Cultish group the Catholics. Worshiping Mary is ridiculous. Mortal and venial sins. Indulgences. Putting a mere man as speaking for God (the Pope) and more.
There is much in Christendom that I think the Christ does not approve of.
1) Catholics do not worship Mary. We simply acknowledge the honor that Christ bestowed upon Her.
2) Jesus Christ Himself makes a distinction between various degrees on sin. He rebukes the Pharisees, because although they tithed their garden herbs, they failed to practice the "weightier matters of the law." They strained out a gnat but swallowed a camel. Therefore, there are indeed weightier matters of the law, and there are small sins like gnats and big sins like camels.
3) Indulgences are blessings in reward for repentance and good works. The Bible is very clear that we do in fact earn blessings through repentance and good works.
4) Jesus Christ is the one who told Peter, "Thou art Peter (rock), and on this Rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in Heaven." In the same way that God inspired fallible men to write infallible scripture, He also inspires fallible men to pronounce infallible doctrine. He has granted the Church this power to "bind and loose," and even told the Apostles, after giving them The Holy Spirit: "whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, whose sins you retain are retained." It is no suprise that God appoints a man to act as His representative, its the way He has always done it.... from Noah, Moses, King David, Isaiah, etc. The Bible is a book of infallible scriptures. God used sinful human beings to write it. In the same way, He has promised to guide His Church into all truth, through the office given to Peter as Chief Shepherd, holder of the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, with power to bind and loose, and power to forgive sin.
He's now sola Roma. I'm still sola gratia, fide and scriptura.
"Sola Roma" wouldn't be entirely fair, since we do have the Scriptures, the Tradition, and the Living Magesterium to guide us, in addition to the Pope.
Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura... the Apostle Paul may have something to say about those two ideas...
"hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word of mouth or by letter from us,"
and
"If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing."
I thought Catholicism was a subsection of Judaism.
Catholicism is the fulfillment of Judaism.
In the first book of the Hebrew Bible, after Adam and Eve bite from the forbidden fruit, God promises that a descendant of Eve will destroy the evil Serpent who deceived them. In the Law given to Moses for the Israelites, a sacrificial system is implemented by which the sins of the people were placed on first born live stock without blemish, and the blood sacrifice would cover their sins. King David spoke of a day when one of his descendants would take rule forever, and when King David spoke about his descendant, he called his great grandchild "Lord." When the Prophet Isaiah spoke of the coming Messiah, he called him "Mighty God, Eternal Father," and spoke about his excruciating death, by which he would suffer on behalf of Israel's sins, and would bring redemption through his sacrifice.
None of these prophecies found in the Hebrew Bible ever came true - except for in the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This is correct. The church of Rome was the foundation, but that founding church and today's RC church are two very different things.
If you want, the complete works of the Early Church Fathers are available online for free on many websites. You can read from men who were trained by the Apostles, men who were bishops and priests in the Church around the year 100 AD, and hear from them firsthand what the Church looked like and believed.
