The Catholic Church is such an odd thing when you look at it in total seriousness.

Why does it work?

Why does it KEEP working?

How do you look at the Church in all its history and all its functions, and all its problems too, and not come to the conclusion that some kind of incredible Power is looking after it?

There's like a dozen different times in history when the Church should just have been wiped out. Yet it's still here.

If God isn't what's protecting it, then what is?

>>17843545 (OP)
>If God isn't what's protecting it, then what is?
Because they hard focus on countries like the United States where Churches don't have to pay taxes, which means they have virtually no cost overhead, they have an extremely elaborate donation network, where much of that money is funneled directly to the Vatican. The Catholic Church is also the worlds largest "charitable" organization, most of which is just an excuse for them to exercise soft power and build larger donation networks. They also have completely uncontested reign over a couple of city blocks in Italy. It would be more impressive if they WEREN'T as powerful as they are. The Church is a massive scam

>>17843553
Salam Alakium!

Why does it work?

Why does it KEEP working?

>>17843545 (OP) How many times did atheists manage to kill faith?

>why does it work?
>why does it keep working?

>>17843545 (OP)
The irony is that Jesus would never approve of it.

>>17844602
0

>>17843695
The Pope does not decide who enters heaven. The pope can decide who receives communion, but if the person isn't a catholic and/or doesn't go to catholic mass what can he do?

>>17843545 (OP)
>If God isn't what's protecting it, then what is?
The god of this world.

The Catholic Church of old no longer really exists.

>>17845380
>The Pope does not decide who enters heaven
They excommunicated Luther for saying this

>>17845419
That's extremely reductionist, they excommunicated Luther for multiple reasons

>>17843695
Most Catholics lean closer to Deism than Christianity (and that's a good thing) The Pope poises himself as some universalist spiritual leader

>>17845436
Have fun roasting. Your skin will bubble and split. Your bones will blacken. And the torment will never, ever end. Sleep tight!

>Rome starts out with the principate era where the Emperor is the "first among equals" until the era of the dominate where he is equal to the gods
>The Roman church starts out in the unified church era where the Bishop of Rome is the "first among equals" until the era of papal supremacy where he is the vicar of Christ

Crazy how that history repeated

>>17845436
Deism is one sect of the gay tranny religion

>>17845563
Papism is one of those gay tranny sects too.

>>17843545 (OP)
its called tradition, its bigger than you, me or the pagancucks/neoatheist here, altrough today on a currupted form saddly

>>17844854
>on this rock I will build my church

Uh yeah he meant literally nothing by this and continuing to appoint successors to the apostle is the uhh antichrist or something uhh

>>17843553
Yes anon, the organization that has existed for nearly two millenia definitely only became strong because of modern american tax law.

>>17847687
It says nothing of the Catholic church lol

Also rome killed christians for 3 centuries and you want to claim legitimacy

I do not fucking trust the version of Christianity Rome preserved is the real one

>>17848356
> Rome preserved

That GOD Preserved.

>>17848368
I didn't know Constantine was god

He was pagan his whole life btw and just used christ psyop for the goys

>>17847687
He meant Peter’s confession Which the Greek clearly shows that.

>>17848356
>it says nothing of the Catholic church
Hey buddy, do you know where the term Catholic comes from or do you think Constantine was burning KJV-onlyists?

>>17848389
Baptisim on your deathbed was the style at the time even for the most pious. His mother was famously pious and sought out relics like it was her job. The idea that he remained pagan was something made up by pagans with nothing to back it up.

>>17848389
Idk who I trust more. You, or a saint whose mother was a saint who were both instrumental in spreading the faith.

What portion of the world have you converted?

>>17845470
That's very reductionist take. The Pope was ironically a bit peripheral to the broader world in the early Church. Just the sole fact that the west effectively only had him as a patriarch while the east had multiple others shows the frontier-like position of the Pope.
As the time progressed the situation of Rome was getting worse too btw. The Visigothic Church after conversion to Catholicism became largely independent, we have letters where local bishops just outright say no to the Pope over some theological affairs. The Franks preside over what becomes the reformist faction in the Church, but before that happens they make the Pope their bitch to sanctify their rule(that they then delegate as a secondary ritual). Then the Papacy falls to its lowest low, with the famous stories of Rome becoming a battleground for two mafia-like families that placed their men as Pope whenever they took dominance over the city, or a Pope who retired after selling his seat to another guy but then the Frankish monastic-order bred people manage to take over Vatican and reform it into the Papacy we know where it actually has an influence over the world.

>>17849292
>That's very reductionist take. The Pope was ironically a bit peripheral to the broader world in the early Church. Just the sole fact that the west effectively only had him as a patriarch while the east had multiple others shows the frontier-like position of the Pope.

This is also a reductionist take. Two things can be true at once. Unfortunately people act like if Rome isn’t the center of de facto political power that the Pope lost or lacked his repeatedly stated de jure status. Like if the capital moves to Milan and the bishop of Milan gains more immediate political power and importance, I will see modern historians, who are often just not Christians, misunderstand this to mean “the Pope wasn’t real because the Bishop of Milan had more power.” As if church hierarchy is some fight where Clement only had 200 power level but Ambrose had over 9000, totally failing to distinguish between spiritual respect/prestige and immediate political power.

The bishop of Milan held power because he was close to the emperor. The Pope had status because his church was literally built on Peter’s body.

>>17849292
I realize now you’re not exactly making the point I’m arguing against so I hope you can take my argument for what it is. I see a lot of stuff like “this/that pope was imprisoned by this/that person, ergo papacy not real.” But the high priest of the Catholic Church (Jesus) was literally brutally tortured, and then executed in the most dishonorable fashion for crimes he did not commit.

Is Pontius Pilate the head of the church then? Is it the high levite since he ignored what Jesus preached and the sanhedrin refused to listen to Jesus?

It’s just a line of rhetoric that betrays basic misunderstandings about Christianity in general in its first millennium of history.

>>17843545 (OP)
It doesn't work, it's a bloated whore that God no longer wants anything to do with.

>>17843545 (OP)
>some kind of incredible Power is looking after it?
you're kind of right, the ammount of christcuck children that keep getting their boypussy raped by priests, it's got to be divine intervention

>>17848356
There is succession through the apostles to the church fathers. Look at Polycarp

>>17849292
Oh, don't get me wrong, I understand that the papacy waxed and waned throughout the first millennia. I just think the end result is kinda ironic in my reduction.

And yeah, I agree that the papacy being unchecked by the other 4 patriarchs by the limits of geography reached its logical conclusion by the 11th century.

>>17849566
If you listen to Eastern Orthodox people, you'll hear about how huge a spiritual loss it was that they lost communion with Rome and not just bitching and seething. They like Clement, Leo I, St. Gregory the Great, and many others. A lot will direct their hatred towards Charlemagne for working hard to invent doctrine that would result in a schism for political gain, and his seeds unfortunately bore fruit. "The papacy is not real" is a fallacy, it's more akin to "The authority that the papacy claims is not real."

>>17850873
Yes Eastern Orthodox people are more aware of the distinction, it’s more of a protestant thing to say that because the church structure lacked political power the church should have no structure at all.