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You’re funny. You think you are making your own point... but you are making mine even better than I did.

What kind of faith is unexamined and never questioned? Using your own yardstick, you could say that every individual on the planet is his own denomination. Of course that’s ridiculous and tortures the language. The fact is that even when Catholics question the Faith, they are still in the pews listening, learning and participating. We are not outside the Church making a church of our own.

I was one who questioned my faith to the point of nearly leaving the Church. What brought me back was a careful reading of the Bible, history, the early Church Fathers, apologetics and actually participating in the Mass rather than being a disinterested spectator. It really was a question of authority... just as it is for much of the rest of Christianity. Certainly even a cursory view of history is all that is needed to see that we need the authority Christ gave His Church. When we stray from it, we set up our own authorities with private interpretations... and that has led to the fractalization of the Protestant world. Rather than the unity we preserve with God’s Grace and the prayers of Our Lord, the Protestant world demonstrates disunity and division.

Ask yourself this... what is the purpose of the Epistles? They are not simply letters of support and encouragement... although they have those elements. If you read them closely, you will see that they teach on matters of the faith and reproach the churches for straying from the traditions given them by the Apostles. By what authority does one church tell another church it is wrong? I’ll tell you... by the authority of One Church which brings all into conformity. My Protestant friends tell me there are meant to be separate churches as shown in the Epistles. However, they miss the fact that the purpose of the Epistles was to maintain the unity of Faith as One Church.

The fact is that even when Catholics question the Faith, they are still in the pews listening, learning and participating. We are not outside the Church making a church of our own.

When Catholics disagree with essential Catholic doctrine (such as abortion, contraception, woman priests, etc) they are by definition "outside of the Church", as has been loudly proclaimed numerous times by Catholics in this forum. The fact that they choose to continue to warm the pews (and take the Eucharist) is not evidence of "listening and learning", it is evidence that they are comfortable being heretical Catholics (i.e. non-Catholics). I was not comfortable in that position (unlike my family members); hence my departure some 25 years ago.

I was one who questioned my faith to the point of nearly leaving the Church. What brought me back was a careful reading of the Bible, history, the early Church Fathers, apologetics and actually participating in the Mass rather than being a disinterested spectator. It really was a question of authority... just as it is for much of the rest of Christianity. Certainly even a cursory view of history is all that is needed to see that we need the authority Christ gave His Church. When we stray from it, we set up our own authorities with private interpretations... and that has led to the fractalization of the Protestant world. Rather than the unity we preserve with God’s Grace and the prayers of Our Lord, the Protestant world demonstrates disunity and division.

Congratulations on your fidelity to Catholicism. As I stated earlier, you are in the minority. The majority of American Catholics feel comfortable denying essential Catholic doctrines. As far as the "fractionalization" of Protestantism, it is "fractionalized" mostly by issues that we would call important but non-essential. We consider those of other denominations brothers and sisters in the Lord, fellow members of the Church Universal. Hardly "disunity and division"

I was one who questioned my faith to the point of nearly leaving the Church. What brought me back was a careful reading of the Bible, history, the early Church Fathers, apologetics and actually participating in the Mass rather than being a disinterested spectator. It really was a question of authority... just as it is for much of the rest of Christianity. Certainly even a cursory view of history is all that is needed to see that we need the authority Christ gave His Church. When we stray from it, we set up our own authorities with private interpretations...

In your "careful reading of the Bible, history, the early Church Fathers, apologetics..." how did you decide that Rome was the "true" church without engaging in the very same private, fallible interpretation that you condemn as illegitimate?

Put another way, if your fallible reasoning faculties were sufficient to interpret the Bible, history, the early Church Fathers and apologetics to arrive at your conclusion regarding Rome's authority then you can't logically turn around and claim that very same principle as illegitimate for everyone else who uses it and arrives elsewhere.

Cordially,