Much like any cultist, when Catholics are confronted with the plain teachings of scripture, their strategy is to attempt to wrestle the Bible out of the Christian's hands, and instead claim some mystical authority to effectively change the meaning of the text. This is actually an official Catholic doctrine. According to the Council of Trent, Session 4, "Decree Concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books", it is an offence to rely on your own skill and senses to interpret scripture contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church.
This decree, really, tells you everything you need to know. You may not rely on your own skill. You may not wrest the scripture to your own senses. How much closer can you get to "play dumb, close your eyes, and obey the cult" before Catholics start realising they've been had?
Apparently, quite a bit, as to this day, Catholics continue to rely on the interpretations argument. "Of course we need an authoritative interpreter", they argue. "There are 40,000 Protestant denominations!"
What they don't realise, however, is that this makes them 40,001. See, contrary to Catholic assumption, the interpretations issue isn't a flaw in the Bible, but in the reader. In fact, many denominations Catholics view as "Protestant" have no greater regard for scripture than the Catholic Church itself. Take, for example, Mormons. Some Catholics point to them to say the Bible is insufficient, but given that Mormons use the Book of Mormon to interpret the Bible, this is simply disingenuous.
But even if Catholics could point to 40,000 denominations (the actual number is around 1,000), and say, with a straight face, that they all do their best to interpret scripture, that still wouldn't be enough to set Catholicism above the rest. How do Catholics give themselves an edge? More often than not, like the example in the header image, they will appeal to the so-called Church "Fathers".
This argument fails for a number of reasons, starting with the obvious fact that it doesn't solve the interpretations problem. In fact, this problem will never be solved. All it does is add more middle men. See, when I read my Bible, I get the scoop right from the horse's mouth, so to speak. I get to read what the Apostles preached in black and white. Could I misunderstand them? Certainly. That's why we study scripture, rather than give it a cursory glance. Scripture was never supposed to reward laziness.
But the moment you add an interpreter, you merely double the problem. Now, rather than interpreting the Bible, someone else is interpreting the Bible, and you're interpreting them.
It gets even worse when you consider that Catholics don't even go straight to the Church "Fathers". Instead, they interpret the modern Catholic Church. And ironically, while they can't make up their mind about how many Protestant denominations there are, Catholics can't even agree amongst themselves. The Pope even recently said "The Holy Spirit in the church does not reduce everything to just one value; rather, it harmonizes opposing differences. That is the Catholic spirit. The more harmony there is between the differences and the opposites the more Catholic it is. The more polarization there is, the more one loses the Catholic spirit and falls into a sectarian spirit. This [saying] is not mine, but I repeat it: what is Catholic is not either-or, but is both-and, combining differences. And this is how we understand the Catholic way of dealing with sin, which is not puritanical: saints and sinners, both together." (Note the ironic blasphemy of calling the Holy Spirit "it", rather than He). Now, if Catholics cannot be of one mind on what their Church currently teaches, how can they claim to be of one mind on what the early Church taught?
And it gets worse still, because when we finally give up and go to the Church "Fathers", we find that they weren't especially Catholic either. They had a wide range of beliefs, ranging from the bat flap crazy, right the way through to the outright "Protestant". Most notably? They had no qualms about deferring to scripture.
By far my favorite example is Saint Irenaeus, who, in Book 3 of "Against Heresies", made pretty much the same argument against heretics that I am currently making against the Catholic Church (which had not yet evolved). About the heretics of his day, he wrote "When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but vivâ voce:"
So here, around 174-189 A.D., we have a so-called Church "Father" saying that heretics, when they are confronted with scripture, suggest you can't extract truth from scripture if you are ignorant of tradition. What do Catholics say when they are confronted with scripture? That the scriptures are so ambiguous that you get 40,000 denominations, so obviously, you need to know tradition in order to extract truth from them. Catholics say the exact same thing as the heretics in Irenaeus' day!
But we don't need to look to such a late source as Irenaeus, because ultimately, we have the scriptures themselves. And since the scriptures are normal books and letters, the onus is on the Catholic Church to prove that they cannot be read as such. Until they have proven their assertion, we can ignore it. But when we ignore that assertion, and read the Bible the way we would read any other book, we see why Catholics must rely so heavily on their imaginary authority. Catholicism's unique doctrines are consistently and reliably in conflict with scripture.
This includes the way in which scripture itself is handled. The longest chapter in the entire Bible is dedicated to the importance and benefit of independent Bible study! Try it yourself. Read Psalm 119, once as a Catholic, and once just as it is. Which reading makes more sense? What you'll find is that a "Protestant" can wholeheartedly affirm the whole thing, whereas every so often, a Catholic will find some conflict. As they do with the rest of scriptures.
It's clear, then, that rather than being founded on Christ, the Catholic Church is thoroughly opposed to Him. Jesus taught "...If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him,and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me." (John 14:23-24). What does that tell us about the Church that keeps His word under lock and key, and demands you obey them instead?