The Roman Catholic Church is not the only true church of Jesus Christ

The Vatican issued a document on July 10, 2007 restating its belief that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church of Jesus Christ. The 16-page document was prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It says that although Orthodox churches are true churches, they are defective because they do not recognize the primacy of the Pope. The document adds that Protestant denominations — which the Vatican refers to as Christian Communities born out of the Reformation — are not true churches, but merely ecclesiastical communities.

The document was issued by Benedict's successor in doctrinal matters, Cardinal William Levada, and endorsed by the Pope, who headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before he was elected as the pope.

This piece is about his claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true Christian church sanctioned by God.

The Catholic Church is the largest Christian church, representing around half of all Christians worldwide. The Catholic Church is made up of one Western (Roman Catholic) and 22 Eastern (Greek Orthodox) ecclesticial communities. Only the Roman Catholics look to the Bishop of Rome (the pope) alone or along with the College of Bishops, as their highest authority on earth for matters of faith, morals and church governance. There are 219,583 Catholic priests at this present time. This also means that there is the same number of Catholic churches worldwide because there is only one priest per church. There are a total of at least 30 Roman Catholic denominations in the world and there are 22 different liturgies within the Roman Catholic Church.

Millions of people profess Christianity; they even claim to be members of the Church Jesus founded. But Christianity is a divided religion, composed of hundreds of denominations and schisms. Through the centuries, most of Christianity's branches have assimilated many non-biblical traditions—philosophical, cultural and religious—into their teachings and practices, spawning even more variations.

The Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church are at odds with one another, each claiming the other’s tradition is wrong. Both the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church have one thing in common however, they both view Protestant churches’ traditions as invalid.

Admittedly, Catholics as a large communion of churches under one person has the largest following but being the largest doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the best nor does it mean that it is the only church approved by God. Further, to suggest that God only recognizes catholicism as the true Christian belief is an insult to our intelligence and is demeaning to all those men and woman of the cloth who are devoted Christians who preach Christianity to their flocks and the millions of their followers who are fervent believers in the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The word 'Catholic' means universal, and as applied to the Catholic Church it refers to its worldwide extension, its unbroken tradition going back to the Apostles, and its adherence to the wholeness of the Christian belief. The word 'Christian' is the name given to the followers of Jesus Christ so in essence, Protestants and Catholics are all Christians because they are followers of Jesus Christ and look to him as their redeemer.

For the Roman Catholic Church through the Vatican to state that it’s church is the only church that speaks for Jesus is an insult to our intelligence. This is the church whose history includes the Inquisition, and the selling of salvation----such as reducing the number of years that its members must suffer in purgatory based on the amount of money paid to their priests.

Currently, the Roman Catholic Church is beset with horrific tales of sexual abuse against children by its former priests. Hundreds of its priests have molested thousands of children in this era and over two billion dollars has been allotted by parishes all over the United States alone to give to the victims of these abuses. And worse yet, the hierarchy of the Church turned a blind eye for years to the victimization of its children, transferring it’s sex offending priests to other parishes where they continued to abuse the children in their care. I remember reading a year ago the story of a group of sex victims who had been sexually abused by their parish priests wishing to have an audience with the pope. He turned them down. He did however have an audience with a singer.

The number of Christian churchgoers is dwindling and the current shepherd in the Vatican isn’t doing very much to keep his flock together. I always loved that old saying, ‘Those that pray together, stay together.’ Nowadays, it is more apt to conclude that those who stray together, stay together.