When
did the Church established by Jesus Christ get the name Catholic?
Christ left the
adoption of a name for His Church to those whom he commissioned to teach all
nations. Christ called the spiritual society He established, "My Church"
(Mt. xvi, 18), "the Church" (Mt. xviii, 17).
In order to have
a distinction between the Church and the Synagogue and to have a distinguishing
name from those embracing Judaic and Gnostic errors we find St. Ignatius (50-107
AD) using the Greek word "Katholicos" (universal) to describe the
universality of the Church established by Christ. St. Ignatius was appointed
Bishop of Antioch by St. Peter, the Bishop of Rome. It is in his writings
that we find the word Catholic used for the first time. St. Augustine, when
speaking about the Church of Christ, calls it the Catholic Church 240 times
in his writings.
St. Ignatius
of Antioch, disciple of the Apostle John, concerning the heretics of his day
wrote: "They have abstained from the Eucharist and prayer, because they
do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of Our Savior Jesus Christ."
St. Justin Martyr,
another Church Father of the second century wrote: "This food is known
among us as the Eucharist... We do not receive these things as common bread
and common drink; but as Jesus Christ our Savior, being made flesh by the
Word of God."
"Amen, amen,
I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you shall not have life in you. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has
life everlasting and I will raise Him up on the last day. For my flesh is
food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed" (John 6:54-56) "How can
this man give us his flesh to eat?" they argued. (John 6:53) "And
whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and
gave to his disciples, and said: Take ye, and eat. THIS IS MY BODY. And taking
the chalice, he gave thanks, and gave to them, saying: Drink ye all of this.
FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD." (cf. Matt. 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20).
In the most unequivocal
language the Apostles affirmed that the bread and wine duly consecrated on
the altar did in fact become the actual Substance of the Savior. Declared
the Apostle Paul: "The chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not
the communion of the blood of Christ? And the bread which we break, is it
not the partaking of the body of the Lord?" (1 Cor. 10:16)
....Receive ye
the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and
whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." (John 20:19-23). "Amen
I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in
heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in
heaven." (Matt. 18:18) "Take heed to yourselves, and to the whole
flock, wherein the Holy Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the church
of God ..." (Acts. 20:28) "And when they had ordained to them priests
in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord,
in whom they believed." (Acts 14:22). " He that heareth you, heareth
me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and he that despiseth me, despiseth
Him that sent me." - Luke 10:16
Catholic Church
is the church most united in Christ. The spectacle of one billion Catholics,
three-fifths of all professed Christians, perfectly, indomitably united in
belief, in organization, and in worship - the historical fact that Catholics,
consistently the largest body of Christians in the world, have always been
thus perfectly united - was evidence nobody can not ignore. Here is the unity
of Bible prophecy - nowhere else on the Christian scene was there a unity
nearly so compact, nearly so long-lived. Nowhere else on the Christian scene
was there a unity so obviously permanent.
Wrote the great
St. Cyprian in the third century: "God is one and Christ is one, and
one is His Church, and the faith is one, and one His people welded together
by the glue of concord into a solid unity of body. Unity cannot be rent asunder,
nor can the one body of the Church, through the division of its structure,
be divided into separate pieces" (St. Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church,
chap 23).
Like His glorified
body in Heaven, Christ's Mystical Body on earth never was and never will be
a disjoined body. St. Paul said, a member of His body, of His flesh, and of
His bones. (Eoh. 5:30) ...Sanctify them in truth. Thy word is truth. ...That
they all may be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee; that they also
may be one in us... I in them, and thou in me; that they maybe made perfect
in one." (John 17:1-23).
You can see in
Sacred Scripture that Christ's true church is not the "learning"
church but is manifestly a TEACHING church. Moreover, it is evident that Christ's
true church is an INFALLIBLE teacher, never liable to teach false doctrine
"All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach
ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching then to observe all things whatsoever I have
commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation
of the world." (Matt.28:18-20). "As the Father hath sent me, I also
send you." (John 20:21). Here again is a clear, unmistakable reference
to the teaching mission of His Church; for here He is telling the Apostles
that they had fallen heir to His own teaching mission. His Church was to be
no less of a teacher than He was.
Here is another
evidence that Catholic Church is an INFALLIBLE teacher, never liable to teach
false doctrine: "These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you.
But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he
will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I
shall have said to you. ... when the Paraclete cometh, whom I will send you
from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the Father, he shall
give testimony of me. And you shall give testimony, because you are with me
from the beginning." (John 14:25-26; 15:26-27).
Compiled by Rafael
Brom from: "True Church", "Radio Replies"
by Fr. Chas. M. Carty & Rev. Dr. L. Rumble, M.S.C. and "Confession
of a Roman Catholic" by Paul Whitcomb, a former Protestant Minister.
Published by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc. Available in Apologetics Sections
of marianland.com
BIBLE
In 397 AD, the
Catholic Church gave a definitive decision as to which writings and books
should be admitted into the Bible and which should be rejected, and every
book which is in the Protestant New Testament today, was put there by Pope
Siricus and the Catholic Bishops in the year 397 AD If Christ had intended
that men should learn Christianity from the New Testament, what about the
hundreds who lived before the first Bible was given to the world by the Catholic
Church? Luther's Protestant Bible came out 1520 and before his Bible the Catholic
Bible had been translated into Spanish, Italian, Danish, French, Norwegian,
Polish, Bohemian, Hungarian and English, there was exactly 104 editions in
Latin; 38 editions in German language, 25 editions in Italian language, 18
in French. In all 626 editions of the Bible with 198 in the language of the
laity, had been edited before the fist Protestant Bible was sent forth into
the world.
What
books are not found in Protestant Bible?
They are Tobias,
Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and the two Books of Machabees, together
with fragments of Esther (x.4; xvi, 24), and Daniel (iii, 24-90; xii., xiv).
These books were contained in the Alexandrian list or Canon of Books which
was used by Greek-speaking Jewsof Alexandria, Asia Minor, Greece and Italy.
Why
did Luther reject 7 books from the Bible?
Because they
did not suit his new doctrines. He had arrived at the principle of private
judgment - of picking and choosing religious doctrines; and whenever any book,
such as the book of Machabees, taught a doctrine contrary to his taste he
rejected it overboard and overboard that book went because it says: 2 Mach.
xii 46, "it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that
they may be loosed from sins." He not only cast out certain books, but
he mutilated some that were left. For example, not pleased with St. Paul's
doctrine, "we are justified by faith," Luther added the word "ALONE"
to make the sentence read: "We are justified by faith alone." His
explanation of this insertion is found in his own words, "I know very
well that the word 'alone' is not in the Latin and Greek texts; but Dr. Martin
Luther will have it so, and I order it to be so, and my will is reason enough.
" St. Paul writes under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Luther creates
a Lutheran Bible under his own audacity. He shows little respect for the Bible
when he calls the Epistle of St. James "an Epistle of straw with no character
of the Gospel in it." He spoke disparagingly about the Epistle of St.
Jude, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the beautiful Apocalypse of St. John.
The Lord's Prayer
or the Our Father is in the Bible, but Catholic prayer differs from the Protestant.
Protestants use a conclusion which was not in the original Greek copies of
the New Testament, namely, "For thine is the kingdom and the power and
the glory, forever. Amen." Catholics say the Lord's Prayer properly.
Before the last book in the New Testament was written the Catholic Church
celebrated her golden jubilee; 11 of the Apostles had died.
Hence, THE BIBLE
CAME FROM THE CHURCH. THE CHURCH DID NOT COME FROM THE BIBLE. Christianity
existed over 300 years without one single Bible Christian.
Compiled by Rafael
Brom from: "True Church", "Radio Replies"
by Fr. Chas. M. Carty & Rev. Dr. L. Rumble, M.S.C. and "Confession
of a Roman Catholic" by Paul Whitcomb, a former Protestant Minister.
Published by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc. Available in Apologetics Sections
of marianland.com