The Catholic Faith for Beginners

Many people out there just don’t “get” the Catholic Church. Some think that it is some kind of a Babylonian “mystery” religion, “worshiping the fish god ‘dagon’,” like the Philistines did in the Book of Judges Chapter 16. Others think Catholicism is a pagan religion that worships a female deity or statues or both. Others think of Catholics as blasphemous, re-crucifying Jesus over and over again with each Mass.

Somebody named “Lorraine Boettner” even wrote a book called “Roman Catholicism,” which addresses all of her ignorant misconceptions about the faith of the apostles. Rather than addressing each of her assertions point by point, though, let’s go over exactly what the faith of the Coliseum martyrs is about.

The Original Christian Religion

First, we have the early writings of the Roman martyrs, who all professed to be Catholic. On this fact, there can be no debate. The problem is that many Protestants have been told to read only the Bible and nothing else. Therefore, they don’t know what was in the mind of the martyrs in the Coliseum. Some Protestants, including seminary graduates,  don’t even know about these writings and express surprise that they exist. Facts are stubborn things, it seems, and these very accurate historical writings prove that the apostles and their successors were ALL Catholic. I heard one Protestant preacher even say on TV that there were Protestants in the early Church, yet he could name no names and produce no writings. He just somehow “knew” this. In the thinking of many Protestants, their historical perspective of the Church ends with the book of Acts and picks up again in the 16th century, which eliminates 1500 years of Church accomplishments.

While the writings of the martyrs aren’t scripture and aren’t infallible, they do provide a commentary into how the early Church operated, and what was believed. For sure, these writings must be put on a higher level of truth than the explanatory footnotes in Protestant bibles.  For example, if I say 2 + 2 = 4, that is true, even if it doesn’t have the infallibility of sacred scripture.  The writings of the martyrs are just as true. For over 400 years, the Catholic faith was the only Christian faith around.  In 451 AD, the Coptic Church broke away from Peter, at the Council of Chalcedon, over a dispute on the two natures of Christ (human AND divine).  Then, the Orthodox Church broke away in 1054 AD. Basically, Orthodoxy is not under Peter and Rome, but is based in the country it resides in (Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, etc.). The Orthodox Church kept all seven sacraments, and its liturgy is very beautiful and traditional. It broke away over two basic things: First, the use of Latin instead of Greek in the Mass; and second, the debate over whether or not the Holy Spirit only proceeds from the Father (their position) or from both the Father and the Son (the position of Peter). 

In the 16th century, Martin Luther, a renegade Catholic priest, also told Peter goodbye and formed a new religion with new dogmas and named it after himself (Lutheran). His newly created dogmas of “Sola Scriptura” (the Bible alone), and “Sola Fide” (faith alone), while sounding great, have caused the splintering of Christianity into thousands and thousands of different sects over the years, which means that Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 (that we all may be one), and Jesus’ admonition in John 10:16 that there shall be one flock and one shepherd has yet to be fulfilled.  Some Lutheran liturgies center around music, scripture reading, the preacher’s preaching, and a communion service called “consubstantiation,” which is their belief that Jesus is in the bread but the bread is still just bread. 

Some Protestants only believe in a symbolic meaning of Communion, with neither transubstantiation (the bread and wine are changed into Christ) nor consubstantiation. Luther rejected the Lord’s supper as a “sacrifice,” stating that Christ was sacrificed once and for all 1500 years ago. So, with no sacrifice, there is no need for an altar (a sacrificial table). That means that Protestants have altar calls (parishioners come forward to publicly profess their belief in Christ) with no altar! Luther erroneously preached that once we accept Christ as our savior, a legal imputation of His righteousness clothes us, even though we are not righteous. The Catholic view is that salvation is not a legal imputation in a courtroom, but is rather a family affair, involving both Christ’s heavenly family, and our earthly one. 

The sacramental grace first received at Baptism initially justifies us and then further sanctifies us over time (through continual reception of the grace-filled sacraments), if we truly accept Christ in our hearts and live our lives for him. This is impossible for humans, unless we receive lots and lots of God’s grace. (Grace is a share of divinity and thus overcomes our humanity.)

Jesus’ Authority

In Matthew 21:43, Jesus took away the authority of the Jews regarding the faith: “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.” He had already given this authority to Peter and the Church: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matthew 16:19).” So here it is plain that Jesus didn’t give His authority to every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Martin who disagreed with God’s teachings, but, instead, to Peter (the Papacy) and His Church.  

Do Clergy Abuse Scandals Negate the Authority of the Church?

Some will complain about all of the homosexual priest/bishop/Cardinal scandals in the Church today, and then say that this somehow proves that the Catholic Church is not the one true Church. But the Baptist Church has just been found to have a lot of sex scandals as well. These scandals are in addition to Protestant preachers who preach the false “health and wealth gospel” and love of money, along with the Reverend Jim Jones poisoning his flock, the Reverend David Koresh in Waco and his young harem there, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson and his love child. So it would seem that Jesus’ warning (Matthew 13) that there would be tares mixed in with the wheat in His flock has certainly come true in all faiths. None of these scandals mean that the Church is evil; rather, it just means that there are scoundrels who pretend to be holy (like Judas) in each and every generation.

Priests

So are there priests (a priest offers sacrifice for sins) in the New Testament? Yes, they were installed at the Last Supper, when Christ told his apostles to “Do this in remembrance of me.” That word “remembrance” in Greek is “anamnesis,” which means a memorial sacrifice. In the Bible, only priests can offer sacrifice. Later on in the Bible, the term presbyter is used, which is translated into our modern word of priest. “Presbyter” is distinguished/different from “cohen,” which was a Jewish priest. In John 20: 21-23 , Jesus breathes on his apostles, and gives them (His priests) the power to forgive sins in His name. Forgiving sins in the name of God was something only priests could do in the Old Testament on the day of Atonement. This is why the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 that he has the ministry of reconciliation (confession), as he too was a priest.​

Complete Bible

At the Council of Rome in 382 AD, Pope Damasus I infallibly declared the canon of the Bible to be the current 73 books of the Bible, 46 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. Luther threw out seven books he didn’t like less than 1200 years later, which is why Protestant bibles only have 66 books in their abridged version of scripture.

Mass

As it is in the Bible, sacrifice is offered at each Mass. The Holy Mass is not just a religious service with singing, a sermon, scripture reading, and a symbolic last supper service. It is the one-time sacrifice of Jesus, which began at the Last Supper and was completed at Calvary (“It is finished.”), re-presented through time and space, daily, for each generation. The Mass is the greatest event in the universe today, because, in it, Jesus comes down from Heaven through the power of the Holy Spirit, at the command of His priest, to change the blood and wine on the altar into His most precious Body and Blood.   

Leviticus 17:11 says that “The life is in the blood,” so by partaking of the Eucharist (Greek for “Thanksgiving”), we get a divine blood transfusion that permits the actual blood of Christ to flow in our arteries and veins.  This is why the devil hates the Mass so much, and tries to shut it down in Communist countries.  The Mass on earth for one hour or so participates in the continual Mass in Heaven::

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12: 22).

Sacraments

Sacrament is the combination of two words in Latin, “sacrae,” which means “sacred,” and “juramentum,” which means “oath.” Every time a Catholic participates in one of the seven sacraments (baptism, confirmation, confession, Eucharist, marriage, holy orders, and last rites), he is swearing a sacred oath that he believes in the covenant relationship of the Catholic Church and its founder, Jesus Himself (Matthew 16:18). This is why non-Catholics are not able to receive Catholic sacraments.

Communion of Saints

The Catholic Church is not just the Church on earth (the Church Militant), but it is also the Church Suffering (those souls being purified and made perfect in purgatory), and the Church Triumphant (those souls who are now in heaven). Every time someone tells me that Mary or some saint that I pray to is dead, and can’t hear our prayers, I just remind them of Luke 20:38, where Jesus Himself tells us that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Mary says in Luke 1:46 that her soul magnifies the Lord (makes Jesus larger, clearer, and more in focus in our life), and for sure, Mary’s soul is still alive in heaven, continually magnifying the Lord!

Purgatory

The Catholic belief in purgatory, a temporary place of refining souls as gold in the furnace, follows the Jewish belief of prayers for the dead, known as the “Mourner’s Kaddish.” In the Bible, St. Paul prays for the dead Onesiphorus in 2 Timothy 1:16-18, which would make no sense if he was either in heaven or hell.  St. Paul also describes purgatory in 1 Corinthians 3:12:15:

Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

The Four Marks of the Church

The four marks of the Catholic Church are as follows:  One, holy, Catholic (universal), and apostolic!