Denominational Blues II (Catholic)

Luke 11:28

But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.

The largest schism in the Christian Church, testified by the about the amount of blood shed historically, is the divide between Catholic and Protestant. Not really that mainline Protestantism is an adversary anymore because it really does not believe in orthodoxy these days.

I ran into a guy one time down on Temple University's campus who had a Mother Mary button on his shirt and we got into a bit of a discussion about the Catholic/Protestant divide.

Little did he know that I was raised a Catholic and know more about Catholicism than most Catholics, not to mention my evangelical brethren. I think it fair, if the Bible was the standard for determining Truth, that I won the debate. Hence, the rub. Since he did not attest to the final authority of Scripture for all of Faith, he probably saw it as a draw. Or, that he burned me at the stake intellectually. Our discussion was cordial though.

But, I did so with tears in my eyes and my heart sorrowful. Like Paul, I would rather be accursed than see Catholics astray. Sometimes my anger and frustration can come out at Catholicism like in my blog before last. I went back to make it less vehement. I was never schooled in grace while in the Catholic Church. Instead a got a heaping of guilt weekly and after awhile my guilt became so burdensome that I didn't need to go back for more. I had enough.

In the photograph above of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C., its own title and its Latin Alma Redemptoris Mater script based on a Hymn, shows the problems. There is no Scriptural support that Mary was protected from the stain of Original Sin by the Immaculate Conception, that she is yet still a Virgin, or that she has a unique role in intercession on behalf of the saints. And, things get a lot worse than that.

Mary was a grace-filled woman who had her sins and faults like the rest of us. That God could call her blessed does not mean that she in any sense co-conceived the power of redemption. That was the work of the Holy Spirit, and still is, by the way. Jesus, as the living Word of God, and indeed God incarnate, is birthed in our souls and is to grow into maturity.