The Reach of The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is the one institution that has had the most impact on this world, bare none.  No other organization has lived through so many different world orders.  Many different world orders have seen their sunrise, their flourishing, and their sunset. The Church has been there and has witnessed it all. 

The Catholic Church has been a beacon through many tough periods in history. During the Dark Ages, she kept the light of human knowledge burning through her monasteries and learned monks. She formed the first institutions of higher learning, gave birth to what we call the modern hospital, and through it all she has always taught the truth of the Gospel without change and without bowing to the wisdom of the current trends in secular thought. For the Church, the truth that Christ taught, the truth that the Holy Spirit infused into the Church, the truth that the apostle passed down from the beginning remains the truth that is taught today. She has been a faithful steward of and protector of the Deposit of Faith. 

The Catholic Church alone bears the marks of what the true church should be.  She is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic.  She seeks to unite all under One Body and One Blood. The denominations by their very nature only serve to weaken the unity that Jesus Himself called for at the Last Supper.  When Martin Luther, filled with sinful pride, to an ax to the root of the one, singular, holy church that Christ founded he began a process that continues until today, the removal of pebbles from the Rock that is the foundation of the Church.  The Church is in no danger of falling as Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against her.  So despite the miasma of a multitude of "truths" being taught in the name of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church remains today as it was in the beginning, the organization that keeps alive the true teachings of Jesus Christ on earth.  

The Catholic Church reaches deeply into modern society.  She is the voice that will not allow the conscience of man to fall asleep. She is hated by those who would rather give vent to the evil in their hearts.  She is despised by those who want to live in the cold and silent darkness of sin and who perpetuate a culture of death.  

The Church through the centuries has been the first to dispense alms to the needy, to victims of famine, and disease.  She is the only organization who waits for opportunities to be of service. In her charity, she does not ask a man's religion nor does she weigh his wallet.  Where there is a need she gives. 

She is the very Bride of Christ but those that hate her describe her as the whore of Babylon because their eyes are blinded to the good fruit the Catholic Church has brought forth through the centuries. Instead, she is accused of killing more people than were alive at the time of the Inquisitions, while the truth is that few perished because of these courts and many more were brought to salvation.  In our own times, she was accused of working hand in glove with the Nazi government and keeping a sinful silence at the plight of the Jewish people at the hands of Hitler.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Pope Pius, at the end of the war, received and thanks from many Jewish leaders for the people he saved by hiding them in monasteries and in Vatican City itself.  

The Roman Catholic Church is the Church that Christ founded. As such, she is the vehicle of salvation for mankind.  Other denominations cannot say this about themselves.  The fact remains that the very Bible that these denominations, was pulled together under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  The Church decided upon the Canon of Scripture that served everyone for fifteen-hundred years until the reformers led by the arch-criminal Luther removed from the Sacred Pages whole books that did not fit into their novel and unbiblical views of salvation. 

The Roman Catholic Church, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic organization was firmly built by Christ on the rock that was Peter.  The current Pope can trace his lineage back in an unbroken line to Peter.  Never in two-thousand years has even one Pope taught error from the Chair of Peter and there have been some very bad popes indeed!  In spite of the fact that there were some popes who had only their own pockets in mind, even they did not endanger the purity of God's truth by teaching error. Quite the contrary, the evil popes taught nothing as they lined their pockets and ran roughshod over the commandments of God.  The fact remains that the good popes have outnumbered the bad ones by a vast majority.  It should be noted that the Pope is protected from teaching error, but he is not protected from committing sin. Those that state that the Catholic Church cannot be the church of God because these bad popes ruled forget that these men were just that, men, able to commit acts of great turpitude such as the evil popes did or committing acts of great holiness as the saintly ones did. 

So, reject the Catholic Church at your peril. The Church believes that everyone who calls Jesus "Lord" is a fellow Christian even if they are not in full communion with the Church and they can and will attain heaven if they lead holy lives for God sees no difference in Gentile or Jew, man or woman, slave or free.  However, he has given His Church great tools and powers in the Treasury of Faith to ensure that we come to be with Him in heaven.  The way to heaven is a narrow and sometimes steep road.  The Church provides places in which to place your feet and stepping stones to help ease the journey.  The Church will bring you to the Valley of Peace, where pain no longer exists and we will once again be one flock with one Shepherd who is the Lord.