Taken from the book Világnézeti Válaszok (Answers Regarding Worldviews) by P. Béla Bangha
We need religion, but we don’t need a Church.
You could say: we need a car, but not a wheel. We need health, but we don’t need health care. We need lunch, but we don’t need a cook. A Church is needed precisely to preach religion, to administer its affairs regularly, to conduct official worship, to instruct people in religious life, lest anyone should do something improper, undignified, superstitious or even immoral in the name of religion.
Besides, whether we need a Church is not for us to decide. It was decided long ago by the one who alone is competent to decide: Christ our Lord himself. For He himself has openly said that He is building a Church, and that He is building it on Peter, and He and the apostles speak often of the Church, of the kingdom of God, of an organized community of believers. So he, who does not need a Church, is opposing Christ Himself.
So what is the Church?
The Church is an organized community of believers, ordered by Christ, which has an organizational character precisely because it has leaders and the led, superiors and subjects, according to the command of Christ. The leaders are those who, by Christ’s decree, exercise in the Church the power of teaching, of dispensing the sacraments and of governing souls. This hierarchical (priestly) constitution of the Church is undoubtedly the ordinance of Christ Himself.
Christ says that “the kingdom of God is within you” and that it “cometh not with observation” (Lk 17:20-21).
With this Christ was correcting the misconception, which was initially widespread among the apostles, that the Jewish messianic kingdom would appear in the form of some worldly, shining Jewish kingdom, with external powers, glittering weapons and banners of victory. In contrast, Jesus emphasizes that the kingdom of God is already here, among you and in you; you don’t have to go far to find it. In no way, however, does He say that the kingdom of God is merely some disorganized, invisible, intangible inner lifestyle, as some have tried to explain it since the 16th century.
Is it certain that Jesus founded a Church at all? Is direct faith in Him not enough?
If we accept the Gospel at all, we must also accept what we read in it about the founding of the Church by Jesus. The Gospel clearly and explicitly speaks of the Church which Jesus builds on Peter as a rock, and he who does not listen to it will be like a Gentile and a tax collector (Mt 16:18; 18:17). Moreover, the Gospel also lists the actions of Jesus which, even if Jesus does not explicitly mention the Church, involve the organization of a religious community – the Church – with a leadership under divine authority.
What is the Church? It is a society of Catholic Christians throughout the world, of which the visible head is the successor of Saint Peter. All the marks of this Church come from Christ. Jesus entrusted the spiritual guidance of the faithful to His disciples, whose preaching and sacramental ministry must be used by all who want be saved; in other words, he established a Church organization, with leaders and members, church prelates and subjects, priests and faithful. There can be no doubt, therefore, that Jesus did not intend to found a mere school or a theory of religious philosophy, but a Church to which all who come to know the Church as the creation of Jesus must belong.
The Church is an unnecessary intrusion between God and the soul. There is no need for an intermediary: the soul must be directly connected to God.
Both are necessary: the soul’s direct connection with God, and the need for the Church to establish, consolidate and correctly guide this connection. The Church does not “interfere” and does not separate the soul from God, but the other way around: it leads the soul to God. Where there is no Church, there is no serious religiosity, or at least not the organized, protected, legitimate religiosity that Jesus ordained. He who sees in the Church a nuisance and an obstacle is opposed to the ordinance of Jesus; if, in the eyes of any one, the Church “interposes” between Jesus and souls, this interposition is due to the express ordinance of Christ Himself.
How many Churches did Christ found?
Christ obviously founded only one Church. He always speaks of only one Church, one kingdom of God, and wants them all to belong to it in full unity: “there shall be one fold and one shepherd” (John 10:16). St Paul derives the law of the unity and indissolubility of marriage from the fact that the marriage of believers is “One body and one Spirit; as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” (Eph 4:4-5). He also emphasizes that there must be no denominations or divisions in the Church. “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms among you; but that you be perfect in the same mind, and in the same judgment.” (1 Cor 1:10).
This is why the great martyr bishop Ignatius of Antioch, at the very beginning of the 2nd century, says: “Make no mistake, brethren: he who follows schism cannot obtain the inheritance of the kingdom of God” (Philad. 3, 2. 3.); and St. Irenaeus, the great martyr bishop of Lyon, in the middle of the 2nd century: “Those who are outside the Church are outside the truth.” And St. Augustine exhorts, “Hold fast, therefore, my dearly beloved, all of you, with one will, to God as your Father and to the Church as your mother” (In Psalm. 88; 2, 14).
There is no question, therefore, of being able to reconcile the doctrine of the “plural Church”, a group of denominations which differ profoundly from one another in all essentials: doctrine, organization, aspiration, with the principles of Jesus and the early Church.
The Church: the assembly of Christians who believe in Jesus. So it is not just this or that particular church. All denominations are equal before God.
Huge mistake! The Church ordained by Christ is not simply a collective name for all denominations of believers in Jesus, but only members of the Church built by Jesus: those who stand on the rock foundation on which Jesus built His Church; who follow the shepherd whom Jesus entrusted with the government of his whole flock. The rest may stand outside the Church by individual good-faith error, and may even be saved by that good-faith; but they are not in the right way, and are not members of Jesus’ Church.
So, are Eastern Orthodox or Protestants not members of the Church of Jesus?
They may be members “in spirit”, that is to say, if they are in good faith in error, and in the depths of their souls they want to belong to the true Church of Jesus at all events, then they also belong to the true Church in spirit and unconsciously; but not officially and explicitly. The true Church of Jesus is only the Catholic Church.
Is this not incredible intolerance and ambition?
We repeat: in spirit others may be disciples of Jesus, but in reality and organizationally only Catholics are members of the true, Christian Church. Is it intolerance to assert this? It would only be so if, out of sheer human pride or arrogance, we were to claim, unjustly and without basis, to be the only true Church of Jesus. But it is not so. It is Jesus Himself who alone in the Church of St. Peter, that is, the Catholic Church, realizes the characteristics of the true Church which He founded. And to state this is not intolerance, but simple obedience and fidelity to Jesus’ precepts.
How can we know which of the many Christian Churches is the true, legitimate, single Church founded by Christ?
By which of these churches fulfills all the marks of the Christian provision: unity, holiness, universality and apostolicity. These marks are perfectly fulfilled, individually and collectively, only in the Holy Roman Catholic Mother Church. In other denominations there is neither complete unity, nor institutional holiness of life, nor universality, nor, above all, legal descent from the Apostolic Church, nor perfect harmony with the Apostolic See, the See of St. Peter, which still exists today.
The Church of Rome has long been corrupted and it is only a matter of time before it finally collapses.
This is strongly contradicted by Jesus’ infallible promise that He will remain with the Church “all days, even to the consummation of the world”. (Mt 28:20) and by his other statement that as long as the Church stands on the rocky foundation of St Peter, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt 16:18). Did Jesus say something false, or do the enemies of the Catholic Church speak falsely?
Do Catholics believe that they are the “only-saving Church”?
If Jesus did indeed ordain only one Church and entrusted to it the means of salvation, then it is natural that this one, legitimate Church is the only saving one. There is only one God, one baptism, one faith, says St Paul. “Those who are outside the Church are outside the truth,” says Irenaeus. But it does not follow that those who are in good faith outside the Church cannot also belong in spirit, unconsciously, to that Church, and so be saved.
On what basis is the Pope called the successor of Peter? Did St. Peter leave his special jurisdiction to the Bishop of Rome?
St. Peter did in fact die as a Roman bishop: there is no longer any dispute among serious historians today. The legitimate Bishop of Rome is the legitimate successor of the Apostle Peter, and therefore heir to his special jurisdiction. For, just as Christ our Lord did not intend the Church itself, and the whole of His work, to last for a few years or decades, but for ever: “to the consummation of the world”, as He Himself says, so He also established its constitution, that is to say, the central Church government, the office of Peter as the main apostle, for ever. It was not, therefore, Saint Peter who bequeathed papal power to his successors, but Jesus Himself who so decreed, when He entrusted Saint Peter with the main leadership of His Church, and, like the Church itself and its essential system of government, He also decreed that this primacy should be perpetual.
Is there any evidence that Peter lived and died in Rome?
There is ample evidence for this, and even serious Protestant historians today are forced to bow before this historical fact. St. Peter himself, at the end of his first letter (5:13), clearly implies that he is writing from Rome (“Babylon”), the centre of paganism at that time. Clear testimony to St. Peter’s time in Rome is given by Clement of Rome (d. 97), Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107), Dionysius of Corinth (d. c. 170), Irenaeus (d. 202) and others. There has never been any doubt about this among the writers of the ancient church, and it is now admitted by all serious Protestant historians.
The doctrine of the papacy is not in the Bible.
It sure is there, and how much so! Not, of course, by the word “papacy”; for the word “Trinity” is not in it either. But it is there quite clearly in its essence, in its conceptual content. It is in the words of Jesus His clear ordinance of building His Church on Peter as a rock, and that this will be the condition of the Church’s solidity, by which “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”. It is expressly stated in Scripture that Jesus gives to Peter, the chief apostle, the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that is, of the Church, which obviously means that he makes him the supreme governor, legislator and leader of the Church. What Peter binds or looses on earth, God also binds or looses in heaven. Could there be a clearer expression of the full ecclesiastical governmental power of the Pope in the Bible? […] Someone who says that the papacy is not in the Bible, is speaking wrongly. He might just as well say that the doctrine of the Trinity itself is not in the Bible.
In any case, it is not in the Bible that Luther or Calvin were divinely ordained reformers, and that their teachings deserve credence. On what basis then do those who “believe only what is in the Bible” believe this?
The apostles were all of equal rank, and St. Paul himself says that he vigorously opposed Peter.
St. Paul indeed wished for more consistency from St. Peter in the matter of the exemption of the baptized Jews from the Mosaic Law, and blamed Peter’s action on this practical or methodological issue. This, however, in no way implies that he did not acknowledge his superior jurisdiction. It is possible to criticize someone’s governmental procedure, even vehemently, but this does not constitute either a revolution or a denial of supremacy in principle. That the apostles were not equal, but recognized Peter as their head, is shown by the fact that the Scriptures always mention Peter in a distinctive way, and it is Peter who solemnly proclaims the decision of the first so-called Apostolic Council (Acts 15:28).
The word “rock” does not imply Peter’s primacy. It is not of Peter, but of faith that Jesus says that it is the rock on which His Church is built.
This explanation is completely contrary to the facts. Jesus did not identify Peter’s faith as the rock, but Peter himself. Faith was only a prerequisite, the foundation on which Peter, the possessor of faith, was then honoured with this distinction. So much does Jesus emphasize Peter’s person here that he even solemnly mentions his father’s name: “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona…” “And I say to thee: That thou art Peter”: here again, he is clearly emphasizing the person.
This is confirmed as the only possible explanation by the context, namely the following text, where Jesus also entrusts Peter with the keys to the kingdom of heaven. A mere abstract faith cannot be entrusted with keys, i.e., since the power of keys in Eastern languages means this, to delegate governing and legislative authority. “[W]hatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth… whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth…” are also all obviously personal honours and commissions. […]
This is so clear that the Protestant theologian Pfleiderer himself notes that this statement of Jesus could only be explained by a denominational bias in a different sense than that of the papacy.
The “keys of the kingdom of heaven” are obviously only a custodial, “keyholding” function, the management of the external affairs of the Mother Church, but not a jurisdiction or supremacy.
Not so; for the handing over of the keys of the “kingdom” or of the city has always signified, in the old languages, the right of plenary government. This, moreover, is evident from the following words of Jesus, “And whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, it shall be bound also in heaven” etc., i.e., I commit to you not only the material care of the Church, not only the external, administrative duties, but also the legislation, the government, the full governance of souls, and that all of your acts in this regard shall be done with divine authority, and shall be approved by heaven.
[…]
So why do the Eastern Orthodox not recognize the Bishop of Rome as Pope?
Because they have been blinded by a spirit of inequality and a passion for rivalry. Because their political ambition would not allow them, the people of Constantinople, the inhabitants of the capital of the empire, the Church of the East, which always thought itself superior, to submit to the then politically insignificant Bishop of Rome. They were mistaken in believing that the supreme government of the Church could only be a function of some political powers, and they were conformed to a spirit of political rivalry and ambition rather than a spirit of meekness and humility.
Was this opposition between East and West evident from the beginning?
In certain external aspects, such as in the ritual practice, yes, but not in faith and church discipline. For many centuries, the Orientals themselves recognized the supremacy of the Roman bishop. Already one of the first popes, Clement of Rome (d. 97 AD), had a full sense of supremacy over the Corinthian faithful; likewise Pope Victor I in the dispute over the manner of celebrating Easter. The first ecumenical council (Nicea 325) was presided over by the Pope’s legates, who – a bishop and three ordinary priests – signed the conciliar declarations in the first place, and therefore before all the other bishops. At the Council of Chalcedon (451), after the reading of the letter of Pope Leo I, the Council Fathers, almost all Greeks and Orientals, jumped up from their seats and cried out, “In Leo, Peter has spoken!” and obeyed the Pope.
And so it remained until the 9th century, when the imperial whim placed in the bishopric of Constantinople an ambitious secular official, the talented but theologically ignorant and unscrupulous Photius, who, with purely political passions, declared secession from Rome. The secession was then reversed, but two centuries later an equally passionate and ambitious bishop of Constantinople, Michael Cerularis, led the East into secession once again.
This was certainly not the fulfillment of Christ’s command, but the contamination of the Church with political passions. From that time onward, the agitation in the East against Rome was so unbridled that, apart from a brief attempt at union (Florence, 1439), schism was rooted in the souls of the Easterners.
Why then do the Protestants not recognize the Pope?
Because Martin Luther wanted to defend his own errors against the papal authority and went into revolution. He wanted to create subversion in the Church, and so he necessarily found himself confronted with the papal authority, which was the guardian of unity. It was not evangelical arguments but his rigid adherence to his own individual interpretation of Scripture that led Martin Luther into anti-papalism and schism. The same can be said of the other reformers, who rightly saw the Pope as the guardian of ecclesiastical unity and legality, and who, because they wanted to push this unity and legality out of the way, launched a fierce fight against the symbol and guardian of unity: the papacy.
If I have to choose between the Church of Christ and the Church of the Pope, I prefer the Church of Christ.
The only problem is that you cannot choose between the two, because they are one and the same. The papacy is ordained by Christ, there is no doubt about that. […] It is interesting how such cheap slogans can be used to appease simple-minded people! It does not occur to these poor misguided people, of course, that they might prefer to modify their smarty reasoning a little, like this: if I have to choose between the true Church of Christ built on St. Peter and the Church of Martin Luther or John Calvin, I would really prefer the Church of Christ! But that is in fact the case. Here is the Church of Christ, as the Lord Himself built it on Peter (Mt 16:18-19); there are human churches, arbitrarily put together by men in the 16th century.
The true Christian bows only to divine authority, while Catholics bow to human authority.
It is a waste to keep on coming up with such empty talk for four hundred years, and to disturb the peace unnecessarily. For the Catholics, too, bow before the one true God only, as the ultimate and supreme authority, but for God’s sake and according to God’s order they bow before human authorities whom God has set up to lead the faithful. Is this idolatry? Is it not also the case, in the life of the state or in the army, that it is not only the head of state himself who is to be obeyed, but all those who are lawful participants and representatives of the supreme power: […]? Is it otherwise true that Protestants bow only to divine authority in matters of religion and denomination? Is not their bishop or their congregation also the supreme authority in their eyes? And still more, Martin Luther and the tradition of the Reformers? After all, some Protestant doctrines are held so stubbornly only because Luther or Calvin taught them so, even if they themselves hardly believe them (e.g. predestination). What is more, they have even adopted without a word a great deal of Christian tradition which is not in Scripture: infant baptism, keeping Sunday holy instead of Saturday, the observance of certain feasts, the order and text of the Scriptures, which only the Catholic Church tradition can directly testify to. Why, then, should we accuse others of what we practice, and in some cases very rightly and wisely?
We know that the Bible itself is the Bible and the Word of God only on the authority of the Church!
Oral tradition is unreliable.
We Catholics don’t bow to “oral tradition”; that misleading word could only have been invented by misleading intent. Christian tradition means the official, ancient teaching of the Church, not “oral tradition”, or hearsay, as some backward debaters would have the gullible believe.
Christ died for all, not just for members of one Church.
Christ died for all, but for this very reason He wants all to belong to the Church through which He has bequeathed to us the fruits of His redemptive death as the means of salvation. All can be saved, but they must then join the true Church: so Jesus Himself commanded. Outside the Church, only those who do not belong to it through good faith and invincible error can be saved.
The Orthodox Church is also of apostolic origin.
To a certain extent, no doubt, since the apostles converted men and founded churches primarily in the East. However, the question here is not merely one of material and historical origin: whether Christianity here or there can be traced back historically to the founding of the apostles, but of formal and legal apostolicity. In other words, whether a particular Christian group has remained in organic unity with the apostolic church government ordained by Christ, of which Peter, also by Christ’s order, is the visible head, and his successors in the Roman See. If in a church the legal relationship with Peter has been severed, it is no longer an apostolic church, and apostolic continuity has been broken. This is why, for example, the Church of England is no longer apostolic, even though the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury is indeed the successor of the bishop who was once sent by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the British Isles.
[…]
Popes can also err and sin; history is full of the sins of popes.
The objection here confuses two things: infallibility and impeccability. No one says that popes cannot sin, and that they have not sinned throughout history, sometimes seriously. Individual impeccability is quite another thing, and official infallibility is quite another. We say official because a pope is not infallible in his individual opinions; he is infallible only when, as head of the whole Church, he declares officially and solemnly (ex cathedra) that something belongs to the deposit of the Christian faith.
This infallibility of the Pope is a logical corollary of the infallibility of the Church, solemnly proclaimed by Jesus when he demands obedience to the Church under the penalty of eternal damnation, saying that “And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.” (public sinner; Mt 18:17).
The popes also taught things that later proved to be wrong.
This is possible, but they did not teach it solemnly and formally as the supreme teachers of the Church. When the Pope preaches something, he can do it in one of two ways: solemnly or in an ordinary, simple form. Infallibility is due only in the former case.
So is it permissible to contradict the Pope when he does not teach something solemnly?
If the Pope does not solemnly proclaim something “ex cathedra” as the official doctrine of the Church, then it is indeed permissible, with due respect and moderation, to speak against it to anyone who has the necessary theological training and who sees that there are aspects of a doctrine which the Pope does not know well enough. With due respect and moderation, that is to say, not on the basis of rebellion and overconfidence, but with the obedient willingness to submit, if we are wrong, willingly to the decision of the competent judge, that is to say, the Pope. It may have been such a confrontation when St. Paul (on a disciplinary rather than a doctrinal issue: the conditions for the admission of Jewish Christians) “confronted Peter”; whereupon Peter bowed to his argument. However, as soon as the Pope solemnly defines something in the name of the whole Church, solemnly decides it, declares it dogma, contradiction is out of question, as was the case, for example, at the [First] Vatican Council: Until the decisions were promulgated by the Pope, the bishops present had the right to disagree with the Pope’s opinion; but afterwards all had to recognize the Pope’s decision, and indeed all, even those who had previously disagreed, recognized it.
The papacy did not emerge until centuries after Christ, and that on the basis of political ambition. Until then, the individual churches were all equal.
A complete historical error. The Bishop of Rome was indeed recognized from the very beginning as the head and guardian of the whole Church by other churches or ecclesiastical centers. As early as Pope Clement of Rome, at the end of the 1st century, wrote a commanding letter to the Corinthian faithful. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107-110) calls the Church of Rome the “head of the community of love”, and Pope Victor VI (c. 191), under pain of excommunication, obliges the congregations of Asia to follow his instructions in setting the time of Easter. St. Irenaeus, around 180, declares that the Bishop of Rome is the authoritative bishop for the whole of the Mother Church, because he is the successor of St. Peter, and lists the names of the first 13 popes. The testimony of this early Christian witness, himself an Oriental by origin, is worth quoting word for word. Irenaeus writes of the Church of Rome: “With this Church, by reason of her pre-eminent primacy, the whole Church must be united, that is to say, all the faithful, wherever they dwell, for in this Church the ancients have preserved the tradition handed down from the Apostles.” (Adv. haer, III. 3, 2.) Tertullian, who joined the Montanist heresy, writes with scorn of Pope St. Callixtus, that he attributes to himself the authority over the whole Church which our Lord Christ gave only to the Apostle Peter personally. This is another sign that the Catholics already then, towards 200, regarded the Bishop of Rome as the full successor of the Apostle Peter. In 251, the Bishop of Carthage, St Cyprian, praises at length and in eloquent words the authority of the Bishop of Rome over the whole Church, which is all the more significant because he himself had disputed with the Pope on certain matters. He first explains that, although Christ appointed several apostles, he gave to Peter the supreme power of governing the Church; and then he continues, “Is there any man left in the faith who does not hold this unity of the Church? Can he who opposes and resists the Church, trust that he himself is a member of the Church?” He goes on to call the Church of Rome “Peter’s cathedra” and “the leading Church”. At the same time, everyone, even heretics or deposed bishops, are constantly appealing to Rome, seeking and accepting decisions from the Roman bishops. How, then, can anyone in good conscience say that the Roman papacy was only established centuries after Christ?
The supremacy of the Holy See in Rome was not, therefore, founded on political ambition, but, as these same ancient witnesses affirm, on the belief that Jesus himself had appointed Peter, and with him Peter’s legitimate successors, as supreme leaders of the Church.
There is no trace of priestly authority in the Church of the Apostles.
The age and work of the apostles is full of the consciousness and exercise of hierarchical authority. They act, teach and govern as if they had received this authority not from themselves but from Christ and God. “He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me” (Lk. 10:16). “[L]et him be anathema”, says St. Paul, who, even if an angel from heaven, would preach another gospel, than what they, the apostles preached (Gal. 1:8). They refer to the sending of Christ (Rom. 1:1.5; 15:18.19; 1 Thess. 2:13; 2 Thess. 1:8; 3:14). They give commands to the Church (Acts 15:28; 16:4; 1 Cor. 11:2.34; 5:3; 1 Tim. 1:19). They entrust the same authority to the bishops they ordain. It cannot be said, therefore, that in the beginning there was no hierarchy and no priestly supremacy in the Church.
At least there is no trace of papal authority, of Peter’s supremacy, in the apostolic Church.
But how much there is! The evangelists and the writings of the apostles constantly mention Peter first (“Peter and those with him”, “Peter and the eleven”, “Peter and the other apostles”, and once even “Peter and the apostles” Mk. 1:36; […]; Acts 2:14.37; 5:29) Peter is always presiding and speaking for the others […], he is the one who makes the decrees (15), visits and confirms the congregations (Acts 9:32 and following).
The popes were slow to seize power over the whole Church.
This is not the case, for papal supremacy is clearly set forth in the Gospel, and the early Christian Church was in all essential cases fully conformed to papal supremacy. It is only around the manner of exercising this supremacy that a gradual, historical development can be observed, inasmuch as the Church has only gradually worked out the principle contained in Jesus’ precept, as with most statements of Christ in general, to its full clarity. For even the final and full dogmatic clarification of the divinity of Jesus was only achieved due to the Arian struggles during the Councils of Nicea and subsequent Councils. In the same way, the doctrine of the Papacy was from the beginning acknowledged and professed in principle by the whole Holy Mother Church; yet, in the practical application of the principle, there was at times a certain hesitation, and in places there were also obscurantist tendencies. It was for this very reason that a complete clarification of this doctrine of Christ became necessary, and this was mainly due to the [First] Vatican Council (1870).
According to this, are we obliged to listen to the Church in everything?
In matters of faith and morals, of course; that is why St Paul says that the Church is “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15).
The early Church has already professed this, in the words of Bishop St Cyprian, said: “He cannot have God as Father who does not have the Church as mother.”
All this is about the apostles, but not about the priests of today.
Christ expressly founded his Church for all times ([…]; Mt. 28:20; 13:39; Jn. 14:16; 1 Cor. 11:26), and therefore also its organizational forms. We read that the apostles themselves ordained successors, e.g. St. Paul ordained Titus and Timothy and commanded them to ordain others as successors and helpers in the apostolate (Acts 14:23; […]; Tit. 1:6; 2:15). The same is written by Clement of Rome about the apostles (First Epistle to the Corinthians 42 and 44).
It is only a question, therefore, who are the legitimate successors of the apostles, who, in an unbroken continuity, can derive from them the ordination and mission. There can be no doubt that the Catholic clergy is based on apostolic succession, which is lacking where, even by their own admission, the people elect and the unordained bishops, without apostolic succession, “nominate” the pastors.
Is it possible, then, to follow an erroneous faith and still be saved, and even be a martyr and a saint?
Yes, it is possible. Even among non-Christians, we must assume that many receive mercy by having spiritually sought the way of truth and only remaining in a non-Christian religion by virtue of a bona fide error. The effects of grace are wider than those of the Church. The Church, by the ordinance of Christ, is the ordinary guardian of the acquisition and cultivation of divine grace, and possesses special and abundant means of doing so; but this does not mean that the stream of grace does not flow outside the Church at all. These two propositions are not, therefore, mutually exclusive: that the Catholic Church is the true Church of Christ, and yet that, in an extraordinary way, those outside the Church may be saved by the Church to which they belong in spirit and unconsciously.
Does it matter then to which denomination one belongs?
Wrong conclusion! It does matter! If a man recognizes the true Church and does not follow it, he has sinned grievously against the Holy Spirit, and if he does not repent and make reparation for this sin, he cannot be saved at all. For belonging to the Church is Jesus’ most strict commandment, the material condition for attaining salvation. “And if he will not hear the church,” says Jesus (Mt 18:17), “let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.” This means: whoever does not believe, despite the preaching of the priests of the Church, will be damned, says Jesus (Mk 16:16). Non-obedience to the Church is only free from sin if it is the result of an invincible and bona fide error, that is to say: if one does not know or suspect that one should join the Catholic Church. This is what the early Christian word means: “only-saving Church”.
[…]
The Catholic Church burned at the stake those of other faiths.
First of all, they did not simply burn “those of other faiths”, but at most the unrepentant seditionists, the conscious religious subversives. Secondly and most importantly, they were not burned by the Church. The Church herself never burned anyone at the stake or otherwise. Burning at the stake is a terrible remnant of pagan Germanic law, which, unfortunately, was adopted and maintained by almost all states in the Middle Ages; and, most importantly, it was a state punishment, not a Church punishment. It was only because the state was so closely associated with the Church, and because religious crimes were regarded by the state as state crimes, as subversion and sedition, that the state itself sometimes persecuted the perpetrators of religious crimes by brutal means, including torture and burning at the stake. In order to establish the religious crime itself, ecclesiastical elements were of course consulted, and thus the mixed tribunals were set up, such as the Inquisition. The church elements made the unfortunate mistake of often being too much the defenders of state excesses and not sufficiently opposed to cruel and often unjust methods of torture and punishment. But in most cases they did, and it was the Church that repeatedly spoke out strongly against these barbaric practices.
In any case, everyone was equally guilty at the time of the distribution of death at the stake: individuals, society, the people, cities and states, not least the heresies themselves, which also used execution and other forms of torture against Catholics in abundance.
It is the Church that is the least blameworthy in this respect, and it is strange that the Church is the only one who is blamed by those who themselves have issues!
The Church of Rome has always been a hindrance of progress.
On the contrary, for two thousand years the Catholic Church has been the initiator or stimulant of all worthwhile progress.
Who abolished slavery? Who raised the woman, the child, the worker to the dignity of a human being? Who civilized the peoples of Europe? Who taught the savage hordes swept here in the migration period to settle down, to farm, to practice trades, to live peacefully and civilly? Who sanctified the relationship between man and woman in Christian marriage and thus gave a firm and secure moral basis to the upbringing of children? It was the Catholic Church that created public education, popular education, all types of schools, from the primary schools to secondary education and universities; almost all the famous universities that still exist today were founded by the Church. The Church has created science and culture, and has made art flourish in Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and modern styles. It was the Catholic Church that created the care of the poor and the sick, established the first hospitals, poorhouses, orphanages, and provided regular care for the blind and deaf-mutes. The Catholic Church laid the foundations of social welfare, equality of men before the law, the defence of the worker’s rights (Leo XIII: Rerum novarum, Pius XI: Quadragesimo anno) – There is no other institution or denomination in the world which has made such a great contribution to culture and progress as the Catholic Church. Whoever calls the Catholic Church the hindrance of progress could just as justly call the shining sun in the sky the dispenser of darkness.
The Church condemned Galileo’s epochal discoveries.
Even if this were true and the Church had been wrong, it would be one case in a million of cultural achievements. One blunder among a million merits. But it is not the case that the Church condemned Galileo’s discoveries.
It only objects to Galileo’s frivolous and superfluous proclamation of his discoveries in a tone that seemingly pitted him against Scripture. Galileo’s arguments about the motion of the earth were indeed unconvincing, and the true discoverer of the rotation of the earth was not himself but Copernicus, the Polish canon. That Galileo was “burned” or that he was kept in a cruel prison in Rome is as much an anti-historical fiction as that he would have said, stamping his feet before his ecclesiastical judges: “Yet the earth does move!” These are all anti-clerical fictions, freethinking fables. Galileo lived and died a deeply devout Catholic, and his best friends were priests and Jesuits. But he was undoubtedly wrong to place his astronomical opinions at odds with Scripture. This was not necessary, because the Earth’s rotation around the Sun only appears to contradict Scripture. Copernicus did not do this and the Church never took any action against him. The Church did not want to defend an outdated physical view against Galileo, but the authority of Scripture.
The Church defends itself against the truth by putting books it does not like on the Index.
The Church puts books on the Index which are repugnant to God, immoral or dangerous to the true faith, not because she fears the truth (she has nothing to fear in this regard!), but because she wants to protect the unsuspecting faithful from spiritual poisoning. Does not the State impose censorship in important cases? […]
Sometimes, moreover, the Church includes the writings of Catholic priests, and even of bishops, among the prohibited works; not as if they were blasphemous or immoral, but because they had slipped into some error, or because they were written in such a style, with such arguments, and in such a grouping, that they might be dangerous in a certain age.
Ownership is theft.
Property unjustly acquired is indeed theft, but property justly acquired is only theft if there is a confusion of terms.
Without property rights, men would not value anything, would not strive with true diligence to increase national and family wealth, would not work with pleasure and love; without property rights, the lazy, the drunkard, the ignorant and careless man would have as much right to a livelihood as the industrious, the striving, the careful. Property rights therefore exist everywhere, even among primitive indigenous peoples, and even the overly socialist Soviet Russia was forced to restore property in many respects. It is the duty of the state and society only to prevent the all too easy acquisition of wealth, and especially the unscrupulous exploitation of others, and to ensure a decent living for all honest, hard-working people.
Protestantism stands on the foundation of Scripture.
Yes: it professes to accept only what is in Scripture. This great reverence for Scripture is in itself a very beautiful and sympathetic trait in it. It is a pity that, at the same time, it is very different from Scripture on essential matters.
1. It does so mainly in its foundation: schism. According to Scripture, the Church is one and united; there must be no schisms in her (1 Cor 1:10). Jesus emphasized nothing so emphatically as the unity of his Church and the spirit of love and obedience on which this unity must be based, “that they may be one” [John 17:11], “made perfect in one” [John 17:23], […]: these he said even at his farewell, at the Last Supper. He ordained as the legal basis of unity the authority of the Church for governing souls: He appointed Peter as the visible head of the Church, the rock foundation, to whom he gave “the keys of the kingdom of heaven”, to whom he entrusted the pastoral care of all his flock, the sheep and lambs (Mt. 16:17 and following, John 21:15-17), All this Protestantism simply pushes out of the way or tries to deprive the word of Scripture of its plain and clear meaning by forced explanations.
2. Furthermore, the Lord has entrusted the transmission and authentic interpretation of the teaching of Jesus to the living Church, to the apostles and their legitimate successors (Mk. 16:15 and following).
What we must believe, therefore, we must first of all learn from the magisterium of the living and legitimate Church. By contrast, the Protestant innovators taught, and their pastors still teach, that the only source of our faith is Scripture. By appealing to Scripture, therefore, they are taking a stand against the very ordinances of Scripture itself. Not only does Jesus nowhere say that we must believe only the Scriptures, but he says the opposite in the passages just quoted. Moreover, the very principle that we should believe only what is in Scripture is nowhere to be found in Scripture either. So it is a contradiction to proclaim that only what is in Scripture is true, because this principle itself is not in Scripture.
3. But Protestantism contradicts Scripture on a whole series of other points. To mention only one: Scripture often and most emphatically teaches that faith is not sufficient for salvation, but that good works are necessary for it; and the leaders of Protestantism constantly teach that that is not true: that faith is sufficient for salvation, and that good works are of no avail. According to Luther and Calvin, man has no free will at all, but infallibly and irredeemable does what his sinful or non-sinful inclinations lead him to do, and it is only the grace of God which nevertheless saves, but only those whom God predestines to do so without their own free agency. Scripture, on the contrary, constantly reiterates that, apart from the help of grace, it is up to man’s own free will, good or bad, whether he will keep or not keep God’s commandments, and on that basis he will receive eternal reward or eternal punishment according to his merit.
Likewise, the Lord Jesus teaches in the clearest words in Scripture the reality of His Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament, and Protestants simply do not accept this. According to Scripture, Jesus ordained to His apostles the power of forgiveness of sins, and Protestants deny this power in the Church. Finally, in Scripture Jesus promised the Church eternal, incorruptible survival (Mt 28:20), and the Reformers say that not only the people of the Church, but the Church itself as a doctrine and institution, became radically corrupted. These are indeed serious contradictions between the principles of schism and Scripture.
One only has to believe what is in Scripture.
If this is true, then there is great trouble around the doctrines of the faith innovators, because, as we have explained, this much repeated doctrine itself is not in Scripture!
But neither is it in Scripture what Scripture is and what books belong to it.
Nor is it in Scripture that the so-called Reformers are to be listened to or that they are right.
Nor is it in Scripture that the Catholic Church is wrong and illegitimate.
Nor is it in Scripture that there are only 2 sacraments. Nor is it in Scripture that man has no free will to do good.
So: the main Protestant doctrines are not in the Scriptures.
The Catholic Church has introduced many things that are not in the Scriptures.
Rightly so, because Christ entrusted to her the power of loosening and binding, that is, the right of legislation and spiritual government over the faithful.
But did not the innovators also bring in many things that are not in Scripture? Where is there mention of conventions, synodal decrees, Protestant churches and church consecrations, sects, ecclesiastical laws […]? Where is there any talk of keeping Sunday instead of Saturday, of allowing children to be baptized, of Protestant confirmation, of large Protestant assemblies? The new religions have also been forced to bring in a lot of things in order to maintain order and discipline. Is it only the ancient, Christian, Catholic Church that is not allowed to do this? The one that was driven to do so not only by necessity and common sense, but also by a direct mandate from Christ?
If all this is true, how can it be that Protestants hold to their doctrines?
We must answer this question by discernment. There are believers of good and bad faith there. The people of bad faith know very well that they are wrong, but either out of pride, arrogance, or some strange stubbornness […] they refuse any warning, however well-meaning. And the well-meaning never even hear the enlightenment offered by the Catholic Church, because their leaders shut them out from the enlightenment, or can fill their adherents with such aversion and prejudice against all that is Catholic that most of them never listen to or understand the arguments of Catholic truth.
Many converted Protestants have confessed that their upbringing and environment have kept them from even knowing Catholic truth for decades. […] On the Catholic side, clear and convincing refutations of Protestant doctrines were given in the very first decades, especially by the great Roman cardinal and theologian St. Bellarmine, and in our country by Péter Pázmány, but the answer was that the Protestant leaders hurled a torrent of insults and slanders against them, and their denominational papers can hardly write, for example, the words “Pope” and “Jesuit” without throwing a tantrum. The Catholics, and especially the Jesuits, were so winning the disputes that the Protestant disputants had only one weapon left: violence, the banishment or killing of Catholic priests, and especially Jesuits. […] In any case, all this was a more convenient weapon than intellectual resistance and refutation.
Protestantism also had many beneficial effects.
Oh yes, no doubt, for the terrible destruction that came in its wake led the Catholic Church to execute a vigorous internal reform of itself. This was done, mainly through the Council of Trent and the action and activity of the Jesuit Order. It would have happened without the schism, but not so quickly. To this extent, indirectly, Protestantism has had many harmful consequences, but it has also had good results. However, can we rejoice at a fire because in its wake poor houses are replaced by more solid ones with tiled roofs? Can we rejoice at an epidemic because people take better precautions afterwards? The devastation of war because we guard our borders more firmly afterwards?
There is much good in Protestants, much deep faith, sincere piety, helpful love. To deny that would be an injustice. But what is truly good and beautiful in them, we also have, and they too draw from a common Catholic heritage. Yet to tear down unity, to stir up and make permanent hatreds, and to snatch hundreds of millions of people from the means of grace of the true Church is a terrible evil and misery!
The Reformers of the 16th century may have been wrong in many things, but they were right in that the apparatus of the Catholic Church was full of human invention. Reformation was indeed necessary.
This is a perfectly true statement in both parts. The Catholic Church of that time needed reform, not in her doctrines, her constitution, her rites, but in the morals of her people, in the conduct of the curia, the prelates, the monastic orders, and the laity. But the desired reform could have been accomplished by legal means, without subversion, and especially without blowing up the ordinances of Christ, the constitution of the Church instituted by Christ. The tragic mistake of the innovators was to throw out the baby with the bathwater: in attacking the abuses, they were attacking the Christian doctrine and the Church constitution itself. This terrible error has since been recognized by many leading Protestants, but no major attempt at a radical reversal has yet been shown. It is also perfectly true that the Catholic Church’s institutions, customs, laws, worship and discipline contain many human elements and ecclesiastical initiative. But is that a problem? Has not the Lord Jesus entrusted to the Church the power of the keys, that is, the legislative office, in order to exercise it? To “loose and bind”? In other words, to make laws, to establish institutions, to organize its worship, church discipline and social life?
The fact that the Church has introduced many things which are not straightforward ordinances of Christ, e.g. monastic life, celibacy, the external rites of the Sacrament of the Altar (the “Mass”), indulgences, fasting, feasts, ceremonies, marriage impediments and the like, would only be a mistake if in these institutions the Church had opposed the ordinances of Christ, not if she had introduced them in the spirit of them and in order to enhance the spiritual life of the faithful.
The fact that something is a direct ecclesiastical ordinance does not mean that it is wrong and anti-Christian, as the Reformers constantly proclaimed. For states are constantly perfecting and extending their laws, institutions and orders, and yet they cannot be said to deny or falsify their ancient constitutions with this!
The question of truth cannot be settled by a word of authority. It is not the word of the Pope that is important, but that of conscience, “But prove all things; hold fast that which is good” (1 Thess. 5:21).
That is correct, we must examine everything; whether it conforms to the ordinances of Christ our Lord, not least to that which established the supreme governing power in the Churc., In other words, we must not listen to whatever new teaching that comes up, any self-appointed church reformer or faith innovator, but we must examine whether it conforms to the rule of truth and faith which Christ and the apostles have marked out for us. That is why St. Paul says elsewhere: “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema” (Gal 1:8). There is no question, therefore, of any hobbyist or even university professor in the kingdom of Christ being able to determine, from his own ideas or personal preferences, doctrines of faith which may be contrary to the authority of the Church. Is it not the word of the Pope that counts, but the word of conscience? Yes, but if conscience, which is in accordance with principles from Christ, commands us to conform to the word of the Pope, then the word of the Pope is also the word of conscience.
The people of non-Catholic countries are also more educated than those of Catholic countries.
It would also be difficult to state this in general terms, Would Americans be more educated than the French, Belgians or Italians? And in Germany, would the Saxons and Prussians be more educated than the Bavarians or the people of the Rhineland?
But to a certain extent it can be true: among the non-Catholic states there are many that are truly exemplary in cultural institutions. But why? Because they have more money. But that does not mean anything from a worldview point of view. It’s easy to have more and better schools where there is a lot of money, and harder where there is little. But are these non-Catholic countries so rich in all kinds of culture? That cannot be said. Their development, their progress, is largely external, and is chiefly due to material advancement. They have better roads, better railways, better ships, better theaters. But are their morals better? Is their faith deeper? No one in their right mind would say that about non-Catholic countries. And yet, from a Christian point of view, this is the real question, because it is the first question of spiritual formation.
This text is in released under the Creative Commons Zero License. The original author died in 1939, therefore the original Hungarian text is in the public domain.