One of the distinctive doctrines of the Catholic Church is called Apostolic Succession. Par. 74 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) declares: God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” [1 Tim. 2:4]: that is, of Christ Jesus. [Cf. John
Roadmap The roadmap for this first installment in “Setting the Record Straight: The Truth vs. Anti-Catholic Myths” is as follows: Introduction Growing up a protestant, I was accustomed to hearing how bad the Catholic Church was before the “reformation.” The accusations typically fell into one of two categories: doctrinal or
In ancient Israel, if you wanted to rightly claim to be a part of the kingdom established by God, you had to answer “yes” to two basic questions (at a minimum): And since we human beings die, your “yes” to the second question would apply throughout the various stages of
One of the most common objections against the Catholic Church is it is corrupt and full of wicked shepherds. This supposedly justified the protestant revolt, and people leaving the Church to this day. Whether through immoral living, or teaching bad doctrine, the Catholic Church may have been the original “mother
Growing up protestant, I took for granted the idea that there could be many Christian churches who, despite disagreeing on many fundamental issues, could nonetheless be considered part of one “church.” In other words, we could have different doctrines (Faith), independent congregations and denominations (government), and different forms of worship
Baptism was one of the topics that did the most to convert me to the Catholic Faith. After all, in the Great Commission, it is one of the primary actions Christ commands the Apostles to do (Matt. 28:18-20): 18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven
In Part 1 of my series examining the Jewish roots of Catholic authority, I explored how God not only appointed Moses, but a priesthood by which to govern His people, and interpret the law, even after Moses and the first generation of priests had died out. I offered three conclusions:
By Whose Authority? On a practical level, the core dispute between the Catholic Church and protestants resolves around one question: did Christ establish a Church with authority to teach in His name? Catholics say “yes.” Protestants say “no.” Even the most “high church” protestants could not agree that the church
Based on the many questions I’ve received from so many about what the Church Fathers believed, and how that led to my conversion, I’ve decided to do another mini-series within my Becoming Catholic series called What Did the Ancient Church Believe? The goal is to provide a bird’s-eye-view of what
