"There are so many churches called Christian (naming some of them) that not one of them, including the Catholic Church, can be called The Christian Church to the exclusion of the others."

   First I want to say emphatically NO, in answer to your friend's inquiry as to whether I "think that the people in Protestant Churches are less sincere in claiming to belong to the Church of Christ than Catholics are?" Though this fact must be noted, that Catholics far exceed Protestants relatively in certitude as to the Christ-status of their Church.
   The divisions your friend refers to exist in the Protestant and not the Catholic world. It is called by Protestants "the sin of disunity." I have before me a copy of "Will Protestantism Be Overthrown?" in which the author, Henry Wallace Dowding (Protestant) of Norfolk, VA, bemoans the

"Present state of Christianity, its divided and sub-divided forces . . . in the face of the world's greatest need, which is almost criminal and suicidal."

He proceeds to say,

"Glance around you and you will not find another such group of 200,000,000 souls without a court of final appeal; divided into hundreds of separate camps, each forming its own creed; making its own laws; placing its own interpretation upon the Bible; composing its own hymns, choosing its own music; emphasizing its own ordinances; but, refusing to recognize the validity of each others ministry, or even membership, to say nothing of absolute refusal on the part of some denominations or sects to acknowledge the sincerity and efficiency of others. Then adding to the absurdity of it all they include in their hymnal such unifying songs as `Onward Christian Soldiers . . .We are Not Divided, All One Body We, One in Faith and Doctrine, One in Charity.' But it is claimed that Christ is the head of these divided camps" (pp. 20-21).

   It is no surprise to find your Jewish friend confused, unable to understand how any one of the many churches can legitimately claim to be the one and the only Church of Christ. Nearly all the converts from the Synagogue to the Church whom I have known personally, have been checked for a time from entering the Catholic Church on account of doubts as to which Church in divided Christendom is the Church of Christ. Some of them have joined Protestant churches before realizing that the Catholic Church alone has the credentials to rightly claim to be The Christ-established Church. Yet there are certain characteristics, designated as "marks" by the Catholic Church, by which the identity of the Church Christ established may be plainly recognized. Those marks are the credentials the Catholic Church presents to substantiate her exclusive claim. They are Oneness, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity.

ONE

   Christ established one Church and not two hundred, or even two churches. It must therefore be the sole authoritative representative of Christ. It must be one doctrinally and organizationally. The Church was made up, in the beginning, of the Apostles selected by Christ Himself; it was a priestly, teaching body, with which Christ promised to remain until the end of the world (St. Matt. 28:20). Being a visible spiritual organism it must have a visible head; that head was Peter, as I said in my last letter, which I hope you will show to your friend. Its continued existence with a visible head, if it was to endure until the end of the world, necessitated the selection of a successor to Peter upon his death, followed by other successive occupants of the Chair of Peter; just as an occupant of the Chair of Washington (which was instituted in Philadelphia in 1787) had to be selected when President Washington's term of office expired, if the U.S.A. was to continue with a presidential Chief Executive. Hence upon the death of Peter, Linus was selected as successor, then came Cletus, and so on until the selection of Pope Pius XII, the 262 occupants of the Chair of Peter that Christ established.
   If your friend is in doubt as to which Church is truly Christ's Church, let him trace the occupants of the Chair of Peter from Pope Pius XII, the only claimant of that office in the whole world, back to Pope Peter. He will find it as easy as tracing the legitimacy of the claim of Franklin D. Roosevelt, that he is the one, and the only, occupant of the Chair of Washington, back through the list of 31 presidents to the first head of our Nation. This same principle applies to the true Church of Israel. It can be traced through the eighty High Priests from Aaron to Phineas, the last one, who reigned at the time of the destruction of the Temple. Your friend may see the list of Popes in the World's Almanac, the leading secular encyclopedias, and the Catholic Directory. Complete copies of the writings of Josephus usually contain a list of Jewish High Priests. These may no doubt be found in the New Bedford Public Library.
       Christ commissioned His Church to

"Teach all nations to observe all that I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world" (St. Matt. 28:16-20).

   By this command, Christ ordered one creed to be taught, not "the hundreds of creeds," whatever they may be, that Henry Wallace Dowding referred to in "Will Protestantism Be Overthrown?" That oneness of creed is found in the Catholic Church with its 340,000,000 communicants, and not in the hundreds of Protestant Churches with their 200,000,000 members.
   If Christ remained with His Church, as promised, it must be a Church that teaches Christ's truths, otherwise Christ would be in error. It must be a Church that teaches and administers the sacraments and offers the Sacrifice that Christ instituted. It cannot be those churches that deny even one of those teachings and practices, by, for instance, officiating at marriages of divorced persons, as that would be a denial of Christ, the Author of the sacrament of matrimony, who said "what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" (St. Matt. 19:6).

HOLY

   The Church must be holy, having as its Founder the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Holiness Personified. It must teach and administer the holy means of sanctification that Christ instituted. Its holiness must manifest in the Communicants who follow its code of morals. This holiness is seen in the great number of Catholic canonized saints, only to refer to those who can be named with positive proof of saintliness to an heroic degree. In the world, holiness is especially apparent in the hundreds of thousands of men and women who forego ordinary, legitimate pleasures of life, and take the vows of obedience, chastity and poverty in order to give their whole time and talents to prayer and service in their cloisters, in schools, hospitals, and holy social service work.

CATHOLIC

   The Church of Christ must be catholic, in the sense of being universal, existing during all the Christian ages, teaching all nations the same universal doctrines and practices. The Church of Christ began in Jerusalem, hence the universality of the Church, its catholicity, must have begun there and spread throughout the world from thence.

APOSTOLIC

   The Church of Christ must be apostolic in origin. It must have a continuous existence from the days of the first Bishops (presbyteri or episcopi), the Apostles, to the present bishops who are their successors. St. Clement, the fourth pope, said in the first century,

"Christ was sent by God, the Apostles by Christ. They appointed bishops and deacons . . . and they made order that when they (the bishops and deacons) died, other men of tried virtue should succeed in the ministry" (Clement xlii, xliv).

   The bishops of the Catholic Church today are a unit under the authority of the Chief Bishop, the holder of the Keys that Christ gave to Peter, as the Apostles were a unit under Peter himself. Hence the apostolic origin of the Church can best be traced through the occupants of the Chair of Peter, Bishops of the Roman See which was instituted by Peter and Paul. The Church of Christ must be apostolic in the sense of teaching the same creed that the apostles taught.
   This is the standard alone by which your friend may determine for himself which Church may rightly claim to be of Christ. I say Church, and not churches, as only one Church is of Christ's making. The Church that has the four-fold character enumerated is the Church of Christ, to the exclusion of all the others, irrespective of the sincerity or insincerity of their adherents, or the goodness of their personal conduct.
   With this norm of judgment, let us look at five of the churches your friend named, viz. - the Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican and Lutheran churches. While the true Church of Christ must have all of these four marks, let us set aside the question of the oneness and Catholicity of them (which not one of them possesses) and their holiness (which they all have to some degree) and look at these five largest Protestant churches from the point of view of their apostolicity. This is perfectly legitimate, as the true Church of Christ must date back historically to the Apostles.
   The U.S. Report of Religious Bodies lists the existence of 19 different kinds of Methodist Churches. The first one established was the Wesleyan Methodist Church, which came into existence as a revolt against the Church of England. It owed its existence to a well-respected and able Anglican minister, John Wesley. The non-existence of any Methodist Church before that revolt in 1739 scratches it from your list. It is the Wesley-made Church of the eighteenth century, and not the Christ-made church of apostolic times.
   There are 17 different kinds of Baptist Churches functioning today. The original one was the General and Arminian Baptist Church. It owed its existence as a separate Protestant sect to John Smyth and his band of Separatists, who fled from England to Holland in 1606 to escape persecution. Their first church was established in Amsterdam in 1608. Returning to England, he, in association with pastor Thomas Helwys, founded the Baptist Church in London, England in 1611. This Church may be scratched from your friend's list, as there is no record of the existence of a Baptist Church during the lifetime of the Apostles.
   There are nine different kinds of Presbyterian churches. The original one is the Scottish Presbyterian Church. It owes its existence to "ex-priest" John Knox, who upon his return from Geneva, filled with Calvinistic beliefs, founded it in 1560 after succeeding in getting the Parliament of Scotland to abolish "papal jurisdiction," prohibiting the celebration of Mass, and imposing the death penalty upon persons who assist in such a Sacrifice. Your friend may run his pen through this Church which he assumes has as much right to call itself the Church of Christ as has the Catholic Church, as it was inspired in Scotland and not in Palestine.
   The Anglican (Church of England Episcopal) Church existing today owes its origin to Queen Elizabeth and her Parliament (1559). She, like the present King of England, was the Supreme Spiritual head of the Anglican Church. Its archbishops and bishops were then and are today a part of the Government, having seats for life in the House of Lords. Bishops in the 16th century were bound by oath to the Crown as head of their Church, as they are today. The oath reads in part as follows,

"I do verily testify and declare Your Majesty is the Supreme Governor of this realm, in spiritual and ecclesiastical things, as well as temporal . . ."