That Christ promised of this Church that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against it, i.e., that it would endure.\n<\/li><\/ul>\nAnd so I looked around; and the only visible, united body in the entire world that meets this description is the Catholic Church. Of all the Christian bodies of believers, it is the one that has the strongest claim of being (as the Nicene Creed puts it) one, holy, catholic (small C), and apostolic.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written about this elsewhere, so I don\u2019t intend to argue for it now;* the point is that I did and do believe this. And further\u2014if the Catholic Church isn\u2019t the visible body that Christ intended to establish, then there is no such body; all there is is the collection of all Christians in the world, gathered together in groups of convenience.<\/p>\n
That leaves me with two possibilities: either the Holy Spirit is in charge, in which case I\u2019m in the right place and good things will eventually emerge from this chaos (in God\u2019s time, not mine). I believe Christ promised this; it\u2019s the basis of my return to the Catholic Church. <\/p>\n
And if I\u2019m mistaken, well\u2026then it doesn\u2019t much matter where I am, in which case here is as good as anywhere. So what cause is there for worry? Sure, things might get interesting; things could get quite unpleasantly interesting. But Jesus will triumph.<\/p>\n
____
\n* And note: I\u2019m not arguing here that my baptized Protestant friends are not Christians. Of course they are.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Things seem to be quieting down now after last week\u2019s bombshell of a relatio document, and though I\u2019ve argued for calm I can understand why folks are getting nervous. We\u2019ve had bishops saying and doing nutty things, and politicking to move the synod this way and that, and it sure looks like some of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[582],"class_list":["post-3068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deep-thoughts-from-the-doghouse","tag-synod14"],"yoast_head":"\n
Why the Synod Doesn't Worry Me #synod14<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Things seem to be quieting down now after last week's bombshell of a relatio document, and though I've argued for calm I can understand why folks are\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2014\/10\/why-the-synod-doesnt-worry-me-synod14\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why the Synod Doesn't Worry Me #synod14\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Things seem to be quieting down now after last week's bombshell of a relatio document, and though I've argued for calm I can understand why folks are\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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