Tom Nash cites Jesus’ founding of the Church in the Gospels and the subsequent Apostolic succession through history as the surest proof we have that Catholicism is the one true faith.
Transcript:
Host: Let’s go to Mike in Los Angeles. Mike, we got time for you to ask the question, but you’ll have to wait through the break to get the answer.
Caller: The question is—the question is, what resources are there for—to be able to answer somebody that is doing the Jewish teachings about reincarnation, or that if we don’t follow the 613 Jewish laws we are not saved or we will not prosper in this life, and that if we don’t call Jesus “Yeshua” or God “Yahweh,” that we are worshiping the wrong God and we’re gonna really…you know…being saved.
Host: Okay. So yeah, that’s disturbing, when someone’s saying that you’re not saved. Tom, how do you respond when—you know, the things that Mike listed, reincarnation, or that you have to follow all of the Jewish laws, or that you may be worshiping the wrong God; how do you as a Catholic respond to that?
Tom: Well, I would say that the Jews don’t believe in reincarnation, so I’m not sure if this is an amalgamation of Judaism and something else, an admixture. The Jews don’t teach that; they do have the 613 laws, but I would respond to any Jewish person who said that we would have to do that—and I don’t think Jews would say that and that we would not be saved, because they would not preclude God’s salvation. Maybe we can pick it up after the break.
Host: Tom, when we went to the break, Mike was asking about—it seemed to me, essentially, the question was, you know, he has people saying—they’re teaching—they’re talking about reincarnation, other people saying—or maybe the same person—saying “You gotta follow the 613 commandments of the Jews,” someone else saying he’s worshiping the wrong God. And so what’s the answer—I mean, because I do think Mike’s probably not alone. A lot of people—there’s a lot of different things coming at you about “What you gotta do to be saved,” in other words.
Tom: Sure. Well we can go back to Jesus himself in the Gospel, Cy, and Jesus did not say that all those 613 laws had to be followed. He came to fulfill the law, not to do away with it, but in the process he founded a Church, and that Church has been around for 2,000 years. And founding that Church, he put Peter and his successors as the leaders, gave them the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, to bind and loose. So as a Catholic, he can be very much assured that he is following Christ, that the Catholic Church is the Church that Jesus Christ founded, and that he can be confident that if he is a faithful Catholic, he will thereby be a faithful disciple of Jesus, and therefore he, by virtue of that, and trust in the Lord, he will be saved.