However, the various anti-Catholic sects in this country have persistently argued that Jesus Christ never established the Catholic Church. This is purposely to support their argument that the Catholic Church is not the true Church of God founded by Jesus Christ.

To support this ridiculous argument, these sects argue that the original Church is distinct and different from the Catholic Church which is allegedly an apostate institution. In fact, most of them are inclined to believe that Christ indeed established His church in Jerusalem way back in 33 A.D.  as also preached by the Catholic Church.  Of course, there may be varying presentations on the period and circumstances which unfolded the founding of the church but essentially the founding of Christ’s church in the early Christian period is generally acceptable to them.

Allegations on Who Founded the Catholic Church

Surprisingly,  these sects, though targeting the Catholic Church as a common enemy of their faith, exhibit different and contradicting arguments as to when, how and who initiated the emergence of the Catholic Church as an alleged  heretical organization coming out of the true Church of Christ.  The following are some of the fanciful arguments of the various anti-Catholic sects in the Philippine religious spectrum:

Founded by a Pagan Emperor?

First, some argue that the Catholic Church was founded by Emperor Constantine the Great, a pagan emperor.  Allegedly, this emperor established the Roman Catholic Church, made himself its first pope and rendered it as the official religion of the whole empire.  They argue further that the emperor convened councils to define the significant dogmas of the Catholic Church to include the Council of Nicea which greatly spelled the Divinity of Christ among the Christian fold.  They concluded that the emperor converted early Christianity into a Romanist Paganistic Christianity which the Vatican is said to be now propagating in the whole world. On the contrary, these arguments are historically incorrect and misleading.   The Roman Empire was gradually converted to Christianity rather than the Christianity being transformed as a paganistic movement.  The empire carried the cross of Christianity, adapted its religious teachings, modified its rituals and traditions in consonance with Christianity and revolutionized the moral standards of the empire.   In return, the emperor accorded due security and safety to Christianity and considerable freedom in the exercise of this new religion.  The efforts of the emperor in the councils of the church were meant to safeguard it from violence and never to interfere in essence in the church definition and proclamation of its faith.

Founded by Satan?

Second, others point to Satan or the Demon as the founder of the Catholic Church.  This argument is the weakest propaganda offensive of the anti-Catholics for there can be no literal and explicit biblical and historical support which can be utilized to label the Catholic Church of such anti-Christ overtones.  Nevertheless, this is a very prevalent and dominant attack of the fundamentalists against the Catholics.  These sects have been brainwashed to accuse that the Catholic Church is an instrument of the Anti-Christ, Satan or the Demon. It is allegedly its handiwork. This is very abundant in the writings of the Witnesses of Jehovah, Seventh Day Adventist, Church of Christ, Pentecostals and Baptists.  Local Born-Again Christians and non-Catholic charismatic groups have been easily infected by this propaganda campaign against the Catholic Church.  In various debates and dialogues with these anti-Catholic sects, they arrogantly, maliciously and satirically accuse the Catholic Church to be the invention and the instrument of Satan in his struggle to deceive the faithful and embattle the Christ Jesus outside and within His living and militant church.  A variant of this argument is espoused by some sects which believe that the bad spirits tempted the church leaders and believers to discreetly defect from the original teachings and to gradually transform the original church into becoming an apostate church by amalgamating pagan and demonic teachings and traditions.  In debates, this is their common propaganda offensive. They will have all the elbow room to attack every Catholic teaching in order to prove it to be demonic and to somehow conclude in the process of their argumentation that the church is heretical.  The problem with this argument is that this is fallacious and can never withstand academic scrutiny. The purpose of this argument is to simply attack in a shotgun approach with all the pandemonium of hearsays and fanciful stories, unsupported biblical interpretations and all other rhetorical styles just to gain public attention, sympathy and support. They will never stick to any discussion on a single controversy but will merely jump from one attack to another to gain propaganda mileage simply because they lack deeper biblical and logical support for their arguments inasmuch as most of them are not properly schooled on scriptural studies, historical analysis and philosophical tools for debates and argumentation.

Founded by Saint Ignatius?

Third, there are those who accuse St Ignatius of Antioch as the inventor of the Catholic Church.  Just because early records show that St Ignatius was allegedly the first to literally use the word catholic to describe the early Christian church, this did not mean that he invented the church. What he invented, if that may be appropriate, is the coining of the word catholic to the Christian Church, not the invention or the founding of the church which he named.  How can St Ignatius describe the church to be catholic if the church has never been in existence before he named it as catholic?  Historical records can attest that the Catholic Church has been in existence even before St Ignatius wrote his letters regarding the early church.

Founded by a Council?

Fourth, some sects insist that the Catholic Church was only established when a council declared that the Catholic Church must be officially named as the One, Holy, Roman, Catholic, Apostolic Church, thereby marking the alleged birth of the Roman Catholic Church.  Again, this is a ridiculous argument since before that council the Catholic Church has already been in existence. It does not necessarily follow that when an entity declares to have a new name, a new entity is created distinct from its original existence. The essence of a being or an entity does not change just because it receives a new name.  In natural phenomena, a typhoon does not exist only when it receives a new name when it enters a certain territory inasmuch as it is already a typhoon even before it received a new name. A newly discovered organism which is given a new scientific name cannot be construed to have not existed prior its discovery and giving of a new name. The Catholic Church, since its very existence has been accorded numerous names; but, its existence has never been construed to have been obliterated and reconstituted as it receives a new name as it transcends every generation, culture and change.  It has survived amidst difficulties and emerged renewed and significant to every generation to truly serve as the prophet of God in this ever-changing world.

Warning on these Accusations

Those who accuse the Catholic Church to have branched out from the original church will expectedly claim to be the living descendants of the original church.  As such, they claim to possess the orthodox teachings and traditions of church established by Christ. To a certain extent, some extreme fundamentalist groups even claim that their generation of believers could be traced as underground groups of believers who survived the alleged persecution mounted against them by the Catholic Church.  It is speculated to some extent that some of the local preachers and believers espoused these arguments to include that of  some of the Anabaptists and some Adventists groups.  Unfortunately, documentation of their arguments is too scarce inasmuch as their debaters seem to be very shadowy in their argumentation to hide their real doctrinal positions to escape scrutiny and dissection of their arguments.  They may try to modify their argumentation but in essence they will concede in some angles that their generation of believers can be traced back to the early church.

Those who accuse that the Catholic Church is the apostate transformation of the original church of Christ, will claim that their sect leader was prophesized and ordained by God to re-establish the true Church of Christ which was destroyed by the devil through the apostate Catholic Church.

Most of the locally established sects in the Philippines belong to this group.  Their founders are equipped with biblical verses which they use as the alleged prophesies for their authority to establish a new church in the Philippines or in any part of the globe.  Some of their founders even fancifully claim to be an angel, an apostle, Christ himself, a direct messenger of Christ or a direct messenger of the Heavenly Father.

No matter how fanciful, magical, superstitious or heretical their invented stories are,  this is their seemingly expected argument in order to circumvent their syllogism so as to justify the existence of their sect as an alternative to the Catholic Church.

These sects could easily choose any name, title or designation to the early church as depicted in the Bible to be their alleged authoritative name of their church.  It is easy to understand why some of these sects labeled themselves as Church of Christ, Churches of Christ, Church of God, Church of the Living God, Church of the First Born, Church on the Rock, Church of the Gentiles, Apostolic Church, Church of God, Church of God Pillar and Bulwark of Truth, Church of the Latter-Day Saints and many other bible-copied descriptions, names or labeling of the early church.

Since the name of their church can be read in the bible simply because they copied their name from the bible, they will fallaciously argue that their church is the true church as their name is bible-based.

Unfortunately, if they have the same basic argument that their church name can be read in the bible, this does not guarantee that if they can find their name in the bible, they already belong to the true church.

Since only one church can be the true church of Christ, it is statistically impossible that one of them is the true church. The greater possibility is that they are merely pirating the names of the true church as depicted in the bible. In all angles, not one of them can be the true church of Christ.

Warning on these Accusations

It is then impossible to demonstrate that the Catholic Church was never founded by Jesus Christ because these anti-Catholics shall have the difficult task of pointing who established the Catholic Church if Christ has nothing to do with its institution.

For those who posit that the church which Christ established defected into heresy and apostasy, they will be faced with the sacrilegious questioning and even doubting the divine institution of the church of Christ. If the church which Christ established truly defected into heresy and apostasy, are we inclined to believe that Christ is not powerful enough to build a truly strong church founded on a rock which can never be defeated by the forces of evil?  If Christ failed in his mission to build a strong church, how can we possibly accept that the new sect leaders in this century and of this country, can emerge to be more powerful than Christ for being able to re-build the church which Christ failed to establish in perpetuity?  Are we talking of new Christs in this century or anti-Christs to that effect as foretold in the prophecies of the New Testament that false prophets and messiahs shall come to deceive many?

Logically, it will be safe to conclude that Christ truly founded a strong church which shall never be destroyed and can never be replaced or rebuild by the numerous sect leaders in this century.  This church which is catholic in essence since its establishment, as to its doctrine and believers,  prophetically become truly catholic as time goes on as the world now can see.

The Catholic Faithful has seemingly felt to be somehow defenseless with the propaganda upsurge of various anti-Catholic sects and denominations, and lately, some forms of atheistic philosophical systems.  These enemies of the faith attack the church and her teachings by utilizing misinterpretations in the Holy Scriptures and Scientific Studies.  In effect,  the affected Catholic Faithful either goes out of the catholic fold, becomes indifferent or stays in the church but with a demoralized faith due to ostensible difficulties in answering these questions of faith.

The irony is that the church, through its magesterium and holy traditions, has in its deposit of faith from all antiquity to the present generation, all the answers to these questions.  It is only a matter of translating this treasury of faith into the current and common language of the faithful in our evangelization program.

It is true that the church hierarchy has responded to this problem of evangelization.  The bishops have already issued guidelines on how to respond to these acts of proselytizing targeting the Catholic Faithful. However, the church lacks regular workers and the evangelization crusades seem to be inadequate. Oftentimes, the efforts are allegedly inappropriate inasmuch as the apologetic catecheses are embedded in high-sounding theologies and therefore non-tangential to the needs of the masses. This is because the faithful has the greater craving for more simple and bible-based argumentations, written or spoken in the vernaculars, and in the lingo and religious parlance of the public. Ironically, our theologies have not been fully translated to the level of inculturation needed for the internalization in the living faith of the masses. The Second Vatican Council has long prophesized on the needs of our times towards inculturation but the process of implementation seems to be tedious and protracted.

In certain angles, the need for apologetic catechesis has been usually ignored, either placed on the sidelines or totally taken for granted due to lack of regular bible-based catechists and preachers and the absence of a support system to back up this type of evangelization. Moreover, the pressure from higher authorities to focus on the ecumenical movement has further weakened the resolve of the faithful to adequately rise up to the bible challenge of these anti-catholic sects.  The growing problems of the parishes in the sociological, political and environmental spheres have burdened much the parish priests to focus on administrative and pastoral matters. The task of overseeing adult catechism and apologetic catechesis can not be therefore fully handled. Fortunately, the growth of the cursillo and the charismatic movement in the parishes has been somehow sustaining the hold over the masses who are being lured away by these anti-Catholic sects. Alarmingly, the lack of proper fundamental theology in these charismatic-type organizations and movements has opened avenues for an alternative fundamentalism to creep into these  “spiritualistic” groups.

Meanwhile, efforts to spread the scriptural mode of evangelization parallel to that of the vigor of the separated brethren have been partly jeopardized by some extreme modernism in the exegetical approach which resulted to the confusion in the re-interpretation of the dogmas and praxes of the church.  The modern exegesis had been hurting the traditional views of the common faithful and may possibly further antagonize the simple faith of the masses.  There is also the emergence of some ultra-conservatism and spiritualistic tendencies mirroring the Gnostic shadows of the past and the creeping of certain forms of modern occultism and new order concepts.

Presently, the anti-Catholic sects have continued to dominate the public forum and as well as the print and the broadcast media.  Sad to say, our church lacks the appropriate radio program, television and print media which can somehow respond to the needs of the Catholic Faithful.  The Catholic Church has been contented with her prayer, healing and charitable ministries.

Until now, the anti-Catholic faithful believes that the Catholic Church can not satisfactorily answer their essential questions on faith in the level that the common faithful can adequately appreciate. This is punctuated by their compulsiveness to challenge the Catholic authorities in any form of debate and discussions.  The attempts of our priests to face them in public discussion have never been advantageous since our priests can not possibly go down to the unprofessional level of extreme literalism of these sects in the utilization of the Holy Scriptures in public exposition. Fielding on the frontline the exegetes and scholars of the church to face these anti-Catholic sects has never been advisable due to the extreme fundamentalism and lack of educational background of their workers, pastors and orators.

Our church has to safeguard the faith of our people. In the midst of the lack of regular church workers, the laymen are empowered to carry out vital roles in the evangelization program. The experiences of the laymen are the most potent and effective tools in overhauling our apologetic catechesis to truly defend our faith and uplift the faith and hope of the masses. The Second Vatican Council has underscored the need for the laymen to advance the goals of evangelization in the modern world.

Very few church groups are engaged in apologetic catechesis.  Two (2) of the recognized apologetic groups of the Catholic Church are Catholic Faith Defenders (CFD) in the Visayas and Mindanao areas and the Saint Peter’s Men Society (SPMS) in Luzon especially in Metro Manila. The success of the CFD in the Visayas is highly remarkable as could be reflected in the strong faith of the Catholics in these regions. The CFD has even produced numerous debaters who can face anti-Catholic debaters in formal stage debates.  Here in Luzon, the Saint Peter’s Men Society (SPMS), for over sixty (60) years now, has internalized the technique of conducting ecumenical discussions with these anti-Catholic sects and denominations.  SPMS has in fact engaged them in public debates and discussions, especially in public parks, worship centers of these fundamentalist sects, and other venues for exchange of ideas and arguments regarding the Christian Faith.

Nowadays, the anti-Catholic sects have already diffused much of their proselytizing efforts by not only conducting house-to-house visitations but through the tri-media using enormous publications, leaflets, pamphlets and manuals and airing of their programs over the radio and television so as to continue their virulent attacks against the Catholic Faith.

Ironically, the apologetical groups to include the CFD and the SPMS were left in the sidelines due to lack of financial capability to fund radio and television evangelization which could equal their predominantly foreign-based resources.

The Philippine-based apologetic groups are trying to penetrate the tri-media to cope up with the proselytizing efforts of the anti-Catholic groups.  Let us just pray that the personal funding being extended by individual apologists can sustain the protracted war waged by these anti-Catholic groups. Above all, the humble apologetic catechesis which we shall be ventilating through this medium is envisioned to bring Christ with more meaning and wisdom in our troubled Catholic communities and in the sphere in which we should effect the change to make it truly Christian and subsequently more Catholic.