Page "Liberal Catholic Church" Paragraph 16

The Liberal Catholic Church believes that there is a body of doctrine and mystical experience common to all the great religions of the world and which cannot be claimed as the exclusive possession of any.

Moving within the orbit of Christianity and regarding itself as a distinctive Christian church it nevertheless holds that the other great religions of the world are also divinely inspired and that all proceed from a common source, though religions may stress different aspects of the various teachings and some aspects may even temporarily be ignored.

These teachings, as facts in nature, rest on their own intrinsic merit.

They form that true catholic faith which is catholic because it is the statement of universal principles.

The LCC bases these beliefs on what St. Augustine said: " The identical thing that we now call the Christian religion existed among the ancients and has not been lacking from the beginnings of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, from which moment on the true religion, which already existed, began to be called Christian.

" ( Retract I. XIII, 3 ).