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Chapter 2  
     
1.
 The power of heresy is that the church, in particular the Catholic Church is supposed to trace its authority via apostolic succession to the Apostles of Jesus Christ.
  
2.
 Without this connection, without this authority, a decree by the Catholic Church, a decree by the Pope would carry no spiritual weight, only temporal authority depending upon its ability to arrest, imprison and ritually murder the convicted heretic according to the 1,600 year old laws of the church.
  
3.
 Up until the last couple of centuries, it didn’t matter much whether a person could prove the Catholic Church had no legitimate spiritual authority or not, its temporal authority was absolute. The Church controlled the lives of hundreds of millions and could kill who it wanted, when it wanted.
  
4.
 However, since the introduction of laws and the loss of the churches open ability to murder people with impunity, it must state its spiritual credibility as the prime force towards enforcing a claim of heresy.
  
5.
 The spiritual authority claimed by the Catholic Church is most simply described by the generalized claim that its doctrines are the authoritative understandings of the faith taught by Jesus also known as Christ. Therefore, to deny one or more of these doctrines is to deny the faith of Jesus Christ.
  
6.
 In support of this simplified claim, the Catholic Church also claims to have apostolic succession- that is a direct and unbroken line of spiritual leadership and laws handed down from the time of the first apostles of Jesus Christ, more specifically St. Peter until the present day.
  
7.
 Irenaeus the Christian Bishop of Lyons who first conceived of the christian model of heretical definition also came up with this supporting argument of apostolic succession, saying that the very words of Jesus himself stated he would support the Apostles through the power of the Holy Spirit until the End of Days, that if a break had occurred (and Irenaeus claimed none had), either it was the end, or the scriptures were wrong. Therefore, the spiritual leaders of the church are not just the authoritative successors of the apostles, including their spiritual powers, but the successors of orthodox dogma handed down (presumably without alteration).
  
8.
 Of course, once a case of modern heresy is brought forward, all kinds of complex quasi-legal arguments start to come to the table with the Church, citing dates, people, arguments, places and a whole raft of common church law precedents.
  
9.
 Yet for all of this, the spiritual authority of the Catholic Church to claim arguments as being heretical rests firstly and most importantly upon its claim to be the holders, protectors of the faith first formed by Jesus Christ himself.
  
10.
 For if the most fundamental cornerstone was ever challenged as itself being patently false, then the Catholic Church would indeed have no spiritual authority whatsoever to charge accusations of heresy against any person.
  
11.
 Indeed, if Christianity was found to have not been the true faith originally formed by Jesus Christ and the apostles, but a terrible and brilliant fraud created by opponents to hijack the faith, then the Catholic Church would indeed itself be the single greatest heretical group in human history.
  
12.
 Let us then investigate the possibility and evidence of this fraud and greatest of heresies.
  

 
 
 

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