I posed this article not knowing of you or your faith. The article attacks not faith but doctrine. You may choose to put faith in false doctrine - it’s not your faith at issue; it’s false doctrine. You assumed the offense, enjoy it.
See 597. The article is a “Jack Chick” style polemic attacking, with falsehood and vitriol, the Roman Catholic Church and all of us who believe it. The absolute lies spill out all over from the author in this piece and many others he has written. He claims to have been raqised Catholic and yet he lies about what the Church teaches. Posting lies from know liars sort of brands you Manfred, dontcha think?
The article attacks not faith but doctrine.
The article indicates a failure to understand that the Catholic Church, finding it too forced and simple a distinction to portray soteriology adequately, does not buy into the faith/works dichotomy of the Reformation.
But the Catechism makes plain, though it provides too clipped an examination, that Baptism is not absolutely necessary to salvation. The writer of the article may have been a Catholic, but that's no guarantee that he knows what the RC Church teaches.
No, you purposefully put that post to illicit a reaction from Catholics on FR. Your own smug sense of self-righteousness compelled you to post it. Judging from the number of posts to this thread, there has been a strong reaction. I’d be pretty naive to think that I wouldn’t get a reaction form protestants if I went on an anti-protestant rant. But you are free to post anything (with in reason) here, but if you’re going to argue Apostalicity, then I hope you have extra-Biblical documentation to back it up. Anyone can sling verses even Satan.
Christ founded the Catholic Church which in turn established the Canon of the Bible. The Bible doesn’t establish churches. There was only meant to be one Church because there in one God (”...and there shall be ONE FOLD and ONE SHEPHERD.” John 10:16) The Bible is a Catholic book and if you think that the Bible is authentic, you would have to acknowledge the Catholic Church who made the canon authentic. They put it together from hundreds of other epistles and other versions of the Gospels.
But a new protestant church is born every few weeks even thought the Bible doesn’t tell you to do so. Who’s interpretation is correct? They can’t all tell the truth. That is why it says in 2Pet 1:20, St. Peter said, “This then you must understand first of all, that NO PROPHECY OF SCRIPTURE IS MADE BY PRIVATE INTERPRETATION.” I do not see how Peter could have said it any plainer than he did here. Why do Protestants ignore verses such as this one?
2Pet 3:16-17, St. Peter said, “...In these Epistles there are certain things difficult to understand, WHICH THE UNLEARNED AND UNSTABLE DISTORT, JUST AS THEY DO THE REST OF THE SCRIPTURES ALSO, TO THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION. YOU THEREFORE, BRETHREN, SINCE YOU KNOW THIS BEFOREHAND, BE ON YOUR GUARD LEST, CARRIED AWAY BY THE ERROR OF THE FOOLISH, YOU FALL AWAY FROM YOUR STEADFASTNESS.”
Here is a very clear warning that it is easy to fall into error by private interpretation of Scripture.
Even the early Church acknowledges the headship of Peter.
“And Peter, on whom the Church of Christ is built, ‘against which the gates of hell shall not prevail’” Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6:25 (A.D. 325).
“...the chief of the disciples...the Lord accepted him, set him up as the foundation, called him the rock and structure of the church.” Aphraates, De Paenitentibus Homily 7:15 (A.D. 337).
“Peter, the foremost of the Apostles, and Chief Herald of the Church...” Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures,1 1:3 (A.D. 350).
“[B]lessed Simon, who after his confession of the mystery was set to be the foundation-stone of the Church, and received the keys of the kingdom...” Hilary de Poiters, On the Trinity, 6:20(A.D. 359).
To say the Church failed is to say Christ lied when He said, he’d be with his Church until the end.