Expert: Fr. Timothy Johnson - 10/19/2007

Question
QUESTION: Hi Rev. Tim,

I used to be Catholic, but I got born again and I now attend a Baptist Church. I'm taking a class on the teachings of Roman Catholicism at a local Baptist Church, and the instructor told us that according to official Roman Catholic Church doctrine, salvation is only by grace through faith, and not of works. Now that's the same thing that Protestants teach. Is this correct?

ANSWER: Hi, Joshua:
Thanks for the question and comment.
As one who used to attend a Baptist Church myself many years ago in junior high (even a fundamentalist private school), and got "born of above by Baptism" and entered into full communion with the historic Catholic Church, I can tell you that your instructor sounds pretty accurate.
I have heard it explained that in the Catholic Church, we believe that one is saved by faith working through Grace.
So it would be wrong to say that "works are not important, or don't have anything to do with salvation."
And we know from the book of James, that the Apostle tells us that we are "NOT saved by faith alone."
The historic christian, Catholic context sees salvation as perseverence in God's Grace, cooperating with and responding to the work of God's Life (Grace) in the soul.  This is the response we are called to by our Faith in the Saving work of Jesus, the Son of God, the WORD made flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, who visited His people with salvation.
So, yes - there are many similarities at many levels between Protestants and historic Catholicism; as there ought to be, because Protestants got everything good straight from the Catholic Church that Jesus Christ founded, especially the New Testament Scriptures.
God bless you!  I hope that you persevere in the salvation you experience in Christ, and some day may find your roots of what you are called to be fully as a Christian in the historic Catholic Church.

Fr. Timothy Johnson

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi Rev. Tim,

By the historic Catholic Church do you mean the Old Catholic Church? Similar to the Polish National Catholic Church. Are you referring to the group which broke with Rome after the First Vatican Council? Or are you referring to the modern Roman Catholic Church, based in Rome, with the Pope and all?

-Josh

Answer
Not referring to any group that "broke away":
The historic Catholic Church is the Catholic Church under the authority that Christ established in St. Peter, and his successors the Popes.  I am in the current day Roman Catholic Church that is truly traditional, and under Pope Benedict XVI.  Those who are in the body of this Church, but are heretics and dissenters are not being true and authentic to what it is to be a Catholic, as has always been taught, and is expressed in the magisterial teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
Every authentic teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is expressed throughout the history of writings of the Fathers, the Popes, etc.  Dissenters, for example, would be those who fancy themselves to be "modern" by their acceptance of immoral things such as divorce and remarriage, contraception and abortion, promiscuity and sexual impurity; and who deny key doctrines such as the real inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, the True Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist by transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the Mass as a true and propitious sacrifice, etc.

Fr. Timothy Johnson