Catholic Crisis Points - Free Essay in Religion

It would be hard to understand the early history of the Catholic church without knowing the cultural as well as the political world as to where the church came from. According to the teachings of the Catholic church, the history of the church begins with the teachings of Jesus Christ and Christ himself. The Catholic church started as a Christian community that had been established by Jesus Christ. The church teachings are that the bishops are the successor to the apostles of Jesus Christ and that the pope also known as the bishop of Rome is the successor to Saint Peter who had been appointed by Jesus Christ as per the new testament.

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Towards the end of the second century, the bishops started to congregate in their regional synods to develop remedies as well as resolve matters that related to their doctrine and its policies. By the end of the 3rd century, the pope also the bishop of Rome started to act as the court of appeal to resolve on issues that arose during that period. Most of the issues were related to the development of the doctrine and the policies that would help sustain the church. The pope could help in resolving issues that the bishops were not able to solve, and at some point, whenever the clergy felt some of the matters related to the church in their region were not well taken care of, they would appeal to the Bishop of Rome, who was the pope then. The doctrinal positions were developed to help the church, understand the hierarchy of power. They were developed for some reasons that were meant to maintain the dignity of Rome; they wanted Rome to have the dignity as the only apostolic see of the west. The positions were meant to show a difference between the inferior and the superior as well as showing the relationship between them. The doctrinal positions were meant to help the church and its people on the diversity of the ministries and the gifts necessary for genuine unity.

Christianity kept spreading throughout the Roman empire however much there were a lot of persecutions which were triggered by the pagan religions. The struggles were real but were lessened when the early church activities got legalized as well as the legalization of Christianity by the emperor Constantine. By the year 380, the Catholic church had become a state religion in the Roman empire, and that was during the reign of Emperor Theodosius. The existence of the Catholic church persisted till the fall of the western empire, the eastern Roman empire and the fall of the Constantinople. This was during the period of the seven ecumenical councils where they considered the following five primary sees that were under the jurisdiction of the Catholic church. That was according to Eusebius; Constantinople, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem.

In the year 850, Rome was being ravaged, and with the straining relations, they had with the Greek church that was in the east and the Latin who was in the west, the battles of Toulouse preserved the Catholic church in the west. The church developed into an east-west schism that would enable them to solve the disputes over the Papal authority. The church had to engage in activities that would help them renew and reform their processes to enable them to reach out to the people. The reformation that happens in the 16th century would later be renamed s counter-reformation. The Catholic church since then had positive progress, developed and spread to other countries in the world despite the reduction in its hold in the European countries due to the rise of religious skepticism and the growth of Protestantism. This was after and during the enlightenment.

The development of the doctrine of trinity began just before the new testament was written. People had already recognized God's triune nature. The history of the Jewish people plays a significant role in the development of Trinity as a doctrine. It is the traditional development of the revelation of the Trinity. The doctrine of Trinity formulation served the populations to understand faith through words written. It represents the free act of defining goodwill and the true belief of only one God. It was used to protect faith against heretics wanting to convey the message of God. There is only one God in the word who is the source of law, who is the master of the world, who represents us with morals and just. God represents himself in a way that He is exemplary, that the human race should follow his deeds to be moral perfectionists and the reflections of our lives to be associates of what he expects of the human race. The council of Nicaea enshrined in the definition of God as the oneness of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In the Apostolic father age and the apostle age, Christology was the doctrine of people undertaking the works of Jesus Christ. The interpretation of the work of Jesus Christ on the explanation on the person of Christ is that Christ' suffering and His saving work is not of the divine but of the man such that redemption is not undermined. Thus, the divine should unite with the flesh of Christ and must be involved in the saving and suffering of his work. The doctrine of Christology was developed such that the union of the divine could be close and that there could be new regenerated humanity. The transformation of an individual takes place through the union one has with Christ and the rituals of Eucharist and baptism. The death and the rise of Jesus Christ have the transformative effect on the soul and body of a person. The church believes that when a person eats the body of Jesus Christ, they receive redemption and that the accomplishment of a person's transformation is through the union of humanity and the divinity in Christ. The gospel of God unites its people through the taking of the body, the souls and the spirit all joined to Himself. In the process of accepting this divinity, the word of God changes the spirit, soul, and the body. While humans can now perfect their morals through the word of God, it became easy for the ancient Catholic church, to enhance the teachings of Christ Jesus to help them solve their conflicts. Before an individual takes action into consideration, they had to refer to the doctrines. This helped the people of the Roman empire in making critical decisions that helped them uniting the society, which has been successful to date.

The Roman empire Catholicism papacy was to define the jurisdiction of the pope. Who was the bishop of Rome? The pope was to preside over the government of the Roman Catholic church. The biggest of all to preside over Christianity. Originally the term pope could be used by all the Bishops of the Catholic church; the term was also used to represent the patriarch of Alexandria. However, by the year 1073, Pope Gregory restricted the use of the name 'pope' citing reasons that they needed to conform to the practice that existed in the Catholic church and confirmed that it would remain so. Most holders of the title of the Pope have since then remained to be from Rome or France all being male although in the 13th century a female pope, Pope Joan appeared. The development of papacy played a critical role in the development of the Catholic church. There was a division of responsibilities amongst the bishops, the pope, the fathers who helped in the transformation of the Catholic church, helped in the spread of the gospel to most parts of the world to make the Christian community bigger.

According to the Catholic theology and teachings, grace is a thing that can be transferred from God to his people, so it is a gift. To the believers, grace can be transferred to them through the undertaking of the sacrament through the mediation of Mary, the mother to Jesus Christ. It makes the sinners have a belief that one they mediate and repent their sins through Mary their sins are forgiven. Repentance could promote righteousness which could help the human race in sustaining and developing a spiritual life. The teaching of the Bible is that all human beings have a sinful nature, but through the grace of Jesus Christ their sins can be forgiven and their souls cleansed. Though grace, God bestows blessings to human beings more than they deserve.