AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Fr. James

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"Why do we need to be Catholic? Isn't just Jesus enough?"

Well, if by "needing just Jesus" you mean that only Jesus (aka God) is the source of all that exists and is likewise the ultimate and essential source of our salvation, then yes, we agree! And if by that you mean "you shall have no other gods before Me" (Ex 20:3), then yes, again we agree! But if you mean you can't have Jesus AND the sacraments, or Jesus AND the Pope, I would ask you: isn't it the same thing to say you need Jesus AND the Bible? Why not "just Jesus" without the Bible? Call it Sola Jesus! Or how about Jesus AND His Body, the Church? Does the fact that someone other than Jesus told you about Jesus, or guides you closer to Jesus, or gives you the opportunity to serve them mean you need more than "just Jesus"?

The fact is that God doesn't tell us everything we need to know directly from one mind to another. He likes to use His own creatures and creation to do his work "through Him, and with Him, and in Him"! Yes, there's "only one mediator" (1 Tim 2:5), but again, what then do we call those other Christians who were inspired to write the books of the Bible, compile the Bible, decide which books should or shouldn't be in the Bible, and pass on the Bible for two millenia before it got to us? Are they usurping the sole mediatorship of Jesus? Of course not! 1 Tim 2:5-6 speaks of Jesus being the "one God" who is therefore the "one mediator…who gave himself as ransom for all". This doesn't mean that God can't use the Church to do His soul-saving work as well. After all, St. Paul himself encourages intercessory prayer—another kind of mediatorship—right before that! "First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men" (1 Tim 2:1). God saw fit to establish a Church that could be His Body on earth (cf. Eph 1:22-23) because He loves the idea of letting His children share in His good works. He gave us the Church to be "the pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Tim 3:15) which, guided by the Holy Spirit, could "guide you into all the truth" (Jn 16:13).

Consider this: if God inspired men to write the various books of the Bible over a period of several centuries, why is it such a jump to think that He wouldn't also guide men throughout history to authoritatively and faithfully interpret and hand on these very same books? God gave us Scripture AND the Magisterium in addition to His Son. I mean, when Christians have abandoned this gift from God, how has it gone? Sola Scriptura becomes its own idol of self-reliance which inevitably leads Christians to disagree with each other over the most fundamental of doctrines.

For example, whereas all of the earliest Christians said with St. Peter, "Baptism… now saves you" (1 Peter 3:21), many Protestants try to argue that baptism is a nice but definitely unnecessary sign.

Or they deny that Jesus (who loves us so much and so concretely as we see on the cross) meant to give us His Body and Blood in an ongoing, tangible, and accessible way. Yet, all of the earliest Christians said things like: "I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ" (St. Ignatius of Antioch Letter to the Romans [A.D. 110]), and, "Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again" (St. Ignatius of Antioch Letter to the Smyrnaeans [A.D. 110]).

Consider that maybe when Jesus said, "You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church" (Matt 16:18) He built His Church into a visibly evident institution, guided and guarded by His Spirit, that would quickly spread to all corners of the world and be the single largest Christian denomination for all of Christian history—bar none—even after twenty centuries. Maybe "just Jesus" means following and accepting ALL of the gifts that Jesus wanted to give us… like rebirth through "water and the Spirit" (Jn 3:5), the anointing of the sick (James 5:14), the concrete confession and forgiveness of our sins (James 5:16)(Jn 20:23), the gift of clergy and pastors ordained not by their own authority but by the laying on of hands first begun by the apostles (Acts 6:6), and a one-flesh union between us the bride and Jesus the Bridegroom unto eternal life (John 6:53-54). If you just want Jesus, then become Catholic! Because here you'll get ALL of the ways that Jesus gives Himself to us. Amen.