"A Humble Servant's Catholic Blog"

I recently had a discussion with a “Bible Christian”, who goes by “Ed G.”, who leans on the side of conspiracy theories about the Catholic Church, believes the Church to be a one-way ticket to hell, and also believes spurious claims made by “ex-Catholics”.   I have “ex-Catholics” in parenthesis because Baptism leaves an indelible mark, so there’s really no such thing as an “ex-Catholic”.   They are merely non-practicing Catholics, and sometimes commit calumny in their false witness against the Church.   Ed brought up the testimony of two “ex-Catholics” who have made some serious accusations against the Church; one was a Priest and the other a Bishop.   You can look both of them up, and you will find that each left the Church over one matter or another and flatly rejected any authority within the Church.   Ed believes that because they were Priests in the Church, their testimony is therefore reliable.   I disagree, and our conversation will explain why....

I once heard this: " Peter was only the head Apostle for the Jews, and Paul was the Apostle for the Gentiles ." Noting that most Christians in the US would be considered “Gentiles”, the person summarized that, therefore, “ Paul’s writings are the most important ones for us, and Peter’s writings are not required ”. There was also mention that Peter is shown more in relation to preaching to the Jews, and Paul preaching to the Gentiles. But even if that were true, it’s not a logical step to say that, because “person A” preached mostly to “group Y”, he was therefore ONLY the Apostle for that group. That’s not only illogical, it’s also unbiblical. According to another person, there is even a Christian group that claims we don't need the rest of the Bible at all , only what Paul wrote, because Paul is “our Apostle” and because, while Paul was converting Gentiles, the Jews rebelled against him, and so he stopped proclaiming to them. Paul did indeed stop preaching to *s...