“In the Catholic Church, there are many other things which most justly keep me in her bosom. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep (Jn 21:15-19), down to the present episcopate.
“And so, lastly, does the very name of Catholic, which, not without reason, amid so many heresies, the Church has thus retained; so that, though all heretics wish to be called Catholics, yet when a stranger asks where the Catholic Church meets, no heretic will venture to point to his own chapel or house.
“Such then in number and importance are the precious ties belonging to the Christian name which keep a believer in the Catholic Church, as it is right they should…With you, where there is none of these things to attract or keep me… No one shall move me from the faith which binds my mind with ties so many and so strong to the Christian religion…For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.”
- St. Augustine (AD 354-430 ) Against the Epistle of Manichaeus AD 397 [Contra Epistolam Manichaei Quam Vacant Fundamenti]
“To be deep in history is to cease being a Protestant.“
- Cardinal Newman Conscience, Consensus, and the Development of Doctrine
“If I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (but I thought the Bible was the sole foundation?)
St. Paul 1 Timothy 3:15
“Having founded and built the Church, the blessed apostles entrusted the episcopal office to Linus, who is mentioned by Paul in the Epistles to Timothy; Linus was succeeded by Anacletus; after him, in the third place from the apostles, the bishopric fell to Clement, who had seen the blessed apostles and conversed with them, and still had their preaching ringing in his ears and their authentic tradition before his eyes. And he was not the only one; there were still many people alive who had been taught by the apostles. . . . In the same order and the same succession the authentic tradition received from the apostles and passed down by the Church, and the preaching of the truth, have been handed on to us.”
-St. Ireneaus (c. 130-200) Against Heresies
“But look at the men who have those perverted notions about the grace of Jesus Christ which has come down to us, and see how contrary to the mind of God they are. . . . They even abstain from the Eucharist and from the public prayers, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same body of our Savior Jesus Christ which flesh suffered for our sins, and which the Father of His goodness raised up again.“
-St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. AD 106; disciple of Peter and Paul) Epistle to the Smyrnaeans
“ It is to Peter himself that He says, ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church.’ Where Peter is, there is the Church. And where the Church, no death is there, but life eternal.”
-St. Ambrose of Milan (c. a.d 340 – 397) Commentaries on Twelve of David’s Psalms
“He has come too near to the truth, and has forgotten that truth is a magnet, with the powers of attraction and repulsion. . . . The moment men cease to pull against [the Catholic Church] they feel a tug towards it. The moment they cease to shout it down they begin to listen to it with pleasure. The moment they try to be fair to it they begin to be fond of it. But when that affection has passed a certain point it begins to take on the tragic and menacing grandeur of a great love affair. . . . When he has entered the Church, he finds that the Church is much larger inside than it is outside.”
-G. K. Chesterton The Catholic Church and Conversion - See more at: http://www.catholic-convert.com/about/why-im-catholic/#sthash.1N0YixpI.dpuf
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