Page 555 - Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible Christianity. Based on the King James Bible

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

completed Scriptures. The churches today need no This teaching has been modified somewhat in recent
apostles, because we have the infallible teaching of the years. (The Roman Catholic Church has frequently
apostles preserved in the N.T. Scripture. The firm refashioned its dogmas in order to accomplish some
foundation was laid long ago. The need today is to build new objective.) Today Rome teaches that non-Catholic
solid churches and individual Christian lives upon that Christians—yea, even followers of pagan religions—can
well-laid foundation for the glory of Jesus Christ (1 Co. also be saved if they sincerely follow the light they have.
3:10). “We now realize that millions of people have been and
The Roman Catholic idea of apostolic succession— are within the One Church, though in incomplete
that the popes and bishops are successors to the apostles communion with it, because of the divisions of
—is foreign to the Scripture. The apostolic office was Christendom... there exists a newly realized
held by men individually appointed by Jesus Christ. relationship between ourselves and our separated
“Paul, an apostle, (NOT OF MEN, NEITHER BY MAN, brethren (op. cit. pp. 214, 215).
but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him “The plan of salvation also includes those who
from the dead)” (Ga. 1:1). Each apostle had seen the acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst
whom are the Moslems. These profess to hold the faith
resurrected Christ (1 Co. 9:1; 15:7-9). of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one,
In the eternal city of God there are twelve merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day ... Those
foundations, and in these foundations are written the who, through no fault of their own, do not know the
names of the twelve apostles—ONLY TWELVE (Re. Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless
21:14). seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace,
No man living today is a successor to the Lord’s try in their actions to do his will as they know it
through the dictates of their conscience—those too
apostles. Since the death of the apostles, no man has may achieve eternal salvation” (Vatican II documents,
possessed apostolic unction. The apostles had special “Dogmatic Constitution on the Church”).
sign miracles to authenticate their office (2 Co. 12:12), This does not mean that the RCC no longer believes
and no pope has ever been able to accomplish these itself to be the one true church. It does. While stating
signs. At its inception, the church was given its one that non-Catholics can possess a measure of salvation,
supreme written authority, the completed Bible. Rome’s the Roman Church sees such people as “separated
rejection of the sole authority of Scripture is a grave and brethren.” Separated from what? From the one true
damnable heresy. church!
Error # 3—The Roman Catholic Church is the only “The separated brethren ... live outside the visible
true church structure and full organic communion of the One
The Roman Catholic Church has always considered Church” (The Theologians Answer Your Questions, p.
itself the one true church of Jesus Christ. Catholic 215).
theologians have frequently identified the Roman The RCC continues to consider itself the one true
Church with the body of Christ. church in its fullest expression. The Second Vatican
“The Catholic Church ... knows herself as the Church of Council reaffirmed this:
Christ ... as the body of Christ, as the one means of “This is the sole Church of Christ which in the Creed
salvation. Because ... of this she is bound to condemn we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic,
all other churches which have arisen or may arise ... as which our Saviour, after his resurrection, entrusted to
extra-Christian and indeed UnChristian and anti- Peter’s pastoral care. ... This Church, constituted and
Christian creations” (Karl Adam, One and Holy, p. 93). organized as a society in the present world, subsists in
This is why the Catholic Church has historically the Catholic Church, which is governed by the
taught that outside of itself there is no salvation, at least successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion
not in the fullest sense. This was stated in a 15th with him” (Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post
century Roman Council: Conciliar Documents, edited by Austin Flannery, 1975,
p. 329).
“The Catholic Church believes, professes and proclaims “It is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is
that no one living outside the Catholic Church, not the universal help towards salvation, that the fullness
only pagans, but both Jews, heretics and schismatics, of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the
can become partakers of eternal life, but will go into apostolic college alone of which Peter is the head, that
eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels unless we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of
before the end of life they become members of it [the the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the
Catholic Church]” (Council of Florence, 1439, “The one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully
Decree for the Arminians”, quoted from The incorporated who belong in any way to the people of
Theologians Answer Your Questions, p. 213).
God” (p. 415).

Way of Life Encyclopedia of the Bible & Christianity 555