Most people do not consider this question. They have never thought about it. If you consider yourself a Christian, it’s a very important question, because Christians follow Jesus Christ, and when He says he is going to build his Church on the rock of Peter, I would want to know which one that was, wouldn’t you? As Father Arnold Damen said, “Religion must come from God.” Religion doesn’t come from men. Therefore, no man has the right to start his own Church, either because he doesn’t agree with his pastor, or even the Church that Jesus Christ founded. Martin Luther was a Catholic priest. He thought he knew better than the Catholic Church, broke away and started the Lutheran religion in the year 1517. Now wouldn’t you say that was about 1500 years too late to be the true Church? The true Church was started in 33 A.D. And if it’s not the true Church, would you want to be a member of a false church? Jesus Christ said, speaking of his Church, “If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican (public sinner).” Theologians say this is a threat of damnation if we refuse to follow Christ’s Church. Luther refused to hear the Church, and a nun was shown a vision of Luther burning in hell: A Terrible Vision: Luther in Hell! > https://motherofGodlibrary.org/2019/06/05. Reading the entire New Testament, I have not found a single verse that would authorize me to start my own church.
If you asked Google, “Who started the Catholic Church?” it will say, “Jesus.” If you look up the Apostle’s Creed, the Creed formed by the 12 Apostles before they dispersed to all nations to preach the Gospel, they said, “I believe in one, holy, Catholic Church.” From the book, HANDBOOK OF DENOMINATIONS, which is not a historical Catholic book, it says, “Across the first 1,000 years of Christendom, the principal Church was the Roman Catholic. For the first 1500 years, up to the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Western world was almost solidly Roman Catholic.” Why is it important to know the age of Christ’s Church? Because his Church is to exist in all centuries from 33 A.D. to the end of the world, because Jesus said, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against my Church.” St. Matthew 16:18. The Roman Catholic Church is the only Church that can trace it’s existence through all centuries back to the time of Christ. You can do this by pulling up the List of the Popes, which go all the way back to St. Peter. Just as you can prove the United States has been a free country since 1776 by tracing the presidents back to George Washington.
“He is the Saviour of his body.” Ephesians 5:23.
Here, you may find a valuable explanation of why the Church is necessary for salvation. And we are here speaking only of Jesus Christ’s Church, and no man’s. There is only one true Church, just as there is only one head for one body. Jesus Christ is the head of the Church, and the Church is his body, Eph. 1:22-23. So there are not two churches or thousands of churches, and Our Lord is head of all of them. No. He is the head of only one Church, the Roman Catholic. Remember the Scripture above, “He is the Saviour of his body.” This is how St. Augustine explained the necessity of the Church for salvation over a thousand years before the first protestant church came into existence. “It happens sometimes a person may lose a hand, a finger, or a foot. As long as the member was united to the body, it lived. Cut off from the body it dies. So too the Christian Catholic. As long as he is united to the body of Christ’s Church, he has life through the body. Cut off, he dies. Grieve therefore for those who are separated from Christ’s body, the Catholic Church.” This is the meaning of Ephesians 5:30, Christ being the Saviour of his body. He gives life to those who are united to His body the Church. That’s why St. Paul said, “He is the Saviour of his body.” Understanding this made it crystal clear to me why the Church was necessary for salvation. Therefore, if I leave the Catholic Church, I cut myself off from it, and I no longer have life. I would be what they call an apostate, and if I die in that state, like Martin Luther, I am damned. Thus, you have St. Luke writing in the Acts of the Apostles: “The Lord added daily to the Church, such as should be saved.” 2:47. “Such as should be saved, were added to the Church.”
Now let us look at some of the major churches and see when they were founded, and to any honest person who belongs to one of these, they should be able to see that they need to separate from that church and unite themselves to the true Church established for their salvation, for as the Scripture says, those who were such as should be saved were added to the Church. “And the Lord increased daily to the Church such as should be saved.” Acts 2:47.
If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an ex-monk of the Catholic Church, in 1517.
If you belong to the Church of England, your religion was founded by King Henry VIII in the year 1534 because the Pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry.
If you are a Presbyterian, your religion was founded by John Knox in Scotland in the year 1560.
If you are a Protestant Episcopalian, your religion is an offshoot of the Church of England founded by Samuel Seabury in the American colonies in the 17th century.
If you are a Congregationalist, your religion was originated by Robert Brown in Holland in 1582.
If you are a Methodist, your religion was launched by John and Charles Wesley in England in 1738.
If you are a Mormon, (Latter Day Saints), Joseph Smith started your religion Palmyra, N. Y. in 1829.
If you are a Baptist, you owe the tenets of your religion to John Smyth, who launched it in Amsterdam in 1609.
If you are of the Dutch Reformed Church, you recognize Michaelis Jones as founder , because he originated in New York, in 1628.
If you worship with the Salvation Army, your sect began with William Booth in London in 1865.
If you are a Christian Scientist, you look to 1879 as the year in which your religion was born, and to Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy as its founder.
If you belong to one of the religious organizations known as “Church of the Nazarene,” “Pentecostal Gospel,” “Holiness Church,” “Pilgrim Holiness Church,” “Jehovah’s Witnesses,” your religion is one of the hundreds of new sects founded by men in the last 125 years.
If you are a member of Bethel Fellowship, started in Kentucky started in 1983, you owe the tenets of your religion to a Ronald Miller. As of this writing, not even 50 years old. About 1950 years too late to be the true church!
Why do we need to be in the true Church? Well, for one thing, in order to get to the right place, you have to have the right directions. If you have an erroneous map for somewhere, is that going to get you to the right destination? If you’re going to Texas, but your map says Chicago, are you going to make it to Texas.? The same is true about getting to heaven. If you have a preacher who is telling you Holy Communion is only symbolic, when Jesus Christ said it’s “living bread,” (St. John chapter 6), then you have the wrong roadmap to heaven. Or if your preacher does tell you it’s Christ’s body and blood, when he has no power to consecrate bread and wine into the real Body and Blood of Jesus Christ as the Catholic priest does, then you have another false roadmap to heaven. None of the protestant preachers have the right roadmap to heaven.
Now Jesus said, “I am the way,” so Christians know they have to follow His directions to get there. Now He established this body of men to go and teach all nations, and to preach the Gospel to every creature, and he said, ”He who hears you, hears me,” and St. Paul said that ‘’faith cometh by hearing,” because His ministers were to teach men the way to heaven. A lot of people think the Bible is the guide to heaven. However, there were no Bibles in the early Church; also, most people did not know how to read. Therefore, they had to be taught vocally, and even the Gospels and Epistles no doubt would have to be read to the people because they didn’t know how to read, for the most part. Most people were illiterate. Schools were not on every corner back then. That’s one reason St. Paul said faith cometh by hearing. And also why St. Paul told them to hold fast to the traditions they had learned, both orally and by Epistle, 2 Thess. 2:14. And how did they know what the Apostles were telling them was true? Because God was working many miracles to back up what they were teaching. St. Mark said, “But they going forth preached everywhere: the Lord working withal, and confirming the word with signs that followed.” 16:20.
Regarding Jesus’ teaching on the Eucharist, Holy Communion, there have been many Eucharistic miracles down through the centuries to prove it’s Christ’s real Body and Blood. See, THE EUCHARISTIC MIRACLE OF LANCIANO. And Jesus emphatically said if we don’t receive His Body and Blood, we would not have life in us, St. John 6:54, drbo.org. Now if our bodies can take bread and wine and change them into our body and blood, why can’t Jesus take bread and wine through the ministry of the priest, and change them into his body and blood? Did He not take the bread and wine at the Last Supper and say, “This is my body…This is the chalice of my blood?” St. Matthew 26:26-28. Are we going to contradict him and say, “No! That’s not your body and blood?” That’s what the protestant preachers do. Does that sound like the right roadmap to heaven?
Now we have to have life in us to be saved and go to heaven, so do you not see why you need to be in the true Church for salvation, and be raised up on the last day, the Day of Judgement at the end of the world? “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, the same also shall live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth this bread, shall live forever.” St. John 6:51-59. As food gives life to our body, so does the bread of life give life to our soul, and as food is necessary for the body, so also Jesus says eating his flesh and blood in Holy Communion is necessary for the life our soul. Jesus said it. It came out of His mouth. It’s in the protestant Bible. The Catholic Religion is actually proved by the Protestant Bible. You can find it here: The Catholic Religion Proved By The Protestant Bible: https://www.olrl.org/catholic-religion-proved/.
Paul Whitcomb was a protestant preacher. He was a sincere man. When he came across this verse, ‘’living bread,’ it stumped him. He knew he did not teach that their Communion service was the real body and blood of Christ. He said of all the protestant pastors he talked to, and asked them if they believed that was Christ’s real corporeal body, they all said “No.” Yet the Holy Bible says it is; the Catholic Church has always taught it was; and they have an abundance of Eucharistic miracles to confirm the truth of the matter. Now who are you going to believe, the protestant preachers, or the Catholic Church, the Holy Bible, and all the miracles? “A threefold cord is not easily broken.” Eccles. 4:12.
Another thing we need to understand is that St. Paul said, “The Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth.” 1 Tim. 3:15. St. Paul is giving us a figure of a building, which is held up by the ground (foundation), and pillar (supports), which are what holds up the building. Now what would happen if you took away the support and the foundation? It would collapse. Notice St. Paul said THE CHURCH is the pillar and ground of the truth. If you take the Church away, like Martin Luther did, the truth collapses. Martin Luther told the people to pay no attention to the Pope, but before he died, he realized his mistake and said something to the effect that by getting rid of one pope, he created many more, because now many were thinking they knew better than the next guy, and every man was his own pope, and protestant religions started popping up right and left because they didn’t agree with one another. Every man was his own pope! Where was the ‘’unity of faith,” now, Eph. 4:13? Moreover, St. Paul said the wisdom of God is made known through the Church, even to principalities and powers in heavenly places: “That the manifold wisdom of God may be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places through the church.” Ephesians 3:10. That’s pretty powerful, even to principalities and powers in high places!
The Holy Bible is a very holy book, the inspired Word of God, that is, if you have a true version and not an erroneous one. The most accurate version is the Douay Rheims, a faithful translation from the Latin Vulgate, which was used by the Church for hundreds of years before the protestants started writing their own versions. I encourage you to read what Father Arnold Damen had to say about the Bible in his discourse: The One True Church and The Church of the Bible at https://www.olrl.org/one-true-church/. If Jesus wanted the Holy Bible to be the guide to heaven, He should have put it all in one book in the beginning, had printing presses set up all over the world, and give everyone the special graces to know how to read for one thing, and then the grace to understand what they were reading. He didn’t. He established his Church to teach men the way to heaven.
We are encouraged to read the Bible, and even receive special blessings from the Church for doing so, called Indulgences. However, some things are easy to understand, others things are not. The Church says we must be taught the true meaning of the Scriptures. St. Peter said that, ‘’No interpretation of Scripture is of any private interpretation … and that many unlearned and unstable wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction,’’ 2 Peter 1;20 and 3:16. St. Paul said the Word of God is like a sharp two edged sword: ‘’ For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword.’’ [Hebrews 4:12]. Therefore, St. Francis de Sales said, “You would not put a sharp two-edged sword into the hands of just anyone. They might kill themselves with it.”
If you are a sincere person, you must pray and meditate on what you have learned. You must also continue to study and research in order to better understand. Please keep in mind these Scriptures and ask yourself, “Do the protestant religions correspond to these passages?”
“One Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Eph. 4:5. One faith?
With all their different opinions?
Another gospel? “I wonder that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel. Which is not another, only there are some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If anyone preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.” Gal. 1:6-9. Not even an angel from heaven is allowed to preach another gospel. Yet the irony of it all, even the protestant preachers don’t agree with each other. They have no unity of faith, even amongst themselves! Are we saying all protestants are lost? By no means. No doubt there are many protestants of good will, and if they follow the law of God that’s in every man’s heart, God will enlighten them on the truth. But they must separate themselves from the errors of Protestantism. St. Augustine said, “They run well, but they run the wrong way.” He said many people want to claim the name Catholic because it is a glorious one, but if you go into one of their districts, and ask them where the Catholic Church is, none of them will point to his own house. Catholic means more than just universal, Father Arnold Damen said it also means “Always and everywhere the same.” If they are sincere, they must follow the truth wherever it leads. Fr. Ronald Tangen said, “Sincerity means we will try to find out the truth.” Fr. Michael Mueller recommends this prayer to the frequent repetition to all persons of all denominations and sects whatsoever, who, in sincerity in heart, wish to arrive at the knowledge of the ONE, ONLY, TRUE AND SAVING FAITH, ‘’Without which it is impossible to please God,” and consequently obtain eternal happiness.
Prayer: O Lord, I humbly beseech Thee to teach me Thy true religion that leads to everlasting happiness, through Jesus Christ Thy Son, Our Lord. Amen.
In heaven, unsurpassed and everlasting happiness to those who love the Lord. “ But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9.
“In my Father’s house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you.” St. John 14:2.
Fr. Arnold Damen told the people in his time that they had heard many things against the Church, now they should read some things in favor of the Church. THIS IS THE FAITH by Canon Francis Ripley is an excellent source to see what the Church really teaches. It’s time to quit going by hearsay and do your own research. The Scripture says to examine both sides before you before you judge: “Before thou inquire, blame no man: and when thou hast inquired, reprove justly.” Ecclus. 11:7.
RADIO REPLIES by Fr. Leslie Rumble and Fr. Charles McCarty. Questions and answers on the Catholic faith, God, and what the Church actually teaches and believes. Explained very clearly.
Since there is so much confusion and ignorance about Mary the Mother of God, we highly encourage all those who wish to know the truth about her to read TRUE DEVOTION TO MARY by St. Louis de Montfort; and THE GLORIES OF MARY by St. Alphonsus de Liguori. It is really ironic that protestants, who say they take their Bible for their guide, disparage the Blessed Mother so much, when the scriptures plainly say of her, “From henceforth all generations shall call me blessed,” St. Luke 1:48, when they think they’re exalting Jesus by belittling his mother. As one man said, “If God had chosen your mother to be Christ’s mother, wouldn’t you expect people to honor her in a special way?” And if someone came into your house and spoke to everyone there and belittled your mother, would you not be offended? Our Lord does not take lightly things said and done against his Blessed Mother. When she appeared to Sr. Lucy of Fatima, she said to her: “My daughter…. There are many souls condemned to hell for sins committed against Me, that I have come to ask for reparation.” Then she proceeded to ask for the 5 first Saturday devotions in reparation…To be continued.