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Are You Looking at the Snake Or the Elephant?



Indeed, Jesus Christ started the Roman Catholic Church. He built it upon the Apostles. As a body on earth, He gave charge of His Church to St. Peter. He changed his name from Simon to Peter (which means 'rock'), and built His Catholic Church upon St. Peter.

"He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter replied, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church [n.b. one singular 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." (Cf. Matthew 16:15-19).

St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, and the first Pope. His successors for 2,000 years have each been the bishops of Rome and the Pope, the head of the universal Church.

Now, Protestants believe that their KJV represents 100% of the faith. It is apparent that Jesus did not emphasize the WRITTEN WORD while on earth. As a matter of fact, there is neither any evidence of Jesus picking up a pencil, pen or stylus, nor any evidence of Him telling His disciples to write anything down. Truly the Holy Spirit did later. My point is that the Faith for most of the last 2,000 years has been handed down ORALLY. Jesus traveled about preaching ORALLY. If He had wanted to emphasize that 100% of the Faith rested in the WRITTEN WORD, He would have sat down on day one and written the Bible Himself. At a minimum He would have directed the disciples to write things down. Further if He intended the WRITTEN WORD to represent 100% of the Faith, He would have seen that word processors, fax machines and photocopiers would have been invented and readily available during His public ministry, and He would have told His disciples to fax the Bible to all nations. Instead what He told them was:

"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." (Mat 28:19-20).

Indeed the Apostles wrote things down i.e. the books of the New Testament, but they primarily taught by preaching the gospel ORALLY.

The Bible was not compiled as such until the end of the 4th century, and the general public was largely illiterate until the 20th century. Clearly, the ORAL WORD was the primary source of faith for many years. Indeed there was writing during such time, but the faith was generally being handed down ORALLY. We have evidence of this historical ORAL preaching in the writings of the Church Fathers and Doctors. Now, this handing down of the Faith ORALLY and reflected in the writings of the Fathers and Doctors is called Catholic Tradition. Traditio in Latin means "to hand down".

Imagine the value of studying the writings of St. Polycarp and Papias who were taught directly by St. John! They were EYEWITNESSES.

Now, the Catholic Church wrote the Holy Bible. Further, the Holy Bible is incomplete. How do we know this? Because Holy Scripture itself tells us so. Consider the following:

"Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name." (Cf. John 20:30-31)

"There are also many other things that Jesus did, but if these were to be described individually, I do not think the whole world would contain the books that would be written." (Cf. John 21:25).

"I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you." (Cf. John 16:12-15)

So, where is the rest of the Deposit of Faith if Holy Scripture is incomplete? The answer is in Catholic Tradition and in the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church under the Pope (you will recall that He told St. Peter, "whatever you bind ON EARTH shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose ON EARTH shall be loosed in heaven.").

Therefore to reiterate the Deposit of Faith is comprised of the following: Catholic Tradition, Holy Scripture, and the Teachings of the Magisterium of the Church under the Pope.

Protestants do not recognize all of Holy Scripture. They have taken out 7 books called the deuterocanonicals. They have done this in spite of the fact that Holy Scripture says not to do so.

Now, the reason you see Catholics getting annoyed with the charges of Protestants against the Roman Catholic Faith, is largely due to fact that they attack the complete Deposit of Faith using only Holy Scripture (and only a fraction of that). Furthermore, many treat their KJV as their security blanket. They are governed by their feelings. They believe that if something makes them feel good then it is from the Holy Spirit; if it makes them feel uncomfortable then it is from the Evil One. Many verses in Holy Scripture (like those cited above) make them feel uncomfortable, so they deal with it by ignoring such verses, or twisting their meaning in such a way that they are comfortable once again. They do this in spite of the following:

"This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth." (1 Tim 2:3-4)

Consider the following story which I submit to illustrate their conclusions about the Faith based upon using only their KJV:

"Once upon a time, there was a man who was born blind. He spent all of his life in darkness. One day, his friend offered to take him to the zoo to introduce him to God's creatures, which the blind man had never encountered before. The blind man was very excited about this opportunity.

The day for their adventure arrived, and his friend picked up the blind man and took him to the zoo. They proceeded from animal to animal, and the blind man was bursting with excitement.

When they came to the elephant, the blind man seized the elephant's tail, and after having run his hand up and down his tail exclaimed, "Oh, I see, elephants are a lot like snakes!"


Now, the invalid conclusion reached by the blind man in the story above was due to his misfortunate handicap. Please understand that Catholics do not have any problem with Protestants believing in their KJV. The problem is that they have their eyes closed with only the tail in their hand, and are criticizing us and we have our eyes open to the whole elephant.

Scripture Alone? Is Half the Story Sufficient?
www.call2holiness.org/era-of-peace.html

How we know Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church:
www.thecatholictreasurechest.com/how.htm


The names of the men who founded the Protestant Ecclesial Communities:
http://www.thecatholictreasurechest.com/found.htm





"Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it."

Psalms 127:1





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