Did you know that the Catholic Church is the Church established by Christ Himself?

Question

Did you know that Jesus promised, "I will build my Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it"? (Matt. 16:18.) This means that his Church will never be destroyed and will never fall away from him. His Church will survive until his return. Did you know that 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. 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: Any merely human organization would have collapsed long ago. 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.
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 went all the way back to the time of the apostles.
Did any of you know these things? Did you know that when you insult, ridicule, or spit upon the Church, you spit upon the Body of Christ? PROTESTANTS: Did you know that when you insult, ridicule, or spit upon the Church, you spit upon the Church that canonized the New Testament in the 4th century and gave you your Bibles that you love to quote so often?
Has anybody learned something here? (I doub't it, but if I'm lucky, maybe one person will.)

LINK:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Pillar.asp

Answer 1

That's a one-sided presentation.

First of all, any church that persecuted, prosecuted and killed alleged "heretics" can hardly claim divine authority. Any church that sold indulgences to buy off men's sins can't possibly represent Jesus. The Inquisition. These are among the reasons for the Protestant Reformation. And make no mistake about it, reform was sorely needed. Sticking with the Bible for spiritual authority is the obvious fix and that is clearly the way to avoid the excesses of the Catholic church -- which simply made up its self-serving rules as it went along.

There is scant support in scripture for the authority of the Catholic Church -- and ALL of it is highly interpretive. I don't believe Jesus would have come to Earth to fulfill his destiny without paying a little more attention to setting up his church -- unless he had no SPECIFIC church in mind.

The fact is, because Jesus gave his church short shrift, early Christians were diverse in their beliefs about Jesus. This is precisely why Emperor Constantine convened the council of Nicea in 325 A.D. . . he wanted to unite the very fragmented Christians behind a single authoritative doctrine. This would make Christianity a much more powerful religion and accordingly much more useful once Emperor Constantine made it the state religion of the Roman Empire, the following year (326 A.D.).

The Catholic Church did NOT exist until 326 A.D. Emperor Constantine was politically motivated to unite the factions of early Christiandom. Once he did, THEN we had a Catholic Church -- The Roman Catholic Church. Before that, there existed only diverse and dispersed factions of early Christians.

Of course, becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire was a real boost for Christianity. It's only natural, from that point forward, that it would gain in stature and dominion. But that was due to the joining of church and state -- NOT because of overwhelming victories in the competitive arena of pagan religions. Christianity, if left to its own devices, MIGHT have converted everybody . . . but now we'll never know.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Rational-Debate
:-)
.

Answer 2

Jesus Christ founded the church with all those Apostles. Peter's preaching started the Jerusalem church, which because of the AD 70 Roman destruction, did not get its act together enough for a while to be a patriarchate until a few centuries later. I think its first bishop was
James.

Peter was the first bishop of Rome, yeah, but he was ALSO the first bishop of ANTIOCH.

The Antiochian succession of Bishops in
the Eastern Orthodox Church has as much petrine claim as Rome.

And the canons of some councils make it clear, that church organization was following secular power centers for convenience. Rome had a preeminence ecclesiastically, because it was preeminent in the world. Constantinople was a close second.

In 1054 AD, after a serious of tiffs between the Roman and Constantinopolitan bishops, which had hitherto been resolved eventually, and due
to the wrongful addition of the filioque to the Creed, without going through an ecumenical council to see if this was valid, and against most of the Apostolic and Patristic Fathers and The Bible, and a lot of politic playing by Charlemagne and others, Rome's emissary put a bull of excommunication on the altar at I think Hagia Sophia, which paper ended up in the dirt outside.

Rome pretends that the East is in schism, but it is Rome that is in schism.

Answer 3

plastikpunk said:
the church that Christ established died when all of the apostles were eventually martyred.

I reply:
Really? Maybe you should read Jesus' promises regarding the doctrinal integrity and the temporal perpetuity of hi Church: "On this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt 16:18); Behold, I will be with you always, even until the end of the world" (Matt28:20); "The Father...will give you another advocate to be with you always" (John14:16); "The Advocate, the Holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and remind you of all I have told you" (John 14:26); "But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth" (John 16:13).

You should look also at the many NT verses which speak of the Church as Christ's own body, such as Romans 12:1-5; 1 Cor 12:12-27; Eph 3:4-6; 5:21-32; and Col1:18. Since Christ is the mind and head of his Church (Eph 4:15-16), animating the body, the members enjoy an organic spiritual union with him (John 15:1-8). It's inconceivable that he would permit his body to disintegrate under the attacks of Satan. The apostle John reminds us that Jesus is greater than Satan (1 John 4:4).

Although, tragically, the gates of hell can and do prevail over individual Christians who succumb to mortal sin and cut themselves off from life-giving union with Christ (Rom 11:22; Gal 5:4; 2 Pet 2:20-22; 1 John 5:16-17), they can't prevail against the Church Jesus built on the rock of Peter. If they could - if they did - Jesus is made to look foolish for having taught, "Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, 'This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish' " (Luke 15:28-30).

Consider another of Jesus' promises: "I will ask the Father and he will send you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it because it remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans" (John 14:16-18). If Mormons are right about a complete apostasy, Jesus did leave us orphans - for 1700 years!!

God Bless
Robin

Answer 4

Did you know that a lot of what you have said contradicts other things you have said?

Did you know that a lot of what the Catholic Church now teaches contradicts things it has taught in times past?

Did you know the Bible says that a true church can be identified by what it teaches, not by how long it has been around? (Acts 17:11)

Did you know that the Catholic Church claims to have given us the Bible, but the Bible claims to be from God?

Did you know that the Bible, the Word of God, says that some will depart from the faith? (1 Timothy 4:1-3, 2 Timothy 4:1-4) If they depart, don’t they need to be restored? If a whole church departs, doesn’t it also need to be restored?

Did you know the church at Ephesus had left the faith and they needed to remember, repent and return (Revelation 2:5)? They could trace their history to the original church, but they were not the church God wanted them to be. Many of the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 had gone after strange doctrine and needed to be restored.

Did you know the Bible, that the Catholic Church claims it gave us, claims to be all we need for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction (2 Timothy 3:16-17), but the Catholic Church claims that doctrine needs to be changed from time to time? Can the Word of God be changed by men?

Did you know the Bible never refers to the office of a Pope?

Did you know that Jesus has “all authority” and the apostles were told to teach the things He had commanded? (Matthew 28:18-20) Did you know that if the Pope, or any other man, has any authority to establish new doctrine, then Christ no longer has all of the authority? Most is not the same as all.

Did you know that if we are “teaching as doctrine the commandments of men”, then our worship is “vain”, or useless, in God’s eyes? (Matthew 15:9) “We ought to obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:29)

If two churches teach different things, then they are not the same church (or religion). This is true whether they are separated by either miles or years! (Churches that teach different things must be following different standards of authority.)

The Catholic Church no longer teaches the same things the first century church taught, therefore they are no longer the same church!

Answer 5

not the "1st church" pa-leeezzzzzzzz
READ YOURSELF about the reformation and WHY martin luther (a priest) stood up to people he held in authority and protested when others were scared to do so, he put his life at stake as the catholic church wanted him dead for "daring to protest authority" and bring the actual truth of scriptures to the people who couldnt read for themselves. catholic authorities give themself authority to read the bible and keep their followers ignorant of the truth, have taken advantage of people in the past by getting indulgences/ money to 'get dead loved ones out of purgatory' or in modern times pay off preist sex offenders. wake up people
intelligent and strong people "break away" and rebel from authority or long time rulers because they follow truth and dont back down from world authority
so do you think
moses was an "offshoot" of egypt
noah "offshooted" at the time of the flood
christ was an "offshoot" of the jewish faith

just because something exists for a long time doesnt make it all authority, the devil has been around for much longer than catholics so does that make him authority?
and yes, they omit and add to scripture
omit: they teach Mary remained a virgin, read Matthew12:46
add: they say Mary was born without original sin and was taken from this earth body and soul without dying? where do you get this stuff? not from the scriptures......

.........organizations have "offshoots" for a reason, someone was brave enough to protest and hold fast to the truth

Matthew 20:26-28 ......"whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servent, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransome for many".

i'm sure not a day goes by without the pope being "served" at his "thone". this is not the way Jesus or even Peter chose to live.

Answer 6

Both the gospels and history indicate that Jesus formed a human organization to carry on his work after his return to the Father. He called this organization "my Church," and he appointed Simon (who Jesus nicknamed Peter, which means "Rock") to be the first leader.

This Church has had a continuous history. It did not "die off," nor was it organized centuries later by Constantine. The present Catholic church can show a continuous apostolic succession from the original Church--as can the orthodox churches.

The essential doctrine of the Catholic church is common to these orthodox bodies, and it was universal ("catholic") across all Christian communities in the early centuries.

Unlike Protestant organizations that do not share this historical continuity, the Catholic church does not evade its responsibility to preserve and defend Christ's teachings by restricting its source material to the Bible alone, or by granting individual Bible readers full interpretive authority. The Word of God for original Christians--including Catholics and the Orthodox--is Jesus himself.

We know about Jesus through the faithful witness of his Church (including writings not included in the Bible) as well as from the writings of the Church in the New Testament.

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 7

Yes you are correct 110%. Jesus established His church in 33AD. Around or about 45 AD, Peter went to Rome and from there lead the Catholic Church. As of today, there have been 263 Popes in direct succession to Peter. The position of Pope was established by Christ and the office has been maintained in an apostolic manner since the time of Christ. Although the Church has fragmented since the time of Christ with various leadership centers emerging, the apostolic line of succession in the Church is seated in Rome until this very day. Many throughout time have tried to rationalize away and deny the authority and structure of the Church as established by Jesus. In my heart I know that Catholic Church is the Church established by Jesus and has maintained a clear line of apostolic leadership to this very day. The Church has celebrated the sacraments and worshiped the Lord in essentially the same way since the time of Christ.

There Was Only ONE Church Founded By Christ

AND HIS CHURCH STILL LIVES TODAY. And that church is the Holy Roman Catholic Church

Answer 8

I would have a response to every one of you completely ridculcous and ludicrous assertions, however i do not have the time nor patience to do that, so i will just have to settle for answering only two:


"And i say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18.)

In this bible passage, we find that many interpret it to mean that Jesus directly stated to Peter that he was the foundation of the church, and it would be built off of him. However, understanding the context it was said in can allow us to say that Jesus was looking at the faith of Peter, and in so, would then be stating that the foundation of the Church would then be build upon faith, rather than a single person. This understanding also allows us to believe that all the Disciples were able to preach the Word of God, and thus spread it to the four corners of the world.


You also suggest that, " only the Catholic Church has existed since the time of Jesus? Every other Christian church is an offshoot of the Catholic Church."

The Malankara Indian Orthodox Church was directly started by St. Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. St. Thomas is believed to have sailed from the coast of Africa and followed many Jewish settlers of the time to the Malabar coast of India. Here, St. Thomas is said to have performed many miracles and convert many Brahmins and Jewish migrants to Christianiy. There is also a tomb located in that is said to be that of St. Thomas, as well as written documents from that time directly referencing St. Thomas and his missionary work. This allows us to understand that the Indian Orthodox Church was also started at the time of Christ, and was directly influenced by one of Jesus's disciples.


I would suggest that you behave more appropriately and be a better example to Christianity as a whole. Biased and misguided attempts to lambast other faiths and denominations is not what Christ would have wanted. When you begin to spout assertions of being the "best church" and that everyone else is wrong, you not only portray Christianity in a negative light, you also provide examples to those who condemn religion and allege that it is full of bigotry and hatred.

Answer 9

Wow! I am a Christian who has many catholic friends. I can tell you that indeed, the catholic church has a rich history! But, to say that Peter was the first Pope...for whom? A religion? Couldn't the same be said for Paul? After all, wasn't it Paul who took the Gospel outside the Jewish rhealm? Yes! It was! Peter hid for a long while as they were searching for him to kill him! He would not even receive Paul as he knew Paul before his conversion as was afraid of him!

So, do not come in here with your cocky Catholic attitude when most theologians see the Church as each one of us as Christ Called his followers..."my church." Now, who decided to change that directive from JESUS, himself to a man's ideology?

Jesus tells us to saty in the Word and to spread the gospel....do you, as a catholic? NO! I have taught Bible studies in a few Catholic churches and none read their Bible on a regular basis! They thought it the priests place to do that! NO! It is OUR place to do this so we are not fooled by satan or, false teachings!

I implore you, read for yourself and find the truths for yourself!

Answer 10

I doubt the divine origin part but it does always amuse me when Protestants claim that their religion is the oldest or the original or that Catholics aren't even Christians. They have no clue as to the history of their own religions.