I received the following email, to which I responded in my usual direct style pulling no punches till the end. I present it in case it might be of use to other confused and lazy “Christians”. My replies are interspaced with the email.
UPDATE: There is a very nice follow up at the end.
Hi Guiseppe, [tsk, tsk, mispelling my name…not a good start!]
I have been reading through some of the things on your blog re: Catholicism. Thank you for taking the time to write about these matters – I think nothing could be more important than understanding reality and what is actually true, and then in light of that figuring out how to live. I read your book “Believe”, and I listened to your conversation with David the Good about his conversion to Catholicism – I ended up contacting him and having a great conversation with him about those matters. My own religious background is quite similar to his – a tour from non-denominational Bible believing church through calvary chapel “no creed but Christ” through southern baptist to reformed Calvinist to charismatic to… maybe Catholic. That’s the question. I have believed in God and had a sense of Him with me since I was 5, and all the way through all these churches I haven’t really cared about all the minutiae of the denominational differences, I have just been seeking the truth, seeking to be as close as possible to God, to live in a manner pleasing to Him, and to find others who are like-minded.
That’s the context. I am emailing you to ask a couple questions and see if you would be willing to provide clarification and help.
1 – As I understand it, one of the main differences between Catholicism and Protestantism (ignoring for a minute the question of whether sedavacantism is true Catholicism. Let’s just say “Catholicism” means “Catholicism in 1900” for the purposes of the catholic/protestant questions) is that Catholics ascribe to a set of rules determined by the church (guided by scripture and tradition), while Protestants believe each person has to interpret the Bible and come up with a set of rules individually.
But, here’s the thing: every person has to use their individual judgement. Even Catholics had to use their individual judgement in order to become (or choose to stay) Catholic, and they still need to use some level of individual judgement to figure out how to apply rules in particular situations. Protestant churches don’t just say “do whatever you want” – they teach people to look at scripture, use logic, use your judgement and ask God for help, learn from other wise people, look at interpretations in good faith and also learn from the church – that’s why there are books and sermons and seminaries. I mean that’s why you’re sedevacantist – you’re looking at the information and making your own judgement. It seems to me that a loving God would want His people to use their brains and wills and judgement and follow Christ (ie become disciples) not just blindly follow rules. What if He kept the authority in the Catholic Church for a while to establish it, but then once people were ready (and the possibility of Bibles being widespread became a reality due to the printing press) He called His people to the next level of reading and interpreting scripture for themselves, not just allowing a priest to do it for them?
How’s that working out so far, Church wise and historically? Do you really think the average person today is more or less debauched that the average Catholic has been from the year say 300 to today? The reality is Protestantism is DIRECTLY responsible for the secularisation of Christianity. By the Abandonment of marriage being indissoluble it leads directly to sex for fun instead of procreation, which leads to contraception and abortion and the literal destruction of the family unit.
As for your question about “using your own common sense” it is an indisputable fact recognised by wise men throughout the existence of humanity that most people are complete idiots. As an analogy, how do you think things would work out if we let everyone just be “their own engineer” and figure out tolerances and safety factors in buildings by themselves instead of following a set of rules to ensure bridges don’t collapse along with everything else beyond a mud hut?
Or if you prefer, how about we let you determine on your own how to figure out things like areas under curves instead of give you prescribed rules to follow in order to use calculus?
A human’s ability to make his own mind up to a certain extent does not preclude him from sticking to the rules that have proven true for millennia in a row, providing good results when followed and catastrophic ones when not. Do I really NEED to understand the totality of the Trinity in order to be Catholic? Or more mundanely, why Priests should be celibate? No. I do not, since I am not writing a treaty on the Trinity nor intend to become a priest. I can simply accept the Church’s position on it and move on.
That sure sounds like what the Bible says in 1 John 2:27: “But the Holy Spirit that you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as His Holy Spirit teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie – just as it has taught you, abide in Him.” And it also goes along with the idea that ALL believers are priests to the world (1 Peter 2:9: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness and into His wonderful light.”) But maybe Protestantism is unbalanced – too much emphasis on individuals figuring out their own path, and Catholicism is both: using your own judgement but also accepting a clear set of rules and a clear authority outside yourself. What do you think?
Obviously. Who are Peter and John referring to? Who are they writing to? Random Heathens proclaiming themselves as “Jesus followers”, or baptised believers heading up a Church established by Jesus on Earth? In fact both passages taken in context are literally a warning against heretics! Do you not think that the behaviour of a Catholic following Church rules is going to reflect on Catholicism? Is it not the duty of every Catholic to spread the gospel? And should a Catholic require some Muslim or Atheist, or whatever to teach Him anything about God? He is writing to people who are already Catholic on how to comport themselves when facing non-believers.
2 – You brought this up with David the Good, and I think a blog post or two as well: asking the question of what Protestants think of the first 1500 years of church history – where was their church? Here’s my answer. Christ established His church when He was on earth with Peter and the other apostles, and told them to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and teaching them to do everything Christ had told them, and that He would surely be with them always. And when He was about to go to the cross, He told His disciples that when He was physically gone, it would actually be better for them, because the Holy Spirit would come be with them to guide them. (John 16:7, 16:13). So from the beginning the church was defined as disciples of Christ: those who followed and loved (and therefore obeyed) Him, and the guide for the church was the Holy Spirit himself working through people. So the church spread, and more people came to believe and follow Christ, and it became bigger and more organized, and they worked out rules of how to allow Gentiles into the church, and figured out how to follow Christ in all the different contexts that came up. And it became eventually bigger and bigger, and more and more formalized as more situations were faced and more rules were made about how to apply the words and spirit of Christ in various situations. But all the while the mark of the true body of Christ did not change – anyone could be a disciple who believed Him, loved and obeyed Him and was therefore given the Holy Spirit.
This is abysmally ignorant. And there is no point in any further discussion until you have demonstrated at least a shred of honest intent in curing that ignorance.
Let’s start with a few questions as an exercise for you to answer:
1. Who put the Bible together?
2. How many Popes had existed by that time?
3. There are AMPLE books on the various heresies and heretics that the Catholic Church rejected and excluded even prior to this as well as after. Read up on them.
You have literally ignored history, the bible itself and every saint and martyr, the crusades, the doctors of the church and so on that existed for the first 1500 years of the Church.
ALL the fundamental structures of the Church, including Popes, existed for 3 centuries BEFORE the Bible was even compiled. Do you not see the level of cognitive dissonance present in your simply glossing over these major facts as if they didn’t exit and it was just all some amorphous band of hippies singing kumbaya together for centuries until out of the blue, the EEEEVIL Catholic Church sprang up? It’s a level of complete avoidance of the facts on par with saying that the Second World War never happened and it was just a few letters exchanged by German pen-pals with British ones that went a little sour!
And NO. It is not at all true that anyone could be a “disciple” of Christ. The APOSTOLIC tradition of giving VALID authority to people who actually taught what the apostles taught from the start was well established before the Bible was even put together! In fact it is one of the primary ways in which heresy was kept out of the Church! Especially before the Bible was compiled. It is literally how people could trace that the teachings were genuine. Only apostle-approved people could teach in the Church (i.e. Bishops) who then approved VALID Priests, not all of whom would go on to become Bishops. Again, ignoring apostolic succession is basically so historically ignorant it is up there with belief in a flat Earth.
But over time the human part of the church grew and grew and became corrupted and encrusted with barnacles of legalisms and bureaucracy and self-serving rules that did not express the Spirit of Christ (similarly to how the pharisees had added more and more rules and bureaucracies to the law of God given to Moses.
Again, nonsense, and again, utter ignorance on display of Church history. The Jews formalised 613 “laws” that are a lawyer’s wet dream of extended and nonsensical pedantry mixed in with perversion. The Rules of Catholicism (i.e. Christianity) are simple enough illiterate peasants can understand and follow them. The “legalism” is really only to explain (with references) where a certain rule comes from, which inevitably leads back to Tradition (from before the Bible) and/or the Bible itself. So for example, why should priests be celibate? If you are unaware of Church history this will be a mystery to you. As well if you haven’t bother to read the New Testament. If you have done both, it is clear and obvious.
Christ constantly rubbed the contrast between the rules of men and the true spirit of the law in their faces – ie all the times He healed on Sabbath). So then in 1500 the reformers broke through, cleaned off the barnacles and corruptions as best they could, and the body of Christ continued on, with true believers within the Catholic Church AND within various denominations of the Protestant church.
Again, nonsense. The logic is nonsensical at best if not insane, and the results speak for themselves.
1. Corrupt individuals in the Church never altered dogma one iota. Any who did were cast out as heretics, apostates, or infiltrating enemies of God. Over 40 Popes before 1958 were thus labelled, so this was not exclusive to random lay people.
2. The rules of the Catholic Chruch have (when followed) led to the unquestionably best societies mankind has ever seen. Protestantism has taken 500 years to destroy most of those advances and the underlying skeleton still upholds most of what is decent in the West and in the world.
3. Most Protestant churches are literally a business. And the “prosperity gospel” they sing is led by charlatans trained in mass hypnosis techniques like NLP.
4. Go on, tell me the requirements for being a “valid” Christian that fits all the “valid” Protestants. I’ll wait.
Oh good, I see you made an attempt here below…
The thing that defines the true church is believing in the reality of who God is – the loving and pure and completely Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit (but that’s not enough, even the demons get that far), and making an act of will (actually many acts of will) to trust Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and completely devote yourself to follow and love and serve God always (aka “confessing Jesus is Lord”, becoming a disciple, denying yourself, picking up the cross and following Christ, etc – all ways of describing the same thing, turning from darkness to light, from self to Christ).
Which is ALL Blah, blah, blah, and I begin to “refute” all of it according to at least 26,943 deonominations of Protestantism that will try to equate your “act of will” (a meaningless phrase if ever there was one) with “works” which they deny are required at all. And equally “refuted” by the other 25,000 denominations of Protestantism that believe in ONCE SAVED ALWAYS SAVED. What acts of will are you even talking about, you near-Catholic! No, no, you just have to say Jesus is your boyfriend and you’re forever saved!
So now here we are, with a bunch of visible churches – a bajillion Protestant denominations, various flavors of Catholicism (ie traditional, charismatic), Orthodox, sedevacantism, etc, and only God knows what the Venn diagram overlap is between the visible church (anyone who calls themselves a Christian) and the invisible church (true Christians – true followers – true disciples, filled with the Holy Spirit and bearing the family resemblance to their Father).
Again, absolute nonsense regarding there being “flavours” of Catholicism. There is only ONE Catholic Church, always has been, always will be. The Novus Orco fake impostors are Satanists pretending to be Catholic. That’s it. Anyone thinking any of the fake Popes is legitimate is a moron, a liar or a satanist. That is all. There isn’t a “traditional” and a “charismatic” version of Catholicism. There is Catholicism, which follows what it always has, the infallible magisterium of the Church, which was compiled into one document in 1917, and then there is everything else, which is not Christianity.
Secondly, NO. There is ONLY one Church that is valid, and true and currently you need to follow the Bible and SEEK before you find it, which is still a million times easier than it was in say the year 400 under Roman persecution. There is no sense whatever in a Loving God that “hides” or makes it impossible for a human being that cares to know which is the real church. It’s a retarded concept. Like saying a father has children but never gives them any way of knowing that he is their father, for no reason at all other than what? Letting them be free to choose? It’s rubbish. Any loving father will say: Here I am son/daughter, and this are the rules of life that are best for you to be happy and healthy. The children then are free to listen or not and consequences will follow.
So why would someone need to belong to the Catholic Church specifically? Is it that you think the Catholic Church is the one that’s the closest to the teaching and Spirit of Christ, so it’s the best option for a visible church to be part of?
For a very simple reason. Not being Catholic and part of the Church means you end up in Hell. As Jesus specifically stated: You can only get to Heaven through him, the road to Hell is wide and well travelled, and the only way to Him is through His Church.
One more question for you: Peter’s name was Simon. Why did God (Jesus) change it to Peter?Answer in full please.
Jesus said “I am the vine, you are the branches – if a man remains in me and I in him he will bear much fruit – apart from Me you can do nothing” – so wouldn’t staying in Christ be the thing that defines whether someone is in the true church, instead of staying in a particular visible church be the thing that defines whether you belong to Christ?
Who Instituted the Church on Earth?
What are the rules he made for that Church?
Who has the authority to teach these rules?
How are you “staying in Christ” if you ignore the above 3 questions?
Lastly, just because you SAY you are Catholic does NOT automatically mean you are saved. We are not Protestants. You need to BE Catholic, not just pay lip service to it. Simply saying it is no proof against ending up in Hell along with the majority of people who will end up there.
3 – One of the advantages of having a unified Catholic Church is that it became a cultural force and shaped the countries and cultures that were converted.
Which were objectively better places for human beings to live than any other place on Earth. Let’s not forget this little detail, shall we? And go ahead and prove me wrong by referencing any other human society and comparing it with Catholicism.
One of the problems though is that if the authority of the church is unified like that, it is much more dangerous if it becomes corrupted.
Which it has attempted to become for two millennia in a row unceasingly. And has continued to fail to become corrupt, as well as it has failed to do so to this very day. As it did during the Arian Heresy and other times in history. No other organisation in the history of the Human race has withstood with its dogma intact for two millennia. And that is because the Church is protected from error by Jesus Himself and His promise to be with us to the end. There can be no other explanation. A faithful Catholic was never absent the Church since its establishment on Earth. Nor is anyone absent it today who cares to study the issue.
And it’s arguable that this is exactly what happened to the Catholic Church – it got corrupted from within and mostly has rotted out, but it’s been really hard for Catholics to accept sedevacantism because it’s so ingrained in them to follow the centralized authority.
So? It has always been thus, among humans, because, repeat it with me: Most humans are idiots. And idiots, just like the poor, will always be with us. As will sinners, error and corruption, for that is what original sin is. Nothing new here. Nor anything to be particularly worried about if you are an actual person that cares enough about God and the truth to research it properly and then follow it. The Catholic Church has always existed uninterrupted since its creation. It continues to exist now (in Sedevacantists) and will continue do so until the End Times.
Protestant churches are not nearly as much of a cultural force, especially nowadays (historically they have had more of a cultural impact).
Are you kidding?
The entire zeitgeist of the Western World is Protestant. Vatican II was instigated by a Jew and Protestants. The ENTIRE Churchainity of the Western world is wholly Protestant. “Everyone has his/her/Xhey’s “truth” and don’t you judge anyone, you bigot!” Is literally the very bedrock of Protestantism.
However, since there are lots of different churches and denominations, there is a built in checks and balances type of protection – if an individual church or denomination is corrupted, the Holy Sprit can spring up in another church or denomination very easily.
Again, utter and complete babbling nonsense. The average person can’t even read a paragraph and rewrite it in their own words while retaining the essential information in it but they are supposed to recognise individually the presence of the very “Holy Spirit” that literally EVERY single one of the 45,000 plus denominations of hellish Protestation against God claim for themselves? Please.
Kind of centralized authority vs free market. I can see advantages and disadvantages to both systems. I guess that’s more a comment than a question – but it seems like you only see the good side of the powerful centralized authority, vs the decentralized.
We’re not discussing economics. We are discussing the very nature of reality and truth. There is only ONE truth. ONE Authority. That’s it. Belief in God is not a “free market of ideas” for anyone except Pagans destined for Hell. Just like there is only ONE math. And anyone that can’t do it can’t achieve anything of meaning in the construction of any kind of building, object, or structure of any importance.
Ok, that was a lot. I appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have. My desire is to love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and my neighbor as myself, and if becoming Catholic is the next step in front of me to do that, then that’s great. I just can’t quite see it clearly yet.
I suggest you start by educating yourself on the early history of the Church. A good introduction is the book The Four Witnesses by Rod Bennett. He also has a second book, but I have not read it. For more in depth stuff read the works of the Patristic fathers from the early church. There are volumes of stuff even just from the first 200 years of the Church. So spend some time reading enthuse things.
Thank you! Best wishes and prayers of blessing for you and your family over there in Italy. I do see God’s love in you through your writing and I appreciate it.
Thank you. And while my responses can be “harsh” the intent too is I hope clear. I have never had patience with people that cannot be instructed. One of my mottos is “leave all the retards behind”.
I am not for everyone, nor am I meant to be. I was obviously created as I was with various talents best used as tip of the spear stuff when compared to many other souls far higher than mine in the hierarchy of things.In any case, I do wish you all the best, and may God’s Grace, Mercy and Love shine upon you and lead you to the Truth. It has been my experience that God never abandons us and He in fact helps us all get to Him if we but genuinely seek and ask, and make some real effort towards discovering those basic truths that His existence naturally must imply.
I also just wrote a post entitled why denominations matter that may be of some use although it reiterates much of what I already stated here. I will anonymise your email, but it makes for decent reading, so I will use it as a subject for a post.
Thank you and may God bless you and your loved ones now and forever.
UPDATED REPLY
Awesome, thanks so much for your responses. Some of your points were really helpful and clarifying. I liked your illustration about having to work out all the rules of calculus or something like that from scratch. What a relief if we don’t have to do that with God. That makes a lot of sense that a loving Father would not leave us to do that.
And really good point that the zeitgeist of the enlightenment and post-enlightenment modern world IS protestant – I hadn’t thought of it like that but I think you’re right. I do disagree with you when you say not anyone can be a “disciple” of Christ. Not anyone can be an apostle, but anyone who follows Christ is a disciple – that’s what disciple means (follower, apprentice, student). That’s why He said “go and make disciples of all nations”. So then the question is “what does following Christ actually mean in the real world, 2024?” And the case is becoming clearer to me that “following Christ” means being baptized into His original visible church and obeying His rules from the heart as taught by the people He entrusted with this task.
Precisely. Being a disciple means being Catholic.
And yes, I absolutely know that Christ founded His church on Peter (Petra, the original WWF “The Rock”), and that the authority of the apostles and their successors is what held the church together and kept the truth clean and uncorrupted, especially up until scripture was canonized. And after that too. I was trying to work out the difference between the spiritual reality of new life that Jesus talks about (ie John 3:16, you must be born of the Spirit), and the physical, visible reality of institutions. Trying to figure out what makes the “true church.” I’ve grown up being taught that it’s all about the inner life of the Spirit, and the outer institution doesn’t matter. But it’s sounding more like both are vital.
It’s quite nonsensical and typically Satanic to “assume” that the ONLY part that matters is the only one only God can judge and no man can know with certainty. Of course the external part matters, which is why the sedeprivationist point sticks out as glaring error to me. only totals sedevacantist position makes fully sense. While it is true that the internal forum is for God alone to judge, we as human beings MUST act on the visible external forum that can be observed and verified by all.
Thanks again – I really appreciate your time. I will check out that Four Witnesses book. I had read your post on denominations – that’s what impelled me to email you originally.
You’re welcome, and may your email help others too.
Apologies for the harshness. I write as I go, and the intent is never mean, just an expedient way to sort through those too dumb to bother with. Clearly not the case with you. Now we have established that I shall behave in a more correct manner, though I doubt very much I will ever achieve “gentleman” status!
