The Roman Catholic Church

The largest Christian body on earth, which holds that it is the one Church Christ founded on Peter and the apostles.

Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd ed.)

Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (21 November 1964)

Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum (18 November 1965)

Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium (4 December 1963)

Council of Trent, Session 4 (8 April 1546), Waterworth translation

Council of Trent, Session 6 (13 January 1547), Waterworth translation

Council of Trent, Session 7 (3 March 1547), Waterworth translation

Council of Trent, Session 22 (17 September 1562), Waterworth translation

Council of Trent, Session 25 (3–4 December 1563), Waterworth translation

First Vatican Council, Pastor Aeternus (18 July 1870)

Fourth Lateran Council (1215), constitutions

Council of Constance (1414–1418), decrees

Second Council of Nicaea (787), definition

Code of Canons of the African Church (419), including the Council of Carthage of 418

Rituale Romanum (1614), Part I, Baptism (EWTN translation)

Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam (18 November 1302)

1 Clement (c. 96), ANF translation

Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans (c. 107–110)

Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3 (c. 180)

Leo I, Letter 14 to Anastasius of Thessalonica (c. 446)

Council of Chalcedon (451), extracts from the acts

Gregory VII, Dictatus Papae (1075), Internet Medieval Sourcebook

Paul VI and Athenagoras I, Joint Catholic–Orthodox Declaration (7 December 1965)

Universal Prayer, Day of Pardon (12 March 2000)

Pope Leo XIV (Wikipedia)

Vatican News, new data from the Annuario Pontificio 2026 (March 2026)

Fides / Holy See Press Office, Catholic Church Statistics 2025 (data to 2023)

Pew Research Center, Religious Landscape Study: Catholics (2025)

Code of Canon Law (1983), canons 1244–1253

Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Norms for Proceeding in the Discernment of Alleged Supernatural Phenomena (2024)

Review of Francis A. Sullivan SJ, From Apostles to Bishops (Catholic Books Review, 2002)

Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus (8 December 1854)

Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (1 November 1950)

John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae (16 October 2002)

Council of Trent, Session 14 (25 November 1551), Waterworth translation

Council of Trent, Session 24 (11 November 1563), Waterworth translation

First Lateran Council (1123), canons

Second Lateran Council (1139), canons

Code of Canon Law (1983), canons 208–329, on the Christian faithful and clerics

Code of Canon Law (1983), canons 573–606, on institutes of consecrated life

Paul VI, Paenitemini (17 February 1966)

Catholic Answers, "Call No Man 'Father'?" (tract, with nihil obstat)

Catholic Encyclopedia, "Beatification and Canonization" (New Advent)

Catholic Encyclopedia, "Immaculate Conception" (New Advent)

Catholic Encyclopedia, "The Rosary" (New Advent)

Catholic Encyclopedia, "Sacrament of Penance" (New Advent)

Catholics date their Church to Pentecost and see everything since as the growth of what Christ planted. Historians, leading Catholic scholars among them, trace how its present structure took shape: a single bishop over the churches of Asia Minor by about 110 and at Rome by the middle of the second century, Rome's primacy argued from Peter by the 400s, the break with the East in 1054, Trent's answer to the Reformation, and the definition of papal infallibility in 1870. The dates below follow the documents. Popular tract dates with no source behind them are left out.

Pentecost: the Catholic account of its origin

The Catholic Church teaches that it began with Christ and the apostles, not at any later date: "The Lord Jesus endowed his community with a structure that will remain until the Kingdom is fully achieved. Before all else there is the choice of the Twelve with Peter as their head" (CCC 765).

The church at Rome writes to Corinth

The letter now called 1 Clement comes from "the church of God which sojourns at Rome," urging Corinth to restore its deposed presbyters. It says the apostles appointed "bishops and deacons," and it uses bishop and presbyter for the same men. Catholics cite its chapter 44 as an early witness to succession (CCC 861).

Ignatius: one bishop, and "the Catholic Church"

Ignatius of Antioch gives the earliest clear witness to a single bishop over the presbyters and deacons in each church he wrote to, and the first surviving use of the phrase: "wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church" (Smyrnaeans 8). His letter to Rome, alone among his seven, names no bishop there.

Irenaeus lists the bishops of Rome

Against the Gnostics, Irenaeus points to the teaching kept in the apostolic churches, above all Rome, "founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul." He names its bishops from Linus to Eleutherius, the twelfth from the apostles. What he meant by the Roman church's pre-eminent authority has been argued over for centuries.

Leo I and the Council of Chalcedon

Leo the Great taught that the care of the whole Church converges on "Peter's one seat." When his letter on the two natures of Christ was read at Chalcedon, the bishops cried, "Peter has spoken thus through Leo." Leo accepted the council's doctrine but rejected its canon 28, which ranked Constantinople second because it was the new imperial city.

Legates of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicate each other

On 16 July 1054 legates of Rome led by Cardinal Humbert laid a sentence of excommunication against Patriarch Michael Cerularius on the altar of Hagia Sophia, and the patriarch's synod answered in kind. Only the persons were excommunicated, not the churches, and historians treat 1054 as a symbolic date in a separation that grew over centuries. In 1965 Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras agreed to "remove both from memory and from the midst of the Church the sentences of excommunication," though full communion was not restored.

The Fourth Lateran Council

The council defined that in the Mass the bread and wine are "changed in substance, by God's power, into his body and blood," the first conciliar use of transubstantiation. Its canon 21 required every Catholic to confess to a priest and to receive the Eucharist at least once a year, at Easter.

Unam Sanctam

In his quarrel with Philip IV of France, Boniface VIII ended the bull Unam Sanctam: "we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."

The Council of Trent

Rome's answer to the Reformation received Scripture and the unwritten traditions "with an equal affection of piety, and reverence," fixed the canon with the deuterocanonical books, defined justification, the seven sacraments, transubstantiation, the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, and purgatory, and also reformed abuses.

The First Vatican Council defines papal infallibility

Pastor Aeternus (18 July 1870) defined the pope's universal jurisdiction, and taught that when he speaks ex cathedra his definitions "are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable." The Old Catholics left in protest. Two months later Italian troops took Rome, ending the Papal States.

The Second Vatican Council

The council allowed the Mass in the people's own languages and, in cases set by Rome, Communion under both kinds (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 1963). It taught that the Church of Christ "subsists in the Catholic Church" while "many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure" (Lumen Gentium 8, 1964). The new Order of Mass followed in 1969.

Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States

After Pope Francis died on 21 April 2025, the cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost on 8 May, on the fourth ballot. An Augustinian friar born in Chicago and long a missionary and bishop in Peru, he is counted the 267th bishop of Rome.

Ignatius of Antioch

Bishop of Antioch, who wrote seven letters on his way to martyrdom in Rome. He urged every church to follow its bishop, called the Eucharist "the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ" (Smyrnaeans 7), and his letters hold the first surviving use of the phrase "the Catholic Church."

Leo I, "the Great"

He gave the papacy its classic theology: Peter lives and speaks in his successor, so that "nothing anywhere should be separated from its Head" (Letter 14). His Tome on the person of Christ was received at Chalcedon in 451.

Gregory VII (Hildebrand)

Leader of the Gregorian reform against simony and lay appointment of bishops. His Dictatus Papae (1075) claims "That the Roman pontiff alone can with right be called universal" and that "the Roman church has never erred." Emperor Henry IV did penance before him at Canossa in 1077.

Pius IX

He defined the Immaculate Conception of Mary on his own authority in 1854 and convened the First Vatican Council, which defined papal infallibility in 1870, the year Rome fell to Italy.

John Paul II

The first Polish pope. He promulgated the 1983 Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), and on the Day of Pardon (12 March 2000) led a liturgy confessing sins committed by Christians, including the use of force "in the service of truth."

Leo XIV

Robert Francis Prevost, born in Chicago in 1955, prior general of the Augustinians and later bishop of Chiclayo, Peru. His first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (May 2026), takes up the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.

What the record does not support. The Catholic Church was not founded by Constantine. The Edict of Milan (313) granted toleration and returned church property; the episcopate, the Roman see and the name "catholic" were already there. It was Theodosius's edict of 380 that made "Catholic Christians" a legal title.

Peter in Rome. Most historians, Protestant ones included, accept that Peter died in Rome under Nero, and a shrine honored the site by about 160. What is disputed is whether he served as Rome's bishop and handed down an office. Early writers name Peter and Paul together as the founders of the Roman church, and Irenaeus counts Linus, not Peter, as its first bishop.

The single bishop at Rome. Catholic scholars grant that the structure came by stages. Francis Sullivan SJ writes that "there was no single bishop in the church of Rome in the first century," and argues that the later development was guided by the Holy Spirit.

Forgeries, admitted. The Donation of Constantine (forged between about 750 and 850) and the False Decretals (9th century) were used to support papal claims in the Middle Ages. Lorenzo Valla proved the Donation false in 1440, and Catholic historians have long accepted both as forgeries.

The name. "Roman Catholic" came into English in the late 16th century, first used by Protestant writers. Official Catholic documents usually say simply "the Catholic Church."

Scripture and Sacred Tradition are one deposit of God's word, and the Magisterium (the pope and the bishops in communion with him) alone interprets it with authority.

Catholics hold that God's revelation reaches us in two forms: written, in Scripture, and unwritten, in the apostolic Tradition handed on in the Church. Both are to be received with equal reverence. The authentic interpretation of both belongs to the living teaching office, the Magisterium, which the Catechism calls the servant of the Word, not its master. The three are held to stand or fall together. The Catholic Old Testament has 46 books, including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1–2 Maccabees, fixed with an anathema at Trent in 1546. Catholics distinguish apostolic Tradition, which cannot change, from the many customs and disciplines, which can (CCC 83).

the Church … does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honoured with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.

entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone … this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant

so connected and associated that one of them cannot stand without the others

Trent (session 4, 1546) "receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament … as also the said traditions." Vatican II said the same: "both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence," and "the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church" (Dei Verbum 9–10).

Catholics do not treat every teaching as equally binding. The Magisterium "exercises the authority it holds from Christ to the fullest extent when it defines dogmas" (CCC 88). Below dogma come definitive doctrines, then authoritative teaching owed "religious submission," then disciplines that can change, such as Friday abstinence or Latin in the Mass. John Henry Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845) is the classic Catholic account of how later dogmas can unfold what was present in seed.

Baptism, normally given to infants by pouring, washes away original and personal sin and gives new birth; the grace received is kept and increased by faith working through love and the sacraments, and is lost by mortal sin.

In Catholic teaching baptism is the door to the Christian life and to the other sacraments. It forgives all sin, original and personal, makes the baptized a child of God and a member of the Church, and is necessary for salvation for those to whom the gospel has been preached (CCC 1213, 1257, 1263). Infants are baptized because they are born with original sin and because grace is a free gift; the faith of the Church and of the parents stands for the child (CCC 1250–1255). Baptism may be given by immersion or by pouring (CCC 1239).

Justification is both forgiveness and the inner renewal of the person. No one can earn its beginning, but grace received is "preserved and also increased" by good works, which Trent calls true merits as well as gifts of God. A grave, or mortal, sin destroys that grace, and the sacrament of Penance, with confession to a priest, restores it.

If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.

whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother's wombs should be baptized … let him be anathema

Trent's other canons on justification: the justice received is "preserved and also increased before God through good works" (canon 24), and the justified "truly merit increase of grace, eternal life" (canon 32). Catholics stress that such merit rests wholly on grace.

On those outside the Church, Vatican II taught: "Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved" (Lumen Gentium 14). 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 … may achieve eternal salvation" (CCC 847).

The 1614 Rituale Romanum allowed pouring, immersion or sprinkling and directed priests to keep to "the first method or the second, or to the mixed form … whichever is the more common practice." Today the Catechism names triple immersion as the most expressive form and pouring as ancient and permitted.

In the Mass the bread and wine become, in substance, the body and blood of Christ (transubstantiation), and the one sacrifice of Calvary is made present and offered for the living and the dead.

At the consecration, Catholics believe, the whole substance of the bread and wine is changed into the body and blood of Christ, while the appearance of bread and wine remains. Christ is present "truly, really, and substantially," with his body and blood "together with the soul and divinity" (CCC 1374). The consecrated host is therefore adored, and it is kept in the tabernacle (CCC 1378). The Mass is a true sacrifice: not a new one, but the one sacrifice of the cross made present, offered in an unbloody way for the living and the dead.

Catholics must attend Mass every Sunday and holy day (canons 1246–1248), and must receive Communion at least once a year, in the Easter season (Lateran IV, canon 21). Mass is offered daily. Since Vatican II the cup may again be given to the laity, though in many parishes only the host is given.

there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ … This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation

The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: "The victim is one and the same"

If any one saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.

The vocabulary developed over centuries. Ignatius (c. 110) and Justin (c. 155) already spoke of the Eucharist as the flesh of Christ; the word transubstantiation belongs to the 12th century, and Lateran IV (1215) first used it in a council. The cup was withdrawn from the laity by custom in the 13th century and made law at Constance (1415), which granted that "this sacrament was received by the faithful under both kinds in the early church" yet held the newer custom "as a law which nobody may repudiate." Vatican II allowed both kinds again in cases set by the Apostolic See, "the dogmatic principles … laid down by the Council of Trent remaining intact" (Sacrosanctum Concilium 55).

The pope, as successor of Peter, has full and universal authority over the whole Church; bishops, as successors of the apostles, govern dioceses, with priests and deacons under them.

Catholics believe Christ chose the Twelve with Peter at their head and gave the Church a structure that will last until the end (CCC 765, 880). The bishops succeed the apostles, and the pope, the bishop of Rome, succeeds Peter. Holy Orders has three degrees, bishop, priest and deacon, and is given only to baptized men. A priest acts in the person of Christ, and his ministerial priesthood differs in kind, not only degree, from the common priesthood of all the baptized (CCC 1547). In the Latin Church priests are normally celibate, which is a discipline, not a doctrine; Eastern Catholic churches ordain married men as priests.

When the pope defines a doctrine of faith or morals ex cathedra, the Church teaches that he speaks with the infallibility Christ gave his Church. Bishops meet in national conferences, and the cardinals under 80 elect a new pope in conclave by a two-thirds vote.

full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered

bishops by divine institution have succeeded to the place of the apostles, as shepherds of the Church

such definitions … are of themselves, and not by the consent of the church, irreformable

The Catechism calls the pope "the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity both of the bishops and of the whole company of the faithful" (CCC 882), and holds that the apostles' office of shepherding is "a charge destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops" (CCC 862). Vatican I taught that "a primacy of jurisdiction over the whole church of God was immediately and directly promised to the blessed apostle Peter and conferred on him by Christ the lord" (Pastor Aeternus ch. 1).

Catholic scholars accept that a single bishop over each city appears only after the apostles. They answer that the Church never staked succession on every early name being a monarchical bishop, and that the later form is a Spirit-guided development of the ministry the apostles handed on.

Worship centers on the Mass and the seven sacraments; Catholics also honor Mary and the saints and ask their prayers, while holding that adoration belongs to God alone.

The seven sacraments (baptism, confirmation, the Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders and matrimony) are held to be instituted by Christ and to give the grace they signify. Around them stand sacramentals and devotions: holy water, blessings, medals, the rosary, the Stations of the Cross, Eucharistic adoration, novenas, relics and pilgrimages. The year runs from Advent through Lent and Easter to Christ the King, with feasts of Mary and the saints.

Catholics ask Mary and the saints to pray for them. They distinguish worship (latria), given to God alone, from the honor (dulia) given to the saints and the higher honor (hyperdulia) given to Mary. Images are venerated because, the Catechism says, the honor passes to the person portrayed (CCC 2132). Music at Mass is usually led by organ and choir.

respectful veneration. Certainly this is not the full adoration {latria} … which is properly paid only to the divine nature

offer up their own prayers to God for men … it is good and useful suppliantly to invoke them

differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit

Mary holds a unique place. Pius IX defined in 1854 that she "in the first instance of her conception … was preserved free from all stain of original sin," and Pius XII in 1950 that she "was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory." She "is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix," a role that "in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power" (CCC 969–970). In November 2025 the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith judged that "it would not be appropriate to use the title 'Co-redemptrix'" (Mater Populi Fidelis 22).

The Holy Spirit is given in baptism and sealed in confirmation by anointing; he guards the Church's teaching, and the Church judges claimed miracles and apparitions without binding them on anyone.

Catholics confess the Spirit with the Nicene Creed as the Lord and giver of life. Confirmation is one of the seven sacraments: an anointing with chrism, normally by a bishop, that seals the gift of the Spirit given in baptism. Latin Catholics are usually confirmed between about 7 and 16; Eastern Catholics are confirmed as infants, at baptism.

The Spirit is held to keep the Magisterium from error when it defines doctrine, and Catholic theologians credit him with the Church's development of doctrine over time. The Church canonizes saints after examining claimed miracles, and it has approved apparitions such as Lourdes (1858) and Fátima (1917). Under its 2024 norms it no longer normally declares such events supernatural, and no Catholic is obliged to believe a private revelation.

If any one saith, that the sacraments … were not all instituted by Jesus Christ … or, that they are more, or less, than seven, to wit, Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Order, and Matrimony … let him be anathema.

As a rule, neither the Diocesan Bishop, nor the Episcopal Conferences, nor the Dicastery will declare that these phenomena are of supernatural origin.

authorized to give to it their adherence in a prudent manner

At death each soul is judged; those who die in grace but still imperfectly purified pass through purgatory before heaven; the lost go to hell; and Christ will return, raise the dead and judge all.

Catholics confess with the creeds that Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead, and that the dead will rise. At death each person is judged and goes to heaven, to purgatory or to hell; at the end comes the general judgment.

Purgatory is defined dogma. It is not a second chance, since all who are in it are saved; it is the cleansing of those who die in God's friendship but are not yet holy enough to see him. The living help them by prayer, almsgiving, indulgences and above all by Masses offered for them. An indulgence remits temporal punishment still owed for sins already forgiven, drawn from the Church's treasury of Christ's merits joined to the prayers and good works of Mary and the saints (CCC 1471–1479).

All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

there is a Purgatory, and that the souls there detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar

If any one saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened (to him); let him be anathema.

Purgatory "is entirely different from the punishment of the damned" (CCC 1031). The doctrine grew in stages. Prayers and offerings for the dead are attested by about 200 (Tertullian), Gregory the Great popularized the idea of purgatorial fire in the 590s, and councils defined it at Lyon (1274), Florence (1439), where the departed are "cleansed after death by cleansing pains," and Trent (1563). Trent also ordered that "all evil gains" from indulgences "be wholly abolished," while keeping indulgences as "most salutary."

Mary

Mary, the Mother of God, was conceived without original sin, remained a virgin all her life, was taken body and soul into heaven, and now intercedes for the Church as its mother and queen.

Catholics honor Mary as the Mother of God and confess her "real and perpetual virginity" (CCC 499); the brothers and sisters of Jesus in the Gospels are held to be close relatives, not her children. Two further doctrines were defined as dogma: her Immaculate Conception, that she was kept from original sin from her first moment by the merits of Christ (Pius IX, 1854), and her Assumption body and soul into heavenly glory (Pius XII, 1950). Taken up to heaven and "exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things" (CCC 966), she is held to go on interceding for the Church, and is invoked as Advocate and Mediatrix in a way that rests wholly on Christ's one mediation. The rosary, which the Catechism calls an "epitome of the whole Gospel" (CCC 971), meditates on the life of Christ while asking her again and again to "pray for us sinners."

the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful

The Church has always understood these passages as not referring to other children of the Virgin Mary.

Taken up to heaven she did not lay aside this saving office but by her manifold intercession continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation … Therefore the Blessed Virgin is invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix.

and knew her not till she had brought forth a son: and he called his name JESUS.

Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called Mary? and his brethren, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence then hath this man all these things?

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus,

Scripture calls Mary blessed, and every Christian should honor her faith. But Mary herself rejoiced "in God my Saviour" (Luke 1:47), and Scripture says "all have sinned" (Romans 3:23) without making an exception for her. Matthew writes that Joseph "knew her not till she had brought forth a son" (Matthew 1:25) and names the Lord's brothers and sisters beside his mother (Matthew 13:55-56; Mark 6:3), and nothing is written of her being taken bodily into heaven. There is "one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5), and the only instruction Mary gives in Scripture points away from herself: "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it" (John 2:5). To bind as dogma what the apostles never taught, and to pray to her as Advocate and Mediatrix, is to give her a place she never claimed and the apostles never gave her.

How the doctrines grew. The Immaculate Conception was debated for centuries. Bernard of Clairvaux protested when the canons of Lyon took up its feast, Peter Lombard, Bonaventure and Albert the Great are recorded as opposing it, and Thomas Aquinas in his Summa concluded against it. Pius IX defined it on 8 December 1854, and his bull also calls Mary "the most powerful Mediatrix and Conciliatrix in the whole world." Pius XII defined the Assumption on 1 November 1950: "the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory" (Munificentissimus Deus 44).

Mediatrix. Vatican II used the title but added that it "neither takes away from nor adds anything to the dignity and efficaciousness of Christ the one Mediator" (Lumen Gentium 62).

The rosary. The Bollandists traced the story that St. Dominic founded the rosary to the preaching of the Dominican Alan de Rupe about 1470–75. In 2002 John Paul II added a fourth set of mysteries, the "mysteries of light," on Christ's public ministry (Rosarium Virginis Mariae 19, 21).

The saints

The Church declares certain holy dead to be saints in heaven, and Catholics ask them to pray for them, honor their relics and take them as patrons.

Catholics believe the Church on earth and the saints in heaven are one communion, and that the saints, close to Christ, pray for those still on earth. By canonization the Church solemnly declares, after examining a person's life and the miracles claimed through his prayers, that he lived heroic virtue and is in heaven, and proposes him as a model and an intercessor. Catholics ask the saints to pray for them, venerate their relics, visit their shrines, and give children a saint's name in baptism as a patron who "provides a model of charity and the assurance of his prayer" (CCC 2165). They hold that all of this honor passes through Christ to God, and that the saints are not worshiped.

by canonizing some of the faithful … the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness within her and sustains the hope of believers by proposing the saints to them as models and intercessors

They do not cease to intercede with the Father for us, as they proffer the merits which they acquired on earth through the one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus

We can and should ask them to intercede for us and for the whole world.

to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons:

unto the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, their Lord and ours:

Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

In the New Testament every Christian is a saint. Paul writes "to all that are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints" (Romans 1:7) and "to all the saints in Christ Jesus that are at Philippi" (Philippians 1:1), living men and women, not a few holy dead chosen by a later inquiry. Christians on earth rightly ask one another to pray, but no apostle prayed to the departed or taught the church to; the one in heaven who intercedes for us is Christ, who "ever liveth to make intercession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). Peter refused even the honor Cornelius gave him while he lived (Acts 10:25-26), and Scripture never commands that the bones of the faithful be venerated or the dead be named patrons of anything. A church cannot make saints by decree; God makes them, in baptism, and calls them saints while they are still alive.

From local martyrs to Rome. In the first centuries the bishop of the place where a martyr died judged his cause and allowed his honor locally. Toward the close of the 11th century the popes began requiring that the lives and miracles of those proposed for veneration be examined in councils. Alexander III (1159–81) forbade honoring a man as a saint without "the authority of the Roman Church," and in 1634 Urban VIII reserved both beatification and canonization to the Holy See.

Relics. Trent taught that "the holy bodies of holy martyrs, and of others now living with Christ … are to be venerated by the faithful" (session 25, 1563), and among popular devotions the Catechism names "the veneration of relics, visits to sanctuaries, pilgrimages, processions" (CCC 1674).

Confession to a priest

Sins committed after baptism are forgiven in the sacrament of Penance, where the penitent confesses every mortal sin to a priest, who absolves him in the name of the Trinity.

Catholics hold that Christ gave his apostles the ministry of reconciliation, and that bishops and priests, their successors, exercise it in the sacrament of Penance, also called Confession or Reconciliation. The penitent is to be sorry for his sins, confess to a priest every mortal sin he remembers after examining himself, receive absolution and do the penance the confessor imposes (CCC 1451–1460). Serious sins must be confessed at least once a year, and "individual and integral confession of grave sins followed by absolution remains the only ordinary means of reconciliation with God and with the Church" (CCC 1457, 1497). The priest absolves with the words "I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (CCC 1449), and Trent taught that this is a true act of judgment, not only a declaration that God forgives.

Confession to a priest is an essential part of the sacrament of Penance

bishops and priests, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, have the power to forgive all sins

If any one saith, that the sacramental absolution of the priest is not a judicial act, but a bare ministry of pronouncing and declaring sins to be forgiven to him who confesses … let him be anathema.

Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray the Lord, if perhaps the thought of thy heart shall be forgiven thee.

Why doth this man thus speak? he blasphemeth: who can forgive sins but one, even God?

Scripture does command confession: "Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another" (James 5:16), and "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins" (1 John 1:9). When Simon sinned after his baptism, Peter heard no list of sins and pronounced no absolution; he told him, "Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray the Lord" (Acts 8:22). Catholics point to John 20:23, but Acts shows the apostles forgiving and retaining sins by preaching the terms of the gospel, never by sitting as judges over a private confession. The scribes were wrong about Jesus but right that only God forgives: "who can forgive sins but one, even God?" (Mark 2:7). A Christian who sins goes straight to God through Christ, confesses to his brethren where his sin touches them, and needs no priest to absolve him.

In the early church grave sins were dealt with by public penance under the bishop. Private, repeatable confession was spread and regulated by the penitential books of the Irish monks Columbanus (d. 615) and Cummian and of the English Bede and Theodore of Canterbury. The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) required every Catholic to confess at least once a year to his own priest. Trent (session 14, 25 November 1551) anathematized anyone who says that "the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the Church hath ever observed from the beginning," is "a human invention" (canon 6).

The priesthood and celibacy

Bishops and priests hold a ministerial priesthood that differs in essence from the priesthood of all believers; priests are called "Father," and in the Latin Church they are normally bound to celibacy.

Catholics teach that all the baptized share in Christ's priesthood, but that the ministerial priesthood given in Holy Orders differs from it "essentially," not only in degree (CCC 1547): the priest offers the sacrifice of the Mass and absolves sins in the person of Christ. Priests are addressed as "Father" because Catholics see them as spiritual fathers, following Paul's words that he became the Corinthians' father in Christ. In the Latin Church priests and bishops are normally chosen from celibate men, and canon law binds clerics to "perfect and perpetual continence"; Catholics call this a discipline, not a doctrine. The Eastern Catholic churches ordain married men as deacons and priests, though their bishops are chosen from celibates (CCC 1580), and permanent deacons in the Latin Church may be married.

All the ordained ministers of the Latin Church, with the exception of permanent deacons, are normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate

Clerics are obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy which is a special gift of God

Since the Bible frequently speaks of this spiritual fatherhood, we Catholics acknowledge it and follow the custom of the apostles by calling priests “father.”

ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

And they indeed have been made priests many in number, because that by death they are hindered from continuing: but he, because he abideth for ever, hath his priesthood unchangeable. Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people: for this he did once for all, when he offered up himself.

The bishop therefore must be without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, orderly, given to hospitality, apt to teach;

Have we no right to lead about a wife that is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brethren of the Lord, and Cephas?

The New Testament knows one priest who stands between God and men: Christ, who "hath his priesthood unchangeable" and offered sacrifice "once for all, when he offered up himself" (Hebrews 7:23-27). Every Christian is "a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices" (1 Peter 2:5), and Christ "made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto his God and Father" (Revelation 1:6); the text never calls a church officer a priest set apart from the rest. Its elders were married men: a bishop must be "the husband of one wife" (1 Timothy 3:2), Peter had a wife's mother (Matthew 8:14), and the apostles had the right "to lead about a wife that is a believer" (1 Corinthians 9:5). Paul gave the single life as a gift, not a rule for an office, and a law that turns married men away from the Latin priesthood stands too near the "forbidding to marry" he warned of (1 Timothy 4:1-3). Paul called himself the Corinthians' father in the gospel as a relation, never as a title; the title "Father" for a priest is what Jesus forbade: "call no man your father on the earth" (Matthew 23:8-9).

Married clergy were normal in the apostolic church. The First Lateran Council (1123) forbade "priests, deacons, subdeacons and monks to have concubines or to contract marriages" (canon 21), and the Second (1139) ordered such couples separated, "for we do not deem there to be a marriage which, it is agreed, has been contracted against ecclesiastical law" (canon 7). Trent (session 24, 1563) anathematized anyone who says "the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy" (canon 10). In the East as in the West, a man already ordained can no longer marry (CCC 1580).

Holy days and seasons

Besides every Sunday, Catholics are bound to attend Mass on holy days of obligation, and to keep Fridays and Lent as days of penance, with abstinence from meat and set fasts.

The Catholic year runs from Advent through Christmas, Lent and Easter to Pentecost, with feasts of Christ, Mary and the saints throughout. Beyond Sunday, "the primordial holy day of obligation," the universal law names ten holy days on which Catholics must attend Mass, among them Christmas, the Ascension, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption and All Saints, though a bishops' conference may suppress some or move them to Sunday (canons 1246–1247). Every Friday and the season of Lent are days of penance: from the age of fourteen Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays, or do another penance their bishops set, and adults fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday (canons 1250–1253). The Catechism lists keeping the holy days and the days of fasting and abstinence among the precepts of the Church, and teaches that those who deliberately miss Mass on a day of obligation "commit a grave sin" (CCC 2043, 2181).

Sunday, on which by apostolic tradition the paschal mystery is celebrated, must be observed in the universal Church as the primordial holy day of obligation.

The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.

The days of penitence to be observed under obligation throughout the Church are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday … Their substantial observance binds gravely.

One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord: and he that eateth, eateth unto the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, unto the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day or a new moon or a sabbath day: which are a shadow of the things to come; but the body is Christ’s.

but now that ye have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how turn ye back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments, whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again? Ye observe days, and months, and seasons, and years. I am afraid of you, lest by any means I have bestowed labor upon you in vain.

Upon the first day of the week let each one of you lay by him in store, as he may prosper, that no collections be made when I come.

Paul left a Christian free to keep a day privately: "One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in his own mind" (Romans 14:5-6). What he would not allow was binding days and foods on others: "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a feast day" (Colossians 2:16-17), and he feared for the Galatians when they began to "observe days, and months, and seasons, and years" (Galatians 4:9-11). The one day the apostolic churches kept together was "the first day of the week" (Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2). A Catholic who keeps Lent or Christmas unto the Lord is within that liberty; a church that binds feasts of Mary and the saints and meatless Fridays on the conscience, and calls it grave sin to neglect them, judges men "in meat … or in respect of a feast day" (Colossians 2:16), where Paul said no man may.

Abstinence from meat on every Friday of the year was the universal rule until 1966. Paul VI's Paenitemini (17 February 1966) kept every Friday and Ash Wednesday as days of penance under obligation, but allowed bishops' conferences to substitute "abstinence and fast wholly or in part with other forms of penitence and especially works of charity and the exercises of piety." The 1983 Code keeps both the rule and the permission (canons 1251, 1253).

Monastic vows and religious orders

Some Catholics are called to a consecrated life, vowing poverty, chastity and obedience for life in orders and institutes the Church approves.

Catholics hold that Christ proposes the "evangelical counsels" of chastity, poverty and obedience to every disciple, and that some are called to profess them by vow in a permanent state of life the Church recognizes (CCC 915). Religious life, which the Catechism says "was born in the East during the first centuries of Christianity" (CCC 925), is lived in solitude or in community in orders and institutes the Church approves; there are also hermits and consecrated virgins. Pope Leo XIV is himself an Augustinian friar. The vows are taken freely, and Catholics see them as a way to follow Christ more closely and a sign of the world to come, not as a condition of salvation.

the perfection of charity, to which all the faithful are called, entails for those who freely follow the call to consecrated life the obligation of practicing chastity in celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom, poverty and obedience

The Christian faithful freely assume this form of living in institutes of consecrated life canonically erected by competent authority of the Church. Through vows or other sacred bonds according to the proper laws of the institutes, they profess the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience

If any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony; let him be anathema.

But he said unto them, Not all men can receive this saying, but they to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs, that were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are eunuchs, that were made eunuchs by men: and there are eunuchs, that made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.

Yet I would that all men were even as I myself. Howbeit each man hath his own gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they have not continency, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.

If ye died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to ordinances, Handle not, nor taste, nor touch (all which things are to perish with the using), after the precepts and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.

But the Spirit saith expressly, that in later times some shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know the truth.

Scripture honors a single life given to the Lord: of it Jesus said, "Not all men can receive this saying, but they to whom it is given" (Matthew 19:11-12), and Paul wished "that all men were even as I myself" (1 Corinthians 7:7). But Paul called it a gift, "each man hath his own gift from God," and added, "if they have not continency, let them marry" (1 Corinthians 7:7-9); he founded no order, took no lifelong vow of poverty and obedience to a superior, and put no one in a higher state than his married brethren. Rules of self-denial bound on Christians "have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh" (Colossians 2:20-23). A Christian who stays single to serve the Lord does well, and so does one who marries; orders that bind lifelong vows and rules of life the apostles never gave, and a dogma that ranks virginity above marriage on pain of anathema, are the precepts of men.

Trent (session 24, 11 November 1563) also anathematized anyone who says that clerics in holy orders, or members of religious orders "who have solemnly professed chastity, are able to contract marriage," answering that God "refuses not that gift to those who ask for it rightly" (canon 9). The Second Lateran Council (1139) had already ordered monks and professed lay brothers who married to be separated from their wives (canon 7).

The plumb line is the New Testament: what the apostles commanded, and what the churches practiced with their approval. Each position above is set against it, and the wall below shows how far each one stands from it. Choose a course to read the Scripture and the reason. History shows where each teaching came from. Only the text shows whether it is true.

Every scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness: that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.

Now these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes; that in us ye might learn not to go beyond the things which are written; that no one of you be puffed up for the one against the other.

Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men. And he said unto them, Full well do ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition.

Scripture says the inspired word furnishes the man of God "completely unto every good work," and the church is to learn "not to go beyond the things which are written." Rome sets an unwritten Tradition beside the written word, honors both "with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence," and gives the final word on what both mean to the Magisterium alone. That is the pattern Jesus rebuked: a tradition held fast beside the commandment of God until it sets the commandment aside. A body that binds as dogma what the apostles never taught, such as the Immaculate Conception (1854), papal infallibility (1870) and the Assumption (1950), has put its own word over Scripture, whatever it says about serving it.

And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

But when they believed Philip preaching good tidings concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

In Acts the gospel is preached, and those who believe and repent are baptized, "both men and women." Baptism is a burial with Christ and a raising "through faith in the working of God." An infant cannot hear, believe, repent or confess, and water poured on the head is not a burial. Rome is right that baptism is "unto the remission of your sins," and right to reject "faith alone," but it gives baptism to those the text never baptizes, in a form the text never describes, and builds on it a system of merit and satisfaction the apostles never taught. Someone poured on as an infant has not yet obeyed the gospel as the converts in Acts did.

And upon the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, intending to depart on the morrow; and prolonged his speech until midnight.

For I received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed took bread; and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, This is my body, which is for you: this do in remembrance of me. In like manner also the cup, after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink the cup, ye proclaim the Lord’s death till he come.

but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.

The apostolic churches gathered "upon the first day of the week … to break bread," and all ate the bread and drank the cup "in remembrance," proclaiming the Lord's death till he comes. Rome binds attendance on the Lord's day but binds Communion only "at least at Easter," teaches that the bread ceases to be bread, adores the host, and calls the Mass "a propitiatory sacrifice" offered "for the living and the dead." Hebrews answers that Christ "offered one sacrifice for sins for ever," and "where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin"; even after the blessing Paul still calls it "this bread." This course stands a little short of the furthest only because Rome again gives the cup to the baptized, which it withheld from 1415 to 1963.

Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood.

For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that were wanting, and appoint elders in every city, as I gave thee charge; if any man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children that believe, who are not accused of riot or unruly. For the bishop must be blameless, as God’s steward; not self-willed, not soon angry, no brawler, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre;

The elders therefore among you I exhort, who am a fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Tend the flock of God which is among you, exercising the oversight, not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God; nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock.

But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your teacher, and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven.

In the New Testament elders and bishops are one office, plural in each church. Paul calls the Ephesian elders "bishops," Titus is to "appoint elders in every city," and Peter writes as "a fellow-elder," forbidding elders to lord it over "the flock of God which is among you." Rome has one bishop over many congregations, a pope with "full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church," and a priestly order set apart from the people, and the text knows none of these. Jesus said "all ye are brethren" and "call no man your father on the earth." Catholic scholars grant there was no single bishop in Rome in the first century, and development cannot make apostolic what the apostles did not set up.

And when it came to pass that Peter entered, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him. But Peter raised him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man.

And I fell down before his feet to worship him. And he saith unto me, See thou do it not: I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy brethren that hold the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;

There is "one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus." When Cornelius fell at Peter's feet, Peter raised him: "I myself also am a man." When John fell before an angel he was told, "See thou do it not … worship God." Rome directs prayer to Mary and the saints and adds to the assembly acts the apostles never commanded. The line it draws between veneration and worship is not one the text draws, and kneeling, candles and vows before images blur even that line. The course stands a little short of the furthest because the congregation still sings.

Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money,

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come.

Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints.

The promise is plain: those who repent and are baptized "shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The Spirit's guidance "into all the truth" was promised to the apostles, and that faith was "once for all delivered unto the saints." The gifts given "through the laying on of the apostles' hands" came through apostles, and Scripture names no successors to that work. Rome makes the Spirit's seal a separate sacrament tied to a bishop's anointing, and credits the Spirit with guarding doctrines the apostles never delivered. It also holds that the miracles it verifies in canonizing its saints show the sign-gifts at work today, though Scripture ties those signs to the apostles and to those on whom they laid their hands (Acts 8:18; 2 Corinthians 12:12). It adds no new public revelation and binds no apparition on anyone, which keeps this course off the furthest line; but a Spirit who leads the church past what is written is not the Spirit who spoke through the apostles.

And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment;

we are of good courage, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.

For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

Men die once, "and after this cometh judgment." To be absent from the body is to be "at home with the Lord." By one offering Christ "hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified," and his blood "cleanseth us from all sin." Purgatory, the debt of temporal punishment it assumes, indulgences drawn from a treasury of the saints' merits, and Masses offered for the dead have no place in that text; they were built up from early prayers for the dead through Gregory I, Lyon (1274), Florence (1439) and Trent (1563). Rome keeps what Scripture plainly teaches about Christ's return, the resurrection, the judgment, heaven and hell, and that is why this course stands a little short of the furthest. But it has bound as dogma a cleansing and a payment for which the cross left no room.

Much that Catholics confess, Scripture also teaches, and it should be said plainly. They confess one God in three persons; the deity of Christ, his virgin birth, his death for sin and his bodily resurrection; his return to raise the dead and judge the world; and heaven and hell. They hold Scripture to be inspired by God and without error. Against much of Protestantism they agree that baptism is "unto the remission of your sins" and part of the new birth (Acts 2:38; John 3:5), that a man is not justified "not only by faith" (James 2:24), and that a Christian can fall away. They keep the Lord's day assembly, as the church has since Justin described it about 155, and they hold that the church is one body and that division is sin. Their teaching on marriage, sexual morality and the life of the unborn stands with the Scriptures against much of the age. A member of the church that seeks the New Testament pattern and a devout Catholic often reach the same place on these questions.

Measured by the New Testament alone, the Roman Catholic Church stands further from the pattern than any other body the lineage rubric has measured. Its rule of faith sets Tradition and the Magisterium beside the written word; its baptism is given to infants by pouring; its Supper is a sacrifice and its bread no longer bread; its government is a pope over bishops over priests, where the apostles left elders in every church; and its prayers go to Mary and the saints, and for the souls in purgatory.

History shows how each of these came: a single bishop by Ignatius's day, Rome's claim from Peter under Leo, transubstantiation at Lateran IV, Trent's anathemas, infallibility in 1870. Catholics call this Spirit-guided development, and they are honest that it happened by stages. But a development is only as true as the text it unfolds, and the text is closed: "the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints."

None of this is contempt for Catholics. Many love Christ deeply, pray daily, give themselves to the poor and the sick, and have kept truths that others let go. The answer to them is not to doubt that devotion but to bring it to the Scriptures alone, and do what the converts in Acts did: believe, repent, confess Jesus as Lord, and be buried with him in baptism for the remission of sins, then worship as the churches of the New Testament did, under their own elders, at the Lord's table on the first day of every week.

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