In recent days we have seen or heard of several individuals who either have converted to Roman Catholicism or are investigating the possibility of doing so. Some with whom I have talked seem to have limited awareness of what Rome truly believes. In light of the media attention surrounding the selection of Pope Leo IV, it becomes even more important for all Christians to know precisely what Rome believes and what they practice.

 Today’s article is the first of several that ask important questions of those who are contemplating a move from some variety of Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.

 (1)        Perhaps the most important question for you is one that relates to interpretive authority. As you know, the Roman Catholic Church (hereafter, RCC) believes that God has promised to provide the Papacy, in conjunction with the College of Cardinals (together called the Magisterium), an anointing or presence of the Holy Spirit by which together they will be given infallible interpretations of the biblical text. No matter what any individual Christian may think a biblical text might mean, in the final analysis it is the Magisterium that determines what is true and what is false.

 Fundamental to Catholic belief is that the Holy Spirit enables the bishops and pope to recognize divine revelation (distinguishing it from the spurious), to define official dogmas of the church (which all are required to believe), and to interpret infallibly those truths/dogmas. This office of the church has “the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of tradition” (Dei Verbum, 10).

 Thus the Magisterium’s task is “to preserve God’s people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. . . To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church’s shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals” (CC, 890).

 Really? Is that what you now are committed to observing for the rest of your life? For what possible biblical reason would you agree that Christ “has endowed the Church’s shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals”?

 The Magisterium, so we are told, exists to provide the faithful with an authentic interpretation of the text and tradition. “The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone [note the word “alone”]” (85). This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted [not to individual believers but] to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome” (CC, 85).

 Are you prepared to live by that? Are you prepared to submit to this? Are you prepared to set aside your responsibility as a believer-priest to interpret the biblical text, at least whenever your interpretation differs from that offered by the Magisterium? If you are a Roman Catholic in good conscience, you must. Your conscience will be bound to the teaching authority of the Church.

 What I am asking you is this: Are you prepared to embrace as authoritative and binding on your conscience all that is written in the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, the Documents of the Second Vatican Council, The Catechism of the Catholic Church (a product of the apostolic constitution Fidei Depositum in 1992), The Code of Canon Law (1983), and papal decrees such as that concerning the Immaculate Conception of Mary in 1854 by Pope Pius IX. If so, may I ask why?

 Do you now genuinely believe that Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees are inspired and inerrant and binding on the conscience of all Christians, notwithstanding the fact that it wasn’t until the Council of Trent in the 16^th century that such books were officially declared an essential part of the biblical canon?

 (2)        Are you now prepared to say and to live in accordance with the belief that sacred tradition or apostolic tradition is no less binding on the conscience and conduct of Christians than is Scripture? Do you now believe this, because as a faithful Catholic you must:

 “As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, ‘does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence” (CC, 82; emphasis mine).

 By all means, we should learn from tradition in the church, but are you willing to accept and honor tradition “with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence”?

 (3)        Are you prepared to acknowledge as true and believe in indulgences as stated in the Catechism:

 “An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints. An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin. The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead” (CC, 1471).

 Why would you believe that any such notion is true? Where does the Bible teach that after the guilt of your sins is forgiven that you must still suffer “temporal punishment” for them?

 Why would you believe and live under the authority of a “Church” that tells you that it alone has the power to dispense and apply merit from “the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints?” How would you justify believing in and teaching others that such a so-called “treasury” even exists? Why would you believe in and teach others that the excess merits of Christ and Mary and the “saints” are contained there and can be accessed by doing certain deeds of penance?

 Why would you believe that our God would ever condone or endorse the notion of an “indulgence” by which someone might receive remission of the “temporal punishment due to sin”?

 Why would you ever believe or teach others that by acts of righteousness you perform on earth that you can obtain indulgences for “the dead” and in doing so reduce the suffering they are presently enduring in Purgatory?

 Why would you believe in “the communion of saints” according to which a supposed “link” exists between Christians on earth and those in heaven such that the latter, who are “expiating their sins in purgatory” may have their time there reduced because of the deeds of those still living?

 Are you prepared to believe in and live in accordance with the idea that believers on earth and those now in purgatory can engage in an “abundant exchange of all good things,” such that “the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others” (CC, 1475).

 Why would you believe that Christians who have died must still, in their own persons, “expiate” their sins in purgatory? Why would you want to denigrate and diminish the perfect and all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ for his people?

 Are you prepared to believe in the idea that this so-called “treasury” includes

 “the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them. In this way they attained their own salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body” (CC, 1476-77).

 Why would you ever think that such an idea could be justified? Do you see anything in Scripture that would even remotely justify such an obviously un-Christian notion?

 Do you honestly believe that a believer on earth may obtain an indulgence and in doing so open up

 “the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. . . . Since the faithful departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints, one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that the temporal punishments due for their sins may be remitted” (CC, 1478-79).

 Is not the precious blood of Jesus Christ shed once for all on the cross sufficient to gain for us full and complete forgiveness now and forevermore? Do you honestly believe that all true Christians now in heaven are suffering “temporal punishments due for their sins” and that you, on earth, can do something to reduce or minimize this, evidently something that Jesus Christ himself in his glorious person and work was either unable or unwilling to do for them?

 Do you truly believe that after being saved, ostensibly by God’s grace, “we can then merit for ourselves and for others the graces needed for our sanctification, for the increase of grace and charity, and for the attainment of eternal life” (CC, 2010).

 (4)        Do you now believe that infants and young children, apart from personal conscious faith in Jesus Christ must be baptized? What biblical texts convinced you of this?

 Do you now believe that by baptizing infants and young children, apart from personal and conscious faith in Jesus Christ, that the guilt of original sin is erased and wiped clean from their souls? Do you now believe that “baptism . . . erases original sin” (CC, 405)? Where in Scripture is any such idea to be found?

 Are you prepared to believe and live in accordance with the idea that “baptism is the first and chief sacrament of forgiveness of sins because it unites us with Christ” (977)?

 Do you truly now believe that when we as adults believe in Christ for salvation and are baptized that such baptism “cleansed us, the forgiveness we received then was so full and complete that there remained in us absolutely nothing left to efface, neither original sin nor offenses committed by our own will, nor was there left any penalty to suffer in order to expiate them” (CC, 978)?

 I assume, then, that you also now believe that “Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith,” that it “conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life” (CC, 1992).

 To be continued . . .