I have agonised whether to post this, I now feel it would be wrong not to. If that has consequences so be it. I will trust on the honesty and integrity of the moderators to leave the post, since it uses logic and biblical arguments rather than dogma or tradition to evidence the points that are made.
It is not my intention to challenge the owners of the forum, or their policies. Nor did I come here to promote catholicism, but to talk to other christians to find out more about them! I had bad experiences of evangelicals when even a part of them, who seemed to use the bible for little else except attacking others, rather than to build a more holy life. I hoped to get a more rounded view, but I see a lot of the same thing here.
If there is one takeaway from this.
It seems to me our combined energies as christians would be far better used to combat our joint enemy of new atheism, than argue amongst ourselves, and witness christ through love.
But it becomes apparent that there is a minority here who are happy to bear false witness in anti catholic rant, preferring on occasion to quote Dan Brown rather than biblical sources, and spend their lives twisting anything they can find to attack RCC rather than promote gods love, which I think is our calling.
So I intend to put a few issues straight, because catholicism should be judged on what it is , not the labels of those who seem to know nothing about it, or indeed catholics who do bad things or are badly catechised! All denominations have a fair share of those who do not follow what they are taught, and they should not be judged on those.
Most of the latter day protestants HAVE a lot of freedom in what they believe. Not so RCC, what it believes at the highest level is there in the creed, and detail in catechism. So judge it on what it teaches and why, not on what some catholics say or do!
It is a fact that catholics are people, people are inherently flawed, and catholics do flawed things. Worse still, a lot of cradle catholics have a flawed understanding of their faith, so not all that is said or done is correct. A methodist minister recently murdered two wives! Does that mean methodism supports killing of wives? Hardly.
So. First of all let us tackle "catholicism is a heresy". It is clearly not true if viewed as "all catholicism" because
catholics have many beliefs most of which are supported by all christians! So there are issues that divide us, not the entirity of catholicism. (although I notice some wacky views that are tolerated here, like trying to discount Saint Paul, no catholic would ever do!)
For a common belief read the nicene creed developed at a similar time and by similar minds to the new testament canon. That is the core belief of catholics and I doubt that there would be much dissent from others here. Until perhaps you get to
universal church when some would argue definition of church, but defined as a body of baptised people it is hardly worth falling out about!
So on many critical issues we all agree! It is only in details we disagree, not that jesus is saviour and lord.
Also whatever is said, catholics are bible christians. As a point of commonality, they believe that the new testament is the infallible word of god. That fact is reinforced by attending any mass. I would guess at least 70% of what is said is straight from new and old testaments. Far more than any protestant or evangelical gathering I had been to. Indeed one of the reasons I left evangelical groups was the fact that they only seemed to use the scriptures to attack other groups with, and their own services were almost empty of scripture! My suggestion to those who do not believe that, go to a mass and then identify where in new and old testaments where most of the liturgy comes from!
Some of our difference comes in a logical and historic truth about the bible new testament. A few Protestants seem to think it dropped out of the sky at the reformation. We all know It did not.
Our lord in his life on earth did not give us a new testament book at all, it would have been pointless anyway. Few could read , books were rare and no doubt confiscated and burnt during roman oppression, and scriptures were heard for the common man as readings in the liturgy. They did not own a copy! So our lord instead gave us apostles who handed the deposit of faith down by word of mouth and tradition, and that is essentially how it was for a century or two.
Only a couple of centuries later was the new testament canon decided. So the new testament was not the basis of faith for the early christians, as a historic fact!, so is not the sole basis for christianity!
Nor is it a complete works or teachings of jesus, the apostles say so in john 21:25, nor can it be the complete word of god, because to be logically consistent it would have to say so. Where in the bible does it say it has to be in the bible to be true? QED bible alone is an unscriptural dogma.
Nor is the bible easy to read even peter said it - 2 peter 3:16 or understand. It needs help with interpretation, that is authority. There are clearly alternative interpretations which are mutually exclusive communion is the real presence of christ, or just a symbol are mutually exclusive interpretations.
What is critical is what the ones who chose the canon thought the scriptures meant, because that is why they chose what they did. If the document is infallible, then as christians we accept that those who created them acted infallibly, a dirty word it seems, but indisputably necessary for the bible to be infallible. The only question is who acts infallibly and when.
So to the OP post, and some of the references above. In the following points I will argue purely on the questionable premise that the bible is "the entirity of the word of god needed for salvation", whilst noting that it is like a court, in which only documents are allowed, but the witnesses to explain what those documents are and what they meant are not, even from those who compiled the canon!
It is arguing with one hand tied behind my back but here goes!
So to the original post. I repeat again, I am not here to promote catholicism, I am happy for the forum to keep to present their beliefs. I am writing here not as a promotion of catholicism, nor to promote it, just as a defense of some of the outlandish attacks on it.
But when the OP relates the tale of his mother in law, it is hard to know whether the conversation was a misunderstanding, whether she was confused as many are when ill. But it is a fact, that RCC nowhere even hints that mary can save! Not catholic doctrine. But you cannot criticise RCC for those who do not uphold its teaching, if that happened. RCC does not believe mary saves and never has.
For all that mary was special, every christian has to recognise that. She was chosen as mother of our lord. "favoured one of god"
The angel said to her Luke 1:28 "hail full of grace, the lord is with you" That is very special.
Was she "mother of god"? Too much protestant attention is drawn to honorary titles, which do not make her deity, do not make her equal. But listen to elizabeth luke 1:43 - how am I honoured that the "mother of my lord" should come to me? She cites mary not just as mother of the humanity, jesus, but also "mother of lord", how we honour her How can it be unscriptural to do the same. Or call her"blessed" when Luke 1:48 prophesises that we will.
On to other titles of mary which seem to attract protestant disdain. Mary as "queen" .It is only a title of honour! It is time protestants stopped just looking at the gospels, and focussed on the massive parallels of moses journey with jesus journey and so on. These are no accident. Nor is the massive emphasis on the line of david, and that the messiah would come as a king in the line of david. The davidic references explain a lot of what jesus did and said!
Why did he ride into jerusalem on a donkey as was prophesied? Because Solomon had done so 1 Kings 1 as a davidic king!
And if jesus did not want that association why did he do it? One of the trappings of that association is that in the davidic kingdom the mother was titled "queen" Bathsheba as is shown to have powers advocacy to the king.
She does not usurp him! The mother of at least a dozen of the davidic kings are given a mention in KIngs.
And revelations 12:1. The woman can clearly be considered mary, and what are the stars but a crown
And you should note that King solomon Bowed to the "queen" out of respect!. Mary was jesus mother as king!
Was mary sinless? By herself no. But gods grace helps us not to sin, and she was stated full of it, the lord was with her!
In the lords prayer we are given two ways to alieviate sin. Sure, the lord can forgive, Matthew 6:12. But we also ask him in Matthew 6:13 "not to leave us into temptation"
So do you doubt the power of god? Do you question his ability to do what he says, when he is truly with someone?
So there is clearly a scriptural plausibilty argument that Mary was sinless. We believe it, you do not have to.
But if you doubt, you also doubt the power of god to do what he says in matthew 6:13! And would he not do this for the earthly guide to his only son
Catholics do not worship Mary. We do not deify her. We regard her only as advocate to christ,
We hold her in great esteem, and honour her, just as the angel said god did!
All we ask is that she pray for us! Revelations 5-8 8-4 show the potency of prayers of saints. Her intercession clearly worked for the organisers of the wedding at Cana!
And notice what jesus said in john 2:4 "what have you to do with me? My time has not yet come" - which is easily interpreted as he does not yet expect to honour her requests.
Now look at the logic of sola scriptura. If you believe that the bible contains only what is needed for salvation, as protestants do,
then I can argue that catholics are not required to ask for the intercession of saints! We believe it, we are not asked to do it, or believe we need to for salvation.
So that simple argument to someone who believes in sola scriptura (not us) explains why there is no explicit reference in the bible!
People are free to believe what they will. I say this not to promote catholicism, but to defend it against a barrage of attacks of others, which have no basis in truth.
I trust the mods will have the integrity to leave it here for the scriptural and logical references.
I leave with one question. The davidic references are not arguable. Neither is the fact that the "keys" of the kingdom are a clear reference to Hezekiah as king, passing a role similar to prime minister to Eliakim
a role with succession to a single person. And he makes this statement to Peter. If jesus had not wanted to refer the same association, why else did he say it clearly another davidic reference.
And it was handed to one person. A you not a y'all. I came here hoping to find alternative answers, and as I found in the evangelical communities, I was met with a resounding silence.
They do not like the catholic interpretation, but fail to provide an alternative one. That is the basis for the role of peter.
I also pointed out that in aramaic spoken , petra and petros are a false dichotomy. Jesus referred to peter as the rock. They are not a different word.
Anyway, I am not promoting catholicism, happy for others to believe what they will, just defending against untruths!
I go back to where I started.
It seems to me our combined energies as christians would be far better used to combat our joint enemy of new atheism, than argue amongst ourselves. And witness christ through love.
If there's something that you really think we should deal with, then use the Report button (there's a Report button on every post). But please understand that there will be some error and we don't remove all error or even all heresy from the site, partly because it's an opportunity for Christians to correct it and respond with the word of God. But if there's too much of it or too much from one person then we do some housecleaning. We certainly don't want our site to be dominated by Catholic heresy or whatever heresy or error, and we don't want people to get the impression that we just tolerate all of that.