Pope’s Document – Other Churches are Defective or not True Churches
Why are Protestant Churches Shocked at the Pope’s Document – It was the Catholic Church’s Position long before the Protestant Reformation!
July 11, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
I have written this blog in response to the Associated Press excerpts and quotes made by the Pope in an excellent article by Nichole Winfield.
There is a popular m
isconception that became quite apparent to me when I went into the Air Force during the Korean War.
There were three very common religious classifications on the dog tags – You were either Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish. I had them stamp “Baptist” on mine, because I am not a Protestant, I am a Baptist, in that I follow the rule of faith and practice of those Baptists today who still use the New Testament
for their rule and faith of practice.
Revelation 18:7 – How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow,
and shall see no sorrow.
I believe this Scripture refers to the Catholic Church. The first of the many types of Anabaptists did not come out of the Catholic Church during the great Protestant Reformation. They were not classified as reformers, but heretics by the Catholic Church, but only because
they held on to the truth under great persecution, and refused to accept the baptism of the Catholics.
If one tries to trace the Anabaptists back to the cross they will pass through many different types of Anabaptists not remotely similar in doctrine and practice. Some did come out of the Protestant Reformation, but the name has been around since the third century, and, in some cases, the only thing they all had in common was that they re-baptized those to came to them if they were not of like faith and order.
HOW DO I RELATE TO THOSE GROUPS CALLED ANABAPTISTS BEFORE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION?
Even catholic history confirms Baptist existence from 324 A.D.! In 1524 Cardinal Hosius, President of the Council of Trent, made the following statement:
“Were it not that the Baptists have been grievously tormented and cut off with the knife during the past 1200 years, they would swarm in even greater numbers that the reformers.”
The 1200 years were the years preceding the great Protestant Reformation, during which the Roman Church persecuted Baptists with the most cruel persecution possible.
(1524 A.D. minus 1200 = 324 A.D.) The irregular churches united with the Roman State under Emperor Constantine in 313 A.D., and the persecution of regular churches was initiated by 324 A.D.
Unfortunately, when the Protestant Reformation began during the lifetime of Cardinal Hosius, the groups breaking away from the Catholic church brought out sufficient error to still be classified as irregular in most cases, and those breaking off the Protestant churches since that time have become even more irregular.
If you try and trace the history through the name of a church or group you will discover more different types than you could ever imagine. The only way you can be sure you are in a local church of which Jesus approves is this – Does it follow the teachings of the New Testament
?
The question each local church should address is this – are we a regular or irregular church in faith and practice in the eyes of our head and founder, Jesus Christ? Are we following the teachings once delivered to the saints in the New Testament, particularly as they relate to salvation, baptism, security of the believer, the Lord’s supper, and the church as being local and visible – those are the doctrines the Catholic Church has corrupted, which many Protestant Reformation churches carried out of the mother with them and, like leaven, these errors spread through the whole loaf I will call the family of God.
Jude 1:3 – Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
Begin Selected Paragraph Excerpts from Associated Press Article
Extracted from Yahoo.com
Pope: Other Christians not true churches
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer
July 10, 2007
Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Benedict headed before becoming pope, said it was issuing the new document Tuesday because some contemporary theological interpretations of Vatican II’s ecumenical intent had been “erroneous or ambiguous” and had prompted confusion and doubt.
The new document — formulated as five questions and answers — restates key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, “Dominus Iesus,” which riled Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the “means of salvation.”
The commentary repeated church teaching that says the Catholic Church “has the fullness of the means of salvation.”
“Christ ‘established here on earth’ only one church,” said the document released as the pope vacations at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore, in Italy’ s Dolomite mountain
s.
The other communities “cannot be called ‘churches’ in the proper sense” because they do not have apostolic succession — the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ’s original apostles — and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid, it said.
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