Catholic Answers Claimed to Give THE Catholic Response

Karl Keating and "Catholic Answers" · Catholic Answers Claimed to Give THE Catholic Response

I think I give a better one.

“The Anabaptists Were the FIRST Christians” | The Catholic Response
Catholic Answers, 2 Nov. 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9lBoXwcRqg

Elf-lord's Friar of the Meadowlands

now

LeFordius

For every claim that "We were the original church before the Catholics did X" this must be recorded in history which they can cite clearly, otherwise they are taking advantage of the vagueness of history to make a very bold assumption. So because there were ~100-200 years since Christ ascended that an early Church Father wrote something condemning people which believed some of their beliefs, they assume that all of their beliefs comprised "The Church" and that this church was like them.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Very good point, "Elf-lord's Friar" but here we were dealing with no specific claim of doctrinal superiority, but with a spurious claim of apostolic succession.

Joe Castillo

@hglundahl
HG,
There are no "Claims", there are facts established by the One and Only Church founded by Christ, according to Scriptures, who has had full authority from our Lord, to bind and loose.

That FACT alone explains the reason why even Protestants, have a Divinely inspired Book, produced at The Council of Rome, which Pope Damasus' designated as "Divine Scripture", calling it "byblos" or Bible, produced by the Catholic Church in 382AD at the City of Rome.

@hglundahl

Either you are blind or chose to close your eyes to solid unimpeachable evidence which only supports the one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church founded by Christ.

Doing otherwise, is rejecting truth, which have always been known, since the first century, by The Catholic Church founded by Christ.

May God bless your discernment.

Don't let prejudice and envy, cloud your thinking.

@hglundahl
HG,
To be clear,
Our Lord founded and built just One Church on Peter.

Moreover, It is The Catholic Church who created The Bible, which Pope Damasus designated as "byblos" or "small library" in 382AD at The Council of Rome.

It that wasn't enough, the same Catholic Church, being creator and owner of The Bible, went on to add chapters and verses in 1276 at the University of Paris, through the precise work of Cardenal Stephen Langton.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@joecastillo8798 To be VERY clear.

I spoke of a spurious claim by some Anabaptists.

Spurious as in not true.

I'm not a Ruckmanite, but I know them well enough to know you won't impress them.

They will claim that the true successor of Peter (possibly) and Paul (certainly) in Rome was Novatian, not Cornelius, and that Constantine siding with the Cornelians forced the true Church underground.

This is false, since the true Church cannot be simply underground and invisible, it must have some bishop getting out in the open and taking a risk to get caught and martyred even in times of persecution. No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel, etc.

But I'm aware of their position, you aren't and on top of that you take their position to be mine, which it isn't.

@joecastillo8798 Minor quibble.

Stephen Langton divided into chapters, while verses were added in the Renaissance.

That's part of why KJV and DR references for the same sentence are sometimes numbered one more and less.

0:57 Actually that's only part of the rationale for Ruckmanism.

We'll see if you come to adress their real claim.

1:20 St. Peter wasn't Pope yet when he denied our Lord. The status then was the chief disciple, while Our Lord Himself was the actual leader of His Church - and after His arrest, it dispersed.

In Mt 16:18-19 he was promised papacy by "verba de futuro" and he only got the papacy by "verba de praesenti" - the order "feed my lambs" etc - after repenting. John 21.

3:01 There may be Ruckmanites who claim Anabaptist pastors have succession from Novatian. You know, the rival of Pope St. Cornelius.

3:15 You are obviously ready for the fact that Ruckmanites will state that Justin and Irenaeus and Clement still were part of the original Anabaptist Church?

They might imagine that they got some things wrong, or overdid the importance of sth which was tactically true, but they will say that what we refer to as the Catholic Church prior to the clement approach of St. Cornelius was "their" Church. How do you refute that?

4:08 "within the Anabaptist Tradition, the answer would be no"

That would be the true answer, but is not exactly how Ruckmanites would see it.

How would you refute the Ruckmanites? I know how I do that.

5:58 No, you did not answer Ruckmanites.

I happen to know more about them.

1) they would certainly claim St. Peter's pre-eminence was just temporary for his own lifetime, not for all generations
2) they would claim monarchic episcopacy were against the NT specifications of the leadership
3) most importantly for the caller's actual query, what she wanted to answer her friend, they would claim that the Anabaptists have always been around.

This is where the answer is to be found. They haven't. They will point to Novatians, Donatists, Circumcellions even perhaps, and later on Waldensians and even Albigensians, as the continued presence of the original Church. They will therefore deny that Menno or Smyth and Helwys founded Baptism / Mennonite Anabaptism as Luther founded Lutheranism, they will pretend Menno on the one hand, Smyth and Helwys on the other, simply joined a Church that already existed since Jesus.

BUT they will fail to identify documented doctrines and behaviours, most notably of Circumcellions and Albigensians, with their own tenets.

There is a reason that the appeal to Apostolic Succession was important at Trent - Anabaptists were a tiny trickle when it came to the sects of the Reformation.

There is also a reason why it was less of an issue than "two principles" with Albigensians - the Albigensians, like the Ruckmanites, made a spurious claim to Apostolic succession. AND the way they motivated that claim and its supposed priority over the Catholic one was their view of doctrine.

Now, the original reason given - you would be better off answering it by stating that Our Lord, during the last years of the Old Testament, told His disciples to actually obey what the Pharisees said, but not imitate what they do. Why? Because this shows that even sinful men can make doctrinally sound rulings.