Pope Clement of Rome

We are aware from the writings of Hegesippus, St. Irenaeus of Lyons and Eusebius of Caesarea that St. Clement was the third successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Rome (after Linus and Cletus). The fact that he held such a position of authority is clearly evident in the opening address of his epistle whereby he makes an attempt to heal the ruptures in the Church of Corinth which resulted in insurrection against the bishop and presbyters and their deposition. St. Clement in his epistle is deeply concerned with the sin of pride which he saw as responsible for the jealousy, strife and disorders racking the Corinthians.

St. Clement wrote only one epistle which was held in very high esteem in the early Church: “Clement has left us one recognized epistle, long and wonderful, which he composed in the name of the church of Rome…in many churches this epistle was read aloud to the assembled worshippers in early days, as it is in our own” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3, 4, 80). The Apostolical Canons of the sixth century actually includes St. Clement’s epistle in the New Testament canon. Some in the early Church held the opinion that St. Clement also wrote the book of Hebrews or translated it into Greek. Extant ancient copies of St. Clement’s epistle exist in Greek, Syriac and Latin.

Most authorities date the composition of St. Clement’s epistle around the years 96-98 AD (Lightfoot, Harnack, Funk). This dating is based upon the opening words of the epistle’s main text, “Owing to the sudden and repeated calamities and misfortunes which have befallen us,” as referring to the persecution of the Emperor Domitian. However, Jurgens (Vol. 1, p. 7) prefers to give the year 80 for the epistle’s date basing his view that (i) the “repeated calamities” in question rather refers to the eruption of Vesuvius which also caused fire and pestilence in Rome, (ii) there are very few New Testament references in the work and (iii) that the martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul are referred to as recent events.

St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies 3, 3) states that St. Clement knew and worshipped with Sts. Peter and Paul. Both Origen and Eusebius identify him as the Clement who collaborated with St. Paul and mentioned in his Epistle to the Philippians (4, 3), but this is doubted by all other authorities (Andrew Louth, Early Christian Writers, Penguin Books, 1968, p. 18).  According to Tertullian (The Demurrer Against the Heretics 32, C. 199 AD), it was St. Peter who ordained him as presbyter and then bishop of the Church of Rome. Hence the enormous value of his epistle in understanding ancient Apostolic teaching, especially as concerns the Eucharist.

Of the life and death of St. Clement very little is known. According to Rufinus (C. 400 AD) St. Clement is said to have died a martyr’s death in exile around the year 100 at the order of the Emperor Trajan. His crimes allegedly relating to his preaching and miracles which converted thousands, including hundreds of high rank. He was thrown into the Black Sea with an iron anchor. Around the year 868, St. Cyril, while in the Crimea to evangelize the Kazars, dug up some bones in a mound together with an anchor and had them translated to Rome whereupon they were deposited by Pope Adrian II in the high altar of the basilica of St. Clement.

Source: http://scta.org.au/

Differences of Catholics and Protestants

There are over 100,000 different protestant denominations, all teaching slightly different messages and interpretations of Scripture. Some of which are quite clearly contradictory, which concludes that they can't all be right! One thing that most Protestant denominations agree on is the fact that the Catholic Church (which has been round for almost 2,000 years) is wrong and sometimes diabolical. Below is a short table outlining some of the different teachings between Catholicism and some Protestant denominations. For a more complete review please read Differences between Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox.

CATHOLICISM	PROTESTANTISM
Belief that both faith and good works are necessary for salvation. Gal 5:6; Ja 2:24.	Belief that faith alone is necessary for salvation. This is a misinterpretation of Rom 3:28
Belief in Purgatory. 2Mac 12:45; 1Cor 3:15 / 1Pet 1:7 speak of a "cleansing fire".	Denial of Purgatory, either one goes straight to Heaven or Hell - in spite of Matt 5:26
Veneration of Mary the Mother of God, assumed into Heaven, ever virgin, and immaculately conceived (conceived without sin).	Varying acceptance/non-acceptance of Marian dogmas despite some acceptance by the 3 famous Protestant Founders.
Belief in 7 Sacraments instituted by Christ: Jn 3:5, Act 8:14, Jn 6:52, Jn 20:22, Mk 6:12, Lk 22:19, Mk 10:7	Non-acceptance of the Catholic sacramental system in spite of a Scriptural basis for all 7 Sacraments.
Belief in Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium (teaching body of the Church) (Mat 16:17).	Belief in the Bible alone being the sole rule of faith despite 1 Tim 3:15.
Abortion and euthanasia prohibited.	Abortion and euthanasia accepted by many Protestant churches, in certain circumstances.
Belief in the Real Presence (Mat 26:26) and Sacrifice of the Mass (1Cor 11:23).	Denial of the Mass and Holy Communion despite Jn 6:48 & Jn 6:54
Infant baptism encouraged. Lk 3:21.	Infant baptism often discouraged in spite of Acts 16:15 and 1 Cor 1:16.
Belief in indulgences Eph 4:22, 23	Denial of indulgences, as there is no belief in Purgatory
Nowhere in the Bible does it teach the Bible as the sole rule of faith.	Belief in the Bible alone as the sole rule of faith. Even though this is a contradiction to 2 Thessalonians 2:15
Divorce and re-marriage prohibited whilst spouse is alive. Mat 19:3	Divorce and re-marriage allowed (even though it may be discouraged) despite Mk 10:11.

Self Improvement? Try Catholicism.

How do you know if someone is willing to undertake self-improvement?

The answer depends on the individual. Many people have goals and dreams, but do not know how to achieve them. Some people have a vague idea about how to go about self improvement. These are those who believe that if only they had a better job, or  had better opportunities, or met their love in life or something else - everything would be better and they would be happy. They believe that their happiness or lack of happiness is decided by external factors and their thoughts and actions of circumstance. Some believe that if only they had more money they can get what they want and is intended to improve themselves.

They may have spent little time thinking about what they really want in life, and do not think there is something you can do to create their ideal life, apart from the tickets lottery number. Others do not even know what they really want their lives and perhaps even a small idea that would be very happy. It seems that derives only from day to day, week after week, month after month and year to year, not much more to face and virtually. They may have to get a job and remain not earn enough to live a relatively comfortable life. They seem very happy and have no great ambition to achieve something more than his life, they have now. Is it important to improve itself? The reality is that all our life, we all grow and develop. Circumstances make us grow and evolve, even if it takes a conscious decision to do so.

Have they thought of religion or God? I would assume most people have thought about religion and God, however not many take the step to become religious or Godly. Why not Catholicism provides some great in site into the Catholic Church and it's teachings.

Becoming a Catholic will greatly help in self improvement because it is the Truth, and for every question their is an answer.

Understanding the Bible

Catholics are commonly accused of not being allowed to read the Bible on their own due to misinterpretation. This however is simply untrue. When, in history, Catholics were forbidden to read the Bible, this “Bible” a mistranslation of God’s word, therefore not the bible at all. Hence the banned versions were simply unauthorized editions.

We commonly hear that Catholics cannot interpret the Bible on their own. The Papal Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritus, (Pope Pius XII, 1943) counteracted this by stating that there are but few texts whose understanding has been determined by the teaching authority of the Church; and Catholics do indeed have freedom to interpret the Scriptures.

It is interesting to note though that it is easy (and quite common) to find contradictory meanings and teachings from Scripture, this does not mean that the Scriptures are in error or are wrong, it simply means that they must be read in context.

Literal sense of interpretation
Definition: the literal sense of Scripture is the meaning which the human author directly intended and the author's words convey.

Chapter 6 of the Gospel of John is a perfect example of the Bible speaking in a literal sense. We hear Jesus reiterating the same message in different words to get a specific point across. He allows people to leave and reject Him based off this one teaching. If Christ was not speaking literally he would have told them to come back as His teaching was only figurate or he was speaking metaphorically. He did not do this, therefore we can conclude that this was not a parable, but Truth itself.

Fuller Sense
The Bible has both a human author and divine author – God. The Church teaches that there exists a more-than-literal meaning for understanding the Bible: a fuller sense.

Definition: The fuller sense is the deeper meaning intended by God as divine author. This meaning of the scripture may not have even been clearly known (or understood) by the author.

We see an example of the “fuller sense” of Scriptures in Isaiah and the New Testament. Isaiah provides no evidence that he was speaking of Jesus' conception in the womb of Mary. Isaiah speaks of an unmarried woman, not a virgin. Isaiah is not clear that he is even speaking to a distant future conception. At the time of Isaiah's words in chapter 7, the mother of the future King Hezekiah would have been unmarried.

Then in the New Testament, Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, creates an interpretation of Isaiah which is definitely not literal, but spiritual. He interprets Isaiah in the fuller sense: the unmarried woman is the virgin Mary, and God-with-us is Jesus.

Typical Sense
The definition of the typical sense of interpretation is as follows: The typical sense of Bible texts is the deeper meaning of the Scriptures that foreshadow/shadow further things.

We see an example in Paul's writings. Paul establishes similarities between the New Testament and the Old Testament. In 1 Cor 10:6 Paul compares the events which took place in Sinai to the Israelites to those things that are happening to Christians in his present day.

Another example of the typical meaning in the Bible is when Moses raises the bronze serpent, in the New Testament the evangelist John presents raising the bronze serpent as a type of Christ crucified (3:14).

New Catholic Apologetics Website!

A brand new website has been created from teacher and author's book, "Why not Catholicism". The booklet is a great resource because it provides short, quick answers to questions about the Catholic Church. The site is search able so you can find the exact information on the topic you want.

Check out Why not Catholicism for answers and explanations to defend the Catholic Church.

Please note that because the author wanted to keep the answers to a single page, much detail and background information has been purposefully left out. Please refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other references for a detailed account.