Alright, I'll stop putting words in your mouth (buildings-Church) if you stop putting words in mine (the Church failed).

What you see as a failure, I see as a step in the sanctification of the Church's members, just as Christ had to be brought low and trampled upon, so it is with Holy Church.

Did God fail by seeming to have been defeated by the Pharisees?  No.  Has the Church failed by seeming to have been defeated, by the Freemasons?  Not at all.

If there is no Pope, the Church has failed.

Stevus, I think that position is backing yourself into a corner.

I think one has to consider prophecy.

Here's a limited preview of Cardinal Manning's book:

The Pope and the Antichrist

If there is no Pope, the Church has failed.

If the conciliar Vatican Institution leaders are Popes the Church has failed.

For in that case your Church is like any other Chruch that teaches some truth and some errors but has no leader that is protected with Charism of infallibility and which is not protected by indefectability.  The Catholic Church is indefectable.  The N.O. is very defectable.  

This is what you fail to see, willfully or not, I don't know.  But you refuse to see it.

A Pope cannot teach heresies which your "popes" have repeatedly done.  

It is not a matter of engaging the "modern" man.  We are the same as men from the beggining of time but with more gadgets.  It is a matter of contradicting intrinsic truths such as the fact that there is no salvation outside the Church which is practically the opposite of what Father Ratzinger teaches and has always taught.  Such as the fact that the Catholic Church calls for the heretics to return to the Church which is the complete opposite of what Father Ratzinger teaches.  In fact he does not want us converting the Jews or the Orthodox.

The Catholic Church does not enforce evil disciplines such as allowing heretics to recieve the Sacrament of unity which Father Ratzinger allows.  The Catholic Church does not search for Truth (as if she does not already have) with the heretics as Ratzinger does.

The Catholic Church does not teach that the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church are not one and the same as Father Ratzinger does.  The Catholic Church does not patently reject the teachings against in the Oath Against Modernism as Ratzinger does.

What more do you need?  If a Pope can do all this why have a pope?  What purpose does he serve.

Quote from: stevusmagnus

If there is no Pope, the Church has failed.

So it has failed nearly 300 times?

I would suspect Stevus is referring to the loss of a visible head to maintain unity and the apostolic nature of the Church.

Not an interregnum.

So it failed during the Great Western Schism?

There was still a valid pope.

t is not a matter of engaging the "modern" man.  We are the same as men from the beggining of time but with more gadgets.

And less brains.  Less health.  Less land.

All these gadgets are man's way of either dealing with the consequences of sin, or distracting himself from God.

That's a good quote.  I agree that the hierarchy and sacraments are external necessarily visible, which is the essence of your argument.  However, this quote does nothing to shake my resolve that joining in communion with a heretical hierarchy and receiving sacrilegious Sacraments is wrong.

I also maintain that the Church is external and visible in her members who reject the heretical hierarchy and continue to profess their faith in the hope of converting souls.

I'm not.