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Hi Steve,
Thanks for the questions.
You said:
- Is the Christian religion and the Roman Catholic religion
the same thing?
The Roman Catholic religion is the only Christian faith Jesus found. By His Choice, He founded it on Saint
Peter and his successors.
Jesus promised to Peter and his successors that the gates of Hell would not prevail
against His Church. (Matthew 16:13-20; 1 Timothy 3:15)
The majority of the other Christian congregations were founded during the Reformation in 1517 or latter by men who decided to use the Bible like a Catechism. The Bible is not a Catechism and never was intended to be used as a Catechism. It was intended to be used as a book for our divine worship service, the Mass. Though other Christian congregations teach erroneous doctrine, or at best, teach half-truths, the Church still acknowledges any Christian congregation that administers a valid Trinitarian Baptism as being part of the Body of Christ. Part of what their denomination believes may be true but not everything. For this reason, we say they are in a partial communion with us.
You said:
- How are they similar or different?
This posting should answer your question quite well:
You mentioned your friend has found the Christian Life.
That's great! Praise
the Lord, yet their is still more on his journey.
Because the fullness of the Christian Faith can only be found in the Catholic
Church. Jesus did not found multiple Christian churches before His Glorious Ascension into Heaven. St. Paul may have referred to the start of other churches in the Scriptures, but all these churches in vary cities would identify, today, as Catholic parishes.
He found only one Church.
- Has your friend done any reading on the Early Church Fathers?
These were
the very first Christians who lived from 100 A.D. to 800 A.D. His current Christian denomination only goes back a few hundred years. Have him check out this page or better yet, print this out for him:
If he is interested in what the very first Christians:
- thought
- taught, and
- died for
have him check out my web site on the Early Church Fathers:
and some other good reading material.
You said:
- Is there a true religion and do all other
religions send you to Hell even if you are a
good person?
- Does a good Jew get dammed to Hell for following
their religion?
None of us at AskACatholic can speak for any other religion, nor should any other religion speak for us. People of every age, culture, and generation have various:
- educational levels
- cultural backgrounds
- levels of religious education, and
- emotional or medical backgrounds.
No matter where the person is coming from, God reads and knows their heart.
On the issue of ones salvation and especially the Catholic teaching, Outside the Catholic Church there is no Salvation (CCC 846-848), three key points have
to be made. Many times people forget to mention one of the three points and this teaching gets misunderstood; sometimes badly.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
"Outside the Church there is no salvation"
- 846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the
Church Fathers?
Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation
comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the
Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ
is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his
body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity
of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity
of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded
as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or
to remain in it.
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of
their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
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, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as
they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may
achieve eternal salvation.
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who,
through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith
without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the
obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men." |
Simplified version:
(All three points are important in understanding
this specific Church Teaching.)
- Those who through no fault of there own don't know the Gospel of Christ
or His Church, but seek God and His Church with a sincere heart can be saved.
- Those who know the Catholic Church to be the True Church, yet refuse to enter
it, cannot be saved.
- All people are bound to form their conscience and grow in knowledge
of their own faith and grow in knowledge of the historical nature
of their faith.
But you may ask:
Let's start with what the Catechism CCC 839 states:
When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People, (cf. Vatican II, Nostra Aetate 4) "the first to hear the Word of God." (Roman Missal, Good Friday 13:General Intercessions, VI)
The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ", (Romans 9:4-5) "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable." (Romans 11:29) |
A good Jew, in the eyes of the Church, is one who practices
what Moses and the prophets taught but there is more.
Our Lord Jesus has told us in Scripture that if, they, the Jewish people, didn't listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they believe that
any man would rise for the dead.
In the Church's eyes, a good Jew is more than one that practices his own
Jewish faith to the fullness. A good Jew is one who is open to the possibility
that Jesus is both the foretold:
- Messiah bar David and
- Messiah
bar Joseph.
A good Jew, in the eyes of the Church, is one that would be open
to reading about the historical nature of the only Church Messiah
bar [Joseph|David] founded
on St. Peter and his successors: the Catholic Church.
Sad to say, but many of the sacred Hebrew texts have been distorted or
removed by rabbis. These changes in the Scripture texts make more tough to see this fulfillment of
the prophecy of Jesus in the Old Testament in the New, like Isaiah 53.
You said:
Its amazing, I can help everyone who asks for
my help and have changed so many lives but
it kills me that I cannot help myself. I sense
I am a two-face person. I can show someone the
right path but I am afraid to take it myself.
.
.
- How do I handle the
two-faces of myself?
I think your conscience is moving you to consider returning to the faith, assuming you are a Catholic.
Bringing a two-faced Steve to your particular judgment is not a good idea. I can hear Jesus now:
- Which Steve are you? <The heads Steve or the tails Steve.>
The only reason you can't take the right path is because of the faith commitment it would involve, which when weighed against the benefits of eternal life, are very small.
I would recommend you go to Confession and share with the Confessor your struggles with the faith. Don't be afraid of the priest. Believe me, he has heard everything and more.
Ask the Lord to bring people into your life who will help you
understand Him, His Church, and His will for you better.
Praying the Rosary is a great Scriptural way to start, especially at your age, and you can Google for one easily.
Hope this helps,
Mike
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