Staying in Hope of Changing the Church - James McCarthy

Millions of Roman Catholics are finding Christ and leaving the Catholic Church. Some evangelicals, however, think leaving is a mistake. "Work within the system," they advise. "Share with others what you have found. If everyone leaves, how is the Catholic Church ever going to change?"

Such advice is both misinformed and unbiblical. Born-again Catholics staying within the Church are not going to change it. Rome’s history over the past 500 years shows that it is moving away from the truth, not toward it. When in the sixteenth century several of the Church’s theologians and priests called for reform, the Church responded with the sword and the stake. At the Council of Trent (1545-1563), Rome’s bishops turned errors into unchangeable dogmas, and pronounced solemn judgment upon anyone who taught otherwise. Most significantly, Trent formally rejected the doctrine of salvation through faith in Christ alone.i Since then the Church has been steadily moving further from the truth. In 1870, 533 Roman Catholic bishops proclaimed that the pope was infallible, immune to error in His official teaching. This placed the words of a man on the same level as the words of God in inspired Scripture. In 1854 the Vatican formally declared the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception and in 1950 her Assumption into Heaven. These two doctrines fueled the modern Marian movement in which many Catholics have come to regard Mary almost as a goddess. Catholicism is getting worse, not better.

Some point to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the Catholic Charismatic Renewal that began in 1967 as evidence that the Church is changing for the better. They claim that over the past 40 years the Catholic Church has become increasingly evangelical in its outlook.

But what has really changed? The goal of Vatican II was to update the Church, not to reform it. The Council modernized some practices; refocused the goals of the clergy and laity; refreshed the liturgy, making room for the language of the people to replace Latin at the Mass; and formally expressed the Church’s new openness toward both other Christians and non-Christians. Vatican II did not change a single doctrine of Roman Catholicism. To the contrary, the Council reemphasized the Church’s traditional teachings, repeatedly citing in its documents the teaching of the previous 20 councils, and stating:

This sacred council accepts loyally the venerable faith our ancestors… it proposes again the decrees of the Second Council of Nicea, of the Council of Florence, and of the Council of Trent. —Second Vatican Council ii

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