that were seen to be inspired by God. That compilation is the Bible.

Considering that the catholic Church was in existence BEFORE the Bible and the Catholic Church CREATED the Bible, the Catholic Church, guided by the Holy Spirit is the final authority

Answer 3

Catholics have all the teachings of Jesus and the apostles (not merely those contained in scripture) which constitute authentic apostolic Tradition.

Catholics have 2000 years of practical application of the complete Christian faith, as learned and lived in every nation, throughout every age, all around the world, according to the nuances of he Holy Spirit and the grace of God, which constitutes authentic sacred Tradition.

Catholics have all the books of the Bible, including those the protestants left out (for purely political reasons) which constitute the bulk of the written portion of authentic sacred Tradition.

Catholics also have all the Councils of the Church, based on the model of the first Jerusalem Council, which was chaired by St. Peter, where all the bishops and the pope get together to hash out various theological and pastoral issues, and then jointly agree in writing, in the presence of God, on the proper course of action, and/or on the truth of the matter(s) at hand.

Catholics have an up to date, correct, and complete Catechism, which thoroughly correlates and explains how all these things fit together to constitute the only complete Christian faith present on the earth.

Catholics also have the continuous guidance of the church hierachy, the governors of the Church, in the persons of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, along with the pope and all the bishops, to help make Christian sense of all the rapidly changing events of the modern world.

All of these things together, have been painstakingly developed, structured, and documented over the centuries, and are available to anyone who cares to make use of them, whether Catholic or not.

The Pope remains the final authority, but even the Pope cannot change established dogmas of the Church.

Answer 4

The bible is important as it is the word of God. If you cannot believe something in the Bible, then say the it is a metaphor for something else and that God did not mean it that way. Everything in the Bible can be interpreted the way you want it. So you can decide what you would like to believe.

Answer 5

The Catholics base their beliefs on the Bible, however they have a few more chapters than the King James version used by Protestants. The cardinals interpret the teachings, as they apply to daily life and the pope is the final arbiter.

Answer 6

Catholic doctrine is based on a combination of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.
Scripture, you know what that is.
Tradition, is what has been handed down for millennia now, through the Church.
And Reason; many things we believe are mysteries and cannot be proved by reason, but anything that can be disproved by reason must be untrue.
Now, individual Catholics are about as independent as anybody else, and have sometimes been known to disagree with official Catholic doctrine.

Answer 7

straightforward answer ... Catholics have faith that the Church develop into given authority by Jesus Christ ... hundreds of years before any Bible ever existed ... and it develop into. The Church used that authority to assemble, write, and certify the scriptures, and to make different necessary provisions for the propagation of the authentic faith. consequently, the Catholic Church ... continues to be the only governing authority for the Christian faith ... and the Church will count on the Bible, custom, and the instructions of the Pope and the Bishops, alongside with the continued training of the Holy Spirit, to reach on the fact. on the grounds that this is strictly the way Jesus initially set issues up ... I project all and sundry to do from now on useful. besides ... "faith on my own" or "bible on my own" is to not be found everywhere interior the genuine scriptures. the two are fake doctrinal traditions of previous due day, non-Catholic Christianity. Peace and advantages to you.

Answer 8

The Roman Catholic Church sees Peter as the first pope upon whom God had chosen to build His church (Matthew 16:18). It holds that he had authority (primacy) over the other apostles. The Roman Catholic Church maintains that sometime after the recorded events of the Book of Acts, the Apostle Peter became the first bishop of Rome, and that the Roman bishop was accepted by the early church as the central authority among all of the churches. It teaches that God passed Peter’s apostolic authority to those who later filled his seat as bishop of Rome. This teaching that God passed on Peter’s apostolic authority to the subsequent bishops is referred to as “apostolic succession.”

The Roman Catholic Church argues that Scripture was given to men by the Church and therefore the Church has equal or greater authority to it.

Answer 9

I was taught by the nuns in Catholic School that any person who lived a righteous life, and followed their own conscience had as much of a shot at heaven as anyone else.

So I always took it to mean that my conscience should be my final authority.

Answer 10

The Pope has the final Authority and the Vatican Council decide the rules and regulations as I understand it.
Rev. TomCat