Before my conversion to Catholicism, I was a Protestant very convinced that Catholics were crazy people who believed made up things and had a superiority complex. I believed all my friends when they told me that they didn’t believe biblical things and that we should ONLY ever trust the Bible and what it says! Catholics just made up all this weird extra stuff, is what I thought. They keep saying that Jesus founded Catholicism to feel big and mighty but there’s no way that’s true, because Jesus founded Christianity, not Catholicism!
Wait, what? Fast forward to now, I am that Catholic. I am the Catholic that is constantly defending my faith and the reasons for all of our beliefs and pointing them out in the Bible and explaining to people HOW exactly Jesus founded the Catholic Church. So let’s go back to the beginning of my research, and how I came to believe in all of this.
Scripture In Peter 16:18, Jesus tells Peter directly “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” In this scripture verse, we have two important points. First, Jesus is literally talking about a Church that he is founding. It is here that Jesus says definitively, here is where it starts, and it starts with Peter. Secondly, we find that He states that no evil will ever prevail against it. The Catholic Church has stood, since this moment, unlike other denominations that have tried and failed.
Furthermore, in Matthew 16:19, Scripture states “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” Here we see Jesus giving Peter a kind of authority. This example sets the entire rest of the hierarchy for the Catholic Church. This authority comes straight from Jesus’ own mouth and we see that Peter is set above as the first Pope. In the Catholic faith, we can trace every single Pope in succession from Peter. There is no discrepancies or errors in the tracing of the popes.
But what is a Catholic? But what is with this word Catholic? The word Catholic comes from a Greek word that simply means universal. It was first used in 110 AD by Saint Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Smyrneans. “Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the Bishop. Let that be considered a valid Eucharist which is celebrated by the Bishop or by one whom he ordains. Wherever the Bishop appears, let the people be there; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.” If you replace the word Catholic with universal, you can perhaps get an entirely different perspective. The Catholic Church was in fact directly founded by Jesus through His words and His authority. The more evidence that I research simply kept pointing me in this direction. The other things that really caught me up and pointed back to this were very simple.
The Bible was not yet compiled as all of this was going on. The Bishop had many meetings with everyone from different regions and wrote so many letters to make sure that the Catholic [universal] Church was being taught the same everywhere and staying true to the teachings of Jesus. Until the Bible was compiled, all of these teachings were taught by word of mouth and letters, making sure there was only one, universal understanding. My conclusion Lastly, the Protestant religions were not even around until long after these events and they were largely derived from Catholic teaching and continued to change and stray farther and farther away. This is very historically easy to prove. For example, even Luther agreed with most of the Catholic Church’s teachings, including the theology surrounding the Blessed Virgin Mary. It wasn’t until much later that it was changed by other Protestant religions. Therefore, I came to the conclusion that the one, universal Church that directly taught the words and traditions that Jesus gave them was the one that is true and should be followed.
If you have anything to add to this conversation, please feel free to add it in the comments!
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