Comment Re:So What? (Score 1) 669
And that's the problem with a lot of churches today.
The concept is "Sola Scriptura", that the entirety of revelation is found between the covers of the Bible. But if you read that Bible, Jesus never promised us a book. He promised us a Church led by the Holy Spirit. That's why we have a Pope and a hierarchical Church--there is exactly one truth out there, so you need a unified voice to express it. And mind you, not everything that comes out of the Pope's mouth is absolute truth; he's a person just like you and I, and he gets things wrong from time to time (and there have been some downright evil popes in history, but I digress...). If he's declaring a dogma, the Holy Spirit prevents him from being wrong. With everything else, he's as fallible as everybody else, which is why popes can contradict each other.
Some churches base their beliefs on the Bible. The Catholic Church canonized a Bible to contain many of their beliefs. Reading a Bible will teach much, but it takes divine intervention to properly interpret it.