Wow, I'm reading this thread and all I can see is attacks against the Pope and the Catholic Church. We Protestants need to remember the parables about the splinter in the Catholic Church's eye and the log in our own eye. And also the parable about the Pharisee/Protestant in the temple who could find every kind of shameful fault with the tax collector/Catholic but he couldn't see any of his faults.
So why does everyone on this thread fail to notice what we 'Bible Believing/Holy Spirit Guided' Christians are doing?
1. Homosexuality is clearly defined as an abomination. Yet many of our Protestant brothers/sisters/churches are not only accepting homosexuality, they are bringing it into their churches and giving gay marriages 'God's blessing' in formal rites of their church. WOW!!!!!!!! Sinking into the abyss.
2. How many of our Protestant churches have fallen to the 'Gospel of Prosperity' where all the emphasis is on worldly goods? A far cry from what Jesus taught.
3. How come we Protestants all have the same Scripture/Bible, yet while we're attacking the Catholic Church because we don't agree with them we can't even agree with each other on many major contentions of the faith. That's why we have 40,000 different Protestant denominations in this country. We can't agree with each other but we'll save our attacks for the Catholics.
4. The Pope is an authority figure for Catholics. But we Protestants have our own authority figures. Try disagreeing with your Pastor's interpretation of Scripture and see how long he let's you stay in 'his' church. Protestants can't agree with each other and many have set themselves up as our own little Popes, they decree what Scripture interpretation is correct.
5. Referencing all the scandals that the Catholic Church has faced currently and over the last 2,000 years, we Protestant Christians seem to bury and forget our own scandals, and there are many indeed!
6. I could go on and on, but there's not enough time to put forth all of our Protestant failures and moral corruptions. The BIG QUESTION IS, "WHY ARE WE POINTING THE FINGER OF BLAME AT OTHERS INSTEAD OF LOOKING AT OURSELVES.?" Remember the 'Picture of Dorian Gray'.
So, what's wrong with this picture? Just wondering??????????