From another thread Re: What the Early Church believed about salvation
but deserves posting here, for the wider question it begs.
Quote Originally Posted by Viligant_Warrior
Viligant_Warrior said:
And ... ?? Did not those same "early church fathers" found the Catholic church, which to this day teaches salvation depends on works, not grace. Thankfully, many Catholics reject that teaching and believe that grace alone has saved them.
My answer:
"The catholic church does not teach that! No catholic believes what you say. I wish you would study the thing you insult, or maybe you have , and are knowingly bearing false witness against it? Most of what it said about RCC is a myth invented by such as you.
Here is what the catechism actually says: Go read it.
1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life"
And that of course is illustrative of a far more general problem.
Most of what is criticised about RCC is a myth!, so most of the arguments are straw men and false. I tire of batting them back and showing them up for the myths that they are!. I had to wade through so many of these false myths, coming from mainstream protestant, to evangelical, finally home in the RCC
In most walks of life, particularly in politics and religion, people seem to have a deep seated psychological need for "something to hate" and "something to blame" which seems to make them feel more worthy, and having chosen a butt for their hatred, they then consider that any old myth is acceptable in attacking their personal "bogey man", here chosen as RCC as demonstrated by in some cases just ranting take Jeff! for example..
I find that disappointing when those attacking are supposed to be christian, so are supposed value truth and ethics, but by their conduct they clearly do not, as demonstrated by "not very vigilant warrior" above. But he is only one of many.
I urge criticism of RCC to confine itself to the truth.
If they study it they would discover that RCC shares most of their core beliefs as christians, indeed the catechism is built in part around the nicene creed, which most christians could sign up for, provided they study the definition of church used in the catechism. What most assume RCC thinks the "church" is in that context is a wild guess and totally wrong. RCC definition, has nothing to do with buildings or hierarchies.
It saddens me in the OP here, that RCC is attacked because someone somewhere believed that "Mary Saves" , and whether or not the anecdote is a fair reflection or not misses the more important point, that it is not what RCC has ever taught so RCC is not to blame. All sorts of other dross is quoted on this thread like "RCC discourages laity to read the bible" when it is clear doctrine we must study the bible, and many papal statements going back centuries confirm that.
It does not really matter whether you agree or disagree with views on the fundamentals of catholicism such as real presence, or keys of authority for Peter, what cannot be denied is that there is a bonafide scriptural argument for why that is argued eg the reference back to davidic kingdom keys of eliakim, and what his role was, and even in many cases Luther shared such views! So like them or hate them, they are an interpretation of what is there.
And whether you like it or not, accept the fact as Luther readily admitted, that without the succession church that became later officially designated as RCC would not have the new testament at all! So our separated brethren, have at least something to thank it for. We are all christians, read the catechism to prove it! whether or not you dislike some beliefs!
So please all I urge is people study it, understand what it really believes, and criticise it
ON WHAT IT ACTUALLY BELIEVES if you feel you must not a lot of myths repeated so often they have gained the status of act whilst false!.
For sure indivdidual people are faulty and do bad things. No shortage of them anywhere, including in RCC, in which people have done horrendous things in the past, a lot of horrendous things, because the scale of RCC is **Huge** so has more bad people than most! But that only reflects on RCC if they are acting out the catechism and their vocation at the time. Judge it on doctrine and the reasoning behind it.
When we as christians focus around a cause rather than attacking each other, you see the good that can be done. The pro life rallys and action groups, have multiple denominations represented.