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Joseph Fielding Smith (10th prophet):
Question: "How can you claim that the Catholic Church is not the church established by the Savior when it is the only church which can substantiate a beginning from which it has never been separated? Every doctrine of Catholic faith has its source in the Bible, and it is the only church which has the trademarks of the church established by Jesus Christ."
Answer: Let us consider some evidences why we claim that the Catholic Church is not the church established by our Savior.
We will consider the question of continued revelation. There has not appeared in the Catholic world, nor in the Protestant world, one single divine revelation. John the Apostle, and successor to Peter, as he outlived Peter, was the only person recognized by the Lord since the death of Peter. No pope, since there has been a pope, has ever obtained a divine revelation from the heavens. In fact, Cardinal Gibbons declared that it was not the prerogative of the pope to receive revelations, but he was merely the interpreter of the scriptures, which have been given. To the contrary, the popes have closed the volume of scripture tightly and maintain that there can be no further scripture. Peter and Paul taught that the gift of prophecy--which would be scripture--is essential to the Church.
1) ORDINANCES AND COVENANTS WERE CHANGED
The Catholic Church changed the ordinances and covenants as they were given to the apostles of Jesus Christ and mixed them with pagan philosophy and practice.
a. Baptism which was for the remission of sins for all who were able to repent, was changed and made a solemn mockery. Baptism was for those who were capable of sinning. It was performed by immersion of the entire body in water. It was changed by the Catholic Church to sprinkling or pouring water on the head, which is definitely not a burial.
In Rome, there is a place where a pool once existed. There the converts went to be baptized by immersion which was the practice in the days of Christ, Peter and Paul, and in the first century the practice in Rome. Later it was changed to sprinkling or wetting the head with water. Thus the sacred ordinance was changed. Where is the revelation that was given changing this holy sacred ordinance? There is none!
b. Baptism, instead of being an ordinance for the remission of sins for those who were capable of understanding, was corrupted to apply to newly born infants, who could not sin and had not sinned! This is contrary to the words of our Savior who taught:
"Suffer the little children and forbid them not to come to me: for the kingdom of heaven is for such."
2) LITTLE CHILDREN ARE INNOCENT AT BIRTH
Little children are innocent when they are born into this world, and there is no taint of any kind upon them. Yet the Catholic Church has condemned all little children to dire punishment who were neglected and were not "baptized" when they were born and died without this sprinkling. I am a witness to this terrible doctrine where Catholic priests have refused to give "Christian burial" because a child was so unfortunate as to never have had this sprinkling before it died. This is a doctrine which assuredly the Lord will never forgive, and those who teach it will be damned. This doctrine, I admit, has been modified. In the Catholic Church in the earlier centuries, little children so dying were assigned to the torments of hell, but now this punishment is modified, but not by any revelation! I quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
The absolute necessity of this sacrament [baptism] is often insisted on by the Fathers of the church, especially when they speak of infant baptism. Thus St. Irenaeus (II, xxii): "Christ came to save all who are reborn through Him to God, infants, children and youths." St. Augustine (III De Anima) says: "If you wish to be a Catholic, do not believe, nor say, nor teach, that infants who die before baptism can obtain the remission of original sin." A still stronger passage from the same doctor (Ep. xvii, Ad. Hieron.) reads, "Whosoever says that even infants are vivified in Christ, when they depart this life without the participation of His Sacrament (baptism), both oppose the Apostolic preachings and condemn the whole church which hastens to baptize infants, because it unhesitatingly believes that otherwise they cannot possibly be vivified in Christ." Later Catholic scholars have modified this terrible doctrine as follows:
Catholic theologians are unanimous, consequently, in declaring that infants dying without baptism, are excluded from the beatific vision; but as to the exact state of these souls in the next world they are not agreed. In speaking of the souls who have failed to attain salvation, theologians distinguish the pain of loss (paena Domni), or privation of the beatific vision and the pain of sense (paena Sensus). While it is certain that unbaptized infants must endure the pain of loss, it is not at all certain that they are subject to the pain of sense. St. Augustine (De. Peca. at Mex, Ixvi) held that they would not be exempt from the pain of sense, but at the same time he thought it would be of the mildest form, On the other hand, St. Gregory Nazianzen (Or. in S. pap.) expressed the belief that such infants would suffer only the pain of loss.
Since the twelfth century, the opinion of the majority of theologians has been that unbaptized infants are immune from all pain of sense.
St. Augustine (Serm. xi. De. Verb Apost.) says of infant baptism, "This the church always had, always held; this she received from the faith of our ancestors; this she perseveringly guards even to the end." St. Cyprian (Ep. ad. Fidum) writes From baptism and from grace--must not be kept the infant who, because recently born has committed no sin, except inasmuch as it was born carnally from Adam, it has contracted the contagion of the ancient death in its first nativity; and it comes to receive the remission of sins more easily on this very account that not its own, but another's sins are forgiven it.
End of part 1