Alpha Omega

Only the Roman Catholic Church can carry Her history all the way back to the first Pentecost (Act.2:1-47). All non-Catholic Christian Churches must stem their origin from those who left the Mother Church to form their own churches in the Middle Ages. The only exception is the Eastern Orthodox Church, which cannot date its beginning before the eighth century schism.

Yet, a little over half a century before the Reformation the bishops and cardinals of the Catholic Church held the Council of Florence (1438 - 1443) defining the Catholic Church. “We also define that the Holy Apostolic See and the Roman Pontiff himself is the successor of St. Peter, the prince of the Apostles, the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church, the father and teacher of all Christians.”

There are not any non-Catholic Christian Churches that can claim affiliation with over twenty ecumenical councils, meetings that were convened in order to settle disputes over policy, scripture interpretation, doctrinal teachings and many other religious and administrative problems.

The Eastern Orthodox Church does not recognize any councils past the eighth century, while all non-Catholic Christian Churches get their original teachings from Martin Luther, John Knox, John Calvin, Henry VIII, and other former Catholics who abandoned the Mother Ship in Her hour of need. What these individuals and other “reformers” ran away from was God’s promise.

This was our Lord’s promise to protect His Holy Church from all false teachings. Then, just before His Ascension back into heaven, He promised to remain with Her and to keep His promise until the consummation of the world.

Then in the letter to the Hebrews the Holy Spirit gave all mankind their instructions concerning church law and church hierarchy.

This does not mean to say that the leaders of the Catholic Church can order one to fulfill their every whim, or that they can order one to help them obtain some mundane goal. Nor does it mean that they can order one to deny the teachings of the Church, or to disobey government leaders, or to violate any laws.

This verse from the letter to the Hebrews means that the bishops of the Catholic Church have the authority to regulate the moral precepts and doctrinal instructions of their own diocese, while ex cathedra proclamations, the defining of Catholic doctrine and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures are reserved for the Holy See in Rome. Which is to say that the Bishop of Rome, vicar of Jesus Christ and captain of His Ship has the responsibility of defining what is truth for all Roman Catholics, while each bishop has the function of regulating how this truth will be taught in their own diocese.

Finally, the above biblical verse means that one should serve the hierarchy of the Mother Church with the humility with which one would serve our Lord, for the bishops have to answer to God for all their actions in the guidance of their flocks.

The children of God need not worry about whether or not the Mother Ship is on course. The children of God need not worry whether the captain and officers are doing the will of God. Jesus Christ is the ultimate helmsman of the Catholic Church; He is the owner of the ship. The Bishop of Rome is only His vicar head, the tangible captain.

Should any member of the Catholic hierarchy lead a child of God astray, or should the sheep be led astray by false teachers because the captain and officers, who are the clergy, are not doing their job correctly, then our Lord will save His lost children and punish the wicked.

This promise is found in several places in the Holy Bible. This is what the so called reformers forgot about. They were lacking in faith, hope and love to God. Our Lord did not abandon His Mother Ship in Her hour of need; they did.

Finally, one need only ask those who teach against the apostolicity of the Roman Catholic Church from whence they get their teachings. Almost without exception they will all answer that they get their beliefs from the bible, that the bible is their source of truth. They claim that the Roman Church just teaches Her own version of truth and Her own interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. These individuals — supposedly putting their faith in their own bibles — derive all their teachings from such. However, their faith is wrong on two counts.

First of all, the Holy Bible is not the sole source of religious truth. Such a belief is itself a direct contradiction of the Holy Scriptures. For the bible makes it very clear that there were other teachings that God had yet to reveal to mankind.

These other teachings of Jesus Christ, that the Holy Spirit would reveal to mankind, are those teachings of the Catholic Church that came to Her after our Lord’s Ascension back into heaven. Nor can one claim that these other truths that our Lord spoke of were the writings of the other epistles. For such a claim would deny the epistles themselves.

After reading the preceding verses from the gospel of St. John and the letter of St. Paul, it ought to be easy to see that there are traditional teachings of the Mother Church that cannot be found directly in the Holy Bible. These truths were made known to the Catholic Church as She grew spiritually and the faith of Her children grew stronger, and they were thus able to bear them.

The second reason their faith is wrong is because the Holy Bible is a product of the Catholic Church. It is not the other way around. Pope St. Damasus noticed that the Mother Church was without one standard version of the scriptures upon which all the faithful could depend. He asked St. Jerome, with whom he often consulted on problems of scriptural interpretation, to sort out from among the various writings, one standard “bible” based upon comparisons with the original languages.

St. Jerome soon abandoned the idea of just revising the Septuagint (written in Old Latin) and the New Testament (written in Greek) and decided that in order to do the job properly he would have to start fresh from the original Hebrew and produce an entirely new translation.

Working much as does an editor of a movie, he gathered together the various writings of his day. As it was noted earlier, he had much with which to work; some of it was good, some bad, some complete, and some incomplete. He discarded those writings that he could not use and even changed some of those he did use. Although this caused his translation to receive some criticism at first, his work is free from errors in faith and morals.

His Latin Vulgate soon became the only bible used by the Mother Church, and it remained the only bible She used for several hundred years thereafter. Hence, the Holy Bible is a product of the Catholic Church. The Christian religion is not a product of the Holy Scriptures.

All this does not mean to insinuate that only Catholics can enter into heaven, or that they have a special place reserved for them in heaven. The kingdom of God is open to all souls: Roman Catholic, non-Catholic Christian and non-Christian. Heaven is open to all souls with love in their hearts.

One’s position in our Lord’s kingdom is dependant upon the amount of love in his heart, not his faith. Those with a greater love are closer to God than those with a lesser love. The more love one gives to God the more love He gives in return. Those who give only a little of their love will only receive a small portion of God’s love in return. Thus, those with the lesser love will be in a lesser position in heaven.

Although all will receive the same gift — God — some will receive more because they have a greater capacity due to their giving more. Those who have a greater love will enjoy heaven more than those with a lesser love, because the greater the love the greater the desire for heaven. The amount of love in one’s soul is one’s own gift to God. It is not dependant upon what one actually believes.

One may therefore conclude that salvation is open even for those souls who live (or have lived in times past) in places that make (have made) it physically impossible to have (to have had) the gospel of Jesus Christ taught to them. Heaven is open to all who are honest and just with their neighbor.

Jesus Christ teaches and speaks to the whole world through His Catholic Church. However, it is easy to look through the history of the Mother Church and see the blasphemy of many of Her deacons, the infidelity of many of Her nuns, the materialism of many of Her priests, the ungodliness of many of Her bishops and the impiety of many of Her popes, and then deny the apostolicity of the Roman Church.

History is full of the ungodly, materialistic and politically minded clergy of the Catholic Church. From Her very beginning, She has had pseudo-Christians try to destroy Her. Ananias and Saphira tried to infiltrate Her by fraud (Act.5:1-10). Later, St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians and warned the faithful to beware of them.

St. Paul instructed Timothy, the bishop of Ephesus, about the duties of a bishop and how he should treat the other members of the clergy. He also warned him about all the pseudo-Christians who would try to destroy the truths of God.

He also warned the Philippians and the Colossians to be watchful of them and their actions (Phlp.3:2; Col.2:8). St. John wrote of a pseudo-Christian named Diotrephes who did not receive the brethren and who forbid others in the Mother Church to receive them (3Jn.9-10). St. Jude also wrote of the many who would try to destroy the Catholic Church (Jude,15-19).

Nor should one forget about the Inquisition. There is no telling how many innocent victims went to their deaths, denounced by anonymous witnesses and forced, through the use of brutal torture at the hands of self-serving hierarchy, to confess non-existent sins. Many of these children of God were martyred by bishops whose only goal was either political or financial gain or both.

Finally, this unfaithfulness has not even excluded the highest positions of the Catholic Church. E. R. Chamberlin, in the book The Bad Popes, has shown how the Holy See, and the cardinal offices that surround it, have been misused by the sensual, self-centered hierarchy of this world.

There is virtually no place in the Mother Church where the evil one has not put its evil finger. No facet of Her has gone without being attacked by this foul wretch. She has been under continual attack from all sides since the moment of Her conception and, as anyone can discover, history has shown how often it is that the gates of hell “appeared” to have prevailed over the Roman Catholic Church.

Although it is a simple statement of truth that many hierarchy of the Catholic Church have been (and still are) sinful, materialistic minded individuals, this is only a small part of the total picture. Such an examination does not include the thousands of saints produced by the Mother Church. Nor does such an examination include the most important part of the picture — Her teachings.

This is what the many individuals who have abandoned Her and condemned Her failed to perceive. They looked at Her outward appearance and cared nought for Her inner features.

The Catholic Church is not now, never has been and never will be built upon the many bloodsucking leaches who cling to Her like so many parasites. Those who judge the Catholic Church by the actions of these wolves are themselves wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The Roman Catholic Church always was, is now and always will be built upon Her teachings given to Her by Jesus Christ. It is these teachings, upheld by the saints, that have prevailed over the twisted lies of Satan, not those who are nothing more than politicians in the clothing of a member of the clergy.

The Holy Mother Church may be likened to an oyster. On the outside, clinging to its borders, are all kinds of foul smelling parasites. However, should one take the effort to pry it open he will find a rich pearl and a delicious morsel of meat, swimming in salted water, all surrounded by mother of pearl.

So too is the Catholic Church. Clinging to Her borders are many pseudo-Christian Catholics whose only goal is to destroy Her and Her children. But should one take the time to look into Her history and Her teachings, he will find a richly rewarding treasure of truth and a spiritually nourishing Eucharist, salted with faith. He will also find that these teachings and Eucharist have been protected from heresy by Mother Mary and the saints of God.

Consequently, the Catholic Church can be overflowing with evil deacons, nuns, priests, bishops and even an ungodly pontiff, but this in no way reflects upon Her teachings. St. Peter, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and working through the saints, has protected the teachings of the Mother Church from Her conception.

Nevertheless, when Jesus Christ our Lord perceives that His children have no shepherds — each priest is shepherd to his parish, each bishop to his diocese and the pope to the Mother Church and the world — as one may discover there have been several times in the history of the church, then Jesus Christ will intervene and clean out His Holy Church — as one may also discover by searching in the history of the church.

It follows, that the faithful have no need to worry about the outward appearance of the Mother Church as long as their beliefs are in total truth as revealed by God. It is in this manner that our Lord keeps His promise to St. Peter that He — not men — will build His Church.

Alpha Omega

The Pearl of God