Foreword from the Webmaster: In Appendix F, the author presents a powerful argument, in my opinion, of submitting that the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church is the False Prophet of Revelation chapter 13! It’s based on documents of what the priests have taught. It’s so shocking to hear that Catholic priests think they have more power and authority than God Almighty!!!

THE Word of God warned the early Christians to expect an apostasy, or sliding away, from primitive truth; which apostasy was at work in Paul’s days, but was restrained for a time by the then regnant power of the Caesars. On the removal of this hindrance to complete development, there would be revealed, within the professing Christian body, a class of men opposing, and exalting itself against, all mundane powers and objects of reverence, insomuch that it should actually put forth claims to divinity. It was to foster celibacy and fasting. In the Apocalypse this class of man is styled “The False Prophet,” in outward appearance lamb-like, inwardly and in speech anti-Christian and intolerant, as well as self-exalting and blasphemous. In the present day this class of men are conspicuous by their arrogant claims and immense self-exaltation—though it is the fashion amongst politicians, pressmen, and society people to regard them all as “earnest and devoted workers” in the cause of Christ, thus adding insult to injury.

Let me just give a few instances of this self-exaltation, and then let well-meaning but unthinking neo-evangelicals ask themselves whether “The False Prophet” is not in their midst, masquerading as a lamb?*

* Hermes condemns the “false prophet” of his own day (2nd cent.), “who, seemingly to have the spirit, exalts himself and would fain have the first seat” (Lightfoot, on “The Christian Ministry,” p. 219).

(1) “The Canonized Saint” Liguori, whose published works have been declared by the Papacy to be without cause of censure, in his “Selva,” declares that “the priest of God is exalted above all earthly sovereignties and above all celestial heights”; and that “the death of Christ has been necessary to institute the priesthood,” not “to save the world.” (Ed. What a horrible lie!)

(2) “The priest,” says Liguori, “has the power of delivering sinners from hell, of making them worthy of Paradise, and of changing them from slaves of Satan into children of God. And God Himself is obliged to abide by the judgment of His priests.”

(3) “If the Person of the Redeemer had not as yet been in the world, the priest, by pronouncing the words of consecration, would produce this great Person of a Man-God.”

(4) “Hence, priests are called the parents of Jesus Christ. For they are the active cause by which He is made to exist . . . thus the priest may . . . be called the Creator of his Creator.’

(5) “Who is it that has an arm like the arm of God, and thunders with a voice like the thundering Voice of God? It is the priest.”

(6) Canon Doyle, parish priest of Arthurstown, in 1895, published in “The People,” of Wexford, “The Dignity of the Priesthood,” in which he repeated Liguori’s dicta, and added a few others. Thus he declares that “he who insults a priest, insults Christ”; that “by a single mass he gives greater honor to God than all the angels and saints have or shall give”; that “in obedience to the words of priests God Himself comes whenever they call Him, and as often as they call Him, and places Himself in their hands, even though they should be His enemies.” “Having come, He remains entirely at their disposal; they move Him as they please, from one place to another; they may, if they wish, shut him up in the tabernacle, or expose Him on the altar, or carry Him outside the church. They may, if they choose, eat His flesh, and give Him for the food of others.” “The sacerdotal dignity is the most noble of all dignities in the world. The power of the priest extends to spiritual goods, and to the human soul. The kings of the earth glory in honoring priests. They willingly bend their knee before the priest. They kiss his hands. The dignity of the priesthood surpasses even that of the angels. The word of the priest created Jesus Christ. The priesthood is called the Seat of the Saints. Priests hold the place of Jesus Christ on earth. Priests are the representatives of the Person of God on earth. What God alone can do by His omnipotence, the priest can also do.”

The “Very Reverend Father Provincial,” of the C.S.S.R., preaching at the Church of the Most Precious Blood, Edmonton, said: “Day by day, as Holy Mass was said, Jesus Christ came down upon the Altar in hundreds and thousands of Churches just as truly as He did on the first Christmas morning” (“Catholic Times,” 3-3-1905).

Father J. Furniss, C.S.S.A., in “God and His Creatures.” Permissu Superiorum, under “The First Communion” (p. 556), says: “See that child. In three minutes the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, will be in that child.”

Cardinal Mercier defined the Papacy as “the accepted and cherished supremacy of one Conscience over all other Consciences, of one Will over all other Wills” (see Rev. xiii. 12).

(7) In a sermon preached by a Bavarian priest named Kinzelmann, in 1872, he said: “We priests stand as far above the emperors, kings, and princes as the heaven is above the earth. Angels and Archangels stand beneath us. We occupy a position superior to that of the Mother of God. Yea, . . . we stand above God—Who must always serve us.“ “Church History,” by Professor J. H. Kurtz, 1893, vol. iii. p. 248.)

(8) A priest named Gregory preached a sermon in Chicago in 1912, in which he said: “I cannot exaggerate the power and dignity of the priest. . . . His power is greater than that of an angel. His dignity is greater than that of Mary, the Queen of angels.” “At the altar his is not inferior to that of God.” “No power of man is equal to this. . . It must be the power of God.” (“Toronto Sentinel,” 6th June, 1912).

(9) At Quebec a priest preached a sermon in which he said “the priest reproduces Jesus Christ.” ” The priest— bearing . . . a power that makes him the equal of God” (“The Christian,” 24th September, 1914).

(10) Priest Phelan—then editor of a Popish newspaper —in 1915 preached a sermon containing the following: “I never invite an angel down from Heaven to hear Mass. The only Person in Heaven I ever ask to come down here is Jesus Christ, and Him I command to come down. He has to come when I bid Him” (“American Citizen,” 31st July, 1915).

(11) The “Christian World” of 18th September, 1913, gave some extracts from a Romish work published in Germany, and written by a priest: “Priests . . . possess supernatural position and power. Even the angels bow before them. Christ would rather permit the world to perish than that the celibacy of the clergy should be abolished.”

(12) The same paper quoted a book by the Cardinal Archbishop of Salzburg, in which the following language is used:— “One may even speak of the omnipotence of the priest, of an omnipotence which is beyond that of God Himself.” (Ed. It’s so shocking that anyone could think this! It came straight from Satan.)

(13) At the funeral of a priest in Quebec on November 2nd, 1915, “Father” Connolly said: “The priest is another Christ, and his work is to continue the great work of the Redemption.”

(14) “In an address to Roman Catholics at Spokane, Washington, ‘Father’ George Maloney, speaking on ‘The Duty of Catholics,’ said: ‘If the precepts of the Church are not kept, the children cannot hope to be saved, for God punishes more severely the disobedience of the rules of the Church than He does the transgressions of His own commandments. It is the experience of every priest that it is harder to seek repentance for those who break the precepts of the Church than for these who break the commandments. It is easier to get forgiveness for one who commits murder than for one who misses Mass on Sunday or eats meat on Friday.” —(“Review,” Spokane, Washington, April 18th, 1913.).

(15) In a sermon preached at the Brompton Oratory on January 1st, 1860, the Rev. F. W. Faber, D.D., said that Christ is still on Earth in the Pope. “The Sovereign Pontiff is a Third Visible Presence of Jesus amongst us. In the Person of His Vicar. . . . we may draw near to Jesus.” (“Devotion to the Pope,” dedicated to Rev. E. Hearn, D.D., Vicar-General; published by Richardson.).

(16) Aquinas (xxxiv. Ed. Paris. xx. 549-580) says: “There is no difference between the Pope and Jesus Christ.”

(17) James’ “Church History,” p. 282: “Tolomeo begins by saying that Christ was the first Pope.”

(18) “Between God in Heaven and man upon earth stands the priest, who, being both God and man, combines both natures, and forms the connecting link. … I, as priest, do not follow in rank the cherubim and seraphim in the administration of the universe. I stand high above them. For they are God’s servants. We (priests), however, are God’s coadjutors … I fulfill three exalted functions towards the God of our altars. I summon Him to earth, I give Him to men… . without your (priest’s) permission. He may not move; He cannot bless without your co-operation; nor can He give grace except through our hands. Behold yonder man only 25 years old. Soon he will go through the sanctuary to meet the sinners who await His coming; He is the God of this earth, which He purifies.”

(“The Manresa of the Priest,” by “Father” Couxtte, ex-Vicar- General of Toulouse, see “Literary Digest,” October, 1897, pp. 28 to 57.).

(19) The Curé d’Ars, a Memoir of Jean Baptiste Marie Viauncy, London, 1869, p. 121, by Georgina Molyneux: “Consider the power of the priesthood! Out of a piece of bread the priest’s tongue can make a God. That is a greater act than the creation of a world… Someone said: St. Philomena obeys the Curé d’Ars! Certainly she may obey him, since God obeys him. If I met a priest and an angel, I would salute the priest before the angel. The latter is the friend of God, but the priest holds His place.”

(20) “Our Sunday Visitor,” September 24th, 1922, contained an advertisement by a Popish priest, named, “Rev. A. J. Halbleib, of the Sacred Heart Church.” Deauville, Virginia, asking people to send “a dollar, more or less, once or oftener” in order to “insure your own soul—and the souls nearest and dearest to you—against final loss by fire and at the same time help . . .’the work of starting the (R.) Catholic Church .. . in a vast section of the south, where it is still almost unknown.”

(21) Admittedly a sentence from a brief report of a fifty minutes’ lecture, “taken simply as it stands,” does not express a complete theology of the Eucharist in its sacrificial aspects. The sentence contrasted the Mass with the traditional Eucharistic doctrine of Communion in the Anglican Reformed Church, and summed up that difference in the fact that the Mass offers Christ as a Divine Victim really present under the Eucharistic veils on an earthly altar, while the traditional Anglican theology does not express this oblation. I am quite aware that the modern Anglo-Catholic theology has returned to the Catholic concept of the offering of Christ’s Body and Blood on the earthly altar, but my lecture was chiefly occupied in proving that this is not the traditional theology of Anglicanism.—Rev. F. Woodlock, S.J., Farm Street Church.—(“Times,” 20/6/27.)

Appendix G. The Primacy of Peter.

Papists subscribe to the Creed of Pope Pius IV., and promise not “to take and interpret them (the Scriptures) otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers” —i.e., to moonshine, for “the Fathers” never agreed on a single text.

In the speech prepared for, but not permitted by, the Vatican Council of 1869-70, Archbishop Kenrick, of St. Louis, —who afterwards published it in Naples, denied that Petrine claims to the Primacy could be made out—by Scripture—precisely because of the above clause in Pius IV.’s Creed obliging Papists to interpret Scripture only “according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.” He gave the following statistics showing that no less than Five different interpretations of Matthew xvi. 18 are given by “the Fathers”:

(1) That the Church is built on Peter is taught by seventeen Fathers;

(2) That the Rock is the whole body of the Apostles is held by eight Fathers;

(3) That the Rock is the Faith confessed by Peter is held by forty-four Fathers;

(4) That the Rock is Christ is held by sixteen;

(5) that the Rock includes all the faithful-living stones of which the Church is built. Kenrick says “a few” held this.

Whence Archbishop Kenrick asserted that: “If we are bound to follow the greater number of the Fathers, then we must hold for certain that the word PETRA means, not Peter but the Faith professed by Peter.” (“Church Quarterly Review,” July, 1881, p. 545.)

Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (died 430), before Conversion (A.D. 387), was Professor of Rhetoric. The Roman Church venerates his writings. He sometimes interpreted the Rock to mean Peter, and sometimes to mean Christ. In his “Retractions” (lib. 1) he said: “I have said in a certain passage, respecting the Apostle Peter, that the Church is founded upon him as a rock . . . but know that I have frequently afterwards so explained myself that the phrase, ‘upon the Rock,’ should be understood to be the Rock which Peter confessed.”

Another learned doctor of the Roman Church, “Father Lannay,” Censor of works, 1643, gives seventy extracts from “Fathers,” in which Peter is spoken of as The Rock; eight in which the Church is said to have been built upon all the Apostles; forty-four state that the faith Peter confessed was the Rock; sixteen that Christ was the Rock. (Lannoii. Opera. tom. v., Part II., p. 99: Epist. vii. lib. v.)

It will be noticed that this Jesuit substitutes seventy for seventeen, but agrees with Archbishop Kenrick in the remaining figures! Like Kenrick, he says that “a few Fathers held the Rock to be the faithful.” Kenrick was an honest and sincere man. Can the same be said of any Ultramontane Jesuit?

APPENDIX H. “Killing No Murder.”

In all the Sinn Fein troubles in Ireland there was one question which the British Government did not face openly. That was in regard to the responsibility of the Roman hierarchy for the conditions there. Roman prelates not only condoned crime but, through the official church publications, they encouraged rebellion and taught the doctrine that killing is not murder provided the killing is done for political purposes. If the political parties should have endorsed that doctrine there would be lively times indeed during general and other election campaigns. The Roman Church authorities in Ireland were directly responsible for the promulgation of that doctrine and the facts ought to have been made known by the British Government, relations with the Vatican severed and the publishers indicted, This reasonable demand was made at the time in an article in the “London Spectator.”

The Irish Roman Catholic Primate and his Censor allowed, and so became responsible for, the publication of an article in the Irish Theological Quarterly, published by the Authorities of Maynooth, which in effect made killing no murder in Ireland, provided the killing was done for political objects and by those who had declared that Ireland was in a state of war with Great Britain. The British Government should, therefore, have taken the matter up and made the whole of Europe ring with it. Parliament should have condemned this doctrine as set forth under the imprimatur of the Irish Roman Catholic Primate, and the next step should have been to instruct our diplomatic agent at the Vatican to inquire whether or not the doctrine laid down and published with a non obstat and an Archiepiscopal imprimatur in Dublin was endorsed by the Holy See. This, we venture to say, the Vatican would never admit. Nor, again, would it refuse to give any answer. If the authorities had said the matter was subject to investigation in the Curia, then the British Government should have plainly said that they would be bound to suspend official relations with the Roman Church till she had made up her mind on the point so momentous as whether the Papacy allows its chief ecclesiastics to sanction the publication of condonations of murder such as that issued under the imprimatur of the Roman Primate in Ireland in the article in the Irish Theological Quarterly.

Such proclamation as already mentioned was not an isolated one. Possibly this is best seen by citing the case of Mr. Charles Diamond, Editor of the London Catholic Herald, a man of position and education, who wrote an article in his journal headed “Killing —No Murder.” “Lord French,” he says, “has escaped this time: will he always escape?” Then this Roman Catholic journalist added, “Killing is no murder when it is the other fellow who is to be killed.” There was much more of a like nature, all inciting to murder and outrage.

That this teaching is acted upon by Romish agents is proved by the “New Zealand Sentinel” of October 1923, p. 8. which contained a “Felonious Record of Knights of Columba” in the United States, since 1913. It included two murderous assaults on ex-Priest Crowley in 1913, and fourteen other assaults on Protestants.

APPENDIX I.

THE PAPACY IS THE ANTICHRIST.

(1) The Translators of the Authorized Version of 1611 added an “Address” to King James I., in which they described the Papacy as “the Man of Sin.” They were all learned and pious men, who knew History and the Bible.

(2) The Reformers and Martyrs who were burnt alive in Queen Mary’s reign were also learned men. They wrote the “Homilies” or Sermons which are mentioned at the end of the 39 Articles. The Third Part of the Homily against Peril of Idolatry (p. 243) cites Dan. xi. 38 as relating to Antichrist and Popery; at p. 245 it speaks of “the Kingdom of Antichrist,” and quotes Matt. xxiv. 24, 2 Thess. ii. 9-12, Rev. xiii. 13, 14. The Second part of the Sermon for Whit Sunday denounces the Roman Church as not a true Church of Christ, and the Pope as Antichrist—citing Gregory I.’s Epistles 76-78, lib. iv. The Third Part of the Homily against the Peril of Idolatry, p. 292, calls Rome “the idolatrous church,” “a foul, filthy, old, withered harlot,” “the great strumpet (harlot) of all strumpets,” of Rev. xviii., xvii.

REVIEW.

THE ANTICHRIST: His PORTRAIT AND History. By Baron Porcelli. Pp. 116. Protestant Truth Society.

This is a comparatively small book, but it should not be thought unimportant on that account. It deals with a great subject in an able and interesting manner. Evidently in considering the question of the “Antichrist” the actual meaning of the term is a matter of the greatest consequence. This is our author’s first point. Although his space is limited, yet his references to the original of the New Testament are ample, and he supports his contention with numerous and well-chosen quotations. In our opinion he is fully justified in his conclusion that the “Antichrist of prophecy is a false Christian, a veiled enemy of Christ, of heathen origin. He is not only the outcome of the Great Apostasy, but is consummated Head, its apostolic Head, its false Apostle or ‘son of perdition.’” Anyone, however, who doubts this conclusion or requires proof should carefully examine the arguments by which it is preceded and sustained. Succeeding chapters on the “characteristics” of Antichrist, the time of his appearance, the duration of his power, his local connection with Rome, and his actual identification also call for attentive study. They are not merely assertions or repetitions of hackneyed statements; they are reasoned expositions of their theme displaying a large amount of learning which ought to command the respect even of those whose views may be different from those of the writer. Chapter VII. on “Antichrist revealed by chain of evidence” displays in a remarkable manner the pains which Baron Porcelli took to compile and arrange his arguments and facts before committing them to print. It is a veritable storehouse of quotations culled from a wide field, manifesting wonderful patience in their collection as well as skill in their application. It will well repay perusal. Indeed, no one desiring to be well-informed upon the subject can possibly neglect it.

Two things may be specially noted about this book. It is written throughout from the standpoint of the historical school of interpretation. It is frankly anti-papal, because it sees the papacy described and condemned in the Word of God. In the second place, it gives supreme honor to the Bible. There it finds the only real test of doctrine, the final court of appeal. To quote from the author’s preface, “The condition of Christendom today is such as to cause serious alarm and distress to thoughtful minds, owing to the multiplicity of ‘isms,’ which very often read plausibly, but au fond are sadly erroneous, owing to lack of care in observation and study; and not less often owing to hasty acceptance of theories which have no basis in truth. ‘To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them.'” We earnestly commend this book to our readers, hoping that its value will be fully recognized in these remarkable and solemn days.—English Churchman.

Download this entire book in PDF format: The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

All chapters of The Antichrist: His Portrait and History

Download a PDF file of this article.

Please follow and like us: