Similarities between Roman Catholics and Jehovah`s Witnesses

by smiddy 85 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  PSacramento

  Absolutely Cofty, but none of that means the RCC and that is what is crucial and why, after the second vtican council, they were called "hypocrites" and accused of contriodiction by the more "conservative" of the RC.

  The universal catholic church is NOT the RCC, although, like I mentioned before, the Vatican rarely makes that clear.

  From the Catechism:

  169 Salvation comes from God alone; but because we receive the life of faith through the Church, she is our mother: "We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation." 55 Because she is our mother, she is also our teacher in the faith.

  620 Our salvation flows from God's initiative of love for us, because "he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins" (I Jn 4:10). "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor 5:19).

  777 The word "Church" means "convocation." It designates the assembly of those whom God's Word "convokes," i.e., gathers together to form the People of God, and who themselves, nourished with the Body of Christ, become the Body of Christ.

  778 The Church is both the means and the goal of God's plan: prefigured in creation, prepared for in the Old Covenant, founded by the words and actions of Jesus Christ, fulfilled by his redeeming cross and his Resurrection, the Church has been manifested as the mystery of salvation by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. She will be perfected in the glory of heaven as the assembly of all the redeemed of the earth (cf. Rev 14:4).

  779 The Church is both visible and spiritual, a hierarchical society and the Mystical Body of Christ. She is one, yet formed of two components, human and divine. That is her mystery, which only faith can accept.

  780 The Church in this world is the sacrament of salvation, the sign and the instrument of the communion of God and men.
• 

  Chariklo

  No, Cofty, not wrong. Incomplete.
• 

  PSacramento

  "Outside the Church there is no salvation"

  846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? 335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

  Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. 336

  847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

  Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation. 337

  848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men." 338
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  cofty

  I still can't see how the quotes posted can be reconciled with what you are saying.

  Only a priest ordained by the RCC is recognised by the church is it not?
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  PSacramento

  Only a priest ordained in the RCC can administer the Sacraments in a RCC, yes.
• 

  Sulla

  Thank you, Twitch! Like Henry VIII, I am called to defend the faith; except that he was a schismatic and heretic and is burning in hell right now while my date with the flames will have to wait a while longer, it seems.

  On the other hand, he was able to kill a cardinal (Fisher) and Thomas Moore, while all I can accomplish is to piss people off here. Speaking of which, Cofty, how's it going?

  You said, quoting from a Catholic source:

  However, for those who knowingly and deliberately (that is, not out of innocent ignorance) commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine) or schism (separating from the Catholic Church and/or joining a schismatic church), no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in Catholic unity.

  Correctamundo. However, the key to this sort of thing is whether people are working out of ignorance. We have pointed out that a sin requires that the matter be important (which schism certainly is) and that it be done with full knowledge (which is often not the case). For people who were afflicted with JW-ism or other Protestant fan-fictions, we might suppose that they have not committed the sin of schism simply because they don't know what they are doing. Hell, if everything the JWs told me about the Church were true... well, I trust you get my point.

  That said, you point out that both the Eucharist and confession require apostolic succession, which my Protestant separated brethren lack. Thus, they cannot receive these sacraments.

  For a Catholic who becomes a JW, the question is somewhat more complex. It cannot be denied, after all, that the religious education of Catholic young people is something like a catastrophe, allowing silliness like JW-ism seriously to be entertained by some Catholics. Their culpability is unclear to the extent that they have no idea what they are talking about in the first place.
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  cofty

  Which is a long way of saying that anybody who says "F~~~ the pope" with full knowledge of all relevant facts is going to hell regardless of their piety, faith or good works.

  How is that different from the Watchtower exactly?
• 

  PSacramento

  RE: Baptisim -

  V. WHO CAN BAPTIZE?

  1256 The ordinary ministers of Baptism are the bishop and priest and, in the Latin Church, also the deacon. 57 In case of necessity, anyone, even a non-baptized person, with the required intention, can baptize 58 , by using the Trinitarian baptismal formula. The intention required is to will to do what the Church does when she baptizes. The Church finds the reason for this possibility in the universal saving will of God and the necessity of Baptism for salvation. 59
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  cofty

  PS - I'm interested in what is the norm not in exceptions for extenuating circumstances.
• 

  JustHuman14

  Catholic Church is a schismatic Church that broke away from the Apostolic Orthodox Church in the year 1040 AD...from the Catholic Church, the Protestands came out, and there we have the thousand branches of extreme Protestand Churches & faiths, and one of them is the WT...

  At the end of the day, they all have similarities in structure, but WT has nothing in common, either in faith, or dogma with the Roman Catholic Church