The stability and permanence of the Catholic Church and magisterium

The permanent magisterium of the Catholic Church has influenced the entire world for 2000 years. Its permanence and continuity with the past is the wonderful guarantee of the consistency of the Catholic faith through the ages.

La Pentecôte. © Getty Images

Reasons to believe:

The permanence of the Church's magisterium is absolutely unique among the world's religions.
No other major religion claims to be able to teach the truth infallibly in doctrinal matters.
No other major religion has managed to produce such a systematicand coherent synthesis of its faith (like a catechism).
As Cardinal Newman put it so well, the concept of Revelation demands the concept of the Magisterium, for without the Magisterium, Revelation is necessarily lost and rapidly falls apart.

Summary:

An important aspect of our faith, often forgotten by our contemporaries, is the importance of the Church as a divine institution. Indeed, if a true religion exists, then we should expect God to have established the means for it to preserve the integrity of its faith through the ages without changing its substance. But for this to happen, the religion in question must necessarily be endowed with an external authority given by God Himself to teach the faithful the truth in matters of faith. Since a revealed religious text (such as the Bible, for example) can be interpreted in different ways, it is necessary to postulate the existence of an external authority who can decide between right and wrong in theological debates on the interpretation of texts on important issues.

Well, such authority exists in the Catholic Church! And this is precisely what distinguishes it from other religions: the permanence of an infallible magisterium. Jesus didn't leave us a book, saying, "Just read it and figure it out. No. He wished to found a Church on his apostles, promising to send them the Holy Spirit to guide them in their mission and preserve his Church in the truth: “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth.h He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming.” (Jn 16: 12-13).

Let's add that Jesus wanted his Church to be one - "So that they may all be one" (Jn 17:21) - and to endure through the ages: "I am with you always, unto the end of the age" (Mt 28:20). But how can the Church claim to be one if all its members profess different doctrines? Indeed, if everyone bases the content of their faith on their own interpretation of Scripture, the result is inevitably doctrinal division. Yet the Epistle to the Ephesians reminds us that there is only "one faith" (Eph 4:5).

Thus, the Church founded by Jesus must be able to teach the truth infallibly through the constant intervention of the Holy Spirit, for she is the "pillar and foundation of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15). Indeed, it was thanks to the Church that the first councils (Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, etc.) were able to settle fundamental questions of faith concerning the nature of Christ.

In contrast, Protestantism, which rejects any infallible authority outside the Bible, is completely divided from within. It has numerous, often contradictory denominations on some very important doctrines. Protestants who claim to base their doctrine on Scripture alone are unable to agree on essential matters concerning the sacraments, soteriology (theology of salvation), ecclesiology (theology of the nature of the Church), baptismal regeneration, predestination, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, or the possibility of losing salvation after conversion. These fundamental issues are the source of immense divisions between Calvinists, Baptists, Lutherans, Pentecostals and others. Yet each claims to be based on the Bible alone!

What can we conclude from this? Simply that Scripture is not always easy to understand, and can be subject to a variety of interpretations, if one uses only one's freedom of thought to decide between right and wrong. As a result, there is no longer any doctrinal unity between Protestant churches. All this is obviously incompatible with the unity of the Church that Christ intended. A guarantor of the deposit of faith was therefore essential, in order to transmit it intact down the centuries. This guarantor is none other than the Church's magisterium.

This is why the existence of a coherent official magisterium is a sign of the truth of the Catholic faith. The permanence of this magisterium through the ages shows that the Church does not let herself be tossed to and fro by worldly ideas. And this is precisely what we would expect if Catholicism were true.

Matthieu Lavagna