My foot is down.

It is my firm conviction that salvation from damnation is through Christ and Christ alone, that all are justified freely by the eternal redemption that is given us through Jesus’ propitiatory sacrifice, and that if a man confesses with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in his heart that God raised him from the dead, then he is saved. There is one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus, the Christ and Messiah.

This also means that I reject anything which would dilute that mediation and redemption. I reject the veneration of saints and of Mary, I reject a daily-repeated, church-officiated, transubtantiatory sacrifice, and I reject indulgences and purgatory and rosaries and scapulars and apparitions and anything else which burdens pure faith, which negates the “alone” in Christ alone.

In “A Papist Life for Me,” the InternetMonk captures perfectly the reasons that I retain a soft spot in my heart for the Roman Catholic faith, while also detailing the doctrinal issues which keep me from returning to the Romanist fold for the foreseeable future.

Ironically, I find some of my sentiments best expressed by a Catholic saint: Teresa of Avila.

Nada te turbe, Nada te espante;

Todo se pasa; Dios no se muda.

La paciencia todo lo alcanza.

Quien a Dios tiene, nada le falta.

Solo Dios basta.

That last line is key: God alone is sufficient.

Additional reading: Challies.com on Marian Devotion, and the Epistle to the Galatians.