Arguments Against the Church

Ever since the Protestant Revolt in 1517 AD there have been people trying to either convert Catholics away from the true Church or to justify their rebellion in their own minds or among each other. One way is by faulty reasoning and another is anecdotal stories that sound like they could be plausible. Then there are outright attacks. Let’s take a look at some of each.

History Doesn’t Agree? Rewrite History!

One of the favorite attacks on the Catholic Church comes in the form of anecdotal stories that draw the saints of the Church into supposed agreement with the Protestant view of a Church which had lost its direction, power and authority. I would like to say that many of these are merely “apocryphal” (of questionable origin) but the truth is that they are either outright lies or perversions of the actual position of the saints.

For example, this often repeated story preached from many pulpits and taught as if it were a fact:

“Entering the presence of Innocent II., before whom a large sum of money was spread out, the Pope observed, ‘You see, the Church is no longer in that age in which she said, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’’”—‘True, holy father,” replied Aquinas; ‘neither can she any longer say to the lame, ‘Rise up and walk.’’”

The inference of this story is that Saint Thomas Aquinas believed that the Church was just greedy for gold and had lost its spiritual authority and power. However, if one examines the writings of Saint Thomas one finds no such teaching or beliefs. But one could say, “Well, we may not have everything that Saint Thomas said recorded. He COULD have said that!”

However, the facts as presented in the story don’t even match history. Saint Thomas Aquinas was born in 1224 and died in 1274. Pope Innocent II died eighty years prior to Thomas’ birth. Very hard for him to be counting money 100 or so years later and talking to Saint Thomas.

It’s an outright lie, but as the old saying goes if a lie is repeated often enough people think it’s the truth. You’ll find several sermons based on it at the Protestant website, Sermon Central and a search of Google finds many, many Evangelical Christian websites touting it as a fact. I’m sorry to say that in my days as a preacher I repeated the story myself. I’ve since repented and I hope that no Catholic will be fooled by such garbage again.

Faulty Logic

The logic of some people is strange to say the least. They believe that God can cause the Bible to be written by "fallible men" through "Divine Inspiration" and yet this same God is incapable of using other "fallible men" to guide His Church down through the ages by the same means. What about the "fallible men" who rebelled against the Church of which Christ is the Head and the source of that Inspiration?? Why are they more trustworthy than those obedient to the Lord and His Church? Strange reasoning of some people...but then continued sin against the Holy Spirit produces a condition Saint Paul calls being "reprobate"... immune to the Truth through hardness of heart. A person in that state can sin constantly.... such as continued lies... and think nothing of it. May God have mercy on their soul.

Catholics Aren’t Christians

The following is a direct quotation from the “Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry” (CARM, for short) website on this subject:

“Are Roman Catholics Christians? They are if they have trusted in Jesus alone for the forgiveness of their sins. However, if they believe they are saved by God's grace and their works, then they are not saved--even if they believe their works are done by God's grace--since they then deny the sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice.”

This sort of sentiment is echoed on another anti-Catholic website popular among Protestants that frequent Catholic pages, “Got Questions.Org” (which I refer to as “Got Heresy.org”):

“A key distinction between Catholics and Christians is the view of the Bible. Catholics view the Bible as having equal authority with the Church and tradition. Christians view the Bible as the supreme authority for faith and practice.”

Many Protestants will say things like, “There are some Christians among the Catholics, but they have to leave the Church to be saved.” That is exactly the meaning of the quotations above. If Catholics agree with Protestant heresies and deny the clear teaching of Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the authority of the Magisterium then we can become “Christians”. Exactly how does one remain Catholic and agree to that? How does one deny the Real Presence in the Eucharist taught by the Lord Himself? How does one deny the authority of the only Church established by the Lord Jesus Himself and guided by the men He selected and empowered… as well as the men that they chose to succeed them?

By the way, an excellent counter to these anti-Catholic websites is Dave Armstrong’s site “Biblical Evidence for Catholicism” where these sort of claims are examined and refuted in detail. The link leads to one such article and there are plenty more there to help equip Catholics to stand for the Faith.

Catholics Are Christians

These attacks, of course, are absolutely silly. The only Church which existed at the time that the title “Christian” was first coined at Antioch (Acts 11:26) was the Catholic Church. If Catholics were not/are not Christians then how can the Protestants trust their Bibles? The authors were Catholics, the canon of the New Testament was ordered by Catholics and the very first Bibles were translated by Catholics. In fact, the manuscript upon which the most trusted translation among Protestants, the King James Version (KJV) was based was the work of a Catholic monk named Erasmus called the “Textus Receptus”. In fact, many other language translations (such as the Spanish Bible and our own Tagalog Bible) were also done from it.

The true Church was born Catholic and has remained so nearly 2,000 years. We aren’t just Christians but the first Christians and the ones who have remained obedient to all the Lord’s commands and commissions.