Replies

Here is what it was like to be a believing Christian five hundred years ago. The church did teach that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, bore the punishment for our sins and died for the forgiveness of our sins. It taught that the redemption that Christ won had to be dispensed by the church. What this meant in practice was that Christ’s death, applied through baptism, was thought to free us from original sin. Sins committed after baptism had to be dealt with in a different manner.

As far as I know, this remains RC church teaching today. This theology is one of the reasons many Christians reject Roman Catholocism.

Comment; “It taught that the redemption that Christ won had to be dispensed by the church”

The Catholic church taught: Jesus, Son of God, was sent by the Father to restore harmony between himself and humanity that had been disrupted by sin. He came to teach and show us love.

On the cross, Jesus freely gave his life as a sacrifice. His sacrifice was an act of atonement, that is, it makes us one again with God by power of divine mercy extending to us the Father’s forgiveness of our sins. Jesus’ sacrifice merits salvation for us because it retains forever the power to draw us to him and to the Father.

Yet we may either reject this gift of grace or accept it through Baptism and keeping God’s Commandments. That is loving God, our neighbor and ourselves.

Jesus gave us the Catholic Church and the Sacraments to help us do God’s will and follow Jesus’s humanity without sin but subject to the temptations of Satan followed God’s will perfectly and taught us to do the same.