Discussions between Catholics and Protestants can turn into an overwhelming “shotgun-style” approach to apologetics:
For instance, a well-meaning Protestant might ask, “Why do you Catholics worship Mary?” You begin to explain that we don’t worship Mary; rather, we honor her, and pray to her, seeking her powerful intercessory prayers before God. But where there had been one question, now there are several: why do Catholics address Mary or the saints in prayer at all? What about Jesus as our sole mediator? And aren’t all of those prayers in the rosary the sort of “vain repetitions” that Jesus condemns? With each question you knock down, more and more pop up. Pretty soon, both of you are frustrated, feeling like you’ve opened several cans of worms without actually resolving anything.
But there’s a better way:
Trade the shotgun pellets for a silver bullet. There is one doctrine in particular that you need to get right: the papacy. If Catholics are right about the papacy, everyone should be Catholic. If Catholics are wrong about the papacy, nobody should be Catholic. It’s honestly that simple.
That’s not to say that the papacy is the most important doctrine. It’s not. Distinctiveness and importance aren’t the same thing. A truck’s bed is what distinguishes it from a car, but the truck’s engine is obviously more important. Likewise, the divinity of Christ is infinitely more important than the papacy, but believing that Christ is divine doesn’t tell you whether or not to be Catholic. Even believing in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist isn’t quite enough: after all, what about the Orthodox?
So, if you want to know whether Catholicism specifically is correct, it all comes down to the papacy. Moreover, if what we believe about the teaching authority of the Church is true, and that teaching authority has clarified most (if not all) of the other doctrinal disputes between Catholics and Protestants, then answering this one question correctly ends up answering scores of other questions.
You can read the rest of the article here, or get my new book on the papacy here. Also, if you’re interested, I talked about the book (and the papacy more broadly) on Catholic Answers Live on Monday, taking questions from people who are just like you.*
*Disclaimer: you’re special and unique, but they are probably like you in some other important ways.
Moreover: If Christ endowed the Catholic Church with His authority (as history attests that He did), everyone should be Catholic. Of course the Papacy isn’t the sole locus of authority in the Church. However, Protestants unanimously reject it.
As a matter of practical apologetics, unfortunately, this ends up being a circular argument, because all of those “shotgun” Protestant attacks against Church teaching mentioned at the start will also be employed against the papacy. (e.g. “The pope teaches to worship Mary, so the Catholic doctrine of the papacy cannot possibly be correct.”)
The papacy and the Catholic Church are effectively synonymous–every attack against one is an attack against the other–and we end up in the exact same place where we started.
It is strange that you assert that if present Roman Catholic doctrine on the papacy is wrong, then no one should be a Roman Catholic.
There were Bishops of Rome and Popes for centuries before any such claims were made or doctrines enunciated.
So in what spiritual condition does that leave all of those “Roman Catholics”?
Of course this comes down to the interesting question of “infallibility”. Presumably for example, Gregory the Great, when he rejected with scorn and contempt the term “universal pontiff” (or variation thereof), was speaking “ex-Cathedra? Was he infallible or did he err?
Or did popes only become infallible later when pope whatever enunciated the said doctrine?
Are popes infallible because the Holy Spirit does not allow them to err, or because Christ purportedly gave them carte blanche to make whatever rules they want, whenever they want?
If the latter, then presumably error doesn’t enter into it: the popes can ordain anything and heaven and earth will simply follow their ordinances?
What a tangled web theologians weave, when first they practice to deceive themselves.
So if tomorrow a pope was to announce that the doctrine of infallibility was an error and not in fact true at all, you would abandon the Roman Church?
Or what if a pope was to admit that there is in fact no scriptural proof that Christ intended the authority he conferred on St. Peter (and of course on the other disciples as well) to be passed on uniquely to the Bishops of Rome, or that Peter also founded or helped to found other churches, before he ever got to Rome. etc. etc.
Christ said the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. Not pope this or pope that.
So if, Please God, the Roman Church was ever to abandon all the vain doctrines of men foisted upon it over the centuries, you would leave it?
So all those who were members of that church before those doctrines were ever proclaimed, they worshipped in vain?
If not, then why can you not worship as they did?
http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/claims.htm
And as for the Vicarius Filii Dei business: http://www.aloha.net/~mikesch/666.htm
Christ said, “render unto Caesar’s that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s”
And the popes claimed temporal authority over all rulers, as well as spiritual authority?
Read it through for yourselves
The Gospel Coalition web-site proudly declares they have no need for the Papacy,because they have the Bible.. To which one ask the question? What is the Bible and what human agent has declared as such. Is the Koran or The Book of Mormon sacred scripture? The Bible is a collection of human writings created by numerous people over a long period of time edited together and presented as sacred by The Catholic Church. The first edition didn’t drop out of the sky in 1611. On Ascencion Day Jesus Christ left behind a government, “The Body of Christ’ 12 jews to rule his Church. There was no New testament at that time. Christ did not hand out the first edition of JB Phillips, The new Testament in Modern English , and tell them to have a go at it. Saint Paul was converted on the road to Damascus where he was going to arrest Christian. Apparently there was already a Christian church there. Paul wrote letters to already existing churches or individuals who were already Christians. The Book of Revelation starts with a set of letters addressed to seven already existing churches. They were existing on what? Printed Bibles did not exist until 1455. The twelve Apostles did not give out copies of the King James, there were none to hand out, In my youth I spent 3 years in the US army,serving under a chain of command and Standard Operating Procedure. Without The Papacy Protestantism is in a state of anarchy. It is a failed state. a tower of theological Babel. Without pope and Catechism one is tossed to and fro with every whim of doctrine. In the 19th century Newman declared there was no stopping point between Catholic Dogma and dogmatic atheism. in his day Christianity was anything you would what to make it. Therefore he chose Rome. Amongst protestants the Bible is never the final authority, but the final authority rests with your pastors interpretation of it. At The Colloquy of Marburg, Luther and Zwingli could not agree about the Euchrist. Is there not a great argument to day about homosexuality? Some for and against? Who is to make the call?There are protestants but there is no protestant church . In the time of Moses there was only one church and I presume after the coming of Christ there should being only one church and that would be the Roman Catholic Church!