ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH THE “MOTHER OF CHURCHES”



THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH AS THE “MOTHER OF ALL CHURCHES”

“Some parts of the governmental system of the Catholic Church are of divine origin, and many of them are human institutions.” – Externals of the Catholic Church, p. 19.[1]

“If it [is] not identical in belief, government, etc., with the primitive Church, then it is not the Church of Christ.” - John Francis Knoll, Catholic Facts, p. 27.[2]

“There could never be a reformation of the Creed of the Church. An individual might fall into error, even a priest, or a number of bishops, but not the Church as a Church.”

–John Francis Noll, Father Smith Instructs Jackson,p. 44.[3]

“The Mother of All Churches”?

The Oldest Church is Jesus’ Church

The Origin of the Name “Catholic”

The Western Church Became the Catholic Church

Branches of the Catholic Church

The Early Church was Never Called “Catholic”

Romanist Claim to Petrine Succession

Romanist Claim to Being Apostolic

Paul’s Warning About the Falling Away

Witness from an ex-Catholic Priest

Witness from the Catholic Writings

Apostasy was Slow, but Sure

A. “Mother of all churches”?

The Roman Catholic Church calls herself the “mother of churches,” the one from which all the denominations came.[4] She is old, but definitely she is not the oldest.

B. The Oldest Church is Jesus’ Church

The oldest church in the world, the very first one, was the church Jesus founded in the city of Jerusalem at the time mentioned in Acts 2. Jesus called it “my church” (Matthew 16:18); it was also designated as:

(a) the churches of Christ (Romans 16:16);

(b) the church of God (1 Corinthians 1:2);

(c) the church of the living God (1 Timothy 3:15);

(d) the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 1:23; 4:12; Colossians 1:24);

(e) the Kingdom of God’s dear Son (Colossians 1:13);

(f) the house of God (1 Timothy 3:15);

(g) the church of the living God (1 Timothy 3:15);

(h) the flock (Acts 20:28, 29).

C. The Origin of the Name “Catholic”

The use of the name “Catholic” goes only as far back as Ignatius of Antioch, who used the word in his letter to the Smyrnaeans, A.D. 110.[5] Subsequently, the word “Catholic”is used “to distinguish the entire body of Christians from individual congregations,” and puts a distinction between “true believers” and “false believers.”[6]

By the 3rd century A.D., the technical use of the term became established.[7] Today, at least six religious groups call themselves “Catholics,” as we shall point out below.

D. The Western church became the Catholic church

After the “filioque controversy”[8] and the subsequent division between the Western church and the Eastern church, “Catholic” became the identifying name of the Western church.[9] The Eastern church[10] came to be called “Orthodox.”[11] This was in 1054 A.D. Hence, the origin of the name “Catholic” is not apostolic.

E. Branches of the Catholic Church

John Francis Noll says, “Well now, Mr. Jackson, outside the Catholic Church, there is no united Christianity.”[12] Is it true that the Catholic Church is united? We have listed below at least six groups or churches that claim to be “Catholic,” even though they had broken away from Rome.

In the 16th century, the church of Rome claimed “Catholic” as the name to distinguish it from the Protestant churches that arose after Martin Luther’s separation from it.[13] But the Lutherans still continue to call themselves “Catholics.” Even the Anglicans refuse to accept the claim of the Church of Rome as being “the only Catholic Church.” And there are others. Thus we have:

(1) German “Catholics” (Lutherans), those who followed the tenets of the Augustinian priest, Martin Luther.

(2) “Anglo-Catholics” (Church of England), the Catholic church in the Great Britain headed by the English monarch.

(3) Greek Catholics (Orthodox Church, who separated from Rome in 1054 over the issue of filioque).

(4) “Roman Catholics” (Church of Rome)

(5) The Old Catholics (those who separated from the Roman Catholic Church over the issue of papal infallibility in 1870).

(6) “Independent (or Philippine) Catholics,” followers of Filipino priest Gregorio Aglipay who broke away from the church of Rome in the 1900’s.

The term “Catholic” means “universal.” But when the “Catholic Church” divided into six branches or sects mentioned above, its claim to being universal was even more ridiculous.[14]

F. The Early Church was never called “Catholic”

The early church (and by this we mean the church of the first century) never called itself “Catholics”; individually the members were simply designated as:

(a) “disciples”[15] (Acts 11:26; 20:7);

(b) Christians”[16] (Acts 11:26; 26:28) ;

(c) saints”[17] (cf. Acts 9:13; 9:32);

(d) Sons of God[18] (Rom. 8:14; Phil. 2:15);

(e) Believers (Acts 5:14);

(f) Children of God[19] (Rom. 8:16);

(g) Brethren (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:11).

(h) Sons of light (1 Thess. 5:5).

G. Romanist Claim to Petrine Succession Has no Scriptural Basis

The Roman Catholic Church could claim to be Roman,[20] since her first head was a Roman bishop,[21] not Peter the Jew.

There is no record in the Catholic Bible that Peter had ever been to Rome. When the Apostle Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans (A.D. 58),[22] he greeted every Christian in the city of Rome, even mentioning their names (see chapter 16 of the epistle), but he did not mention Peter’s, and this at a time Peter was supposedly in the city of Rome and serving as “pope”! Why did he not? Because Peter was not there. J. N. D. Kelly, canon of Chichester Cathedral, admits that concerning Peter’s stay in Rome, the New Testament “appears silent about such a stay.” [23] Furthermore, he says: “Nothing is known of the length of his residence: the story that it lasted twenty-five years is a 3rd-century legend.” [24] (italics mine, ETM). The real Peter—the Peter of history—can be known from the Four Gospels, from the Epistles that bear his name, and from the Epistles of Paul. But these writings do not support the claims of the Roman Catholic Church to apostolic succession. Says J. N. D. Kelley, “In the late 2nd or early 3rd century, the tradition identified Peter as the first bishop of Rome. This was a natural development once the monarchical episcopate, that is, government of the local church by a single bishop as distinct from a group of presbyter-bishops, finally emerged in Rome in the mid-2nd century.”[25]

H. Romanist Claim to Being Apostolic Not Textually Supported

The Roman Catholic church could claim catholicity, since her faith is universal, perhaps as universal as the early church of Christ. In this sense of the term, even the Muslims could claim to be catholic, or universal, because they also are found throughout the world.

But she could not claim apostolicity, not only because the Roman Catholic system as we know it was virtually unknown in the days of the apostles, but also because her doctrines are not apostolic. “Writers of the fourth century were prone to describe many practices as Apostolic Institutions which certainly had no claim to be so regarded,” so says the Catholic Encyclopedia.[26]

The doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church are an admixture of paganism and Christianity,[27] her rule of faith is not Christian and her structure is other than what one would find in the New Testament.

The Roman Catholic Church admits that the New Testament Church used only Scriptures, but that she does not. Says the Catholic Dictionary: “There was far more extensive use and continuous use of the Scriptures in the public service of the early Church than there is among us.”[28] Even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits that “our present convenient compendiums— the Missal, Breviary, and so on— were formed only at the end of a long evolution. In the first period (lasting perhaps till about the fourth century) there were no books except the Bible, from which lessons were read and Psalms were sung.”[29]

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that “the Bible is not intended to be a textbook of the Christian religion.”[30] For that reason, she makes her own laws: “To enable her to carry out this divine plan she makes laws, laws purely ecclesiastical, but laws that have the same binding force as the divine laws themselves.” [31] These laws she made have substituted God’s laws. “For Catholics, therefore, as far as obligations are concerned there is no practical difference between God’s law and the law of the Church.”[32]

Says John Francis Knoll: “If it is not identical in belief, government, etc., with the primitive Church, then it is not the Church of Christ.”[33] Sullivan admits the Roman Catholic Church is not what it claims to be: “Some parts of the governmental system of the Catholic Church are of divine origin, and many of them are human institutions.” [34] The Roman Catholic Church thus cannot claim to be the true church.

I. Paul’s Warning About the Falling Away

The spirit of apostasy[35] was at work at the time of Peter and Paul. Writing his first letter to Timothy (about A.D. 66 or 67),[36] Paul warned about such departure from the faith: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in after times [or later times] some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of devils, speaking lies hypocritically, and having their conscience branded. They will forbid marriage and will enjoin abstinence from foods [or meats] which God has created to be partaken of with thanksgiving by the faithful and by those who know the truth” (1 Timothy 4:1-3).

The fact that Christianity had been corrupted during the post-apostolic period is also admitted by the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic Encyclopedia says, “One is forced to admit that the gradual corruption of Christianity began very early.”[37]

J. Witness from an ex-Catholic priest:

These words from Stephen L. Testa, a former Roman Catholic, as quoted by author Lorraine Boettner in his book Roman Catholicism, pp. 23-24:

“The church remained pure and faithful to the gospel for about 300 years, which was the golden age of martyrs and saints, who were persecuted by pagan Rome. After the so-called conversion of emperor Constantine (310 A.D.), Christianity was declared the state religion, and multitudes of pagans were admitted to the church by baptism alone, without conversion. They brought with them their pagan rites, ceremonies and practices which they gradually introduced into the church with Christian names, all of which corrupted the primitive faith and the church became Romanized and paganized. What makes the church truly catholic is its adherence to the gospel of Christ... The Roman church has added popery and so many other pagan doctrines and practices that many people think it no longer either Christian or catholic...”

K. Apostasy was slow, but it was sure

The Roman Catholic Church is the fulfillment of what the Holy Spirit prophesied in 1 Timothy 4:1-3. It is an undeniable fact that the Roman Catholic Church has forbidden its people to eat meat on Lenten Fridays, and its priests to get married. Both doctrines – “enjoining people to abstain from meats [or foods]”[38] and “forbidding to marry”[39]-- did not originate from God. Paul calls these teachings the “doctrines of demons,” or “doctrines of devils.”

-----------------------

[1] Sullivan, Externals of the Catholic Church (New York: J. P. Kennedy & Son, 1919), p. 19.

[2] John Francis Knoll, Catholic Facts (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Press, 1927), p. 27; quoted by O. C. Lambert, 1:64.

[3] John Francis Knoll, Father Smith Instructs Jackson (The Knights of Columbus Information Bureau, March 1962), p. 44.

[4] More properly she may be called, sans kindness, of course, “the mother of harlots” (cf. Revelation 17:5).

[5] Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35-107), bishop of Antioch and martyr, one of the Apostolic Fathers. “[He] is believed to have been a disciple of St John the Evangelist. During the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan, Ignatius was condemned to be devoured by wild beasts. On his way from Antioch to Rome, where the execution took place, he wrote seven letters. Of these, five were addressed to the Christian communities of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralles, and Philadelphia, and Smyrna— cities in Asia Minor that had sent representatives to greet him as he passed through.… He was the first Christian writer to stress the virgin birth and to use the term ‘catholic church’ to mean the faithful collectively” (MEPS 2005, art. “Ignatius of Antioch”).

[6] GAE, 4:211, art. “Catholic.”

[7] MEPS 2005, art. “Catholic Church.”

[8] “In the 7th century the universally accepted creed was interpolated in Spain with the Latin word filioque, meaning “and from the Son”, thus rendering the creed as “I believe ... in the Holy Spirit ... who proceeds from the Father and the Son”. The interpolation, initially opposed by the popes, was promoted in Europe by Charlemagne (crowned emperor in 800) and his successors. Eventually, it was also accepted (in around 1014) in Rome. The Eastern Church, however, considered the interpolation heretical” (MEPS 2005, art. “Orthodox Church”).

[9] “A growing estrangement between the Catholic church in the West and the Orthodox church of the East in the first millennium led to a break between them in the 11th century, and the two regions diverged in matters of theology, liturgy, and disciplinary practices” (GME 2000, art. “Catholic”).

[10] The Eastern church, otherwise known as the Greek church, “rejects the Roman dogmas of the papacy, of the double procession of the Holy Ghost, the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, and the infallibility of the pope, as heretical, because [these are] contrary to the teaching of the first seven ecumenical councils” (Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 2:513, 514).

[11] “The word orthodox (from Greek, “right-believing”) implies the claim of doctrinal consistency with apostolic truth” (MEPS 2005, art. “Orthodox Church”).

[12] John Francis Noll, Father Smith Instructs Jackson (The Knights of Columbus Information Bureau, March 1962), p. 42.

[13] “Within Western Christianity beginning with the 16th-century Reformation, the Roman Catholic church came to be identified by its differences with the Protestant churches” (GME 2000, art. “Catholic Church”).

[14] O. C. Lambert, 1:14.

[15] Gr. mathetes, “learner, pupil, disciple” from the verb manthano, “to learn” (Colin Brown, 1:483f).

[16] “Christians,” Gr. Christianoi, singular Christianos, “defines the one to whom it is applied as belonging to the party of a certain Christos, very much as Herodianos is a technical term for the followers of Herod” (Colin Brown, 2:343).

[17] “Saints,” Gr. hoi hagioi, from hagios, “holy, sacred” (Colin Brown, 2:224).

[18] “Sons,” Gr. huioi, “signifies the relation of offspring to parent...[and] is often used metaphorically of prominent moral characteristics” (Vine, p. 47).

[19] “Children of God,” Gr. tekna theou, singular teknon, “child,” used in both the natural and figurative senses. “In contrast to huios, son, it gives prominence to the fact of birth, whereas huios stresses the dignity and character of the relationship” (Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, p. 187).

[20] It is “identified as Roman because of its historical roots in Rome and because of the importance it attaches to the worldwide ministry of the bishop of Rome, the pope” (GAE, 16:277. See also GME 2000, art. “Roman Catholic Church”).

[21] Linus (66?-78?), whose episcopacy is under a cloud of doubt, was said to have been “entrusted with his office by the apostles Peter and Paul after they had established the Christian church in Rome. By this primitive reckoning he was therefore the first pope, but from the late 2nd or early 3rd century the convention began regarding St Peter as first bishop. What Linus’ actual functions and responsibilities were can only be guessed, for the monarchical, or one-man, episcopate had not yet emerged in Rome” (J.N.D. Kelley, The Oxford Dictionary of Popes [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986], p. 7).

[22] See Introduction to Romans, The New Analytical Bible (Chicago, Illinois: John A. Dickson Publishing Company. Copyright 1971), p. 1287.

[23] Kelley, p. 7.

[24] Kelley, p. 7.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: The Encyclopedia Press, Inc., 1913), 3:484. Fifteen volumes. Special edition published under the auspices of Knights of Columbus Catholic Truth Committee.

[27] Catholic authorities admit the much borrowing the Roman Catholic Church made from paganism: “At the same time it seems probable enough that certain features of Christian ceremonials were directly borrowed from Roman secular usages... But granting, as even so conservative a historian as Cardinal Baronius is fully prepared to grant, a certain amount of direct borrowing of pagan usages, this is no subject of reproach to the Catholic Church... Of such pagan rites laudibly adopted for the service of the Christian religion we have many examples...” (Catholic Encyclopedia, 9:246, 247).

[28] Catholic Dictionary, p. 509; quoted by O. C. Lambert, 1:19.

[29] Catholic Encyclopedia, 9:296; quoted by O. C. Lambert, 1:19.

[30]John Francis Knoll, Catholic Facts, p. 27; quoted by O. C. Lambert, 1:64

[31] Explanation of Catholic Morals, p. 26; quoted by O. C. Lambert, 1:21-22.

[32] Explanation of Catholic Morals, p. 26; quoted by O. C. Lambert, 1:21-22.

[33] Catholic Facts, p. 50; quoted by O. C. Lambert, 1:21.

[34] Sullivan, Externals of the Catholic Church (New York: J. P. Kennedy & Son, 1919), p. 19.

[35] Gr. apostasia, “rebellion, abandonment”; from apo, “away,” and histemi, “stand” (Colin Brown, 1:51).

[36] See Introduction to First Timothy, The New Analytical Bible (Chicago: John A. Dickson Publishing Co. Copyright 1971), p. 1371; also Introduction to Romans, p. 1287.

[37] Catholic Encyclopedia, 12:414; quoted by O. C. Lambert, 1:18.

[38] The Catholic doctrine of fasting on Fridays and during Lent was enforced in AD 998.

[39] A church ordinance forbidding priests to marry was decreed by pope Hildebrand in 1079.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download