Roman Catholics have a real problem defending their claims to unity. They love to claim it and point down at the rest of the planet in their arguments while conveniently forgetting their own position. They like to claim they have unity under their popes, but theology, history and reality unite to prove that claim to be unfounded. Their claims are exactly like any one political party in America standing up and claiming to speak for “The American people.” We all know how that claim can be manipulated. I do not see that Catholics have any more unity than anyone else in any other group, and they (some) condemn all those not submitting to their views. Who clears up the Great Schism of 1054? Where is their supposed higher authority to prevent that split? What about when more than two popes both claim that they’re the next in line for Peter’s throne (which is no throne at all anyway)? Who establishes who’s who in that from the church? Or is it just who’s got the bigger army in generations past that decided? What about the sedevacantist split since the 1960s who today vehemently denounce the papacy as apostate yet claim they cling to the church of 2,000 years? They both still condemn each other. Of course it’s not within their system that these things can be resolved. History is filled with Rome’s splits, factions, divisions and subtractions more than with anyone else. Rome has no viable claims to unity beyond anyone else. It has no special claims to God’s preservation higher than any other group. Truth, by Scripture alone, unites us, or not, in Christ in the church, not Roman offices which were never based on him in the first place.
I mentioned this video from the archives of Alpha and Omega Ministries in my presentation here, but didn’t think to mention I’d put in a link. It gives you the actual source for the oft-repeated lie of some Catholic apologists today about the number of Protestant denominations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_ZXbrbfXrY
