The Catholic Church
The Name given for the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church divinely founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, the visible institution whose sole purpose is to teach the one true religion revealed by God for the solace and salvation of mankind.
The word "Catholic" is derived from the Greek and means "universality." St. Ignatius,1 in the beginning of the second century (100 AD), first used the word to mean the Church of Christ which preached the same Faith handed down from the Apostles.
The Church is necessary for salvation. No one can hope to be saved by his own merits, outside the Church. Grace,2 which is the prime necessity for salvation, cannot be gained by anybody not a member of the true Church, who alone dispenses it through the Sacraments instituted by Our Lord. Outside this Church, there is no salvation.
Adam's sin closed the gates of Heaven. To restore favor with God, redemption of man's fallen nature was required. Through God's infinite mercy, a redeemer was promised in the Person of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ (Gen. 3:15). Throughout the ages, this promise was yearned to be fulfilled (Job 19:25; Ps. 18:15; Is. 49:26; 59:20), and it found fulfillment with the Incarnation and Nativity of Our Lord (Mt. 1:21; Lk. 2:11). God's satisfaction exacted a sacrifice: the death of His own Son, which was the ransom paid for our sins. Such is the tremendous price of our redemption, that it required a sorrowful passion and bitter agony with the death as the consequence.
Contrary doctrines and teachings.
The Church was not to be immune from attacks designed to destroy her. The Church's avowed enemy, Satan, from the onset had waged a continuous war against this Mystical Body of Christ. Early on, from the birth of the Church on Pentecost Day, wherein appeared the first heretic (Simon Magus), down through the ages to the present day, the onslaughts and attacks assail from every and all quarters. Yet, for 2100 years she still stands. And she will stand until the end of time. Our Lord's promise that the gates of Hell will never prevail is the guarantee that the Church He founded on the Rock (Peter) will last until the consumation of the world. This Church, the Divine Institution Jesus established for the salvation of souls, will reign in Heaven for all eternity, the Church Triumphant.
The Catholic Church has only ONE mission: the salvation of souls. This is expressed in the principle: "Lex suprema, salus animarum est." ("The supreme law is the salvation of souls"] It is the raison d'etre of her existence.
Misguided men, proud men, men with bad intentions, men with agendas, all
follow the First Protestant, Lucifer, into perdition.
"I will not serve"
was the cry that rang out in the heavens when God put to test the intelligent creatures He created to do Him honor, glory and service.
Non Serviam!
is also the proud cry of Luther and his followers, and all the others who also vowed "not to serve" with him (Luther) and formed their own religions based on misconceived and errorneous interpretations of the Bible, which they claim is their sole rule of faith and their means of salvation, of their right to the inheritance that God has prepared for Man and all creatures who love Him.
It is pride that blinds. It is the greatest sin -- the sin that created the
bad angels and their abode in the Pit of Fire. Sola Biblia, sola
scriptura, sola fide, are not the means which Christ intended to be the
rule in which one was to attain salvation. He established a Church
for that purpose and commisssioned Twelve men to do what He commanded, which
is summed as,
"Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all
things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days,
even to the consummation of the world." [Matthew 28:19-20]
Every Protestant and Bible reader knows this verse and even quote them, and
even go further and believe they too have this commission. But they
reject the Church founded by Christ and go by a compendium of books called
the Bible, and state that this book is sufficient for the economy of salvation,
and go thereabout and add or delete [words and phrases that do not agree
with them], though in their education they have come to know that Jesus never
commissioned a collection of books to be the means He intended the salvation
of men to be achieved, because it is by His grace that Man cooperates in
the salvation of his soul. The Church was in existence for 400 years
after Pentecost before the collection of books to be called "Bible," was
ever condified and canonized as the books that were inspired, for there were
many books, epistles and fragment of writings that existed that the Church
could not find to be inspirational and therefore not conducive to be read
in the light of Faith. The Canon of Scripture was finally codified
in the late Fourth Century (c. 390 AD), and thereby incorporated in the Deposit
of Faith, along with Sacred Tradition, oral and written, that was to be part
of what Our Lord left to His Church before He ascended to Heaven.
This deposit of Faith is in the domain of the Catholic Church, whose commission is to teach what is in this Deposit, through the teaching authority given to her by Jesus, which is known as the Ordinary/universal Magisterium. No one else has this authority, and to those who claim to have so, are challenged to produce this authority and from whence it was given. Some faith communities (Baptists, who do not wish to be called "Protestants"), who call themselves "churches" even go to the extreme and say they are the original Christians who go back to the early Church, but they cannot trace their lineage, because it does not exist, but given only on the word of one of their ministers, Mr. Spurgeon; and then they even go to another extreme to state that St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was a baptist himself. From where have such absurdities sprung?
To be saved, all errors and heresies must be abjured. retracted, recanted, and memebership in the One Church of Christ be sought. It is only here where there is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.
Authority is from God.
It is very clear in the Scriptures that God commissioned, educated, and sent the Twelve (APOSTLES) in to the world to spread His commandments. Nobody in the early days took it upon himself to say "I was sent by Jesus to preach" (as Protestant ministers claim, without proof of this Authority). If he did, he had to show the Authority that stated so. This would be an epistle or letter from one of the Apostles verifying the authenticity of the person claiming to be the authority of the Word. This system is divinely instituted: God the Father sent His Only Begotten Son into the world to pay the ransom demanded by death (Satan) for the release from his bondage and to open the gates of Heaven. The price was costly: it was demanded for no other than the Son of God become Man, suffer and die for man's sins. In turn, Jesus sent Twelve Apostles to continue His work; and these 12 Apostles chose disciples among the men who followed the teaching of Christ and sent them also to carry the message of salvation far and wide, unto the ends of the earth. Absolutely no one was entrusted with this commission unless he was a disciple of Jesus and His Apostles. Therefore, whosoever arrived in a hamlet, village, town and claimed to have been sent to preach (NB: NOT to be introduced to the Bible) by Sts. Peter, Paul, Matthew, et al., was met with the chanllenge: "What is your pedigree?" and where upon, he had to present a letter of recommendation to be accepted. This is what has become to be known as The Apostolic Succession, an unbroken line of teachers that trace their Christian lineage to either of the Apostles.
Not one of the 25,000 so called ministers of the false religions can do so. These are therefore not to be followed or regarded as authentic teachers of the Word because they are not. We have only to see what they teach and none of them agree with each other, each teaching a different doctrine, unmindful of the warning from St. Paul in Galatians 1:8 "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema." [This is repeated in Verse 9]
Whoever says then that salvation is attainable and reachable through reading a book, let him be anathema.3
If you are a Christian, or claim to be one, then you accept the
principle that all authority is from God, and that this authority
is commissioned and delegated. While the meaning of this principle
is probably lost on you, it is for the main reason that there is only One
Truth, One Way, One Life. If you don't teach what Jesus teaches, then
you are simply in error, brother. Why then do you question what God
has ordained...establishing a Church for salvation, authorizing men to carry
on His commandmants, thus instituting holy orders and apostolic succession
(A.C. = the need for it to show an unbroken line ... those without it
have
no authorized whatsoever, plain and simply stated).
You pay lip service to God by claiming the none existent authority. And you lead many unto destruction of their souls and into perdition. You who are claiming to be lead congregations, multitudes of believers, are giving them false hopes of salvation, because even if you say, "if you die tonight, you will be with Jesus," is simply not true. Only the righteous, the person with sanctifying grace in his soul, who has kept the commandments, has been baptized, believes, and preseverses until the end, he will be saved. You will have the great travail of explaining to God why you have led His sheep astray.
Nowhere in the Bible, particularly, nor in the annals of rocorded Christian history can the claim be found that Jesus established another church, or churches, or that the Church He founded on the Rock would be eclipsed and expunged and the true church(es) will emerge in or about 1500 years after and these will be the churches that will be the "new" foundation for the membership of those who wish to be saved.
Hierarchy
The Catholic Church is a hierarchy. It is formed according to the concept of God's hiearachy in His Kingdom. The Church can be said to be God's kingdom on earth.
What the Catholic Church is NOT: It is not a democratic institution or form of government, It is not a republic or republican in constitution. It is not a monarchy, although the monarchical form of rule was adapted from the Church theocratic form. The laws of the Church are absolute, where it pertains to faith and morals. There can be no questioning or dissent from them. Outside of faith and morals, are the disciplines which are to be obeyed and observed when they pose no immoral certitude of practice. The reason is for the smooth operation of the more important things the Church is concerned with, for which it is vested with the divine task of the salvation of souls.
As the Holy and undivided Trinity, the Beatific Vision, is the sole and only purpose for a Christian's aim to go to heaven, nothing else matters to him, neither family, friends, who if they are in Heaven with him, enjoy the same purpose he has persevered in his life to attain. Below the Holy Trinity is the Blessed Virgin Mary, the most exalted and venerated of all of God's creation. Then follow the Nine Choir of Angels, whose only role is for the glory of God and who incessantly are signing praises of Him, and all of God's faithful.
Thus patterened after the Hierarachy of Heaven, is the Catholic Church...
Footnotes:
1. "Where the Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be; even as
where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church''
2. Grace
[and
Justification]
3. Council
of Trent, SESSION THE FOURTH Celebrated on the eighth day of the month
of April, in the year MDXLVI.
DECREE CONCERNING THE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES