If the devil exists, and if the devil is the enemy of God, and if God is Jesus, and if Jesus founded a Church, we can expect the devil to focus his attack most violently on that Church built by God for the purpose of conquering evil and making saints (see CCC 391).
The Catholic Church can be traced back to the time of the original apostles of Jesus. The line of Catholic popes can be traced historically back to St. Peter from Pope Francis (we’ve had 266 Roman pontiffs and counting). St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote about the “catholic” Church in the year 110 A.D in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans. The early Christian writers wrote about the Eucharist, confession, praying for the dead, praying to the saints, honouring Our Lady and celebrating mass. If we could take a time-machine back to the 3rd century for example (or the 5th or the 11th, etc) we’d be quite comfortable finding ourselves in a very “Catholic-looking” (although more primitive) Church.
Furthermore, no church or religious group through history has fed more of the poor, clothed more of the naked, fed more of the hungry, visited more of the imprisoned or educated more people than the Catholic Church.
The point is this: all things considered, the evidence is clear that the Catholic Church is the Church originally founded by Jesus and for that reason we can expect great trials as individual Catholics and as a Church because the devil’s sole aim is to destroy whatever God builds. But have no fear! Jesus says “the gates of hell will not prevail” against His Church’ (Mt 16:18) and Jesus is a Man of His Word because He is God. And the suffering we persevere through as God’s family is unimaginably worth it since “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).
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