The book Pope Peter by Joe Heschmeyer is an entire book “defending the Church’s most distinctive doctrine in a time of Crisis,” that of course is that God Almighty wanted one church, the fulfilment of the Jewish religion, with the arrival of the Messiah (Jesus Christ the Son of God to be the one High Priest in heaven, to lead an earthly priesthood) to be lead on earth, at any particular time in history, by one man, the successor of Peter. The specifics of the book are again:
Title : Pope Peter
Author : Joe Heschmeyer
Publisher : Catholic Answers Press (June 15, 2020)
Paperback : 280 pages
ISBN-10 : 1683571800
ISBN-13 : 978-1683571803
This doctrine has been challenged since the protestant reformation along with the idea that God neither wanted a separate cadre of priest (that all Christians were priests, no doubt using 1 Peter 2:9 to support it, which quoted from the Douay-Rheims Bible reads:“ But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people: that you may declare his virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:”) nor that God wanted to choose who would be in that cadre. In my opinion this has occurred out of political necessity from the pride of both former Catholic, Bishop Cranmer in England and Catholic Father Martin Luther of Germany both of whom wanted political power, even at possibly the cost of their immortal souls (only God can judge one’s motives, as he sees into the heart, as he did with the first reformer – Satan). If the pope did not have control over “the Church” what the church was became nebulous at best and people were free to decide what they wanted to believe just based on what they read in the bible enlightened directly by the Holy Spirit. That in my opinion is what is happening in the Catholic Church today. The early fathers of the church clarified and solidified foundational doctrines which have a clear trajectory as to what should be believed. In the 1890s, modernism began to muddy the dogmatic and doctrinal waters implying that these things could “evolve” even though in Hebrews 13:8 it makes clear that “Jesus Christ, yesterday, and to day, and the same for ever.”
Another confused artifact of *some protestants’ theology, that has done much to try to undermine the church, by trying to break the continuity between Israel, its religion of the Old Testament and that of the Catholic (the word catholic based on the Greek meaning universal) Church and the religion of the New Testament is called dispensationalism. This is in opposition of the fact that Jesus Christ said in Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” God wanted only one clearly visible church (Matthew 5:14-16) so it could lead men clearly in one direction toward God and helping their neighbor, not a church of followers focused on themselves and how they want to interpret scripture. The following quote uses Biblical cites to defend the fact that God has really only one church, since Abraham, fulfilled in the coming of the messiah Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ desires to select His own priest. This selection took place in the Old Testament through the natural law by birth of priests and High Priests through those from the tribe of Levi and decedents of Aaron and in the New Testament through the Church, which is the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 27), and the supernatural inspiration of the third person of the blessed Trinity – the Holy Ghost, for the selection deacons/priests/bishops.
This first part quoting from the book “Pope Peter” on dispensationalism and support for why the New Testament Catholic church and its religion is a continuation of the Old Testament Jewish religion.
“ The Crux of dispensationalist theology is the idea that “God had two completely different plans operating in history: one for an earthly people, Israel, and the other for a heavenly people, the church.” C.I. Scofield (1843-1921), who popularized dispensationalism in America, began his most famous book (tellingly titled Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth) by explaining that “whoever reads the Bible with any attention cannot fail to perceive that more than half of its contents relate to on nation: the Israelites,” while there is “another distinct body, which is called the church. This body also has a peculiar relation to God and, like Israel, has received from him specific promises. But similarity ends there, and the most striking contrast begins . . . Comparing, then, what is said in Scripture concerning Israel and the Church, he finds that in origin, calling promise, worship, principles of conduct, and future destiny that allis contrast.
It is hard to overstate just how radical was the break Scofield saw between Israel and the Church. He went so far as to say that Christians need not worry about the moral law of the Old Testament, including the Ten Commandments, arguing that “it is not, then, a question of dividing what God spoke from Sinai into moral law and ceremonial law – the believer does not come to that mount at all.” James Borland, former president of the Evangelical Theological Society, argues that “the church is not found in the Old Testament. Rather, the Old Testament anticipates [the] Messiah’s kingdom. . . . But when the Jewish leaders and people rejected Christ’s offer of the kingdom, especially as seen in Matthew 11-12, Jesus announced something new – the church.
In this view, the Church isn’t the fulfillment of God’s plan for Israel so much as his back-up plan. But while God’s plan for the Church was a radical break from his plan for Israel, the plan for Israel remains in place. Liberty University’s Thomas Ice argues that “the church is unique in the plan of God and separate from his plan for Israel. The church partakes of the spiritual promises of the Abrahamic covenant as fulfilled through Christ, but Israel – and not the church – will fulfill its national destiny as a separate entity. As a result, these dispensationalists believe in a “church age” running from Pentecost until the Rapture, after which point “the church has no earthly prophetic destiny.” This poor ecclesiology partially accounts for the overwhelming support for the modern state of Israel among (particularly older) American Evangelicals. The core problem here is that it treats Christ and the Church not as the fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel, but as something radically distinct, two completely different religions duct-taped together, or running independently, alongside on another.
This is a sharp contrast from the way the Bible speaks of the New Covenant fulfilling the Old, or the way Jesus speaks of the gathering-in of the Gentiles, or the way St. Paul speaks of the ingrafting of the Gentiles. Paul describes Israel as an olive tree and says that “some of the branches were broken off,” while these Gentile converts “were grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree” (Rom. 11:17). He reminds his Gentile readers, “They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast only through faith. So, do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.” (20-21). Paul is clearly not describing the wholesale replacement of one covenant people with another, nor is he describing two separate plants, one Jewish and on Gentile (It’s hard to understand how anyone could read the epistle to the Romans and come away with that message). Instead, he’s saying he continues to prune and maintain the olive tree, the People of God that began with Israel. With the arrival of Christ and the formation of the Church, you have not the disregarding of Israel, but the pruning: those Jews who reject Christ are cast off, and those Gentiles who accept him are grafted in.
This understanding of ingrafting is critical for understanding the Church. It’s for this reason that Church Fathers like St. Augustine can speak of the body of Christ as existing “from Abel the just right up to the end of the world.” And this is what Jesus means when he warns the chief priests and Pharisees that “the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it” (Matt. 21:43). He Means nearly the antithesis of the popular dispensationalist view that “the kingdom of God does not exist at all during the church age because it has ben removed from Israel and will be reestablished on earth at Christ’s second coming.” Rather, the Hardhearted Pharisees and chief priests are broken off the olive tree that is the kingdom, while faithful Gentiles will be grafted in.
Jesus isn’t throwing out Israel; He’s just evicting some of the faithless tenants and inviting in new ones. This means that the church is still Israel, simply reorganized. After all, the New Covenant is made between God and “the house of Israel” (Heb. 8:8-12). This is why Paul can say that “he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal” (Rom. 2:29) and can end his letter to the Christians of Galatia by saying, “Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16). The Church isn’t God’s “plan B” after (some of) the Jews rejected Jesus. It’s the full expression of the New Covenant that he’d been promising all along.
This informs how we approach the question oft Church as a visible society. As we’ve seen, Israel has always been a visible society, and throughout this process of ingrafting, as Israel fulfills its destiny in becoming the Church, opening its doors to the Gentiles, there’s no transition in which it suddenly turns invisible. Quite the contrary; Jesus says, “I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock , one shepherd” (John 10:16). In other words, the ingrafting occurs by gathering the Gentiles together. If he merely meant that there would continue to be God-gearing Gentiles and God-fearing Jews, but that their identities would be known only to him, that was already t5rue. For his promise to be meaningful, there must be some way in which the Gentiles and Jews are visibly gathered together in one place: the flock of Christ.”
The utility of including the above quote is found in the fact that if there is no strong link indicating that the Catholic (universal) Church, which was the fulfillment or rather the completion of the partially-constructed “Jewish Church” by the arrival of the messiah identified in Isaiah chapter 53, examples from the Old Testament could not logically be used to prove a point of God’s intention of his damnation of Korah for saying, as protestants appear to say, all of the Jewish religion who want to be priests are. The following is another quote from “Pope Peter,” which picks up as the very next paragraph after the one above demonstrating rather graphically that God wants to pick his priests.
“ Not only is this New Covenant community visible, but it’s structured as well. In a sermon preached against the Catholic priesthood, John MacArthur Claims:
We don’t need any priests. Revelation 1, “you are a kingdom of priests.” We only need one high priest and it’s not the pope. We have one mediator, the man Christ Jesus. The veil is torn. We go right into the Holy of Holies. You are a priest and I am a priest unto God.
It’s clear that MacArthur is comfortable affirming that there are no priests, that we’re all priests, and that only Christ is a priest. The one position he rejects is that some of us are priests, because “the reformers rejected completely the idea of a special priesthood.” But this is exactly what God promises about the New Covenant, when he says of the faithful Gentiles, “Some of them also I will take for priests and for Levites” (Isa. 66:21).
The Israel in the Old Testament was “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6) that still had a sacrificial priesthood consisting of some of the members of the tribe of Levi. One of the Levites, Korah, turns against this special priesthood, saying, “All the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the lord is among the; why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” (Num. 16:3). Korah and his followers are them swallowed into the earth in a literal schism when they attempt to offer sacrifice on their own (32). Likewise, the “Israel of God,” the Church, is “a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9), that nevertheless has a sacerdotal priesthood. This priesthood fulfills the prophecy through Malachi that “in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 1:11). St Jude warns against those in the Church who “reject authority” and “perish in Korah’s rebellion” (Jude 1:8, 11).”
This last long quote (in concert with the immediately preceding quote), from the book “Pope Peter” reinforces once again through both Old and New Testament cites God’s requirement that He not only pick, through either natural law (in the Old Testament) or His representatives, those who officially speak for Him such as prophets, kings, priests and bishops but that not only is the calling of Peter special but, His representatives have the power and right to refuse entrance into the priesthood etc. to those they think are neither not ready nor not qualified:
“ Does God quit calling leaders in the New Testament? Not at all. Through Jeremiah, God had also promised, “I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jer. 3:15). In other words, New Testament shepherds (which is what the word “pastors” means, after all) are given by God, not simply by their own ambition or by popular acclaim. This is illustrated throughout the New Testament. After spending the night in prayer, Jesus “called his disciples, and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles” (Luke 6:13). Or as St. Mark puts it, Jesus “went up into the hills, and called to him those whom he desired: and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons” (Mark 3:13-15).
After Judas’s death, St. Peter quoted Psalm 108 (“His office let another take,” cf. Acts 1:20) to announce that one of the men “who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us – one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection” (Acts 1:21-22). The assembled brethren then choose two men who meet these qualifications: “Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias” (23). But the acclaim of the people is not enough. They all then turned to prayer, and the casting of lots, to let the Lord have the final say (24-26).
This need for a calling isn’t limited to the apostles in the New Testament church. According to Jesus, one of the critical distinctions between a true pastor and aa “thief and robber” is whether or not the man has a calling for Christ (John 10:1-5):
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber; but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.
Lest there be any confusion, he adds, “I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7). So, the man who simply declares himself to be a pastor, then, is no true shepherd. He is merely a “thief and a robber,” stealing sheep from the flock of Christ. The true shepherd must be called by Christ himself.
How do we know if a man is called by Christ, instead of being a robber or a thief? Erwin Lutzer proposes three criteria: first, “an inner conviction,” which he distinguishes from “feelings and hunches” which can come and go; second, scriptural confirmation of the call, ensuring that “a person has the qualifications listed in 1 Timothy 3”; and finally, “the body of Christ helps us understand where we fit within the local church framework.” Although 9Marks [a protestant website] is leery of a “special, supernatural, subjective call from God,” the site also points to the attributes listed in 1 Timothey 3 as the qualifications needed an affirm that the man “should also have a local church’s affirmation of his gifts and character.” Neither Lutzer nor 9Marks goes so far as to say the Church can refuse ordination to an objectively qualified candidate who desires to become a pastor. That’s a contrast from the Church of the New Testament. By all accounts, Barsabbas was objectively qualified to replace Judas as an apostle. Nothing in Scripture gives us any reason to doubt either his “gifts” or “character.” Indeed, there were likely a great many of the 120 assembled brethren who met the criteria laid out by Peter in Acts 1:21. But only one man, St. Matthias, was chosen.
A better understanding of pastoral calling comes from St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), who points out that when ever the Lord sends anyone, he does so in one of two ways. The first way, which he called “immediate” or “extraordinary” mission, is “when God himself commands and gives a charge, without the interposition of the ordinary authority which he has placed in the prelates and pastors of the Church.” He gives the examples of Jesus sending the apostles (Matt. 28:19) and God sending Moses to Pharaoh (Exod. 3:10) and points out that any one claiming to be sent directly from God should be able to “prove it by miracles: for I pray you, where should we be if this pretext of extraordinary mission was to be accepted without proof?
But the ordinary way that God sends people isn’t through this kind of miraculous revelation. It’s through the body of Christ, the Church. More specifically, it’s a top-down process. Although qualified candidates might be suggested by the Christian people, they must ultimately be ordained by the laying on of hands. In selecting the first deacons, Peter urged the brethren to “pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty” (Acts 6:3). But although seven qualified candidates were put forward by the brethren, it was still left to the apostles to do the actual appointing and ordaining: “These [men] they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands upon them” (6). And this laying on of hands isn’t automatic or a mere formality. St Paul, who reminds St. Timothy “to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands” (2 Tim. 1:6) also warns him, “do not be hasty in the laying on of hands,” but “keep yourself pure” (1Tim. 5:22). Paul likewise tells St. Titus that the reason “I left you in Crete” was “that you might amend what was defective, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you” (Titus 1:5).
Besides direct divine revelation (extraordinary sending) and ordination through the leadership of the Church (ordinary sending), there’s no third option. Nothing in Christianity permits you to simply go and start your own church because you’re a gifted speaker or preacher. Indeed, so thoroughly does the Bible (in both the New and Old Testament) reject such an approach that when Paul speaks of the need for evangelization, he asks, “But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10:14-15). It’s unthinkable, in his mind, that a man would just go to preach because he felt as though the job needed doing, or because he felt personally qualified. That’s not enough. Instead, the preacher must first be sent.
This is the different Paul from the caricature one sometimes hears of a rogue apostle, operating entirely independently of the Twelve and the visible structure of the Church. The Paul of the Bible presents himself as one who had an extraordinary sending by Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:11-17), which he nevertheless confirmed with Peter (1:18) and then the other apostles (1-10). Ultimately, it was the Holy Spirit who said through the church at Antioch, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2; cf. 13:9). And so, we find Paul being sent by Christ, by the church, and by the Spirit speaking through the Church.
We see this relationship with the Church on full display when Paul and Barnabas run into a group of men teaching a contrary doctrine. In Acts 15:1, Paul encounters these so-called “Judaizers.” By the next verse, we read that “when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissention and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question” (Acts 15:2). It turns out, it was these other men who were preaching without authorization, and the resultant Council of Jerusalem laments “that some persons from us have troubled you with words unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions,” and remedies the situation by sending Paul, Barnabas, and two other men (24-27).
In other words, part of the problem that the Church recognized wasn’t just that there were men preaching false doctrines. It was that these were men who tried to send themselves to preach, and to disastrous effect. The solution was therefore not merely a theological one, correcting the doctrine. It was also an ecclesial one, sending Church-commissioned orthodox preachers to replace the self-appointed heretical ones. Paul would later identify these two distinct problems in his description of the Judaizers as “insubordinate men” as well as “empty talkers and deceivers” (Titus 1:10). Their insubordination was rejecting the authority of the visible Church by assuming for themselves the mantle of preacher.
This biblical view, that a pastor or preacher must be sent either miraculously or through the leadership of the visible Church, is ultimately fatal so the Protestant position. Amazingly, Martin Luther seemed to recognize this. In a homily of John 10, in which Jesus contracts the shepherds called by Christ from robbers and thieves, Luther explained:
No one should step into the office and preach from his own presumption and without a commission from those having the authority. But under present conditions., if we should wait until we received a commission to preach and to administer the sacraments, we would never perform those offices as long as we live.
In other words, Luther recognized that what he was doing was the sort of presumptuous behavior condemned by Christ in the gospel he was preaching. But he reasoned that just this once, the evil was necessary, since otherwise, he wouldn’t ever get to perform the office. But that’s the whole point: Christ leaves the Church with the ability to refuse pastoral office to those whom the Church chooses. To say the other party’s consent is important unless it keeps you from getting what you want is merely another way of saying that you don’t really care about consent.
Moreover, it’s never just this once. Once you decide it’s okay to ignore the order set up by Christ when it won’t get you what you want, you’ll find more and more reasons to do so. After all, it would be absurd to require the second generation of Protestants to obey the commandments that the first generation of Protestants disregarded. Moreover, how could those who were never sent in the first place be tasked with passing on the ministry to the next generation? If the first generation of Reformers were “thieves and robbers,” the mere passage of time doesn’t turn them into proper gatekeepers. And it’s precisely in this way that we end up today with a situation in which neither Lutzer or 9Marks has much of a role for the Church other than to confirm an aspiring pastor’s gifts and talents and to help him understand where he fits “within the local church framework.” It’s a sheepfold without a gate, because so many successive generations of pastors have grown accustomed to climbing in “by another way” (John 10:1).
Contrast this with the call of Peter. We know that Peter, as one of the apostles, was called to be a shepherd over the People of God. This is clear from Matthew’s account:
When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter (Matt. 9:36-10:2).
Jesus’ language of “sheep without a shepherd” is an Old Testament allusion. When Moses neared death, he prayed for a successor “that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep which have no shepherd” (Num. 27:17), and it was in response to this prayer that Joshua was chosen to succeed Moses. Compare that with what happens in the New Testament. Peter and the other disciples are “successors” of Jesus in a different was from how Joshua was a successor of Moses. Moses wasn’t going to be there to assist Joshua, whereas Christ (being God as well as man) promised, “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt. 28:20). So the apostles don’t replace Christ in this way, but there is nevertheless a sense in which they are called to continue the mission of Christ in shepherding his people.
In addition to Peter’s calling simple as one of the Twelve there’s also biblical evidence for a particular calling to be shepherd over the flock of Christ. As we’ll see in greater depth in chapter7, these pastoral images are connected to fishing images. When Simon Peter expressed astonishment at Jesus performing a miraculous catch of fish through him, Jesus replied to him, “Do not be afraid; henceforth you will be catching men” (Luke 5:10). We’ll explore the deeper meaning of this calling in the next chapter, but now, suffice it to say that it connects with Jesus’ image of the kingdom of God as a net of good and had fish (Matt. 13:47-5-), and that the risen Jesus deliberately recalls this image via a second miracle in John 20:6. When the disciples made it back to Jesus on the shore, they discovered “a charcoal fire there, with fish lying on it and bread” (John 21:9). Each element of the breakfast is significant and evocative. We then find this exchange between Jesus and Peter:
When the had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, Feed my sheep” (15-17).
This doesn’t appear to be simply a generic apostolic mission. During his public ministry, Jesus had already “called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast then out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity.” It’s in this sending that Matthew goes from calling them “disciples,” which means students, to “apostles,” which means messengers (e.g. Matt. 10:1-2). In this apostolic mission, the Twelve were sent to proclaim that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” and to “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7-8).
Something different is happening here, something specific to Peter. How do we know that Because Jesus has Finished breakfast with several of the Twelve (John 21:2 records that “Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together”) and then singled out one of them, Simon Peter. He addressed Simon by his family name, as it were: ”Simon, son of John.” And he doesn’t simply ask Peter, “Do you love me?” He asks, “Do you love me more than these?” That is, He’s quite explicitly asking something from Peter that he wouldn’t and couldn’t ask from any of the others (since it would be impossible for each of the disciples to love Jesus more than the others do).
If Jesus had meant to call the Twelve in this way, of even to call the seven disciples gathered for breakfast, he could easily have done so. But instead, he draws Peter apart from the rest, asks him for more than the rest, and the tells him (and only him). “Feed my sheep.” Understood against the backdrop of the Old Testament, this is a clear call to headship and leadership over the whole people. Recall the Lord’s call to David, upon his royal anointing: “You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince over Israel“ (2 Sam. 5). Like Moses before him, this call to lead the people of God came while David was tending sheep (1 Sam. 16:11; cf. Exod. 3:1-2). As the psalmist would later recount, the Lord “chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds; from tending the ewes that had young he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob his people, of Israel his inheritance “ (Ps. 78:70-71).”
This is but a taste of the depth and the extensive use this author makes of scripture to prove his point of the special authority of priests and bishops but most especially of Peter and his successors. If you want more on the pastoral images alluded to in “Chapter 7” you’ll just have to read the book. Its reliance on the Bible for support of his thesis that Christianity is basically a monarchy with Jesus Christ as king and the pope as his vicar until Jesus Christ comes again, at the end of time in this world, to become the ruler of creation, rewarding the good and putting the evil in a prison who’s horrors will be of their own creation, with no saints or God to prevent them from sinking into perpetrating unspeakable horror.
* I say ‘some’ because we must remember, at least as I understand it as a non-protestant, each protestant interprets the bible as he or she sees it “inspired” by the Holy Spirit to get the “right” interpretation but the flaw is, there is more than one right interpretation among different protestant denominations. This fact is why I think people should know “the one true church” because the problem of multiple interpretations does not exist in the Catholic church – it identifies the right interpretation for all the laity and clergy that are its members. There is only one valid interpretation of scripture and it can be found in the Catechism of the Council of Trent for most doctrinal and dogmatic problems and can be extrapolated from it with the help of the Bible derived from the Vulgate,
Traditional Thomistic Catholic 