Misunderstood Excerpts of Catholicism

The Introduction to Catholicism from a Baptist
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=102303145928

Here's my review:

Trevor Hammack starts this out great. He's got the right idea, and I admire that. Get it straight from the horse's mouth. He's starts out by using Catholic doctrine... which is good.. but he's takes short excerpts and uses them without understanding where they come from, why, and what they really mean. So he's gives his own meaning to them.

He's makes the argument that since Catholics and Protestants don't agree on everything, that they can't be "brothers" in faith. Just because people disagree on one belief, doesn't mean that they can't share another (more important) belief. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, par 838 says: "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter." And those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church."
Of course this is true, because we are all baptized in Christ and follow Him as our Lord and Savior. Does this mean that Catholics and Protestants are completely united in beliefs? No, most Christians aren't. Protestants separated, or excommunicated, themselves from the Catholic Church with the rise of Martin Luther. Hence the term "anathema." It's a declaration of excommunication... and who could blame them? Start your own church claiming that Jesus wasn't born of a virgin, and see if the Baptists will still consider you to be in full communion with their church.

Regarding the Magisterium, the Pope, and Papal Infallibility: First of all, the Pope generally (if not always) mades a statement Ex Cathedra only after first consulting the rest of the Magisterium. So you can't say that the Magisterium equals the Pope, because it doesn't. The Pope may be the head of the Magisterium, but he's not the entirety of it.

Papal Infallibility, is the doctrine that the Holy Spirit protects the Pope from teaching error when he speaks Ex Cathedra (from the chair of Peter). Or, to put simply, that the Holy Spirit will only allow him to speak what is true. It is NOT that whatever he says will become true when he says it.

Hammack claims to understand the doctrine, and yet still misrepresents it. He talks about the Spanish Inquisition, which is also widely misunderstood. (FYI: The inquisitions were brought about, and enforced, primarily because of political rather than religious agendas. And both Catholics and Protestants alike were subject to them.)

Hammack, of course, is "not saying that the Pope can't do this because he's infallible. No, he's only infallible in those certain areas we talked about."
... But this comes just after he quoted something that Pope John Paul II said, as if he had said it authoritatively (read: infallibly), when he didn't! That's like taking something I said while while showering, and presenting it as if I had written it in a contract. They do not hold the same weight, and to pretend that they do is, at best, intellectual slothfulness.

He rejects the authority of the Catholic Church, but readily promotes as infallible (not that I disagree) the Scriptures that they canonized. He takes the scriptures that the Catholic Church affirms as inspired and God-breathed, but only uses the parts that support his position, and adopts them as a rebuttal against their publisher. Just cut off someone's arm, twist it around, and slap them with it why don't you?