The Key to Pope Francis’s Identity

This is a transcription of a video by Richard Bennett of Berean Beacon. He introduces Pastor Bill Mencarow. I can’t find Pastor Mencarow’s bio or which church he pastors, but I’m sure he must be a good guy because he’s associated with Richard Bennett.

The video is below the text if you would rather watch or listen to it.

Richard Bennett: Amid the adulation and the applause and indeed type of hero worship of Pope Francis, there is something that needs to be seen, that is not been seen by the world. We have the media in general and false evangelicals who know not the gospel of Christ giving their applause to Francis and still there is something missing that they don’t see. And that’s how we wish to document here today. We want to show that there is a distinctive trait or traits in Francis that need to be revealed. And when these are revealed we see this true identity. And that’s why we call the program the key to Pope Francis’ identity. And this will be documented, we give exact references.

And so I’m very pleased today to have with me Pastor Bill Mencarow. And I ask Bill that you give the setting to what we are speaking about.

Bill Mencarow: On the first anniversary of Pope Francis’s election to the papal chair we think it fitting to see exactly what the Jesuits themselves think of him. Appropriately Jim Martin who is a Jesuit priest and is also editor at large of the prestigious Jesuit magazine, America, produced a brief online video entitled Pope Francis Still a Jesuit.

Video from Jim Martin: Hi I’m Father Jim Martin. I am editor at large at America magazine. And here at America we are celebrating Pope Francis’ first year in office.

You might remember that when he was elected Pope there was a big question on everyone’s mind at least we were asked it a lot here at America which was, “How much will Pope Francis’ Jesuit background and heritage influence him as Pope?” And I think a year into his papacy we can see that the answer is a lot. Here are a few ways that we can see Pope Francis’ Jesuit heritage in action.

First, Pope Francis is a master of the Spiritual Exercises and Ignatian spirituality. You probably know that when he was a Jesuit, Pope Francis was the novice director of the Argentine province of the Society of Jesus. That means that not only does he know the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola, his classic text, but he has also given the Spiritual Exercises to the novices. In general, a lot of Jesuits say that the novice master is the holiest person in the province and the one best suited to give the Spiritual Exercises.

So here’s a man who really knows Ignatian spirituality.

Richard Bennett: Yes indeed! We have a man who is thoroughly trained in Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises which were released in the 16th century. Historically speaking there’s always been an interest in what we call Western Europe in mysticism. It goes back to the 12th and 13th centuries. There was a great interest in what had been originally Eastern mysticism. And the papacy, because it doesn’t have objective truth in the Bible alone and in the gospel, and was readily able to take these things into its own system. In the 13th century we have mystical elements in the Franciscans started by St. Francis, and in the Dominicans started by St. Dominic. So there are these mystical elements.

But in the 16th century, there is a remarkable difference. We have a mysticism introduced by Ignatius of Loyola. This mysticism has a type of genius character to it because it attempts to use by imagination as a means by which a person can have direct contact with the divine. This is what was the major tenet of Ignatius, that through a person’s imagination, they could make direct contact with the divine and they could have a union with the divine which would transform their lives both in character and moral behavior, so they said.

So Ignatius had devised these Spiritual Exercises. And it’s amazing just to see how well-versed the present Pope Pope Francis is in the exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. And I’d like it if you would explain that, how he’s so well-versed.

Bill Mencarow: Well certainly. There are several ways that Pope Francis manifests his Ignatian training. For example, in his preaching, rather than interpreting the Bible to convict us of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come, he appeals to his listeners’ imaginations.

Now here’s how Jim Martin who I quoted before, the prestige editor at large of the prestigious Jesuit magazine describes Pope Francis’ preaching.

(Jim Martin:) In his Easter homily for the first year, he invited us to imagine ourselves running with the women to the tomb. And more recently, in a homily at a parish in Rome, he imagined the listeners, he actually said to them, “Close your eyes and imagine yourself at the river Jordan, and imagine Jesus being baptized.” And he said, “Now close your eyes and talk to Jesus in your prayer.” That is very Ignatian.

Bill Mencarow: Now this is to appeal solely to the subjectivity of the emotions rather than to present as a proposition to the mind the objective truth of God’s written Word in scripture. Nevertheless, Pope Francis said now close your eyes and talk to Jesus in your prayer. Now notice the emphasis that Pope Francis has: It’s on man’s imagination. That was the way Ignatius of Loyola learned from reading the lives of the saints and mystics but it is not the way of scripture. Rather scripture states in Genesis 8:21: The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Scripture clearly teaches that our imagination is evil, corrupted by original sin. True biblical preaching never appeals to men’s imaginations. Thus it is a great mercy that the Lord God even deigns to convict the sinner of his precarious state before the Holy God.

The sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ was on behalf of sinners to propitiate God’s wrath against each sinner. The one who believes on the Lord Jesus Christ alone is saved unto eternal life through faith alone by God’s grace alone. How will the unsaved sinner know this if he is not taught that the Bible alone, not his own imagination, is the final authority?

Depending upon mystical imagination as Pope Francis does is the wide gate that leads to destruction. As the Lord Jesus Christ said in Matthew 7, enter ye in at the straight gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and many there be which go in there at.

Richard Bennett: Yes, and Pope Francis uses the Ignatian way to dictate this subjective consciousness. And it’s something that the Jesuits themselves, this priest, Martin, says about the hallmark of Francis is being detached.

(Jim Martin:) One of the hallmarks of Jesuit spirituality also included in the Spiritual Exercises is Saint Ignatius’s dictum that we should be free from any disordered attachments. So any attachments that are not ordered towards God, anything that would prevent us from following God. Basically, we’re meant to be free. Pope Francis is a very free person. We saw that from the very beginning of his papacy when he stepped onto the balcony and broke all sorts of traditions. For example, bowing to the crowd and asking for their blessing. Even something like taking the name of Saint Francis as his name which was never done before. He is free. He is detached. He does not need to do things the way they were always done.

Richard Bennett: Indeed, when you look at Francis and see him parading before the cameras of the world and see the many talks that he gives, indeed he’s a very free person! But we have to ask the question, is it a freedom that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke about in the Bible? It’s a different type of freedom. The Lord Jesus Christ said very clearly as in John’s Gospel chapter 8 verses 31 and 32 and of course also verse 36.

If you continue in my word then you are my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

If Jesus Christ the Son of God makes you free… But being free in your own mindset to follow the dictates of your own conscience and to say things that are in line just with your own conscience, is an abomination before the Lord Jesus Christ and His standard of what it is to be free.

So I’d ask that you would continue.

Bill Mencarow: Well as you know, Pope Francis and the Jesuits are very active in promoting the Spiritual Exercises on the Internet. For example on the website which can be found at tinyurl.com/spiritualexercises. And in fact a quote from this particular website:

“The Spiritual Exercises are a compilation of meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help people deepen their relationship with God. For centuries the Exercises were most commonly given as a “long retreat” of about 30 days in solitude and silence. In recent years, there has been a renewed emphasis on the Spiritual Exercises as a program for laypeople. The most common way of going through the Exercises now is a “retreat in daily life,” which involves a monthslong program of daily prayer and meetings with a spiritual director. The Exercises have also been adapted in many other ways to meet the needs of modern people.”

So we have to keep in mind that Jesuit spirituality and ethics are a very effective combination of two elements: Mystical techniques and authoritarian propositions. The writing and teaching style of Jesuitism is heavily nuanced with techniques of suggestive dissociation. Now dissociation as you may know is separating or disassociating certain ideas or one’s attention or one’s emotions from the rest of one’s personality. So for example hypnosis is said to be based on suggestive dissociation. In its extreme form dissociation is the technique used in brainwashing.

In suggestive dissociation, people are lured and ever so subtly into embracing new views of ethical norms apart from critical reflection. In other words, they are persuaded to ignore the irrationality of what they are hearing and they end up accepting, embracing and often defending ideas that they would have rejected had they not been subjected to suggestive dissociation. It’s a very subtle method and it’s very effective so one has to be aware of it and on guard against it and pray that one will not fall into the trap. (Wow! That may mean flat-earth is also the result of suggestive disassociation!)

So the smooth flow of the suggestions in Jesuit teachings hinders mental resistance, which breaks down your resistance. Learners are diverted from appreciating that they are visualizing rather than thinking. They’re visualizing rather than thinking. It’s a technique by dissociation that leads inevitably to the surrender of the mind and the will.

For a contemporary example of this consider the Jesuit Jim Harbaugh. He’s produced a masterful in its way, a synthetic amalgamation of Jesuitism and modern humanistic therapy in his book entitled A 12-Step Approach to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Now, this book is based on the parallels between the Spiritual Exercises and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. The 12-step sections from the Spiritual Exercises are followed by an explanation of how they relate to the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous philosophy. Thus Jim Harbaugh capriciously implies that one will learn a new spiritual path and independence.

Well, however, one’s mind will be captivated by the sinister Jesuit philosophy and effectively immunized against the testimony of Holy Scripture concerning the nature of the one true and living God and the way of salvation by and in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So beware of any teaching that promises or implies that you’ll learn a new spiritual path. Whenever you hear those words remember Jeremiah 6:16,

Thus sayeth the Lord, stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old paths, whereas the good way and walk therein and ye shall find rest for your souls.

So rather than helping people deepen their relationship with God, the Ignatian spiritual exercises are a way to learn so-called New Age Occult Visualization. In New Age Occult Literature, particularly in transcripts of automatic writing where so-called mediums say they’re writing down what the spirits are actually using their hand and their brain to write messages. Of course, it’s all demonic, if it happens, if it’s not fake, it’s all demonic. But in so-called automatic writing, the demons themselves often encourage people to practice visualization in order to facilitate “spirit contact.”

Though visualization may appear to be harmless, even perhaps spiritually satisfying, the fact that it is heavily promoted by the New Age Occult Movement is reason enough for Christians to avoid it. Moreover, visualization is patently idolatrous, its mental imaging, and hence biblically forbidden. In Exodus 20:4, thou shalt have no graven images. Well, those are mental images, and they are also forbidden. Mental pictures communicate the message that Christ is other than the biblical God who cannot be pictured.

See, the point we need to see is that all of these forms are techniques designed to provoke certain valued moods or feelings. They induce people to happily submit to the Jesuits in their program. However, in Romans 12:2, the Lord God and Scripture command believers to be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Richard Bennett: In our own day or just before our own time in the 20th century, there was a huge turnaround in people’s lives, particularly in England and in the USA and in other places that we would call Western Europe. There was an introduction of what was called the God is dead movement and the fact that people were no longer to believe in God, but they were to turn over to their feelings and their emotions. We had the infamous hippie movement in the ’60s, going into the ’70s, and all the horrors that went with the hippie movement in the United States, England and other places. This led to a vacuum where people were without any foundation and all sorts of things began to emerge.

It was in that context that the quite well-known Roman Catholic monk called Thomas Merton came in with his mystical approach to God. Merton, in his visualization of God and in his use of what had been primarily the teaching of the Ignatius way before in the 16th century, but modernizing it in ways that modern man could make contact with the divine. Thomas Merton became quite well-known in modern circles. His writings have also now been incorporated by many, Henri Nouwen, that priest, and the other, Thomas Keating, are the ones who in the late 20th century and the 21st century have propagated these things.

It starts with Thomas Merton and was quite influential. We find a whole movement taking place in what it is called in Christendom, the Emerging Church Movement. The Emerging Church Movement has come in and it has literally destroyed a lot of what were seemingly sound biblical churches in England and here in the United States.

I saw some examples of that even when I was in London in 2008 when speaking at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, where Spurgeon had preached in the old days. Right up from the Tabernacle, there had been another seemingly sound church that was taken over by the Emerging Church of Brian McLaren. Brian McLaren mentions in his many writings and those who follow McLaren, there’s a whole list of people who follow him. I have two or three articles on this and videos on this, but they all have this idea of using the Ignatian way. They go back to say Ignatius and they say it. So they go back to visualization on how you can imagine Christ and it’s technically very well done.

I’m quite interested in things on the internet and in electronics and the things produced on CDs and DVDs, but the technology that is behind the Emerging Church is altogether really at a height of professionalism whereby they have young people being able to walk labyrinths and do all sorts of things to contact the divine. And then often giving applause and thanks to Ignatius of Loyola, where they went back to.

So we see now in the late 20th century, coming into the 21st century, we see these movements whereby Brian McLaren and his outfit, I should call it, the Emerging Church movement, has succeeded in bringing in what Pope Francis is now bringing in in his teachings, as we have seen, and what the people like Henri Nouwen and Thomas Keating have brought in and still bring in.

So it’s a so-called evangelical church which is not. The Emerging Church is apostate in its gospel and in what it says. It’s amazing that what they say, like Brian McLaren, says that God let Scripture be. He was something that he had to let it be, but it’s not to be taken all that seriously because he depends so much or people depend so much on tradition. This is very much like the Catholic church, only the Catholic church says it formally. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says exactly in paragraphs 81 and 82, that’s the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1994 and then republished again afterward in 2002. And they say that the sacred scripture and holy tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God. They look to tradition, holy tradition they call it. And this is an abomination because if we hold to tradition and you don’t say whether tradition comes from, you’re on sinking sand! You don’t have any foundation. You’re like onto the Catholic church and like onto the mystics and like onto Francis himself, Pope Francis, and like onto all of these people who follow Brian McLaren’s movement. The people who are really prophets of their own deceit. I use the words of scripture there, but that’s exactly to find some prophets of their own deceit.

Bill Mencarow: Indeed Richard, indeed. And much of it is based on Eastern mysticism as you know, which continues to plague the nations and the culture of the Western world as it did with Catholic mysticism in the Middle Ages. The contemporary preoccupation was self together with a reaction against objective revealed truth has created a quasi-spiritual environment in which Eastern mysticism and the New Age movement are flourishing.

Therefore, the modernized versions of the Jesuit Spiritual Exercises appeal to those seeking refuge from the chaos into which the West is devolving. Unfortunately, there’s not much argument that that is in fact what is happening. The fact that Pope Francis is a Jesuit does much to promote these Spiritual Exercises among religious unbelievers and ignorant believers alike. However, we know, as the Scriptures tell us, that sorrows shall be multiplied upon those that hasten after another standard of what is called truth. This is the destiny of those who run after the imaginations of the Spiritual Exercises. The doom of those who hasten to reinvent Christ and His Cross as they eagerly crave all the lusts of the mind bring upon themselves judgments from the true God and his Christ. Those who multiply anti-biblical ways increase anguish and pain for themselves. Both in this life and the one to come. He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination. For they that are such serve not the Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies and with fair speech and flattering deceive the hearts of the simple. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and will cast away the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made the wisdom of this world foolishness? For seeing the world by wisdom knew not God, in the wisdom of God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. Seeing also that the Jews require a sign and the Grecians seek after wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews even a stumbling block and unto the Grecians foolishness.

And Scripture explains the reason for their ruin in II Thessalonians 2:10:

Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this cause, God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believe not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

You see the world praises the achievements, as Richard, you said earlier, as a great man, a great leader and a great spiritual guide. The wicked love darkness, but God’s people love the light. Pope Francis and the Jesuits have blindly equated the true God with “the God within.”

Then the Lord said unto me, the prophets prophesy lies in my name. I have not sent them. Neither did I command them, neither spake I unto them, but they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination and vanity and deceitfulness of their own heart. How long do the prophets delight to prophesy lies, even prophesying the deceit of their own heart?

You see, they’ve sought to circumvent the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel by believing the demonic lies that the truth comes from inward self-realization and enlightenment. And those are demonic lies. They’ve divested themselves of the true knowledge of the very God Himself to whom all their attachments are supposedly now ordered. Thus, their values are set on personal inner feelings. Their values are set on the inner man, this looking within, this imagining, as we talked about, this visualization rather than the objective truth of Scripture. And actually, these inner feelings are often, you can’t explain them. People are incapable of reasoned explanation. So even any quest for a biblically based rationale is actively discouraged.

So without the conviction of the Holy Spirit, how can they truly assess the depths of their own wickedness? If they don’t study the Scriptures, how will they know that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it? And of course, that’s from Jeremiah 17. In the face of raw imagination, fueling the Spiritual Exercises, the grace of God still conquers, redeems, and saves through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Richard Bennett: Amen amen! And that is a word. In the face of all this ridiculous imagination and self-realization and imagining all of these things that are just based on your own feelings and not on the objective truth of Scripture, our Lord God reigns. And it is that wonderful verse that we have in Romans chapter 5. It says how much sin has reigned unto death. But much more may the grace of Christ Jesus reign through righteousness unto everlasting life. It is the Lord Jesus who reigns through righteousness unto everlasting life. And that is the message. And the message is as we have in Scripture to each one of us, both of us here as we make the program know that our sin nature had condemned us before we were saved. And our personal sin, we were in the words of Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1, dead in trespasses and sins. But the good news was that God has so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. God sent Jesus Christ historically and really. And He died in the place of His own to take their sin upon him and to give them in place His righteousness.

As it says in Romans chapter 3, verse 24, Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But being justified freely by his grace through the redemption. This is the objective reality. And this is the real core of the gospel message. Would you like to put any more teeth into those gospel words, Bill?

Bill Mencarow: Absolutely Richard. I think you’ve said it all when you quote Scripture. There’s nothing to be added. You cannot add nor subtract from Scripture. But I just appreciate the fact that the line is drawn here between those who on the one hand follow the Ignatian spiritual exercises and this inner man turning inwardly to subjectivity, which has always been the hallmark of paganism, looking for the inner light and the achievements of yourself, rather than looking outwardly to the finished work of Christ on the cross. And that’s the big difference between biblical Christianity and all other religions. All other religions look inwardly. What can I do to work my way to heaven to appeal to the God that I believe in to be acceptable? What can I do? And Scripture itself says, no, that’s backward. We are chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, as Scripture says.

Richard Bennett: Amen amen!. Yes.

Bill Mencarow: And it’s outward Christianity. It looks outwardly toward the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work. And as you said so beautifully, look to Him and be saved. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And it’s our prayer that everyone listening and watching this video will not take our word for it, but go to the Scriptures. You know, when the Apostle Paul preached to the Bereans, they said, well, we better check the Scriptures to see what this fellow is saying if it comports with the Scriptures. And that’s what Richard and I urge you to do. Don’t take our word for it. And Paul praised them for it. And he was an apostle. We’re not apostles. So if the apostle himself says, check me out by the Word of God, should you check us out?

So stay in the Word. Read the Bible. Study the Scriptures and believe.

Richard Bennett: So we have here now a contrast that is stark and unreal. Thus we have an objective reality. The reality of Christ Jesus and his gospel message. And Christ is exalted above the highest heavens. He is the one who has received the promised Holy Spirit and is seated on the throne of the Majesty in heaven. He is the one who pours forth the Holy Spirit so that there is real true revival on the earth. It is all objective. We see the great revivals that have happened in the course of history. The day of Pentecost itself at the time of the Reformation right across Europe, in different parts of Europe that were raised up, preachers of the gospel. Men and women went forth with the true gospel. They not only lived at this but spoke it and souls were saved. The objective reality of the gospel!

In contrast to this, this subjective mysticism of what was in the 13th and 14th centuries and then in the 16th century came in with Ignatius of Loyola and now taken up by his protege Paul Francis, having people imagine they are there at the River Jordan or imagine that they can see this or see that. Imagination is evil corrupt human nature. It’s objective truths. But this is what Francis has been purporting to bring to people and it leads not to everlasting life. It leads to everlasting destruction.

And that’s the urgency of what we’re saying today. It is a contrast, and we’ve got to see the contrast, and we’ve got to pray to God for his grace that is abundant. The God of all grace he is called that he would give us the light of the knowledge of Jesus Christ by the truth of the Scripture. And as we read our Bibles, we see the truth of the objective, the objective reality. And so it is the objective work of Christ Jesus that we hold up before you. We hold it up before you because this is where there is life. And we say the wonderful words of Scripture: Not unto us, oh Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory. For thy mercy’s sake and thy truth’s sake. For from him, and through him and to him are all thanks. To whom be glory now and forever.