St. Paul,  as recorded in Acts 20: 29-30, warns the believers to be on guard against “fierce wolves who will invade” and “even from your own ranks there will be men coming forward with a travesty of the truth on their lips to induce the disciples to follow them.”  There have been problems in each age but  the Catholic Church has always taught, what Christ taught.  Jesus Christ commanded His apostles to “Go teach whatsoever I have commanded you.”

The Early Church Fathers, following the Apostles, did just that: when heresies arose, they countered them with the Truth.  Councils were called to deal with them definitively.  Essentially, all the problems were the result of misinterpretations of Scripture. The most damaging was Luther’s introduction of “personal interpretation of the Bible” which led to more misinterpretations.  Luther  discarded  the books of the Canon of the Bible that he did not agree with because they did not suit his interpretation.

The so-called Protestant Reformation did not give the world a new and better version of Christianity. ” It gave the world a new false religion. It has not been guided by the Holy Spirit as proven by its negative effects and  its evolution in 30,000 denominations (1000 plus Baptists groups alone!)

Protestantism is not an alternative to the Church as many who have left the Church tell themselves. It is an empty organization based on the bad judgment of Luther.  Every denomination has split into divisions and factions to the point that their founders would not even recognize them.The  Catholic Church, in all its Rites, is by the divine decree, the only Church Christ founded, whether you believe it or not, whether you accept it or not, or whether you like it or not.

If you look at the 2000 year history of the Roman Catholic Church, only divine protection and guidance can explain why it is still around with the original teaching Christ gave it. Of all the religious founders in history: Mohammed, Buddha, Luther, Mormonism’s Joseph Smith….only Jesus Christ claimed to be divine and proved it by fulfilling the over 600 prophecies in the Old Testament and the miracles he performed while on earth. Jesus Christ set up a Church to last to the end of time. He promised to be with it to the end of time. He promised that the gates of hell would not prevail. However, He did not say it would be problem free (as we have seen); on the contrary, He warned us to beware of false teachers.

Hilare Belloc, in his book: THE GREAT HERESIES demonstrates how the “The spiritual basis of Protestantism went to pieces through the breakdown of the Bible as a supreme authority. ” This breakdown was the result of that very spirit of skeptical inquiry  upon which Protestantism had always been based. It had begun by saying: “I deny the authority of the Church: every man must examine the credibility of every doctrine for himself.” “In modern times, the Protestant culture has gone from having worshipped the very text of the Bible as something immutable and the clear voice of God to doubting almost everything the Bible contains. We can say that all the seeds sown are now in full bloom: Rationalism, Modernism, Secularism, Relativism, New Age, and list goes on. The ultimate victim has been Truth.

So what began with the idea of subjective evaluation and personal judgment, as opposed to objective/realistic evaluation and judgment, has resulted in that, today, except in the physical sphere, there is no truth; it’s all just opinion – no one religion is better than another.

Today, as Protestant theologians study the Fathers of the Early Church, they are finding the truth of Blessed John Henry Newman’s conclusion: “You cannot study the Fathers and remain a Protestant.” Today in Protestant Churches  the membership is at least one third or more former Catholics. You may be in contact with some of them. The point is, they are in the wrong church: whether they know it or not, whether they want it or not, whether they believe it or not. The Apostolic Fathers died for the Truth of Christ, the Doctors of the Church defended the Truth of Christ, the Popes preserved the Truth of Christ, and the Founders of Religious Orders enabled the Truth of Christ to be spread throughout the world.

We too are commissioned by our Baptism and Confirmation.   We must be confessors of the Faith upholding the Truth of Christ with fortitude and confidence,  without compromising of belief, and not conforming with anything that goes against faith or moral. We should pray that Jesus Christ will make us be faithful to Him so that we be among those of whom the Book of Wisdom says: “God, You manifest Yourself to those who do not disbelieve You, and truly trust in You and do Your will.”