Hi Rita,
I hope you have a Blessed Christmas. I think the actual issue here is, many of us Protestants simply see things in the catechism of the Roman Catholic Chrurch that arent in Scripture. I am an ex-catholic. I became a Protestant while serving in the Army, when I met and became friendly with a Protestant Chaplain. The whole issue of purgatory, confession of sins to a Priest, and the Priest determining what one’s penance is, in order to be forgiven, when the Scripture tells all we need to do is repent of our sins. I could go on and on, and I love my Catholic brothers and sisters, but their insistence that the RCC is the “One true faith” gets a little old at times.
“The whole issue of purgatory”
What’s your take on 1 Cor 3:13 which states that on the day of judgment our works will be tested by fire? And those who’s works perish will escape, but only as one escaping through the flames?
“confession of sins to a Priest”
Christ says to Peter in Matthew 16:19
“Whatsoever you bind on earth shall be bound on heaven, and whatsoever you loose on earth shall be loosed to heaven.”
Christ clearly gives the Apostles the power to forgive sins. This is why priests, as the successors of the Apostles can do the same.
“One true faith” gets a little old at times.
Do you believe that Christ would abandon his faithful for 1500 years?
I have certainly been in the boat you’re floating, for several decades, so I do get it. It is a mystery isn’t it, who succombs and who will not, and who is drawn and who is not? I agree that the Catholic Church is not the broad road, one of near entire and unaccountable spiritual ease, comfort, and assurance, but Jesus never encouraged such a path so different from his own.
You are a gem for wishing me a blessed Christmas, and being a sport about your loss and my gain.
Correct. There are numerous man-made additions and expansions (see Mary) which are simply not supported, or even implied, by scripture.
I believe these additions to be both unnecessary and potentially hazardous, inasmuch that we as Christians should attempt neither to add nor take away from God's Word.