When we ask why people aren’t Catholic, the answers include: “I don’t want to be.”, “I’m happy the way I am.”, “It’s none of your business.”, “The Church is too hierarchical.”, “The Church is medieval.”, “Women can’t be priests.”, “It’s too demanding.”, and “My family has always been Protestant.”
Still, all Protestants profess to take at least some parts of the Bible seriously. So, the attitude that one may pick and choose what they will believe must be examined. Just as we should strive to obey all the Ten Commandments, not just one or two of them, we should try to believe all the Bible.
Many make that commitment while ignoring passages like “If you do not eat My Body and drink My Blood, you do not have life in you.”, or, “Thou are Peter, and on this rock, I will build My Church.” By deciding that we have the right, even the duty, to ignore or misinterpret passages we don’t like, we are setting ourselves up as equals to God. We are getting uppity.
He is The Loving Programmer. He has downloaded His Operating Instructions. We must, if we are to be completely whole, make every effort to obey all that He has told us.
It is a mystery that so many pick and choose what they will believe. Once we start to do that, we are no longer on the straight and narrow path. We have moved off it, into a mirrored room that reflects and magnifies our vanity. As long as we stay there, we are increasingly blinded to the complete truth that exists in The Roman Catholic Church.
We must get out of that room, and back to the straight and narrow path to salvation, aided by The Sacraments.
Protestants and Government
Governments tend to dislike competing authorities. The Catholic Church has the ultimate authority on earth. Matthew, 16;19: “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
While earthly governments may offer salaries, benefits, and pensions, they can’t offer salvation. Though they may threaten with poverty, starvation, jail, torture, and death, the suffering they cause does end at death. Those concerned with having eternal, joyful life obey the more powerful Authority that can provide them.
Those who run governments do not want a single, powerful counterbalance. For centuries, many governments have worked to bring divisions into The Church. Most Protestant denominations have their fiscal foundation in funding provided by people who want to weaken Rome.
Luther was supported by many small, German governments. They didn’t want money taken from their citizens and sent to Rome to rebuild The Vatican. They needed to keep that money in their own economies and pockets. They supported early Protestants to reduce the outflow of cash.
Greedy Englishmen wanted to become great lords. They wanted money and land. The Church had as much as a third of England. So, those anxious for riches encouraged a particularly vile form of Protestantism in which the King became the Pope. In return for the near-deification of Henry VIII, those who chose to steal land and power rather than obedience that would lead to salvation put their Protestant religion into effect.
Often, governments decide to solve economic problems by killing people. All citizens are vulnerable, from the unborn to the old. The Roman Catholic Church says, loudly and clearly, “No.” to murderous governments. In response, governments that try to balance their books by killing do what they can to undermine The Church.
In the United States, ruling liberals of both parties knew that they needed Black votes to get into office. They also thought that the number of Blacks had to be limited. So, abortion was encouraged. As The Church protested, official anti-Catholicism increased. Those greedy for power and funding got what they wanted, and millions of previously cherished unborn babies were slaughtered.
Sadly, most of the Mainline Protestant denominations ended up supporting abortion. A generation before, those same denominations had endorsed the government’s elite who pushed for birth control.
Those who love God and neighbor welcome life, no matter how hard their governments work to destroy it.
Protestants and Divorce
The Pope’s refusal to give Henry VIII a divorce was a major motivation in his, and his nation’s, descent into apostasy. The desire for divorce and remarriage continues to be strong enough to pull many people away from the Catholic Church.
In some of the Protestant, non-denominational Mega-Churches, as many as half the attendees are former Catholics. Many, finding The Church’s annulment process to be “too complicated and expensive”, freely choose to begin attending Protestant churches that have virtually no restrictions on remarriage.
A too-frequent part of such apostate’s future conversations are words to the effect that, “I finally feel free.” They were always free to leave The Church. Hopefully, they can be saved, but their eternal fate is less certain than if they’d been faithful, obedient recipients of The Sacraments. The only Sacrament they can use to help themselves is Confession. When speaking to lapsed Catholics, we must remember that each of them is only one Confession away from salvation.
Mark 10;9 tells us that The Church is still living according to Christ’s instructions: “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” Any denomination with a less rigorous standard than The Church’s is, to the degree of their tolerance, at a greater distance from Christ.
Many Protestants are descended from Catholics who left The Church because of an improper marriage. A reason for their return to The Church is to ask God, through His Saints and Angels, to forgive the souls who strayed.
