I've got these rubber sandals I wear in warm weather when I don't feel like wearing shoes. Peole call them flip flops because when I walk in them they go flip-flop-flip-flop. They remind me of Protestantism.

MOBILE, Alabama - First, the pope does not want his ring kissed. And he prefers to be called Father Francis rather than Your Holiness.

Those were some of the marching orders given to Rev. Henry W. Roberts II of Mobile and other bishops with the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, who met with Pope Francis at the Vatican Oct. 10. The CEEC is an international ecumenical network that strives for unity among all Christians.

Roberts and Pope at lunch.jpg
Pope Francis dines with 12 bishops of various Protestant denominations from the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches on Oct. 10, 2014, at the Vatican. Third from Pope Francis' right is Rev. Henry Roberts II, pastor of Word of Life Community Church in Mobile. (Courtesy Word of Life Church)

"He looks like one of the fellas. He's so down to earth," said Roberts, describing a photo he took with the pope during the visit. Roberts is founding pastor of Word of Life Community Church, an interdenominational congregation of 1,500 with locations in Chickasaw and Whistler. A graduate of McGill-Toolen Catholic School, he has been a bishop with the CEEC network since 2007.

Roberts said one of the bishops asked the pontiff if he would bless them to go and proclaim the miracle of unity. "He said, 'I can't really bless you, because we're brother bishops.' He actually called us his brother bishops," he said.

Roberts said the group met with Pope Francis for more than an hour and shared lunch in his private dining room at Casa Santa Marta, his Vatican residence. The main topics at the meeting, which occurred during the recent Synod, were family and Christian unity.

"He said, No. 1, that we as believers, as Christians, have to stop talking bad about each other and being condescending," Roberts recalled. "No. 2, we need to find a good Catholic that we can just fellowship with and develop a relationship with."
purchased the white hat made especially for Francis in Rome to make the swap. "I loved his personality, and I could feel his heart and compassion for people and h
Roberts also exchanged a skull cap called a zucchetto with the pontiff. He had is love for people," he said. "I know he's sincere about seeing people come together."

I've got these rubber sandals I wear in warm weather when I don't feel like wearing shoes.

I've got Roman Catholic stamped on the soles of me feet

“Flip-flop, hippety-hop, offa your rocker and over the top, life's a fiction and the world's a lie, so put on some Creedence and let's get high.”

I may flip flop, but the Catholic Church never does.

Isna, I'm glad you are taking the time to study Catholic documents to see what they say. I hope you will continue. As you get deeper into it you will learn to distinguish between the Church's infallible teachings, which are handed down from the apostles, and which never change, although from time to time a pope or council will issue an infallible statement to clarify (what you rightly quoted Cardinal Newman about), and things said by priests, catechisms, and even saints and popes, that are merely the writer's personal opinions.

Let's take the issue of salvation outside the Church. Jesus Himself said that if one rejects the pope one rejects God (Luke 10:16). Almost every one of the Church Fathers taught that outside the Church there is no salvation. But they also taught that baptism of blood (a martyr who dies before being sacramentally baptized), or baptism of desire (a person who was being instructed in the faith but who wanted to be baptized but who died before being baptized) can substitute for sacramental Baptism. But what of virtuous pagans who died without ever hearing the gospel? some began to ask. The doctrine developed that they might have implicit baptism of desire.

Now you can find Catholic catechisms that say any and all go to Heaven, Communion is merely symbolic, sex outside of marriage is okay, even homosexual sex, Jesus didn't really do any miracles, Jesus didn't know Who He was, Jesus didn't know He was God, birt control is okay, divorce and remarriage are okay, etc. You can even find this stuff being said by cardinals and popes in their private remarks ,(the pope is not infallible unless he is speaking publicly). But unless something is part of the long standing ongoing teaching of the Church, it is not infallible and might even be, and someties is, heretical.

If you really want to know what the Catholic Church teaches, stick to the infallible statements of popes, councils, and Church Fathers, not stuff put out by Vatican II, a non-infallible council, says, or what some random catechism book says.

"Firmly hold and never doubt that every baptized person outside of the Catholic Church cannot share in eternal life, if before the end of his life he does not return and is incorporated into the Church." --St. Fulgentius

However it has always been the teaching of the Church that only Catholics go to Heaven.

John 3:14-17 KJV

14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:

15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Origen taught Catholic orthodoxy until toward the end of his life he began to teach universal salvation. Notice that among all the Church Fathers, only he and Terullian are not called saints. (Terullian left the Church and became a Montanist.)

Paragraph 1. The Son of God Became Man

I. WHY DID THE WORD BECOME FLESH?

456 With the Nicene Creed, we answer by confessing: "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven; by the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man."

457 The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who "loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins": "the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world", and "he was revealed to take away sins":70

Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?71
458 The Word became flesh so that thus we might know God's love: "In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him."72 "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."73

459 The Word became flesh to be our model of holiness: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me." "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me."74 On the mountain of the Transfiguration, the Father commands: "Listen to him!"75 Jesus is the model for the Beatitudes and the norm of the new law: "Love one another as I have loved you."76 This love implies an effective offering of oneself, after his example.77

460 The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":78 "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."81

Jesus specifically said that He was founding a Church. The Church we find, Acts through Revelation, is one, not thousands of denominations

His Church is not your Catholic church. It is the Church made up of all different nations, races, creeds etc. who accept Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.

You put too much faith in the "Catholic church" and not enough in God. In fact, from all of the posts I've read from you, you worship the Catholic belief, rather than God.

We are supposed to keep our eyes on Jesus, not on our church

Then why does I Timothy 3:15 call the Church the "pillar and ground of truth"?

Msreesi, after Father Martin Luther Revolted against the Catholic Church and split, there followed schism after schism in the Protestant ranks, almost all of them over disagreements over the meaning of Scripture. Today there are tens of thousands of Protestant sects and communions worldwide, all claiming the Bible as their authority, but holding to thousands of different and conflicting doctrines. They cannot agree among themselves on what it is that Christ taught. And you refer to this diversity of Protestant doctrine as “the pillar and ground of truth”? Are you intellectually and willfully blind? What it is is a scandal to all looking into Protestantism. And Catholics cannot see how such scandalous diversity of doctrine can possibly be labeled a “reform” of the Church.

How can Protestants pretend to be following Christ when they ignore his doctrine or twist the literal meaning into their own doctrine? I have actually had some Protestants claim that this diversity of doctrine is a good thing. Our Lord disagrees. He said that a house divided cannot stand. In any case, diversity of doctrine is the exact opposite of "The pillow and ground of truth". For whenever two doctrines contradict each other, at least one of them is necessarily false. False doctrine is referred to as heresy, which is why Our Lord, in the Catholic revelations, sometimes refers to the Protestant Sects as "heretical Churches". In fact, all Protestant Sects are founded upon two Lutheran heresies: (1) Bible as sole authority, and (2) one need do nothing to obtain salvation, that Christ has done everything, and all one has to do is accept it as a free gift. Neither of these Protestant doctrines are found in Christ or the prophets, and is contradicted by Christ and the original apostles and the prophets in the Bible.

Louie

There was a Church. Jesus specifically said that He was founding a Church. The Church we find, Acts through Revelation, is one, not thousands of denominations. It is an organized body, not a loose invisible fellowship of believers, as the Protestants claim. Peter is clearly the one who makes the decisions or calls the meetings and presides. The Church had bishops,elders (priests), and deacons. The Church gathered on the first day of thw week for the Breaking of the Bread (the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass). The Church of the New Testament is clearly the same as today's Catholic Church.

I told you before that the Holy Spirit described the Church established by Christ as “Catholic and apostolic” in the Apostles Creed, which he dictated to the Apostles just before Pentecost, which is consider by the Church to be the birthday of the Church.

Louie