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Roman Catholicism: Popedom - An Overview of the History of the Papacy
An Overview of the History of the Papacy
By Richard Bennett
Because of the fascination of the world with the office of the Pope and his power, it is important to study the topic historically and in the light of Biblical truth. This article is an overview of the history of the Papacy from its inception to rule of Pope John Paul II. A biblical analysis of the basis on which the Office of the Papacy claims to be the Rock of Matthew 16:18 is found on our Webpage: www.bereanbeacon.org
Early church at Rome
The church at Rome was in the beginning a community of brothers and sisters, guided by a few of the brothers. The four Gospels and letters of the Apostles settled the great questions of doctrine. A pompous title and position of one man lording it over the others did not exist, as such is forbidden by the Holy Scriptures. The lives of the believers and the doctrine taught were in accord with the Lord’s words, “One is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.”[1] The Scriptures, however, warned that from the midst of the brotherhood would arise a power that would attempt to destroy the Gospel and the simple brotherhood of believers. This was nowhere more graphically fulfilled than in the rise of the Office of the Papacy out of the church that had been established in Rome.
Gradual rise of Papal Rome
The respect enjoyed by the various Christian elders in the second century was roughly proportionate to the rank of the city in which they resided. At that time, Rome was the largest, richest, most powerful city in the world, the queen of the Imperial Roman Empire. If Rome was the queen of cities, why should she not be the one to have a bishop to be the king of bishops? Thus, even when pagan Rome fell to the barbarian nations, some of the political esteem that she had won from the nations of the earth remained. The Barbarian overthrow of the Western Roman Empire was succeeded by the gradual rise of Papal Rome. Gradually, bishops from different parts of the empire, seeing themselves as above ordinary elders, yielded to the bishops of Rome some portion of the honor similar to that which the world gives to a prince. From this approbation, the Bishops of Rome began to demand submission as the third, fourth, and fifth centuries passed. In these centuries also, as the true Gospel was watered down, there came in its place the growth of ritualism in the churches, in which true worship of God and the inner conviction of the Holy Spirit was replaced by ceremonialism and idolatry. Pagan practices took on a veneer of Christianity. The clergy-laity division of the people of God became the accepted base. This further devolved into a hierarchy of the ruling clergy. By the end of the fifth century, the early ministers of the Gospel, who had taught the Scripture, had become replaced by a sacrificing priesthood in which the priest presumed to mediate between God and men. The church was no more the fellowship of believers under Christ Jesus, but rather an institution dominated by a hierarchy, with the most powerful individual being the Bishop of Rome.[2]
Bishop of Rome becomes the Pope
The power of the Bishop of Rome ascended as the imperial power of the Emperor declined. Edicts of the Emperor Theodosius II and of Valentinian III proclaimed the Roman bishop “as Rector of the whole Church.” The Emperor Justinian, who was living in the East in Constantinople, in the sixth century published a similar decree. These proclamations did not create the office of the Pope but from the sixth century there was such advancement of power and prestige that from that time the title of “Pope” began to fit the one who was Bishop of Rome.[3]
Fraudulent documents aid rise of Papacy
It was not until the middle of the eight century that serious contentions were made claiming the transfer of power and authority from the Emperor Constantine to the Bishop of Rome. The Donation of Constantine was purported to be the legal document in which the Emperor Constantine donated to Sylvester, the Bishop of Rome (314-335), much of his property and invested him with great spiritual power and authority. The vastness and splendor of the inheritance allegedly given by Constantine to Sylvester in the spurious document is seen the following quotation from the manuscript,
“We attribute to the See of Peter all the dignity, all the glory, all the authority of the imperial power. Furthermore, we give to Sylvester and to his successors our palace of the Lateran, which is incontestably the finest palace on the earth; we give him our crown, our miter, our diadem, and all our imperial vestments; we transfer to him the imperial dignity. We bestow on the holy Pontiff in free gift the city of Rome, and all the western cities of Italy. To cede precedence to him, we divest ourselves of our authority over all those provinces, and we withdraw from Rome, transferring the seat of our empire to Byzantium; inasmuch as it is not proper that an earthly emperor should preserve the least authority, where God hath established the head of his religion.”[4]
The Donation of Constantine was probably forged a little before A.D. 754. Of it, Wylie says,
“In it Constantine is made to speak in the Latin of the eighth century, and to address Bishop Sylvester as ‘Prince of the Apostles, Vicar of Christ’. During more than 600 years Rome impressively cited this deed of gift, inserted it in her codes, permitted none to question its genuineness, and burned those who refused to believe in it. The first dawn of light in the sixteenth century sufficed to discover the cheat. In the following century another document of a like extraordinary character was given to the world. We refer to the Decretals of Isidore. These were concocted about the year 845. They professed to be a collection of the letters, rescripts, and bulls of the early pastors of the Church of Rome…The writer, who professed to be living in the first century, painted the Church of Rome in the magnificence which she attained only in the ninth, and made the pastors of the first age speak in the pompous words of the Popes of the Middle Ages. Abounding in absurdities, contradiction, and anachronisms, it affords a measure of the intelligence of the age that accepted it as authentic…It became the foundation of the canon law, and continues to be so, although there is not now a Popish writer who does not acknowledge it to be a piece of imposture.”[5]
As early as 865, Pope Nicholas drew from these forgeries a way to demand submission from bishops and princes. The arrogance of the popes grew from this time onward. Popes became intoxicated with their own pride; some in their teens and twenties lost their senses in drunken immorality.[6] The infamous women of history, Theodora and Marozia, for many years governed the papal throne. That unholy See, pretending to rise above the majesty of kings and bishops, was sunk in the dregs of sin. Theodora and Marozia installed and deposed at their pleasure those who sat in the pretended chair of St. Peter. For two centuries, the Papacy was one wild arena of disorders as the most powerful families of Italy disputed and fought over it like a possession.
Lusts of the mind
The year 1073 was a turning point from the centuries of gross immorality. Rigorous discipline filled the papacy. Reaching above the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of papal minds began to clutch at the things of God. Pope Gregory VII, the noted Hildebrand, ambitious beyond all who had preceded him, took to himself the idea that the reign of the Pope was but another name for the reign of God. He resolved never to rest until he had subjected all authority and power, both spiritual and temporal, to the “chair of Peter”. Hildebrand’s successors continued his project, and strove by trickery, by arms, by crusades and by anathemas, to place the world under the scepter of the papal throne. For two centuries from the time of Hildebrand’s reign, the papacy increased in power and glory, and was maintained by thousands of destroyed lives, many deposed kings and princes, many sacked cities, and many fields deluged with blood.
Popes Innocent III (1216) and Boniface VIII (1303) put the final touches to Papal triumph in spiritual and temporal power. Seventy-five popes, one after another, from Pope Innocent Pope Pius VII, approved of torture, murder, and burning at the stake, and the confiscation of property of believers in the horrific centuries of the Inquisition.[7] Many of those slain were true Bible believers.
“The most ghastly abomination of all was the system of torture. The accounts of its cold-blooded operations make one shudder at the capacity of human beings for cruelty. And it was decreed and regulated by the Popes who claim to represent Christ on earth. In 1252 Pope Innocent IV solemnly authorized it. Confirmatory or regulatory decrees about it were issued by Alexander IV, Clement IV, Urban IV and Clement V.”[8]
The Papacy had become “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.”[9] No other kingdom or power has ever drunken so deeply of this blood as had Papal Rome. Thus as streams are traced to the fountain, so is the Papacy traced to the prophecies of Scripture, which correctly interprets the Papacy. This is “the same horn [that] made war with the saints, and prevailed against them.”[10] “And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.”[11]
The Papacy and Modern Times
A partial list of the successes of the Papacy under Roman Catholic dictators in twentieth century includes: Adolf Hitler in Germany, 1933-1945; Benito Mussolini in Italy, 1922-1943; Francisco Franco in Spain, 1936-1975; Antonio Salazar in Portugal, 1932-1968; Juan Peron in Argentina, 1946-1955; Ante Pavelic in Croatia, 1941-1945; and Engelbert Dollfuss and Kurt von Schuschnigg in Austria, 1932-1934. The Vatican’s legal agreement with those nations is well known; few, however, see the Nazism of Germany and the Fascism of Italy, Spain, Portugal, Croatia, and Latin America as consequences of the Papacy’s economic and social teachings, and legal agreements between the Vatican and these nations.[12] The Crusades and the 605 years of the Inquisition have stopped, but the power of the Papacy to influence and to control governments, social, economic, political life and the destinies of peoples, has continued.
Power through law
What had looked like a mortal wound to Papal power took place in 1798.[13] A general of Napoleon’s army entered the Vatican, removing Pope Pius VI from his throne; and so it was that Popedom lost its basis as a civil power. Pope Pius IX, not having territorial or civil power, sought to re-establish the Papacy. An internally important part of his design brought about the declaration of Papal infallibility. With remarkable ingenuity against not only the Scriptural absurdity of the concept, but also in spite of the historical fact of heretical popes, this was made doctrine at Vatican Council I in 1870. Further, the Papacy re-established itself internally by re-organizing Roman Catholic law into the 1917 Code of Canon Law.[14] The apparent mortal wound of 1798 was to be healed in 1929 when under Mussolini, the Vatican was again recognized as a civil power and seated on all seven hills. The concordat with Mussolini was just the beginning of many civil concordats, one of the most infamous being that between Pope Pius XII and Adolf Hitler.[15] The Papacy had again consolidated its power from within by the 1917 Code of Canon Law and from without by legal concordats with the various nations. Thus the Vatican, with its own citizens as part of sovereign nations across the world and with her civil agreements with the same nations, has a double cord of power. The individual Catholic, fearing for his salvation, and laden with his first allegiance being to “holy Mother Church” is a pliable pawn in the hand of the Papacy.[16]
The major change of direction made visible by Vatican Council II (1962-1965). That council moved from separation from other religions to false ecumenism, not only with the religions of the world, but also with Bible believers in particular. “Separated brethren” was a new term for those always considered heretics, while the pagan religions of Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism now became accepted ways to God.[17] This new approach was established by the RCC to win the world to herself by means of dialogue, the rules and goal of which she has carefully spelled out in her post-Conciliar Document No. 42 on ecumenism, which states that “dialogue is not an end in itself….it is not just an academic discussion.”[18] Rather, “ecumenical dialogue…serves to transform modes of thought and behavior and the daily life of those [non-Catholic] communities. In this way, it aims at preparing the way for their unity of faith in the bosom of a Church one and visible.”[19]
The Pope’s official position is that “ecumenical encounter is not merely an individual work, but also a task of the [RC] Church, which takes precedence over all individual opinions.”[20] The Papacy expects this process of dialogue to take time. The Roman Catholic Church’s stated aim of bringing all Christian churches under her authority is clearly her goal. She says,
“…little by little, as the obstacles to perfect ecclesial communion are overcome, all Christians will be gathered, in a common celebration of the Eucharist [the Mass] into that unity of the one and only Church….This unity, we believe, dwells in the Catholic Church as something we can never lose.”[21]
Pope John Paul II, while initially having been thought to be liberal and modern, consolidated further the dictatorial powers afforded him by the 1917 Code of Canon Law and by his purported infallibility, bequeathed him by Vatican Council I. This he did by revising the 1917 Code, making it even more conservative than it had been, and has been careful to appoint new bishops in line with his centralized way of thinking.
Like another Hildebrand, John Paul II is determined to build, by both Church and civil law, the structure by which the Papacy can again at the appropriate time wield might and power among the nations.[22] This same Pope John Paul II has been adamant in his efforts to update the laws of the Roman Catholic Church. Since the days of Hildebrand, popes have seen the necessity of making iron and inflexible church laws before attempting to control her subjects and those not Catholic by compulsion and violence, if necessary. In 1983, John Paul II’s revision of the 1917 Code of Canon Law added to the Roman Catholic laws, for example, “The Church has an innate and proper right to coerce offending members of the Christian faithful by means of penal sanctions.”[23] Examination of these laws shows them to be even more absolute and totalitarian than those of the past. If one rejects submission of his intellect and will to the Pope, or some of the other laws of the Papacy, Canon 1371, Para. 1 states that “The following are to be punished with a just penalty: 1 a person who…teaches a doctrine condemned by the Roman Pontiff….” Canon 1312 outlines specified penalties that are to be carried out, “Para. 2. The law can establish other expiatory penalties which deprive a believer of some spiritual or temporal good and are consistent with the supernatural end of the Church.”
The perverse vindictiveness of these laws contravenes the repeated Scriptural commands to be not despotic, as are the rulers of this world. From the creation of the Papacy in the sixth century, its heart has been that of law and force. Grace and the Gospel have been superseded by decrees and coercion. A veneer of Christianity has always been upheld, yet this surface ritual religion has always repressed and persecuted true godliness. The history of the Papacy shows that unequivocally it is a power structure built on forgeries, craft, persecution, a false gospel, church law, civil power, and concordats. Nonetheless, the Papacy for most of its history has succeeded in deluding millions. Present day Catholicism continues to insist that its Papal Office is of God, and the world for the most part bows down before her shrine and her Christ, the Pontiff himself. ¨
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Endnotes
[1] Matthew 23:8.
[2] See J. A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism, originally published in 1878 (Kilkeel, N. Ireland: Mourne Missionary Trust, 1985) Vol. I, Book I, pp. 3-14. See also J. H. Merle D’Aubigne, History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, A New Translation (New York: John B. Alden, Publisher, 1883) Book I, pp.1-34.
[3] D’Aubigne, Book I, p. 81.
[4] Quoted from copy of the document in Pope Leo’s letter in Hardouin’s Collection, Epistola I., Leonis Papoe IX; Acta Conciliorumet Epistoloe Decretales, tom. 6, pp. 934; Parisiis, 1714. The English reader will find a copy of the pretended original document in full in Historical Essay on the Power of the Popes, Vol. II, Appendix, Tr. from French, London, 1838
[5] Wylie, Vol. I, p. 29-30. See also Roman Catholic historian Ignaz Von Dollinger, The Pope and the Council, Auth. Tr. from German, 2nd ed. (London: Rivingtons, 1869) Sect. 7 “Forgeries”, pp. 94-142.
[6] Peter De Rosa, Vicars of Christ: The Dark Side of the Papacy (New York, NY: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1988) p. 47-56.
[7] De Rosa, p. 175.
[8] William Shaw Kerr, A Handbook on the Papacy (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott Ltd., 1950) p. 239.
[9] Revelation 17:6.
[10] Daniel 7:21.
[11] Revelation 13:7.
[12] For fuller documentation of this see John W. Robbins, Ecclesiastical Megalomania: The Economic and Political Thought of the Roman Catholic Church (Unicoi, TN 37692-0068: The Trinity Foundation,1999) ISBN: 0-940931-52-4.
[13] “Edward King, insightful in 1800 wrote about this defeat as the mortal wound or end of Pontifical Power, “THIS IS THE YEAR 1798.—And just 1260 years ago, in the very beginning of the year 538, Belisarius put an ed to the Empire, and Dominion of the Goths, at Rome…He had entered the City on the 10th of the preceding December, in triumph, in the name of Justinian, Emperor of the East: and had soon after made it tributary to him: leaving thenceforward from A.D. 538 NO POWER in Rome, that could be said to rule over the earth,¾excepting the ECCLESIASTICAL PONTIFICAL POWER.” Remarks on the Signs of the Times (Philadelphia ed., 1800) pp. 18-19 in LeRoy Edwin Froom, The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers (Washington, DC: Review and Herald, 1950) Vol. II, p. 767.
[14] RC writer John Cornwell states, “At the turn of the century [1900], Pacelli [later Pope Pius XII]…collaborated in redrafting the Church’s laws in such a way as to grant future popes unchallenged domination from the Roman center. These laws, separated from their ancient historical and social background, were packaged in a manual known as the Code of Canon Law, published and brought into force in 1917. The code, distributed to Catholic clergy throughout the world, created the means of establishing, imposing, and sustaining a remarkable new ‘top-down’ power relationship. As papal nuncio in Munich and Berlin during the 1920s, Pacelli sought to impose the new code, state by state, on Germany.…” Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York, 10014: Viking, 1999) p. 6.
[15] Cornwell, p. 7 “In 1933 Pacelli found a successful negotiating partner for his Reich Concordat in the person of Adolf Hitler. Their treaty authorized the papacy to impose the new Church law on German Catholics and granted generous privileges to Catholic schools and the clergy. In exchange, the Catholic Church in Germany, its parliamentary political party, and its many hundreds of associations and newspapers ‘voluntarily’ withdrew, following Pacelli’s initiative, from social and political action. The abdication of German political Catholicism in 1933, negotiated and imposed from the Vatican by Pacelli with the agreement of Pope Pius XI, ensured that Nazism could rise unopposed by the most powerful Catholic community in the world…”
[16] See RC author Cornwell and Presbyterian author Robbins.
[17] No. 56, Nostra Aetate, 28 October 1965, Austin P. Flannery, Ed., Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B Eerdmans Publ. Co., 1975, 1984).
[18] Vatican 11 documents, No. 42, “Reflections and Suggestions Concerning Ecumenical Dialogue”, S.P.U.C., 15 August 1975, p. 549.
[19] Vatican 11 documents, No. 42, pp. 540-1. Bolding in any quotation indicates emphasis added in this paper.
[20] Vatican 11 documents, No. 42, p.545.
[21] Vatican 11 documents, No. 42, p. 541.
[22] For more details see our article on Vatican Prepares to Control Through Civil Law.
[23] Code of Canon Law Latin-English ed. (Washington DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1983) Canon 1311. All canons are taken from this source.
Roman Catholicism: The Claim to have the Keys of the Apostle Peter
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The Claim to have the Keys of the Apostle Peter Popedom: Its Nature and Purpose Part II: |
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A holdover of medieval tyranny, the Papacy is the bulwark and foundation of the Church of Rome. It also is the pride and joy of devoted Catholics, giving them, they are assured, a direct link to Jesus Christ. And in these latter days, it appears that the world has rekindled its love of the Papacy. Against the voices of Scripture, history and reason, the Papacy declares its Church to be founded on the Apostle Peter alone, stating that he was the first bishop of Rome thus bequeathing all of his authority to subsequent Popes and Bishops. This is the lynch pin of Roman Catholicism. Officially the Church of Rome states, "The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the 'rock' of his Church..This pastoral office of Peter and the other apostles belongs to the Church's very foundation and is continued by the bishops under the primacy of the Pope." [1] The whole Roman Catholic structure is based on three false presuppositions: 1. That the text of Matthew 16:16-20 means that Peter was the foundation of the Church; that the Church was built on him; 2. That Peter went to Rome and was the first bishop in Rome; 3. That Peter's successors are the bishops of Rome under the primacy of the Pope. (It is worth mentioning here, that the list of Popes concocted by Rome is a fable. In its humble beginning, the church at Rome was guided by a plurality of elders, and not one single bishop. Then throughout its latter history, as two, even three, concurrent Popes vied for the throne, intrigue and deceit crowned the victor.) Presupposition 1: The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the "rock" of his Church, i.e. foundation of His Church. " And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ." (Matthew 16:16-20). Here we are taught that whatever contemporaries apprehended Christ to be, plainly the disciples had a distinct knowledge of Him, expressed without hesitation by Peter on their behalf. The Lord attributes this intuitive knowledge that He was " the Christ " (Anointed-Messiah) and " the Son of the Living God " (Co-eternal with the Father and therefore likewise God) to be a revelation from His Father in heaven. It is this revelation, the Lord declared, that would become the rock, or foundation stone, upon which He would build His Church. This cannot be argued against, as it is the very concluding subject of the Lord's charge to the disciples, " Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. " To hold the view that Peter himself is the rock is to deliberately pervert the plain sense of the Lord's own words. To infer that the Church was built upon a mere man, and not upon God's revelation of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God , is to insult Christ's doctrine and corrupt God's Word. Peter could be the foundation for nothing, being called "Satan," [2] or adversary, by the Lord Himself, and later, formally rebuke by the Apostle Paul for compromising the Gospel message. [3] The Holy Spirit confirmed the true meaning of the verse by having it written in Greek. The word for Peter in Greek is petros . It is masculine in gender and signifies a piece of rock, larger than a stone. In contrast, the word for rock in Greek is petra . It is feminine in gender, describing bedrock, massive in size, and immovable. The Church was thus founded upon a massive bedrock, not a mere chip of granite. That bedrock is the God-given revelation by the Father in heaven. Congruent with this revelation is the distinct commission given to Peter in verse 19. "Unto thee" , that is, to Peter personally, was given the " keys of the kingdom of heaven." This prophetic declaration of the Lord was literally fulfilled when Peter was made the first instrument of opening the same revelation to the Jews, "God hath made that same Jesus...both Lord and Christ" (Acts 2:36), and to the Gentiles, (Acts 10:34-44). The power of the keys was concerning this same revelation of the Person of Christ, actuated by the initial proclamation of this revelation to the Jews and to the Gentiles and was fulfilled by the Apostle Peter, and by him alone. Succession to this prophetic commission cannot be countenanced, since there was but one first opening of the kingdom for the Jews as for the Gentiles. The second part of verse 19 was a commission for the responsibility of binding and loosening. This is concerning Church discipline and was given as well to the other Apostles, as is seen in Matthew 18:18. The whole focus, therefore, of the Matthew 16:16-20 text is on the divinity of Jesus as " the Son of the living God, " and His role as Messiah or Christ, this is the rock on which the Church is built. The Preposterous claims for a Pontiff Christ The Roman Catholic Church abuses Matthew 16:16-20, twisting it to say that Peter, as first Pope, had the divine attribute of infallibility and that he also is the Christ, having the title of "the true vicar of Christ." [4] What is such absurdity but understanding the Lord's words to mean that Peter was also "the Son of the living God" and "the Christ". "Nay!" Rome will say, "We claim not such." But logic will endure no other path for their folly. She may not have worded it thus, but reasoned understanding of her doctrine does. To take the doctrine of Jesus being " the Son of the living God " and " the Christ " and to apply it to Peter and his self-styled successors, the Roman Pontiffs, is at once, a most ludicrous and horrendous assumption of the offices of the Lord. This is precisely what the Roman Catholic Church does. Further, she not only claims the divine attribute of infallibility for her Pope, her equivalent to being " the Son of the living God ", she also decrees that the Pope is rightly called "Most Holy," [5] and the "Holy Father" [6] , usurping the very title of the first person of the Trinity. Christ's power and the Pontiff Christ's power Jesus as the Christ has full, supreme, and universal power. This prerogative is His alone and any pretension by another is heinous and despicable. Yet the Church of Rome does not blush to claim the same power which is solely Christ's, for her Pope, "[T]he Roman Pontiff...as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered." [7] Consequent to Christ Jesus being the very Son of God is the necessity for every human creature to be entirely subject to Him in faith and practice. This is what Rome also holds for her Supreme Pontiff, the Pope. "Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff." [8] The very fullness of grace and truth belongs to Christ Jesus, who by nature is Divine. " Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ, " the Apostle John proclaims, " and of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. " Believers receive grace for grace but the very fountain - the very fullness of grace and truth - belongs to Christ Jesus alone. All that went before Christ Jesus was but typical and in representation, and all that comes after Him is but a reflection of the glory that is His alone. The Pontiff's lust for control is not satiated by usurping supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, for he alleges further that the Church, his Papal domain, has been allotted the very fullness of grace and truth. ".[T]he very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church" [9] is the official wording of Catholic dogma which settles the issue, and none may contest. Well might the Pharisees have chided our Lord, "Who can forgives sins but God . . . and the Roman Catholic Church!" The Pontiff Christ has willed it so - "There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive." [10] Outrageous and pretentious as these claims are, the Pontiff goes further still, claiming the power to judge in the temporal sphere, even those who hold the highest civil office in a state. Present Catholic law asserts without apology, "It is the right of the Roman Pontiff himself alone to judge.those who hold the highest civil office in a state...." [11] This is in antipathy with Christ who declared emphatically " my kingdom is not of this world. " There was another that claimed the kingdoms of the world were his to do with as he pleased; we would do well to dismiss Papal pretensions with Christ's words - " Get thee hence, Satan! " [12] The end result of the Church of Rome's interpretation concerning what Christ said to Peter is the creation of a Pontiff Christ who is also claimed to be "The Holy Father", with inerrant infallible teaching authority, and power, and that over all creatures in both spiritual and temporal realms. Such an absurd office was foretold by the Apostle Paul when he prophesied, " The son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God , showing himself that he is God. " [13] In place of " the Christ, the Son of the living God" has been erected the Pontiff Christ, the son of perdition. The Papacy at its core office and institutional essence, professes to be an entire substitute for the true Christ and His work. It must therefore be identified and denounced in accordance with Holy Scripture as the seat of Antichrist. Presupposition 1, that the Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the "rock" of his Church, is not only a proven lie, but also the superstructure of infallible Pontiff Christs, with full, supreme, and universal power reigning sovereignly, is shown to be the age old pretense of Satan. This is the Antichrist as represented in Revelation 17:4-5, as seated in Babylon, the spiritual seat of arrogance, oppression, and pride. Presupposition 2. That Peter went to Rome and was the first bishop in Rome The Scripture is utterly silent about the Apostle Peter going to Rome. His visits to Samaria, Lydda, Joppa, Caesarea and Antioch were carefully recorded. But there is simply no mention made of his going to Rome, which is essential to establish the Roman Catholic position. Certainly the Holy Spirit would not have passed over an event so significant and essential. In his letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul offers no salutation to Peter, as he greets many in the Church at Rome. The same Apostle Paul, being at Rome in the reign of Emperor Nero, never once mentions Peter in any of his letters written from Rome to the churches and to Timothy, although he does remember very many others who were with him in the city. While these two Roman Catholic presuppositions are conjectural, they are not the fabric on which faith is based, which is the Written Word of the Lord. The second presupposition of the Roman Catholic Church is therefore a deception, pure and simple. Presupposition 3: That Peter's successors are the bishops of Rome under the primacy of the Pope. In Scripture there is no mention of successors to Peter or the Apostles. The criteria for apostleship are given in Acts 1:21-22. The position of the Apostles was unique to them and to Paul, all directly chosen by Christ Jesus with no hint of succession. In the New Testament, the Apostles appointed elders and deacons, and not a line of Apostles. [14] Nonetheless, the Roman Catholic Church attempts to defend her position in the name of personal succession from the Apostles. But if we are constrained to conceive an "apostolic succession", then the true successors of the Apostles are those who continue "steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers." [15] If that doctrinal foundation is destroyed, speak not of "apostles" but rather of "apostates". "Apostolic succession" without apostolic doctrine is a fraud. The real roots of the Papacy are those of the Roman Emperor and not the Lord Christ Jesus. The Lord commanded, "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall not be so." [16] Christ absolutely proscribed all domination in his kingdom. The same condemnation of worldly ways was repeated by the Apostle Peter, "Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock." [17] The Roman Catholic Church is not the successor to St Peter, but rather to the Roman Empire, as her hierarchical and totalitarian control demonstrate. Conclusion In the book of Revelation the Apostle John portrays the fourth, or ten-horned beast as representing the Roman Empire, and so the angel interprets it. The Papacy belongs to the second or ecclesiastical stage of the Roman Empire. In Chapter 17, this ten-horned beast bears a mystical woman, dressed in purple and scarlet, decked with gold, precious stones, and pearls, a harlot, and the mother of harlots and abominations. She is the guilty seducer of kings, the cruel persecutor of saints, intoxicated with the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus. We strive in vain seeking fulfillment in any but the Pontiff's Rome. She is the only Church that is also a City, a Civil State and that sits also on the Seven Hills. [18] Her official colors are scarlet and purple. [19] For 605 years the fires of her Inquisition scorched every country in Europe. Such years of cruelty and torture bespeak her and none else. She has made war with the saints, overcome them, worn them out, and would have totally crushed and annihilated them, but for the sustaining hand of the Lord upon them. History corresponds to prophecy as deep calls to deep. Throughout history here has been only one apostate Mistress of the world; the one Babylon the great, the one City is that is also a Harlot. The Papacy is about to have John Paul II retire or die, so that a new head may reign on which she can continue to seduce the religious world. Now is not the time for furtive whispers, but rather shouts from housetops ascribing to her, "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH". T he Pontiff's power, however, is also temporal and p olitical with ambassadors , civil concordats, with civil rights and power in real estate, education, medicine, and commerce, menacing the very political freedom of a Nation. [20] Believing on Christ and believing on the Pontiff Christ are antithetic, and incompatible positions. Wherever is found an "altar" instead of a communion table, a "priest" instead of a preacher, ceremonies instead of sound doctrine, sacraments instead of saving grace, traditions instead of the Written Word of God, this is not in the Church of the living God but the tangled, twisted web of the Pontiff. And when this Harlot announces to the world that the Pontiff's throne is vacant and awaits election of a new Pope by her cardinals, it is but to fill Satan's seat. "Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths. For she hath cast down many wounded: yea, many strong men have been slain by her. Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." [21] Those persons or nations submitting themselves to her and her Pontiff Christ, know neither life nor freedom, for only in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, is found freedom and Eternal life. Believe on Him and Him alone "and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness" [22] but rather expose the Pontiff Christ for that which he is, "the son of perdition" [23] and the woman who rides on him to be none other than "that that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth." [24] ¨ Permission is given by the author to copy this article if it is done in its entirety without any changes. Permission is also given post this article in its entirety on Internet WebPages. Our WebPage is: http://www.bereanbeacon.org/
ENDNOTES [1] Catechism of the Catholic Church (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1994) Para. 881. Catechism hereafter. [2] Matthew 16:23 [3] Galatians 2:11-14 [4] Henry Denzinger, "Unam Sanctum", Nov. 18, 1302, The Sources of Catholic Dogma , Tr. By Roy J. Deferrari, 30 th ed. of Enchiridion Symbolorum , rev. by Karl Rahner, S. J. (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1957) #694. (Hereafter Denzinger). See also Catechism of the Catholic Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994) #882 & #936. [5] Denzinger, #649. [6] The Catholic Encyclopedia, Robert Broderick, ed. (Nashville, TN: Thos. Nelson Inc., 1976) p. 217. [7] Catechism, Para. 882. [8] Denzinger, #468-469 (Decree of Pope Boniface VIII). [9] Declaration "Dominus Iesus", On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church, Sect. 16, Sept. 5, 2000. [10] Catechism, Para. 982. [11] Code of Canon Law, Latin-English Ed. (Washington DC: Canon Law Society of America, 1983) Canon 1405, Sec. 1. [12] Matthew 4:10. [13] II Thessalonians 2:3, 4. [14] The terms overseer and elder/pastor are interchangeable. See Acts 20:17, 28; I Peter 5:1-4. [15] Acts 2:42. [16] Luke 22:25-26. [17] I Peter 5:3. [18] Broderick, pp. 528-529. [19] Broderick, pp. 95-96. [20] See John Cornwell, Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (New York: Viking Penguin, 1999) and John Robbins, Ecclestiastical Megalomania: The Economic and Political Thought of the Roman Catholic Church (Unicoi, TN 37692: The Trinity Foundation, 1999) ISBN 0-940931-52-4. [21] Proverbs 7:24. [22] Ephesians 5:11. [23] II Thessalonians 2:3. [24] Revelation 17:18.
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