Protestant Pastor becomes Catholic

[Mirage]

FiNews #12: Neil Babcox - Protestant Pastor becomes Catholic

[chosenone]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

[AnnaM]

There is a big difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's the difference between Heaven and Hell; salvation and sin; light and darkness.

[MeMyself]

There is a big difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's the difference between Heaven and Hell; salvation and sin; light and darkness.

Oh my goodness!

JESUS CHRIST saves! NOT a church!

All who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved! 

[Catholica]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

[AnnaM]

There is a big difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's the difference between Heaven and Hell; salvation and sin; light and darkness.

Oh my goodness!

JESUS CHRIST saves! NOT a church!

All who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved!

Jesus saves through His Church. Why else would He command that the Church be heard? "If he will not hear the Church: let him be to thee as the heathen and publican."

[chosenone]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

Mirage is the one starting thread after thread along this same vein. I think he is a bit obsessed actually, and doesn't seem to have any peace.

[Catholica]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

Mirage is the one starting thread after thread along this same vein. I think he is a bit obsessed actually, and doesn't seem to have any peace.

So what?

[chosenone]

There is a big difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's the difference between Heaven and Hell; salvation and sin; light and darkness.

Oh my goodness!

JESUS CHRIST saves! NOT a church!

All who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved!

Jesus saves through His Church. Why else would He command that the Church be heard? "If he will not hear the Church: let him be to thee as the heathen and publican."

We are saved through Jesus, and not a building or organisation.

[chosenone]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

Mirage is the one starting thread after thread along this same vein. I think he is a bit obsessed actually, and doesn't seem to have any peace.

So what?

People need to speak for the truth.

[AnnaM]

There is a big difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's the difference between Heaven and Hell; salvation and sin; light and darkness.

Oh my goodness!

JESUS CHRIST saves! NOT a church!

All who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved!

Jesus saves through His Church. Why else would He command that the Church be heard? "If he will not hear the Church: let him be to thee as the heathen and publican."

We are saved through Jesus, and not a building or organisation.

Chosenone,

Would you mind answering my question?

[chosenone]

There is a big difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's the difference between Heaven and Hell; salvation and sin; light and darkness.

Oh my goodness!

JESUS CHRIST saves! NOT a church!

All who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved!

Jesus saves through His Church. Why else would He command that the Church be heard? "If he will not hear the Church: let him be to thee as the heathen and publican."

We are saved through Jesus, and not a building or organisation.

Chosenone,

Would you mind answering my question?

Go ahead.

[Catholica]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

Mirage is the one starting thread after thread along this same vein. I think he is a bit obsessed actually, and doesn't seem to have any peace.

So what?

People need to speak for the truth.

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

[Helen]

Here are a few in the other direction.  The following quotes are taken from the book by Richard Bennet, Far from Rome, Near to God: Testimonies of 50 Converted Roman Catholic Priests,  The Banner of Truth Trust, 1997.  They are quite interesting and valuable since they give an insight to Catholicism from those who were priests in the Catholic Church and then left it to find salvation in Jesus.

Following are excerpts from only a few of the fifty testimonies in the book:

1.Henry Gregory Adams.  Born in Saskatchewan, Canada. He entered the Basilian Order of monks and adopted the monastic name of "Saint Hilarion the Great."  He was ordained as a priest and served five parishes in the Lemont, Alberta area.  "The monastic life and the sacraments prescribed by the Roman Catholic Church did not help me to come to know Christ personally and find salvation...I realized that the man-made sacraments of my church and my good works were in vain for salvation.  They lead to a false security." (p. 3)

2.Joseph Tremblay.  Born in Quebec, Canada, 1924.  He was ordained a priest in Rome, Italy and was sent to Bolivia, Chile where he served for 13 years "as a missionary in the congregation of the Oblate Fathers of Mary Immaculate."   "My theology has taught me that salvation is by works and sacrifices....my theology gives me no assurance of salvation; the Bible offers me that assurance....I had been trying to save myself on my works...I was stifled in a setting in which I was pushed to do good works to merit my salvation." (pp. 9, 11-12)

3.Bartholomew F. Brewer.  He applied to the Discalced Carmelites, a strict monastic order.  He received training of "four years of high school seminary, two years in the novitiate, three years of philosophy, and four years of theology (the last after ordination)."  He was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in Washington, D.C.  He eventually served as a diocesan priest in San Diego, California and entered the Navy as a Roman Catholic chaplain.  Upon questioning Rome's Beliefs, "At first I did not understand, but gradually I observed a wonderful change in mother.  Her influence helped me realize the importance of the Bible in determining what we believe.  We often discussed subjects such as the primacy of Peter, papal infallibility, the priesthood, infant baptism, confession, the mass, purgatory, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and the bodily assumption of Mary into heaven.  In time I realized that not only are these beliefs not in the Bible, they are actually contrary to the clear teaching of Scripture." (pp. 21-22) ....  He left the Roman Catholic Church, got married and through conversations with his wife and other Christians, "I finally understood that I had been relying on my own righteousness and religious efforts and not upon the completed and sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  The Roman Catholic religion had never taught me that our own righteousness is fleshly and not acceptable to God, nor that we need to trust in his righteousness alone...during all those years of monastic life I had relied on the sacraments of Rome to give me grace, to save me." (p. 25)

4.Hugh Farrell.  Born in Denver, Colorado.  Entered the Order of our Lady of Mount Carmel, commonly called the Discalced Carmelite Fathers.  Ordained as a priest. "The priest, according to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, has the power to take ordinary bread and wine, and, by pronouncing the words of the consecration prayer in the sacrifice of the Mass, to change it into the actual body and blood and soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.  Hence, since one cannot separate the human nature of Christ from his divinity, the bread and wine, after being changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, are entitled to the worship of adoration.... Provided he pronounces the words of consecration properly and has the intention of consecrating, God must come down on the altar and enter and take over the elements." (p. 28, 39) .... and later, "I knew from the teachings of the priests and nuns that I could not hope to go directly to heaven after my death.  My Roman Catholic catechism taught me that after death I had to pay for the temporal punishment due to my sins.  The Roman Catholic Church teaches that 'the souls of the just which, in a moment of death, are burdened with venial sins or temporal punishment due to sin, enter purgatory.'"  (p. 29) He also wrote, regarding life in the monastery and doing penance.  "These penances consist of standing with the arms outstretched to form a cross, kissing the sandaled feet of the monks, receiving a blow upon the face from the monks, and, at the end of the meal, lying prostrate before the entrance to the refectory so that the departing monks must step over one's body.  These, and other penances, are supposed to gain one merit in heaven and increase one's 'spiritual bank account.'" (p. 36)

5.Alexander Carson.  Baptized into the Roman Catholic Church as an infant.  His priesthood studies were at St. John's seminary, Brighton, Massachusetts.  He was ordained by Bishop Lawrence Shehan of Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1955 and was a priest in Alexandria, Louisiana.  Also, he was pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Rayville, Louisiana.  "...the Holy Spirit led me to judge Roman Catholic theology by the standard of the Bible.  Previously, I had always judged the Bible by Roman Catholic doctrine and theology." (p. 53)  ..."In my letter of resignation from the Roman Catholic Church and Ministry, I stated to the bishop that I was leaving the priesthood because I could no longer offer the Mass, as it was contrary to the Word of God and to my conscience." (pp. 54-55)

6.Charles Berry.   He entered the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine and became a priest after 17 years.  He was given orders to continue studying until he achieved a Ph.D. in chemistry and was then "transferred to the headquarters of the Augustinian order in the United States." "In the United States the Roman Catholic Church is on its best behavior, putting its best foot forward because of its critics and opponents.  In a Roman Catholic country, where it has few opponents or critics, it is a very different matter.  Ignorance and superstition and idolatry are everywhere, and little effort, if any, is made to change the situation.  Instead of following the Christianity taught in the Bible the people concentrate on the worship of statues and their local patron saints.... When I met in Cuba a genuine pagan who worshiped idols (a religion transplanted from Africa by his ancestors), I asked how he could believe that a plaster idol could help him.  He replied that the idol was not expected to help him; it only represented the power in heaven which could.  What horrified me about his reply was that it was almost word for word the explanation Roman Catholics give for rendering honor to the statues of the saints." (p. 59)

7.Bob Bush.  He went to a Jesuit Seminary and studied for 13 years before being ordained in 1966.  He entered a post graduate program in Rome.  "When I entered the order, the first thing that happened was that I was told I had to keep all the rules and regulations, that to do so would be pleasing to God, and that this was what he wanted for me.  We were taught the motto, 'Keep the rule and the rule will keep you.'  It took me many years to realize that I was compromising by staying in the Roman Catholic Church.  Throughout all those years I continued to stress that salvation is only in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross and not in the infant baptism; that there is only one source of authority which is the Bible, the word of God; and that there is no purgatory but rather that when we die to either go to heaven or hell....The Roman Catholic Church then goes on to say that in order to be saved you must keep its laws, rules and regulations.  And in these laws are violated (for example, laws concerning birth control or fasting or attendance at Mass every Sunday), then you have committed a sin....'individual and integral confession and absolution constitute the only ordinary way by which the faithful person who was aware of serious sin can be reconciled with God, and with the church' (Canon 9609)....The Roman Catholic Church adds works, and that you have to do these specific things [keeping its laws, rule and regulations] ]in order to be saved, whereas the Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-9 that it is by grace that we are saved, not by works."   (p. 66-76).

____________

Just thought a bit of a balance might be called for.

[Carey]

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

Beautifully said.

[Mirage]

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

Beautifully said.

Telling the truth is charity.

[Catholica]

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

Beautifully said.

Telling the truth is charity.

Telling the truth is a form of charity, but it is not Charity itself.  We must tell the truth with charity, otherwise it is fruitless. 

1 Corinthians 13
4 Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up;
5 Is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil;
6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth;

[Carey]

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

Beautifully said.

Telling the truth is charity.

Absolutely, and Jesus had the truth in its entirety, unfortunately we do not and we must acknowledge our shortcomings, thus walk humbly in our faith.  Knowing we don't have all the answers, we can embrace the diversity in His Church and unite as believers in Jesus Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, standing against the true enemy.

You will not change my beliefs, I am pretty sure I will not change yours, but we both believe in God.  You are my brethren, I love you, and I welcome your fellowship; between us we can change the world for the better, and bring many to Christ.

We can choose to bring in the unbeliever without concern of into whose doctrine they will fall, or we can leave them to the adversary and fight among ourselves arrogantly proclaiming our understanding as uniquely the truth.  I, for one, choose the former and will not engage you, but I will stand by you, for this is what God has called me to.

If you feel my salvation is at stake, I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but I am confident, Jesus loves me, will be my advocate and one day we will meet in Heaven.  I look forward to that day.

Cheers and God bless.
Carey.

Edit: needed a couple of commas.

[chosenone]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

Mirage is the one starting thread after thread along this same vein. I think he is a bit obsessed actually, and doesn't seem to have any peace.

So what?

People need to speak for the truth.

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

That's  a bit hard when you are told that you are going to hell because you don't go to the same church as they do.
People can only be saved by knowing the truth.

[Catholica]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

Mirage is the one starting thread after thread along this same vein. I think he is a bit obsessed actually, and doesn't seem to have any peace.

So what?

People need to speak for the truth.

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

That's  a bit hard when you are told that you are going to hell because you don't go to the same church as they do.

It is a bit hard.  I've probably heard it as much as you have.  I'd probably hear it from Mirage as well since he or she has made it subtly clear that he or she (like AnnaM) is some form of sedevacantist.  Frankly, that is no excuse, and counterproductive.

People can only be saved by knowing the truth.

Isn't it more accurate to say that "people can only be saved by knowing God"?  And there is more to knowing God than to knowing a collection of doctrine.  We need to help people know God in how we act as well, as His ambassadors.  They need to see Christ in us.  And that is truth + charity.

[Red Baker]

There is a big difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's the difference between Heaven and Hell; salvation and sin; light and darkness.

Oh my goodness!

JESUS CHRIST saves! NOT a church!

All who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved!

Jesus saves through His Church. Why else would He command that the Church be heard? "If he will not hear the Church: let him be to thee as the heathen and publican."

You said: "Jesus saves through His Church."  First of all, you nor any of your cohorts know how to rightly divide the scriptures and the word saved/save/salvation~not one of you.   Christians are saved, in a regenerated or vital sense, totally by the Spirit of the living God, apart from all human means whatsoever~or else, John 1:13 should not be in the holy scriptures.   I speak as a fool. 

John 1:13

"Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, BUT OF GOD."

You have added to what the apostle John wrote and taught. 

Now, if you use the word save in a practical sense, then I would agree.  By practical, I mean this: "any work that we have a part in, such as man's diligence in preaching, teaching, and supporting the truth in any means that we are able to do so; or, obeying any commandment that are giving to us to obey, as children of God, then I would agree."

Paul, and all the apostles went where there were folk who show a interest in knowing about God, or spiritual things.  They went into synagogues and temples, etc. They went seeking those whom the Spirit of God may have quicken to spiritual life.  I know these things are strange to your ears, because you have been deceived all your life, about how folk are quicken to life by the Spirit of God alone, apart form all human means whatsoever. 

John the Baptist is a classic example of how God quicken's to life into a dead sinner.  The thief on the cross is another classic example. Between them two, God has given to us, two opposite examples how HE ALONE quickens sinners to life by his Spirit.   Who help the Lord to quicken Paul?  What church saved Paul?  Enough said, you would not, yea cannot believe this unless the Spirit of God opens your heart to see and understand.

You asked: "Why else would He command that the Church be heard? "If he will not hear the Church: let him be to thee as the heathen and publican."


Why do not you read the context of Matthew 18, and see for yourself, instead of trying to force scriptures to support your man made doctrine, of trusting in a sect's name, instead of trusting God's word for your doctrine.  As I said: you are married to your religion.

RB

[Mirage]

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

Beautifully said.

Telling the truth is charity.

Absolutely, and Jesus had the truth in its entirety, unfortunately we do not and we must acknowledge our shortcomings, thus walk humbly in our faith.  Knowing we don't have all the answers, we can embrace the diversity in His Church and unite as believers in Jesus Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, standing against the true enemy.

You will not change my beliefs, I am pretty sure I will not change yours, but we both believe in God.  You are my brethren, I love you, and I welcome your fellowship; between us we can change the world for the better, and bring many to Christ.

We can choose to bring in the unbeliever without concern of into whose doctrine they will fall, or we can leave them to the adversary and fight among ourselves arrogantly proclaiming our understanding as uniquely the truth.  I, for one, choose the former and will not engage you, but I will stand by you, for this is what God has called me to.

If you feel my salvation is at stake, I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but I am confident, Jesus loves me, will be my advocate and one day we will meet in Heaven.  I look forward to that day.

Cheers and God bless.
Carey.

Edit: needed a couple of commas.

To Our Venerable Brethren, Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and to all Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See.

Pius XI, Pontifex Maximus.

Venerable Brethren: Greetings and Apostolic Benediction:

The will to strengthen and to diffuse for the common good of human society that brotherhood, in which we are all closely united by the bonds of a common nature and origin, has never perhaps so taken hold of men's minds as in our times.

When nations do not fully enjoy the blessings of peace, and old and new discords break forth into mutiny and conflict, and when indeed it is impossible to settle the numerous controversies that strike at the peace and prosperity of peoples without the harmonious action of those who govern states and rule and promote their interests, it is easy to understand — and all the more so now that all accept the unity of mankind — how it is that, impelled by the desire for universal brotherhood, many should be anxious that the various nations stand ever more closely together.

Some seek to accomplish a thing not unlike this in matters that concern the ordinances of the New Law which Christ brought to us. Convinced that rarely indeed do men lack all sense of religion, they seem to draw from this reason to hope that without great difficulty it may come about that all peoples, no matter how different their religions, will stand fraternally together in the profession of a few doctrines which will serve as a kind of common foundation for the spiritual life.

Therefore, they are accustomed to call congresses, reunions and meetings which are attended by many, and they invite there indiscriminately, to decide the question, infidels of all kinds and Christians alike, and even those who have miserably apostatized from Christ, or who intransigently and tenaciously deny the divinity of His person and mission.

Certainly such movements as these cannot gain the approval of Catholics. They are founded upon the false opinions of those who say that, since all religions equally unfold and signify — though not in the same way — the native, inborn feeling in us all through which we are borne toward God and humbly recognize His rule, therefore, all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy.

The followers of this theory are not only deceived and mistaken, but since they repudiate the true religion by attacking it in its very essence, they move step by step toward naturalism and atheism. Hence it clearly follows that anyone who gives assent to such theories and undertakings utterly abandons divinely revealed religion.

When the question of promoting unity among Christians is under consideration many are easily deceived by the semblance of good. Is it not right, it is said repeatedly, indeed is it not the duty of all who call upon Christ's name to cease mutual recriminations, and to join together in ties of mutual charity? For who would dare say that he loves Christ when he will not strive to his utmost to attain that which Christ prayed for to His Father when He asked that His disciples might be one? (John 17,21.)

And did not Christ Himself wish His disciples to bear the sign and be distinguished by the characteristic that they love one another: By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another? (John 13,35.) Would, they add, that all Christians were one, that they might drive out the evil of irreligion which every day spreads more widely and threatens to overturn the Gospel.

These and like arguments are brought forth and amplified by those who call themselves Pan-Christians. No longer are they confined to small and scattered groups, but they grow, so to speak, by whole phalanxes and unite themselves in extensive organizations which, though its members are imbued with different faiths, non-Catholics direct for the most part.

The work itself is promoted with such zeal that it has gained a great variety of followers, and has even ensnared the minds of Catholics with the entrancing hope of attaining a union that would seem to meet the will of Holy Mother Church, to whom nothing is more hallowed than the recall and the return of her wandering children to her bosom. Yet beneath the coaxing words there is concealed an error so great that it would destroy utterly the foundations of the Catholic Faith.

Moved by the consciousness of Our Apostolic office to guard the flock of the Lord from error, We invoke your zeal, Venerable Brethren, to ward off this evil. We are convinced that through your writings and your words, the principles and the reasons We shall expound will more quickly reach the people. They will then understand what to think and what to do about the effort made to coalesce into one body, through some sort of a pact, all who call themselves Christians.

We were created by God, the Maker of all things, to know Him and serve Him; our Maker, therefore, has full right that we should serve Him. For the governance of mankind, God could have prescribed only one law of nature which He wrote upon the mind of man at his creation, and thenceforth He could have ruled the steps of this law under His customary providence.

Instead, He preferred to give us the commandments to prepare us. And in the course of the centuries, from the origin of mankind to the coming and teaching of Jesus Christ, He Himself taught man the duties that rational beings owe their Creator. God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son. (Hebr. 1, 1 seq.)

From this it follows that the true religion cannot be other than that which is founded in the revealed word of God. This revelation, inaugurated at the beginning of time and continued in the Old Testament, Christ Jesus Himself perfected in the New. Now if God has spoken — and that He has indeed spoken is proven by history — there is no one who does not see that it is man's duty to believe God absolutely in His revelations, and to obey Him without qualification in His commandments. Precisely that we might rightly fulfill both duties for the glory of God and our salvation, the only Begotten Son of God founded His Church upon earth.

They, therefore, who profess themselves Christians cannot, We think, but believe in Christ's establishment of one Church and only one. Yet when one asks what that Church by the will of its Founder ought to be, then not all agree. Indeed a great many deny, for example, that Christ's Church ought to be visible — at least in the sense that it should stand forth as one body of faithful united in one identical doctrine and under one authority and rule. On the contrary, by a visible Church they understand nothing but a society formed by various Christian communities, even though these adhere to different and even mutually contradictory doctrines.

Instead, Christ Our Lord founded His Church as a perfect society, external of its own nature and perceived by the senses, which would pursue for all future time the task of saving mankind through the guidance of one head, through being taught by a living voice, and through the dispensation of the sacraments, as fountains of the grace of Heaven. Wherefore, He likened His Church to a kingdom, to a house, to a sheepfold, to a flock.

So marvelously constituted a Church could not cease altogether and be extinguished when its Founder and the Apostles who first propagated it had died. For it had been commanded to lead to eternal salvation all men without distinction of time or place: Going therefore forth, teach all nations. (Matth. 28, 19.) Would the Church lack power or efficacy in the perpetual fulfillment of its work when Christ Himself, as He solemnly promised, is with it forever? Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world. (Matth. 28,20.) Necessarily, therefore, the Church of Christ ought not only to exist today and always, but still more, be the same as it was in the Apostolic Ages, unless we should wish to utter the absurdity that Christ Our Lord either was not adequate to His purpose or had erred when He asserted the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matth. 16, 18.)

And here there is presented the opportunity to set forth and remove a falsity upon which, it seems, this whole question hinges, and from which is drawn the multiple effort of the non-Christians who strive, as We have said, for the confederation of the Christian churches.

The authors of this plan are in the habit of quoting the words of Christ: That ye all may be one. . . . There shall be one fold and one shepherd, (John 17, 21; 10, 16), yet in the sense that these words express a desire and a prayer of Jesus Christ which thus far has lacked all effect. They contend that the unity of faith and governance which is the sign of the true and one Church of Christ, has almost never existed up to this time, and does not exist today; that it can be wished for and perhaps sometime be obtained through common submission of the will, but meanwhile it must be considered a fiction.

They say, moreover, that the Church by its very nature is divided into parts; that it consists of many churches or particular communities which are separated among themselves and, although they have certain points of doctrine in common, differ in others; and that at most the Church was the one Church and only Church between the Apostolic Era and the first Ecumenical Councils.

Therefore, they say, the controversies and old differences of opinion, which to this day divide the Christian name, should be put aside, and with the remaining doctrines there should be formulated and proposed a common rule of faith, in the profession of which all can know and feel themselves brothers. United by some sort of universal covenant, the multitude of churches or communities will then be in a position to oppose fruitfully and effectively the progress of unbelief. This, Venerable Brethren, is the more general opinion.

There are, however, some among them who assume and grant that Protestantism, as they call it, has rejected very inadvisedly certain articles of faith and certain rites of external worship that are fully acceptable and useful, which the Roman Church still preserves. But they add immediately that the Church has corrupted the early religion by adding to it and proposing for belief certain doctrines that are not only foreign to, but are opposed to, the Gospel — among which they bring forth chiefly that of the primacy of jurisdiction assigned to Peter and his successors of the Roman See.

Among them there are also a few, though a very few, who indulge the Roman Pontiff with a primacy of honor or a certain jurisdiction or power which, however, they think is derived not from divine right, but in a certain manner from the consent of the faithful. Others have even advanced so far as to wish the Pope himself to preside over their multi-colored conferences.

If, however, it is easy to find many non-Catholics preaching often of brotherly communion in Jesus Christ, you will indeed find none to whose minds it would occur to submit themselves and obey the Vicar of Christ either as teacher or as ruler of the Church. Meanwhile, they affirm that they would gladly treat with the Roman Church, though on the basis of equality of rights and as equals. If they could so treat, they do not seem to doubt but that an agreement might be entered into through which they would not be compelled to give up those opinions which are thus far the cause why they have wandered outside the one fold of Christ.

On such conditions it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot in any way participate in their reunions, and that Catholics cannot in any way adhere or grant aid to such efforts. If they should do so, they would give authority to a false Christian religion completely foreign to the one Church of Christ. But could we suffer — which would be utterly iniquitous — the truth, and indeed the divinely revealed truth, to be brought down to the level of bargains? For it is the safeguarding of revealed truth that now is at stake.

If Christ Jesus sent His apostles into the whole world to imbue all nations with the evangelical faith and, that they might not err in anything, desired that they be first taught all truth by the Holy Ghost, could the teaching of the Apostles disappear or even be darkened in a Church of which God Himself is the ruler and guardian?

And if our Redeemer plainly said that His Gospel cared not for the Apostolic Ages alone, but for all future generations, could the content of the Faith become in the passing of time so obscure and uncertain that it would today permit acceptance of contradictory opinions?

If that were true, one must likewise say that the coming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and the endless abiding of the Holy Ghost in the Church and the preaching of Jesus Christ have for these many centuries lost all efficacy and usefulness. But to affirm that is blasphemy.

Moreover, when the only Begotten Son of God commanded His legates to teach all nations, He then bound all men with the duty to believe what was announced to them by witnesses preordained of God (Acts 10,41). He attached to his command the sanction, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. (Mark 16, 16.) Now this double commandment of Christ, which must be observed, to teach and to believe so as to attain eternal salvation, cannot even be understood if the Church does not propose the evangelical doctrine entire and clear, and if in the teaching of it she is not free from all danger of error.

How far, indeed, do they wander from the way who think a deposit of truth exists on earth, but one must seek it with such tiring labor and lengthy studies and disputes that hardly is the life of a man long enough to find it and master it. As if the most kind God had spoken through the prophets and His only Begotten Son so that only a few, and those already bowed down in years, might learn the truth that He has revealed through them, and not to give a teaching of faith and morals through which man would be ruled throughout the whole course of his life.

It might appear that the Pan-Christians, engaged in trying to confederate the churches, are pursuing the noble idea of increasing charity among all Christians. Yet how could charity harm faith?

All remember how John — the very Apostle of Charity who in his Gospel seems to have opened the secrets of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and who always inculcated in the minds of his disciples the new commandment, Love ye one another — had wholly forbidden them to have relations with those who did not profess entire and uncorrupted the teachings of Christ. If any man cometh to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house nor say to him, God speed you. (II John 10.) Since charity is founded in whole and sincere faith, the disciples of Christ must be united by the bond of unity in faith and by it as the chief bond.

How could a Christian covenant be imagined in which they who entered it could in matters of faith each retain, although contrary to those of others, their own opinions and judgments? Through what agreement could men of opposed opinions become one and the same society of the faithful?

How, for example, [could abide in unity together] both those who affirm that sacred tradition is a true source of divine revelation, and those who deny it?

Those who hold that an ecclesiastical hierarchy formed of bishops, priests and ministers is divinely constituted, and those who assert that little by little it came into being to suit the conditions of time and events?

Those who adore Christ really present in the Most Holy Eucharist by that wonderful change of bread and wine called transubstantiation, and those who say the Body of Christ is present there only through faith or through the sign and the virtue of the sacrament?

Those who hold that in the Eucharist there is both sacrifice and sacrament, and those who say that it is only a remembrance or commemoration of the Last Supper?

Those who believe it good and meritorious to pray to the saints reigning with Christ, above all to Mary, Mother of God, and to venerate their images, and those who contend that such a form of worship is wrong because it draws from the honor due Jesus Christ, the one mediator of God and men? (Cf. I Tim. 2, 5.)

In such great differences of opinions We do not know how a road may be paved to the unity of the Church save alone through one teaching authority, one sole law of belief, and one sole faith among Christians.

Moreover, We know how easy is the path from denial of this to the neglect of religion, or indifferentism, and to modernism, which holds the very same error, to wit: Dogmatic truth is not absolute but relative; it is proportionate to the various needs of times and places and to the various tendencies of the mind, since dogmatic truth is not contained in an unchanging revelation, but is such that it accommodates itself to the life of men.

In matters of faith it is not permitted to make a distinction between fundamental and so-called non-fundamental articles of faith, as if the first ought to be held by all, and the second the faithful are free to accept or not. The supernatural virtue of faith has as its formal cause the authority of God the Revealer, which suffers not such a division.

Therefore, as many as are of Christ give, for example, to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception the same faith they give to the mystery of the August Trinity, and they believe in the Incarnation of the Word no differently than they believe in the infallible teaching power of the Pope, in the sense defined by the [First] Vatican Ecumenical Council.

Not because the Church has defined and sanctioned truths by solemn decree of the Church at different times and even in times near to us, are they therefore not equally certain and not equally to be believed. For has not God revealed them all?

The teaching authority of the Church — which by divine plan was established on earth that revealed truths might be preserved untouched forever, and quickly and safely come to the minds of men — is daily exercised by the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in communion with him.

Still it has the duty to proceed opportunely in defining points of faith with solemn rites and decrees, when there is a need to declare them to resist more effectively the errors and assaults of heretics, or to impress upon the minds of the faithful clearer and more profound explanations of points of sacred doctrine.

However, in this extraordinary use of the teaching authority nothing is invented, nor is anything new added to the sum of truths that are, at least implicitly, contained in the deposit of divine revelation that was entrusted by God to the Church. Instead, points of faith are defined that could by chance still seem obscure to some, or truths are established as matters of faith that for the first time were called into question.

Therefore, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why the Apostolic See has never permitted its children to take part in these congresses. The unity of Christians cannot be otherwise obtained than by securing the return of the separated to the one true Church of Christ from which they once unhappily withdrew. To the one true Church of Christ, We say, that stands forth before all, and that by the will of its Founder will remain forever the same as when He Himself established it for the salvation of all mankind.

The Mystical Spouse of Christ has in the course of the centuries remained unspotted, nor can it ever be contaminated. St. Cyprian says: "The Spouse of Christ cannot commit adultery; she is incorrupt and modest, she knows one house, she guards with chaste modesty the holiness of one room." (De Cath. Ecclesiae Unitate, 6.) This same holy martyr marveled, and with reason, how anyone could think that "the unity which proceeds from the stability of God and is bound together by the sacraments of Heaven could be torn asunder in the Church or separated by the wills of the discordant." (Ibidem.)

Since the Mystical Body of Christ, that is to say, the Church, is, like the physical body, a unity (I Cor. 12, 12), a compact thing closely joined together (Eph. 4, 16), it would be false and foolish to say that Christ's Mystical Body could be composed of separated and scattered members. Whoever, therefore, is not united with it is not a member of it, nor does he communicate with its Head Who is Christ. No one is found in the one Church of Christ, and no one perseveres in it, unless he acknowledges and accepts obediently the supreme authority of St. Peter and his legitimate successors. (Emphasis added — Ed.) Did not the very ancestors of those who are entangled in the errors of Photius and the Protestants obey the Roman Bishop as the high shepherd of souls?

Children did, alas, abandon their father's house, but the house did not therefore fall into ruins, supported as it was by the unceasing help of God. Let them return, then, to the common father of all. He has forgotten the unjust wrongs [of those who are truly repentant] inflicted upon the Holy See and will receive them most lovingly. If, as they often say, they desire to be united with Us and with Ours, why do they not hasten to return to the Church, "the mother and mistress of all the followers of Christ?" (Conc. Lateran IV, c.5.)

Let them listen to Lactantius crying: "It is only the Catholic Church that retains the true worship. It is the fountain of truth, it is the household of the faith, it is the temple of God: If anyone does not enter it, or if anyone departs from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. Let no one deceive himself by continuous wranglings. Life and salvation are in the balance, which if not looked to carefully and diligently will be lost and destroyed." (Divin. Instit. 4, 30, 11-12.)

Let these separated children return to the Apostolic See established in this city which the Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, consecrated with their blood, to this See, "the root and matrix of the Catholic Church," (S. Cypr. Ep. 48 ad Cornelium, 3) not with the idea or hope that the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth (I Tim. 3, 15) will abandon the integrity of the Faith and bear their errors, but to subject themselves to its teaching authority and rule.

Would that what has not been granted to many of Our predecessors would be granted to Us, to embrace with the heart of a father the children over whom We mourn, separated by an evil discord from Us. May God Our Saviour Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2, 4) hearken to our ardent prayer and vouchsafe to call back all wanderers to the unity of the Church!

In behalf of which lofty intention We invoke, and We ask that you invoke, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Divine Grace, conqueror of all heresies, and Help of Christians, that soon may dawn that longed-for day when all will hear the voice of Her Divine Son, keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph. 4, 3.)

You know well, Venerable Brethren, how We desire their return; and We wish all Our children to know it; and not only they of the Catholic world, but all who are separated from Us. If they will ask in humble prayer the grace of God, there is no doubt but that they will come to recognize the one true Church of Jesus Christ and enter it, united with Us in perfect charity.

In expectation of this, and as a sign of the favor of God and a witness of Our Fatherly benevolence, to you, Venerable Brethren, and to your clergy and people, We lovingly bestow the Apostolic Blessing.

Given at Rome at St. Peter's the sixth of January, the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, the sixth of our Pontificate.

Pius XI

[Catholica]

From the Encyclical Maximum Illud: On the Propagation of the Faith Throughout the World, Apostolic Letter of Benedict XV November 30, 1919, emphasis added:

The Missionary's Model

28. Like his model, the Lord Jesus, the good missionary burns with charity, and he numbers even the most abandoned unbelievers among God's children, redeemed like everyone else with the ransom of the divine blood. Their lowly difference does not exasperate him; their immorality does not dishearten him. His bearing toward them is neigher scornful nor fastidious; his treatment of them is neither harsh nor rough. Instead, he makes use of all the arts of Christian kindness to attract them to himself, so that he may eventually lead them into the arms of Christ, into the embrace of the Good Shepherd. He makes it a custom to ponder the thought expressed in Holy Scripture: "Thy kindly influence, Lord, Thy gracious influence is all about us. At the first false step, none is so ready to rebuke us, to remind and warn us of our error, bidding us come back and renew our loyalty to Thee... With such power at Thy disposal, a lenient judge Thou provest thyself, riding us with a light rein, and keeping Thy terrors in reserve" (Wisdom 12:1-2, 18). What obstacle can arise, what annoyance or danger exists that could deter this emissary of Jesus Christ from fulfilling the task he has begun? There is none. This man, who has attained great favor with God by his free choice of the lofty work he has taken upon himself, will cheerfully endure whatever adversity or hardship befalls him. Toil, scorn, want, hunger, even a dreadful death - he will gladly accept them all, as long as there remains a slight chance that he can free even one soul from the jaws of hell.

29. The missionary who is motivated and inspired by the example of Christ Our Lord and of the Apostles can go out confidently to his ministry. But he must recognize that the basis of his confidence rests entirely on God. As We have said before, this whole work is a divine work. Only God can enter men's hearts and illumine their minds with the radiance of truth; only God can enkindle their wills with the spark of virtue; only God can give them the strength to pursue the truth and do the good they have seen. The emissary will spend himself in vain unless his Lord helps him as he works. Yet he has every reason to go bravely on with the task allotted to him, for he can rely on divine grace that grace which is never withheld from the man who asks for it.

[chosenone]

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

Beautifully said.

Telling the truth is charity.

Absolutely, and Jesus had the truth in its entirety, unfortunately we do not and we must acknowledge our shortcomings, thus walk humbly in our faith.  Knowing we don't have all the answers, we can embrace the diversity in His Church and unite as believers in Jesus Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, standing against the true enemy.

You will not change my beliefs, I am pretty sure I will not change yours, but we both believe in God.  You are my brethren, I love you, and I welcome your fellowship; between us we can change the world for the better, and bring many to Christ.

We can choose to bring in the unbeliever without concern of into whose doctrine they will fall, or we can leave them to the adversary and fight among ourselves arrogantly proclaiming our understanding as uniquely the truth.  I, for one, choose the former and will not engage you, but I will stand by you, for this is what God has called me to.

If you feel my salvation is at stake, I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but I am confident, Jesus loves me, will be my advocate and one day we will meet in Heaven.  I look forward to that day.

Cheers and God bless.
Carey.

Edit: needed a couple of commas.

To Our Venerable Brethren, Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and to all Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See.

Pius XI, Pontifex Maximus.

Venerable Brethren: Greetings and Apostolic Benediction:

The will to strengthen and to diffuse for the common good of human society that brotherhood, in which we are all closely united by the bonds of a common nature and origin, has never perhaps so taken hold of men's minds as in our times.

When nations do not fully enjoy the blessings of peace, and old and new discords break forth into mutiny and conflict, and when indeed it is impossible to settle the numerous controversies that strike at the peace and prosperity of peoples without the harmonious action of those who govern states and rule and promote their interests, it is easy to understand — and all the more so now that all accept the unity of mankind — how it is that, impelled by the desire for universal brotherhood, many should be anxious that the various nations stand ever more closely together.

Some seek to accomplish a thing not unlike this in matters that concern the ordinances of the New Law which Christ brought to us. Convinced that rarely indeed do men lack all sense of religion, they seem to draw from this reason to hope that without great difficulty it may come about that all peoples, no matter how different their religions, will stand fraternally together in the profession of a few doctrines which will serve as a kind of common foundation for the spiritual life.

Therefore, they are accustomed to call congresses, reunions and meetings which are attended by many, and they invite there indiscriminately, to decide the question, infidels of all kinds and Christians alike, and even those who have miserably apostatized from Christ, or who intransigently and tenaciously deny the divinity of His person and mission.

Certainly such movements as these cannot gain the approval of Catholics. They are founded upon the false opinions of those who say that, since all religions equally unfold and signify — though not in the same way — the native, inborn feeling in us all through which we are borne toward God and humbly recognize His rule, therefore, all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy.

The followers of this theory are not only deceived and mistaken, but since they repudiate the true religion by attacking it in its very essence, they move step by step toward naturalism and atheism. Hence it clearly follows that anyone who gives assent to such theories and undertakings utterly abandons divinely revealed religion.

When the question of promoting unity among Christians is under consideration many are easily deceived by the semblance of good. Is it not right, it is said repeatedly, indeed is it not the duty of all who call upon Christ's name to cease mutual recriminations, and to join together in ties of mutual charity? For who would dare say that he loves Christ when he will not strive to his utmost to attain that which Christ prayed for to His Father when He asked that His disciples might be one? (John 17,21.)

And did not Christ Himself wish His disciples to bear the sign and be distinguished by the characteristic that they love one another: By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another? (John 13,35.) Would, they add, that all Christians were one, that they might drive out the evil of irreligion which every day spreads more widely and threatens to overturn the Gospel.

These and like arguments are brought forth and amplified by those who call themselves Pan-Christians. No longer are they confined to small and scattered groups, but they grow, so to speak, by whole phalanxes and unite themselves in extensive organizations which, though its members are imbued with different faiths, non-Catholics direct for the most part.

The work itself is promoted with such zeal that it has gained a great variety of followers, and has even ensnared the minds of Catholics with the entrancing hope of attaining a union that would seem to meet the will of Holy Mother Church, to whom nothing is more hallowed than the recall and the return of her wandering children to her bosom. Yet beneath the coaxing words there is concealed an error so great that it would destroy utterly the foundations of the Catholic Faith.

Moved by the consciousness of Our Apostolic office to guard the flock of the Lord from error, We invoke your zeal, Venerable Brethren, to ward off this evil. We are convinced that through your writings and your words, the principles and the reasons We shall expound will more quickly reach the people. They will then understand what to think and what to do about the effort made to coalesce into one body, through some sort of a pact, all who call themselves Christians.

We were created by God, the Maker of all things, to know Him and serve Him; our Maker, therefore, has full right that we should serve Him. For the governance of mankind, God could have prescribed only one law of nature which He wrote upon the mind of man at his creation, and thenceforth He could have ruled the steps of this law under His customary providence.

Instead, He preferred to give us the commandments to prepare us. And in the course of the centuries, from the origin of mankind to the coming and teaching of Jesus Christ, He Himself taught man the duties that rational beings owe their Creator. God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son. (Hebr. 1, 1 seq.)

From this it follows that the true religion cannot be other than that which is founded in the revealed word of God. This revelation, inaugurated at the beginning of time and continued in the Old Testament, Christ Jesus Himself perfected in the New. Now if God has spoken — and that He has indeed spoken is proven by history — there is no one who does not see that it is man's duty to believe God absolutely in His revelations, and to obey Him without qualification in His commandments. Precisely that we might rightly fulfill both duties for the glory of God and our salvation, the only Begotten Son of God founded His Church upon earth.

They, therefore, who profess themselves Christians cannot, We think, but believe in Christ's establishment of one Church and only one. Yet when one asks what that Church by the will of its Founder ought to be, then not all agree. Indeed a great many deny, for example, that Christ's Church ought to be visible — at least in the sense that it should stand forth as one body of faithful united in one identical doctrine and under one authority and rule. On the contrary, by a visible Church they understand nothing but a society formed by various Christian communities, even though these adhere to different and even mutually contradictory doctrines.

Instead, Christ Our Lord founded His Church as a perfect society, external of its own nature and perceived by the senses, which would pursue for all future time the task of saving mankind through the guidance of one head, through being taught by a living voice, and through the dispensation of the sacraments, as fountains of the grace of Heaven. Wherefore, He likened His Church to a kingdom, to a house, to a sheepfold, to a flock.

So marvelously constituted a Church could not cease altogether and be extinguished when its Founder and the Apostles who first propagated it had died. For it had been commanded to lead to eternal salvation all men without distinction of time or place: Going therefore forth, teach all nations. (Matth. 28, 19.) Would the Church lack power or efficacy in the perpetual fulfillment of its work when Christ Himself, as He solemnly promised, is with it forever? Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world. (Matth. 28,20.) Necessarily, therefore, the Church of Christ ought not only to exist today and always, but still more, be the same as it was in the Apostolic Ages, unless we should wish to utter the absurdity that Christ Our Lord either was not adequate to His purpose or had erred when He asserted the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matth. 16, 18.)

And here there is presented the opportunity to set forth and remove a falsity upon which, it seems, this whole question hinges, and from which is drawn the multiple effort of the non-Christians who strive, as We have said, for the confederation of the Christian churches.

The authors of this plan are in the habit of quoting the words of Christ: That ye all may be one. . . . There shall be one fold and one shepherd, (John 17, 21; 10, 16), yet in the sense that these words express a desire and a prayer of Jesus Christ which thus far has lacked all effect. They contend that the unity of faith and governance which is the sign of the true and one Church of Christ, has almost never existed up to this time, and does not exist today; that it can be wished for and perhaps sometime be obtained through common submission of the will, but meanwhile it must be considered a fiction.

They say, moreover, that the Church by its very nature is divided into parts; that it consists of many churches or particular communities which are separated among themselves and, although they have certain points of doctrine in common, differ in others; and that at most the Church was the one Church and only Church between the Apostolic Era and the first Ecumenical Councils.

Therefore, they say, the controversies and old differences of opinion, which to this day divide the Christian name, should be put aside, and with the remaining doctrines there should be formulated and proposed a common rule of faith, in the profession of which all can know and feel themselves brothers. United by some sort of universal covenant, the multitude of churches or communities will then be in a position to oppose fruitfully and effectively the progress of unbelief. This, Venerable Brethren, is the more general opinion.

There are, however, some among them who assume and grant that Protestantism, as they call it, has rejected very inadvisedly certain articles of faith and certain rites of external worship that are fully acceptable and useful, which the Roman Church still preserves. But they add immediately that the Church has corrupted the early religion by adding to it and proposing for belief certain doctrines that are not only foreign to, but are opposed to, the Gospel — among which they bring forth chiefly that of the primacy of jurisdiction assigned to Peter and his successors of the Roman See.

Among them there are also a few, though a very few, who indulge the Roman Pontiff with a primacy of honor or a certain jurisdiction or power which, however, they think is derived not from divine right, but in a certain manner from the consent of the faithful. Others have even advanced so far as to wish the Pope himself to preside over their multi-colored conferences.

If, however, it is easy to find many non-Catholics preaching often of brotherly communion in Jesus Christ, you will indeed find none to whose minds it would occur to submit themselves and obey the Vicar of Christ either as teacher or as ruler of the Church. Meanwhile, they affirm that they would gladly treat with the Roman Church, though on the basis of equality of rights and as equals. If they could so treat, they do not seem to doubt but that an agreement might be entered into through which they would not be compelled to give up those opinions which are thus far the cause why they have wandered outside the one fold of Christ.

On such conditions it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot in any way participate in their reunions, and that Catholics cannot in any way adhere or grant aid to such efforts. If they should do so, they would give authority to a false Christian religion completely foreign to the one Church of Christ. But could we suffer — which would be utterly iniquitous — the truth, and indeed the divinely revealed truth, to be brought down to the level of bargains? For it is the safeguarding of revealed truth that now is at stake.

If Christ Jesus sent His apostles into the whole world to imbue all nations with the evangelical faith and, that they might not err in anything, desired that they be first taught all truth by the Holy Ghost, could the teaching of the Apostles disappear or even be darkened in a Church of which God Himself is the ruler and guardian?

And if our Redeemer plainly said that His Gospel cared not for the Apostolic Ages alone, but for all future generations, could the content of the Faith become in the passing of time so obscure and uncertain that it would today permit acceptance of contradictory opinions?

If that were true, one must likewise say that the coming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and the endless abiding of the Holy Ghost in the Church and the preaching of Jesus Christ have for these many centuries lost all efficacy and usefulness. But to affirm that is blasphemy.

Moreover, when the only Begotten Son of God commanded His legates to teach all nations, He then bound all men with the duty to believe what was announced to them by witnesses preordained of God (Acts 10,41). He attached to his command the sanction, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. (Mark 16, 16.) Now this double commandment of Christ, which must be observed, to teach and to believe so as to attain eternal salvation, cannot even be understood if the Church does not propose the evangelical doctrine entire and clear, and if in the teaching of it she is not free from all danger of error.

How far, indeed, do they wander from the way who think a deposit of truth exists on earth, but one must seek it with such tiring labor and lengthy studies and disputes that hardly is the life of a man long enough to find it and master it. As if the most kind God had spoken through the prophets and His only Begotten Son so that only a few, and those already bowed down in years, might learn the truth that He has revealed through them, and not to give a teaching of faith and morals through which man would be ruled throughout the whole course of his life.

It might appear that the Pan-Christians, engaged in trying to confederate the churches, are pursuing the noble idea of increasing charity among all Christians. Yet how could charity harm faith?

All remember how John — the very Apostle of Charity who in his Gospel seems to have opened the secrets of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and who always inculcated in the minds of his disciples the new commandment, Love ye one another — had wholly forbidden them to have relations with those who did not profess entire and uncorrupted the teachings of Christ. If any man cometh to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house nor say to him, God speed you. (II John 10.) Since charity is founded in whole and sincere faith, the disciples of Christ must be united by the bond of unity in faith and by it as the chief bond.

How could a Christian covenant be imagined in which they who entered it could in matters of faith each retain, although contrary to those of others, their own opinions and judgments? Through what agreement could men of opposed opinions become one and the same society of the faithful?

How, for example, [could abide in unity together] both those who affirm that sacred tradition is a true source of divine revelation, and those who deny it?

Those who hold that an ecclesiastical hierarchy formed of bishops, priests and ministers is divinely constituted, and those who assert that little by little it came into being to suit the conditions of time and events?

Those who adore Christ really present in the Most Holy Eucharist by that wonderful change of bread and wine called transubstantiation, and those who say the Body of Christ is present there only through faith or through the sign and the virtue of the sacrament?

Those who hold that in the Eucharist there is both sacrifice and sacrament, and those who say that it is only a remembrance or commemoration of the Last Supper?

Those who believe it good and meritorious to pray to the saints reigning with Christ, above all to Mary, Mother of God, and to venerate their images, and those who contend that such a form of worship is wrong because it draws from the honor due Jesus Christ, the one mediator of God and men? (Cf. I Tim. 2, 5.)

In such great differences of opinions We do not know how a road may be paved to the unity of the Church save alone through one teaching authority, one sole law of belief, and one sole faith among Christians.

Moreover, We know how easy is the path from denial of this to the neglect of religion, or indifferentism, and to modernism, which holds the very same error, to wit: Dogmatic truth is not absolute but relative; it is proportionate to the various needs of times and places and to the various tendencies of the mind, since dogmatic truth is not contained in an unchanging revelation, but is such that it accommodates itself to the life of men.

In matters of faith it is not permitted to make a distinction between fundamental and so-called non-fundamental articles of faith, as if the first ought to be held by all, and the second the faithful are free to accept or not. The supernatural virtue of faith has as its formal cause the authority of God the Revealer, which suffers not such a division.

Therefore, as many as are of Christ give, for example, to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception the same faith they give to the mystery of the August Trinity, and they believe in the Incarnation of the Word no differently than they believe in the infallible teaching power of the Pope, in the sense defined by the [First] Vatican Ecumenical Council.

Not because the Church has defined and sanctioned truths by solemn decree of the Church at different times and even in times near to us, are they therefore not equally certain and not equally to be believed. For has not God revealed them all?

The teaching authority of the Church — which by divine plan was established on earth that revealed truths might be preserved untouched forever, and quickly and safely come to the minds of men — is daily exercised by the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in communion with him.

Still it has the duty to proceed opportunely in defining points of faith with solemn rites and decrees, when there is a need to declare them to resist more effectively the errors and assaults of heretics, or to impress upon the minds of the faithful clearer and more profound explanations of points of sacred doctrine.

However, in this extraordinary use of the teaching authority nothing is invented, nor is anything new added to the sum of truths that are, at least implicitly, contained in the deposit of divine revelation that was entrusted by God to the Church. Instead, points of faith are defined that could by chance still seem obscure to some, or truths are established as matters of faith that for the first time were called into question.

Therefore, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why the Apostolic See has never permitted its children to take part in these congresses. The unity of Christians cannot be otherwise obtained than by securing the return of the separated to the one true Church of Christ from which they once unhappily withdrew. To the one true Church of Christ, We say, that stands forth before all, and that by the will of its Founder will remain forever the same as when He Himself established it for the salvation of all mankind.

The Mystical Spouse of Christ has in the course of the centuries remained unspotted, nor can it ever be contaminated. St. Cyprian says: "The Spouse of Christ cannot commit adultery; she is incorrupt and modest, she knows one house, she guards with chaste modesty the holiness of one room." (De Cath. Ecclesiae Unitate, 6.) This same holy martyr marveled, and with reason, how anyone could think that "the unity which proceeds from the stability of God and is bound together by the sacraments of Heaven could be torn asunder in the Church or separated by the wills of the discordant." (Ibidem.)

Since the Mystical Body of Christ, that is to say, the Church, is, like the physical body, a unity (I Cor. 12, 12), a compact thing closely joined together (Eph. 4, 16), it would be false and foolish to say that Christ's Mystical Body could be composed of separated and scattered members. Whoever, therefore, is not united with it is not a member of it, nor does he communicate with its Head Who is Christ. No one is found in the one Church of Christ, and no one perseveres in it, unless he acknowledges and accepts obediently the supreme authority of St. Peter and his legitimate successors. (Emphasis added — Ed.) Did not the very ancestors of those who are entangled in the errors of Photius and the Protestants obey the Roman Bishop as the high shepherd of souls?

Children did, alas, abandon their father's house, but the house did not therefore fall into ruins, supported as it was by the unceasing help of God. Let them return, then, to the common father of all. He has forgotten the unjust wrongs [of those who are truly repentant] inflicted upon the Holy See and will receive them most lovingly. If, as they often say, they desire to be united with Us and with Ours, why do they not hasten to return to the Church, "the mother and mistress of all the followers of Christ?" (Conc. Lateran IV, c.5.)

Let them listen to Lactantius crying: "It is only the Catholic Church that retains the true worship. It is the fountain of truth, it is the household of the faith, it is the temple of God: If anyone does not enter it, or if anyone departs from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. Let no one deceive himself by continuous wranglings. Life and salvation are in the balance, which if not looked to carefully and diligently will be lost and destroyed." (Divin. Instit. 4, 30, 11-12.)

Let these separated children return to the Apostolic See established in this city which the Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, consecrated with their blood, to this See, "the root and matrix of the Catholic Church," (S. Cypr. Ep. 48 ad Cornelium, 3) not with the idea or hope that the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth (I Tim. 3, 15) will abandon the integrity of the Faith and bear their errors, but to subject themselves to its teaching authority and rule.

Would that what has not been granted to many of Our predecessors would be granted to Us, to embrace with the heart of a father the children over whom We mourn, separated by an evil discord from Us. May God Our Saviour Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2, 4) hearken to our ardent prayer and vouchsafe to call back all wanderers to the unity of the Church!

In behalf of which lofty intention We invoke, and We ask that you invoke, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Divine Grace, conqueror of all heresies, and Help of Christians, that soon may dawn that longed-for day when all will hear the voice of Her Divine Son, keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph. 4, 3.)

You know well, Venerable Brethren, how We desire their return; and We wish all Our children to know it; and not only they of the Catholic world, but all who are separated from Us. If they will ask in humble prayer the grace of God, there is no doubt but that they will come to recognize the one true Church of Jesus Christ and enter it, united with Us in perfect charity.

In expectation of this, and as a sign of the favor of God and a witness of Our Fatherly benevolence, to you, Venerable Brethren, and to your clergy and people, We lovingly bestow the Apostolic Blessing.

Given at Rome at St. Peter's the sixth of January, the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, the sixth of our Pontificate.

Pius XI

I am not sure why you and Anna always quote a pope, who is a fallible human being just as we all are, when we have the Bible which is Gods word. God says things in a far simpler and more straight forward way, and of course He is always right.  Quoting the pope means nothing to those who dont follow your faith.

[Mirage]

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

Beautifully said.

Telling the truth is charity.

Absolutely, and Jesus had the truth in its entirety, unfortunately we do not and we must acknowledge our shortcomings, thus walk humbly in our faith.  Knowing we don't have all the answers, we can embrace the diversity in His Church and unite as believers in Jesus Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, standing against the true enemy.

You will not change my beliefs, I am pretty sure I will not change yours, but we both believe in God.  You are my brethren, I love you, and I welcome your fellowship; between us we can change the world for the better, and bring many to Christ.

We can choose to bring in the unbeliever without concern of into whose doctrine they will fall, or we can leave them to the adversary and fight among ourselves arrogantly proclaiming our understanding as uniquely the truth.  I, for one, choose the former and will not engage you, but I will stand by you, for this is what God has called me to.

If you feel my salvation is at stake, I appreciate your concern for my welfare, but I am confident, Jesus loves me, will be my advocate and one day we will meet in Heaven.  I look forward to that day.

Cheers and God bless.
Carey.

Edit: needed a couple of commas.

To Our Venerable Brethren, Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and to all Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See.

Pius XI, Pontifex Maximus.

Venerable Brethren: Greetings and Apostolic Benediction:

The will to strengthen and to diffuse for the common good of human society that brotherhood, in which we are all closely united by the bonds of a common nature and origin, has never perhaps so taken hold of men's minds as in our times.

When nations do not fully enjoy the blessings of peace, and old and new discords break forth into mutiny and conflict, and when indeed it is impossible to settle the numerous controversies that strike at the peace and prosperity of peoples without the harmonious action of those who govern states and rule and promote their interests, it is easy to understand — and all the more so now that all accept the unity of mankind — how it is that, impelled by the desire for universal brotherhood, many should be anxious that the various nations stand ever more closely together.

Some seek to accomplish a thing not unlike this in matters that concern the ordinances of the New Law which Christ brought to us. Convinced that rarely indeed do men lack all sense of religion, they seem to draw from this reason to hope that without great difficulty it may come about that all peoples, no matter how different their religions, will stand fraternally together in the profession of a few doctrines which will serve as a kind of common foundation for the spiritual life.

Therefore, they are accustomed to call congresses, reunions and meetings which are attended by many, and they invite there indiscriminately, to decide the question, infidels of all kinds and Christians alike, and even those who have miserably apostatized from Christ, or who intransigently and tenaciously deny the divinity of His person and mission.

Certainly such movements as these cannot gain the approval of Catholics. They are founded upon the false opinions of those who say that, since all religions equally unfold and signify — though not in the same way — the native, inborn feeling in us all through which we are borne toward God and humbly recognize His rule, therefore, all religions are more or less good and praiseworthy.

The followers of this theory are not only deceived and mistaken, but since they repudiate the true religion by attacking it in its very essence, they move step by step toward naturalism and atheism. Hence it clearly follows that anyone who gives assent to such theories and undertakings utterly abandons divinely revealed religion.

When the question of promoting unity among Christians is under consideration many are easily deceived by the semblance of good. Is it not right, it is said repeatedly, indeed is it not the duty of all who call upon Christ's name to cease mutual recriminations, and to join together in ties of mutual charity? For who would dare say that he loves Christ when he will not strive to his utmost to attain that which Christ prayed for to His Father when He asked that His disciples might be one? (John 17,21.)

And did not Christ Himself wish His disciples to bear the sign and be distinguished by the characteristic that they love one another: By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another? (John 13,35.) Would, they add, that all Christians were one, that they might drive out the evil of irreligion which every day spreads more widely and threatens to overturn the Gospel.

These and like arguments are brought forth and amplified by those who call themselves Pan-Christians. No longer are they confined to small and scattered groups, but they grow, so to speak, by whole phalanxes and unite themselves in extensive organizations which, though its members are imbued with different faiths, non-Catholics direct for the most part.

The work itself is promoted with such zeal that it has gained a great variety of followers, and has even ensnared the minds of Catholics with the entrancing hope of attaining a union that would seem to meet the will of Holy Mother Church, to whom nothing is more hallowed than the recall and the return of her wandering children to her bosom. Yet beneath the coaxing words there is concealed an error so great that it would destroy utterly the foundations of the Catholic Faith.

Moved by the consciousness of Our Apostolic office to guard the flock of the Lord from error, We invoke your zeal, Venerable Brethren, to ward off this evil. We are convinced that through your writings and your words, the principles and the reasons We shall expound will more quickly reach the people. They will then understand what to think and what to do about the effort made to coalesce into one body, through some sort of a pact, all who call themselves Christians.

We were created by God, the Maker of all things, to know Him and serve Him; our Maker, therefore, has full right that we should serve Him. For the governance of mankind, God could have prescribed only one law of nature which He wrote upon the mind of man at his creation, and thenceforth He could have ruled the steps of this law under His customary providence.

Instead, He preferred to give us the commandments to prepare us. And in the course of the centuries, from the origin of mankind to the coming and teaching of Jesus Christ, He Himself taught man the duties that rational beings owe their Creator. God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son. (Hebr. 1, 1 seq.)

From this it follows that the true religion cannot be other than that which is founded in the revealed word of God. This revelation, inaugurated at the beginning of time and continued in the Old Testament, Christ Jesus Himself perfected in the New. Now if God has spoken — and that He has indeed spoken is proven by history — there is no one who does not see that it is man's duty to believe God absolutely in His revelations, and to obey Him without qualification in His commandments. Precisely that we might rightly fulfill both duties for the glory of God and our salvation, the only Begotten Son of God founded His Church upon earth.

They, therefore, who profess themselves Christians cannot, We think, but believe in Christ's establishment of one Church and only one. Yet when one asks what that Church by the will of its Founder ought to be, then not all agree. Indeed a great many deny, for example, that Christ's Church ought to be visible — at least in the sense that it should stand forth as one body of faithful united in one identical doctrine and under one authority and rule. On the contrary, by a visible Church they understand nothing but a society formed by various Christian communities, even though these adhere to different and even mutually contradictory doctrines.

Instead, Christ Our Lord founded His Church as a perfect society, external of its own nature and perceived by the senses, which would pursue for all future time the task of saving mankind through the guidance of one head, through being taught by a living voice, and through the dispensation of the sacraments, as fountains of the grace of Heaven. Wherefore, He likened His Church to a kingdom, to a house, to a sheepfold, to a flock.

So marvelously constituted a Church could not cease altogether and be extinguished when its Founder and the Apostles who first propagated it had died. For it had been commanded to lead to eternal salvation all men without distinction of time or place: Going therefore forth, teach all nations. (Matth. 28, 19.) Would the Church lack power or efficacy in the perpetual fulfillment of its work when Christ Himself, as He solemnly promised, is with it forever? Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world. (Matth. 28,20.) Necessarily, therefore, the Church of Christ ought not only to exist today and always, but still more, be the same as it was in the Apostolic Ages, unless we should wish to utter the absurdity that Christ Our Lord either was not adequate to His purpose or had erred when He asserted the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matth. 16, 18.)

And here there is presented the opportunity to set forth and remove a falsity upon which, it seems, this whole question hinges, and from which is drawn the multiple effort of the non-Christians who strive, as We have said, for the confederation of the Christian churches.

The authors of this plan are in the habit of quoting the words of Christ: That ye all may be one. . . . There shall be one fold and one shepherd, (John 17, 21; 10, 16), yet in the sense that these words express a desire and a prayer of Jesus Christ which thus far has lacked all effect. They contend that the unity of faith and governance which is the sign of the true and one Church of Christ, has almost never existed up to this time, and does not exist today; that it can be wished for and perhaps sometime be obtained through common submission of the will, but meanwhile it must be considered a fiction.

They say, moreover, that the Church by its very nature is divided into parts; that it consists of many churches or particular communities which are separated among themselves and, although they have certain points of doctrine in common, differ in others; and that at most the Church was the one Church and only Church between the Apostolic Era and the first Ecumenical Councils.

Therefore, they say, the controversies and old differences of opinion, which to this day divide the Christian name, should be put aside, and with the remaining doctrines there should be formulated and proposed a common rule of faith, in the profession of which all can know and feel themselves brothers. United by some sort of universal covenant, the multitude of churches or communities will then be in a position to oppose fruitfully and effectively the progress of unbelief. This, Venerable Brethren, is the more general opinion.

There are, however, some among them who assume and grant that Protestantism, as they call it, has rejected very inadvisedly certain articles of faith and certain rites of external worship that are fully acceptable and useful, which the Roman Church still preserves. But they add immediately that the Church has corrupted the early religion by adding to it and proposing for belief certain doctrines that are not only foreign to, but are opposed to, the Gospel — among which they bring forth chiefly that of the primacy of jurisdiction assigned to Peter and his successors of the Roman See.

Among them there are also a few, though a very few, who indulge the Roman Pontiff with a primacy of honor or a certain jurisdiction or power which, however, they think is derived not from divine right, but in a certain manner from the consent of the faithful. Others have even advanced so far as to wish the Pope himself to preside over their multi-colored conferences.

If, however, it is easy to find many non-Catholics preaching often of brotherly communion in Jesus Christ, you will indeed find none to whose minds it would occur to submit themselves and obey the Vicar of Christ either as teacher or as ruler of the Church. Meanwhile, they affirm that they would gladly treat with the Roman Church, though on the basis of equality of rights and as equals. If they could so treat, they do not seem to doubt but that an agreement might be entered into through which they would not be compelled to give up those opinions which are thus far the cause why they have wandered outside the one fold of Christ.

On such conditions it is clear that the Apostolic See cannot in any way participate in their reunions, and that Catholics cannot in any way adhere or grant aid to such efforts. If they should do so, they would give authority to a false Christian religion completely foreign to the one Church of Christ. But could we suffer — which would be utterly iniquitous — the truth, and indeed the divinely revealed truth, to be brought down to the level of bargains? For it is the safeguarding of revealed truth that now is at stake.

If Christ Jesus sent His apostles into the whole world to imbue all nations with the evangelical faith and, that they might not err in anything, desired that they be first taught all truth by the Holy Ghost, could the teaching of the Apostles disappear or even be darkened in a Church of which God Himself is the ruler and guardian?

And if our Redeemer plainly said that His Gospel cared not for the Apostolic Ages alone, but for all future generations, could the content of the Faith become in the passing of time so obscure and uncertain that it would today permit acceptance of contradictory opinions?

If that were true, one must likewise say that the coming of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and the endless abiding of the Holy Ghost in the Church and the preaching of Jesus Christ have for these many centuries lost all efficacy and usefulness. But to affirm that is blasphemy.

Moreover, when the only Begotten Son of God commanded His legates to teach all nations, He then bound all men with the duty to believe what was announced to them by witnesses preordained of God (Acts 10,41). He attached to his command the sanction, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned. (Mark 16, 16.) Now this double commandment of Christ, which must be observed, to teach and to believe so as to attain eternal salvation, cannot even be understood if the Church does not propose the evangelical doctrine entire and clear, and if in the teaching of it she is not free from all danger of error.

How far, indeed, do they wander from the way who think a deposit of truth exists on earth, but one must seek it with such tiring labor and lengthy studies and disputes that hardly is the life of a man long enough to find it and master it. As if the most kind God had spoken through the prophets and His only Begotten Son so that only a few, and those already bowed down in years, might learn the truth that He has revealed through them, and not to give a teaching of faith and morals through which man would be ruled throughout the whole course of his life.

It might appear that the Pan-Christians, engaged in trying to confederate the churches, are pursuing the noble idea of increasing charity among all Christians. Yet how could charity harm faith?

All remember how John — the very Apostle of Charity who in his Gospel seems to have opened the secrets of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, and who always inculcated in the minds of his disciples the new commandment, Love ye one another — had wholly forbidden them to have relations with those who did not profess entire and uncorrupted the teachings of Christ. If any man cometh to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house nor say to him, God speed you. (II John 10.) Since charity is founded in whole and sincere faith, the disciples of Christ must be united by the bond of unity in faith and by it as the chief bond.

How could a Christian covenant be imagined in which they who entered it could in matters of faith each retain, although contrary to those of others, their own opinions and judgments? Through what agreement could men of opposed opinions become one and the same society of the faithful?

How, for example, [could abide in unity together] both those who affirm that sacred tradition is a true source of divine revelation, and those who deny it?

Those who hold that an ecclesiastical hierarchy formed of bishops, priests and ministers is divinely constituted, and those who assert that little by little it came into being to suit the conditions of time and events?

Those who adore Christ really present in the Most Holy Eucharist by that wonderful change of bread and wine called transubstantiation, and those who say the Body of Christ is present there only through faith or through the sign and the virtue of the sacrament?

Those who hold that in the Eucharist there is both sacrifice and sacrament, and those who say that it is only a remembrance or commemoration of the Last Supper?

Those who believe it good and meritorious to pray to the saints reigning with Christ, above all to Mary, Mother of God, and to venerate their images, and those who contend that such a form of worship is wrong because it draws from the honor due Jesus Christ, the one mediator of God and men? (Cf. I Tim. 2, 5.)

In such great differences of opinions We do not know how a road may be paved to the unity of the Church save alone through one teaching authority, one sole law of belief, and one sole faith among Christians.

Moreover, We know how easy is the path from denial of this to the neglect of religion, or indifferentism, and to modernism, which holds the very same error, to wit: Dogmatic truth is not absolute but relative; it is proportionate to the various needs of times and places and to the various tendencies of the mind, since dogmatic truth is not contained in an unchanging revelation, but is such that it accommodates itself to the life of men.

In matters of faith it is not permitted to make a distinction between fundamental and so-called non-fundamental articles of faith, as if the first ought to be held by all, and the second the faithful are free to accept or not. The supernatural virtue of faith has as its formal cause the authority of God the Revealer, which suffers not such a division.

Therefore, as many as are of Christ give, for example, to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception the same faith they give to the mystery of the August Trinity, and they believe in the Incarnation of the Word no differently than they believe in the infallible teaching power of the Pope, in the sense defined by the [First] Vatican Ecumenical Council.

Not because the Church has defined and sanctioned truths by solemn decree of the Church at different times and even in times near to us, are they therefore not equally certain and not equally to be believed. For has not God revealed them all?

The teaching authority of the Church — which by divine plan was established on earth that revealed truths might be preserved untouched forever, and quickly and safely come to the minds of men — is daily exercised by the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in communion with him.

Still it has the duty to proceed opportunely in defining points of faith with solemn rites and decrees, when there is a need to declare them to resist more effectively the errors and assaults of heretics, or to impress upon the minds of the faithful clearer and more profound explanations of points of sacred doctrine.

However, in this extraordinary use of the teaching authority nothing is invented, nor is anything new added to the sum of truths that are, at least implicitly, contained in the deposit of divine revelation that was entrusted by God to the Church. Instead, points of faith are defined that could by chance still seem obscure to some, or truths are established as matters of faith that for the first time were called into question.

Therefore, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why the Apostolic See has never permitted its children to take part in these congresses. The unity of Christians cannot be otherwise obtained than by securing the return of the separated to the one true Church of Christ from which they once unhappily withdrew. To the one true Church of Christ, We say, that stands forth before all, and that by the will of its Founder will remain forever the same as when He Himself established it for the salvation of all mankind.

The Mystical Spouse of Christ has in the course of the centuries remained unspotted, nor can it ever be contaminated. St. Cyprian says: "The Spouse of Christ cannot commit adultery; she is incorrupt and modest, she knows one house, she guards with chaste modesty the holiness of one room." (De Cath. Ecclesiae Unitate, 6.) This same holy martyr marveled, and with reason, how anyone could think that "the unity which proceeds from the stability of God and is bound together by the sacraments of Heaven could be torn asunder in the Church or separated by the wills of the discordant." (Ibidem.)

Since the Mystical Body of Christ, that is to say, the Church, is, like the physical body, a unity (I Cor. 12, 12), a compact thing closely joined together (Eph. 4, 16), it would be false and foolish to say that Christ's Mystical Body could be composed of separated and scattered members. Whoever, therefore, is not united with it is not a member of it, nor does he communicate with its Head Who is Christ. No one is found in the one Church of Christ, and no one perseveres in it, unless he acknowledges and accepts obediently the supreme authority of St. Peter and his legitimate successors. (Emphasis added — Ed.) Did not the very ancestors of those who are entangled in the errors of Photius and the Protestants obey the Roman Bishop as the high shepherd of souls?

Children did, alas, abandon their father's house, but the house did not therefore fall into ruins, supported as it was by the unceasing help of God. Let them return, then, to the common father of all. He has forgotten the unjust wrongs [of those who are truly repentant] inflicted upon the Holy See and will receive them most lovingly. If, as they often say, they desire to be united with Us and with Ours, why do they not hasten to return to the Church, "the mother and mistress of all the followers of Christ?" (Conc. Lateran IV, c.5.)

Let them listen to Lactantius crying: "It is only the Catholic Church that retains the true worship. It is the fountain of truth, it is the household of the faith, it is the temple of God: If anyone does not enter it, or if anyone departs from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. Let no one deceive himself by continuous wranglings. Life and salvation are in the balance, which if not looked to carefully and diligently will be lost and destroyed." (Divin. Instit. 4, 30, 11-12.)

Let these separated children return to the Apostolic See established in this city which the Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, consecrated with their blood, to this See, "the root and matrix of the Catholic Church," (S. Cypr. Ep. 48 ad Cornelium, 3) not with the idea or hope that the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth (I Tim. 3, 15) will abandon the integrity of the Faith and bear their errors, but to subject themselves to its teaching authority and rule.

Would that what has not been granted to many of Our predecessors would be granted to Us, to embrace with the heart of a father the children over whom We mourn, separated by an evil discord from Us. May God Our Saviour Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2, 4) hearken to our ardent prayer and vouchsafe to call back all wanderers to the unity of the Church!

In behalf of which lofty intention We invoke, and We ask that you invoke, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Divine Grace, conqueror of all heresies, and Help of Christians, that soon may dawn that longed-for day when all will hear the voice of Her Divine Son, keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph. 4, 3.)

You know well, Venerable Brethren, how We desire their return; and We wish all Our children to know it; and not only they of the Catholic world, but all who are separated from Us. If they will ask in humble prayer the grace of God, there is no doubt but that they will come to recognize the one true Church of Jesus Christ and enter it, united with Us in perfect charity.

In expectation of this, and as a sign of the favor of God and a witness of Our Fatherly benevolence, to you, Venerable Brethren, and to your clergy and people, We lovingly bestow the Apostolic Blessing.

Given at Rome at St. Peter's the sixth of January, the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-eight, the sixth of our Pontificate.

Pius XI

I am not sure why you and Anna always quote a pope, who is a fallible human being just as we all are, when we have the Bible which is Gods word. God says things in a far simpler and more straight forward way, and of course He is always right.  Quoting the pope means nothing to those who dont follow your faith.

It will.

[Red Baker]

Reply # 21 ~would be so easy to expose for what it is truly worth, which is nothing.  If I thought that Catholics would listen, then I would spend time to go step by step through this unscriptural speech.  I might add, that if the Popes would come right out and speak clearly to the world what they really think, then many would persecute them as they do true saint~but, they are well school in how to speak, and when to talk, and when to be silent.  Such speech like this is only intended for the godly who reject Catholicism for what it is.  They would never go on national TV and talk this way, never. The righteous are bold as a loin, these type of people are just what Paul calls them.

Philippians 3:2,3

"Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have NO confidence in the flesh."

RB

[MeMyself]

There is a big difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's the difference between Heaven and Hell; salvation and sin; light and darkness.

Oh my goodness!

JESUS CHRIST saves! NOT a church!

All who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved!

Jesus saves through His Church. Why else would He command that the Church be heard? "If he will not hear the Church: let him be to thee as the heathen and publican."

Jesus saves through His finished work on the cross!  The verse you are using is very much out of context!  It is in regards to someone sinning against you and the steps you take towards resolution in human relationships NOT salvation!

[Helen]

The Catholics have to depend on taking verses out of context, MeMyself, as well as changing definitions.  At least the Catholics here are doing that....

[winsome]

The Catholics have to depend on taking verses out of context, MeMyself, as well as changing definitions.  At least the Catholics here are doing that....

Talk about pot calling kettle black!

[Helen]

Actually, I have been trying to put the Catholic snippets of verses back into context to show they do not mean what some of you are claiming they mean. 

[mclees8]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

Mirage is the one starting thread after thread along this same vein. I think he is a bit obsessed actually, and doesn't seem to have any peace.

So what?

People need to speak for the truth.

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

That's  a bit hard when you are told that you are going to hell because you don't go to the same church as they do.

It is a bit hard.  I've probably heard it as much as you have.  I'd probably hear it from Mirage as well since he or she has made it subtly clear that he or she (like AnnaM) is some form of sedevacantist.  Frankly, that is no excuse, and counterproductive.

People can only be saved by knowing the truth.

Isn't it more accurate to say that "people can only be saved by knowing God"?  And there is more to knowing God than to knowing a collection of doctrine.  We need to help people know God in how we act as well, as His ambassadors.  They need to see Christ in us.  And that is truth + charity.

It is not more accurate to say people can only be saved by knowing God. This is what the worlds idea of God says. The problem is not about knowing God but knowing Christ. It is true that Jesus is God incarnate but most out side true faith see it that way. What is more correct and the only true way to the Father except by Christ. You cannot get to God if you leave out the only bridge that takes you to Him

[Catholica]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

Mirage is the one starting thread after thread along this same vein. I think he is a bit obsessed actually, and doesn't seem to have any peace.

So what?

People need to speak for the truth.

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

That's  a bit hard when you are told that you are going to hell because you don't go to the same church as they do.

It is a bit hard.  I've probably heard it as much as you have.  I'd probably hear it from Mirage as well since he or she has made it subtly clear that he or she (like AnnaM) is some form of sedevacantist.  Frankly, that is no excuse, and counterproductive.

People can only be saved by knowing the truth.

Isn't it more accurate to say that "people can only be saved by knowing God"?  And there is more to knowing God than to knowing a collection of doctrine.  We need to help people know God in how we act as well, as His ambassadors.  They need to see Christ in us.  And that is truth + charity.

It is not more accurate to say people can only be saved by knowing God. This is what the worlds idea of God says. The problem is not about knowing God but knowing Christ. It is true that Jesus is God incarnate but most out side true faith see it that way. What is more correct and the only true way to the Father except by Christ. You cannot get to God if you leave out the only bridge that takes you to Him

Christ IS God, Mike.

[mclees8]

One more thing as Colombo would say. We are not saved by the church but we are saved into it. The RCC puts the cart before the horse. No one is saved by the church but by Christ. No one should get the idea that becoming a part of the church order saves them. It is not just adherence to church authority but we are saved by personal faith that is Christ in us whereby we come into His church which is the family of God as it says in John1:12

[mclees8]

Sadly he is being deceived, poor man. Of course many many go the other way.

I am not sure why you feel the need to keep up with this 'Catholic against protestant' thing. Its actually very childish and reminds me of the way we used to behave at school.

They wouldn't keep it up if you and others weren't continuously fueling them.

Mirage is the one starting thread after thread along this same vein. I think he is a bit obsessed actually, and doesn't seem to have any peace.

So what?

People need to speak for the truth.

People need to be saved.  These type of posts are not the way to save them.  If someone notices that their brother is having a problem, then they should pray for him and help him and love him.  If we must respond, then we respond with charity.  That is our calling as Christians, is it not?

It is ridiculous for anyone to think that "speaking the truth" in order to "correct opponents" is going to do anything without charity.  No one is going to browbeat anyone into the truth; that is not how God works, and acting in such a way means by definition that God is not working through us.  And the continued lack of charity between what outsiders will assume to be "Christians" will create a scandal and drive people away from whatever each person's "message" is.

If we love our neighbor, and we believe them to be in error, we need to love him into the "truth".  That is the Christian way.  Otherwise we are just fueling a fire of the tongues.  It's just fuel upon fuel and it ends up nowhere.  Let's understand each other, let's reason with honesty, integrity and charity.

That's  a bit hard when you are told that you are going to hell because you don't go to the same church as they do.

It is a bit hard.  I've probably heard it as much as you have.  I'd probably hear it from Mirage as well since he or she has made it subtly clear that he or she (like AnnaM) is some form of sedevacantist.  Frankly, that is no excuse, and counterproductive.

People can only be saved by knowing the truth.

Isn't it more accurate to say that "people can only be saved by knowing God"?  And there is more to knowing God than to knowing a collection of doctrine.  We need to help people know God in how we act as well, as His ambassadors.  They need to see Christ in us.  And that is truth + charity.

It is not more accurate to say people can only be saved by knowing God. This is what the worlds idea of God says. The problem is not about knowing God but knowing Christ. It is true that Jesus is God incarnate but most out side true faith do not see it that way. What is more correct and the only true way to the Father except by Christ. You cannot get to God if you leave out the only bridge that takes you to Him

Christ IS God, Mike.

I believe I acknowledged that Cath. How ever we cannot say know God to be saved but know Christ as the only way of salvation and the only way to the Father. The world does  not have  a problem with God, but  it is Christ they have a problem with being the only way of salvation. You do know that don't you?

To the world there are many religions and to them just another way to know God. The Horror and the  shame is that the world just sees Christianity another religion and another way to God.

Why did so many die. Was it for a witness of God or Christ?

[Catholica]

One more thing as Colombo would say. We are not saved by the church but we are saved into it. The RCC puts the cart before the horse. No one is saved by the church but by Christ. No one should get the idea that becoming a part of the church order saves them. It is not just adherence to church authority but we are saved by personal faith that is Christ in us whereby we come into His church which is the family of God as it says in John1:12

That depends on what one is referring to when he uses the word "saved".  We are saved in one sense when we enter the Church through baptism (which is by the grace of God, not by properties of water).  This is not truly when we are ultimately saved, however, but rather when we are born again.  We are saved at the end of our life when we are judged (by God) as deserving heaven or hell.  It is the Church, the Sacraments as help from God, our fellow Christians as help from God, God's grace, that help us to persevere to be finally saved.  Even Paul believed that he could become reprobate, having preached the gospel, having been baptized.  We need perseverance to the end, which, by God's grace, we may receive, if we accept it.