What The Protestants Don't Understand About The Catholic Church # 1 of a Series

Maybe the title of this post is just a bit too broad.  The truth be told there is a lot of things that the Protestants do not understand about the Catholic Church in general.   I don't want you to think that this post is going to serve as a general condemnation of those who are outside of the Catholic Church, far from it. Those entrapped in Protestant denominations are there because their parents were Protestants and their parents before them, going down a long line until we arrive in the 1500's when a Roman Catholic monk and priest tore asunder the unity of the Church and in doing so stepped outside of the will of God as expressed to us by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  Martin Luther made a huge mistake when he decided to carve up God's kingdom on earth.  For 1500 years there was, as Jesus wanted, unity in the Church. There were no questions about the things that we were to believe because in the face of controversy there was an authority to bring these issues to for final determination.  That authority was the Pope.  But, Jesus never did create an office of Pope, that is not in the Bible!  Jesus did create a leader for His Church and that leader was Peter.  In later years we began to call the Bishop of Rome, the Pope.  It is a title that differentiates the Bishop of Rome from all of the other bishops. While he is a man and as a man is capable of sinning and of making mistakes, it is Catholic belief, backed up by scripture, that the Pope when teaching on faith or morals from the chair of Peter, that he is protected from teaching error.  For two thousand years, there has never been a pope that has taught error or heresy. And please note that I am including the bad popes, the ones who are most likely teaching religion to Judas and bin Laden in the deepest, hottest, and most forlorn regions of hell.  These bad popes had no time to bother about religion.  They spent their time engaging in pursuits of the flesh and making money and keeping their power and so they never taught heresy or error, they never taught anything. 

But why do we need a pope at all?  Martin Luther and other reformers taught that the Word of God could be understood by the simplest person with the help of the Holy Spirit. Well, when you have a lack of authority you have anarchy. The spirit of anarchy haunts the Protestant church to this day.  If you want proof, just look to history.  Martin Luther cut asunder the Church, which did need some reforms when he did so, there is no doubt about that. If after he did so there remained only the Catholic Church and Luther's creation, then maybe there would be a case for the reformation being decreed by God.  But that did not happen.  Not long after Luther left the Church, some of his fellow reformers found fault with some of his ideas and they broke away and formed another body of believers.  Soon, scripture was interpreted again and there were more splits.  Today, there is the Catholic Church and about forty-thousand denominations.  These denominations owe their birth to forty-thousand different interpretations of scripture. This presents us with a problem.  It is said that the Holy Spirit will help a person interpret scripture. So, my question is simple. Is the Holy Spirit psychotic? Does He keep changing His mind about what the scripture He inspired means?  If something in Scripture is true for the Lutherans, then why is it not true for the Baptists? 

The fact is Jesus knew that questions would come up. Remember that he was fully human, he knows how we think and act.  He was one of us and experienced life just as we do,  He was aware of our limitations.  In his final prayer to the Father, he made it a point to say that we should be one as He and the Father were one.  Earlier he provided us with His solution to the fact that humans would be running His Church.   He appointed Peter as the first leader and gave him the keys to the kingdom.  He was in fact made the prime minister of the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth.  Secondly, Jesus made it clear that Peter would be endowed with a special charism in that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church of Jesus.  Jesus created an earthly authority and protected that authority by placing it under the protection of the Holy Spirit. 

This authority is exercised by Peter and his successors.  The Bishop of Rome is where the buck stops.  In scripture, we see that when the Church had a problem, such as the discussion of circumcision for non-Jewish converts at the Council of Jerusalem, there was a lively discussion but it ended when Peter stood up and told them it was not right to put this burden on the Gentile converts.  Peter, the chief Apostle, the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, made the decision. The others accepted the decision because Peter was the authority.

So, Martin Luther got it wrong. He used an axe and cut the Church into pieces and that division continues today,  So, in conclusion, we humans are walking, talking ego's and we do not like to listen to others especially when it comes to religion.  But Jesus knew how important it would be to have an authority and so He decided to appoint a prime minister for His Kingdom.  He also would protect his minister from teaching error and thus keep his kingdom whole. 

There is much more to say on this subject, but the Church has a document that is much more erudite than I am that goes into greater detail.  It is called the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  It is available free online and it tells all of the beliefs of the Church along with the scriptural basis for the teachings.  The sad part of it is that many Protestants, especially "evangelicals"  would rather live in ignorance of what the Church really is about because to know the truth would challenge the basis of their faith.