Catholic Church corruption after 1500 years

[Universal]

Was hearing this interview by ex hollywood actress and ex Catholic Madolyn Smith Osborne who now is a born again Christian on a Baptist Radio station and notice she mentioning that protestants believe the catholic church got corrupted after 1500 years. Why do protestants believe this ?

Its also interesting to hear how she criticises protestantism in the interview and praises Catholic tradition.
http://www.drewmarshall.ca/listen2009.html#090110

[DavidObeid]

Protestants have no choice but to say that the Church was corrupt, otherwise they would be saying "the Church remained true and we decided that was a problem"!!

The flaws in such a claim however are that the Church never taught false doctrines and never could teach false doctrines, thanks to the promise of Christ.

[Stephen Spiteri]

The Catholic Church has and never will be corrupt ("... the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it" - Matt. 16:18), but that is not to say that people within her have never been corrupt.

The Protestant Reformation spoke out largely against abuses of doctrine by Roman Catholic clergy namely with Indulgences and so forth. Many Protestants, however, have interpreted this, i.e. Luther's "protest", as an objection to Indulgences themselves but if one was to read Luther's 95 Theses (http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/ninetyfive.html) your impression would surely change.

"On the other hand, the treasure of indulgences is naturally most acceptable, for it makes the last to be first." - Theses no. 64, Martin Luther, 1517

What Luther "disliked" about Indulgences was that they were being abused. Luther accepted Indulgences as valid teaching and doctrine, but corrupt clergy within the Church were in a sense "selling" them and in effect were promoting the purchase of pardons. For example noblemen and richer families were being granted indulgences because they contributed significant amounts of money to the building of cathedrals. This practice of corrupt clergy presented two issues:

1.) The rich could easily attain a "pardon" by means of monetary exchange; and
2.) The poor felt as though an indulgence needed to be "purchased".

This was never the original intention or how indulgences were meant to be attained as the Catechism of the Catholic Church points out:

"An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity." - CCC, par. 1487

You cannot buy or purchase "the merits of Christ". This is the sin of Simony and this is something else the Catholic Church is also very clear on (CCC, par. 2121). What is ironic is that the same Protestants (namely the Pentecostal and Evangelical type) that have a gripe with indulgences are also the ones who appear on TV asking for your money in exchange for prayers.

Issues of apparent corruption and abuses of doctrine were addressed at the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1563 and this period of Church history as known as the "Reformation of the Catholic Church" or "The Counter Reformation". The Council of Trent is credited for strengthening the Church after the crisis Luther's reformation invoked and the subsequent schisms that stemmed from it. While thousands of Protestant denominations have been birthed since the Protestant Reformation in 1517, the Catholic Church has remained as one: united in faith, united in teaching, and united in Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit (John 17:21).

* * * * *

A question that would need to be asked of fundamentalists that argue the Church was corrupt after 1500 years is this:

Jesus promised that his church would not teach error and that he would be with the church forever (Matt. 16:18; Matt. 28:19-20; John 14:16, 26). If the Church was in error for these 1500 years, then that would make Jesus a liar. Are you suggesting Christ lied and broke this promise? Could you perhaps fathom that an elect of men had lost their way and were in error and became corrupted? Don't forget that Christ promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His church. This does not mean that the gates of Hell would not prevail against men; we're fallible beings after all. Which church can claim that all its members (clergy included) are perfect and impervious to the influence of sin?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6bXikDWpdY