Michael: So, can the Catholic Church be corrupted or not?

Joseph: Let’s make something clear. Christians as individuals can be corrupted, what really can’t be corrupted is the Church founded by Christ in substance, and that includes its doctrine. I don’t think that it’s logical or that it goes according to the plan of salvation, that Christ founded a Church and then allowed it to apostatize almost immediately leaving the world in obscurantism more than sixteen hundred years or until —according to various Protestant hypotheses— the arrival of a certain Martin Luther, a Charles Russell, an Ellen White, or any of the founders of the thousands of existing non-Catholic Christian denominations[1].

Pauline: I think that the Bible says very clearly that this could happen, for example, in the parable of the wheat and tares (Matt 13,24-30) it is said that the Church could be contaminated with false Christians and the apostle Peter had also predicted it: “But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there shall be among you lying teachers, who shall bring in sects of perdition, and deny the Lord who bought them: bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” (2 Pet 2,1)

Joseph: These two texts only show that in the Church there would be better and worse people, which I have already recognized may happen, but that doesn’t mean that they would pervert the Church and its doctrine or corrupt it substantially. By contrast, in other texts where the Scriptures talk about these false Christians, it is seen that many of them end up leaving the Church: “…many Antichrists are come… They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would no doubt have remained with us; but that they may be manifest, that they are not all of us” (1 John 2,18-19), and the ones who sow divisions: “In the last time there shall come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. These are they, who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit” (Jude 1,18-19)[2].

If we read the Bible from the beginning, we will see that it tells the story of humanity, starting with the creation, then the fall of man because of sin and later God’s plan of salvation for us. If I had to give the Bible another name, it would be precisely this:, the history of salvation.

It is in this story that we can observe how God first selects a man, Abraham, and from there he selects a people, Israel, in which he places his promises of salvation: “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Gen 22,18; Acts 3,25; Gal 3,8), promises that are fully fulfilled with the coming of the Messiah and the beginning of the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. Do you remember how Christ began his preaching?

Michael: By announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Joseph: Precisely in this way: “the kingdom of God is come upon you” (Matt 12,28), “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17,21). The comparisons that he uses to describe it are very significant, like the one of the mustard seed that becomes a tree that does not stop growing; “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? or to what parable shall we compare it? It is as a grain of mustard seed: which when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that are in the earth: and when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air may dwell under the shadow thereof” (Mark 4,30-32).

Pauline: We agree with that.

Joseph: Well, that Kingdom of God is present in the Church, which is the body of Christ (1 Cor 12,27) and its members, who are the “salt of the earth” and “light of the world” (Matt 5,13-14). Jesus is the one who says that he will give his kingdom to the Church when he is rejected by the bulk of the Jewish people: “Therefore I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof” (Matt 21,43). St. Paul also interprets the Old Testament prophecies in this way: “Then Paul and Barnabas said boldly: «To you it behoved us first to speak the word of God: but because you reject it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord hath commanded us: I have set thee to be the light of the Gentiles; that thou mayest be for salvation unto the utmost part of the earth.» And the Gentiles hearing it, were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to life everlasting, believed.” (Acts 13,46-48); which makes it very clear that when God said “I have set thee to be the light of the Gentiles”, he was referring to the Church.

Pauline: Of course, but just as the leaders of the Jewish people and their priestly class became corrupted and the Kingdom of God was taken away from them and given to the Christians, this too can happen with the Catholic Church, when its hierarchy became corrupted, leaving the Kingdom of God in a remnant of Christians faithful to a sound doctrine.

Joseph: When I considered that option, I found two great difficulties in making it credible.

Michael: Which ones?

Joseph: Where were these supposed non-Catholic faithful Christians during 1600 years before the arrival of Luther?

Pauline: They could have remained hidden, because they were persecuted by the Catholic Church with its oppressive arm called the Inquisition.

Joseph: That is not what is shown in history and that is not even logical. History shows the different conflicts that the Church had with the different heretical groups: Gnostics, Arians, Modalists, Novacians, Donatists, Montanists, etc. In general, the Protestant of the sixteenth century did not identify with any of these groups because they also consider them heretics, or because an objective study of what they really believed proves that they didn’t share their faith. If the Christians are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, were these heretics more courageous and visible than those supposed real Christians? Why can’t we find any group separate from the Catholic Church that professes the same doctrine professed by the Protestant today?

Pauline: It’s possible that many of them left no trace because the Catholic Church and the Inquisition destroyed their writings and works.

Joseph: Even if we think that this were true, that would not have prevented us from knowing about their existence as we know about the other groups, whether by Catholic apologies or by the numerous Works that survived.

But let’s see the second reason that I consider more important.

Michael: Go ahead…

Joseph: Just like Jesus states that He will give his Kingdom to the Church, “pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3,15), he also says that the evil forces won’t prevail against it: “And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt 16,18-19), and I will use again the figure of the mustard seed (Matt 13,31), a Church that doesn’t stop growing, a Church that doesn’t hide, but that is fully visible with a big mountain, just like it was prophesied: “the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth… But in the days of those kingdoms the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and his kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people, and it shall break in pieces, and shall consume all these kingdoms, and itself shall stand for ever” (Dan 2,44).

And this is the visible Church that was entrusted to carry the gospel to all nations: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt 28,19-20). This was done only by the Catholic Church; even Martin Luther recognizes that it was from her that he received the Word of God.

Besides, there are so many prophecies in the Old Testament that point to this reality, and that in the New Testament are applied to the Church by the apostles themselves. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews points out how this new covenant announced by the prophets finds full fulfillment in the Church: “But now he hath obtained a better ministry, by how much also he is a mediator of a better testament, which is established on better promises. For if that former had been faultless, there should not indeed a place have been sought for a second. For finding fault with them, he saith: Behold, the days shall come, saith the Lord: and I will perfect unto the house of Israel, and unto the house of Juda, a new testament. Not according to the testament which I made to their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt: because they continued not in my testament: and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the testament which I will make to the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my laws into their mind, and in their heart will I write them: and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”[3]

Look, in an implicit way, we find here the promise that God will not let His Church suffer the same fate as the Jewish people: “And the Lord will give you spare bread, and short water: AND WILL NOT CAUSE THY TEACHER TO FLEE AWAY FROM THEE ANY MORE, and thy eyes shall see thy teacher. And thy ears shall hear the word of one admonishing thee behind thy back: «This is the way, walk ye in it: and go not aside neither to the right hand, nor to the left»”[4]. This is a lucid prophecy of the figure of the imperishable Church and of what we know today as its Magisterium, which is indispensable for visibility, which in turn allows the message of salvation and its sound doctrine to be transmitted to all people in any time after the arrival of the Kingdom of God.

“Give praise, O thou barren, that bearest not! … For thou shalt pass on to the right hand, and to the left: and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and shall inhabit the desolate cities. This thing is to me as in the days of Noe, to whom I swore, that I would no more bring in the waters of Noe upon the earth: so have I sworn not to be angry with thee, and not to rebuke thee. FOR THE MOUNTAINS SHALL BE MOVED, AND THE HILLS SHALL TREMBLE; BUT MY MERCY SHALL NOT DEPART FROM THEE, NEITHER SHALL THE COVENANT OF MY PEACE BE MOVED, said the Lord that hath mercy on thee. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper: and every tongue that resisteth thee in judgment, thou shalt condemn. This is the inheritance of the servants of the Lord, and their justice with me, saith the Lord” (Isa 54,1.2.3.9.10.17)

Just like these texts, there are so many others, for example, Isaiah 2,2-3; 9,2.5.6; 59,20.21; Jer 31,31-33, applied to the Church in the New Testament: Acts 13,47; Luke 2,29-32, etc.

Michael: This is really very interesting.

Joseph: More than interesting, it is consistent with Christ’s way of choosing by himself the 12 apostles to live with him, to learn from him (Luke 6,13) and to pass it on from generation to generation (2 Tim 2,2). Was Christ able to found a Church that will be corrupted as soon as the last apostle died, leaving the world in the dark for thousands of years?

Notes

  1. Martin Luther, the most illustrious of the Protestant reformers, believed that he was precisely chosen by God for this task: “God, rejecting the papists, raised me up from the mire and clay to put me among the princes of his people, so that, through my ministry, Germany would be added to the kingdom of Christ and attain the true knowledge of God” (Weimarer Ausgabe 42,657). “God miraculously brought me into the arena to attack the dragon, and that is why I have cut off monks and nuns and strangled the pope” (Tischr. 3776 III 605). “By me the Lord not only struck the pope, the bishops, the monasteries and universities, and all that body of Behemoth, but almost exposed him to public shame all over the world” (Weimarer Ausgabe 11,295), “Because I am the prophet of the Germans, and henceforth I want to apply this name to myself, to the joy and pleasure of my papist donkeys” (Weimarer Ausgabe 30,3 p.290.)
    (Translated from Ricardo García-Villoslada, Martín Lutero II, en lucha contra Roma, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Second edition, Madrid 1976, pp. 15 and 126) ↩
  2. Many Protestant denominations use these texts to accuse those who abandon their denominations of apostasy and disobedience, but they forget that the founders of their denominations precisely did so when they left the Catholic Church or some denomination that came from it. ↩
  3. Heb 8,6-10 ↩
  4. Isa 30,20-21 ↩