Matthew 28:18-20: And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.”
Unlike the Protestant churches, the Catholic Church traces its history all the way back to Christ, himself. Martin Luther, an excommunicated Catholic priest, established his breakaway church in 1517. Thousands of Protestant sects have formed subsequently from his move of rebellion.
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Blogger Priest 
Dear Fr Joe,
“There are some over there who are casting out devils in your name and are not of us” and Jesus said “Do not stop them; those who are not against us are for us!” And that was certainly the case back in the days when the infant church was taking it first steps into an extraordinary world of extreme Judaism and the polytheistic disciplines of the army of occupation. There was Peter insisting on adult circumcision and the strict diet and Paul a real outsider who might not be worthy of trust and a Roman citizen to boot; but very gradually, by the inspiration of The Holy Spirit there was a fairly homogeneous discipline, many copies of the writings of the first disciples were sent to the furthest reaches of the developing church, and when Rome accepted Christianity as the ‘state religion’ the progress was assured. OK it was built of the terrible cost of the killing of the founding members, but it was now free to grow.
But how Our Savior must have wept, and yet still does, at the atrocities carried out in His Name. Not only the Wars and the Inquisition, but in recent years the terrible abuses of young children caused by pedophiles masquerading as religious and hiding within the depths of The Catholic Church.
Satan has always tried to destroy anything Holy. He even tempted Jesus Himself, when he was most vulnerable, weak through fasting and isolated, and if proof were needed that the Catholic Church is the continuation of Christs ministry here on Earth, then look at the many and various attempts to destroy it….and yet it survives.
I read various posts, not here, but elsewhere about how the Holy Father is the incarnation of The Beast, and that the City of the 7 hills is the Vatican itself, but I see that as another proof of the Validity of The Church: “The gates of hell will not prevail against it”, and despite all of these very powerful attacks by Satan and his army of fallen angels, by man in his naivety and ignorance, the Church survives. Are there Protestants in Heaven? Yes, of course there are, just as there are many ‘Catholics’ in Hell, and just as that desperate band of imperfect humans was chosen by Jesus to go out and teach the Truth, so today we have a similar grouping of Christians who try to overcome their humanity and understand something that is, in reality, incomprehensible. Why am I a Catholic? It is because I was born to Catholic parents, was brought up a Catholic and now freely choose to be a Catholic. Will I burn in the fires of Hell if I miss Mass on a Sunday as those formidable nuns taught me?…..NO, of course I won’t, but if I fail to follow Jesus Christ I most certainly might!
With love, Paul
Hi Fr Joe,
It’s nice to be able to read some straight forward real Catholic stuff, and it’s as I was taught by the LSU nuns till 11 and the Irish Christian Brothers till I was 18. Absolute certainty and revelation, tradition and scripture forming the basis of all theology, and it is good that you hold to that otherwise where would we be? On the other hand (here it comes!) the shortest verse in the Bible is just 2 words: “He wept”. Sadness is a very human concept and I was brought to thinking whilst reading your comments on ‘dogs in heaven’. I remember an article written by a Jesuit Priest (and as a thinking man I would suspect that you fully understand the reason and faith of the Jesuits) who was asked by his niece to say prayers over the grave of her pet mouse who had just died; he with all the learning of the seminary said that animals had no souls and therefore had no need for salvation. That upset his niece, but he was right. Many years later, as he was older and possibly wiser he was walking in a narrow lane and saw the broken body of a young squirrel, split from his head to the tip of his tail, and he recounts that as he drew the sign of the world’s mending over the shattered remains of this beautiful animal he said the words; “my brother the squirrel, remember me when I come into the peaceable kingdom”. The accuracy of the words is variable as I no longer have the text, but the sentiment is true to form. Jesus always called Himself “The Good Shepherd” and would leave the 99 and go off looking for the lost sheep. OK it’s easy to argue that the sheep were only kept for ritual slaughter and food, and it’s wrong to anthropomorphosise sheep, or dogs for that matter, but the good shepherd was willing to lay down His life for His flock, and there was a correctl application to the reality of the day in that parable. Dear Fr Joe, you can be a little tough at times, and compassion, as long as it’s not watered down by doctrinal inaccuracies, is also a necessary attribute to an active ministry to attract the newcomer.
With love, Paul