Where to Look for Truth

I've been saved for 11 yrs now, but I was raised Roman Catholic.  After becoming saved I've wrestled with some of the Catholic ideas I embraced growing up (praying to and adoring Mary for example). I knew they were wrong and I no longer believed in them because they are not in the Bible, but what about my family and friends that still do those things?  I wanted to understand through the Bible where the ideas in Roman Catholicism come from and why they differ from Christianity.  If the Pope isn't mentioned in the Bible, where did someone get the idea to become Pope?  If purgatory isn't mentioned, where did it come from?  If praying to saints isn't mentioned, why do people do it?   If the virgin Mary is adored and prayed to, and that wasn't in the bible, where do those ideas come from? 

It's hard for me to remember exactly how I felt when I first argued against being saved, but I remember not trusting the Bible.  I didn't believe the Bible to be completely true, it was full of stories that taught lessons, but not true.  It was finally when God opened my heart and allowed me to see that every word of the Bible is true that I began to understand the plan of salvation that comes through the blood of Jesus.  It changed my life and I am so grateful! 

The Catholic Church claims to believe the Bible, yet now the Pope says that each word in the Bible isn't true, you can't trust a verse here or there, but only the overall meaning...if God's Word is really the direct Word of God then EVERY SINGLE WORD IS TRUE! 

"Bible's truth is found in its totality, not single phrases, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- While Catholics believe the Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit and that it is true, one cannot take individual biblical quotes or passages and say each one is literally true, Pope Benedict XVI said. "It is possible to perceive the Sacred Scriptures as the word of God" only by looking at the Bible as a whole, "a totality in which the individual elements enlighten each other and open the way to understanding," the pope wrote in a message to the Pontifical Biblical Commission. "It is not possible to apply the criterion of inspiration or of absolute truth in a mechanical way, extrapolating a single phrase or expression," the pope wrote in the message released May 5 at the Vatican. The commission of biblical scholars, an advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, met at the Vatican May 2-6 to continue discussions about "Inspiration and Truth in the Bible." In his message, the pope said clearer explanations about the Catholic position on the divine inspiration and truth of the Bible were important because some people seem to treat the Scriptures simply as literature while others believe that each line was dictated by the Holy Spirit and is literally true. Neither position is Catholic, the pope said. (emphasis added) "An interpretation of the sacred writings that disregards or forgets their inspiration does not take into account their most important and precious characteristic, that they come from God," he said. (http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20110505.htm)

The Catholic Catechism states:

81 "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."⁴²

"And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching."⁴³

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence. (emphasis added)"^{44 (http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s1c2a2.htm#81)}

So Catholics are held under two different authorities, the Bible and tradition (what the Pope declares).  
And the two differ on so many things, and where they differ tradition always wins over what the Bible teaches, such as whether Mary was sinless...

The Bible teaches that no one is sinless except Jesus.

"What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one" Romans 3:9 (wouldn't Paul have added, except Jesus' mother?)

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." 1 John 1:8

 The Catholic Catechism states:

491 Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, "full of grace" through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed in 1854:

The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin."  (http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p122a3p2.htm#490)