Chapter 16 of the book Talking with My Evangelical Friends by José Miguel Arráiz
Miguel: So, can the Catholic Church be corrupted or not?
Joseph: Let’s make something clear. Christians as individuals can be corrupted, what really can’t be corrupted is the Church founded by Christ in substance, and that includes its doctrine. I don’t think that it’s logical or that it goes according to the plan of salvation, that Christ founded a Church and then allows it to apostatize almost immediately leaving the world in obscurantism more than sixteen hundred years or until —according to various Protestant hypotheses— the arrival of a certain Martin Luther, a Charles Russell, an Ellen White, or any of the founders of the thousand non-Catholic Christian denominations1.
Pauline: I think that the Bible says very clearly that this could happen, for example, in the parable of the wheat and tares (Matt 13,24-30) it is said that the Church could be contaminated with false Christians and the apostle Peter had also predicted it: “But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them –bringing swift destruction on themselves.” (2 Pet 2,1)
Joseph: These two texts only show that in the Church there would be better and worse people, which I have already recognized may happen, but that doesn’t mean that they would pervert the Church and its doctrine or corrupt it substantially. By contrast, in other texts where the Scriptures talk about these false Christians, it is seen that many of them end up leaving the Church: “…many antichrist have come… they went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us” (1 John 2,18-19), and the ones who sow divisions: “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires. These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit” (Jude 1,18-19)2.
If we read the Bible from the beginning, we will see that it tells the story of humanity, starting with the creation, then the fall of man because of sin and later, God’s plan of salvation or us. If I have to rename the Bible, I will precisely do it in that way: the history of salvation.
It is in this story that we can observe how God first selects a man, Abraham, and from there he selects a people, Israel, in which he places his promises of salvation: “And through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed” (Gen 22,18; Acts 3,25; Gal 3,8), promises that are fully fulfilled with the coming of the Messiah and the beginning of the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. Do you remember how Christ began his preaching?
Miguel: By announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Joseph: Precisely in this way: “The Kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt 12,28), “the Kingdom of God is among you” (Luke 17,21). The comparisons that he uses to describe it are very significant, like the one of the mustard seed that becomes a tree that does not stop growing; “What shall we say the Kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth; yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that birds can perch in its shade” (Mark 4,30-32).
Pauline: We agree with that.
Joseph: Well, that Kingdom of God is present in the Church, which is the body of Christ (1 Cor 12,27) and its members, who are the “salt of the earth” and “light of the world” (Matt 5,13-14). Jesus is the one who says that he will give his kingdom to the Church when he is rejected by the bulk of the Jewish people: “Therefore I tell you that the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit” (Matt 21,43). St. Paul also interprets the Old Testament prophecies in this way: “Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: «We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. For this is what the Lord has commanded us: I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.» When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.” (Acts 13,46-48); which makes it very clear that when God said “I have made you a light for the Gentiles”, he was referring to the Church.
Pauline: Of course, but just as the leaders of the Jewish people and their priestly class were corrupted and taken away from the Kingdom of God because it was given to the Christians, this too can happen with the Catholic Church, when its hierarchy became corrupted, leaving the Kingdom of God in a remnant of Christians faithful to a sound doctrine.
Joseph: When I considered that option, I found two great difficulties which would make it credible.
Miguel: Which ones?
Joseph: Where were these supposed non-Catholic faithful Christians during 1600 years before the arrival of Luther?
Pauline: They could be hidden, because they were persecuted by the Catholic Church with its oppressive arm called the Inquisition.
Joseph: That is not what is shown in history and that is not even logical. History shows the different conflicts that the Church had with the different heretical groups: Gnostics, Arians, Modalists, Novacians, Donatists, Montanists, etc. In general, the Protestant of the sixteenth century did not identify with any of these groups because they also consider them heretics, or because an objective study of what they really believed proves that they didn’t share their faith. If the Christians are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, were these heretics more courageous and visible than those supposed real Christians? Why can’t we find any group separate from the Catholic Church that professes the same doctrine professed by the Protestant today?
Pauline: It’s possible that most of them left no trace because the Catholic Church and the Inquisition destroyed their writings and works.
Joseph: Even if we think that this were true, that would not have prevented us from knowing about their existence as we know about the other groups, whether by Catholics apologies or by the numerous Works that survived.
But let’s see the second reason that I consider more important.
Miguel: Go ahead
Joseph: Just like Jesus states that He will give his Kingdom to the Church, “pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim 3,15), he also says that the evil forces won’t prevail against it: “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matt 16,18-19), and I will use again the figure of the mustard seed (Matt 13,31), a Church that doesn’t stop growing, a Church that doesn’t hide, but that is fully visible with a big mountain, just like it was prophesied: “But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth… In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush hall those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever” (Dan 2,44).
And this is the visible Church that was entrusted to carry the gospel to all nations: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt 28, 19-20). This was done only by the Catholic Church; even Martin Luther recognizes that he received the Word of God.
Besides, there are so many prophecies in the Old Testament that aim to this reality, and that in the New Testament are applied on the Church by the apostles themselves. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews points out how this new covenant announced by the prophets finds full fulfillment in the Church: “But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is Mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises. For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Heb 8,6-10)
Look, in an implicit way, we find here the promise that God will not let His Church have the same destination of the Jewish people: “Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, YOUR TEACHERS WILL BE HIDDEN NO MORE, with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying: «This is the way; walk in it»”(Isa 30,20-21). This is a lucid prophesy of the figure of the imperishable Church and of what we know today as its Magisterium, which is indispensable for visibility, which in turn allows the message of salvation and its sound doctrine to be transmitted to all people in any time after the arrival of the Kingdom of God.
“Sing, barren woman, you who never bore a child! … For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities. To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never rebuke you again. THOUGHT THE MOUNTAINS BE SHAKEN AND THE HILLS BE REMOVED, YET MY INFAILING LOVE FOR YOU WILL NOT BE SHAKEN NOR MY COVENANT OF PEACE BE REMOVED, says the Lord, who has compassion on you. No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is their vindication from me” (Isa 54,1.2.3.9.10.17)
Just like these texts, there are so many others, for example, Isaiah 2,2-3; 9,2.5.6; 59,20.21; Jer 31,31-33, applied to the Church in the New Testament: Acts 13,47; Luke 2,29-32, etc.
Miguel: This is really very interesting.
Joseph: More than interesting, it is consistent with Christ’s way of choosing by himself the 12 apostles to live with him, to learn from him (Luke 6,13) and to pass it on from generation to generation (2 Tim 2,2). Was Christ able to found a Church that will be corrupted as soon as the last apostle died, leaving the world in the dark for thousands of years?
Footnotes
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Martin Luther, the most illustrious of the Protestant reformers, believed that he was precisely chosen by God for this task: “God, rejecting the papists, raised me up from the mire and clay top ut me among the princes of his people, in order to, through my ministry, Germany was added to the kingdom of Christ and reached the true news of God” (Weimarer Ausgabe 42,657). “God miraculously brought me to the throne to attack the dragon, and that is why I have cut off monks and nuns and seized the pope” (Tischr. 3776 III 605). “By me the Lord not only struck the pope, the bishops, the monasteries and universities, and all that body of Behemoth, but almost exposed him to public shame all over the world” (Weimarer Ausgabe 11,295), “Because I am the prophet of the Germans, and henceforth I want to apply this name to the joy and pleasure of my fool papists” (Weimarer Ausgabe 30,3 p.290.)
(Translated from Ricardo García-Villoslada, Martin Luther II, in the Fight against Rome, Library of Christian Authors, Second edition, Madrid 1976, pp. 15 and 126)
- Many Protestant denominations use these texts to accuse those who abandon their denominations of apostasy and disobedience, but they forget that the founders of their denominations precisely did so when they left the Catholic Church or some denomination that came from it.