The Roman Catholic Church ardently maintains that it alone is the true church of Christ on earth, and all other churches are false.
Many Catholics and Evangelicals mistakenly believe that Vatican II softened this position, but this can be empirically shown not to be the case.
Vatican II asserted:
For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help towards salvation. that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God. [197]
According to Vatican II, which is the only church where the "fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained?" Vatican II's answer: "Christ's Catholic Church alone."
Consider also the following Papal quotations:
Pope Innocent III said:
With our hearts we believe and with our lips we confess but one Church, not that of the heretics, but the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside which we believe that no one is saved. [198]
Pope Bonafice was clear:
Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff. [199]
Pope Leo X, at the Fifth Lateran Council, wrote:
Where the necessity of salvation is concerned all the faithful of Christ must be subject to the Roman Pontiff, as we are taught by Holy Scripture, the testimony of the holy fathers, and by that constitution of our predecessor of happy memory, Boniface VIII, which begins Unam Sanctam. [200]
Pope Leo XIII decreed:
He scatters and gathers not who gathers not with the Church and with Jesus Christ, and all who fight not jointly with Him and with the Church are in very truth contending against God. [201]
Vatican II also stated:
Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by God through Jesus Christ would refuse to enter her or to remain in her could not be saved. [202]
Please recall that these are infallible proclamations by infallible agents.
CWRC Ministries insightfully mentioned:
For now, let us see that all of the confusion within Rome stems from a faulty definition of the Church. There is but ONE CHURCH and it is THE BODY OF CHRIST. The Roman Catholic is so entrenched in his understanding of the Church as an institutional structure that he views all other "churches" in the same way. The reality is that the Body of Christ is the ONE and ONLY CHURCH though it meets in various local bodies as is mentioned in the Bible, i.e., the Church at Corinth, the Church at Ephesus etc. In today's world there under different denominational names affixed to those who call themselves Christians. Sadly many of these denominational names are not Christian even though they take the name Christian. This is to be expected as the word Christian and the word Church are not patented. [203]
The Roman Catholic Church claims to be the only true Church of God today on earth.
The many false doctrines of Rome have proven that she is not the true church. We shall soon see that history works against the Roman Catholic Church as well.
This document written to the glory of God.
© 2006, Mark Edward Sohmer. Please feel free to quote from it in context, and distribute it in its entirety without profit.
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