©2021 Victor R. Claveau, MJ
There is but one Church in the world whose origins can be traced back directly to Jesus Christ. In establishing his religion, Christ said to Peter, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:18-19).
This is the Catholic Church, the visible teaching Church, with definitive doctrine and external ritual. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:19-20).
A teaching church is defined as a visible church which administers baptism, and it is a church with an external ritual. What visible church that exists today maintains a teaching ministry and external rites, and dates back to the very person of Peter and Jesus Christ? There is but one—the Catholic Church, whose head is the Pope, the successor of Peter and the true representative of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. No Christian denomination dates its origin from apostolic times. Calvinists began their ministry with John Calvin; Lutherans established their foundation with Martin Luther; Episcopalians with Henry VIII; Mormons via Joseph Smith, and so on, ad infinitum.
Various Protestant denominations claim that their churches are the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ, but reformed of error. Unfortunately, these reformed churches date from 1517 A.D., not from the first century. Therefore, one must choose between Luther and Christ. Jesus said emphatically that His Church would never teach error; Luther says that Christ’s Church did teach error. If Luther is right, Christ is wrong. But since Christ is ever truthful, as we know He is, Luther and all of his followers were and are deluded.
If it is a given that there can be only one true religion, all others must be false. Persons who worship in these false religions may be sincere, and if in the sight of God, they are doing all in their power to live holy lives, they are, in a certain sense related in an attenuated manner to the true Church.
All the great saving truths of Protestantism originated in the Catholic faith. There is not one single truth retained by Protestantism that did not originate in Catholicism. I say not one single truth,because you will find that whatever is absolutely true in every religion of the world has its root in the Catholic religion, excepting that the Catholic religion has within it no mixture of error.
Again, I ask, which is the true religion? Let us consider the creeds of their faiths, because we have not only the capability but the obligation to judge a creed, which is something tangible and subject to analysis.
The heart of the matter is this: There can be but one religion in the world, which is perfect and divine, and all others necessarily must be rejected as false. Any system of religion which proposes false teachings or mingles falsehood with truth, is, by its very nature a false religion. Heresy has shaped all forms of Protestantism. Any thing is morally good only if it is completely good, and yet it is morally wrong even if it is only partially flawed. A religion is justifiable only if it is in accord with the law of God. A religion is sound only if it prescribes the worship of God as God expects and deserves to be worshipped, and if the practice of such a religion leads us to unity with God.