Scripture: Topics: Bible Questions with Mike
“Can a person be Catholic and Christian?”
Mom of three
Can a person be Catholic and Christian? You really need to ask the Catholic Church that, because a better phrase is this, can you be a Christian and still be a Roman Catholic? You see, anybody can be a Christian. A Muslim, Buddhist, Church of Christ, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Pentecostal, a dope-head, liar, homosexual, anybody can be a Christian. God accepts anyone. He changes you, make you live like a Christian afterwards. But anyone can become a Christian.
Sure, Roman Catholic can become a Christian. Being a Baptist doesn't make you a Christian, makes you part of the Christian religion. Being a Pentecostal doesn't make you a Christian, makes you part of the Christian religion. But to be a real Christian, God dwells inside. So the question is not, can you be a Catholic and be a Christian? The question is, are you a Christian regardless of what you are Catholic, Baptist, or anything else? That's the real issue.
Now, I say you'll need to ask the Catholic Church that because they take authority over everything I say, and they take authority over the scriptures. Their authority is final, according to the Catholic Church. They are the supreme potentate upon the earth and there's no authority higher on this earth than the Pope. And so what he says is the word of God, according to the Pope. So you'd have to ask the Pope, can I be a Christian and still be a Catholic?
And what would it mean to be a Christian? Well, to be a Christian, you'd have to believe this,
1 Timothy 2:5, "For there's one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." So according to the Bible, there is only one mediator, one priest standing between you and God, and that is Jesus Christ.
There is no other, no one is go between. That is why we Bible believers, we don't confess our sins to anybody else to get forgiven. Our sins are confessed directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we don't go to church to do it. It's done right where we're driving down the road or walking or talking or any other time because we have one mediator and he's always present and always alive. The Bible says, "Marvel not. You must be born again,” Jesus said, (John 3:7) so have you been born again?
The Catholic Church states, this is Catholic catechism:
"We do not derive our certainty about all revealed truths from the Holy Scriptures alone. Both scripture and tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiment of devotion and reverence."
So the Roman Catholic Church believes that scripture and the church are 50/50. The only difference is in practice the Pope and the Church, through the Cardinals, interprets the scripture. So if you were to go to the Bible and say, "Well, I differ with you, the Bible says this. You're saying that." They would say, "You don't have the authority to interpret the scriptures. Only the church has the authority to interpret scriptures." So in fact, the scriptures are not a final authority. The church is. And so the Roman Catholic Church has adopted many doctrines contrary to scripture, so contrary that if you actually believed everything the Catholic Church says, you couldn't be a Christian. You couldn't get there, you wouldn't be saved.
Now, if you do get to God through Jesus Christ, you'll be saved no matter what. But if you believe that you got saved by going through a man and taking sacraments and making confessions once a week that you'd go to heaven, then you're believing a false premise. You'll never get saved like that.
Now, the Roman Catholic Church views justification as a process dependent on the grace you receive by participating in the church, which is seen as a repository of saving grace. They think that God took his grace and put it in the church. The church has seven sacraments that it dispenses through the authority of the church. As you take those sacraments, you receive the grace and get saved little by little. The end of your life, the final sacrament is pronounced over you and you have sufficient grace then to make it to purgatory where you suffer for only a while, while people like candles and pray for you to get your soul out of that suffering.
So that's not a very good salvation, not a very good salvation at all. I'd find a better way to get to heaven than that.
And then this is what the Catholic Church says about its Eucharist, it called bread and wine.
"At the moment, the priest says, this is my body, the invisible unperceptible essence that you cannot see with an electron microscope. There is a miracle. It contains the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ, and that becomes the spiritual and physical nourishment. As you partake of it, it becomes part of you, transforms you and makes you more and more righteous."
That's what they believe. So when you take that little piece of bread, the priest has the supernatural power to turn it into the body of Jesus Christ. So you cannibalize Christ's body and in so doing, in eating his flesh, you eat a little bit of something righteous and over a period of time you get enough of it that you might make it to purgatory.
This doctrine couldn't be invented today. This had to been invented in mighty, superstitious, strange, dark, and primitive times, which it was, back during what they call the dark ages, and it's not talked about much by the Catholics today. I mean, it's not promoted, but this is their writings. This is what they believe, and you can see why it's embarrassing.
Now also, the Catholic Church practices veneration of the saints, praise to the saints. One mediator between God and man. I'm afraid your prayers are dead ending if you're praying to saints. You pray to Mary, you just well pray to five gallon bucket because God's not going to hear it. Mary's not going to hear it. It's gone, man. Your prayers dead. Only one way to pray and that's directly to Lord Jesus Christ. To God through Jesus. All right. I've answered that question well enough.
