Facts
Rediscovering the Fullness of the Faith Handed Down from the Apostles
There Was Only One Church for the First 1,500 Years of Christianity.
Jesus founded one Church (Matthew 16:18–19) and promised it would never be overcome.
That Church called itself “Catholic” (meaning “universal”) as early as the year 107 AD (St. Ignatius of Antioch, a direct disciple of the Apostle John).
For fifteen centuries—all Christians, East and West—were Catholic (or Orthodox after the 1054 schism, which still retained the sacraments, saints, and apostolic succession).
Every single Christian denomination that exists today either remained Catholic or split off later—most during the 1500s or after.
The Catholic Church is not “a denomination.” It is the original.
Catholics Gave the World the Bible
The Bible did not drop out of the sky complete in 1611.
The canon of Scripture (which books belong in the Bible) was decided by Catholic bishops at councils in Hippo (393 AD), Carthage (397 AD), and later definitively confirmed at the Council of Trent.
The men who discerned the New Testament were the same Catholic bishops who ordained priests, celebrated the Eucharist every Sunday, and honored Mary and the saints.
When you hold a Bible—any Bible—you are holding a Catholic book.
Here are the clear, undeniable passages that every Catholic priest, every convert, and every Bible-alone Christian eventually runs into when they ask “Where is Confession in the Bible?”
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Jesus Personally Gave His Apostles the Authority to Forgive or Retain Sins
John 20:21–23 (NKJV)
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We Are Explicitly Commanded to Confess Our Sins to Other People
James 5:16 (NKJV)
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Jesus Gave the Apostles the Power to Bind and Loose Sins
Matthew 16:19 (to Peter) & Matthew 18:18 (to all the apostles)
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The Ministry of Reconciliation Was Entrusted to Men
2 Corinthians 5:18–20
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Old Testament Priests Already Heard Confessions and Offered Sacrifice for Sin
Leviticus 5:5–6
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The Earliest Christians Publicly Confessed Their Sins to the Church Leaders- Acts 19:18
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Jesus Always Forgave Sins Out Loud, Through a Visible Act- (Mark 2:5)
(Luke 7:48–50), (Luke 23:43)
The Rosary Is the Most Christ-Centered Prayer in All of Christianity.
The Rosary is not “a Mary prayer.” It is a meditation on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ using events taken straight from the Gospels.
While praying the Rosary you contemplate 20 mysteries—every single one is about Jesus.
The Rosary is literally the Gospel on beads.Countless Protestant converts (Scott Hahn, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Francis Beckwith, and thousands more) discovered that when they finally prayed the Rosary with an open heart, they met Jesus in a deeper way than ever before—and it eventually led them home to the Catholic Church.You don’t have to become Catholic to pray the Rosary.
Millions of Protestants already do—and their love for Jesus only grows.Start today.
One Rosary can change everything.
Honoring Saints Is Simply Asking Your Heavenly Family to Pray for You
Catholics do not worship saints any more than you worship your pastor when you ask him to pray for you.
We give latria (worship) to God alone.
We give dulia (honor) to the saints, and hyperdulia to Mary.
Scripture itself commands us to pray for one another (James 5:16; 1 Timothy 2:1–4).
The saints in heaven are more alive than we are (Mark 12:27), perfectly holy, and closer to Jesus than anyone on earth.
Asking them to pray for us is no different from asking your church prayer chain—only more powerful.
Jesus Christ Personally Founded ONE Church—on the Apostle Peter
Matthew 16:18–19 (Jesus speaking to Peter alone):
“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church… I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
→ No other apostle is ever told this.
→ Peter is always named first in every single list of the apostles (Matt 10:2–4, Mark 3:16–19, Luke 6:14–16, Acts 1:13).
→ Peter led the Church after Pentecost (Acts 1–15 passim).
→ Peter went to Rome and died there as its first bishop (historical fact acknowledged by Orthodox, Protestants, and secular historians alike).
Purgatory is in the Bible-
1 Corinthians 3:15 – a man’s works are burned up yet “he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” That is purgatory.
2 Maccabees 12:46 (in the pre-Christian Bible used by Jesus and the apostles) explicitly prays for the dead that they may be “loosed from sins.”
Nothing unclean can enter heaven (Revelation 21:27). If you die imperfectly holy (and we all do), Christ finishes cleansing you after death — not because His work was insufficient, but because it is applied perfectly.
The Pope does not claim to be God; he is Christ’s vicar (representative), exactly as Peter was given the keys in Matthew 16:18–19 and told to govern the Church.
Every single early Christian believed Peter’s successor in Rome had unique authority (Clement 96 AD, Ignatius 107 AD, Irenaeus 180 AD — all pre-Bible).
We do not replace Scripture with tradition — we believe Scripture and apostolic tradition are two streams of the same divine revelation (2 Thessalonians 2:15: “hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter”).
The Church Was Called “Catholic” Less Than 70 Years After Jesus Died
St. Ignatius of Antioch (direct disciple of the Apostle John), Letter to the Smyrnaeans, ~107 AD:
“Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
→ This is the first surviving use of the word “Catholic” (katholikos = universal).
→ Ignatius wrote this while being taken to Rome to be martyred—decades before the last apostle died.
Modern Church Feels like a motivational seminar with a worship concert. (And why does Catholic Mass still feel like… church?)
You’re not the only one noticing this. Millions of Protestants and evangelicals are asking the exact same question right now, and many of them are walking into a Catholic parish for the first time and saying, “This feels like the Christianity I read about in the New Testament and the early Church.”
The stated goal was evangelism, but the unintended result was that many churches slowly replaced the preaching of the full Word of God with self-help content dressed in Christian language.Today a huge number of sermons are topical (“7 Steps to Your Best Life Now,” “Winning the War in Your Mind,” “Your Breakthrough Is Coming”) with a couple of proof-text verses taken out of context. Very little consecutive expository preaching through entire books of the Bible. Very little Old Testament. Very little hard teaching of Jesus.
Over the three-year Sunday cycle + two-year weekday cycle, the Catholic Church reads almost the entire Bible out loud to the people. You will literally hear the whole counsel of God if you just show up.
The Catholic Bible Is the Original Christian Bible
For the first 1,500 years of Christianity, every Christian on earth used a Bible with 73 books.
The seven “extra” books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach/Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 & 2 Maccabees, plus additions to Esther and Daniel) were in the Septuagint—the Greek Old Testament that Jesus and the Apostles quoted from constantly.
These books were affirmed as Scripture at the Councils of Hippo (393), Carthage (397), and later definitively at Trent (1546) — the same councils that gave us the New Testament canon.
Martin Luther removed them in the 1500s because they strongly supported Catholic doctrines he rejected (prayers for the dead in 2 Maccabees 12:46, intercession of saints in Tobit 12:12 & 2 Maccabees 15:12–14, merits/works in Tobit 12:9, etc.).
Every Protestant Bible since—including the original 1611 KJV and today’s NKJV—follows Luther’s shortened canon.
But if you ever wonder what the apostles actually carried, what the early Church fathers quoted, and what Christians died for during the first 1,500 years…Try the full Bible for 30 days.
Read Tobit. Read Sirach. Read 2 Maccabees 7 (the martyrdom of the seven brothers—it will wreck you).
Many never go back.
When Schisms Happened, They Left the Catholic Church—Never the Other Way Around
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1054: Eastern Orthodox separated (still keep 95 % of Catholic doctrine)
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1517: Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII, etc., separated
→ The Catholic Church never “split”—others walked away.
→ The trunk of the tree is still here. The branches broke off.
The Catholic Church Is the Only Institution on Earth That Has Existed Continuously for 2,000 Years with the Same Founder, Same Doctrine, Same Sacraments, and Same Apostolic Government. No corporation, no empire, no other religion can say that.
Jesus promised the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church (Matthew 16:18).
Only one Church even claims to be that Church—and history proves it is.