Mary Fertitta and Ryan Ronnenberg (Faculty Advisor)

Kennesaw State University

ABSTRACT

The Catholic Church in Rwanda for more than a century was a witness to the atrocities of genocide. One million Rwandans died in 100 days while many Catholic priests and nuns stood by offering no assistance. Others participated in the slaughter. The majority of those killed were killed in churches or on church grounds. Since Belgium’s acquisition of Rwanda, there have been ties between the Catholic Church and the government of Rwanda. The Catholic Church blamed Belgium for the ethnic class designations and for disturbing the native culture. The Church and priests, however, remained silent and maintained their silence to keep teaching and practicing in Rwanda. While over 60,000 were charged in connection with the genocide, imprisoned for hate crimes, and later released, fewer than twenty, including priests and nuns, were tried and sentenced.

Keywords: Catholic Church, priests, Rwanda, genocide

Introduction

To fully understand the depth of involvement of the Catholic Church in the Rwandan genocide requires a historian’s careful analysis of the Church’s role in the events that unfolded in Rwanda in the summer of 1994, the troubled history of intolerance for over one hundred years, and the historical developments that lead up to the violence. The Catholic Church played a role in the periodic unrest by partnering with the government and fighting for its share of power. Since the colonization of Rwanda, there have been problematic ties between the Catholic Church and the government of Rwanda. Of the nearly one million people who died during the one hundred days of slaughter, the majority died in churches or on church grounds.

During the 1994 genocide, many Hutu and the Rwandan government participated in murdering seventy-seven percent of the Tutsi population.¹ What explanation makes sense of the actions taken by human beings against other human beings during the Rwandan genocide? The evidence shows that Rwanda’s genocide took place for decades in smaller numbers of murders until its culmination of a full-blown slaughter in 1994. It took place in plain sight of those who were supposed to be closest to their God, their higher spiritual power – Catholic priests, nuns, Protestant ministers, and lay clergy. As discussed here, the Catholic Church’s actions, before and during the one hundred days of killings, came under scrutiny. At various times prior to Belgium’s acquisition of Rwanda, Hutu and Tutsi vied for the position of king and village leaders. Church leader Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, reviewing the situation about a divided Rwandan society and the 1994 genocide, stated, “‘the blood of tribalism ran deeper than the waters of baptism.’”²

Belgium’s Acquisition of Rwanda

In 1918, after the agreement to end World War I’s fighting, the territory held by Germany on the continent of Africa was split amongst the Allies. In 1923, Rwanda transferred to Belgium’s rule, where Catholicism was the predominant religion.³ Following the national revolution in 1959, Rwanda gained independence in 1961 from Belgium.⁴ This rebellion and subsequent independence put a Hutu regime as the Rwandan government’s power sending many Tutsi into exile. Nevertheless, the majority of the Catholic Church leaders remained Tutsi. This conflict also resulted in five to eight thousand Tutsi murdered by the Rwandan government. Those seeking refuge in another country remained in exile until the early 1990s when they attempted to return to their home state with the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). It was at that time that many politically connected Hutu began planning the annihilation of Tutsi.

Before Belgium’s acquisition, a Tutsi king ruled Rwanda even though the majority of Rwandans were Hutu. After Belgium gained control of Rwanda, a consensus was that physical features and cultural habits signified Tutsi or Hutu’s characteristics. Many singled-out Tutsi by a preconceived notion that the Tutsi had light skin, were tall, and ate a particular diet. This profiling later proved to be an inaccurate assumption as some Hutu were identified as Tutsi and killed during the 1994 killings even though their government identification cards stated otherwise.⁵ Under Belgium’s rule, the Tutsi and Hutu were split into strict classes, causing discontent among Rwandans.⁶ Even though the Tutsi had migrated to Rwandan territory, the Tutsi became the “upper” class because of Rwanda’s Tutsi king. The Tutsi king converted to Catholicism. Rwanda, then under a Catholic king, became a predominately Christian country. Belgium added to Rwanda’s civil unrest by actively trying to destroy the cultural practices of the Rwandan people. The designation of Hutu or Tutsi, which were once considered a social and economic status, turned into racial discrimination. The Belgian government divided the Rwandan people into categories according to the skin color, nose length, height, and size of their heads.

Racial Inequality

In 1927, Monsignor Classe, a Belgian bishop whose opinion was respected by and influential with the Belgian government, wrote to the government about the Hutu and Tutsi inequality. He stated that although the Tutsi and their children were smart and progressive, the government should give equal credit to the Hutu and Twa.⁷ According to Gérard Prunier, Monsignor Classe, later realizing that the words Tutsi were smart and progressive served only to provoke and agitate the government and Hutu, attempted to clarify his thoughts with a subsequent letter, stating:

The greatest mistake this government could make would be to suppress the Mututsi caste. Such a revolution would lead the country to anarchy […] We will have no better, more active and more intelligent chiefs than the Batutsi. They are the ones best suited to understand progress and the ones the population likes best. The government must work mainly with them.⁸

Classe’s attempt to clarify his statement only managed to make the situation worse. The Belgian government removed the Hutu chiefs and filled the positions with Tutsi. In 1931, King Musinga,⁹ a Hutu chief, was removed and replaced by his son, Mutara III Rudahigwa. The Catholic Church no longer wanted King Musinga on the throne because he refused to convert to Catholicism. In turn, King Musinga did not like the Catholic priests and Church. The Catholic Church, building upon existing political structures and perceived piety, selected Mutara III. Matura III converted to Catholicism after taking the throne. Once again, the Catholic Church was in a powerful position with a Catholic Tutsi chief as the Rwandan king. By 1945, the Catholic Church baptized ninety- five percent of the Tutsi.¹⁰ Villages throughout Rwanda also had Tutsi chiefs. The chiefs retaliated against the Hutu, making them work out of work camps like the Hutu once did to the Tutsi.¹¹

During this time, Belgium was planning a reorganization of Rwanda. The Belgian government wanted Rwanda to be a Christian state.¹² “The Catholic Church played an […] important element in the Belgian reorganization of Rwanda”¹³ because the Belgians found the White Fathers both knowledgeable and helpful. This order of priests, the Society of Missionaries of Africa, got the name because they wore white cassocks instead of black cassocks like other priests.¹⁴ The Belgian government built schools operated by Catholic priests to keep the support of the Catholic Tutsi king. These elite schools were opened primarily for Tutsi children because they required tuition to attend, allowing the more economically stable Tutsi families to take the first seats over the Hutu. These funds supported the Catholic Church and the priests who taught at the school. The parish pastors were able to become wealthy by this support, causing power struggles and participation in “ethnic politics.”¹⁵ The Catholic catechism was a part of the school’s curriculum; therefore, ensuring the Tutsi children a place in the school gave the Catholic Church the first opportunity to convert them.¹⁶ However, it served to fuel ethnic discrimination in the Catholic Church. Although Belgium was behind the push for a Catholic Rwanda, the local state governments continued pressuring the Church about its unequal treatment of the Hutu.

In 1952, Jesuit missionaries went to work in Rwanda at the request of King Mutara III. They focused on feeding the poor and educating the children. The Jesuit missionaries educated the Hutus. The Catholic Church blamed Belgium for the ethnic class designations and by entering Rwanda, disturbed the native culture. Even though Rwanda had a king, it operated indirectly under the rule of Belgium. In 1955, in retaliation to the Church’s complaints, the Belgium government directed the Jesuits to move their school from Rwanda to Usumbura, Burundi, present-day Bujumbura, Burundi. The Catholic Church, and local priests in Rwanda, again declared discrimination unfair to the Hutu and spoke out in their defense. The Jesuits did not return to Rwanda until 1966, and they did so to open an elementary and high school in Kigali. The Church also opened a novitiate, making Kigali the center for religious education.¹⁷

Reversal of Power and Demand for Equality

With the encouragement and assistance of two Catholic missionaries, eleven politically powerful Hutu elite wrote a declaration demanding a resolution to the inequality and racial discrimination. In their declaration, they listed out expected solutions. This nine-page document dated March 3, 1957, was called The Manifesto of the Bahutu.¹⁸ The Manifesto also blamed Belgium for civil unrest in Rwanda because Belgium was an absent ruler. The Manifesto writers demanded that the government continue the practice of indicating whether a Rwandan was Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa on official government identification cards.¹⁹

Following the publication of the Manifesto, the Tutsi no longer held the political power. In 1959, the Catholic Church, assisted by the Belgian government, again incited the two groups. Belgium removed the Tutsi king from power, ending the monarchy.²⁰ The first president of Rwanda, Gregorie Kayibanda, was one of the authors of The Manifesto.²¹ To gain control of the Tutsi, the local government, joined by many Hutu, killed thousands of Tutsi. Many other Tutsi went into exile in nearby countries to escape the killings.

Nevertheless, even though Hutu gained strategic roles in the government, the Tutsi clergy remained in control of the Catholic Church. The Tutsi priests were still teaching, in charge of the Catholic schools, and most of the parish priests were Tutsi. In 1966, after much complaining to the government by Hutu, all Catholic schools were nationalized. Nationalizing the Catholic schools took them out of the Church’s control. The Church lost control of the decisions regarding who was to be hired or fired as teachers, which students would be allowed to attend and promoted, and the curriculum to be taught. The Catholic Church and priests were forced to remain silent if they wanted to continue teaching and practicing in Rwanda. Consequently, their silence played a significant role in the genocide.²²

After WWII, Flemish missionaries from Belgium began moving into Rwanda. These missionaries were more progressive and were disturbed by the poverty of the Hutu.²³ By the early 1970s, the Catholic Church started to make changes focusing on the Hutu. The Hutu continued to complain about unfair education advantages given to Tutsi. Hutus also claimed that they could not find employment because the Tutsi were taking Hutu positions in schools and jobs. At the National University, Hutu students took it upon themselves to post flyers telling all Tutsi to leave the school. Suspected staff and students, who did not hold Tutsi identification cards had their noses and fingers measured for confirmation.²⁴ Many left the university, going into exile in fear of retaliation. Subjected to harassment, Tutsi holding civil service jobs and private business positions lost their jobs. For their safety, thousands of Tutsi left Rwanda. It was at this point that the Catholic Church again showed that it was involved in “ethnic politics.”²⁵

Catholic bishops at the Vatican issued a statement condemning racism. However, the statement went only so far as to state that God’s law and the rights of man were in opposition to these prejudices as all men are created equal. The Church declared that the government, not individuals or organized racist groups, was the only entity that could remove Tutsi from jobs and schools.²⁶ These bishops aimed their statement at the university’s staff and students with no intention of making an impact on the government’s actions. Not surprisingly, the government’s reply was retaliatory. The government removed the Tutsi Monsignor as head of the seminary, replaced him with a Hutu soldier, and closed the convent. At this point, the Catholic Church leadership and other Christian churches moved from Tutsi to Hutu administration. The government told the Catholic Church that if it interfered, the government would take full control of the Church’s operations. Subsequently, no Tutsi held a position of authority in the Catholic Church again until after 1996, even though there were still a generous number of priests who were Tutsi.

Church’s Silence Spoke Volumes

After retaliation by the Rwandan government against the Catholic Church for interfering, the Church remained silent. The only criticism came from individual priests. One priest spoke out against the abuse of Tutsi. After several attempts on his life by government assassins, he died in a suspicious head-on car collision. Several priests wrote letters to the Catholic Church leaders expressing concerns about the ethnic quota status in the schools and businesses. They requested the Church speak openly about its objections to this practice. Still, the Catholic Church remained silent, even when thousands of Tutsi and sympathizing Hutu were forced into exile to save their lives.²⁷

Furthermore, the Catholic Church was not the only religion to keep silent about the ethnic abuse of the Tutsi and their Hutu sympathizers. Although the other Christian denominations spoke out about government corruption and related issues, they did not say a word about the ethnic abuse.²⁸ Together the Christian churches issued a statement that peace needed to be restored between the Hutu and Tutsi. They blamed both groups for the troubles, but never once addressed the killings of the Tutsi and their allies. None of the Christian churches in Rwanda “specifically denounced the ethnic massacres”²⁹ before the 1994 genocide. The Rwandan people took the church leaders’ silence as consenting to the abuse and believed that their church leaders did not condemn the massacres.³⁰ To make the situation worse, it was common knowledge that the Catholic Church, specifically the Bishop in charge of the Rwandan diocese, had family ties with Rwanda’s President.

The CDI, as a good relay of the Catholic Church, had always been very close to the Habyarimana regime. By the fall of 1994 the church was doing some soul-searching and could write: ‘The Catholic Church has been in the service of General Habyarimana’s power. This is the accusation one constantly hears against the Rwandese church. And it is unfortunately true!’ […] The Hague conference in mid- September 1994 […] had been an educational experience in watching some viscerally anti-Tutsi Belgian Christians at work.³¹

The ties between the Catholic Church and the government became so entwined that the Church moved its archdiocese office from Kabgayi to Kigali in 1976.³² It is because the Church chose to conspire with the government instead of demanding equality for everyone that the spiritual and moral integrity of the Catholic Church deteriorated even though the Church flourished.³³

The Slaughterers

According to the Vatican, the Catholic Church was also a victim of the Rwandan genocide. The Vatican says that more than two hundred priests and nuns died in the slaughter. Conversely, many survivors and Rwanda’s current government insist that there are still other priests and nuns who were killers. Some witnesses recalled that there were priests who had guns and shot people. Another priest had his church bulldozed while full of people crushing them to death. Other witnesses remembered that another priest, Father Jean-Baptiste Rutihunza, slaughtered Tutsi children who were disabled at the Centre for the Handicapped in Gatagara.³⁴

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based out of Tanzania, found the following Catholic priests, nuns, and a Protestant minister guilty of actively participating in the Tutsi genocide:

Archbishop Thaddée Ntihinuyrwa, Archdiocese of Kigali – brought in to be questioned by the Rwandan Gacaca court having accused him of leading about six hundred people into a soccer stadium, where Hutu militia killed them; the court filed no charges.³⁵

Rwandan Catholic priest Father Jean François Kayiranga and Rwandan Catholic priest Father Edouard Nkurikiye – charged with leading about two thousand Tutsi to seek refuge in their church and then bulldozing the church; both priests were tried in April 1998 and sentenced to death.³⁶

Rwandan Catholic priest Father Athanase Seromba – charged with having his church bulldozed after he found that all inside had not died; the ICTR sentenced him to fifteen years in prison for his participation in the killings.³⁷

Rwandan Catholic bishop Mgr. Augustin Misago – charged with leading a “death squad”; acquitted in 2000.³⁸

Belgian Catholic priest Father Guy Theunis – charged with inciting the genocide by publishing magazine articles against the RPF; extradited to Belgium for prosecution. As of 2006, Theunis has not been officially charged.³⁹

Rwandan Catholic priest Wenceslas Munyeshyaka – although he escaped to France and is still practicing, he has been arrested and charged numerous times for assisting Hutu militia in killings and rape; convicted in absentia.⁴⁰

Rwandan Catholic priests Hormisdas Nsengimana and Athanase Nyanduei – charged with inciting college students to assist Hutu militia to kill Tutsi. Nsengimana was also believed to be one of the genocide organizers. He has never been charged as an organizer and is practicing in Cameroon.⁴¹

Former army chaplain Emmanuel Rukundo – head of the seminary in Gitarama, alerted the army to kill Tutsi seeking shelter.⁴²

Father Laurent Ntimugura – charged with murdering another priest who was Tutsi.⁴³

Sister Theophister Mukakibibi – charged and sentenced to prison for classifying Tutsi and helping militia kill those seeking refuge in the Butara Hospital.⁴⁴

Rwandan priest Father Thaddée Rusingizandekwe, a military chaplain – accused of throwing grenades into a church, shooting Tutsi, and burning survivors; he killed another priest, Father Jean Pierre Ngoga, who was shielding Tutsi; arrested in September 1994.⁴⁵

Sister Julienne Maria Kizito and Mother Superior Gertrude Mukangango – accused of aiding the killers by giving them gasoline to burn Tutsi and then pointing out Tutsi to be killed. After a trial in June 2001, Kizito was sentenced to twelve years in prison. Mukangango was sentenced to fifteen years.⁴⁶

Seventh-Day Adventist pastor, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana – accused of watching as his parishioners were killed; released in 2006 by the ICTR after serving a ten-year sentence.⁴⁷

There are still many Catholic priests not listed here who were involved and possibly charged with genocide; however, the ICTR took the subsequent indictments in secret.

There were also many unnamed Protestant clergies accused in connection with the genocide. Some of the Catholic clergies not in prison are Archbishop Nsengiyumva of Kigali, four bishops, and eight priests. Tutsi rebel soldiers killed them for assisting the Hutu militia. Rwanda’s present government refuses to allow the Catholic Church to have any power in Rwanda. The Church should have separated itself from politics a long time ago.⁴⁸

What survivors, witnesses, and killers know with certainty is that beginning as early as 1990, the Rwandan government used bully tactics and propaganda to frighten the Rwandan people into submission. On April 7, 1994, the Rwandan radio station began broadcasting speeches to deliberately incite many Hutu to kill the “Tutsi murderers” as revenge for the death of the Rwandan President.49 Within only a few hours after the President’s plane was shot down, the inciting broadcasts pushed for more bloodshed.

You have missed some of the enemies in this or that place. Some are still alive. You must go back there and finish them off. […] The graves are not yet full. Who is going to do good work and help us fill them completely?⁵⁰

* * *

The GP was also on alert, since it immediately went out into the town and started killing.⁵¹

* * *

Their efficiency in carrying out the killings proves that these had been planned well in advance.⁵²

If at least eight hundred thousand Tutsi and sympathizers died and the killings took place in one hundred days, that calculates to eight thousand Tutsi killed every day.

Decimation means the killing of every tenth person in a population, and in the spring and early summer of 1994 a program of massacres decimated the Republic of Rwanda. Although the killing was low-tech – performed largely by machete – it was carried out at a dazzling speed: […] The dead of Rwanda accumulated at near three times the rate of Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient mass killing since the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.⁵³

The Hutu militia power carried out their plan with horrifying swiftness decimating the Tutsi and Tutsi allies.

Just before the killings, there was a group of radical government officials and militia in Rwanda called the Hutu Power. These Hutu extremists believed that they were superior to the Tutsi. They had trained for months, possibly years to complete the total annihilation of the Tutsi. The Rwanda radio stations encouraged these Hutu by broadcasts to kill the Tutsi. The newspaper published articles, and the people spoke publicly about killing the Tutsi. Any Hutus who did not agree with the Hutu Power’s plans to kill Tutsi were publicly called out as collaborators with the Tutsi. These people were sought out as the first to be executed. Many Tutsi approached the Hutu Power leader in a plea to be spared after hearing open conversations about the Hutu Power’s plans to kill Tutsi. They were told to go to the churches for protection. The Tutsi people followed these directions only to be slaughtered by the same people they believed would protect them, led by none other than the Hutu Power leader.⁵⁴

The Slaughtered and Survivors

Most Rwandans killed during these one hundred days were killed in churches or on church grounds.⁵⁵ These are the places that most people seeking help believed they would be safe. Ironically, some Catholic priests, nuns, and Protestant preachers also were killers.⁵⁶ They may not have been swinging a machete, but they showed total disregard for human life by luring these innocent people to their deaths.⁵⁷ Emmanuel Rukundo, Roman Catholic priest and Hutu extremist, betrayed the trust of the Tutsi people seeking safety and hiding in a seminary. Witnesses stated that Rukundo pointed out to soldiers on four separate occasions where people were hiding. The Hutu militia subsequently murdered these people. Rukundo was prosecuted, tried by the United Nations tribunal, and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.⁵⁸

At the parish of Sainte-Famille Catholic Church in Kigali, roughly eight thousand people sought refuge under the protection of Father Wenceslas Munyashyaka. Munyashyaka allowed these people into his church. He then handpicked those to be killed from a list of names.⁵⁹ Survivor, Sara Bampiriye, her husband and three small children, sought refuge in Munyashyaka’s church. Her husband was shot dead just outside of the church by the Hutu militia. Bampiriye stated that the one thing that plays back in her mind was that while the Hutu militia attacked the church, Munyashyaka gave commands directly to the militia. She also recalled that he handed over girls to the Hutu militia to rape and raped some of the girls himself. After hiding for some time in the church, the RPF rescued her and her three children.⁶⁰ She stated that Munyashyaka had close ties with government and military leaders. Bampiriye further noted that before the killings, Munyashyaka carried a pistol under his church garments. His sermons were about “evil things” and that the “Tutsi cockroaches” deserved death. Munyeshyaka was aware of what he was doing because he had enough equanimity not to allow killing in the church. Munyeshyaka later escaped to France, and France refused to extradite him to stand trial. Instead, he was tried in the French court system where he was acquitted of all charges. Munyeshyaka became a French citizen and continued as an active Catholic priest.⁶¹ It was a hard blow to the survivors when the French courts allowed Munyeshyaka to go free and even more disturbing that the Catholic Church allowed him to continue practicing.

Chris McGreal interviewed Catholic priests who survived and were not involved in the killings. McGreal asked one priest his thoughts regarding the involvement of the Catholic Church and clergy in the genocide. The unnamed Tutsi priest pulled out a letter dated April 4, 1972. Eleven Hutu priests wrote the letter to Reverend André Perraudin. One of the signatures was that of the present second-highest official in the Rwandan archdiocese, Father André Havugimana. The letter called Tutsi priests inyenzi and liars. The letter also said that because the Tutsi were smart, they were more conniving and mischievous. These priests believed that the Tutsi wanted to remain in control in the Church because they no longer had the advantage in the government. Every page of this nineteen-page letter was filled with hateful words about the Tutsi priests. In 1973, many Tutsi priests left the Kigali archdiocese fleeing into exile. The Archbishop did not issue a reprimand, and the archdiocese later embraced the same ways of thinking as the letter writers.⁶²

According to Prunier, another twenty- nine Catholic priests jointly wrote a letter to the Vatican. They stated that the Hutu were not responsible for the genocide of the Tutsi peoples and Tutsi supporters. The priests claimed that the RPF should shoulder all blame. They also criticized the plans for an international commission to investigate and prosecute those charged with crimes against humanity.⁶³

In addition to people fleeing to the Catholic Churches for protection, thousands of people escaped to the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in Kibuye, where Pastor Elizaphan Ntakiruntimana was in charge. His son, Dr. Gerard Ntakiruntimana, was practicing at the hospital operated by the Adventist Church. Dr. Gerard told many people to go to the church for protection. Instead of protecting the people, the militia slaughtered them. Witnesses stated that the mayor of Kibuye was in such a frenzied state that he ordered his followers to start killing those who were running to the church for safety. Ntakiruntimana and Dr. Gerard were close friends with the mayor. The mayor also sent thousands to city hall for protection by police and soldiers. An estimation placed the number killed surrounding and inside the city hall complex at over ten thousand. The mayor sent the police and soldiers but not for protection. Instead, they slaughtered those seeking safety. One surviving refugee recalled that the people appealed to Ntakiruntimana for help, but his only reply was that he had “‘already found a solution. You must die. […] You must be eliminated. God no longer wants you.’”⁶⁴ Ntakiruntimana had no intention of protecting these people.

Jean Hatzfeld interviewed several inmates about their participation in the killings. Hatzfeld wanted to know what they saw, and whom did they see killing with them?⁶⁵ He asked them about their faith and the priests accused of being killers. The inmates told their stories in such a matter-of- fact tone that the transcripts were agonizing to read. One prisoner stated that they prepared for each day of the genocide. The organization had only one rule, and that was to kill. Another prisoner openly admitted that he was a deacon in his church. When the parish priest was not available for Mass, he conducted the services. To coincide with other statements made about the priests, another prisoner affirmed:

The white priests took off at the first skirmishes. The black priests joined the killers or the killed. God kept silent, and the churches stank from abandoned bodies. Religion could not find its place in our activities. For a little while, we were no longer ordinary Christians, we had to forget our duties learned in catechism class. We had first of all to obey our leaders – and God only afterward, very long afterward, to make confession and penance. When the job was done.⁶⁶

In interviews inside of Kigali’s prison, Philip Gourevitch observed that two inmates in the women’s section were nuns. They said Mass every day with the other inmates.⁶⁷ Considering the viciousness of the killings described by witnesses, few guards monitored those incarcerated in the grossly overpopulated prison. There seemed to be a quiet peace throughout the entire prison. No one tried to escape, and there was no sign of any attempt to revolt. The men’s section of Kigali’s prison was like a small, overly populated apartment complex. Gourevitch observed as he walked through the prison, that his guides moved people aside with a stick. The inmates exhibited “the famous mob mentality of blind obedience to authority … described in attempts to explain genocide.”⁶⁸ To date, due to the overpopulation, the prisons released approximately sixty thousand killers charged with genocide.

Where Was God?

François Nkurunziza, a lawyer who lived in Kigali, spoke to Gourevitch about how he and his family survived. He discussed the mentality of the killers. He remembered the thoughts that ran through his mind while being chased, trying to escape death. Nkurunziza was lucky to have been able to escape. However, the majority of his family perished. Nkurunziza told Gourevitch that obedience is important to Rwandans. “You take the poor innocent population, and give them arms, and say, ‘It’s yours. Kill.’ They’ll obey.”⁶⁹ He said that the killers looked to the Hutu Power leaders to tell them what to do. Rwandans always followed authority, doing what their leader – the king or the government – told them.

Gourevitch interviewed another survivor, sixty-year-old Jean-Baptiste Munyaukore. Munyaukore stated after witnessing the killings that “God turned His back on them” and allowed them to be slaughtered. “God had forgotten us ….” During the slaughtering, Jean-Baptiste believed that the rest of the world turned their heads the other way and that God had abandoned them. Still, other survivors believe that they survived the killings only because of God’s divine intervention.⁷⁰

According to Prunier, citing Jean Chatain and Reverend Roger Bowen, interviewers asked survivors and those inside the Church organizations about bystanders. The survivors said that:

The bystanders were mostly the churches. Although, as we will see, there were admirable acts of courage among ordinary Christians, the church hierarchies were at best useless and at worst accomplices in the genocide.

* * *

Most of the priests who were killed were those who had defended human rights.⁷¹

* * *

As for the Protestant Churches, … their attitude was little better. But at least there was an admission of guilt at a higher hierarchical level.⁷²

Reverend Bowen stated that he believed that the problems stemmed from the fact that the Anglican Church leaders and the Habyarimana government had a tight connection, and that the Anglican diocesan bishops were all Hutu.⁷³

The Presbyterian Church apologized in 1996 for not taking a more active role in preventing the massacre.74 It took the Catholic Church until March 20, 2017, to apologize and ask the people of Rwanda for forgiveness. Even though Pope Francis apologized, there are still no indications that priests who were protected at the time of the genocide will be brought to justice. Surprisingly, some survivors managed to return to the same churches or parishes where the majority of Rwandans died. The Catholic Church assisted Tutsi survivors with coping skills and counseling to help them move forward with their lives.⁷⁵ However, most Catholic Rwandans now attend Pentecostal churches.⁷⁶ The Rwandan Christians began trying to piece back some semblance of a normal life, just as the Jewish Holocaust survivors had done.

Blind Obedience

The genocide that took place during the Holocaust by Nazi Germany is a stark parallel to the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Perpetrators and survivors of both genocides made the same statements about what made them do the heinous things they did. Most surprisingly is how some survivors healed contingent on the words and actions of the killers. In a Chicago Tribune article, Magda Brown, an Auschwitz survivor, was interviewed about the trial testimony of Oskar Groening, also known as “the bookkeeper of Auschwitz.” What struck Brown the most was when Groening told the judge, “[i]t is beyond question that I am morally complicit.”⁷⁷ Brown stated that she was surprised that Groening admitted in open court that he was guilty of leading Jews from the trains to their deaths and other atrocities at Auschwitz.

There were others tried for their crimes at Auschwitz. When asked why they participated in the killings of innocent people, their answers were the same as the killers in Rwanda. “Ordinary … ‘susceptible human beings’” fell to the “pressures to conform, to a desire to please those in positions of authority.”⁷⁸ The literature regarding the psychological motivation of what makes an individual blindly follow orders, speaks for itself. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum interviewed thousands of “ordinary … ‘susceptible human beings’” and in the writings of the Memorial Museum stories, are these words:

Being a leader in one’s group, […] or community and an engaged citizen sometimes requires exercising courage in situations where it would be simpler and easier not to speak out or ‘swim against’ the tide. […] ‘Too few people made conscious choices against evil’ when it could have made a difference.⁷⁹

This fact that the Nazi’s led ordinary human beings to commit murder compares directly to the Rwandan genocide. The Hutu Powers, like the Nazis, purposefully, systematically, and without conscience, trained and led the Hutu to go out day after day to violently murder the Tutsi and Tutsi sympathizers. The Hutu plotted against a specific group of people with the sole purpose of carrying out ethnic cleansing.⁸⁰

Conclusion

In conclusion, evidence shows that the Catholic Church’s leadership and the White Father missionaries focused on teachings about obedience and respect to those of authority instead of teaching about being responsible to each other. It was more important to the White Fathers to convert the Rwandan people. Love thy neighbor came secondary to following the government leaders’ wishes.⁸¹ The Catholic Church had ties with the government of Belgium and later with the local government in Rwanda. Collusion with the government was to the Catholic Church’s advantage so that they could keep the churches and schools in Rwanda under the Vatican’s control. However, there were consequences to these actions – power struggles were a constant problem mixed with political corruption.⁸²

When the Jesuit and Flemish missionaries from Belgium entered Rwanda, they focused their teachings on the poor. They were interested in feeding the poor and educating the Rwandan children so they could have a better life. These missionaries had no interest in separating the Rwandan people into ethnic groups. Today, a Hutu majority in Rwanda is governed by a government in which Tutsi hold all of the significant positions.⁸³ Rwanda, even after the vicious act of genocide, still does not have a government fully representative of all Rwandan people. The government has, at least since 1996, discontinued identification cards that identify a Rwandan as Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa.⁸⁴

As sensational as the events referenced here sound, there is no embellishment in the accounts told by the killers and the survivors. Many first-hand witnesses gave testimonies corroborating each other’s statements. Each gave testimonials about what happened to them at their location during the slaughter. Killers have made apologies to the surviving victims and the families of those who perished. Surprisingly, some apologies were accepted. Nonetheless, Hutu and Tutsi, at the time of this paper, still have a fair distance to go in reconciling their past with the needs of a united Rwanda.

1 Marijke Verpoorten, “The Death Toll of the Rwandan Genocide: A Detailed Analysis for Gikongoro Province,” Population (English ed.) 60, no. 4 (2005): 331. http://doi.org/10.2307/4148179; Peter Celestine Safari, “Church, State and the Rwandan Genocide,” Political Theology 11, no. 6 (December 2010): 873–93. https://doi.org/10.1558/poth.v11i6.873.

2 J.J. Carney, Rwanda Before the Genocide: Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourse in the Late Colonial Era (Oxford University Press, September 2, 2013), 207.

3 Jean Hatzfeld, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak: A Report (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), xi.

4 Phillip A. Cantrell, “‘We Were a Chosen People’: The East African Revival and Its Return to Post-Genocide Rwanda,” Church History 83, no. 2 (2014): 422-445. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009640714000080.

5 Helen M. Hintjens, “Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 37, no. 2 (1999): 241-286. http://www.jstor.org/stable/161847.

6 Safari, 876.

7 J.J. Carney, “Beyond Tribalism: The Hutu- Tutsi Question and Catholic Rhetoric in Colonial Rwanda,” Journal of Religion in Africa 42, no. 2 (2012): 172-201. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006612X646178.

8 Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 24-26 (emphasis in original).

9 Cantrell, 427.

10 Cantrell, 427-428; citing John Bauer, 2000 Years of Christianity in Africa (Nairobi: Paulines Publications Africa, 1994): 249.

11 Prunier, 26-27.

12 Prunier, 31.

13 Prunier, 32.

14 Kathryn Rountree, “Catholic Missionaries in Africa: The White Fathers of the Belgian Congo 1950-1955” (LSU Master’s Thesis, 2009), 3323- 3328.

15 Timothy Longman, “Church Politics and the Genocide in Rwanda,” Journal of Religion in Africa 31, no. 2 (2001): 173. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006601X00112.

16 Cantrell, 427.

17 “Rwanda-Burundi Region,” “Jesuit Rwanda-Burundi,” Society of Jesus, last modified 2017. http://www.jesuitsrwb.org/aboutus/rwanda- burundi-region.

18 The Manifesto of the Bahutu, 24 March 1957, Poland Rwanda 1958-1960, Records of the Research Center and Socio-Political Information Center (CRISP), 1962, translated from French. http://francegenocidetutsi.org/ManifesteDesBahutuLettreEtCommentaires1958.pdf.

19 Safari, 877.

20 Safari, 877.

21 Gourevitch, 61.

22 Safari, 881.

23 Anthony Court, “The Christian Churches, the State, and Genocide in Rwanda,” Missionalia: Southern African Journal of Missiology 44, no. 1 (30 July 2016): 61-62. http://dx.doi.org/10.7832/44-1- 106; Gourevitch, 58.

24 Safari, 879; Lisapo ya Kama, “How the Hutu and the Tutsi Have Been Created,” African History 8 (January 2018): 1-6. http://en.lisapoyakama.org/how-the-hutu-and-the- tutsi-have-been-created/.

25 Court, 63; Longman, “Church Politics and the Genocide in Rwanda,” 173.

26 Safari, 879, citing Ian Linden, Church and Revolution in Rwanda (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977), 8.

27 Safari, 881, citing Timothy Longman, “Christian Churches and Genocide in Rwanda,” In God’s Name: Genocide and Religion in the Twentieth Century, edited by Omer Bartov and Phyllis Mack (New York and Oxford: Barghan Books, 2001), 139- 160.

28 Safari, 882.

29 Timothy Paul Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 180.

30 Longman, Christianity and Genocide, 180; Safari, 881.

31 Prunier, 335, citing Letter from the Missionaries of Africa (Lettre des Missionaires d’Afrique), 12 September 1994).

32 Longman, Christianity and Genocide, 88- 91.

33 Safari, 874.

34 Chris McGreal, “Hiding in Plain Sight in France: The Priests Accused in Rwandan Genocide,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, April 7, 2014). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/07/rwanda-genocide-20-years-priests-catholic-church; Chris McGreal, Chaplains in the Militia: The Tangled Story of the Catholic Church During Rwanda’s Genocide, (N.p., Guardian Shorts, 2014), 32, Kindle.

35 Research Directorate, Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Ottawa, “Canada: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Rwanda: Involvement of Members of the Roman Catholic Clergy in the 1994 Genocide,” 6 March 2008, RWA102792.E. http://www.refworld.org/docid/49b92b279.html.

36 CatholicCulture.org, “Rwanda Priests Sentenced To Death In Genocide Trial April 20, 1998,” Catholic World News – News Feature. https://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index. cfm?recnum=7447.

37 Marc Lacey, “Rwandan Priest Sentenced to 15 Years for Allowing Deaths of Tutsi in Church,” New York Times, December 4, 2006. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/world/africa/14rwanda.html.

38 Research Directorate, “Involvement of Members of the Roman Catholic.”

39 Research Directorate, “Involvement of Members of the Roman Catholic.”

40 Research Directorate, “Involvement of Members of the Roman Catholic.”

41 Research Directorate, “Involvement of Members of the Roman Catholic”; Vincent Browne, “Church is Accused on Rwandan Genocide,” The Irish Times, July 22, 1998. https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/church-is- accused-on-rwandan-genocide-1.175686.

42 Research Directorate, “Involvement of Members of the Roman Catholic.”

43 Research Directorate, “Involvement of Members of the Roman Catholic.”

44 “Catholic Nun Convicted for Rwandan Genocide,” NBCNews.com, November 10, 2006. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15653352/ns/world_news-africa/t/catholic-nun-convicted-rwandan- genocide/#.W95CzKfMyYU.

45 Browne, “Church is Accused on Rwandan Genocide.”

46 Research Directorate, “Involvement of Members of the Roman Catholic.”

47 Lacey, “Rwandan Priest Sentenced.”

48 Donatella Lorch, “The Rock That Crumbled: The Church in Rwanda,” New York Times, October 17, 1994. https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/17/world/kigali- journal-the-rock-that-crumbled-the-church-in- rwanda.html.

49 Prunier, 26.

50 Prunier, 26.

51 Prunier, 240. The GP was the Presidential Guard. Lieutenant Colonel Nkundiye, former commander of the GP, and Colonel Mpiranya, commander of the paratroopers, along with several other military officers, were found to be coordinators of the massacres on a national level.

52 Prunier, 242.

53 Zack Beauchamp, “Rwanda’s Genocide – What Happened, Why it Happened, and How it Still Matters,” Vox (April 10, 2014). https://www.vox.com/2014 /4/10/5590646/rwandan- genocide-anniversary; Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (New York: Picador: Holtzbrinck Publishers, 1998), 4.

54 Athan Tashobya, “Munyeshyaka, the Priest Who Turned on His Flock,” The NewTimes (Rwanda, October 15, 2015), 18. https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/193499.

55 Christine Schliesser, “From ‘a Theology of Genocide’ to a ‘Theology of Reconciliation’? On the Role of Christian Churches in the Nexus of Religion and Genocide in Rwanda,” Religions 9, no. 2 (2018): 34. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9020034.

56 Schliesser, 34.

57 Safari, 874; Raymond Bonner, “Clergy in Rwanda Is Accused of Abetting Atrocities,” New York Times, July 7, 1995. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/07/world/clergy- in-rwanda-is-accused-of-abetting-atrocities.html.

58 Marlise Simons, “Rwandan: Priest Guilty in Genocide,” The New York Times, February 27, 2009. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/world/africa/28briefs-Priestguilty_brf.html.

59 Prunier, 258.

60 Tashobya, 18.

61 Tashobya, 18.

62 McGreal, Chaplains in the Military, 34- 37.

63 McGreal, Chaplains in the Military, 34- 37.

64 Gourevitch, 25-29; Marlise Simons, “Rwandan Pastor and His Son Are Convicted of Genocide,” The New York Times, February 20, 2003. https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/20/world/rwandan-pastor-and-his-son-are-convicted-of-genocide.html.

65 Jean Hatzfeld, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak: A Report (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 142-145. A particular group of nine men who had been friends for years.

66 Hatzfeld, 142-145.

67 Gourevitch, 243.

68 Gourevitch, 243.

69 Prunier, 23.

70 Jean Hatzfeld, Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak, Translated by Linda Coverdale (New York: Other Press, LLC., 2006), 63- 73.

71 Prunier, 250, citing Jean Chatain, “Deux pretres temoignent sur les atrocities au Rwanda,” L’Humanite (3 May 1994). “Throughout the crisis, Fathers Vleugels and Theunis of the White Fathers sent frequent faxes to their head office to inform their Order of the developments in Rwanda. The general tone is most revealing: there are precise lists of priests killed but nothing about the massive killings of their parishioners. […] The only moment when names are named is when the two Fathers can at long last pin a particular crime on the RPF. Then all the necessary details and particulars are given.”

72 Prunier, 252, quoting Reverend Roger Bowen, “Rwanda-Missionary Reflections on a Catastrophe J. C. Jones Lecture 1995,” Anvil 13, no. 1 (1996). https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/anvil/13- 1_033.pdf. The Rev. Roger W. Bowen was the General Secretary of Mid-Africa Ministry (CMS).

73 Prunier, 252.

74 Schliesser, 45.

75 Jean D’Amour Banyanga & Björkqvist, Kaj, “The Dual Role of Religion Regarding the Rwandan 1994 Genocide: Both Instigator and Healer,” Pyrex Journal of African Studies and Development 3 (2017): 1-12. https://www.pyrexjournals.org/pjasd/pdf/2017/may/Banyanga-and-Bjorkqvist.pdf.

76 Harriet Sherwood, “Pope Francis Asks for Forgiveness for The Church’s Role in the Rwanda Genocide,” The Guardian (Guardian News and Media, March 20, 2017). https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/20/pope-francis-asks-for-forgiveness-for-churchs-role-in- rwanda-genocide.

77 Barbara Brotman, “Former Nazi Guard’s Openness About Atrocities Surprises Survivor,” Chicago Tribune, April 25, 2015. http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/columnists/ ct-holocaust-trial-brotman-talk-0427-20150427- column.html#.

78 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Ethical Leadership, quoting Willy Brandt from Frances Henry, Victims and Neighbors: A Small Town in Nazi Germany Remembered (South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 1984), viii, accessed on September 18, 2018. https://www.ushmm.org/teach/teaching- materials/roles-of-individuals/ethical- leaders/overview/ethical-leadership.

79 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Ethical Leadership.

80 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Confront: What is Genocide? accessed on July 17, 2020. https://www.ushmm.org/genocide- prevention/learn-about-genocide-and-other-mass- atrocities/definitions.

81 Schliesser, 38.

82 Schliesser, 38.

83 Cantrell, 443.

84 Jaclyn Nardone, “Intolerably Inferior Identify: How the Social Construction of Race Erased a Rwandan Population,” Peace & Conflict Monitor, Last Updated: April 8, 2010. http://www.monitor.upeace.org/innerpg.cfm?id_article=707.

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The Pope prays for the poor while sitting on a throne of gold

I converted this article from a PDF file I found on the Internet. It was written in 1999 and therefore does not include any information about Popes Benedict and Francis.

I am currently reading Ronald Cooke’s booklet, “THE EFFECT OF THE JESUIT ESCHATOLOGIES ON AMERICA TODAY“, an excellent discourse on the history of how the Jesuit order sowed evil leaven of false doctrines in Protestant churches to derail them and take their eyes off the popes of Rome as the biblical Antichrist of the Book of Revelation and the Man of Sin of II Thessalonians chapter two.

About the Author

Dr. Ron Cooke was born in Northern Ireland and came to the United States in the 1950’s to better his education. Since then he has pastored churches and taken part in evangelistic campaigns. He has been preaching for sixty-two years. He has been a Professor of Theology for forty-five years and President of Breckbill BIble College for 32 years. Dr. Cooke has authored over 100 books and tracts. He founded Truth International Ministries in 1988 since then TIM has distributed over 400,000 pieces of literature to over 40 countries. TIM also funds an Orphan feeding program in the Philippines, Prison Ministry in Zambia, and works with 32 churches in Malawi, Africa. – (Quoted from https://www.truthinternationalministries.com/About-Us.html)

Introduction

In this short study the lives of various popes are briefly discussed. The reason for this study is because certain evangelical and fundamental spokesmen have come forward to praise the papacy since the advent of Vatican II and Pope John XXIII, (or XXIV, as the case may be).

The popes of Rome are now considered wonderful charismatic spiritual leaders of the entire world community. There is even talk of moving the See of Rome to Jerusalem so that a future pope may oversee and solve the problems in Israel and the Middle East.

The last few popes have been praised not only by Roman Catholics and other religious leaders, but by evangelical and fundamental Protestants. Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Jack Van Impe, Pat Robertson, and James Robison all sing the praises of the papacy today.

Does the papacy deserve such praise? Is the papacy worthy of the adulation heaped upon it by such men? Let the historical record answer these questions.

Ronald Cooke RR 3, Box 486 Max Meadows, VA 24360 April 12, 1999

When one raises questions about the lives of some of the wicked popes of Rome, the response usually comes back that it is true there were some wicked popes but that was back in early times and in the Middle Ages, in modern times the papacy cleaned up its act. Modern popes, it is claimed, have not been monsters of iniquity as their predecessors were.

This, of course, is small comfort to the truth seeker. For then such a response ADMITS that for more than a thousand years the popes of Rome for the most part were very evil men. Meaning that many men, who CLAIMED to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, the Lord of the Earth, Supreme Ruler of Mankind, were engaged in the worst of crimes against humanity, while at the same time making such preposterous and blasphemous claims.

So how could such an office have any thing to do with Christ when such monsters obviously occupied it many times down through church history? If the office was truly from God and was truly occupied by the very representative of Christ on earth then it admits of NO EXCEPTIONS. Such men are either the Vicar of Christ or they are not. It is obvious that they are NOT!

Again, people say, why bother with such things? Why dredge up the past? Let sleeping dogs lie. The answer is that modern evangelical spokesmen have brought the issue to the fore by praising the popes of Rome, as not only Christian, but as the greatest spiritual leaders in the world today. When evangelical and self-professed fundamental leaders praise the popes of Rome they put the camps they represent on notice: either they are going to accept what the spokesmen say or reject what they say. So far we have seen very little rejection of these statements.

So if this study accomplishes no more than to separate me from such spokesmen it will be well worth the labor expended. I do not want to be identified with anyone who praises the Roman Antichrist and calls him a great spiritual leader of men in the world today!

It is true that few seem to care about truth today. The debacle of the impeachment of the President of the United States underscores this attitude toward the truth only too well. The majority of Americans, it is claimed by those who keep statistics, are more interested in the economy than in truth.

Nevertheless the truth must be presented whether the majority are interested in it or not. The truth of Christ must be presented in the face of Antichrist. God’s servants are not guaranteed to get much of a hearing in this world. Still the voice must cry in the wilderness of carnal security, and material prosperity, and antichristianity,

In the Scriptures the voice asks the question: “What shall I cry? And the answer was: “All flesh is as grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withers; the flower fades; because the Spirit of the Lord blows upon it: surely the PEOPLE IS GRASS. The grass withers, the flower fades: BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD SHALL STAND FOREVER!

The Word of the Lord states CATEGORICALLY: “But this MAN after He had offered ONE SACRIFICE for sins FOREVER, SAT DOWN on the right hand of God (Heb. 10:12). Christ put an end to all masses and to the Roman priesthood. As Dr. Ian Paisley put it so well: “God has sacked every priest that Rome ever ordained.”1

So whether anyone listens or not the voice still must cry out in the wilderness of this world. The Word of the Lord shall stand and the refuge of lies shall be swept away whether people are interested in the truth or not. God always has a remnant that are interested in the truth, and God ALWAYS has the LAST word whether men pay any attention or not.

For centuries after the Reformation there was a definite Protestant heritage that understood the evils of the papacy. That heritage slowly but surely has been eroded away by a weak and compromising spirit. But even apart from the weakness there has been a definite attempt by the papacy to DESTROY the Reformation heritage.

This effort has been going on for centuries and it is still going strong as of this writing. The effort has as its focal point the issue of the identity of Antichrist.

At the Council of Trent the Roman Catholic Church sought to rid the papacy of the stigma of Antichrist. All the Dissenters of pre-Reformation history, and all the Reformers without exception identified the papacy with Antichrist. So Rome, since the days of Joachim of Flores around AD 1190, has been working to remove the stigma of Antichrist from the papacy.

The Jesuits spearheaded the attack on Reformation Protestantism. One of the first things the Jesuits did was to put forth two new ideas of Antichrist. Francisco Ribera, a Jesuit priest put forth his idea of an evil man who would appear at the very end times and be the antichrist. Alcasar, a Spanish Jesuit put forth the Preterist idea of Antichrist, teaching that Antichrist rose and fell in the first century before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The amazing thing about these two views is that they are now the views of almost every PROTESTANT in the world today! The two Jesuit-originated ideas of the Antichrist are taught by almost every Bible-believing Protestant in the world today.

(I have had people say to me that the Jesuits now have very little impact upon Protestantism. This may be true, but if it is, the reason is easily seen: Protestants now promote the Jesuit’s ideas for them, so the Jesuits do not need to be active in Protestant circles today except as ecumenical spokesmen.)

On one side the Reconstructionists all promote the Jesuit Alcasar’s idea of an Antichrist limited only to the first century of the church. On the other side the rest of Protestantism, with the exception of a very small minority, promote the Jesuit Ribera’s view of antichrist limited only to the very end of the age. The Reformers’ view that Antichrist was past, present, and future, and tied into the papacy, has been almost completely discarded.

For two hundred years after the Reformation the Reformers’ view of Antichrist held its own. Then various spokesmen within the confines of Protestant Anglicanism began to call for unity with Rome. The Tractarians launched an all out effort to return Anglicanism to the fold of Rome, and in so doing REJECTED the Reformers’ view that Rome was Antichrist. In other words, the first move toward modern ecumenism had to deal with the issue of Antichrist. Certainly, no one in his right mind is going to call for unity with Antichrist. So one of the very first tasks of the ecumenists was to lift the stigma of Antichrist from Rome.

Since that time the move has gained great momentum. Now it is not only Anglicans who are praising the papacy as Christian, but Baptists, Presbyterians, and other self-professed Bible- believing Christians who are joining the chorus. So that at this very hour the papacy is not only being hailed as Christian, but the pope is called one of the greatest spiritual leaders of the world!

The speed up of the news media has also contributed to the growth in popularity of the papacy. At the turn of this century the pope was only a little-known Italian prelate out side of Italy and Ireland.

In just a few short years the pope of Rome has gone from being a virtual nobody in the modern world to the best known man in the world and the man who is now looked upon as and the leader of leaders. Ethelbert Bullinger, who believed that Mystery Babylon referred to a rebuilt Babylon in the Middle East, said,

It is not my wish in any degree to minimize the awful abominations of Romanism. We see in it one of the most filthy of all streams that have flowed from Babylon; but we do try to rise above a “Local Board” when we are dealing with God’s account of how He is going to close His great controversy with Jew and Gentile.2

So when Bullinger wrote about 100 years ago he felt that the Papacy was little more than the local board as far as the end- times were concerned. It is true that the Pope was considered an anachronism back then in Britain and America. But times have obviously changed dramatically and the Pope has gone from an unknown chairman of the board to the most visible man in the world.

Bullinger never lived to see the Treaty of Rome signed. He never lived to see a common currency come into vogue in Europe. He never lived to see the United States (which in his day was the most powerful Protestant nation on earth) become a total lackey of the Vatican. He never lived to see the advent of television which now enables the blasphemy of the mass to be beamed into two billion homes at the same time. He never lived to see the pope of Rome become the best known man in the world.

The popes of Rome keeping claiming the world as their domain, they keep pushing themselves into the limelight, seeking to become the cynosure of all peoples. So they need to be closely examined as to their self-professed credentials.

When one looks at the lives of some of these men who claimed, and still claim, to be the Vicar of Christ on earth, he sees a ghastly array of egregious evils both moral and spiritual, which cannot be matched by any other group of men, or by any other organization, in the annals of history. Other men and organizations have committed great evils, but never on such a wide scale and never for such a long time.

The evils are compounded by the fact that the popes of Rome not only claimed to be “Christian” but to be the leader of all Christians in the world, and the personal representative of Christ on earth. When the lives and teachings of the popes are examined it will be seen by any impartial observer, that some of the most wicked men who have ever lived on this planet were popes of Rome. Their lives and teachings mark them out as the representatives of evil rather than the representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The popes surpassed Nero and Caligula in crimes and sins. Because of their positions and their claims, they were far more evil than the most evil of the Roman Emperors. The very ideas of morality and honesty were vitiated by the monsters who sat in the papal chair. Even Bellarmine the great defender of Romanism wrote about the time preceding the Protestant Reformation:

there was no strictness in spiritual courts, no chastity in manners, no reverence in presence of what was sacred, no scholarship, in short almost no religion.3

And yet all these men up to this time of Bellarmine’s writing for the past fifteen hundred years CLAIMED TO BE THE REPRESENTATIVE OF CHRIST ON EARTH! During all these centuries impunity was sold to the living for a price; and deliverance even from death and purgatory could be obtained for the right amount of money.

Farrar wrote,

A priesthood calling itself the Church –a priesthood whose vices were the complaint of the theologian and the motive of the novelist, the despair of the good and the execration of the multitude –claimed absolute authority over men’s bodies and souls. . . made it easier for the rich than for the poor to escape damnation and gave even to the grace of God the aspect of capricious concession to the purchased intercessions of the Virgin Mary.4

Farrar elaborated:

The name of faith was prostituted by being bestowed on the abject acceptance of unproved postulates; the name of morals was conferred upon blind obedience to human traditions; the name of grace was confined to the mechanical operation of perverted sacraments; the name of truth to a mass of infallible falsehoods; the name of orthodoxy to the passive repetition of traditional ignorance. The results were frightful. There was mental coercion and moral disorder.5

Farrar then asked the following series of questions?

How could Rome be respected when the world saw such pontiffs as Sixtus IV., Innocent VIII., Alexander VI., Julius II., and Clement VII.? How could the world tolerate on the lips of simonists, nepotists, adulterers, and worse, the claim to absolute dominion over religion, the claim to be the sole interpreters of Scripture, and the immediate recipients of the power and authority of Christ? 6

Dean Fredric W. Farrar was certainly no ranting fanatic. He held the high and honored position of Dean of Canterbury, and Chaplain to Queen Victoria, and also chaplain of the House of Commons. Yet even this highly respected and mild mannered Anglican scholar, at the turn of this century, blasted in no uncertain terms the wickedness of the popes of Rome. This is why it is nothing short of incredible, that evangelicals and self- professed fundamentalists, in such a short time should now be praising the very men that Farrar so rightly condemned.

The difference is that Farrar studied and knew church history, while the men of today who are called great prophetical scholars seem to be almost totally ignorant of church history. An ignorance of church history is almost universal today. Yet prophecy cannot be understood apart from history. Perhaps the church could use some historical speakers today to help counteract the ignorant prophetical speakers which are everywhere in this generation.

Men speak of a future-only Antichrist while ignoring totally the historical Antichrist. In so doing they have invented the best of all possible opponents. In fact, it would be impossible to invent a nicer opponent. For the future-only Antichrist has NEVER affected anyone in ALL of church history, He is NOT NOW affecting anyone, and he NEVER WILL affect any Christian, because all Christians will be gone before he can even appear! When he does appear he will attack only Jews. And even at that he will only do so for three and a half years!

So a nicer opponent would indeed be difficult to invent. According to this Jesuit idea the future-only Antichrist may be a hideous monster capable of every evil imaginable and with the power to carry it out, but he NEVER EVER does anything to any Christian.

The Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Hussites, the Lollards ALL thought they were being persecuted and destroyed by the Antichrist. The Protestant Reformers all thought likewise.

It has taken several hundred years to remove the stigma of Antichrist from the Papacy that was laid upon her by all the Dissenters of church history before the Reformation, and by all the Reformers and those who followed them for two centuries after the Reformation. The Jesuit’s two views of Antichrist now rule practically all Bible-believers’ eschatology. A remarkable triumph of Jesuit casuistry!

While multitudes of Christians now follow the Jesuits, the work of Antichrist proceeds on every side. The neutralized wonder boys of modern Protestantism ignore the inroads of Romanism while warning about a future monster who harms nobody NOW. They totally ignore the work of the present Antichrist while warning everyone about a future Antichrist who will never affect one Christian if their eschatology is correct. It is a remarkable achievement of the Jesuits. No wonder modern “Christianity” is in such a pathetic state as the church approaches the end of the second millennium.

When ungodly men claim to be the Lord of the Earth, the Supreme Ruler of mankind, the Vicar of Christ, such claims mark them out as vicious sinners and blasphemers above the rank of ordinary cutthroats and apostates who never made such ungodly and blasphemous claims.

The following popes made the most blasphemous claims concerning their own persons while living lives that would have embarrassed ordinary sinners. They cannot be dismissed as if they never existed. THESE MEN LIVED! WHAT IS MORE, THEY LIVED AS THE POPES OF ROME! THEY WERE THE HEAD OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC “CHURCH.” THEY WIELDED ALL THE HORRIBLE POWERS THAT WENT WITH THAT POSITION. THEY STAND, ACCORDING TO ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS AND SCHOLARS, IN THE LONG CHRONOLOGICAL LINE OF THE POPES, AND YET THEY WERE SOME OF THE WORST MISCREANTS WHO EVER CURSED THE WORLD WITH THEIR PRESENCE!

References

1. Paisley, Ian, Revivalist, Oct., 1998, p. 13. 2. Bullinger, Ethelbert, The Book of Revelation, Kregel Reprint, pp. 509-510. 3. Farrar, Frederic W., History of Interpretation, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Ml, Reprint, 1961, p. 311. 4. Ibid., p. 310. 5. Ibid., p. 311. 6. Ibid., p. 309. -8

Malachi Martin, who is a Roman Catholic writer, gives us a glimpse into the early days of the papacy:

At the election of Pope Damasus I in AD 366, thirty seven corpses littered the environs of the Liberian Basilica after a fracas between the followers of Damasus and his archrival Ursinus.1

Malachi Martin also recounts the actions of Pope Stephen who had his archrival brought before him with broken knee-caps, (the IRA practiced the same cruelty) and had him whipped and his eyes carved out. He then elaborates:

Within a year Pope Stephen will have used Duke Desiderius to get Christophorus, Sergius, and Gratiosus imprisoned, first their eyes cut out, then their lives ended. He will then turn on Desiderius and by December of 771 will encompass his ruin and death.2

Martin again:

The high point of Marozia’s career came at the end of her very long life when she was visited in her Roman prison by an emperor who had just seized possession of the city –Otto III, a successor of Charlemagne. He had only one reason for visiting Marozia –to lay eyes on the woman who was the mother of a pope, whom she had conceived by another pope, and who was the aunt of a third pope, the grandmother of a fourth pope, and with the help of her own mother, the creator of nine popes in eight years, of whom two had been strangled, one suffocated with a cushion, and four deposed and disposed of in circumstances that have never come to public light.3

The catalogue of evil associated with the various popes can not be matched by any other organization in the history of man. Here are a few more examples of men who claimed to be the Vicar of Christ in the early years of church history.

Formosus I -? -896

The story of Formosus is one of the most bizarre tales of the papacy. He was installed as pope in AD 891 and reigned for five years. He tried to take Spoleto by force at the head of an army but died of a stroke on the way or may have been poisoned. He was buried in AD 896 in Rome.

When Pope Stephen VII, a man who was insane and subject to violent outbreaks, was installed as pope he at the instigation of Agiltruda had his rotten corpse dug up. Martin relates the rest of this story.

Formosus had been dead and buried for over eleven months. On Agiltruda’s suggestion, Pope Stephen had the rotting corpse dug up, and brought to the Lateran Palace, clothed in pontifical vestments, placed sitting on a papal throne, and then tried for capital crimes by Stephen and his cardinals and bishops. This was the famous Corpse Synod…

Pope Stephen himself and a papal accuser cross- questioned the rotting corpse (a trembling eighteen year old deacon stood beside the corpse and answered for the voiceless Formosus). . . At the crucial confession, Cardinals Sergius, Benedict, Paschalis, Leo, John, and the others rushed on the corpse, ripped the pontifical vestments from it, tore off the first three fingers of the right hand (Formosus, like every pope, gave the papal blessing with those three fingers), and then dragged the corpse from the hall.

Marozia was there as the cardinals and clergy dragged the corpse out of the palace and along the streets. The shouts of the crowd, the smell of putrefying flesh, the stones and the mud she and the others threw at the corpse did not let up at all. And then there was the dull splash as they threw the remains of Formosus into the River Tiber. 4

Pope John XII -? -964

This is the pope who was a former gang member who carried on various affairs with his mother, his sister, and his father’s mistress. He had many mistresses and one called Joan. Since she exercized such control over him at one point, she in effect was pope. Others claim that there was an actual woman pope called Pope Joan. There certainly seems to be some authority for such a claim.

John it is claimed made a pact with the Devil and was charged with open Devil worship. But in answer to the charges John threatened the group of cardinals with excommunication, He was caught in the act of adultery by an irate husband who beat him to death with a hammer. He was then all of 27 years old.

Before his death John was also charged with the crimes of murder, adultery, and perjury, before a council convened by Otho

I. He was summoned to appear but the “Vicar of Christ” refused. He was deposes Dec. 4, 964. Leo VIII was declared his successor. John merely came to Rome later and declared the other council null and void and reinstated himself. Otho I then prepared to march on Rome again and deal with John once and for all. But he died some say of apoplexy while engaged in an “adulterous intrigue.”5 Others maintain he was dispatched by an angry husband. BonifaceVII-?-985

He is not considered a legitimate Pope by some but his name appears in the list of popes given in some chronological tables. He was Cardinal Francone before changing his name to Boniface the VII. He was elected in a riot which followed the strangling of Benedict VI in 974. 6 He was deposed a year later because of his licentiousness and cruelty. However, he was able to return to Rome in 985 and had enough power to put pope John XIV in prison where he died of starvation. When Boniface VII died his corpse was not shown any dignity and treated with disdain and disrespect.

Martin writes of this period of church history as follows:

Each of the succeeding popes from Leo III to Boniface VI

(896) were elected in a tortuous fashion. The Roman factions battled among themselves and with the ordinary people. A candidate emerged from these always rough, frequently bloody, often fatal encounters between the various contending parties who used money as well as arms and sexual subversion to enforce their wishes.7 The men who claimed to be the Vicar of Christ, at this juncture of history, were men who used bloody and fatal encounters to come to the papal throne and attempt to hold it against their opponents. In other words, MURDER was an acceptable weapon to gain the papal throne and wield power as the “Vicar of Christ” on earth!

References

1. Martin, Malachi, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, Bantam Books, N.Y.N.Y., 1981, p. 43. 2. Ibid., p. 70. 3. Ibid., p. 99. 4. Ibid., pp. 101-102. 5. McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, Vol. IV, Baker Book House, Reprint, Grand Rapids, Ml, 1981, p. 980. 6. Op.cit., Vol. 1,p. 849. 7. Martin, op.cit., p. 81. -12

Pope John XIX or XX -? -1034

The history and chronology of the popes is obscure in the tenth and eleventh centuries. So many were deposed, then reclaimed, or attempted to reclaim the papacy, while others were killed, that it is difficult to know for sure just where some of them are to be placed in the chronology.

John XX, who was the son of Count Gregory of Tuscany, procured the papal throne by violence and bribery, after the death of his brother Benedict VIII.1 This John was considered to be imbecilic by those who disliked him, and he practiced simony constantly throughout his ten year reign.

It is said of him that he was so engrossed in the pursuit of money, for religious placements, that he came near to disposing of the Roman supremacy over the whole Eastern Church, at that time, for some pecuniary remuneration.2 In other words he would sell any office for money with scarcely a second thought.

Clement II -?-1047

Clement died suddenly and some writers believe he was poisoned. Poison seems to be one of the more common ways in which popes were removed from office during the Middle Ages.

Clement was the first German pope and was installed through the power of the Emperor Henry III. He tried to use the power of the papacy to crush his enemies. He put the city of Benevento under the Interdict. But he did not have much time to inflict his wrath upon those who opposed him, for he died on Oct. 9, 1047 after just being installed on Dec. 25, 1046. So he did not last a year in office giving rise to the suspicion of poison causing his untimely end.

Clement was installed as a replacement of Benedict IX who was one of the worst of the popes. Since he was able to reclaim the papal chair after the death of Clement II, he may well have had him dispatched to render the papal throne vacant.

Benedict IX 1021 -1054

Benedict IX was known as the “boy” pope, and one of the worst monsters ever to sit upon the papal throne.3 He engaged in ceaseless immorality and was deposed at least three times from the papal chair by his opponents.

In AD 1045 he asked to be deposed from the papacy that he could marry an Italian princess who was also his cousin. Johannes Gratianus was installed in his place after he bought him out with a large sum of money. So he, in essence, sold the papal chair for money.

Silvester III had already replaced him earlier. So there were now three popes all living at the same time. Rome, during this time, was filled with brawls and murders.

The German King, Henry the Black, called for a general council to try to remedy the situation. Clement II was then installed as pope by the council. However, he died within a few months of his installation and Benedict came back to the papacy for the third time. He held office until AD 1048 when he was deposed again and this time it proved to be final. He died in AD 1054 a profligate to the end of his young life.

Innocent III 1161-1216

This particular Innocent has been praised by some evangelicals in recent years as one of the greatest Christians of church history. So it is important then to look at some of his major achievements.

Almost from the very start of his pontificate he sought to make the Roman See the throne of a world dictatorship. “Universal Supremacy” for the See of Rome and the pope of Rome was his never ending pursuit. He managed to make the papacy the temporal ruler of most of the civilized world, as well as its spiritual dictator.

He worked incessantly to bring the entire world to his feet and under his personal control. When the imperial throne became vacant he had a prefect appointed whom he made to swear allegiance to himself. He was able to expel Conrad, and Marcualdus, and to take over their provinces in the name of the Roman See. He put himself in as regent when the king of Sicily died so that he was able to control that kingdom also.

He also was able to get various important cities such as Tuscany and Pisa to throw off their allegiance to the empire and come under his jurisdiction. It was this occasion which called forth one of the famous letters of Innocent III.

He wrote,

As God has created two luminaries, one superior for the day, and the other inferior for the night, which last owes its splendor entirely to the first, so He has disposed that the regal dignity should be but a reflection of the splendor of the papal authority, and entirely subordinate to it.

It was in the affairs of Germany that Innocent manifested the greatness of the papal power over the world of that time. Otho and Philip were in a contest for the imperial crown. Innocent decided in favor of Otho and excommunicated Philip. Philip fought back but was assassinated. Innocent’s triumph in Germany was thus complete and Otho became a vassal of the pope.

Otho tried later to rebel against the authority of the papacy and was himself then excommunicated and Innocent’s hand picked successor put in his place. So Innocent had shown the world that he controlled Germany and the empire by making his own man the new emperor.

He was able to excommunicate some of the most powerful men in the world and they were powerless to act against him. He was also able to put various countries under the papal interdict and they had to submit to him and the papacy before the formidable ban could be lifted.

He constantly claimed that he was head of a papal theocracy and that the Pope was the Vicegerent of God on earth. He also said that he was “intrusted by St. Peter (to govern) not only the whole church, but the whole world.”5

Next to God, he was to be so honored by princes that their claim to rule was lost if they failed to serve him.”6 In short all the prerogatives which had once been attached to the emperors were wrested from them, and transferred, with additions, to the popes.

Innocent was one of the greatest persecutors of true believers who ever lived. To him, every heresy was a rebellion which it was his duty to repress and extirpate. So when the Albigenses refused to take the oath of allegiance to the papacy, Innocent sent two papal legates to root out and put an end to such heresy. The two legates were given the title of Inquisitors.

One of them, Castelman, was a cruel and severe persecutor who was murdered near Toulouse. When Innocent heard that his Inquisitor had been so rudely treated he ordered a crusade against the Albigenses in that whole territory in order to uphold his idea of an ideal “Christian” republic.

He addressed himself to all the faithful Roman Catholics exhorting them to fight against the old serpent and promising them the kingdom of heaven as a reward. He sent two legates to accompany the crusade and to report back to Rome as to its success. The report by the legate Arnaldus speaks of the taking of the city of Beziers in which the massacre of 30,000 men, women, and children took place. Zoe Oldenbourg, a modern writer recounts in details the horror of this massacre in her book Massacre at Montsegur.

She also gives us an insight into the character of Innocent III.

In November 1215 the Pope’s Ecumenical Council was at last assembled as the Fourth Council of the Lateran. It was a veritable international conference, and had entailed upward of two years’ preparation… the problem of heresy, and the means by which it was to be fought, possessed a burning immediacy. It was to defend the Church against this danger that the Council established its definitions of the (Roman) Catholic faith and of orthodoxy. Heretics, whether Cathars or Waldensians… were unconditionally condemned and anathematized…

Those temporal rulers who failed in this duty would be stripped of their rights by the Pope; he would be free to bestow their domains upon any Catholic seigneur that desired them. The Council could have hardly underwritten the work of the Crusade more explicitly (this was the crusade in which the massacre at Beziers had occurred) or defined the Church’s theocratic attitude with greater clarity. The Pope might not command the actual battalions to unseat kings; but through the decision of the Council he had arrogated to himself the legal right to do so –thus proclaiming the Church’s absolute supremacy over secular law.8

Innocent wanted to rule the world. Anyone who stood in his evil way was to be annihilated and those who did the annihilation would be generously rewarded for their trouble. The fact that he went to such pains for two years to prepare for an ecumenical council with the desired object of eradicating heretics shows just how determined he was to crush any dissenter from the See of Rome.

Innocent also used the powerful weapon of the papal Interdict against France and England. The Interdicts varied with different popes but the main issue usually was the cancellation of all public worship. When this happened in the middle ages it usually created a great impression and brought the person who had incurred the interdict, such as the king, into great disrepute and weakened his position as ruler of the country.

With the dawning of modern intelligence just around the corner, and beginning to raise its head, Innocent went to great lengths to stop it. He created the Mendicant Orders with the express purpose of stopping and purifying the church from the “spirit of modern independence and modern intelligence.”

He also wrote letters to the Emperor Alextus with the view of inducing him to acknowledge the See of Rome and thus bring the whole eastern Empire under the papacy. So he constantly strove to bring the entire world to the foot of the pope of Rome. McClintock and Strong note that “His pontificate may be fairly considered to have been the period of the highest power of the Roman See.”9

Nicholas III-?-1280

His name was John Cajetanus and he was born into a noble family. He took the name Nicholas when he became pope. He is known in papal history as Nicholas the Accomplished, because he had a lot of ability. However, he was one of the most ambitious popes who ever sat in the papal chair. His ambition was his undoing. He is known in history as a Nepotist. He worked to bring large sums of money to Rome to build splendid palaces and used his relatives to discharge many duties of his pontificate. They were merely interested in enriching themselves and their families.

One of the sources of his plunder was the Inquisition. He loved the Inquisition and is said to have made much of his large fortune from those who were hauled before it, who were either executed or imprisoned. In either case Nicholas made their possessions his. He was also involved in the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers. So Dante, in his Inferno, puts him head down in hell with his feet on fire.

Boniface VIII 1217-1303

This evil man started his rule in the papal chair by whispering through a hidden tube to the ruling pope, “Celestine, Celestine, lay down your office.” When he did this in response to what he thought was the voice of God he was locked up in prison and starved to death. Boniface claimed he was both pope and emperor. He, as McClintock and Strong note, “carried his schemes for the enlargement of the papal power to the verge of frenzy.”10

He fought with the powerful Colonna family which led him to destroy the city of Palestrina, killing 6,000 citizens. He also issued his famous Bull Unam Sanctam in which he claimed that the Pope was ruler over both spiritual and temporal powers and which enabled him to wear the Triple Tiara signifying such powers.

He robbed and plundered while having immoral affairs with his mistress and her daughter. Philip le Bel of France against whom Boniface had pointed his Unam Sanctam, caused him to be seized and imprisoned in 1303. He was later liberated by an armed insurrection and returned to Rome only to become insane. He was placed in solitary confinement where he died.

John XXIII or XXII-?-1419

This John was a worthless character by all accounts and is linked to the poisoning of Alexander V while he was still a cardinal. He called for a crusade against Ladislaus, King of Naples, because Ladislaus had driven him out of Rome. He got into a struggle with the general council he had called to meet at Constance. Sixty charges were laid against him at this council and he was deposed. He was the last pope to take the name John for many years. The name had been associated with debauchery, murder, simony, and other crimes. So the name was not chosen again until the middle of the 20th century when Pope John the XXIII or (XXIV as the case may be) was elected. The confusion in chronology is demonstrated by the fact that some historians view Cardinal Cossa as Pope John the XXII and others view him as Pope John the XXIII making the 20th century pope by that name Pope John the XXIV. Whatever the chronology Baldassare Cossa could not be saved from the charges brought against him at the Council of Constance. His court magician, Abramelin could not even save him although he tried. The 60 charges were reduced to five: lust, murder, rape, sodomy, and piracy.1 11He was found guilty and deposed.

Alexander VI 1431 -1503

His mother, Jane Borgia was the sister of Pope Calixtus III. He was originally called Rodrigo Lenzoli but later changed his surname to Borgia. McClintock and Strong euphemistically describe his youthful years as very dissolute. The fact is he had several mistresses; the main ones being Vannoza Cattanei and Guilia Farnese.

He committed his first murder at the age of twelve and fathered at least 10 illegitimate children. He bought himself the papacy. It has been said of him that he single-handedly justified the Reformation. He died after being poisoned by a draught he had prepared to poison two new cardinals, when he himself drank it by accident. He also had Savonarola the man who cried out against the sins of the papacy executed.12

He bought the papal chair by giving various Cardinals all kinds of gifts so they would vote for him. He gave Cardinal Orsino the castles of Monticello and Savriani. He gave to the Cardinal of Colonna the rich abbey of St. Benedict. To the Cardinal of St. Angelo, he gave the bishopric of Porto, and the tower which was dependent upon it, and a cellar full of wine. He also dispensed various other gifts to several other cardinals to secure his nomination to the papal chair. He became pope in 1492 and took the title Alexander VI.

His pontificate was a particularly evil one. He made everything subservient to the raising of his ten illegitimate children. Again, McClintock and Strong try to shield their readers from the coarseness and vulgarity and immorality and debauchery of this pope. They noted the following:

Of the crimes alleged against Alexander and his children, this is not the place to speak in detail; it is enough to say that his pontificate rivaled the worst years of the Roman Empire in debauchery, venality, and murder.13

His death certainly seemed to be the judgment of God upon him. He requested from Cardinal Corneto the use of his magnificent palace for a great feast to celebrate his illegitimate daughter’s marriage. All the Cardinals and nobility were invited to this great feast at which some of the Cardinals were to be poisoned. By mistake, (some might be forgiven if they thought on purpose,) Alexander was given the poisoned wine and died the same night.

McClintock and Strong also point out that even for such a monster as Alexander VI there have been those who sought to defend him and his papal reign.

Among those who doubt, or affect to doubt, the stories of his great crimes, are Voltaire, Roscoe, the Biographie Universelle of Michaud, and Appleton’s Cyclopedia. But the evidence of contemporary writers is not to be shaken by the kind of criticism employed by those who would whitewash the Borgias. See as the chief authorities. (They then give a list of the main authorities which establish their facts.) 14

References

1. McClintock and Strong, Vol. IV., p. 981.

2. Loc.clt.

3. Op.cit., Vol. I.,p. 743.

4. Op.cit., Vol. IV., p. 590.

5. Ibid., p. 591.

6. Loc.cit.

7. Loc.cit.

8. Ibid., p. 592.

9. Oldenburg, Zoe, Massacre at Montsegur, Dorset Press, NY, NY, 1990, pp. 177-178.

10. Op.cit., Vol. I., p. 849.

11. Kelly, Sean, Rogers, Rosemary, Who in Hell, Villard Books, Toronto, Canada, 1996, p. 128.

12. Op.cit., Vol. I., p. 146.

13. Loc.cit.

14. Loc.cit.

Pope Paul III 1468 -1549

Paul’s original name was Allessandro Farnese. He was educated at the University of the Medici at Florence. He was noted for the immoral company which he kept at this time in his life. He supported various mistresses, fathered children out of wedlock, and as McClintock and Strong note, “in many ways gained uneviable notoriety.”1 He worked his way up the ranks of the “church” first as apostolical chancellor’s aide where he gained friends by his promptness to duties. In 1493 he was made a bishop. In 1499 he was created a Cardinal and then later Dean of Sacred College. On the death of Clement VII in 1534, Farnese was elected pope.

He is noted in history because of the times in which he served the papacy, the times when the Protestant Reformation was breaking out in Europe. He was pope when Henry VIII of England defected from Rome. He also was the pope who was involved with the struggles of the German and Swiss Protestants at this juncture in history. He was guilty of simony and cruelty. He put to death the leaders of the people in Perugia and built a citadel there to keep them in fear and subjugation. He attacked the Colonna, a powerful baronial family and took all their strongholds. He died in 1549 having failed to defeat Protestantism.

Leo X -?-1521

This waster was pope for only two years but it would take more than the few lines we can give him to fully describe all that he was able to do in such a short time. Malachi Martin writes of this pope:

One matter troubles Leo besides money -Petrucci. Petrucci is a name Leo never forgets. He used to love that cardinal and the other conspirators. But they did not understand; and when Leo banished Cardinal Petrucci’s brother from Siena, drove Cardinal Piera’s brother from Florence, defeated Cardinal Riario in the conclave, and refused the rich archbishopric of Marseilles to Cardinal di Saulis, they plotted against his life.2

Malachi Martin is a Roman Catholic who still believes, as far as I know, in the primacy of the pope, end that the Roman Catholic church is the true church. Yet he describes some of the worst crimes and sins, which the various popes have committed, in more detail than I do. In the above quote all these cardinals are plotting to murder the pope and yet it is the house of Cardinals who sit to elect the pope’s successor. So a group of murderous conspirators is the group from which the next pope will be chosen!

Martin continues:

Petrucci was given a safe-conduct pass by Leo on condition that he come back to Rome in 1517. Once back, Leo had him thrown, cardinal’s robes and all, into the infamous Sammarocco dungeon in Sant’ Angelo and tortured daily on the rack. “No faith need by kept with a poisoner,” Leo retorted to the Spanish Ambassador who was a guarantor of Petrucci’s safe-conduct. . . The same day Cardinal Riario and cardinals Soderini, Adrian, and di Saulis were also arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. Leo presided at their trials in which Adrian and di Saulis were fined 25,000 ducats apiece, . . . Cardinal Riario was fined 150,000, to be paid in three monthly payments, and promised a grand-niece in marriage to de’ Medici nephew. Cardinal Petrucci was condemned to death and received his sentence with a stream of blasphemies and curses. He kicked a priest in the groin who approached to confess him, and was strangled in prison by Leo’s official executioner, Roland the Moor.3

Martin also recounts the following:

For two years after this Leo lived in fear of assassination; he sought out and liquidated the family and friends of Petrucci… Leo himself said mass daily surrounded by men with drawn swords and hidden archers with arrows at the ready. .. Leo shivered at Petrucci’s confession on the rack: “Eight times, I, Cardinal Petrucci, went to a consistory with a stiletto beneath my robes waiting for an opportune moment to kill de’ Medici (Leo).”4

Leo was also the pope who declared Luther anathema, excommunicated him, and placed him under the ban of the empire to be killed on sight.5 Leo had no time for religion he liked to hunt, put on banquets, masked balls, comedies, music, dancing, and theater. He could not understand why many did not like him.

He died on Dec. 1, 1521, just as the Reformation was getting off the ground. He died suddenly and more than likely had been poisoned.

Paul IV-1476-1559

Pope Paul IV has been praised by some writers as a very efficient pope. He certainly was. One of the main areas in which he exercised his efficiency was in the strengthening of the Inquisition.

Von Ranke states that prior to the rise of Caraffa, who was later to take the name of Pope Paul IV, the Inquisition had fallen into decay. So Caraffe, who was at that time a Cardinal along with Cardinal Alvarez of Toledo, told the pope that the only way the evils of false teaching could be remedied was to set up a thoroughly efficient and thoroughly searching Inquisition.

Von Ranke noted,

Caraffa and Burgos were both old Dominicans, zealots for the purity of Catholicism… these men advised the pope to establish a supreme tribunal of inquisition in Rome, universal in its jurisdiction, and on which all others should depend. “As St. Peter,” exclaimed Caraffa, “subdued the first heresiarchs in no other place than Rome, so must the successors of Peter destroy ail the heresies of the world in Rome.” The Jesuits account it among the glories of their order, that their founder, Loyola, supported this proposition by a special memorial. The bull was published on the twenty-first of July, 1542. 6

Caraffe lost not a moment in carrying this edict into execution. Von Ranke stated,

he hired a house for immediate proceedings at his own expense; this he fitted up with rooms for the officers, and prisons for the accused, supplying the prisons with strong bolts and locks, with dungeons, chains, blocks, and every other fearful appurtenance of his office. He appointed commissioners-general for the different countries. ..

The manuscript life of Caraffa gives the following rules as drawn up by Caraffa himself; and as being the best he could devise for promoting the end in view:

“First. When the faith is in question, there must be no delay; but at the slightest suspicion, rigorous measures must be resorted to with all speed.

Secondly. No consideration to be shown to any prince or prelate, however high his station.

Thirdly. Extreme severity is rather to be exercised against all who attempt to shield themselves under the protection of any potentate…

Fourthly. No man must debase himself by showing toleration towards heretics of any kind, above all toward Calvinists.”7

Everyone was subject to the authority of the Inquisitors. The suspected were at once “to be thrown into prison, the guilty to be punished by loss of life and confiscation of property. They were thus to proceed enforcing and executing whatever might most effectually suppress and uproot the errors that have found place in the Christian community, and permitting no vestige of them to remain.”8

Persecution and inquisition now filled many parts of Europe. “Scarcely is it possible to be a Christian and die quietly in one’s bed,”9 stated Antonio dei Pagliarici. All men of letters were subjected to the most rigorous supervision.

To aid the Inquisitors to keep writers in check lest they spread any heresies, Caraffa decreed that no book, whether new or old, and whatever its contents, should in the future be printed without permission from the inquisitors. Even the officers of customs were ordered not to deliver any package whether of printed books or MSS, without first laying the contents before the Inquisition.

Von Ranke notes that these laws were carried into execution with incredible success. Though many thousands of copies of the work “On the Benefits Bestowed by Christ,” were disseminated, not one was suffered to escape; the book entirely disappeared. Whole piles of confiscated copies were burnt in Rome.10

When Pope Paul IV died there was a riotous tumult in the streets of Rome. The common people rose in insurrection, ran to the prison of the Inquisition, wounded a Dominican monk who acted as commissary, delivered all the prisoners, and burned papers. 11 They also threw down a statue of the pope, crying out, “Death to Caraffa.”

During the long centuries of the Inquisition various kings and heads of states entered into negotiations with the papacy to try to bring to pass some reformation of the hideous tribunal but without success. At times, the occupant of the papal chair would make concessions, but they were never carried out.

In Spain, the Inquisition never really died out until the last vestiges of Protestantism had been ruthlessly suppressed. Even as late as 1762 when the Grand Inquisitor was exiled to a convent for condemning a book against the king’s will the Inquisition was still operating in Spain.

When Joseph Napoleon by an edict in 1808 finally abolished the Inquisition in Madrid, Llorente calculated that from the time of its introduction into Spain in 1481 until 1808, the Inquisition in Spain alone had condemned 341,021 persons. “Of these 31,912 persons had been burnt alive; 17,659 in effigy, and 291,456 others punished severely.”12

But Spain was not yet through with the Inquisition even then. For Ferdinand VII reestablished the Inquisition when he regained the throne in 1814. McClintock and Strong wrote the following:

One of the first acts of the Revolution of 1820 was the destruction of the palace of Inquisition by the people… Yet after the restoration, the apostolical party, continued to demand its re-establishment; an inquisitorial junta was organised in 1825 and the old tribunal finally restored in 1826. The law of July 15,1834, again suspended the Inquisition, after sequestering all its possessions, and the Constitution of 1855 expressly declares that no one should be made to suffer for his faith. Yet in 1857 the Inquisition showed itself still very vigorous in persecuting all persons suspected of Protestantism, and all books containing such doctrines (were to be destroyed).13

To this day there still remains the holy Office of Inquisition in Rome. It no longer brings people before its once feared tribunals, but it does demonstrate the papacy never really changes unless forced to do so by civil governments.

Some of the popes, as Paul IV, Innocent III, and Nicholas III, with others, demonstrated great attachment to the Inquisition and increased, rather than diminished, its power. The men who called themselves the Vicar of Christ lived off the possessions they stole from those hauled before their Inquisition.

Yet the modern dunderheads continue to praise such an unholy regime as if such things were pipedreams instead of stern and hideous historical realities.

References

1. McClintock and Strong, p. 831. 2. Martin, Malachi, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, Bantam books, NY, NY., 1983, p. 170. 3. Ibid., p. 171. 4. Loc.cit. 5. Ibid., p. 173. 6. Von Ranke, Leopold, History of the Popes, P. F. Collier, and Son, NY, NY., Vol. II., p. 142. 7. Ibid., p. 143. 8. Loc.cit. 9. Ibid., p. 145. 10. Ibid., p. 146. 11. McClintock and Strong, op.cit., Vol. VII., p. 833. 12. Ibid., p. 603. 13. Loc.cit.

Pius VII

Martin describes the middle of the nineteenth century in these words:

The legacy of Pius VII was a terrible one: oppression, surveillance, a dictatorship. Between 1823 (death of Pius VII) and 1846 (when Pius IX was elected), almost 200,000 citizens of the papal states were severely punished (death, life imprisonment, exile, galleys) for political offences; another

1.5 million were subject to constant police surveillance and harassment. There was a gallows permanently in the square of every town and city and village. Railways, meetings of more than three people, and all newspapers were forbidden. All books were censored. A special tribunal sat permanently in each place to try, condemn, and execute the accused. All trials were conducted in Latin. Ninety-nine percent of the accused did not understand the accusations against them. Every pope tore up the stream of petitions that came constantly asking for justice, for the franchise, for reform of the police and prison system. When revolts occurred in Bologna, in the Romagna, and elsewhere, they were put down with wholesale executions, sentences to lifelong hard labor in the state penitentiary, to exile, to torture… Secret societies abounded. Assassination, robberies, crime in general increased.1

Nowadays millions of deluded people think that the papacy is a great defender of democracy and political freedom. The papacy has been for centuries the very epitome of hard-line dictatorship. It only gave up such a dictatorship when forced to do so by force of arms.

(Typewriter comment Adolph Hitler and worked with) Pope Pius XII This pope signed a concordat with with the Nazis in Croatia in the years 1941-1944. Anton Pavelic who was the puppet head of state for Croatia collaborated closely with the Nazis in perpetrating the worst massacre of the twentieth century at that time.

The United States and NATO are at this very moment ready to bomb the Serbs again. The Croats are considered model citizens even though they massacred the Serbs in a reign of terror aided and abetted by the Nazis.

Archbishop Stepinac was hailed as a wonderful anticommunist in the United States and Pope Pius made him a cardinal for his bloody reign of terror against the Serbs. Stepinac was the man behind the murderous Ustashi, some of whom were Roman Catholic priests, who were responsible for the massacre of the Serbs and for the forced conversion of others.

The documentation of this horrible period is now beyond question, yet it is all shoved under the proverbial carpet, so that NATO and the US can now once again kill the Serbs. Manhattan in his well documented work The Vatican Holocaust noted the following:

The Ustashi terror cannot be either minimized, excused, or condoned. For the mass murders carried out by individuals apparelled in clerical garb truly were instigated from the archiepiscopal palaces of the Catholic hierarchy. That Hierarchy knew, nay, IT APPROVED AND TACITLY ENCOURAGED THE SANGUINARY TASK. 2

Noble wrote of this infamous holocaust:

Croatia… became a Fascist-Romanist mini-state, spawning the Ustashi who brutally murdered 240,000 Serbs and forcibly converted 1,200,000 to the fold of Romanism. 3

All kinds of excuses have been made for this man but none of them come close to absolving him from his evil conduct. This man’s hands are stained with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Serbian Orthodox who were massacred in unbelievable fashion right in the middle of the twentieth-century.

This is the pope that Hockhuth, the German writer, called The Deputy in his book by that name. Meaning that the Pope who claimed to be God’s representative on earth, God’s Deputy, sat idly by while thousands of Jews were taken to the gas chambers, without so much as raising a whimper.

What Pius XII had started in his diabolical crusade against the Serbian Orthodox in 1941, his successors have carried on in a more subtle fashion, aided and abetted by the fire power of NATO and the United States. The Vatican is still trying to decimate the Serbs in the year 1999, while all the time speaking about ecumenical love.

Ecumenical love is surely one of the stranger elements in the modern world. I watched a program where a young Croatian woman was being interviewed about the struggles in Bosnia. She repeatedly said, “I love everybody.” When asked by the interviewer about the massacre of the Serbs by the Croats she said, “that was before my time, I do not know anything about that. I just love everybody.”

Then the person conducting the interview asked her should the allies intervene with air strikes and she said yes. So I could not help but wonder at modern ecumenical love expressed so neatly by this young woman. “I love everybody but I wish you would call down airstrikes upon those I love.” That in essence is what she was saying!

Professor Noble notes that Yugoslavia has been a thorn in the side of the Vatican for years:

Yugoslavia, where the particular historical thorn in the Vatican’s flesh has been the Orthodox Serbs, has been successfully dismembered following the cunningly contrived illegal secession of the Roman Catholic provinces of Slovenia and Croatia.4

The Vatican immediately recognized illegal Croatia and the United States, following the Vatican lead, also recognized Croatia. It is nothing short of amazing that new Roman Catholic states can be recognized immediately, but the North of Ireland which has been in existence for almost 80 years is NOT recognized!

Noble again:

Ominously, the planned destruction of Yugoslavia has now actually been achieved… Vladimir Zerenovski recently recognized and described Croatia’s secession from the legally- constituted State of Yugoslavia as a “Vatican plot.”. .. The Vatican’s dream of detaching Roman Catholic Slovakia and thus dividing Czechoslovakia has now also materialized.5

It is indeed sad to watch the schemes of the Vatican, and her ungodly popes, receive the support of both the United and Great Britain. The Vatican seeks to divide a nation when the Roman Catholics are in the minority and she seeks to unify divided states to crush minorities.

The Vatican instantly approved and recognized Croatia when that country illegally seceded from Yugoslavia. But she wants Ireland to be united and ruled from Dublin because that would give the Roman Catholics a majority in a unified state. The US sent a Roman Catholic ex-senator Mitchell over there to put the Vatican plan into operation. Clinton’s so-called peace initiative in Northern Ireland was really the Vatican initiative and the Protestants were sold down the river by Clinton, and Mitchell!

Pope John Paul I 1978 -33 days

This pope was only pope for thirty three days before he died. David Yallup wrote a book entitled, In God’s Name. The sub-title was “An Investigation into the murder of Pope John Paul I.”

Yallup’s book is one long expose of the murders and mysteries which surrounded the death of this pope. He believes the pope was poisoned. He died right in the Vatican so the poisoner had to be one who lived in and knew the Vatican and the habits of the pope.

Yallup wrote, “Whoever planned to murder the pope in such a way (so as to avoid detection) would have to have intimate knowledge of Vatican procedures. They would have to know there would be no autopsy. . .”6 Yallup states later: “Wishing to avoid” grave insinuations “I will make instead a categorical statement: I am completely convinced that Pope John Paul I was murdered.”7

It is interesting to note that the US news media never reported the possibility that the pope was murdered. Other countries did. Newspapers in Italy and Spain carried headlines to the effect that the pope was murdered. But the US news media, which is probably more subservient to the Vatican than any other western nation with the exception of Ireland, simply gave out the Vatican line. Yallup noted the following:

In Spain as in other countries, the controversy broke into public debate. Professor Rafael Gambra of the University of Madrid was one who complained of the Vatican “doing things in the Italian manner or in the Florentine manner as in the Renaissance.”8

meaning that the evil practices of the Borgias in the 16th century were being duplicated in the 20th century. Yallup himself agreed with Gambra:

For nearly six years (Yallup wrote his book six years after the murder of the pope) the Vatican lies concerning the late pope have gone unchecked and unchallenged. The Roman Curia would have the world believe that Albino Luciani was an invalid and a simple rather foolish man, a man whose election was an aberration and whose natural death was a merciful release for the Church. In this way they hoped to conceal murder. It is as if the past four hundred years never were: we are back with the Borgias. 9

The thing, that the reader should always call to mind, is the blasphemous claim of the Popes to be the Vicar of Christ. Here are men engaged in MURDER and the plotting of MURDER and at the same time they claim to be the spiritual ruler of the entire world, and the Vicar, the Representative of Christ on earth. What insufferable men, what unmitigated blasphemy, and yet we have evangelical spokesmen today praising unstintingly such monsters of depravity and duplicity! No wonder Christ Himself said, “when the Son of Man cometh shall he find faith on the earth?”

References

1. Martin, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, p. 213. 2. Manhattan, Avro, The Vatican’s Holocaust, Ozark Books, Springfield, MO, 1988, p. 89. 3. Noble, Revivalist, Jan., 1999, p. 20. 4. Loc.cit. 5. Loc.cit. 6. Yallup, David A., In God’s Name, Bantam Books, NY NY 1984 pp. 217-218. 7. Ibid., p. 243. 8. Ibid., p. 237. 9. Ibid., p. 247 -33

That there has been a colossal shift In the papacy in the past thirty years few could deny. The papacy at the end of the 19th century had been stripped of the Papal States and reduced to the smallest state in the world –the Vatican. With the loss of its territory the papacy scrambled about to enhance its power in other ways.

The Pope was declared to be INFALLIBLE in 1870. This claim to be infallible was a laughing matter outside of Roman Catholicism for years. But as time passed the Pope became more and more acclaimed by world leaders.

With the loss of the Papal States the papacy concentrated more on deception. The papacy has always been a deceitful organization but in former times it also used military might to attain its ends. With the passing of its temporal power in Europe it has concentrated more and more on pushing the Pope as a person and as world leader to the fore, while working its intrigue in political circles around the globe. The result of propaganda and intrigue has been the elevation of the pope of Rome to the position of the world’s greatest spiritual leader, and a leader of leaders.

It is almost incredible that so many Evangelicals should now be praising the Pope of Rome as a World-renowned Christian leader, while at the same time some Roman Catholics believe the Pope of Rome to be Antichrist. It is indeed an amazing reversal.

While Billy Graham, Jack Van Impe, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson continue to heap accolades upon the papacy W. F. Strojie, the conservative Roman Catholic scholar blasts the Pope as Antichrist. Malachi Martin also, while not as severe on the papacy as Strojie, seems to be alarmed at the turn the papacy has taken in recent years. So it is very interesting to say the least, that some Roman Catholics are far more critical of the papacy than self-confessed Bible believers.

W. F. Strojie has written two studies on the papacy in recent years here are some of his comments. Strojie is a dedicated Roman Catholic who believes that the Roman Catholic church is now being betrayed by the popes of Rome, Strojie notes the following:

The utter disintegration of this Church in its members, especially as it appears among the Bishops, including their chief member in the papal chair, is certainly not a sign without significance for the whole world.1

Strojie elaborates,

What sin, what multitude of the most enormous sins would a man need to commit to exceed the deeds of lust, murder and oppression of the poor by men who have already lived, or live today? What natural or unnatural vices, of lust, murder or torture, of child murders, of slavery, of general destruction, of unjust wars and of planned moral corruption of nations, have not already been committed by some can it be that any man, no matter how powerful, will exceed the sins of past great sinners, so as to deserve, IN A UNIQUE SENSE, the title Man of Sin, or Son of Perdition.. . This person cannot be simply another evil man in the ordinary sense, no matter how far reaching his evil influence may be in the secular order. Again, this person must be unique by reason of his high and unique spiritual office. Who then in a theologically exact sense can fill the office of Antichrist? I suggest that it can only be he who can effectively oppose himself to the past vicars of Christ and their doctrines from the time of Peter, and who can effectively oppose himself to the true worship of God.2

Strojie then continues,

I am convinced that it is theologically necessary that Antichrist be a pope. I agree.. . Antichrist, the Man of Sin, Son of Perdition, to deserve these titles must hold a unique spiritual office, one in which the greatest possible doctrinal disciplinary and moral corruption can be accomplished. And to oppose Christ who is all Truth the essential procedure of Antichrist will not be one of force but of deception. This follows from St. Paul’s prophecy of a great spiritual blindness in the time of Antichrist and the Great Apostasy.. . With due respect for possible non-Catholic claimants, I scoff at the notion that anyone OTHER THAN A POPE COULD BE THE ANTICHRIST.3 (emphasis added)

Strojie is not alone among Roman Catholic writers in his concerns about the modern papacy. Malachi Martin is also concerned although not as outspoken in his criticisms as Strojie. Martin speaks of a “new agenda” which the pope seems to be desirous of fulfilling which involves far more than the future of the Roman Catholic institution.

Martin also speaks of the alienation of many Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and theologians, from the traditional views of Roman Catholicism, and the reaction of others to this alienation, even to the point of calling the pope the ANTICHRIST:

(Pope Paul VI could not stem the onslaught) women who wanted to be priests, priests who wanted to be married, bishops who wanted to be regional popes, theologians who claimed absolute teaching authority, Protestants who claimed equality and identity, homosexuals and divorced people who called for acceptance of their status on their terms. .. traditional minded Catholics who BITTERLY REPROACHED HIM WITH BEING ANTICHRIST. (emphasis added)4

Martin takes up the alienation and confusion in the Roman Catholic Institution in even more detail in his later work The Keys of This Blood. There he noted the further decay within the organization:

Anybody who examines the Pontiff’s governance of his Roman Catholic institutional organization since 1978 must come away STUNNED at the DETERIORATION that began during the fifteen year reign of Pope Paul VI, and that the present Pope has neither REVERSED nor ARRESTED.5

Martin enlarges:

The overall result of that policy for the Roman Church has been profound. But in one key area -the area of papal privilege, and of the papal power embodied in the sacred symbol of the Petrine Keys –the policy has been disastrous. For it has enabled those in the Church bent on an anti-papal agenda -the antiChurch within the church –to arrive with in touching distance of their main objective; namely, the effective ELIMINATION of papal power itself.6 (emphasis added)

(So the Pope may be working to rend the Great Whore which rode for so long upon his back.)

Martin continues:

The result is something that has never existed before in the Roman Church. An anonymous and impersonal force has been created, centered in the Bishop’s Conferences around the world, which has BEGUN to exercise ITS OWN POWER in contravention of papal power. ..

It is true that this victory of in Church papal enemies is only a de facto affair; that nowhere and by no explicit statement has Pope John Paul formally renounced his Petrine Power. But that is cold comfort for those who find his huge GAMBLE with the Petrine Office the MOST FRIGHTENING ELEMENT of John Paul’s papal policy…

The effective catalyst here is the Pontiff’s abstention from exercising his power in matters critical to Church governance… 7 (emphasis added)

It is quite possible that the papacy is now looking far beyond the confines of the “church” to a New World Order where the pope will become the servant of a greater and more evil design. Where the rebellious remains of the Scarlet Woman will merely become a stepping stone to greater things.

It is now popular to set forth the idea that the Antichrist is a secular atheistic monster. In this way, every religious person in the United States can then be vociferous in his condemnation of such a person. Muslims, Jews, Roman Catholics, and Protestants can all join in condemning such a rascal.

Mystery Babylon, that is, Mystery Confusion is the cage of EVERY false religion. False religions cannot be against Antichrist for they are antichristian. They are part and parcel of Antichrist.

It is interesting to note that Pacelli who was later to become Pope Pius XII, according to Martin, “in forty out of forty four addresses as papal nuncio, Pacelli inveighed against Antichrist and warned of a gigantic struggle about to begin between Satan and Jesus for the soul of Europe and the souls of men.”8

Pedro Arrupe, the former head of the Jesuits, also warned about an atheistic antichrist which was arising in the western world. So Roman Catholic spokesmen, from the pope on down, have warned about a coming atheistic monster out to control the world, for this has been the Roman Catholic teaching on Antichrist for centuries.

In the United States, Jews and Muslims seldom say much about their views on the subject of Antichrist. However, in their religious writings the issue of Antichrist is addressed. The Muslims believe that Antichrist will arise at the end of the world and that he will be a Jew. The Jews believe that the Antichrist will be a Christian. *

The Muslims claim that Mohamed taught that Antichrist would come at the end of the world and that several signs were to precede his coming. The first sign is a strange rising of the sun in the west instead of the east. The second sign is to be the rising of a beast from the earth.

The third sign is to be the capture of Constantinople and while the spoil of this city is being divided news will come of the appearance of the Antichrist. This Antichrist will be blind in one eye and deaf in one ear, and will have the name of UNBELIEVER written on his forehead. According to the Muslims this is the one that the Jews call Messiah-Ben-David.9 So the Muslims view Antichrist as a Jew who comes against the “true” religion of Islam and seeks to destroy it.

* It is interesting to note that Jerry Falwell recently retracted his statement that Antichrist would be a Jew. The Jews rose up in anger when Falwell said while preaching on Antichrist that he would be a Jew.

The Jews at the same time are looking for their coming Messiah as well as a coming Antichrist. The name given by the Jews to describe their idea of a coming evil leader is Armillus.

There are several rabbinical books in which a circumstantial account is given of him. . . There will be twelve signs of the coming of the Messiah. .. The seventh sign will be the rise of Armillus whom the Christians call Antichrist.10

After a time of great persecution the true Messiah will come and defeat Antichrist. Armillus will raise a great army of Christians and lead them to Jerusalem. But God will deliver the Israelites through the true Messiah. So the Jews see Antichrist as a leader of the Christians and his evil work an attempt to overthrow true Judaism.

This is why a secular antichrist appeals to so many today. A secular antichrist does not pit Jew against Christian, or Muslim against Jew. It does not pit Roman Catholic against Protestant nor Protestant against Roman Catholic. If Antichrist is a secular atheist then all good religious people can oppose such a monster and retain their good ecumenical spirit at the same time. The secular atheistic Antichrist is the antichrist of Ecumenism.

Whereas the very name anti-Christ shows that the Beast of Revelation is not anti-Jew, he is not called anti-Mohamed, he is anti-Christ. The antichrist is the LEADER of all false religions, not the opponent of them. Lenski the old conservative Lutheran scholar wrote the following about Antichrist:

This is an apostasy. It is therefore, to be sought IN the church visible and not OUTSIDE of the church in the pagan world, in the general pagan moral decline, in Mohammedanism, in the French Revolution, in the rise and spread of Masonry, in Soviet Russia, or in lesser phenomena. We should not confuse the little antichrists with the great Antichrist, the antichrists OUTSIDE of the visible church with the great Antichrist INSIDE of it. (emphasis his)11

The Man of Sin is an arch-deceiver. His main deception is to make people think he is the true Christ. He is anti-christ, the one who tries to take the place of Christ. It is not the radical difference from Christ which the secular view of Antichrist emphasizes, rather it is the CLOSE resemblance to Christ which the Bible depicts, which should instruct the Bible-believer.

This Man of Sin works pseudo-miracles, signs and wonders. He is a religious man and a veritable Christ to those who are deceived by him.

This is what the popes of Rome have done for centuries. They have sought to replace Christ. By deception and confusion they have effectively opposed Christ as well. They are still masquerading as the Vicar of Christ today, and multiplied millions fall down before them as Mark McGuire did recently in St. Louis, abjectly kissing the ring of the great impostor.

References

1. Strojie, W. F., Last Days of the Catholic Church, 1978, p. 3. (Self-published) 2. Ibid., p. 7. 3. Ibid., p. 31. 4. Martin, Malachi, The Keys of this Blood, Simon and Schuster, NY, NY, 1990, p. 50. 5. Ibid. p. 51. 6. Loc.cit. 7. Ibid., pp. 51-52. 8. Martin, Decline and Fall, p. 223. 9. McClintock and Strong, Vol. I., p. 260. 10. Ibid., p. 259. 11. Lenski, R. C. H., St. Paul’s Epistles, Augsburg Pub. House, Minneapolis, MN, 1961, p. 433.

Totus Tuus is the motto of the present pope of Rome. It is Latin for Totally yours. This motto is directed not toward Christ but toward Mary. The present pope like hundreds before him is an avowed mariolater. He also worships at shrines so is a practicing idolater.

The popes of Rome even when they were not engaging in immorality and murder were mariolaters and idolaters. So that even if some did not fall to the depths of the most wicked popes, they, nevertheless, were bad examples and blind leaders of the blind.

The depth of iniquity into which modern nations have fallen, no doubt helps out the papacy. For modern popes can at least pretend to uphold the sanctity of marriage in face of the onslaught of homosexuality and divorce.

The hideous and evil practice of abortion on demand again affords the papacy a platform to utter pious phrases in defence of the unborn. But the Word of God is clear in demanding purity of worship. The first table of the Law cannot be ignored by piously pretending to uphold the second table.

True worship is commanded and idolatry forbidden in the first and second commandments. When these are ignored then judgment must fall. The bulk of the Old Testament is a witness to the fact that God does not take false worship and wrong worship lightly. Israel and Judah worshipped under every green tree and on every high hill and for these very acts of worship were condemned and destroyed by the Lord God Almighty!

Johann August Wilhelm Neander, the great German Lutheran church historian wrote these words about the papacy:

Christ never had an enemy like this; so able to pervert the way of truth into falsehood, insomuch that the true church, with her children, is trodden underfoot. The worship that belongs to God alone he transfers to Antichrist himself to the creature, male and female, deceased –to images, carcasses, and relics. The sacrament of the Eucharist is converted into an object of adoration, and the worshipping of God alone is prohibited.

He robs the Saviour of His merits, and the sufficiency of His grace in justification and regeneration, the remission of sins, sanctification, establishment in the faith, and spiritual nourishment; ascribing all these things to his own authority, to a form of words, to his own works, to the intercession of the saints, and to the fire of purgatory.

He seduces people from Christ, drawing off their minds from seeking those blessings in Christ, by a lively faith in God and in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, teaching his followers rather to expect them by the will and pleasure and works of Antichrist.

He places all religion and holiness in going to mass, and has mingled together all descriptions of ceremonies, Jewish, heathen, and Christian –and by means thereof, the people are deprived of spiritual food, seduced from true religion and the commandments of God, and established in vain and presumptuous hopes. All his works are done to be seen of men, that he may glut himself with insatiable avarice, and hence everything is set for sale.1 *

The Papacy has vitiated the true worship of God through the only Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, and substituted in its place a hodge-podge of man-made rituals and ceremonies some of which are blasphemous and all of which are condemned by the Word of God and useless to those caught up in them.

Until we learn the first and second commandments we cannot advance to the others. For the others have no basis if the first two are ignored! God is the author of morality, and sanctity, and purity. These cannot exist where the true God is ignored and where His commandments about His worship are treated in a cavalier fashion.

*Last November (1998) Pope John Paul II announced that the year 2000 would be special holy year in which Roman Catholics can obtain special indulgences for their sins that act as wild cards to speed up their ascension to heaven. According to policy dating back to the 16th century Roman Catholics who visit the sick, contribute to charities, or who stop smoking or drinking for a day may get an indulgence, according to this news article.

No one can truly love his neighbor as himself, who has not learned first to love the Lord with all his heart, soul, strength, and mind. God’s sequence is inviolate. It cannot be broken without dire results.

When one looks at the history of the papacy and the history of the “church” and the contemporary scene within the confines of Roman Catholicism, he should be absolutely amazed that any self-confessed Bible-believer could defend such an apostate conoral conglomerate, much less praise it, and extol the present leader of such a den of iniquity, as the greatest moral and spiritual leader upon earth today. The very fact that such praise is commonplace today and scarcely ever ONE voice raised against such an enormous lie is indeed a commentary upon not only our times, but the Protestant church of our times.

The Scriptures speak of those who believe in the lie. The setting of this text is in the passage which deals with the Man of Sin. It is in this VERY AREA where people are completely deceived. They are completely fooled by the satanic power which energizes the Papacy. So when they refuse the truth they are turned to fables and will believe the lie rather than the truth because they love unrighteousness.

The Apostle Paul wrote “Let no MAN deceive you.” It should be obvious to Bible-believers, but apparently is not, that the one man in the world doing the most deceiving today is the Pope of Rome. No other man comes CLOSE to the deception practiced by the Pope. He must rank FIRST in the line of deceivers down through church history right up into the present day.

If the Word of God is true then purgatory is a lie; the Mass is a lie; enforced celibacy is a doctrine of demons; the whole Roman Catholic priesthood is a lie, for Christ has abolished the priestly line and made every believer his own priest; Mariolatry is a lie; good works as a basis of salvation is a lie; justification by works is a lie; baptismal regeneration is a lie; the whole system of Romanism is based on a lie and those who believe the lie shall be judged because they loved not the truth.

The Reformers preached the true gospel of redeeming grace. They correctly taught that good works could never be the basis of salvation, and if someone tried to make them so, they became works of iniquity. Salvation is by grace alone.

Justification is by faith alone. When the great doctrine of Sola Scriptura is jettisoned all kinds of evil flourish. The Bible must remain our only authority and the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

It is surely instructive to look at how the United States is slowly but surely becoming Romanized. The “clergy” is set up on a pedestal. Two recent documentaries as of this writing dealt with the “clergy.” One showed a Jesuit priest who helped the handicapped. He was a nice man who helped others, told jokes, worked hard and blessed the entire community. The second one showed a Baptist preacher who had hired a hit-man to kill the husband of the woman who had become his mistress.

So it does not need a rocket scientist to figure out who is supposedly the true “Clergyman.” Yet the Bible indicates our faith IS NEVER TO STAND IN THE WISDOM OF MEN but only in the POWER OF GOD. The power of God is the crucified Christ. He is both the wisdom of God and the power of God. So to all true Bible-believers it is not a question of a man, whether he is “good” or “bad,” but a question of THE MAN Christ Jesus.

For there is only ONE Mediator between God and Men THE Man Christ Jesus. Historically this has always been the difference between Rome’s priests and Protestant believers. From the pope on down, the Roman Priesthood teaches that all kinds of Mediators other than Christ exist, including the most important of all, Mary. Whereas Bible-believing Protestants have always believed in ONLY ONE Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ ALONE saves. There is no other Name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved. When any man comes between the sinner and salvation, he is a thief and a robber. Many “clergymen” today are nothing but thieves and robbers. The faithful minister points to Christ only. He is merely a voice lifting up Christ as the only Saviour. If, for any reason, he should begin, to lift himself up, he will find out quickly that the Lord never gives His glory to another. This is why so-called great preachers many times find themselves disgraced. The true preacher points the way to Christ and tries to stay out of the way, while exalting only the Lord Jesus Christ.

O Christ in Thee my soul has found And found in Thee ALONE; The peace, the joy, I sought so long, The bliss til now unknown.

The pleasures lost I sadly mourned. But never wept for Thee; ‘Til grace the sightless eyes received Thy loveliness to see.

Now none but Christ can satisfy, None other name for me; There’s love and life, and everlasting joy Lord Jesus found in Thee.

Christ said plainly: “Beware of false prophets, by their fruits you shall know them.” The fruits of the papacy are plain to be seen both morally and spiritually and every true believer should BEWARE of the papacy and all it represents!

To those caught up in the toils of Antichrist we urge you to find a Bible-believing church where Christ is exalted and where the true unadulterated Word of the Living God is proclaimed. There you may find true salvation which can bind up the brokenhearted and true liberty proclaimed to the captive.

Call upon the Lord Jesus Christ, for whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!

References

1. McClintock and Strong, Vol I., p. 258. -45

I copied this tract from a PDF file to make it more accessible and easier to read on the Internet. My dear friend Annie likes Dr. Cooke’s material. Her eyesight is poor. Perhaps she will read this article easier than from a file in PDF format.

Last year I wrote a book report about it.

PREFACE

This is the fourth in a series of booklets on the Vatican in the Western world today. In this booklet we try to sketch the role that the Vatican plays in world politics today and the goal and plan it has for the world. We also look at the enormous financial resources that the Vatican possesses and the billions more which are at its disposal.

We also look at the part that the Jesuits play in helping to implement the goal of the Vatican. In our travels and teaching we find that there is almost a total blackout concerning the sinister aspirations of the Vatican and the Jesuits. Men who purport to write on the great conspiracy that is out to control the world not only never mention the Vatican, but if they do, they make the Vatican out to be the target of the conspiracy rather than the originator of the conspiracy.

It is obvious to anyone who is even remotely interested in the Vatican conspiracy that times have certainly changed the attitudes of Protestant Christians toward the Jesuits. The word “Jesuit” used to conjure up in the minds of those who heard it a malevolent and satanic rictus. But times have changed. Today Jesuits are accorded reverence and respect in all segments of western society, and yes, even allowed back into Eastern society after being banned from countries like China for almost thirty years.

Former President Nixon used a Jesuit to write his speeches. Jesuits are leading lights in the modern irenic dialogue of the ecumenical movement so that at least in the United States an aura of respectability now surrounds the workings of the Jesuits. Not all Americans or even all American Roman Catholics are impressed with the Jesuits, but the plans of the Vatican Hierarchy are proceeding along clearly defined lines no matter whether some Roman Catholics may approve or not. The Vatican and the Jesuits have the same goal in mind. They are both working to bring the world to the feet of the Roman Pontiff. The Jesuits have been backing the Marxists in some trouble spots of the world, especially in Latin America. The Pope wants to retain the close backing he enjoys from men like Ronald Reagan; therefore, he pretended to reprimand the Jesuits for working with the Marxists in Central America. As we will see later, the Marxists in Central America, as in Northern Ireland, all have good Roman Catholic credentials.

What most people do not realize is that the Jesuits are the C.I.A. of the Vatican. That is, just as Washington often seems to conflict with, and disavow some of the covert activities of the C.I.A especially when they are going to prove embarrassing, so the Vatican from time to time will appear to disavow the activities of the Jesuits. In actuality just as Washington many times secretly hopes for the success of some clandestine operation of the C.I.A. although publicly disavowing any knowledge of it, so the Vatican hopes for the success of the Jesuits while publicly reprimanding them to appease those who are disturbed by their intrigue.

So although there may appear to be friction between the Jesuits and the Vatican, the friction has nothing whatsoever to do with Marxism per se as the American news media constantly affirms, it has to do with the possible break of some of the Marxists with the Vatican power structure, which might occur in countries like Nicaragua. The Vatican lost Cuba because it misjudged Fidel Castro, who at one time was a faithful son of the Church. It does not want to make the same mistake again with Ernesto Cardenal and his Roman Catholic henchmen in Nicaragua. So the preemptive moves of the Pope in Central America today are primarily self-serving. The Pope realizes that much governmental control will be lost in Central America if the “church” does not go along with the Marxist liberation movements fomented by “church” leaders. On the other hand if the Pope appears to support the Marxist liberation movements openly, he will lose the support of the United States in Latin America. So the present Pope gives the impression that he is against Marxism by calling upon the Jesuits to get out of politics in Latin America and by summoning the Brazilian liberation theologian Leonardo Boff to Rome for an investigation.

These moves and others, which the present Pope is making, get mixed reviews in the U. S. press, but as Yallup points out in his recent book, IN GOD’S NAME, this Pope came to the Vatican with the attitude “business as usual,” meaning that all the corruption which the former Pope, who was murdered, wanted cleaned up, would continue.

The present Pope (in 1985, Pope John Paul II) is a master politician, so he has spoken out against Marxism to retain the support of the United States in Poland. It is plainly a part of his overall strategy, a strategy which has always played both ends against the middle. The Pope backs the Marxist-oriented liberation movements of Latin America to the hilt as long as they remain subservient to the overall goals of the Vatican. It was to reinforce this subservience that he met with the Jesuits.

The Vatican realizes that it has lost out completely in most of Latin America if it does not back the Marxist revolutionaries, 99% of whom are Roman Catholics. So when the Pope visited the area, he alluded to the struggles for justice and human rights, which were going on in that part of the world. However, since the United States looks with concern on the Marxist revolutionaries, the Pope has since shifted course again and pretended to reprimand the clergy, who were, and are, involved in this region.

The C.I.A. of the papacy are without a doubt the Jesuits. They are working night and day to further the global aspirations of the Vatican. Their zeal and persistence are as great as they ever were even though they enjoy much more respectability than they once did. We try to show with documented evidence that the Vatican- Jesuit intrigue, far from being a “Protestant myth,” is a contemporary phenomenon, which is still functioning in the latter half of the twentieth-century.

Ronald Cooke
Manahath School of Theology
Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania
1985

The true church of the Lord Jesus Christ has suffered reproach and endured persecution in almost every age since Stephen was martyred. In the early years of the church to confess Christ invited persecution and martyrdom. As the years rolled by and the church gained more power, it was not long until the church was doing the persecuting instead of being persecuted.

Augustine was one of the first, but certainly not the last, to advocate the necessity of force to extirpate error. As Farrar points out: “His writings became the Bible of the inquisition.”¹ So from then on, inquisitorial methods became part and parcel of Rome’s intrigues although stridently denied by some contemporary writers.

Martin Luther was used of God to set forth the liberating doctrine of justification by faith in the finished work of Christ and so dealt a death blow to Roman Catholicism. For this great Biblical doctrine destroys completely the whole-sacramentarian-good-works-priestly enterprise known as Roman Catholicism. Since the time of Luther the Roman institution has been working day and night to overthrow Bible Protestantism and return the “separated brethren” to the one true fold—the Vatican. No greater effort has been made than that made by the Jesuits. The Society of Jesus, founded by Loyola, has been at the origin of many conspiracies directed against Protestantism. They are documented conspiracies, not figments of an over active imagination. So it is nothing short of amazing when Gary Allen, who claims to be an authority in the field of conspiracy, calls in Pedro Arrupe to substantiate his thesis that a conspiracy exists. At the time that Allen wrote ten years ago, Pedro Arrupe was the head of the Jesuits.

The Jesuits are famous in history for their conspiracies, intrigues, assassinations, and their undying hatred of the Protestant Reformation. Pedro Arrupe was the head of an organization which every well informed Protestant knows was the main force behind the Counter Reformation. The Counter-Reformation sought by every means, fair or foul, to overthrow and undo the work of the glorious Protestant Reformation.

If there were no other reason to be against the Jesuits but this, that they attempted wherever possible to stop or hinder the true work of revival and gospel enlightenment in the church, it would be more than enough. But there are many more reasons than this. So for anyone claiming to be knowledgeable in the field of conspiracy to align himself with the head of the Jesuits is a severe blow, to say the least, to his credibility. Yet thousands of fundamental and conservative preachers speak constantly about Allen’s “Insider” conspiracy without once stopping to consider the work of the Jesuits and their sponsor, the Vatican.

The Jesuits were so evil that they were feared even by Roman Catholic kings! MacPherson notes:

The (Roman) Catholic king of Portugal says: it cannot be but that the licentiousness introduced by the Jesuits, of which the three leading features are falsehood, murder and perjury, deprive the laws of their power, destroy the submission of subjects, allow individuals the liberty of killing, calumniating, lying, and forswearing themselves as their advantage may dictate.²

McKinley adds his testimony to that of MacPherson.

This society which has dared to appropriate to itself the Name, which is above every name, by calling itself, “The Order of Jesus,” deserved rather from the nature of its doctrines and from the work it has done in the world to be called the Order of Satan.³

Even the secular historian, W. E. Lunt, whose text was used for years in American colleges and universities, recognized the conspiracies of the Jesuits.

In this development the English Catholics had no small part…They were not a serious political menace until 1580 when two Jesuits came to England and began to plot with the Spanish ambassador…to place Mary on the throne. From that time Catholic plots were continually being hatched. Some had as their method a rebellion aided by foreign invasion while others sought their object by the simple mode of Elizabeth’s assassination. None of the plots succeeded… Walsingham…laid bare the plots….and arrested several of the conspirators.⁴

The Jesuits actually became so powerful and overbearing that they were disbanded by none other than the pope himself. In 1773 Ganganelli, who succeeded Clement XIII, issued a papal bull in which he declared them suppressed and extinct and their statutes annulled. They remained suppressed for forty years, but in 1814 Pius VII issued a bull solemnly restablishing the society under the constitutions of “St. Ignatius.”

The fact that the society was held in such disrepute even by its own institution is certainly not much of a recommendation for its evil practices. Yet, the man who headed this society when Gary Allen wrote his book, “NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY,” was called in by Allen to corroborate the fact that an international conspiracy exists. It is obvious that it is very easy to postulate a Bilderberger, Insider, or Trilateralist type of conspiracy without generating any animosity among the general public. Everyone and anyone can identify against a few rich evil men lurking in the shadows and working to take over the world. But to identify religious men as conspirators causes millions of people to bridle in anger and disbelief.

It is obvious that very few people know anything about the Jesuits today. Let us look at the organization that Ignatius of Loyola brought into being. There were several steps through which every well-trained Jesuit was to pass before he was graduated from his training.

1. The Spiritual Exercises.
These were undertaken with the object of inducing among other things a state of complete subjection of the will.⁵

2. If the trainee passed the first test, he was invited to become a novice.

From this time on, he is excluded from all earthly friends and is to have no will of his own as to his future. He is to put himself in the hands of his director as the interpreter of heaven toward him. Complete obedience is the thing that is absolutely required. His conscience must never assert itself in opposition to his superiors. Newman notes: “Absolute destruction of individual will and conscience is aimed at and to a great extent accomplished.”⁶

Can anyone imagine a better base upon which to build a global conspiracy than complete and unquestioning obedience? In every small conspiracy about which details can be studied, one of the primary goals is to get each conspirator to give his unquestioning and complete obedience to the plan.

The Novitiate usually lasts two years. If the novice is found to possess the right qualities, he is accepted as a Scholar. Notice the weeding out process that continues all through the entire program. Only the most dedicated make it through to the final stages of the Society.

The Scholar now undergoes a protracted course of training in various branches of knowledge. Attention is paid to the cultivation of a sound physical make-up. If the Scholar is able to meet the requirements of this stage, he becomes a Coadjutor. Those who attain this rank are to devote themselves wholeheartedly to the advancement of the society. They serve as priests, missionaries, teachers and businessmen for the society.

The next rung on the ecclesiastical ladder is a group called the Professed. These are composed of a small proportion of the Coadjutors who have proved themselves and have been tested as to their complete trustworthiness regarding the aims of the society. It is from this group the officers of the society are drawn. They are the ones who are entrusted with its secrets. Watchcare is another important part of the society. Each member including the general is responsible to another, and according to Newman:

to whom he must regularly make confession of his inmost thoughts, and who is required to exercise a watch care over him and to report every deviation from rectitude, according to the standards of the body.⁷

The aim of the Order was, according to Ignatius, the promotion of the greater glory of God. According to Newman:

The greater glory of God was identified by them in the most absolute way with the world wide and undisputed dominion of the Roman Catholic Church.⁸

The methods of the Order are well known. In most cases the Jesuits deny the charges against them. But it has been charged that they infiltrate into places of power using as their watchword, the phrase “the end justifies the means.” The fact that they deny such actions should not cause any surprise since that is part and parcel of their method of operation.

Their ethical system allows all kinds of loopholes by which to escape any situation that might cause embarrassment to the Society or to the Roman Catholic Church. The society did openly defend their recommendation that tyrants should be assassinated.⁹ Their doctrine of Probabilism, although rejected by some members, nevertheless secured papal recognition. Their ability to escape responsibility by the method of “directing the intention” also demonstrates that the phrase “the end justifies the means,” although never appearing in their writings, is there in their purpose as plain as day.

Another equally objectionable doctrine was their teaching on mental reservation or restriction, whereby one, without burden to his conscience, might tell a downright lie provided the word or clause that would make it true is in his mind.

Thus, one accused of having committed a certain act last week in a certain place may swear that he was not there, reserving the statement “this morning.”¹⁰ The Secret Instructions, supposed to be the frank directions of the generals to the provincials and others involving unscrupulous commands, can no longer be used. The genuineness of the document has been denied by the society. It was first published in 1612, and, if not genuine, was probably the production of the ex-Jesuit Hieronymus Zaorowski.¹¹ However, as Newman cogently reasons:

The repudiation of the work by the Society is, of course, no conclusive evidence of its spuriousness. It has been the consistent policy of the society from the beginning to deny everything disadvantageous to the church or to itself.¹²

The supreme end as noted above was the greater glory of God. So any superior can declare an end, however diabolical, to involve the greater glory of God, and command his inferior to use any means whatever for the accomplishment of this end, including, as Newman points out: “deceit, theft, and even murder; and the inferior must unquestioningly obey.”¹³

Hodge also points out in his work the notoriety which the Jesuits attained through their principle of mental reservation.

The doctrine that the character of an act depended solely on the intention. If the intention be good, the act is good; whether it be falsehood, perjury, murder, or any other conceivable crime. Pascal quotes the Jesuit moralist Escobar as laying down the general principle, “that promises are not binding unless there was an intention of keeping them, at the time they were made.” On the same principle, that the intention determines the character of the act, the murder of Henry III, in 1589; of the Prince of Orange in 1584; of Henry IV, of France in 1610; and especially the massacres on the feast of St. Bartholomew, were all justified,.¹⁴

Gordon Liddy, who was also educated by the Jesuits, used the same type of reasoning for justifying his part in the Nixon Watergate scandal. It is very significant that Liddy, who now claims he does not believe in God, nevertheless uses the various definitions of the Roman moralists to justify murder.

It is the same rationale by which I was willing to obey an order to kill Jack Anderson. But I would do so only after satisfying myself that it was: (a) an order from legitimate authority; (b) a question of malum prohibitum; and (c) a rational response to the problem.¹⁵

Once we allow the reasoning of the Jesuits to prevail, then murder becomes a viable means of policy if we feel that it is necessary. It is tragic that many fundamental and evangelical Christians agree with this tvpe of reasoning today, showing that Jesuitical casuistry has made vast strides since the sixteenth century.

We believe in capital punishment. We do not believe, however, that any man has the right to be judge, jury and executioner. Once allow this type of thinking, and Tomas Torquemada and the Inquisition will not be far away.

The Jesuits were well received in Italy and in Portugal at first. However in Spain, Charles V was opposed to their methods and to their ideas of papal absolutism. Leading Roman Catholic Spanish theologians such as Melchior Canus denounced them as the forerunners of anti-Christ foretold by the Apostle in II Timothy 3:2.

In France they met with opposition but finally gained a foothold and permission to establish a college at Clermont. In Lyons, their presence and preaching resulted in the burning of the books and churches of the Huguenots. It is probable that the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day was due in some measure to their influence.¹⁶ In England, Trevelyan says of the Jesuits that their policy aimed “at the overthrow of the existing regime and the forcible extirpation of Protestantism.”¹⁷ A likelier group to originate a global conspiracy would indeed be difficult to find. Their zeal knew no bounds. They were and are the heart and soul of the Counter-Reformation. As Newman, the great Southern Baptist Historian, points out:

The chief means that were used by the Counter-Reformation from this time onward (1541) were the Council of Trent, The Society of Jesus, and the Inquisition…These means of fortifying the church and repressing heresy are closely interlinked. The Council of Trent, especially in its later and more important phases, and the establishment and working of the Inquisition, like the policy of the papacy in general, were due to Jesuit influence.¹⁸

So for someone to call in Pedro Arrupe to comment on the possible existence of a conspiracy is like calling in Adolf Hitler to comment on the possible existence of Nazism. It is better to go with known facts about conspiracy than to hint at hidden conspiracies which may not even exist.

The Jesuits were indefatigable in their efforts to restore Romanism to its former glory in the areas where Protestantism had gained a foothold. Von Ranke tells of the return of the idolatry of Romanism to parts of Germany.

In Cologne it was again an honor to wear the Rosary. Relics were once more held up to public reverence in Treves, where for many years no one had ventured to exhibit them… the youth of Ingolstadt belonging to the Jesuit school walked… on a pilgrimage…in order to be strengthened for their confirmation “by the dew that dropped from the tomb of St. Wal-purgis.”¹⁹

The Jesuits were the first effective counter action against the progress of Protestantism that the Roman Catholic Church was able to wage. Yet few Protestants then, and now, fail to realize the eternal issues which are at stake in this battle. Grace and idolatrous works are mutually exclusive. Error is only defeated by the proclamation of the truth. It is never defeated by compromise, half-truths, or a failure to recognize its existence.

REFERENCES

1. Farrar, F. W. History of Interpretation, Baker Book House, Reprint, p. 235

2. MacPherson, Hector, The Jesuits in History, Edinburgh, Scotland. 1914, pp. 104-105

3. Ash, McKinley, The Antichrist, Blackwood, N.J. p. 91

4. Lunt, W.E., History of England, p. 378

5. Newman, Albert Henry, A Manual of Church History, Vol. II, Philadelphia, 1947, p. 369

6. Ibid., p. 370

7. Ibid., p. 371

8. Ibid., p. 372

9. loc cit.

10. Ibid., p. 372

11. loc. cit

12. Ibid., p. 378

13. Ibid., p. 379

14. Hodge, Charles, Systematic Theology, Vol. Ill, N.Y. 1873, pp. 445-446

15. Liddy, G. Gordon, Will, Dell Pub. Co. 1981, p. 291

16. Newman, p. 381 17.Trevelyan, G.M., History of England, Vol II., Doubleday, N.Y. 1953, p. 158

18. Newman, p. 355

19. Von Ranke, Leopold, History of the Popes, Vol II, Collier, N.Y. 1901, p. 23

Many Americans, of course, while paying half-hearted attention to such historical matters are convinced that although there may be some misdeeds in history, the Jesuits of the present have changed. Others seem to believe that the intrigue of the Jesuits is needed today to counteract the communist menace.

G. Gordon Liddy of Watergate fame was taught by the Jesuits, and nowhere does he apologize for their teachings or for his philosophy of life which is based on the Jesuit teaching that the end justifies the means. In fact, he unashamedly advocates this teaching as the only way that America can survive.

In his autobiography he states:

Fordham was a feast for the mind and a challenge to the spirit. To begin with, it was still under the absolute control of the Jesuits…As much as I had admired the German Benedictines, I admired the Jesuits more…
The Society of Jesus was something special—the shock troop of the Catholic Church.¹

He goes on to say that Heinrich Himmler used it as the model for his dreaded black-uniformed SS in Hitler’s Germany and that the SS swore a special oath of loyalty to the Fuhrer, just as the highest order of the Jesuits swore a special oath of loyalty to the Pope. Liddy says later on that “just as I do, John Sirica believes the end justifies the means.”²

The Jesuits obviously have gained respectability in our time. They have come a long way since John Adams, the second President of the United States, wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson: “If ever there was a body of men who merited eternal damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this Society of Loyola.”³

John G. Schmitz, who ran for President on the American Party ticket a few years ago, was educated by the Jesuits. His education by the Jesuits was put forward as something in his favor rather than a liability. He also wrote the foreword to Gary Allen’s book, “NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY.” So we live in remarkable times when Jesuit trained leaders can write about conspiracy and be accepted not only by the general public, but by professed conservative Protestant Christianity.

Jerry Brown, the Governor of California, who has twice sought the presidential nomination, was also educated by the Jesuits. Again, this was not something considered a liability, rather it was advertised as proof of his moral fiber and strength of character. Times certainly have changed in America.

Harry Reasoner, as he was signing off his nationally televised newscast a few years ago, also demonstrated how far the Jesuits have come in gaining complete acceptance in the United States. He told a joke about three orders in the Roman Catholic Church. It went something like this. The Dominicans, the Franciscans and the Jesuits were all arguing about which order God loved the most. They went down to the altar and were told that they would receive the answer the next day. When they went back the next day, there was a note on the altar which said, “I love you all equally.” Signed, God, S.J. Harry signed off chuckling to himself. While we can appreciate a joke, we do not consider the Jesuits a laughing matter. For if the Bible is true, and we believe it is, then the Jesuit idea of salvation by works, masses, and ceremonies has led millions, and is still leading millions, to a lost eternity.

To those who cherish biblical truth and the freedom to preach the true Gospel, the rise of the Jesuits to a place of complete acceptance and indeed power in the United States today does not bode well for the future of this great land. Everything that Protestant Americans hold dear will be forfeited if these men ever gain the ascendancy in this land.

The greatest proof of all that the Jesuits have indeed gained complete respectability in the United States today is the startling fact that a man claiming to outline the global shadowy conspiracy that threatens the world should call in the leader of the Jesuits to substantiate and corroborate his thesis. No one informed in the area of church history would ever do such a thing unless he believed that the time had come when the Jesuits were no longer suspect themselves. Apparently, Gary Allen believes that this time has arrived. Millions of conservatively oriented Americans who agree with Allen are either totally ignorant of the historical record or believe that the Jesuits have changed. It can be said without fear of contradiction that whether or not one agrees with the idea of a Jesuit Conspiracy, no Protestant who has studied church history would ever call in the leader of the Jesuits to corroborate his view of conspiracy.

The Jesuits have not only gained complete respectability in the United States today, but they have also gained great power. They own a controlling interest in the Bank of America as well as other financial interests. They are thus able to influence Roman Catholic politicians to serve the ends of the Roman Catholic Church more vigorously. (We will look at the Vatican’s vast financial empire in more detail in the next chapter.)

The Jesuits were involved in intrigue at the highest levels of the United States government. During the administration of John F. Kennedy, the Jesuits had access to the most powerful office in the world. The Rev. James Vizzard, an American Jesuit who served as a labor lobbyist in Washington, disclosed that in 1963 he was having lunch with another Jesuit, Roger Vekemans, a Belgian priest on assignment to Chile, when a White House car picked Vekemans up and took him to a meeting with President Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and C.I.A. Director John Mc- Cone, certainly three of the most powerful men in the world at that time.

Vizzard said: “Roger came back with a big smile on his face and said, ‘I got $10 million—$5 million overt from AID (Agency for International Development) and $5 million covert from the C.I.A.’ “⁴

Since that time some other investigations have shown that there was a Roman Catholic bishop on the payroll of the C.I.A. in Vietnam as late as 1971, that millions of dollars were sent by the U.S. government to help the Jesuits in Chile, a country then beset by assassinations and intrigue and still embroiled in murder and mayhem, and at this writing still controlled by a Roman Catholic military dictatorship.

Only the tip of the iceberg has ever been seen. It is obvious that the subject of Jesuit intrigue in the C.I.A. has so far never been explored in any depth whatsoever. Licio Gelli whom some writers believe is the man who helps hold together the Vatican conspiracy, which is out to control the world, has strong links with the C.I.A. He is called II Burattinaco—The Puppetmaster. Yallop says of him, “Gelli was the puppetmaster with a few thousand strings. The strings appear to have led everywhere, to the heart of the Vatican, to the White House, to presidential palaces in a wide range of countries.”⁵

Gelli was the man who bought Exocet Missiles from France for Argentina in its war with Britain. Yallop says that the Vatican indirectly funded Celli through Calvi and the Bianco Ambrosiano. Gelli was an honored guest at Reagan’s presidential inauguration. Gelli, of course, has strong ties with Michele Sindona. He is the head of P2, the mysterious organization founded in Italy which functions in Argentina, Venezuela, Paraguay, France, Portugal, Nicaragua, Switzerland, and the United States. It interlocks with the Mafia in Italy, Cuba and the United States and also with military regimes in South America, and also with the C.I.A. and reaches right into the heart of the Vatican.⁶

So the tentacles of the Vatican power structure spread worldwide. Men come and go, but the organizations of the papacy perpetuate themselves and have done so for more than a thousand years, making the Vatican the source of the most formidable intrigue in world history. When Yallop sought to find out about the mysterious death of Pope John Paul, he said that:

The fact that men and women living within the heart of the Roman Catholic Church (Vatican City) cannot speak openly and be identified, is an eloquent comment on the state of affairs within the Vatican.⁷

The Pope has called for the Jesuits to cease from their intrigue in Central America. On March 2, 1982, over one hundred Jesuit Provincial Superiors, the leaders of the Order, were called to Rome for discussions with “Father” Paolo Dezza, the man the Pope had appointed to oversee the Order in 1981.

The Jesuits were accused by the Pope himself of engaging in “political activism under the guise of religious duties.”8 In the same article the Jesuits were reported to be “one of the primary groups controlling both extremes in Central America.”⁹

So the Jesuits are still in the thick of the murders and assassinations which are being carried out by both sides in the war in El Salvador. The Pope, like others before him, is trying to curb their zeal to keep all factions in the war subservient to Rome.

With the rise of the death squads like those in Ulster, the focus of world opinion is forcing the Pope to do something to at least give the impression that he is not in favor of the murders and killings in El Salvador. But the high degree of Jesuit involvement with the extremists on both sides of the conflict in El Salvador is now a matter of public record.

The Extremists on both sides of this conflict are Roman Catholics. Roman Catholic Marxists are fighting Roman Catholic conservatives. The church is charting a course that will enable it to identify with whoever wins in the end. The Acting Archbishop said recently, “The left has lost its struggle against the government and therefore the influential church here must stay in a neutral, centrist position.”¹⁰ The acting Archbishop made this statement after the killing of 3 Marxist nuns, 10 Marxist priests, and the assassination of Marxist Archbishop Oscar A. Romero. It was after this reign of terror by the Roman Catholic conservatives that the “influential church withdrew to its neutral, centrist position.” It is obvious that the conservative wing of Romanism, which has a large representation among the North American clergy, is backing the right-wing fighters in El Salvador. However, some local Roman Catholic leaders are calling for the United States to back off in El Salvador. So it looks like another capitulation to Marxism is shaping up in Central America.

Latin America sits on a veritable power keg because Romanism, which has been entrenched there for four hundred years, has not brought a scintilla of freedom or justice to the oppressed millions who live below the border of the United States and well below the abject poverty line. Romanism has managed to keep the multiplied millions in such a state of miserable existence that we have no hesitation in saying that if Americans rebelled against George III for his repression, they would have rebelled long ago against almost every government in Latin America.

Instead the United States bolsters the repression of Rome all over Latin America, paving the way for the inevitable revolution and “liberation” promised by the Marxists. It is time the United States stopped identifying with Romanism. But while the massive propaganda machine of Rome churns out its slanted coverage of the news, public opinion in the United States will enable Rome to keep its stranglehold on the people either by repressive fascist governments as in Chile or repressive Marxists government dictatorships as in Nicaragua. Not only that, but the Vatican wants the U.S. to fund the “rebuilding” of this region while the “church” retains control over the people.

Ed Asner has been blasted by many in the U.S. for his stand against U.S. involvement in El Salvador. Asner, of course, was the popular Hollywood actor in several recent television series. He was hounded into silence by being labelled a Communist or leftist or worse if that were possible. What was it that brought down the wrath of a large section of the American public upon Ed Asner? Simply because he spoke out on the situation in El Salvador. What is the situation in El Salvador that Asner deplores? It is the conservative Roman Catholic death squads massacring hundreds of civilians under the guise of eliminating leftists. It is amazing the leftists that are in the world today. Everyone who opposes Romanism is a leftist, Marxist or Communist. The possibility of a Protestant Christian opposing Rome is so remote today that apparently it is safe to label everyone who opposes Romanism as a leftist. (A few years ago one conservative west coast commentator even called Paisley a communist.)

This is the propaganda that Asner was challenging, that anyone who opposes the totalitarian poverty and ignorance-producing regimes of Latin America today must be a leftist. There are leftists to be sure who challenge Rome’s 400 year reign of terror and extreme poverty, and the sad thing that should be noted but never is, is that there are few Americans who would not have challenged such regimes long, long ago!! The poor peons ground into the dirt for centuries look to the U.S. to liberate them, and all they get in return is the backing of the rotten tyrannical dictatorships by the powerful U.S. government, a mere lackey of the Roman Catholic lobby in Washington. So they turn to whoever will help them in their struggle for some semblance of freedom. It is one of the great tragedies of our times that the only choice left to the people of Latin America in many cases is between Romanism on one side and Marxism on the other, and the Marxism even is the Jesuit brand. They are never given the choice of choosing neither Romanism nor Marxism but Protestantism. Protestantism has become so weak and has been betrayed by so many lily-livered compromisers that there is no viable choice left to many of the peoples of the world. Yet when the world is examined, Protestant countries with but few exceptions are the only ones where even a semblance of freedom remains.

Sister Ann Gormly, associate director of the U.S. Catholic Mission Association, in commenting on some of the allegations made against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua said, “I hear of no limitations to the work of the church in Nicaragua.” She also said that it is good to have four churchmen in high government posts in Nicaragua.11 So although there are many uncertain sounds emanating from Nicaragua, the Vatican is deeply embroiled in the present government, and no amount of double- talk can dispel the fact that at least four sons of the “church” have the highest posts in the Sandinista government.

We certainly do not try to play down the fact that there are apparently deep rifts between some local priests and nuns who side with the poor and believe in “liberation theology” and the present Pope, who is opposed to them. But the bottom line is loyalty. If the leftist leaning clergy and political leaders promise to remain loyal to the Vatican in all their intrigues, then the Pope will overlook their Marxist ideology even as a former Pope overlooked the Nazi ideology of Hitler and his henchmen.

One modern writer commenting on the situation in Nicaragua said:

The major target of the U.S. is the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, which is now considered a Marxist regime. The truth of the matter is that there are more Jesuits and Jesuit- controlled individuals in the Sandinista government than there are individuals in the whole of Nicaragua who have gone beyond the first chapter of Marx’s Capital.¹²

The same writer went on to note that it is difficult to tell the difference between Andropov and a Jesuit, especially when the “Jesuit is wearing a red Andropov T shirt.”¹³ In other words the “leftist” regime is very definitely and very closely intertwined with Roman Catholicism in general and the Jesuits in particular. The guru of the Sandinista revolution is Ernesto Cardenal, a Trappist Monk; the foreign minister is E’Escoto, a Maryknoll priest; and the brains behind the whole operation, Fernando Cardenal, is a Jesuit. When these three “Marxist” Roman Catholic clergymen join forces with the strongman Daniel Ortego, who preaches about a revolutionary being a Christian and vice-versa, it is indeed difficult to escape the blanket of Jesuit casuistry which seems to cover the revolution in Nicaragua.

If we are to believe the New Solidarity paper, which takes a definite Roman Catholic stance, there is not much hope for the liberation of Nicaragua from the hands of the Vatican-Jesuit connection. For this paper states that the man the U.S. is grooming to replace the Sandinistas, Eden Pastora, who is now building a base of operations in Honduras, is Jesuit-controlled himself. So that even if the Sandinistas were removed tomorrow, another Jesuit-controlled man would be installed, this time with the help of the C.I.A. and the U.S. government.

Where the Jesuits end and the Marxists begin is certainly a difficult question to answer, but one thing is certain as of this writing: the Jesuits are in control of Nicaragua. All the banks of Nicaragua were nationalized when the Sandinistas took over except the Ambriosano Group. This group mysteriously escaped nationalization. The reason being, of course, that the Ambrosiano Group is controlled by the Vatican.

The Vatican has kept the people in Central America in ignorance and misery for four centuries. It is in the interest of the Vatican to keep its stranglehold on these nations. They are doing so either by the death squads in El Salvador or the Jesuit Marxists in Nicaragua, but they are maintaining their hold over the people. The

U.S. as a Protestant country could bring some pressure to bear, which could really liberate the people from both warring factions, but alas, no such pressure is ever brought to bear on the Vatican. Instead the U.S. seems to become more and more the lackey of the Vatican, and the power that keeps the rotten status quo in place in Latin America.

A classic example of their failure to uphold the one truly free government in Central America was seen in the case of Rios Montt in Guatamala. Rios Montt was a charismatic Protestant. He had his limitations, to be sure, but he was beginning to bring some real liberty to the people of Guatamala. As far as we can ascertain the Roman Catholic church began to agitate for his removal. We only picked up small items of news here and there, but we did read that some “leaders” in Guatamala were concerned that unless he was removed, he was going to cause a civil war in Guatamala. One item also spoke of the fact that anti-catholic feeling was being generated by his fanatical form of Christianity. (All this is the same old Jesuit line we are seeing in Canada and the U.S. tdoay. That is, no one should say anything against the Pope or Roman Catholicism. As we are typing these pages we read that several people have been arrested in Canada for distributing “anti-catholic” literature. Imagine, if you can, getting arrested in a so-called free country for passing out literature of a theological nature. Truly the freedoms of the Protestant Reformation are being seriously abridged right now in North America.) Montt was deposed, and the Vatican returned to power in Guatamala with the tacit approval of the C.I.A. Protestant Americans better wake up!

The Vatican is the center of a never ending web of conspiracy. It is working day and night to bring the world to the feet of the Roman pontiff. The Vatican octopus has tentacles reaching into almost every government circle on earth. When the Red Chinese needed the off-shore oil drilling expertise of the United States (no other country possesses it) a bargain was struck so that the Jesuits were once again allowed into China. Surely such a move is almost incredible when viewed in the light of the fact that America is still an overwhelmingly Protestant nation at least in the numerical make-up of her population.

The Vatican works incessantly at building bridges over which its plans may be put into operation. Pedro Arrupe, then the head of the Jesuits, was the man that Pope Paul VI sent to Moscow in 1971. He met with the communists to try to get the then repressive government of Czechoslovakia to relax her repressive policies. When he returned from Moscow he stated that he saw signs of relaxation of religious persecution in Russia. (Billy Graham came back with the same line.) Arrupe was immediately challenged by the Director of Lithuanian Catholic Aid, Casimir Pugevicus, who said that Arrupe’s statement was a “time serving Soviet maneuver used in order to create a false impression.”¹⁴ It is obvious that the Vatican wants a soft line taken toward Communist Russia because the ultimate goal of the one world church envisaged by the Vatican is the total absorption of all into the one true fold of Romanism.

Bible Protestantism is the only faith that can never capitulate to Romanism. Romanism with its ability to absorb false religions into its fold will become the cage of every unclean bird. But it can never absorb Bible Protestantism because the difference between the two is of such a nature that union is spiritually and ecclesiastically impossible. This is the reason biblically ignorant newsmen speak of the bigotry of the bible-believing fundamentalists of our times; they do not realize the eternal difference that exists between vital biblical Christianty on the one hand and all false religions on the other. So Bible Protestantism must ultimately be the target of every conspiracy, and the target of the final apostate conglomerate.

REFERENCES

1. Liddy G. Gordon, Will, Dell Publ. Co., 1981, p.54
2. Ibid., p.383
3. Canadian Revivalist, Nov./Dec, 1981, p.4
4. Church and State, Vol. 28, No. 8, p.3
5. Yallop, David, IN GOD’S NAME, Bantam Books, N.Y., N.Y., 1984, p.313
6. Ibid., p.117
7. Ibid., p.X
8. Small, Gretchen, New Solidarity, March 8, 1982, p.3
9. Ioc cit.
10. AP News Release
11. U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, Sept. 3, 1984, p.46
12. New Solidarity, April 25, 1983, p.6
13. loc cit.
14. Martin, Malachi, The Final Conclave, Stein and Day, N.Y., 1978, p.86

Whenever anyone writes on conspiracy money is always given a prominent place. In this regard the Vatican certainly does not take a back seat to anyone. The wealth of the Vatican, as we will see, is so vast that in all probability its true worth will never be known.

We are going to examine in some detail what various writers, who have tried to research the wealth of the Vatican, have said. Several of these writers are members of the Roman Catholic church. It is surely interesting to every Protestant that when Pope Paul brought his entourage from Milan to the Vatican, they were dubbed by Roman Catholic writers as the Milan Mafia.¹

It is not within the bounds of this study to examine the Mafia in detail. But the Cosa Nostra, the Family, or The Mafia are a 100% Roman Catholic outfit. They originated in Sicily where Michele Sindona was also born. They control vast holdings in Italy and North America. They have gone what they call “legit” in many enterprises and were able to close down an entire cheese plant in Wisconsin. They did this to establish a monopoly in the Pizza business. This incident made the national news. Businessmen came in and brought the cheese factory. After they bought it, they closed it down. It was only later that Mafia involvement was discovered. As far as we know, the factory, which employed most of the town’s work force, is still closed down as of this writing.

It is interesting to notice the timing of the move by the Mafia to control the cheese and pizza business in the United States. Panatella, a Vatican controlled company dealing mainly in flour and pasta, lost two and a half million dollars just prior to the Mafia takeover and required financing of 4.8 million dollars to keep it afloat.

Martin discloses that by the late sixties both the Institute for Religious Words (whose assets were conservatively put at 3 billion dollars) and the Special Administration of Holy See Property were invested in every sector of Italian industry and commerce. He went on to say, “On the boards of directors of companies in which the Vatican had an interest there always sat a Vatican ‘ family ‘ man, somebody like Massimo Spada or Luigi Mennini.”²

Martin also pointed out that the Special Administration of Holy See Property, which was run by competent lay bankers, was advised by J. P. Morgan, Hambros Brothers of London, and the Rothschilds of Paris.

Ostling recounts the story of Boys’ Town, a Roman Catholic charity.

Boys Town now has a worth of well over $200 million, including a securities portfolio valued (very conservatively) at $157 million. Although the interest on such a nest egg is ample to operate the Town, it still spends millions to send the traditional tearjerker fund appeals to 34 million people and raises nearly $18 million a year. This means Boys Town has about three times the endowment of Notre Dame University, raises more money than the Greater New York United Fund, and would rank 372nd in assets on the Fortune 500 if if were a business corporation. All this for 700 boys.³

All this came to light after much digging by a weekly newspaper in Omaha, Nebraska.

According to Lo Bello, a Roman Catholic journalist, the Vatican is the only sovereign state that never publishes a budget. He was accused of exaggeration in his estimates of Vatican wealth, but suffice it to say, the wealth of the Vatican must be immense, for a simple honest disclosure of its holdings, if they do not constitute great wealth, would lay to rest all the “extravagant” estimates of various writers, but such a disclosure has not been forthcoming.

The Sindona debacle, which the Vatican sought to hide from the general public, resulted in a loss of close to one billion dollars. Yet the Vatican carried on as before, demonstrating its reservoir of financial reserves as nothing else could. Very few companies could sustain such a loss and carry on without so much as a whisper. (Chrysler Corporation lost half a billion and would have gone under but for the U. S. government.)

The financial tentacles of the Vatican reach into numerous banks in different countries. Yallop says that the Rothschilds in Paris have been doing business with the Vatican since early in the 19th century.4 He goes on to point out that, “Credit Suisse, Hambros, Morgan Guaranty, Bankers Trust, Chase Manhattan, and Continental Illinois among others became Vatican partners.”⁵

This financial empire which finances the Vatican conspiracy is filled with murder and mayhem. Yallop states, “The murder of Luciano-Pope John Paul I was to stop him from removing Marcinkus who was the foundation holding up Calvi, Sindona, and Celli.”⁶ When the dust had cleared from John Paul’s mysterious death, it left in its aftermath a series of murders, assassinations and “suicides” that only the Mafia could match for cold bloodedness. Of the main players in the scene only Marcinkus and Celli still remain in control. Yallop recounts in detail each one of the murders and “suicides,” and his pages, which are very difficult to refute, make grim reading. His book, IN GOD’S NAME,” merits close reading by all who are concerned about freedom.

Because of the criticism that no disclosure is ever made of its wealth, the Vatican has in recent years tried to reform some of its monetary policies, but much still remains to be done. No estimate can be given of the immense wealth of the Vatican, but one can get some glimpses of the multi-billion dollar enterprise through various works that have appeared in recent years.

Ostling, in his work, “Secrecy in The Church,” written from the standpoint of one sympathetic to the Church, does give some interesting insights into the wealth of the Papacy.

He recounts that the late Bishop James A. Pike (a convert from Romanism to Episcopalianism) wrote what he calls a sensational article in which he said that the Jesuits had a controlling interest in the Bank of America, the nation’s largest, and that they earned 250 million dollars a year from their investments (a quarter of a billion). He goes on to say that the Jesuits “sputtered, but they have never made a full accounting of their holdings.”⁷ Gollin, a freelance writer who tried to research Papal wealth, figured the securities and commercial properties of the Dioceses of the U.S. at almost “one billion dollars.”⁸ Nino Lo Bello put “the American Jesuit’s annual income at $250 million.” He claims that all Catholic units in the U.S. and Canada combined have assets of more than $80 billion and an annual income of nearly $12.5 billion.”⁹

It was none other than Cardinal Vagnozzi who observed concerning the Vatican’s finances:

It would take a combination of the KGB, the C.I.A. and Interpol to obtain just an inkling of how much and where the monies are. ¹⁰

According to this Cardinal three of the most powerful agencies in the world could only obtain an inkling of how much the Vatican is worth. Yallop points out that the “Vatican bought into General Motors, Shell, Gulf Oil, General Electric, Bethlehem Steel, IBM and TWA.” He went on to say that “the Vicar of Christ had acquired a new unofficial title: Chairman of the Board.”¹¹

The Vatican also acquired “controlling interest in companies, in fields of insurance, steel, financing, flour and spaghetti, industry, cement and real estate.”¹² It owns sections of downtown Montreal, Canada, sections of Mexico City in Mexico, many of the major hotels in Italy, blocks of real estate on the Champs D’Elysee in Paris, the Watergate area in Washington, D.C., real estate in New York City, and the entire satellite city of Lomas Verdes in Mexico. This is only the tip of the iceberg, for much of the Vatican’s wealth is hidden in holding companies so that it is difficult to come even close in an estimate of its vast wealth. It is interesting to observe also that Pope John Paul, who was murdered in the Vatican, intended to reform the Vatican’s finances. Yallop in his work claims that this could have been one of a half dozen reasons why he was murdered right in the Vatican. Another very interesting fact is that Pope John Paul confessed to Father Dezza. Even the Pope has a prelate to whom he confesses, and poor Pope John Paul for some reason chose the head of the Jesuits as his “Father Confessor.” If for any reason he chose to confide some of his proposed changes to Dezza, he may have unwittingly sealed his own death warrant.

Malachi Martin, former Jesuit professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, in his new book, “RICH CHURCH POOR CHURCH,” puts the wealth of the “church” at 300 billion (Webmaster’s note: I’m sure it’s a far higher amount today, more like hundreds of trillions) dollars. He points out that the Vatican is the:

largest single stockholder in the world with about $20 billion dollars traceably invested (but much more untraceably invested) with gold deposits exceeding those of most medium sized countries, and with a worldwide real estate operation.¹³

He goes on to say in another place:

a list of the companies and banks in Italy and abroad in which the Vatican acquired a controlling interest before the outbreak of World War II, when added to the list of those in which it acquired a minor but substantial interest, would fill some sixty or seventy pages of this book.¹⁴

Even Martin, who still classes himself as a Roman Catholic, is appalled at the extent of the Vatican’s wealth when contrasted with the impoverished millions of Roman Catholics around the world. The present Pope speaks much about economic justice. Although much has been written about the present Pope in glowing terms, Yallop does not share the international newsmen’s accolade. Yallop states candidly:

the papacy of John Paul II has been a case of business as usual. The business has benefitted immeasurably not only from the murder of Albino Luciana, but also from the murders that have followed that strange lonely death in the Vatican.¹⁵

He goes on to say:

Many millions of words have been written since the election of Karol Wojtyla in attempts to analyze and understand what kind of man he is. As can be seen, he is the kind of man who could allow men like Villot, Cody, Marcinkus, Mennini, De Strobel and Poletto to remain in office.¹⁶

He adds:

“It is a papacy of double standards, one for the Pope and one for the rest of mankind.
“There can be no defense on the grounds of ignorance, Marcinkus is directly answerable to the Pope.”¹⁷

REFERENCES

1.Martin, Malachi, THE FINAL CONCLAVE, Stein and Day, New York, 1978. p. 18
2. Ibid., p. 26
3. Ostling, Richard, SECRECY IN THE CHURCH, Harper and Row, N.Y. 1974, p. 51
4.Yallop, David, IN GOD’S NAME, Bantam Books, N.Y., N.Y. 1984, p 97
5. loc. cit.
6. Ibid., p. 103
7. Ostling, p. 49
8. loc.cit.
9. Ibid., p. 50 10.Yallop,p. 105
11. Ibid., p. 99
12. Ibid., p. 98
13. Martin, Malachi, RICH CHURCH POOR CHURCH, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, N.Y., N.Y. 1984, p. 14
14. Ibid., p. 40
15.Yallop, p. 264
16. Ibid, p. 265
17. Ibid., p. 264

Satan has a plan for this world. His plan is doomed to failure, but that does not mean it is to be taken lightly or that it cannot affect men and nations and do untold harm before it is finally frustrated.

Dr. Stuart McBirnie retraced the steps of the Apostle Paul’s missionary journeys. In those cities where the great Apostle had established churches in the first century, the cause of Christianity has disappeared. McBirnie recounted how not only was he not able to find a church of any kind, but in some instances he could not even find one Christian. So although the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church of the Living Christ, some local churches do fold up and disappear under the onslaught of the devil and this world.

Satan has been at work since the fall of man. So his Satanic conspiracy to dominate this world is of age long duration. Satan’s primary area of operation we saw in our first study as the area of religion. Only God’s believing remnant can understand this aspect of the conspiracy, and even many of them are at sea at this point. Every unsaved person thinks that religion is a good thing when in fact only vital biblical Christianity is a good thing: every other religion is a satanic counterfeit. Satan is working to deceive the nations. He works through individuals. It should be obvious to every thinking person that there are people working day and night to overthrow vital biblical Christianity and many of these individuals are religious, even posing as “Christians.” In other words the battle we face is primarily a spiritual one. It will not be defeated by merely legal efforts or even protests unless the protests are centered on a proper interpretation of the Word of God.

Romanism has made unbelievable advances in the United States in the last one hundred years. As one leading Roman Catholic spokesman said, “We are less than one hundred years from Rum, Romanism and Rebellion, referring to the slogan of American politicians at the close of the nineteenth century. (See our first booklet for further documentation.)

Gary Allen in his examination of conspiracy fails to come to grips with known historical conspiracies. For one reason or another he obviously ignores the documented religious conspiracies of history. Roman Catholic conspiracies are part of the historical record. Papal plots have been discovered, and the conspirators arrested and brought to trial at various junctures of history. Father Chiniquy portrays Romanists as the main plotters in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. So the Vatican has been working night and day to shift the burden of conspiracy from its shoulders to some other group of conspirators. Since the McCarthy era, extremist groups have painted almost every leader in the United States as Communist, pro-communist, or an insider. NO ONE HAS EVER LOOKED AT THE PAPAL INTRIGUE, which is still going on today as it has for over 1,000 years. While men hunt for shadowy conspirators among America’s leaders, who evidence no continuity whatsoever, Romanism, with a continuity in conspiracy unparalleled in the history of man, continues to flourish and to call the shots in the area of religion and politics.

It should be obvious to every Bible-believer that one of the main tasks of the Satanic conspiracy is to direct those who are seeking to discover the conspiracy and alert Christians to it to some other apparent culprit. This we term the conspiracy of misdirection. Misdirection is written large in the field of conspiracy.

We see this conspiracy of misdirection focused in four main areas.

1. Toward the Masons
The Masons have become a favorite whipping boy for conspiratorialists writing on the great global conspiracy. While we do not approve of the Masons, we do not believe the Roman Catholic propaganda put out against the Masons. Yallop postulates a secret Masonic Conspiracy against the Vatican in his work, “IN GOD’S NAME.” Michele Sindona is also linked to the Masons by Yallop, Martin, and other writers. Sindona came out of Sicily, the reputed home of the Mafia but is regarded as a Mason by Martin. He is certainly a man of mystery. But to try to link him to the Masonic Lodge and hint at some hidden conspiracy by the Masons to destroy the Roman Catholic Church through financial embezzlement is more fiction than fact. It is true that Sindona was linked to the loss of almost one billion dollars, which the Vatican financial empire sustained, and that he at one time was a close friend of Pope Paul. According to Newsweek he was the brains behind

an intricate group of holding companies (and) he controlled a chain of hotels, a giant multinational real-estate operation, several industrial firms in Europe and America, half a dozen banks. Rumor had it that he was the Pope’s chief financial adviser, or alternatively, the Mafia’s number one banker.¹

When Pope Paul realized the amount of money involved in the Sindona scandal, he said that Sindona was in the “hands of unknown powers,” hinting at some dark super-conspiracy against the Papacy. For it is a belief of many Roman Catholics and even some “Protestant” writers, that the great conspiracy is not directed by Rome but is directed at Rome. At least Malachi Martin seems to indicate as much in his work. He tells that:

Montini (who later became Pope Paul) had known that over in the Quirinal…and within the Vatican behind Pacelli’s back, there were men and women who dealt every day in millions of church dollars —the “Patrimony of St. Peter”— buying war and selling peace down the river, cynically scandalously…. Montini could almost see a Satanic rictus behind the whole affair.²

Martin also points out that late in the Sindona scandal, “It is now reported to Paul that Michele Sindona is a member of the Masonic order.”3 Before the whole affair with Sindona was over, Paul was to feel that Sindona was a shadowy figure behind some great conspiracy against the Papacy.

Roman Catholic writers, of course, do not believe in a Roman Catholic conspiracy. So they are constantly proffering Masonry or some other Bilderberger or Tri-lateralist conspiracy as the real one. Some conservative Protestants, who do not know their Bibles, have taken up the cry of the Roman Catholic conspiratorialists. But to try to link Michele Sindona to some conspiracy against the papacy is a difficult task. For the few things that we do know about his early education show that he was educated by the Jesuits. Also his bank failures, while definitely affecting the Vatican, also affected him. The Vatican not only lost millions, but Michele Sindona lost so much that he was wiped out. So if Sindona was in the hands of “unknown powers,” they must have been unknown to him too, for they certainly deserted him when he needed a friend. The powers, which seem to be connected with Sindona, were the Mafia. For the main government witness against him, Giorgio Ambroscoli, who had been appointed to liquidate the Sindona controlled banks in Italy, was killed in Milan. No one was ever charged with the crime.

Sindona had to flee to America where after another bank failure he was arrested and brought to trial and sentenced to five years on “65 counts of conspiracy, fraud and perjury.”4 The truth that must be grasped in this whole Sindona scenario is that Sindona, who drew a lot of attention to the Vatican, is now out of commission and thoroughly discredited. But the Vatican is still there, directing would-be conspiracy hunters away from the Vatican conspiracy to Insider, Bilderberger or other shadowy conspiracies. The enduring nature of the Vatican power base makes it a prime suspect in the field of conspiracy.

Michele Sindona was at one time one of the most powerful men in Italy. He was also closely identified with Vatican finances. It seems to us that there is much more substance to the assertion that Sindona was probably “done in” by the Vatican instead of vice-versa. Sindona was about to be investigated by the Italian government. The man sent to investigate his bank, who unearthed many things, some of them probably not complimentary to the Vatican, was murdered for his trouble. Yallop believes that he was murdered by the Mafia. However it appears obvious that Sindona had now become a very possible international embarrassment to the Vatican, and he himself maintained that he fled to the United states to escape being murdered.

After arriving here, even the bank that he owned in the United States went under. Again the only power on earth able to bring banks down in any one of fifty countries is the Vatican. It not only wields great financial clout but has hundreds of dedicated devotees in powerful positions in banks and financial institutions, which it does not even control, to help fulfil its plans. Sindona went down, down, down without a friend to help. His financial fortune for the most part disappeared almost over night. Yallop believes that Sindona is a suspect behind the murder of Pope John Paul I. It seems that Sindona for all his mystery really had little or no clout at all in the end. He just went to jail. As Hammer points out in his book, “THE VATICAN CONNECTION,” the Roman Catholic New York policeman, who linked the Vatican to the Mafia and to a billion dollar counterfeit scam, when nothing was ever done to bring the culprits to justice, said he had finally realized that if you are powerful enough, you are beyond the reach of the law. Sindona was not that powerful!

Hammer says of Coffey, the New York Irish American Roman Catholic policeman, who had tracked the links of the Mafia right into the heart of the Vatican in a billion dollar counterfeit scheme so vast that few would believe it:

There had been months of plodding along twisted and tangled pathways that seemed to be leading nowhere, and moments of startling breakthrough and discovery…Often during those years as the scope of the hunt and its consequence became clear, he had been convinced that this was what he had been born to do, that this would be the capstone of his career. And now it was over, ended not with the glittering victories he had foreseen but on a sour and cynical note. HE COULD NO LONGER DENY WHAT HE HAD NOT WANTED TO BELIEVE: THERE ARE PEOPLE SO POWERFUL AND SO HIGHLY PLACED THAT THEY ARE IMPERVIOUS TO THE LAW, AND THAT SOCIETY’S RULES AND CODES DO NOT APPLY TO THEM.⁵ (emphasis ours)

The main lesson that Hammer’s book teaches is that it is easier to bring down the President of the United States than a crook in the Vatican.

When the investigation ended, Aronwald, who was testifying before a Senate sub-committee in Washington said:

Because of serious allegations that had been made with respect to someone in the Vatican although the name of the individual was never given, the Department of Justice made contacts with the Vatican and obtained their cooperation… As a result of our visit and a result of the cooperation of the Vatican, we were able to conclude that there was no substance to the allegation that anyone within the Vatican was cuipably involved in this scheme.⁶

In other words, there was a complete whitewash of the whole investigation. So while the real criminals go free, lesser men are prosecuted and sent to jail. Michele Sindona was one of the ones who went to jail. So although a financial wizard, in some ways he proved to be quite vulnerable in the end while the Vatican men roll on without batting an eye, cleared of all culpability.

The charges against Sindona were also the same as those made against Nogara, the financial wizard who put the Vatican on the map financially. Nogara was the brains behind the reorganization of the whole financial structure of the Vatican in 1929. He succeeded in moving the Vatican fortunes from millions to billions before he retired in 1958. However, he was investigated on the charges that he was a Mason and belonged to a secret masonic society and was secretly conspiring against the Vatican. The same old story trotted out against Sindona and also written large in modern books dealing with Conspiracy. (See Yallop, Allen, and Bowen for corroboration.)

Not only was Nogara not a Masonic man, nor a conspirator against the “church,” he was one of the most loyal hard working sons of the “church” that Italy ever produced. Not only was he not out to ruin the Vatican, he helped it on to such financial success that it now has become one of the richest organizations on earth. When the investigation was completed by the Vatican loyalists, the taciturn Nogara was completely exonerated of all charges against him, and the record showed that he was completely trustworthy, a loyal son of the Vatican in every respect. Yet these rumors and charges persist in every generation and are still being made today.

We believe that the reason we hear of “secret Masonic conspiracies” is to keep the idea of a mock conspiracy before the people to keep them from seeing the real thing. These writers lack one thing in their writings on conspiracy, and that is an in-depth exegesis of Revelation 17-18. They focus attention on the Masons to draw away attention from the Vatican and to create sympathy for the Pope and Papacy, who are then considered victims of the conspiracy rather than the brains behind it.

2. The second theory that we see written large in contemporary works is the Insider theory. That is, that a certain group of financiers are at work to control the world. Gary Allen, of course, postulates this idea as do others like William Bowen. Allen states:

In the Bolshevik Revolution we have some of the world’s richest and most powerful men financing a movement which claims its very existence is based upon the concept of stripping of their wealth men like the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Schiffs, Warburgs, Morgans, and Harrimans, and Milners. But obviously these men have no fear of international communism. It is only to assume that if they financed it and do not fear it, it must be because they control it…. Remember that for 150 years it has been standard operating procedure of the Rothschilds and their allies to control both sides of every conflict.⁷

It certainly is easy to direct attention toward the Rothschilds because of their great wealth and also because they are Jews. What Allen fails to see is that every accusation that can be made against the Rothschilds and their allies can also be made against the Vatican with much more weight. The Rothschilds’ wealth, although immense, is not in the same league with the Vatican’s. The tentacles of the Rothschilds do not reach into every government on earth with anything approaching the same degree as the Vatican’s. The longevity of the alleged conspiracy of the Rothschilds, according to Allen himself, goes back a mere 150 years— again nothing in comparison to the Papacy whose global ambitions and intrigue go back more than a thousand years.

Again the idea of operating on both sides of every major conflict with which Allen charges the Rothschilds can be seen in the history of Vatican power politics with far greater documentation to support it. It can even be seen right now in Central America at this very moment. The Vatican is on both sides in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and the intrigue of the Jesuits on both sides of the conflicts is causing such an uproar that the Pope traveled there to try to defuse the embarrassing situation.

3. The third idea of the conspiracy that faces America is “Secular humanism.” William Bowen in his book, “GLOBALISM-AMERICA’S DEMISE,” spends much time and effort trying to pin America’s troubles on the secular humanists. This has become a popular theme with other conservative writers as well. We would be the last to downplay the effect that secular humanism has had on America, but we do not think that secular humanism is the global conspiracy that confronts the world.

In fact we believe that the flurry over secular humanism at the present time is another case of misdirection. The real conspiracy is much more closely knit and has much clearer goals. The drift of America from her Protestant moorings allows the religious men to take over. We get tired of listening to those who speak of America’s Judeo-Christian ethic. America was founded upon historic Bible Protestantism. Anyone who has studied early American history knows that her people were made up of the persecuted Protestants of Europe who fled here for a refuge and built the greatest country the world has ever seen. It was built solidly on English-Puritanism, Scottish Presbyterianism, Scots-lrish-Presbyterianism, German Pietism and Dutch Calvinism. As for Jews and Roman Catholics, they were almost unheard of in the early days of America. And they certainly had little or no influence outside Rhode Island and Maryland. Why do we never hear of this in any of the writings which conservatives write today? You would think that American liberties came from the Jews and Roman Catholics. America is going down because the Protestant Puritan ethic upon which she was founded is being replaced not by a secular humanism but by an effete false religion which will not mention the past but will praise the Roman anti-christ. This is the crux of America’s trouble. God judges idolatry whether our half-baked modern Protestant Christian writers realize it or not. America is going down not from secular humanism nor a false pietism but from a love affair with idolatry and false religion.

It is indeed very strange that we hear nothing about the Inquisition today. In reading the “STEALING OF AMERICA,” we note that the secular humanists are the ones we have to fear. When illustrations are drawn of persecutions in the past, mention is made of the early Christians, who were thrown to the lions in the Roman arena and of Christians, who were tortured under Communism in Eastern Europe.

Various philosophers are named in recent books as the cause of the downfall of western civilization. In all this plethora of writing about the demise of America because of certain sinister forces, no mention is ever made of the Inquisition which lasted 500 years. Is that not passing strange?

We hear of the Hordes of the French Revolution but not tne Massacre of St. Bartholmew’s Day, carried out not by atheists, secular humanists or a totalitarian state, but by those claiming to be religious and belonging to the only true “church.” Secular humanism is made out to be the unstoppable force while Romanism flourishes in America as never before. While misguided Protestants stare at “Secular Humanism,” Romanism controls the White House, the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the Congress, and most of the leading posts in the present Reagan Administration. Manhattan observes:

The existence of such an organically oriented Catholic body would have been a matter of concern itself, but the fact that it enjoyed the patronage of the most eminent individuals of the U.S. political intelligence and military establishment, made their presence one of profound disquiet. The list, although minimal, was impressive: from General Alexander Haig, Secretary of State, (since deposed) to Mr. Casey, head of the Central Intelligence Agency; from D. Regan of the U.S. Treasury to Mr. Allen of the National Security; from Mrs. Kirkpatrick, UNO, to W. Clark, who replaced Allen in 1982, to W.S. Wilson, the U.S. envoy at the Vatican and a convert to Catholicism, and many others in less glamorous but nonetheless very influential posts up and down the administration.⁸

As of this writing President Reagan has appointed an ambassador to the Vatican, and he has pledged that if reelected he would fight for the family in the spirit of Pope John Paul II. So Vatican influence is written large in American politics today. (As for fighting for the family, the papacy has been the greatest enemy of the family in most Roman Catholic countries in the world, grinding the family under its tyrannical heel all over Central America, South America, Southern Europe, Eire, and wherever it has been entrenched for centuries.)

The blackout which has been thrown over the Inquisition and the massacres and persecutions of Romanism apparently is no accident. Conservative writers apparently believe that the United States has nothing to fear from the Vatican, and therefore, they seem to have tacitly agreed not to mention known historical horrors connected with Rome’s global ambitions.

The use of the word “Christian” today by many of these writers, who would alert us to the evils that confront us, is obviously an omnibus term. It obviously includes in its meaning, as used today, the unchristian religion of Romanism.

So in saving America from the secular humanist conspiracy, we are being herded along with Romanism to do the job. Such writing leaves a lot to be desired as far as the Biblical Christian is concerned. One has only to look at a nation where Romanism holds absolute sway to see that the Vatican can match anything any secular state has ever produced in the way of suppression and more.

Biblical Christians, keep to your Bibles! Do not be misled even by sincere men, who have not done their homework in church history nor apparently in Bible Doctrine.

4. The fourth idea put forward to misdirect us concerning the Global Conspiracy is the Usurper Theory. This theory links the Vatican to the conspiracy but maintains that the Pope is kidnapped or killed and his place taken by another man who is a Communist or atheist.

The idea is written large in contemporary works although it is not new. The Novel, “THE JANUS POPE,” is a story about the real pope being kidnapped and a Communist put in his place. Although this book has some of the characters saying nasty things about the Vatican, the idea that the Pope is God’s representative or God’s deputy is put forward a number of times. So the author apparently views the pope as Christ’s vicar upon earth.

Malachi Martin in his book, “THE FINAL CONCLAVE,” also alludes to this idea of usurpation. The national news media also gave large coverage to the Bulgarian Connection in their attempts to assassinate the Pope. So that the impression is given to the unthinking that the real conspiracy, even though it does involve the papacy, involves it only as the target of the intrigue and not as the originator of it.

Dean Alford in his “PROLEGOMENA TO THE REVELATION” points out that even Roman Catholic expositors see the papacy in Revelation 17 and 18.

From Joachim’s time…men’s mind even WITHIN THE ROMISH CHURCH, became accustomed to the idea that the apocalyptic Babylon was in some sense or other not only Pagan but PAPAL ROME; and that Antichrist was to sit, whether as an usurper or not, on the throne of the papacy. 9 (emphasis ours)

Joachim was Abbot of Flores in the 12th Century. He denounced even back then the corruption of the Roman clergy, the issue of indulgences, the deification of the Roman Church and the Crusades. He saw in the Revelation the description of the Papacy as Mystery Babylon the Great and the Mother of Harlot religion.

So with such a crushing weight to dispose of, it is not surprising that the idea of a usurper upon the seat of the papacy is written large in contemporary thought. Something had to be done to offset Protestant suspicions of a secret cabal in the heart of the Vatican. So a massive propaganda effort to educate Protestants in the niceties of the papacy and the evil machinations of some other shadowy conspirators out to destroy this nice institution had to be launched. The sad thing is that apparently millions of Protestants have bought this idea without even a second thought. Malachi Martin, a former Jesuit, may still imagine that there are many Protestants who believe in this secret cabal in the heart of the Vatican, but in actuality their number is very, very small. By far the majority of modern Protestants have swallowed the Vatican line.

REFERENCES

1. Newsweek, Aug. 20,1979, p. 67
2. Martin, THE FINAL CONCLAVE, p. 29
3. Ibid., p. 64
4.Time, April 7,1980, p. 59
5. Hammer, Richard, THE VATICAN CONNECTION, Charter Books, N.Y. 1982, p. 309
6. ibid., p. 308
7. Allen, Gary, NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY, Concord Press, Rossmoor, California 1971, pp 73-75
8. Manhattan, Avro, THE VATICAN-WASHINGTON, MOSCOW ALLIANCE, Chick Pub., 1982, p. 65
9. Alford, Henry, THE GREEK NEW TESTAMENT, Vol. VI, Guardian Press, Grand Rapids, Mich. 1976., Reprint, p. 246

Malachi Martin says:

For too long now those in the higher echelons of the Church have been suspected of quite worldly aims: of secret-almost cabalistic-designs on the rights, liberties, and freedoms of ordinary people. Many a sincere modern Protestant is still convinced that this is true.¹

Martin was a former Jesuit professor. He seems to write from a very open view point. But in his serious and even severe criticisms of the Vatican in his books, “THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN CHURCH, and “RICH CHURCH POOR CHURCH,” he never once criticizes the entity itself. Only things about it, bad things to be sure, but not the historical reality—and to him—the true and only church in all of history. Martin is very shrewd. His open criticism of the church establishes him in the minds of millions as an enemy of the church. He is far from it. But the idea that he is a critical enemy gives much more weight to his writings in the eyes of Protestants, thus enabling him to still latently push the idea of the Pope as Christ’s Vicar upon earth and the Roman Catholic Church, the only true church that exists.

His contention that many a sincere modern Protestant still is convinced that there is a cabal, an intrigue by a few powerful men to take over the world, and that they are centered in the Vatican, is probably less true now than at any point in Protestant history. We would have to say that VERY FEW modern Protestants even view the Papacy as other than another denomination, and even fewer still see anything even approaching cabalistic designs on the part of its leaders as the foregoing pages demonstrate. The powerful impact of papal propaganda is beginning to show itself together with the almost total apathy and indifference of most modern Protestants to Bible Interpretation. The complete failure of anything even approaching a Protestant solidarity against the obvious encroachments of papal teachings in once Protestant America proves the truth of the foregoing sentences.

The complete ignorance and apathy of most American Protestants to the Vatican designs on America is, to say the least, disturbing. Not only that, but even those, who are supposed to be informed and even write books to warn Americans about the dangers which this nation faces, never even mention Romanism much less examine its goals for America.

We hear much about perversion today and of how America will go down the tubes if the “Gays” have their way. But no one ever mentions doctrinal perversion. Doctrinal perversion is always the forerunner of sexual perversion. The Scriptures are clear at this point. “Even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over unto a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient.” The Scriptures teach clearly that the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against those who hold back the truth in unrighteousness. Doctrinal perversion leads to idolatry which leads to sexual perversion according to Romans Chapter one.

When the Pope of Rome preaches the perverted doctrines of Romanism, enforced celibacy, purgatory, Mariolatry, etc., he is as much a threat to a pure America as any sexual pervert who clamours for “Gay” rights. This is the truth that we must see today or perish as a nation. Impure doctrines of demons affect a society more than the impure actions of some of its members.

The nature of our battle is spiritual. When the Biblical truths of the Word of God with which evil is defeated are replaced by the satanic drivel of false religion, that society which experiences the barrage of satanic drivel is every bit as bad off as any secular humanist society. Secular humanism is not the only evil facing North America! In fact, North America has far more to fear from religious idolatry than it has from secular humanists.

Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, Francis Schaeffer and Ronald Reagan are all working to defeat the secular humanists. But none of them even has one word to say about the religious idolatry which curses America. Apparently, it is all right for that to flourish. In other words as long as a person can say he is religious, he is not considered a threat to the freedoms that many Americans still hold dear.

We would have to say candidly; the judgment of God has a far greater chance of falling upon America because of idolatrous false religion than it does because of secular humanism. We oppose the atheistic humanists without reservation, but we do not believe that this is where the heat of the battle rages in America today. We believe that America’s love affair with the Great Whore who sits on the Tiber poses a far greater threat to America’s freedoms than any other evil which America faces today.

We recognize the power of Communism. We recognize the power of Islam. We recognize the power of secular humanism. We also recognize the power of Romanism; and we would have to say that a candid look at America today will show that of the four evils mentioned, Romanism constitutes by far the biggest internal threat to America today than any of the others.

As America becomes more and more idolatrous, she comes more and more under the indictment of the Second Commandment. God’s wrath is repeatedly poured out in the Scriptures upon his chosen people for their idolatry. (This sin is never mentioned once by most modern writers.) In the second commandment, which is not taught in Roman Catholic schools, God is spoken of as “visiting the iniquity of the fathers unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me,” a fearful judgment which our modern writers never mention and perhaps do not even believe is actual. This judgmental visitation of God upon succeeding generations is because of IDOLATRY, not atheism nor pornography.

It is great to make accusations against the Bilderbergers and the Insiders and the llluminati because almost everyone in the world can identify against such people. The very capability of being able to identify against them, we believe, points up the weakness in such accusations. According to the Word of God, which is supposed to be the final authority for Bible Protestants, when false Christs and false prophets arise, the only ones who are not deceived are God’s elect people. In other words, as we pointed out in our first booklet, this world of people will go along with false religion, the rise of Mystery Babylon the Great, and will worship the Anti-Christ.

It is only God’s elect people who will in every generation stand against the encroachments of religious evil. So if the evil is so identified that most of the world can be antagonistic toward it, it is in all probability not the beginning, middle or end of the final apostate conglomerate, which is to rule the earth and be the cage of EVERY UNCLEAN bird.

The Vatican has been the center of evil and uncleanness now for more than a thousand years. It was the Mother of the Inquisition which tortured, persecuted and martyred multiplied millions of precious believers for 500 years. Wilder states in his careful study:

that the records of historians and martyrologists show that it may be reasonable to estimate that from fifty to sixty-eight millions of human beings died, suffered torture, lost their possessions, or were otherwise devoured by the Roman Catholic Church during the awful years of the Inquisition.²

According to Llorente, the official recorder for the Inquisition, until he became absolutely revulsed by it, more than 300,000 victims were immolated on the flaming faggots of the Spanish Inquisition alone.3 It has been the effort of modern Roman Catholic writers to try to play down the Inquisition and to deny its holocaust. But there are many reputable historians, who recount its atrocities for those interested in finding out the truth.

We have a two volume set which deals with the Spanish Inquisitors in Holland. The pages are filled with account after account of torture and horror that would make our ears tingle. It tells of one man who opposed the false doctrines of Rome, who was put on a spit and slowly roasted over an open fire.⁴

The Vatican not only has been the center of cruelty and persecution, it has also been the center of a never ending spate of false doctrine and practice, which if the Bible is true, will lead most of its adherents to a lost eternity. So that the true Bible believer, who is interested in the salvation of souls from sin and from eternal death, is impelled to stand against this onslaught and to warn those caught up in it.

The fact that the Vatican is evil is, of course, admitted by some Roman Catholic writers. They go into great detail in highlighting some of its ancient and modern evils. But the bottom line is that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church in spite of the evils of the Inquisition, the persecutions of the past, and even the heinous crimes of some of the popes. Malachi Martin criticizes the church severely. But one must be wary in reading such writings.

When Martin criticizes the Vatican, he is criticizing its financial and secular dealings. He is not criticizing its doctrines and teachings. He points out in his book on the decline of the church that it started to decline when it received all the money and land, etc. from Constantine; from then on a struggle developed between its spiritual mission and mammon. He even has in his latest books ideas on how the church is to rid itself of its financial empire, but what he fails to say is that there is to be no revision of nor ridding itself of, its erroneous dogmas and teachings. This is the crux of the whole matter.

To the Bible believing Protestant even if the Roman Catholic Church divested itself of every dime (something that will never happen if Revelation 17 and 18 are true) it would still be a reservoir of evil and error. Its unscriptural teaching on Purgatory is a producer of great evil in several ways. It makes people believe they can buy their way out of trouble in the hereafter, thus affecting everything they do in this life. It also deceives them as to the true nature of eternity so that those who die expecting to buy their way out of purgatory will instead be lost forever in the lake of fire with no hope of ever being released.

The unscriptural teaching inherent in the Mass is also a producer of great evil. Millions live any old way but believe that by taking a consecrated wafer from the hands of sinful man, they are receiving Christ. The Reformers, Puritans, and early Methodists called the Mass a blasphemous fable. They did not do this to be nasty. They did it because they believed that a proper interpretation of the Scriptures proved that Christ died once for all and his once for ali offering never needed to be repeated, for it was final, full, and sufficient to deal with the problem of man’s sin. No other offering was needed, and so no other could ever be offered especially by sinful men. The idea that sinful men could offer a sacrifice for sins they rightly believed constituted blasphemy. The reason they called it a fable was also established from Scripture. “This is my body” is obviously a figure of speech and not to be taken literally. Even as the cup, which is the New Testament in my blood, is also a similar figure. No one ever argues for the actual cup being the New Testament although thousands have engaged in the controversy over the elements.

It is a fable to assume that by the magic of a priest the bread actually becomes the actual body of Christ. It is an egregious fable to say the least. Yet this blasphemous fable is foisted upon an unsuspecting Protestant populace almost nightly especially when the Pope goes anywhere in the world today.

The unscriptural teaching of an enforced celibacy is also pushed upon us until we almost vomit. As we write these words, the Pope is visiting Canada. We get his face on every television news program and his speeches in every newspaper. In the Altoona Mirror, September 10, 1984, we were told this about the Pope in Canada.

John Paul began his twelve day tour of Canada on Sunday and followed his custom of getting straight to the point on controversial religious issues by reaffirming the Catholic (the writer obviously means Roman Catholic, and there is an eternal difference) Church’s stand that priests and nuns must never marry.

Three things need to be said about this statement.

1. The Bible says that an enforced celibacy is a doctrine of demons. I Timothy 4:1-3.

Now the Spirit speaks expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons; speaking lies in hypocrisy having their conscience seared with a hot iron; FORBIDDING TO MARRY….

So according to the Bible those who forbid others to marry are

a. departed from the faith.
b. heeding seducing spirits
c. teaching doctrines of demons
d. speaking lies
e. in hypocrisy (not only lies you see but hypocritical ones)
f. having their conscience seared with a hot iron.

What a devastating indictment from God’s inspired, infallible, inerrant and authoritative Word!

2. Notice it is all right for the Pope to go right to the point on controversial religious issues. Let any Protestant such as Ian Paisley, do the same thing, and he is immediately called a preacher of sectarianism, an arch-bigot or worse. Nobody calls the Pope an arch bigot, or Preacher of Sectarianism, even though he comes out with some of the most bigoted sectarian statements that ever appear in our modern newspapers.

3. Just a few months ago seven Roman Catholic priests were involved in a sexual scandal with a young woman in California. News about the incident was sketchy as anything detrimental to Rome’s good image seldom is considered newsworthy. However, we did learn the following facts. The young woman wanted to be a nun. She met with these priests who seduced her. She finally gave birth to a baby in the Philippines where the priests had sent her on the pretext that she was there studying. They had promised her money. When the money failed to come, she filed a paternity suit against the seven since they all apparently were involved with her. The filing of the suit is what brought the story into the news. We never heard another thing about it except that the Roman Catholic spokesman in Los Angeles intimated that the girl was of low morals and that was why she got the priests involved with her. This resulted in a second suit filed by the girl for defamation of character. She maintained that she was perfectly innocent of the charges and that she went at the start to be a nun in good faith and that the reason she submitted to all seven was because she was under their authority. So much for enforced celibacy! It is indeed a doctrine of demons and the producer of an immorality in the monastic sphere that has been legendary since the Middle Ages. The Bible does state that a person does not have to marry if he does not want to, but no one has the right to enforce that upon those who cannot bear it, for the Scripture also states categorically that it is better to marry than to be in a burning passion.

At the very time this story of the seven priests was told once and never mentioned again, the three part drama, “CELEBRITY,” was bring shown on a major network. We did not see the three parts, but we did see the end of the last part and gathered that the entire piece of fictional propaganda was directed against Bible Protestantism. The young man who was the center piece of this drama was a former rapist, who later became a Protestant evangelist. He was shown going kind of berserk. He shot his friend to death for being a homosexual. (Making out Protestant evangelists to be killers instead of portraying the sexual perverts as those who go around killing people, which would be much closer to the truth). At his trial he was stabbed to death by the woman he had formerly raped and left for dead, who apparently had not died. So this whole sorry show was a well orchestrated attempt to denigrate Protestant evangelists.

We recognize that there are unsavory characters in Protestant circles, who make money off the unsuspecting, but are they the only circles where unsavory characters reside? To look at the modern Hollywood movie industry the answer is a resounding yes. It is well then that the actual events of life help to counterbalance the bigoted trash of modern Hollywood and the hypocritical remarks of a Polish Pope (Pope John Paul II).

The enduring nature of Romanism is a sign that it is a devil- inspired conspiracy in a unique sense. After some of the most cruel atrocities of history, combined with the gross immoralities, which have been part and parcel of the whole system, it has still managed not only to survive but to grow.

Cardinal Manning said, “The Catholic Church is either the masterpiece of Satan or the Kingdom of God.” Cardinal Newman declared, “Either the Church of Rome is the house of God or the house of Satan.”5 According then to two of its most famous representatives our choices are very limited as to the origin and nature of Romanism. It is either of God or of Satan.

To the Bible-believing Protestant, God is holy and His church is also holy. When the origins of the Roman Catholic church are examined, they point to Satan rather than to Christ. Martin in his book, ‘•THE RISE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN CHURCH,” speaks of the method used in electing popes. “Vicious enmities were created. Blood was shed. Lives were taken.”6 He goes on to say:

At the election of Pope Damasus I in A.D. 366, thirty-seven corpses littered the environs of the Liberian Basilica after a fracas between the followers of Damasus and his archrival, Ursinus.⁷

He goes into much greater detail later on and tells about Pope Stephen bringing his archrival before him with his knee caps broken, his body whipped, and his eyes carved out. He further elaborates:

Within a year, Pope Stephen will have used Duke Desiderius to get Christophorus, Sergius, and Gratiosus imprisoned, first their eyes cut out, then their lives ended. He then will turn on Desiderius and by December of 771 will encompass his ruin and death.⁸

Martin again:

The high point in Marozia’s career came at the end of her very long life when she was visited in her Roman prison by an emperor who had just seized possession of the city—Otto III, a successor of Charlemagne. He had only one reason for visiting Marozia—to lay his eyes on the woman who was the mother of a pope, whom she had conceived by another pope, and who was the aunt of a third pope, the grandmother of a fourth pope, and with the help of her own mother, the creator of nine popes in eight years, of whom two had been strangled, one suffocated with a cushion, and four deposed and disposed of in circumstances that have never come to public light.⁹

So reads the pages of Martin’s book. Martin still believes in the Roman Catholic Church, but we ask the question how could any one believe that the Roman Cult is the kingdom of God after reading his book and after studying church history? It is absolutely inconceivable that the Holy Spirit of Truth has been connected with such atrocities, crimes, errors, and intrigues, for centuries. It is a spiritual and moral impossibility.

Nevertheless the Vatican has always shown great resiliency and adaptability in keeping abreast of national and international changes. It is working tirelessly toward one goal to bring the entire world to the feet of the Roman Pontiff. The methods used to achieve this goal have included and do include (as we have seen above) murder, massacre, Marxism, propaganda, irenic dialogue, revolution, repression, assassination, education, kindness, coercion, brotherhood, charity, monasticism, enforced celibacy, Jesuit casuistry, intrigue, financial threats and chicanery, and last but certainly not least, a global conspiracy with an historical continuity, and loyal henchmen to see that it continues to endure, unsurpassed in the annals of recorded history. The ends justify the means is no empty slogan, but the modus operandi of the global aspirations of the Jesuits and the Vatican.

As the final stages of the great Satanic religious conspiracy break upon the world, Bible believers need to watch their religious affiliation and fellowship. According to Revelation 18:4, some of God’s people are mixed up in the end-time unholy amalgam of Rome’s Harlot religion and the one world church. The Word says, “Come out of her, my people, that you be not partaker of her sins, and receive not of her plagues.” The one World Church, which will be dominated by Rome and ruled over by the Pope, is looming on the horizon. It may be years before we see the full-orbed picture of Mystery Babylon the Great in its final form, but every true Bible- believer in every generation stands against the Roman Catholic institution, for he sees in it all the seeds of the final apostate conglomerate which is described in Revelation chapters 17-19.

REFERENCES

1. Martin, RICH CHURCH POOR CHURCH, p. 13
2. Wilder, John B., THE SHADOW OF ROME, Zondervan Pub. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich 1960, p. 87
3. Ioc. cit.
4. Motley, J. L, THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, Vol I., London, 1913, pp. 294-316
5. Foster, J. M., THE FUNDAMENTALS, Vol. XI, p. 113 (in original edition) Chicago, III. No date
6. Martin, THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN CHURCH, Bantam Books, N.Y. 1981 p. 43
7. loc. cit.
8. Ibid., p. 70
9. Ibid., p. 99

Tess and James Arendt

On April 20th, 2023, my beloved wife Tess got an operation on her knee to remove a torn menicus. Her knee is in severe pain from time to time. In order for her to have this operation, she had to take off from work at Macy’s department store. At Macy’s she was required to stand constantly and to walk a lot caring for the customers, something she’s now unable to do. It’s hard to say when she will be able to return to work. Without her continued employment, her regular income will come to a halt in May when her vacation pay ends.

Please pray Tess will recover speedily and not be in pain any longer. At the time of this edit, it’s been 6 days since the operation and she is still in pain from time to time.

I have purposely kept this website ad-free because I think advertisements take away from the message I want to share. My main and only job now besides caring for Tess is to maintain this website and add more articles to it as the Lord leads me.

Tess and I have been grateful to the Lord that the website has so far paid for itself by your donations, and we are especially thankful to those who have contributed regularly to this website. One sister in Christ, Jackie, has especially been faithful to send something regularly. But if the other readers of this website would help out within the next weeks up to June 1st, we would be able to cover our expenses much easier. We are preparing to move to Tess’s home country, the Philippines, in June, where we will be able to live much more economically. Food and energy costs are expensive on Guam because most products need to be shipped from the US mainland and other countries.

My PayPal ID: james.arendt@jamesjpn.net

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This chart is based partly on Galatians 3:16-17.

The YouTube video explains why the Children of Israel could not have been in Egypt for 430 years as the King James Version, all modern Bible versions, and the Jews themselves say.

This video has lots of charts which means it’s better for you to see the video than for me to post a transcription of the entire text. But just to inspire you to want to watch it, let me tell you it gives clear biblical reasons why the King James Version and other translations based on the Jewish Masoretic text of Exodus 12:40 cannot be correct.

As you see from the list below, not only the KJV, but even modern translations say the children of Israel 430 years. All these translations are based on the Masoretic text. Please bare with me for I will prove with Scripture how that cannot be so.

Translations of Exodus 12:40 based on the Masoretic Text

King James Bible
Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.

New International Version
Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years.

English Standard Version
The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years.

Berean Standard Bible
Now the duration of the Israelites’ stay in Egypt was 430 years.

New American Standard Bible
Now the time that the sons of Israel had lived in Egypt was 430 years.

NASB 1995
Now the time that the sons of Israel lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.

American Standard Version
Now the time that the children of Israel dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.

English Revised Version
Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, which they sojourned in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.

International Standard Version
Now the time that the Israelis lived in Egypt was 430 years.

New American Bible
The time the Israelites had stayed in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years.

The English translation of Exodus 12:40 from the Septuagint

And the sojourning of the children of Israel, while they sojourned in the land of Egypt and the land of Chanaan, four hundred and thirty years.

Notice the extra words in the Septuagint? This makes sense because the Apostle Paul clearly says the Law given by Moses was 430 years from the time God made His Covenant with Abraham!

Galatians 3:16  Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.
17  And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.

In order words, the Law was given to Moses 430 years after God made the promises to Abraham after he entered the land of Canaan. Therefore, the 430 years of Exodus 12:40 must include the time Abraham was Canaan. And that means the length of time the children of Israel was in bondage to Pharaoh was much less than 430 years. The YouTube explains how it may have been only a little over 100 years.

I hope this inspires you to watch the video because it also explains how Shem could not have lived to the time of Abraham as the KJV and all English Bibles indicate. The Jewish rabbis today says that Melchizedek who Abraham met is Shem, and therefore what Hebrews chapter 5 says about Jesus Christ being a priest after the order of Melchizedek is false. But according to the Septuagint, Shem died 500 years before Abraham!

I’m still sticking to the KJV as the best English translation of the Bible. For Christians, the New Testament, the New Covenant holds more importance than the Old Testament, the Old Covenant. The New Testament of the KJV was translated from Textus Receptus which is the best available manuscript of the New Testament.

This article is written primarily with US Americans in mind. I don’t know what other countries in the world have a separation of Church and State. I know for sure the Philippines doesn’t have it. I believe the Philippines is controlled by the Roman Catholic Church.

I’m writing this article because I think the principle of separation of Church and State is a good thing, not bad. This article explains why it’s good, and how the Devil’s people misinterpret it for evil.

So often I hear from Bible rejectors that American government agencies and public schools must not have any type of Christian activity or they are in violation of the Constitution. Does the US Constitution actually forbid Christianity?

Because of their belief in a separation of church and state, the framers of the Constitution favored a neutral posture toward religion. The members of the Constitutional Convention, the group charged with authoring the Constitution, believed that the government should have no power to influence its citizens toward or away from a religion. The principle of separating church from state was integral to the framers’ understanding of religious freedom. They believed that any governmental intervention in the religious affairs of citizens would necessarily infringe on their religious freedom. (Source: Cornell Law School)

The key words are, “any government intervention”. When the Supreme Court in 1963 passed a law which forbids any public school teacher to read the Bible to their class, would not you call that “government intervention” on others religious freedom? I sure would!

You may be surprised as I was to learn exactly who and why the separation of Church and State was implemented in the government of the United States of America. It was promoted by the Baptists! They are the only non-Catholic group that was never a part of the Roman Catholic Church. Baptists were previously known as Anabaptists. They existed long before the Protestant Reformation. There were many Bible-believing Christ-following groups that existed before the Protestant Reformation.

Not only were the Baptists persecuted by the Church of Rome, they were also persecuted by the Protestants in the early British colonies in America!

The following quotes are from Religion in Colonial America: Trends, Regulations, and Beliefs

Eight of the thirteen British colonies had official, or “established,” churches, and in those colonies dissenters who sought to practice or proselytize a different version of Christianity or a non-Christian faith were sometimes persecuted.

In those colonies, the civil government dealt harshly with religious dissenters, exiling the likes of Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams for their outspoken criticism of Puritanism, and whipping Baptists or cropping the ears of Quakers for their determined efforts to proselytize. Official persecution reached its peak between 1659 and 1661, when Massachusetts Bay’s Puritan magistrates hung four Quaker missionaries.

Virginia imposed laws obliging all to attend Anglican public worship. Indeed, to any eighteenth observer, the “legal and social dominance of the Church of England was unmistakable.” After 1750, as Baptist ranks swelled in that colony, the colonial Anglican elite responded to their presence with force. Baptist preachers were frequently arrested. Mobs physically attacked members of the sect, breaking up prayer meetings and sometimes beating participants. As a result, the 1760s and 1770s witnessed a rise in discontent and discord within the colony (some argue that Virginian dissenters suffered some of the worst persecutions in antebellum America).

The following are quotes from Letters between Thomas Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists (1802)

The Baptists write to Jefferson:

Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty‐‐that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals‐‐that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions‐‐that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbors; But, sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter together with the law made coincident therewith, were adopted as the basis of our government, at the time of our revolution; and such had been our laws and usages, and such still are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the expense of such degrading acknowledgments as are inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be wondered at therefore; if those who seek after power and gain under the pretense of government and religion should reproach their fellow men‐‐should reproach their order magistrate, as a enemy of religion, law, and good order, because he will not, dare not, assume the prerogatives of Jehovah and make laws to govern the kingdom of Christ.

Jefferson’s reply to the Baptists:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ʺmake no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,ʺ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I hope you clearly see that Thomas Jefferson agreed with the Baptists that the laws of government should be limited only to civil secular matters, and not matters of religion or personal beliefs. The Baptists opposed the concept of union of Church and State which the Roman Empire applied throughout its history. Worship of the emperor was compulsory according to Roman law.

When Constantine promoted Christianity as the State Religion in 313, it was not a good thing! The government stopped persecuting the established large church which became the Catholic Church, but continued to persecute Christian groups that did not agree with the Catholic Church in doctrines and practices.

The following quotes are from How Constantine Created the Christian Church

Constantine saw Christianity’s belief in one god as a way to unify the empire that had been so badly divided for two decades. But he discovered that Christianity itself was not unified. So, he called the Council of Nicea in 325 to bring together the 1,800 bishops from around the empire to work out official doctrine and provide the basis for a unified Church. Constantine paid for the entire council and even paid for travel, giving bishops the right of free transportation on the imperial postal system.

The council laid the foundation of orthodox theology (Catholic theology) and declared several differing theologies heresies. Constantine’s support initially gave Orthodoxy the ability to require Christians to adopt their doctrinal formulation. While during the next few decades, the church’s fortunes waxed and waned, within a century, Christianity had been declared the official religion of the Roman Empire and non-Christian religions were in steep decline.

Do you see how the government took a hand in determining what is right and what is wrong in matters of Christian faith? This is exactly what the American Baptists wanted stopped!

The following are quotes from Baptists: Separation of Church and State

For Baptists, the concept of a free church in a free state rests not on political theory nor on human documents but on the word of God. The Baptist belief in religious freedom and its corollary, the separation of the institutions of church and state, comes from the Baptist commitment to the authority of the Bible.

What is meant by the terms “church” and “state”? The term “state” refers to governments. The Bible indicates that governments are ordained by God to provide law and order (Romans 13:1-5).

The term “church” refers to religious organizations. For Baptists, this includes both local congregations and various entities established for religious purposes, such as associations, conventions, schools and institutions for ministry.

Ideally, the relation of church and state is mutually beneficial. For example, the state is to provide order and safety; these are useful to the church in carrying out its mission (Acts 13-16). And the church contributes to a positive social order by helping to develop law-abiding, hard-working, honest citizens (Ephesians 4:24-32; 1 Peter 2:11-17).

Baptists contend that this mutual benefit works best when the institutions of church and state are separate and when neither seeks to control the other. The state is not to dictate doctrine, worship style, organization, membership or personnel for leadership of the church. The church is not to seek the power or the financial support of the state for spiritual ends. Such is the model set forth in the New Testament.

The Roman Catholic Church is in opposition to the concept of Church and State. The Pope claims temporal authority even today over the governments of the world whether they acknowledge him or not.

Likewise, after the Protestant Reformation got rolling, the Protestants continued the practice of controlling the government just like the Catholics did. It did not bare good fruit at all. In Geneva, the Presbyterians burned at the stake anyone who they considered a heretic. And they used the city government to do it. This is no different than what the Roman Catholic Church did throughout the centuries.

Islamic governments are in opposition to the separation of Church and State. It’s illegal for Christians to preach the Gospel in Saudi Arabia.

The government of Israel has no separation of Church and State. It’s now illegal to preach the Gospel in Israel.

The government of India seems to condone the persecution of Christians by Hindus.

All of the above is to show the reader the benefits of the separation of Church and State, and the evils of union of Church and State. Now let’s talk about how the liberals are abusing the concept of separation of Church and State.

Quotes from https://www.flfamily.org/issues-research/legal-judicial/church-state/

The so-called “wall of separation between church and state” has done more damage to America’s religious and moral tradition than any other utterance of the Supreme Court. While the First Amendment was originally intended to prevent the establishment of a national religion and thus ensure religious liberty, the Supreme Court’s misuse of the “separation of church and state” phrase has fostered hostility toward, rather than protection of, religious freedom.

Leftist liberal Democrats and some Catholic Republicans have grossly misinterpreted separation of Church and State by demanding any and all Christian-related activities to be banned from the public school system. The result has been the degradation of American society! School shootings! Drag queen story hour for little children! Biological males now compete with females in physical sports!

When I was a kid in the 1950s, it would have been unthinkable for the POTUS to promote the transgender movement and have an audience with an adult man who thinks he’s a 12-year-old girl! And a beer company gives free beer to the adult man who pretends to be a female who is underage to drink to celebrate his 365 days of “girlhood”. What kind of logic is that?! It’s utter madness!

I’m sure the reader can come up with many examples of misinterpretation of the separation of Church and State. Your comments are welcome in the comments section.

I hope the title of this article intrigues you to read it article because you won’t understand what I mean by the title until I explain it.

Let me start from the beginning. An American friend of mine, Brenda, has a daughter who is dating a Japanese boy named Yoshi. Because I lived in Japan so long and studied the Chinese characters that the Japanese use, I wondered if Yoshi’s name is the Chinese character meaning righteousness.

The following is a conversation with Brenda through messenger:

Brenda tried to explain to Yoshi what I told her about the meaning of Yoshi’s name, but because his understanding of English is not so good he didn’t quite get the point. She therefore asked me to write him an explaination in Japanese which I did. And I included two Scriptures.

John 1:29  ¶The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

1 Corinthians 1:30  But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

Brenda sent my Japanese text to Yoshi and he replied:

Brenda asked:

I explained to Brenda that though the Chinese character of Yoshi’s name is in 1 Corinthians 10:30, but it’s not pronounced the same way as his name. In the verse it’s pronounced “gi”, righteousness. For every loan word Japan gets from China, there is at least one Chinese way of saying it, and a Japanese way of saying it. As a general rule, the Japanese way is multisyllabic, and the Chinese way is a single syllable. But no matter how you say it, the meaning of the word remains the same.

Brenda is excited that Yoshi got a witness for Christ based on the meaning of his own name!

The author, Edward Newenham Hoare (11 April 1802 – 1 February 1877) was an Irish Anglican minister: he was Dean of Achonry from 1839 to 1850; and Dean of Waterford from then until his death.

Why has the word “popery” become archaic? It was a term well used by American Protestants in the 19th century. By the 20th century, Jesuit infiltration had become so great in American Protestant churches that most Protestants no longer considered the Pope or the Roman Catholic Church to be a threat to American democratic institutions.

I have never heard of Edward Hoare before. If he is anywhere typical of the average Protestant minister of the early 19th century, I would say that Protestant churches of that era must have been absolutely overflowing with the truth of the Gospel! How many Protestant ministers today are teaching the truths, principles and insights that Edward Hoare is teaching in his sermon on this post? Not many! Most preachers and evangelists today are deceived by the doctrine of Futurism. They speculate on who the Antichrist will be when he already has been and is. Protestants in the early 19th century knew who the Antichrist was!

If you read this message with an open heart, you will learn some insights about why Roman Catholicism appeals to over a billion people in the world today. The current Pope Francis is busy making it even more appealing! It appeals to what the Bible tells us is of the world and not of the Father, the lust of flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

Edward Hoare’s lecture was taken from https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42280

There are two points of view in which every system may be regarded—its external action, and its internal principle. We may examine either the great effects of its machinery, its plans, its purposes, its advances, and its perils; or we may trace its inner principle, and endeavour to detect the secret spring by which the whole is set in motion. It must at once be obvious that this latter inquiry is by far the more difficult; for our attention is directed rather to the philosophy than the action of the system; and we are called to examine the subtle tendencies of the human heart, which, of course, are more difficult both of detection and exhibition than the great, broad, startling facts which lie on the surface of the world’s history. This difficulty I have seriously felt in the preparation of the present lecture, the subject of which, is, “Popery the accommodation of Christianity to the natural heart.” The subject plainly requires that we should study the secret working of the natural heart, and should also examine into the corresponding principles of Popery, in order to discover their mutual accommodation, and to show how the whole system of the one is dexterously fitted to allay the fears and supply the cravings of the other. Throughout, therefore, we have to deal more with principles than with facts. I must ask your forbearance, therefore, if the lecture assumes a somewhat abstract form, and contains but few of those startling statements which abound in the history of Popery, and which are of the utmost importance in arousing the dormant Protestantism of the land. But yet, as facts are but the development of principles, I must ask the attention of thinking minds, and earnestly beg the candid consideration of all those Christian friends, whose desire it is to be established in the truth.

In its outward dress, then, and external presentation, we see at once that Popery adapts itself to the natural man. The Bible presents the Gospel to us in the most unmixed simplicity; the fruits of the Spirit are its choicest ornament, and the humbling of the heart is its proudest triumph. It goes to the unlettered cottager, places the Bible in his hand, and gives him the saving promise, “Believe in the Saviour as there revealed, and live.” In the external aspect of such a system there is nothing to catch the natural eye; to the man who is not taught by the Spirit, there is nothing peculiarly lovely in its fruits, and to the person who is not influenced by his grace, as there is nothing to charm the senses, so there is little to attract his favourable regard. But Popery, in presenting a spurious Christianity, has dressed it up in all the meretricious ornaments of sense. It has summoned to its aid all that may allure the natural tastes, so that if it fail to win the heart, it may at all events enlist the eye and ear in its behalf. Thus there is no natural taste which is not pre-eminently gratified by Popery. The lover of music and the fine arts will find his highest delight while he hears the sounds of the well-sung anthem thrilling through the vaulted roofs of a magnificent cathedral. The admirer of architecture will draw a contrast unfavourable to truth when he compares the noble ruins of Tintern Abbey with the simple church on the hill side that overhangs it. The antiquarian is provided with an ample supply for the spirit of research in the legends, the brasses, the ruins, and above all, in the claim it sets forth of resting its pretensions on a far-gone antiquity: while the ignorant and superstitious find all their wishes satisfied in the relics, the charms, the pilgrimages, the holy coats, the miracles, and the whole tissue of fanatical deception with which the system abounds. The effect upon such minds is proved by the fact, that in those countries where Popery prevails, there appears to be no room for all the new schemes of quackery which abound in our own. The Church has secured a complete monopoly, and finding that poor death-stricken man is ever craving after some unnatural mitigation of his woe, has undertaken to supply his utmost necessities, and to furnish a thousand charms and remedies to hush his longings, if it cannot cure his ill.

But if this were the only manner in which Popery adapts itself to the natural man, there would be comparatively little cause for complaint. There is no sin in an attractive exhibition of the truth, nor is it wrong to enlist the tastes in favour of the Redeemer’s kingdom, for the Apostle to the Gentiles was himself “made all things to all men.” So soon, however, as the truth itself is modified in order to suit the prejudices or inclinations of those to whom it is addressed, the accommodation from that moment becomes sinful in its character. Now it is impossible to study the records of Romanism without perceiving that it is perpetually guilty of this sinful modification. Thus in different countries it assumes different external aspects. In catechisms for the Irish, for example, it omits the second commandment, while in those for England it generally inserts it, adapting itself in each case to what it considers that the people’s mind can bear. In China the Jesuist missionaries actually went so far as to omit from their teaching the great fact of the crucifixion, because they considered that a truth so humbling would be unwelcome to that proud and self-sufficient people. The foundation of Christianity was removed in order to accommodate it to the pride of the natural heart.

Thousands of other instances might be adduced to show the pliability of the system. It is like the camelion, and varies its colour according to the soil on which it treads. It will even preach justification by faith in those parishes where the people have learned the value of that blessed truth; while, at the very same moment, in the decrees of the Council of Trent, it levels its anathemas against those who venture to maintain it. In Protestant countries it will be foremost in its denunciations of idolatry, while in others, where the people are prepared to bear them, it will fill its churches with its idols. In all cases, it accommodates itself to the existing bias of the mind addressed.

But these things are rather the dress of Popery than its essence; they form the apparel with which she has arrayed herself in order to appear before the world, but they do not constitute the real deep secret of her strength. They are nothing more than the paint upon the cheek, the arts which the system has assumed, but are not the source from which the system itself has sprung.

To this inner source, then, we have now to turn our thoughts, and we have to shew that Popery has founded itself upon the essential truths of Christianity, but has so altered and perverted them by addition, by subtraction, and by alteration, as to accommodate them to the wants of unconverted men.

And here we must just remark, that Popery did not at any time appear ready made on the world’s platform. It was not like Mahometanism, which was constructed by one man, and brought out complete after a certain retirement from the world; but it was like the growth of a little horn, commencing with soft and unnoticed buddings, until, as time advanced, it acquired length and strength, and hardness. In fact, the process has been very much that which we see in dissolving views; you look at one time at a given picture, and at the very time that you moat admire it, certain lines become fainter, and others stronger, so that after a while you discover that the whole landscape is completely changed. You have had your attention fixed throughout, but the change has been so gradual, the fading and brightening of the different parts so imperceptible, that though you now see the lofty tower where a few moments back the cattle were grazing in the meadow, you are at a loss to decide when the change commenced, or what were the distinct steps of its accomplishment. Just so it has been with Popery. Men began by looking at Christianity; they beheld its beauty and admired it; but as they looked, a faintness gradually crept over its outline; its finest touches began insensibly to disappear; the lines of a new picture by degrees took their place, till at length the whole scene became changed, and instead of Christianity we found Popery; instead of Christ we saw Antichrist exalted in his room.

Our business to-night is to shew that this transformation is the work of the natural heart when brought into contact with the Gospel: and in doing this, there are a few general principles which it is important we should clearly understand in the outset.

The first of these is, that every living man has a certain conviction of God’s existence, combined with a sense of right and of wrong naturally implanted in his heart. This may be deadened and perverted, but it is implanted there at birth, and has remained amidst the wreck of our ruined nature. We do not require revelation to assure us of the sin of murder, nor could any doubt the duty of obedience to parents, even if there were no sanction for it in the written word. Bishop Butler says, “Let any plain, honest man, before he engages in any course of action, ask himself,—Is this I am going about right, or is it wrong? Is it good, or is it evil? I do not in the least doubt that the question would be answered agreeably to truth and virtue.”

A second universal fact is, that every living man has sinned against this natural law; that there never has been a single individual in the whole race, who has not, in countless instances, done that which he by the light of nature has known to be offensive to the mind of God.

A third fact is, that there is within every heart a certain faculty which is termed conscience, which sits like a judge, and passes sentence on every action we commit. Like a sensitive nerve, it feels the approach of sin, and, unless it be completely seared as with an hot iron, it is ever sounding within the heart the still small voice of just reproach. Thus every man in a state of nature is uneasy; he may endeavour to palliate sin, and discover excuses for its commission; but he cannot altogether shake off the sense of it. A consciousness of insecurity hangs around him. He is not ready to die; he has no joy in the prospect of the advent; and, though he may have some undefined hope of mercy, he knows nothing of the calm peace of the child of God.

A fourth remark is, that this uneasiness is increased just in proportion as such a character is brought into contact with the Gospel.

There are thousands who feel the power of the Gospel, but who never know its grace. It throws its light beyond the range of its salvation, and just in proportion as that light breaks in upon a natural heart does it quicken conscience, and revive the uneasiness of sin. When the revealed word is never presented, the law of nature becomes gradually obscured, and the voice of conscience gradually silenced, so that the uneasiness begins to die away, and a fatal apathy by little and little creeps insensibly over the soul. But when the revealed word reaches the mind, even though the heart be never new-born by the Spirit, conscience regains much of its power, the waters of the heart are stirred up and troubled, and the sense of uneasiness rises afresh with renewed vigour in the soul. Hence it follows that the sense of uneasiness is always strongest amongst the unconverted members of the visible Church. By their outward profession they are brought into the closest contact with the Gospel, and therefore, if not saved by it, they above all others are rendered most uneasy by its holiness. Whatever effects therefore are likely to result from this uneasiness, those we should expect to find in greatest strength within the limits of the visible Church. Accordingly, within those very limits, we find that which I believe to be its great and chief result, viz., Popery.

That men under such circumstances must seek out a remedy is perfectly obvious, and that there is only one remedy provided by the Lord is equally plain to the student of the Scriptures. That remedy is the free grace of God in Christ Jesus. Let a man be really brought to believe in Him, let him be taught by the Spirit to take home the blessed truth that the whole burden of his blackest sin has been laid on Jesus, and that a pardon, free, immediate, and complete, is granted to the guilty man who stands in Christ, so that “now there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit,” and that man being justified by faith has peace with God. But then he is taken out of the rank of natural men, and, by the new birth, he is separated unto the kingdom of his Lord; he ceases to be a natural man, and all his peace now flows into his soul through grace.

But suppose this change does not take place, what then? The uneasiness still remains, and the contact with the Gospel only quickens it. The conscious heart therefore is forced back upon its own remedies, and these remedies are of two kinds. The first is Infidelity. The heart struggles to get free from the sense of condemnation by clearing itself if possible from the sense of a God. When conscience convicts of sin, Infidelity steps in and strives to hush its voice, saying, “Thou shall not surely die;” and when the heart persuades the man that he is guilty, he strives to find a refuge in the soothing voice of unbelief, which pretends to teach that there is no God to judge him.

But such a remedy cannot satisfy. There is such a deep conviction of God in the heart, and such unbounded and irresistible proofs of his presence throughout creation, that no man can really rest in such a system. Even Paine himself, when the vessel in which he was crossing to America was on the point of sinking, cried out in his alarm, “Lord Jesus, save me.” And Voltaire, with all his blasphemous daring, six weeks after he had said he should die of glory, did die in all the agonies of despair. The nurse who attended him refused many years afterwards to nurse a devoted Christian Protestant, because she confounded a Protestant with an Infidel, and declared that she never again dare witness such horrors as she had seen in the chamber of Voltaire. So it is told of one who moved not many years back in the centre of Infidel society, that on one occasion, being seized with severe illness at midnight, and dreading the near approach of death, the terror-stricken sufferer sent for an intimate friend, and on his arrival, addressed him in words to this effect. “I fear I am dying, and I am greatly alarmed; so I have sent for you to remind me of the arguments which prove that there is no God.” A fearful confirmation of a remark once made by a Unitarian to a beloved relative of my own—“Our principles are very well while you live, but they won’t do to die upon.”

Thus there is no real peace secured by Infidelity, as it cannot still the conscience, and leaves the heart in as much uneasiness as ever. There appears, therefore, no remedy left for the unconverted man. The Gospel is presented to his view, and the effect is to fill his heart with fear. If he were altogether to accept it, he would be at peace; or if he could altogether reject it, then perchance, he might be at ease; but now there is so much power in it, that he cannot altogether shake it off; while, at the same time, there is so much opposed to all his will in it that he will not by faith embrace it as his own. The only hope that remains in such a case is to discover, if possible, some modification of the Gospel—some system which will profess the grand principles so as not to violate his deep and irresistible convictions, but which at the same time will so modify those principles in their practical application, that it may still the conscience without a change of heart, and give him something that he may rest in as a substitute for peace, while, at the same time, it leaves him still a natural man, with his heart unchanged, and his will unsubdued by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Now Popery is neither more nor less than this modification of the Gospel. It retains enough of its fundamental principles to satisfy the conviction that it is the truth of God, while, at the same time, it so modifies and alters them in their application to the individual as to still his conscience, even in those cases where it fails to change the heart.

Let us take a few particulars in illustration of this modifying process, and let us see how it suits the different phases of the character.

I. The mind inquiring after Christian truth.

It is impossible to give the slightest attention to the Word of God without perceiving the vast importance attached to the reception of Christian truth; and it is equally impossible to avoid the conviction that it is declared in Scripture to be there revealed decisively. It is the plain doctrine of the Word of God that there is one way, one truth, and one life, and that we are responsible for its rejection or reception. Now, just in proportion as a man feels the pressure of a surrounding religious atmosphere, does he feel the weight attaching to this responsibility; and the more anxious does he naturally become to have his mind settled and his doubts satisfied. It is true that the humble believer, being led by the Spirit, quickly finds an happy assurance in the simple statements of the Bible; but there are many, like Noah’s dove, who can find amidst the troubled waters of the world no resting-place for their soul. Many shrink from the labour of investigation, and many more from the responsibility of decision. The truth is not arranged in a system of dogmatical statements, but lies embodied in every portion of the book, from whence it arises that men must search for it as for hid treasure; a duty in direct opposition to the natural indolence of our nature. But, still more, faith requires conviction and decision—qualifications yet more opposed to the wavering and vacillating tendencies of man. You see many men in life who appear to have no power to take a consistent course alone. If they are led they will follow, and, perhaps, will follow well; but they do not appear to have the mental faculty of decision. Indeed, this power of decision is the characteristic of great men. They are not always either wiser or better than those they lead, but they have this faculty, that they are thoroughly persuaded in their own mind, and are capable of full and unwavering conviction of any truth which they are led to embrace. Such persons are sure to have a cluster of dependent minds around them, and others of superior ability are glad to lean on their superior decision. The fact is, that man is a parasitic plant, and he must lean on something. Now see the influence of such a fact on our connexion with Divine truth. A thoughtful mind at once discovers that the reception of truth is of the utmost importance to his soul, and at the same time his conscience assures him that he is but partially acquainted either with its evidence or its statements. What, then, is the result? He begins to lean on the judgment of those whom he considers better informed, and to pin his faith on other men. Thus there are thousands and tens of thousands who abhor the name of Rome, who are depending wholly on the judgment of others in religion. This is always the danger in those congregations where there is a beloved and gifted minister. It is the case also amongst those whom you would suppose to be at the antipodes of Popery, viz., those who boast that they are peculiarly men of reason in their faith. A friend of mine was conversing the other day with an Unitarian, and proving to him the clear doctrine of the eternal divinity of the Saviour. The man could make no reply to the clear proofs adduced from Scripture, till at length, when completely baffled, he said, “I cannot explain those texts myself, but my minister can.” Could you have a stronger proof that it is the tendency of human nature, even when it boasts its own reason, to lean on other men for truth? Now, from this tendency has arisen the whole system of Romish infallibility. Anxious minds felt the necessity of leaning upon something. Had they leaned on Scripture they would have been at peace; but, in default of that, they required some human judgment. The first and most natural process was to lean on individuals, and, accordingly, most heresies bear the names of their first leaders. But this fails in giving peace, for individuals differ, and the authority of the individual is too often weakened by his faults and errors. Hence it follows, that these leaning minds are often involved in perplexity of the most painful character. Not having the one anchor, they are driven about by every wind that bloweth. Was there ever a system more beautifully adapted to such a case than that which steps in to the chamber of doubt, and says, “Be still, it is not your business to decide at all: it is for you, as a humble believer, to believe what the Church believes?” All responsibility is thus taken off the conscience, and thrown on an ideal object, the Church; the indolence of human nature is at once satisfied, for investigation is represented as a sin; and even the piety of the heart is called into exercise, for blind reliance is honoured by the hallowed name of faith. The whole weight of perplexity is thrown off beyond the reach of investigation, and by that one stroke a false relief is given. There are a thousand questions which ought to be answered before the leap is taken. What is the Catholic Church? Where is the proof of its infallibility? What does it teach? and is the teaching scriptural? But these it is said to be a sin to ask. At one stroke the responsibility is transferred, and the anxious mind finds what it terms “rest in the Church.” Hence men often begin with anxious interest, advance as a second step to perplexity, and then, at length, abandon inquiry in a blind reliance on what they are told is the teaching of the Church. One of the late perverts to Rome said, when a gentleman quoted to her the Word of God, “I thank God I am not called to perplex myself any more with the perplexities of Scripture. I have placed the interests of my soul in safe keeping, and shall not suffer myself again to be disturbed.” She had plainly felt perplexity, and she had found a false peace in throwing off her personal responsibility. So there is mention made in “Milner’s End of Controversy,” of one Anthony Ulric, Duke of Brunswick, who, having commenced a search for true religion, ended in writing a book entitled his “Fifty Reasons for preferring the Roman Catholic Religion,” in which he says, “The Catholics to whom I spoke concerning my conversion, assured me, that if I were to be damned for embracing the Catholic faith, they were ready to answer for me at the day of judgment, and to take my damnation upon themselves.” As he could find no Protestants who were willing to undertake a similar responsibility, he decided on joining the Church of Rome:—showing again how a state of perplexity leads on to a blind transfer of personal responsibility to others.

It is not our business to-night to shew the utter fallacy of all such blind reliance, or to point out how widely it differs from the faith with which it is confounded; how infinitely more difficult it is to discover what the Church teaches than what the Bible does; or how such persons receive without investigation a monstrous dogma opposed to every evidence, viz., the pretended infallibility of the Church on which they lean. My one desire has been to show that such a system is a natural accommodation of the doctrine of revelation to the wants and waverings of the natural man.

II. Worship.

It is plain to any man that without worship there can be no true religion, and the Gospel is a grand scheme whereby God enables men to pray. Christ came that we might have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. His blood removes every barrier, and his Spirit gives the needful power. But unless that Gospel be embraced with an appropriating faith, true prayer remains an impossibility; men may repeat their prayers, but, like St. Paul, they will never really pray. Hence, if a man remain in an unconverted state, he must do one of two things; he must either give up prayer altogether, which cannot satisfy an anxious mind; or he must have some modification of true worship. If he cannot rise in heart to heaven, he must have a shadow of the throne provided for him on earth. Now mark the effect of this necessity.

The first great difficulty in the way of earnest prayer is realization. The natural man cannot realize unseen spirits. There is a height and glory in them beyond his reach. But yet there is no peace unless he does realize. So what must he do? Me must invent some representation, whereby to lead on his mind; some image, figure, or effigy, which may stand before him, in order to bring the object of his worship to his view, and which may stand as a hallowed emblem, through which he pays God his honour; he invents for himself just such a system as is described in the decree of the Council of Trent, when it says, Sess. xxv., “The honour which is given to the images is given to the prototypes which they represent, so that through the images which we kiss, and before which we uncover the head and make prostration, we adore Christ, and venerate those saints of whom they are the likeness.” Through the image they adore the Saviour, and the image is employed as an accommodated help to assist the process of realization in the worship of an unseen God.

If there were any doubt that this is the true history of image-worship, it would be removed by the fact that the sin has appeared under the same form, under all circumstances, and in all ages. Aaron made the calf as a representation of God, and said, “These be thy Gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt;” and the Hindoo of the present day regards his idol as a representative of his deity. A Jesuit priest was in conversation the other day with a learned Hindoo in the neighbourhood of Madras, and urged him to embrace what he termed the Catholic faith. “What is the good,” said the heathen, “of my exchanging one system of idolatry for another?” “Idolatry!” said the priest, “you do not mean to say that ours is idolatry. We do not worship our images; we merely set them before us, and adore our Saviour and the saints in them.” “And do you suppose,” replied the heathen, “that we actually worship the images? No; we merely set them before us as a representation of our gods. No, Sir; a Christian I may become, but I shall never be a Roman Catholic.” There was not a shade of difference between the two systems, both having sprung from the natural tendencies of the human heart.

This identity was on one occasion curiously illustrated by the Church of Rome itself, for when they obtained possession of a magnificent statue of Jupiter Tonans, they removed the thunderbolt out of his hand, and gave him two large keys in its place. By this slight alteration, they changed Jupiter into Peter, and transferred him from a Pagan temple to a Christian Church. Could anything shew more clearly that Paganism and Romanism were nothing more than different accommodations to the idolatrous tendencies of the human heart? There was no opposition in principle, and the only difference was between the thunderbolt and the keys.

What a refreshing contrast do we find in the records of the Tinnevelly Mission, where the heathen idols have been used for pavement at the Church doors, so that none can enter God’s house for worship without first trampling the former idol under foot!

From the same nature has sprung the system of saint worship. There is always a tendency to deify the great, and just in proportion as time advances does this tendency increase. The man’s human frailty is daily witnessed by his own contemporaries, and the humanity of his nature kept in view by visible facts; but when the corrective evidence of real life loses its power through the lapse of time, the human failures are forgotten, while the great acts are exaggerated, till something supernatural is attached to the memory, and the earthly benefactor is adored as a god. This is the history of all the tutelary deities of Pagan lands. Romulus, e.g., was no sooner dead than deified; the most popular deity of China, Laoutze, was one of the early emperors, and there is scarcely a nation in the world that has not elevated its benefactors into gods.

Here, then, is the natural tendency of the natural heart—a tendency in direct opposition to Christianity. But, though thus opposed to the Gospel, it is not necessarily eradicated from the heart of every professing Christian; and, hence, it has produced within the Church a new mode of Christianized hero-worship, in which the martyrs have taken the hero’s honours, and the Virgin is crowned with the crown of Cybele. There was nothing wonderful in this. They witnessed the martyrs’ faith, and met for sacramental communion around the martyrs’ tombs; they knew their souls yet lived, and they knew not but what they might be even present. What, then, could be more natural than that the waiting heart should begin to adore them? It was not addressing a Pagan god, but a Christian saint, and the very prayer was an acknowledgment of all the great principles of Christianity. But when once that prayer was uttered, the Rubicon was crossed, and the principle of saint-worship established in the Church. Hence you find the guardian saints and angels of the Church of Rome filling exactly the same office as the tutelary deities of the Heathen. And, as we have just remarked the identity of Pagan and Roman image-worship as illustrated by the alteration of the image, so there is another curious fact which exhibits the similar correspondence between the hero-worship of the ancients and the saint-worship of modern Rome. When the Emperor Phocas issued his celebrated edict in recognition of the supremacy of the See of Rome, he made a present to the Pope of the ancient temple named Pantheon. Now this temple was originally dedicated to Cybele, and all the Pagan gods, and when it fell into the possession of the Pope, he made as slight a change as possible, for he just turned it over to the Virgin Mary and all the saints. The principle was left untouched, though the objects of the idolatry were changed.

But there is a yet further principle involved in this saint and virgin worship; for the human heart requires tenderness and sympathy, so that we can never breathe out our secret burden to one who has no fellow-feeling with our trouble. We want the sympathy of a common nature, if not the tenderness of a woman’s heart. Hence in Heathen systems you constantly find a Heathen goddess to whom pertains especially the office of patronage and mercy. Even Simon Magus had his Helena in his system of Gnosticism; and the poor Buddhist, while he looks with awe to his three Buddhas, has his Kwan-yin, or Goddess of Mercy, to whom he may appeal in trouble. Yes! the human heart needs tenderness, and if there is any one aspect in the Gospel more glorious than another, it is the rich provision made for this very want. There never was a scheme so wonderful, or a Saviour so perfect as that presented in the Gospel. Glorious in his divinity, he sways heaven’s mighty sceptre, while, perfect in his humanity, he can be tenderly touched with the faintest cry of human grief. He governs angels, and weeps with men. But the natural man is a stranger to this sympathy; yet he longs for it and feels the need of it. He is exposed to the shocks and buffetings of this rough world, and his bleeding heart needs a friend who himself has bled. If he has not Christ, therefore, he naturally craves a substitute; something which may give him the sense of sympathy amongst the unseen powers. And this desire has gradually run into saint and virgin worship. It has taken hold of the hero-worship of the Heathen, and given it a Christian character by transferring it to the Virgin and the saints. It does not do away with Christ, but provides a system of intermediate mediation which commends itself to the aching heart by the assurance of a woman’s love and a fellow-sufferer’s compassion. Hence, if any particular saint was subject during life to any especial trial, he is supposed to take a peculiar interest in those who labour under similar affliction. Nor can you read much of the adoration paid by Rome to the Virgin without perceiving that she is the Kwan-yin, the Goddess of Mercy, in the Romish system. There is a halo of awe thrown around the brow of the Redeemer, while the Virgin is described in the attitude of tenderness, “the comforter of the afflicted,” “the refuge of the sinner,” and the ready listener to the sufferer’s cry. We will adduce one instance in illustration, as given by Mr. Tyler in his valuable little work “What is Romanism?” The worship of the Virgin is especially celebrated in Romish countries during the month of May, and there is a collection of religious poems used in the churches of Paris on these occasions. One of these is as follows:—

“Vouchsafe, Mary, on this day to hear our sighs and second our desires. Vouchsafe, Mary, on this day to receive our incense, our love: Of thy heavenly husband calm the rage. Let him shew himself kind to all those that are thine! Of thy heavenly husband calm the rage: Let his heart be softened towards us.”

Here God is presented in the attitude of terror, while the female advocate is the sole depository of grace; and the whole springs from the natural heart, which, under the sense of sin, feels a dread of God; and longing for sympathy, appeals to a woman’s love.

III. Holiness.

We may lay it down as a fundamental axiom, that there can be no religion without holiness. Whatever be our doctrinal opinions, if we be not holy we cannot see the Lord. And, accordingly, holiness is the great gift of a risen Saviour to his Church. He has shed forth the Holy Ghost to purify our hearts by faith. Now, in this Christian holiness there are two or three leading features to be carefully observed. (1.) It is not a plant which grows naturally in the human heart, but is the especial work of the Holy Ghost himself. (2.) It consists in a sacred principle which controls the whole man, and not in any one class either of actions or omissions. (3.) This ruling principle is the constraining power of the love of Christ. “The love of Christ constraineth us.” From which remarks it appears at once that true holiness is from its very nature impossible to the unconverted man. He is not under the influence of the Spirit; he does not know the love of Christ, and he is, therefore, incapable of that hallowed principle which shall bend his whole mind in one direction, and wean him from sin by the consecration of his whole man to God. Hence, the unconverted man, if thoughtful and conscientious, is sure to feel distressed. A holy standard is presented to his view, while his conscience convicts him of lamentable defect. He sees there must be necessity, but has not felt its power. He sees there must be holiness, but he knows he is not holy. He is aware that without righteousness there can be no true religion, but he sees so much sin within his heart that he cannot believe himself righteous.

What, then, is to be done? What is the refuge of the human heart under such circumstances? Either he must stifle conscience, which is impossible, or he must embrace the Gospel, in which case he would find joy in the Holy Ghost, or he must so accommodate that Gospel as to soothe his heart without changing it, which accommodation is Popery. And how is this effected?

One mode is by ritualism.

There are two great classes of Christian duties combined in the formation of Christian holiness—moral and positive; moral being the general effect of Christian principle, positive consisting in certain Christian acts. Now it is plainly in respect to these moral duties or duties of Christian principle that the natural heart finds the chief difficulty, and the outward acts of a ceremonial religion are incomparably easier than the holy dedication of a devoted heart. Hence it follows that the human heart is naturally prone to slide insensibly from the principle to the ritual, and to endeavour to compensate the defects of the one by a rigid attention to the requirements of the other. By such an accommodation no part of Divine truth is professedly set aside, but yet, by altering the proportions of the several parts, by throwing a strong light on one side of the picture, and a deep shade on the other, its whole character is completely changed, and religion is given to the natural man though his heart is left unsanctified by the Spirit.

This tendency to substitute ritual for principle may be daily seen in every society. One thinks himself holy because he has kept his church; another, because he is a regular communicant; a third, because he attends daily service; a fourth, because he never neglects to say his prayers; while a fifth is quite sure that he is born again, because in his infancy he was baptized; although, possibly, neither one nor the other has learned anything of true holiness of heart. Out of this tendency has sprung up the whole system of Romish righteousness. The weed that grew out of the human heart it has adroitly cultivated, till it has become the strongest flower in its garden. What under the Gospel sprang up by nature against the Gospel it has embodied and arranged so as to become a substitute for the Gospel. Hence, under Popery, ritual has in many cases overpowered principle, and attention to ritual religion is made the substitute for spiritual holiness before God.

It is extremely difficult to produce documentary evidence of any such substitution, for, of course, it is in no case acknowledged. The truth of our charge, however, may be easily seen in the practice of indulgences. It is sometimes thought that this monstrous practice has been abandoned by modern Popery. But such is not the case; for I find in the “Catholic Directory” for 1848, that there are eight plenary indulgences granted to the faithful in the eight districts of England, and four more for the peculiar benefit of the London district. Now the essence of these indulgences is the substitution of ritual for principle, for the remission of moral sin is promised as a reward to the observance of an ecclesiastical rite. Take, e.g., one of the indulgences granted by Pope Sixtus IV.:—“Our holy Father, Sixtus IV., Pope, hath granted to all them that devoutly say this prayer before the image of our Lady the sum of 11,000 years of pardon. Ave Sanctissima Maria, &c.” So the late Pope issued an apostolic brief to Ambrose Lisle Phillips, Esq., in which, amongst other things, he promises “indulgences of 100 days as often as the members shall recite their appointed decade of the rosary on working days.” He promises at the same time indulgences of seven years and seven lents as often as they shall recite the aforesaid decades on Sundays and holidays, &c. It is impossible to imagine a more glaring preference of ritual above principle. The guilt of moral sin is remitted as a reward for the performance of an ecclesiastical rite.

Another clear illustration of the same principle is seen in the substitution for repentance of what they term the sacrament of penance. Where you find repentance in the Scriptures you find penance taught by Rome, as, e.g., in Ezek. xviii. 30:—“Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions.” Luke xiii. 3. “Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish.” And Acts ii. 38:—“Repent and be baptized every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” In all these passages the Council of Trent, Sess. xiv. 2, has changed “repent,” into “do penance,” and has so made the rite a substitute for the principle. Of course the pious Romanist would say, “We have the principle too, for we truly repent in penance.” But that does not affect the question. The Bible has promised remission of sin, and connected it with the principle; the Church of Rome has adopted the promise, but transferred it to the rite.

The effects of this on different minds are, of course, very various. In some of a devout and conscientious character, it produces the most earnest attention to the positive duties of religion, and gives them a dim gleam of doubtful hope in the unceasing observance of all prescribed services. But when there is not this spirit of devotion, it enables a wicked man to make a compromise with God, and to follow the natural bent of his natural heart, by attending to the Church’s services, while he utterly neglects the weightier matters of the law.

In the late trials for murder in Ireland, it was remarked that many of the guilty culprits were persons remarkable for their attention to the ritual of their Church; and there was a case at the close of the last Irish rebellion in which the hour of a murder was thus proved. One of the witnesses swore that it took place after the hour of twelve o’clock on Saturday night, and he was sure of the fact because the murderers were determined to have a supper before they went on their guilty errand, and that Saturday being a fast-day, they could not touch meat until after the clock had struck. The ritual of fasting was rigidly observed, while the regard for life was altogether gone. In one of the jails at Rome there is a celebrated bandit, by name Gasparoni. This man, by his deeds of bloodshed, had desolated an extensive district in the neighbourhood of Rome, though all the while he avowed himself a very religious man. Sir Fowell Buxton inquired of him whether he had fasted when he was a bandit. He said, “Yes.” “Why did you fast?” was the next question. “Because I am of the religion of the Virgin.” “Which did you think was worse, eating meat on a Friday, or killing a man?” He answered without hesitation, “In my case it was a crime not to fast; it was no crime to kill those who came to betray me.” The man had no true holiness, but had taken the ritual of fasting as its substitute, so that in the midst of his murders he believed himself a very religious man.

The same principle appears in the Romish treatment of the Lord’s-day. The moral commandment of the Most High God is abandoned, and for it you find in many Romish catechisms the substitute of human ritual, “Thou shalt keep the festivals.” And this appears in the universal practice of Romish countries. They appear to regard it as a duty to attend mass, but that once done, the whole day is devoted to amusement. The rite is observed, and the conscience satisfied, so that the unregenerate heart is left at full liberty to pursue its own course, and take its pleasure on the Lord’s holy day. Thus the same persons who are engaged in the utmost apparent devotion at mass in the morning are found in throngs in the dissolute French theatre at night. “Attend to the Church’s rites and live as you please,” appears to be the maxim of their morality.

You perceive the same thing in Romish literature. It has been one of the characteristics of the late movement toward Rome that amongst its most devoted followers it has let loose the spirit of the world. You will observe, for example, in Burns’s Catalogue the strangest possible mixture of ritualism and worldliness, and will see the book of Romish devotion placed side by ride with the wild German love story.

Thus has Popery taken hold of the great grand gift of Christianity, and presented it to its votaries in a form accommodated to human nature. It does not deny the necessity of holiness, but it so transforms its character that the unholy man may think he has attained it, and the Italian murderer conscientiously believe himself religious.

A second substitution for true holiness is asceticism: according to which system the unholy heart finds its refuge in a separation from ordinary men. Christianity carries holiness into life, asceticism takes the hermit out of it. But yet it is perfectly natural that men should seek such a refuge. When they feel the burden of sin, and experience the temptations of a surrounding world, it is no wonder that they should seek a remedy in a complete retirement from its influence. To give themselves up to fasting, penance, and solitary communion with God, must lead, they very naturally argue, to the enjoyment of more holy peace than they can hope to find in the midst of the duties and varied engagements of society. Hence every false faith has produced its devotees. Under different systems they have assumed a different character, but in all the principle is the same. The Hindoo separates himself from the world, and stands with his arm erect till it becomes stiffened into a fixed position; while the Buddhist and the Romanist retire to the convent that they may there withdraw from the world, and devote themselves wholly to spiritual exercises and to God. But though this is natural, it is a mere accommodation. The real evil of the human heart is not corrected by the change, nor have the hair shirt and the leathern girdle the slightest influence in controlling the corrupt passions of the nature. There may be as much pride, self-righteousness, and ill-governed temper in the lonely hermit’s cheerless cell, as in the deep current of the world’s society. At the same time it is an accommodation, for it employs the name of Christ, and gives the semblance of a very elevated piety. It adopts the language of devotion, and prescribes a course of action and self-denial. It gives the inquirer something to do, and something to bear; it separates him also from other men, and so, though his heart be not purified, it gives him the hope that he is holy. This was remarkably seen in the case of Ignatius Loyola. Like Luther, he was awakened to a deep sense of sin, and it is a remarkable fact that the two greatest phenomena of the sixteenth century, the Reformation, and Jesuitism, should have sprung out of the same uneasiness for sin. Luther found peace through the blood of the Lamb, and holiness in the work of the Spirit; Loyola was as much distressed as he, and failing in his discovery of Christ, he took refuge in the substitute of an ascetic life. He tore himself away from his kindred and father’s house, determining to undergo penances of the severest character, and to serve God in Jerusalem. He hung up his shield before an image of the Virgin, and, having clothed himself in coarse raiment, he stood before it for whole nights with his pilgrim’s staff in his hand. At Manresa he passed seven hours daily on his knees, and scourged himself regularly thrice a-day. He devoted three whole days to making a general confession for sin, but the more he explored the depths of his heart, the more painful were the doubts which assailed him. Having read in some of the fathers that God had been moved to compassion by a total abstinence from food, he remained from Sunday to Sunday without tasting anything, and at last only broke his fast in obedience to the positive injunctions of his confessor.

Such were the efforts of a master mind, to create for itself an artificial holiness, and such are the principles more or less involved in the whole system of the monasticism of Rome. It substitutes devotion of act, which withdraws men from their appointed sphere, for devotion of heart which glorifies God in its varied duties: and thus presents a spurious holiness within reach of unconverted minds.

IV. But the great root of the matter yet remains in the craving of the soul for Reconciliation.

That there is this craving none can deny. It is seen in all classes, in all nations. Buddhists, Hindoos, Mussulmen, Jews, Protestants, Romanists, and even Infidels, all bear testimony to a certain undefined longing after peace. Now this peace is given by the Gospel, in the free, full justification of the believer through the perfect atonement and imputed righteousness of the Lord. But in the practical application of it to the heart there arises this difficulty. Our safety depends on an invisible union with an invisible Redeemer. Faith is not a thing which can be seen and felt. It looks away from self to Christ, and disappears as soon as you look back on self to find it. Now if a man be enabled by the Holy Ghost to look simply to Christ, this difficulty vanishes through the all-sufficiency of the one object there presented to his view. But if, on the other hand, this faith be wanting, and the freedom of Divine grace remain unknown, the human heart at once makes an effort for some visible, tangible mode of laying hold of acceptance in Christ Jesus. The system, therefore, best accommodated to the natural man would be one which embraced all the rich promises of the Gospel, but connected them with something which could be said or done, so leaving men in no doubt as to their position.

Now this desire is exactly met by the Church of Rome. It presents its pardon in a tangible, visible form, and it leads the soul to rest for its assurance upon something safely done. The sin is confessed, the penance performed, the absolution pronounced, and there the matter ends. The guilty man has no further occasion to distress his mind upon the subject. The language of the catechism of the Council of Trent is very curious as illustrating the endeavour to connect pardon with a visible act. It first draws the distinction between the inward disposition of repentance and the outward act of penance, and adds, § 13, “That it is the outward penance in which the sacrament consists, and which contains certain external actions, which are subjects of sense through which the inner feelings of the mind are manifest.” The next section explains the reason why the sacrament of penance is said to have been instituted, viz., to assure us of our pardon, for without it, “there must have been most anxious suspense of mind respecting inward repentance, since every man would have had good reason to doubt his own judgment in those things which he was doing.” To avoid this anxiety, therefore, the pardon is connected with a visible act. It is found, accordingly, in practical life, that the priest’s absolution is regarded by the Romanist in the same light as God’s forgiveness, and that, whatever be the state of heart, that visible act is deemed sufficient. Pat Burns, now a devoted Scripture Reader under the Irish Society, was for ten years the leader of a desperate gang of Ribbandmen, and he told a friend of mine that during that time he frequently went to the priest, paid him all dues regularly, and obtained absolution from time to time, as his conscience felt uneasy after the commission of crime; that the priest generally put a penance upon him, and that when it was performed, he considered himself as good a man as any other, and as fit for heaven. This same person added that the priest had never once directed him to the Word of God, or to the Lord Jesus for salvation.

The same connexion between confession and reconciliation was curiously illustrated by the following fact. The priest in my friend’s parish gave nothing during the late contribution towards Irish distress, but the poor creatures excused his penuriousness on the plea that it was unlucky to take a priest’s money—that a priest’s money being paid at confession and absolution, is the price of sin, and often comes from murderers and other bad characters, as the price of absolution and pardon; and if, therefore, you buy a horse with it, he will get lame; and if you buy seed corn it will be blighted.

I am perfectly aware that it may be justly argued that these facts among the people do not prove that the principle has been adopted by the Church; but I think it must also be admitted that they do show how exactly suited to the natural man is the connexion which Rome does assert between the pardon of sin and certain visible actions amongst men. God connects his pardon with a deep seated spiritual faith. The human heart says, “Let me do something. Let me work it out. Let me have some assurance that I am forgiven.” Popery steps in, and adapts its principles to both, asserting on the one hand the necessity of faith, but prescribing on the other a certain penance, and then sealing the whole with the priest’s absolution, so as to leave no doubt on the sinner’s mind. According to the language of a late pervert, the priest “shewed her how she must unite her sacrifice with the holy atoning blood of Christ, and then in his name pardoned and blessed her. Thus sin had not been suffered to remain upon her soul.” See how the Gospel was retained, and at the same time accommodated to the natural cravings of the anxious heart. The atoning blood was preached, but the act of penance received with it, so as to give it a tangible application.

But this accommodation fails in giving lasting peace. Nothing, in short, can really satisfy but the atoning blood of Christ alone, and to this failure may be traced the whole tissue of Romish rites. Penances, absolutions, masses, holy waters, holy pilgrimages, holy retreats, and, last of all, extreme unction, are nothing more than fresh efforts to satisfy the heart; and, though all be combined, they are all found insufficient. There are, we know, true believers, who, though trammelled by the system, yet rise above it to Christ; and there are others, again, whose conscience is so deadened that they live at ease in Zion; but for conscientious anxious souls the means are insufficient, and anxious fears keep rising up within the heart. From these remaining doubts has arisen the last crowning accommodation in the system, namely, purgatory.

In former days I used to wonder what could be the attraction of the doctrine of purgatory, more especially when I found that there was scarcely any portion of the system which persons embraced with equal readiness. It is said of it in the catechism of the Council of Trent, “Besides hell there is a fire of purgatory, in which the souls of the pious being tormented for a definite time, expiate their sin; that so an entrance may be opened to them into the eternal country, into which nothing defiled can enter.” Now it may be fairly asked from what principle in the human heart can such a decree have sprung? We can understand men cheerfully performing penance, and craving the absolution of the priest. But what can make a pious soul desire to be burnt up in purgatory? It is not merely a heavenly purification of the ransomed spirit to prepare it sweetly for the rich enjoyments of the kingdom, but it is a burning in the fire, and that, strange to say, is the peculiar privilege of pious souls. Can anything be more extraordinary? And yet, when you consider it, can anything be more simple? Just take the case of one of these anxious minds, of which we have been speaking. He has been going about to establish his own righteousness, but his heart is not holy. He has endeavoured to unite his sacrifice of penance with the atoning blood of Christ, and he has received the priest’s pardon, but yet sin remains. There it is, eating into his heart’s peace, and cleaving like a leprosy to his soul. And now death approaches, the delusions of the lower world begin to vanish, and then comes the question, Is sin forgiven? He has received his last viaticum. Still, is he safe? He has man’s absolution. Has he God’s pardon? He has performed his penance. Is sin fully expiated? Oh, that we could point him at once to the simple sufficiency of the Lamb’s most precious blood! But in default of that, what must be done? There must be a further accommodation of Christianity. The heart tells him that his own penance has been insufficient, so the work of expiation must be carried out beyond the grave. His conscience whispers that he is not yet prepared to die, so he clings readily to the hope that something may still be done, that complete preparation here on earth is not needful, for that an intermediate state is to follow, in which, though unprepared at his dying hour, he may yet be made meet for the kingdom of the saints.

Or take the case of another character, the man who has spent his life in neglect of God. In the day of health he has been occupied with the world’s interests, and been enabled to stave off the great question of his soul’s salvation. But now the great enemy is upon him, the day of account is near, and the Judge must be met in judgment. Under such circumstances, a man will give anything for time. If possible, time here; but if that is impossible, time hereafter: at all events, time. He will do anything to stave off the great decision,—he will grasp anything that postpones the necessity of preparation. From this mind arises the hope amongst all classes, of doing something for the dead. I was once charged myself with carelessness as to men’s salvation, because a certain dead body was not carried into the church at burial. “If,” said the woman, “you really believed that you saved souls by carrying the bodies into church, you would have taken him in as well as others.” Now the system of Popery has grown out of this anxious fear. It has met the fears of dying men, by giving a system to their ill-founded hopes. It has given the man who knows he is unprepared to die a resting-point beyond the grave. It has shifted the work of preparation to a world unseen and unknown, and so hushed the voice of conscience by assuring it that there still remains the hope of expiation for its sin. Purgatory, therefore, is the last stay for an unsatisfied heart. It gives the hope of pardon after death, and serves as a sedative for death-bed fears.

Thus, then, we have traced some few particulars of the Romish system to their hidden sources in the human heart, and have observed some of the many perversions and modifications which it has provided for the sinner, to assist him in the pursuit of peace.

“Oh, how unlike the complex works of man,
Heaven’s easy, artless, unencumbered plan!
No meretricious graces to beguile,
No clustering ornaments to clog the pile,
From ostentation, as from weakness, free,
It stands like the cerulean arch we see,
Majestic in its own simplicity.
Inscribed above the portal, from afar
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,
Legible only by the light they give,
Stand the soul-quickening words, ‘Believe and Live!’”

Here, therefore, we may safely leave our argument; and we would make, in conclusion, one or two very simple practical remarks.

In the first place, then, we must never feel surprised at seeing amiable, excellent, and apparently religious men brought under the influence of Popery; for it has surely appeared to-night, that the characters most subject to its attraction are those who have felt the power of religious impression, but who have not been led by the Spirit to know the hallowed peace of saving grace. Those who are justified in Christ are at peace, and do not need it; those who are insensible to Divine things are at ease, and do not care for it; while the intermediate class, consisting of those who feel the necessity of the Gospel, but do not enjoy its grace,—they are the persons most open to an accommodated system, and most prepared for the reception of a spurious Christianity. Until a man has felt some perplexity, he has no desire to surrender his responsibility to another; nor until he has felt sin’s burden, does he care for the temporary relief which may be found from penance and absolution. And this explains the at first sight remarkable phenomenon of the rapid progress of Romish principles in latter years, notwithstanding the spread of evangelical truth, and the increased circulation of the Word of God. The preaching of the Cross disturbs more minds than it saves, and so drives the unconverted to have recourse to some substitute for the Gospel.

A second remark is, that we must never be astonished at the alliance often witnessed between Popery and Infidelity, for they spring from the same elements in the human heart. Unbelief and superstition appear, at first sight, to be directly opposed; but in their secret springs they are closely allied. They are two human remedies for the uneasiness of the human heart,—the one rejecting, the other accommodating the Gospel. And whenever the time shall arise, that the witnesses for Christ shall be called on once more to bear their cross for the name of Jesus, they must be prepared to encounter both in a confederate effort against the faith. In two particulars they agree, in one only they diverge. In their uneasiness under the influence of the Gospel, and in their rejection of its simple plan of life, they are one: the difference is only at the third stage, when the one rejects revelation, the other accommodates it to its will.

Lastly, we are surely taught that the one and only remedy for Popery and Popish tendencies is the free, sovereign, and unfettered grace of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We may discuss the many questions arising out of the system, and overthrow the Romish advocate even on the ecclesiastical argument; but in so doing we only protect the outposts. If we would strike at the root of the evil, we must do it by setting forth at once the fulness and freedom of the salvation that is in Jesus. Let the doctrine of justification by faith be written on the heart by the Holy Ghost, and there will then be little fear from Popery. Let that one great fundamental truth be neglected and obscured, and the more earnest that we are in an awakening ministry, the more effectually do we prepare the way for Rome. In every point, then, let us meet Antichrist by exalting Christ. If men are harassed by perplexity, let us assure their faith by proclaiming Christ as revealed in Scripture. If men are craving after communion with God, let us set Christ before them as the sinner’s advocate. If they long for holiness, let us tell them of Christ as our wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. If they seek justification, let Christ be honoured as the Lord their righteousness; and if they look for some further expiation of their in purgatory, let us still tell them of Christ, who “by one offering hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” This is the weapon which Peter wielded on the day of Pentecost, and which burst the hold of the Popery of Judaism. This was the message with which St. Paul set at nought the rising Popery of Galatia. This was the mighty power which, in the days of the Reformation, shook Rome to her foundations; and this is the only name whereby the witnesses for Christ can ever look for victory, for they overcome, according to the scriptural record, “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.”

An ex-psychic who was once overtaken by the occult is speaking out about culture’s obsession with crystals, herbs, and other items tied to witchcraft. Jenn Nizza, a Christian who now shares her testimony on social media and through her new podcast, “Ex-Psychic Saved,” warned against young people’s increased use of such tools.

Billy Hallowell interviews Jenn Nizza.

Transcript

Billy: So I want to talk about crystals with you. And we’ll get a little bit into herbs as well, but crystals have become this massive phenomenon. Young people are using them. And we’ll talk about those numbers in a bit. But can you tell us a little bit about what this process, or this practice, rather, of using crystals entails?

Jenn: This is so New Age in depth. Using crystals for protection, for to ward off evil, for enlightenment, to bring about psychic awareness to place on chakras thinking you’re going to open them up and use the energy from the crystals. This whole thing is relying on energy with crystals.

I had a crystal heart, rose quartz, a pendant made for myself because I believed it was going to draw love. I was also manifesting at the time my spouse, my future spouse. but people going to crystals all the time for protection, they believe it’s going to protect them from negativity, from illness, all sorts of things, Billy, it’s really scary, and it’s big.

Billy: It is scary, and it’s interesting because this history apparently goes back hundreds and thousands of years. This is not a new practice of seeing these stones as having some sort of power. I mean it almost sounds on the surface almost laughable or ridiculous, but yet many people this is a very real practice for them. You talked about your own practice there. And I don’t know a lot about the different stones but I know rose quartz is one obviously for creating relationships, and there are a number of other ones that are out there that people use.

Let me throw the number out at you because we were given some statistics by Springtide Research that 44% of young people, 44% between the ages of 13 and 25 are using crystals and herbs. What is your reaction to that statistic?

Jenn: Wow, I am heartbroken by that to start because it just shows how deceptive the devil is, number one, and how he’s not even hiding. These kids are so exposed to witchcraft these days, and they’re really looking for something. They’re really looking to feel better. They’re really looking for identity, they’re looking for love, they’re looking for all the things that only God can do. But they’re not hearing about God, they’re hearing about crystals. And it’s glamorous and it’s trendy, and it’s spiritually dangerous. It’s witchcraft, Billy, it’s witchcraft. Because you are invoking. Once you go to that crystal and you think you’re going to manifest something from that, whether it’s health, protection, increase your happiness, increase your wealth, what have you, self-confidence, you’re invoking demons! Because the demons are the ones that have the power. I have to tell you, the crystal is a rock that God created. It can’t do any of those things for you.

Billy: Well, let’s go there because what you just said is incredibly important about what is going on here. Because there are people who are going to say, “Well I use crystals, and they’re wonderful, they’re changing my life. The rose quartz is bringing me love and positive relationships.” And they’re going to see that their use of these stones, right, that that is what is doing this. But what you’re saying is that by putting their faith in that, and correct me if I’m wrong here, by putting their faith in those stones and trying to use them in that way, they’re actually attracting evil. And that’s where they’re seeing these “positive benefits” that aren’t necessarily positive.

Jenn: That’s right 100%. You hit the nail on the head. They’re making a choice willingly to put their faith and trust in God’s creation rather than the Creator, rather than God who made those beautiful rocks. And He did make them, and they’re beautiful and that’s where it ends. So when you start using them for divination, for witchcraft, and you may not realize that that’s what you’re doing but that’s what it is. You are invoking demons, and the demons are the ones who are manipulating circumstances, who are planting ideas. And some of these things become almost self-fulfilling because the demons really can manipulate things around you. And you’ll pay attention to those patterns or to those circumstances and make things happen too.

Billy: Yeah, and you know, this other piece of this puzzle, because when Springtide asked young people, they sort of clumped together this use of crystals and then, herbs. And there are a lot of different herbs out there apparently for different things, and it’s an interesting conversation because, and I want to separate this out, and feel free to maybe speak to this when I’m done, and correct me or add or agree, but you know, it’s one thing to use essential oils or to use herbs to heal things that God’s given us, we take them because, we take vitamins let’s say that have certain things in them, medicinally or for health. It’s another thing to rely on these herbs in a magical sense. Do you want to speak to that at all?

Jenn: Absolutely. I would say the biggest one that stands out to me of course is Sage. And that is so trendy. I hate to use that word but it’s true. Burning sage is called smudging, and it was a Native American cultural practice. They believe that they were purifying their space around them, getting rid of negative energy. And of course, that trickles into clearing your space of demons. As a former psychic medium, that was a part of my ritual before doing readings. We would Sage the room. I got hired to smudge people’s homes. And I would be channeling. And the idea again is that the sage will protect you from demons, or from this negative energy. But the truth of the matter is that demons don’t care about sage, they’re not afraid of sage. They’re only afraid of Jesus Christ. So I argue that even going to Sage or any other herb if you will, and you’re putting again your faith and trust in these items, these created things, for your protection, for your spiritual safety, you’re invoking, you’re attracting, I mean, I’m sure they’re laughing, those demons are laughing at you. You’re not protecting anything. It’s a horrible thing to do. It’s a horrible idea. Sage is delicious for eating and for cooking. I like to cook. I use Sage, very good, but it won’t do anything for you in regards to satanic attacks, demonic attacks, or demonic oppression. If anything you will become oppressed by using it, and by burning it. Christ is greater than culture.

Billy: I love what you just said because you see a lot of TV shows where people are doing this, they’re burning sage, and they’re doing it to get rid of the negative energy, or people buy a new house and they have somebody come to do it, which is what something that you did in your previous life, right? This is how you behaved. And just to get into your mindset back then a little bit, and to help people understand, because you spoke to it a little bit, but I want to dig in a little there. Obviously, what you are channeling as a psychic comes from the demonic realm, but psychics don’t necessarily believe that. They believe it’s coming from these Spirit Guides, or something positive. What is it, this negative energy, if you put yourself back in that place of being a psychic, what did you believe you were combating or protecting them from? What was that?

Jenn: It’s so interesting because when I think back on that time I definitely knew there was a dark side if you will. I knew there was something evil. The New Age, a lot of people don’t believe in Hell or Satan. I don’t think I thought it was Satan or a demon, but something definitely scary. I mean, I would see demons manifest looking like the Grim Reaper, seeing like these scary animals, or if you would not be a ghost but like a demon animal taking the form of an animal. So I knew there was something bad, and something kind of like when you think of light versus dark, or good versus bad. So I knew that. And I believed that that sage burning, that sage or that process, would protect me from that, protect me from those scary aspects. And of course, it didn’t.

Billy: That makes sense too, and I would imagine, and we can get in the weeds there a little bit, but if you’re, not you, but I’m saying hypothetically speaking of evil demons, if you’re evil, and you’re trying to convince somebody of something, you may behave in a way that makes it seem like the sage is helping, right? Or makes it seem like trying to build faith in the wrong place for people who are using these things. Would you say that that’s an accurate depiction of what often happens in these dynamics?

Jenn: Oh 100%! And it makes me think of II Corinthians 11 14 and 15. Satan masquerades as an angel of Light. It’s going to have to seem good and look good and appealing and like the solution. And of course it’s the problem and not the solution. I mean when I was in that divination group that I was in when we were smudging, and we had the crystals in there, we had a lot of people that did crystal readings, I mean it was a beautiful room with a really nice woman, and really nice people, and we all wanted to help other people. I mean there was nothing sinister looking about it at all. Very deceiving.

Billy: It is. Well, and all of this is really. And the thing that as we sort of round out the conversation on this because there’s so much to unpack, but I think a big question people have when they see statistics and numbers showing that 21% of young people are using these things weekly, and that 44% overall are engaging in them, and that’s just crystals and herbs. There was no question in here about tarot cards or any of the other pieces of Witchcraft that we have talked about. But what do you think, when you look at the culture and where we are, what do you think is driving this explosive expansion of the use of these sorts of tools?

Jenn: I think we have the same old problems, the kids have problems, we all have problems, so we’re always looking for that solution. But in our culture now they are loaded with witchcraft. It’s everywhere you go. Five Below, I call that witchcraft on a budget. Instagram, social media, cinema, the movies, Ouija boards, I mean it’s everywhere! It’s on the shows, it’s on Netflix. This is our children’s culture! This is their culture. As a matter of fact, it’s heartbreaking those numbers, but is it really shocking? I mean, it’s heartbreaking but it’s not that shocking. It’s everywhere you look. It’s every spa. It’s every on every street corner now. You have metaphysical shops. Everything’s about the crystals. And these kids are going through – I think they’re so over stimulated too, they’re loaded with anxiety, they’re loaded with depression, and they’re looking for help, and they’re looking to feel better, and this is what their culture… I mean the devil’s not hiding it today. I’m not saying that he necessarily was hiding, but he’s bold, and he’s blatant, and he’s out there, and the kids are exposed to it constantly, and especially on the TV shows, the Kardashians, all the way as young as a cartoon called the Casa Grande, I believe that it was called, there was smudging on there. The Abuelo was saying, “Hey listen, there’s some evil energy in here, an evil spirit, this is how we get rid of him.” Sponge Bob Square Pants of course, I talk about that a lot, with the CG board which is the Ouija board. Our kids almost can’t get away from it. We really would have to lock down on the social media, the cinema like I said. So I feel terrible. They’re so exposed to Witchcraft.

Billy: And it really is a natural progression. You have a number of things happening right now. When you push the Judeo-Christian values out of the way, and you say they’re not going to be in school, they’re not going to be in culture, they’re not going to be in Hollywood, they’re not going to be anywhere, and of course there are little projects here or there, and little movies here or there, but the reality is the culture has moved in a direction that has created this vacuum. And if as Christians we believe that God designed us to have a relationship with Him, and that there’s going to be an internal sort of compass pointing us towards something Divine or something bigger than ourselves, when you push God out of the way, people are going to look for that. And it seems like a lot of young people in record depression, suicide, overdoses, we’re seeing all this effect, but we’re also seeing that gravitation toward the occult. And so I guess my final question to you, and I don’t know what your thoughts will be on this, but in light of that fact that we actually see, and none of this is positive, but there’s clearly a thirst for something bigger, that is the part of this that is actually interesting, right? How can we as believers, especially as somebody who came out of this world of the occult, reach people who are engaging in these things?

Jenn: The exact way that the Devil is doing it. Use these platforms, use our ministries for God’s glory. And keep letting people know, keep making people aware. So people like me and other ex-New Agers, we’re on YouTube, we’re on Tik Tok, we’re on Instagram, and we’re out there, and we need to go into the churches – we were just talking about that a moment ago – so that we can make parents aware. How much is this being preached right now in the church? so we need to do our best to keep making the kids aware, talk to the kids too.

I don’t know about you, but I know that my daughter, I’m around her friends, and they used to congregate around the island in my kitchen while I was cooking dinner and giving me the opportunity to talk about Jesus Christ. That’s what we need to do, especially in lieu of the fact that schools, I mean just real quick to go back one second because we were talking about movies, and cinema and everything, and the schools, and like you mentioned the world, is trying to push God out further and further away every day. Schools don’t want God in there, they want Satanic clubs, they want, you can be whoever you want, you can do whatever you want as long as God is not involved. So we need to, if your kids are in public public school, I pray, and I’m really praying for parents, Billy, I really am. My daughter is going to be 22 so I’m not in that small child range anymore. So my heart goes out and I’m praying for all parents. But let’s keep speaking up and using all these things, because technology is not scary, God will use it God is using it, and let’s get into those churches and help equip parents with the truth of Christ.

Billy: Now, I love all of that, and that is a great place for us to close. Now, you have your own podcast which we have worked together on. It’s Ex Psychic Saved podcast. You’re on all the platforms. People should download that and listen to it. It’s incredible. but you also have a book. Do you want to do a little plug for that?

Jenn: Shameless plug, sure! I’m always happy to do that. My new book is, Out of the New Age And into the Truth. And after two and a half months of spiritual warfare we finally have it up on paperback or in paperback on amazon.com. And in this book I’m actually going deeper into these topics, Billy, I’m talking about smudging, I’m talking about crystals, Yoga, Reiki, and of course psychic mediumship. And there’s a Gospel presentation in there as well, how could you not?

Billy: How could you not? Well, that’s what you’re all about. Your ministry is phenomenal and I so appreciate you as always taking the time to explain this for us today. Thanks for coming on.

Jenn: Thanks for having me Billy, God bless.

This is a repost from https://www.frc.org/blog/2021/04/staggering-reach-billionaire-transgender-activists

The original title is:

The Staggering Reach of Billionaire Transgender Activists

By Dan Hart, April 29, 2021

The first billionaire we have to thank for pushing incessant trans propaganda on our children is a man named James Pritzker. Pritzker came out as transgender in his 60s and now goes by the name Jennifer. The Pritzker family has been on the Forbes magazine Top 10 list of “America’s Richest Families” since the list began in 1982. The Pritzkers founded the Hyatt Hotel chain. They also own an airline, a cruise line, and a tobacco company (which they sold in 2006 for $3.5 billion). The Pritzkers sold their largest holding company (with 60 corporations) in 2010 to Berkshire Hathaway for $4.5 billion. But it’s the medical industrial complex where the Pritzkers have staked a lot of their current investments.

After Pritzker announced he was a trans woman, he donated $6.5 million to the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota and just under $6 million to the Palm Center (an LGBTQ think tank to study trans people in the military). He donated $2 million to install the world’s first “Chair of Trans Studies” at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, and he donated another $1 million to Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago for a Gender and Sex Development Program.

Pritzker, along with fellow trans-identifying billionaire Martin Rothblatt (who now goes by Martine) began throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at both cultural and educational organizations around the globe on the condition that those groups would, in turn, indoctrinate people with Money’s ideas on gender identity.

Way back in the ‘90s, Rothblatt hired three trans activist lawyers to create an “international, legal framework for the cultural acceptance of sexual identities not embodied in biological reality.” In other words, what we are watching unfold in our country right now has been in the works for decades. Boys being allowed to compete in girls’ sports and take away their scholarships was conceived long ago with the legal framework being laid long before LGB ever recognized the T.

But the trans agenda coming from the billionaire boys’ club doesn’t end with laws that embolden people who swap out one gender for another. The mission that Pritzker and Rothblatt have embarked on is far greater.

Rothblatt used to work for NASA, and he is the founder of Sirius Satellite Radio (worth $26 billion). He also founded the pharmaceutical company United Therapeutics ($4.5 billion). United Therapeutics is the world’s largest cloner of pigs. In fact, Rothblatt wrote his doctoral dissertation on xenotransplantation which is the transplantation of living cells, organs, or tissues from one species to another. (Can you see where this is going yet?)

Rothblatt doesn’t just identify as transgender; he also identifies as transhuman.

Rothblatt’s Terasem Foundation seeks to promote technological immortality via mind uploading and nanotechnology. The four pillars of Terasem include: 1) Life is purposeful; 2) Death is optional; 3) God is technological; 4) Love is essential.

Rothblatt believes humans are capable of living forever and has created an organization dedicated to extending human life through cryogenics and cyber consciousness. His website Lifenaut allows people to save a “digital back-up” of both their mind and genetic code. He even commissioned a humanoid robot to be made using his wife as the model. This robot has made many speaking appearances and been interviewed by numerous newspapers, including The New York Times.

In the Journal of Evolution and Technology (Vol. 18, May 2008), Rothblatt wrote an article called “Are we Transbemans Yet?” He identifies a “beme” as a unit of someone’s character or nature that behaves like a gene but is not bound to a physical location. Under the section of the article entitled “Reinventing Our Species” Rothblatt says, “We can replicate life without DNA…while it is true that without DNA there will be no flesh, that does not mean that there will be no self. Expressing the bemes of our consciousness in a computer substrate is still an expression of us.” He goes on to say, “Just as human DNA gives rise to humans, human BNA gives rise to bemans.” He talks about new kinds of bodies we will soon have and new kinds of laws that will be needed as a result.

Rothblatt says there is a direct correlation between the acceptance of a person’s right to alter their gender and the acceptance of a person’s right to become transhuman (or transbeman). He says what we need is a total reimagining of what it means to be human.

In other words, transgenderism is only the tip of a much larger iceberg.

Now numerous LGBTQ organizations funded by the billionaire class are insisting on new public school curriculum that will spread their ideology to children in grades K-12. It began with requiring schools to teach “the role and contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people” in history textbooks. One of the first states to adopt this was Illinois where James Pritzker’s cousin, Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, signed it into law.

New teaching at the K-12 level will be far more extreme. The California Department of Education has a plan to teach kindergarteners that there are 15 different genders to choose from. Because insane ideas such as these are already being taught in parts of Europe, we now have elementary schools reporting a skyrocketing rate of students seeking to transition. One teacher in a British school revealed she knows of 17 students in the process of switching genders. She claims many of them were vulnerable kids with autism or mental health issues who were tricked into believing they were born the wrong sex.

You see, if people like Pritzker and Rothblatt can confuse a child about gender before he or she hits puberty, it means greater financial gains for them. Because both men have a stake in the trans-medical industrial complex, if they can confuse children when they are very young (elementary school age), they can profit off puberty blockers in addition to life-long hormone treatments and countless surgeries at the gender clinics they’re invested in.

Remember, a single trans customer will pay for many surgeries over a lifetime (vaginoplasties, facial feminizations, vocal cord reconstructions, breast implants, Adam’s apple shavings, even “womb transplants” for men). This all adds up to big bucks in these billionaire bank accounts.

Once Planned Parenthood saw how much money there was to be made in the trans medical business, they too rushed in to provide people with cross-sex hormones under what they call “gender affirming therapy.” They are now the second largest provider of this service.

The entire trans industry works like this: First, create a false problem (confuse kids through teaching them about gender identity). Then introduce a solution to the false problem (come fix your problems at one of our gender clinics where you’ll be a life-long customer).

The billionaire boys’ club knew they needed to brainwash the masses to accept the new gender ideology in order for their business plan to work. Several key changes in the cultural lexicon were first necessary in order to shift people’s thinking at a subconscious level. To start, the word “transexual” had to be done away with so people wouldn’t associate the trans movement with sex (even though there is most definitely an association). Many so-called “trans men” are males who have a bizarre sexual fetish called “autogynephilia.” Autogynephilia is the objectification of women to the point of wanting to embody a female oneself. (See Dr. Ray Blanchard’s research for more on this.)

Both Pritzker and Rothblatt appear to meet the standard definition of an autogynephiliac: a man who enjoys cross-dressing so much that he develops a sexual fetish around it. In the past decade, there has been a massive, concerted effort by trans activists to normalize this fetish by taking it public. But the word “transexual” was conveniently replaced with the more respectable sounding “transgender”—a word that inherently implies a person has no choice in what “gender identity” they become. They were simply “assigned the wrong gender” at birth.

Altering language this way is a classic John Money tactic. Money was the person responsible for shifting everyone away from using the term “sexual preference” to the term “sexual orientation.” To have a sexual preference implies a person has a say in who they desire to have sex with. A sexual orientation, on the other hand, implies the person was born with those desires and they, therefore, remain totally out of their control. (Can you see why a pedophile might prefer option B?)

(It should be noted that the subject of “gender identity” is not the only arena where Money’s language tactics are used. The Scientific American recently announced they would no longer be using the words “climate change” but would instead substitute the term “climate emergency.” Other publications rushed to follow their lead.)

This article was made possible through Jennifer Bilek’s original research at The Federalist.

Dr. Werner Gitt

Dr. Werner Gitt (born 22 February 1937) is a German engineer and young-earth creationist. Before retirement, he was Head of the Department of Information Technology at Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt which is the national metrology institute of the Federal Republic of Germany, with scientific and technical service tasks. (Quoted from Wikipedia)

This talk by Dr. Gitt is nothing short of outstanding! In my opinion, it blows Darwin’s evolution out of the water because it explains clearly why Darwin’s ideas violate the laws of nature. I actually met Dr. Gitt and his daughter at a seminar in Tokyo when I lived in Japan a few years before moving to Guam.

The following is from Dr. Werner Gitt’s book, In the Beginning was Information. You can download the PDF file here.

Information Theorems

Below is a list of theorems about information that Dr. Gitt listed in his book. I didn’t include all the theorems because some can only be understood in the context it was given. Hence I purposely did not include the theorem numbers.

• The fundamental quantity information is a nonmaterial (mental) entity. It is not a property of matter, so that purely material processes are fundamentally precluded as sources of information.
• Information only arises through an intentional, volitional act.
• Information comprises the nonmaterial foundation for all technological systems and for all works of art.
• A code is an essential requirement for establishing information. (Examples of a code: language, letters, ideographs such as Chinese, Morse code, hieroglyphics, international flag codes, musical notes, various data processing codes, genetic codes)
• The allocation of meanings to the set of available symbols is a mental process depending on convention.
• If a code has been defined by a deliberate convention, it must be strictly adhered to afterwards.
• If the information is to be understood, the particular code must be known to both the sender and the recipient.
• A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor).
• Any given piece of information can be represented by any selected code.
• Any piece of information has been transmitted by somebody and is meant for somebody. A sender and a recipient are always involved whenever and wherever information is concerned.
• Any entity, to be accepted as information, must entail semantics (the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning); it must be meaningful.
• When its progress along the chain of transmission events is traced backwards, every piece of information leads to a mental source, the mind of the sender.
• Information always entails a pragmatic aspect. (Requesting a workable action.)
• Information is able to cause the recipient to take some action (stimulate, initialise, or implement).
• Every piece of information is intentional (the teleological aspect) (Teleology: the philosophical doctrine that final causes, design, and purpose exist in nature.)
• The teleological aspect of information is the most important level, since it comprises the intentions of the sender.
• There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.

Today I listened to Dr. James Tour’s message on the origin of life.

James Mitchell Tour (born 1959) is an American chemist and nanotechnologist. He is a Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Materials Science and Nanoengineering, and a Professor of Computer Science at Rice University in Houston, Texas. (from Wikipedia)

He was raised Jewish and first heard the Gospel when 18 years old from a young man who was part of a Christian ministry called the Navigators. I came to know Christ through the very same ministry when I served in the USAF in 1971! If you listen to any of Dr. Tour’s talks, one of the first things he’ll tell you is he’s a Jew who loves Jesus!

Dr. Tour’s talk inspired to me see what an AI bot has to say about it. I installed an app called Ask AI on my phone. It’s powered by what’s called ChatGPT. I can only ask 3 questions per day unless I pay for it.

My comments are interspersed in the conversation with the AI chatbot.

Of course, I don’t really believe that life evolved from non-life. The law of biogenesis says that life can only originate from other life. I just wanted to see what AI would say.

I vehemently disagree with AI that information can arise from natural processes rather than an intelligent designer! Patterns formed by snowflakes are NOT information! A snowflake has no message to tell you. According to Dr. Werner Gitt:

• The fundamental quantity information is a nonmaterial (mental) entity. It is not a property of matter, so that purely material processes are fundamentally precluded as sources of information.
• Information only arises through an intentional, volitional act.
• Information comprises the nonmaterial foundation for all technological systems and for all works of art.
• A code is an essential requirement for establishing information. (Examples of a code: language, letters, ideographs such as Chinese, Morse code, hieroglyphics, international flag codes, musical notes, various data processing codes, genetic codes)
• The allocation of meanings to the set of available symbols is a mental process depending on convention.
• If a code has been defined by a deliberate convention, it must be strictly adhered to afterwards.
• If the information is to be understood, the particular code must be known to both the sender and the recipient.
• A code system is always the result of a mental process (it requires an intelligent origin or inventor).
• Any given piece of information can be represented by any selected code.
• Any piece of information has been transmitted by somebody and is meant for somebody. A sender and a recipient are always involved whenever and wherever information is concerned.
• Any entity, to be accepted as information, must entail semantics (the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning); it must be meaningful.
• When its progress along the chain of transmission events is traced backwards, every piece of information leads to a mental source, the mind of the sender.
• Information always entails a pragmatic aspect. (Requesting a workable action.)
• Information is able to cause the recipient to take some action (stimulate, initialise, or implement).
• Every piece of information is intentional (the teleological aspect) (Teleology: the philosophical doctrine that final causes, design, and purpose exist in nature.)
• The teleological aspect of information is the most important level, since it comprises the intentions of the sender.
• There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.

I suppose AI hasn’t added Dr. Gitt’s information about information to its database.

Is a detailed picture of a person in sand on a beach more complex than the code of life in a DNA molecule? The two cannot be compared. The AI chatbot concedes it’s not likely that a natural process can create a detailed picture of a person in sand but also says, “the genetic code encoded in DNA can arise through natural processes such as mutation, recombination, and selection” in spite of the fact a living cell is indescribably far more complex than a detailed picture of a person in sand. There’s a disconnect somewhere in its reasoning. 🙂

By J. J. Murphy

This article is from a PDF file on LutheranLibrary.org. It was published by The Converted Catholic Magazine.

CARDINAL GIBBONS in his much-published book Faith of Our Fathers says: “The Catholic Church the enemy of the Bible? As well might you accuse the Virgin Mother of trying to crush the Infant Saviour to her breast, as to accuse the Church, our mother, of attempting to crush the existence of the Word of God.”

How the cardinal could have made such a statement is a matter that lies between his conscience and God. The fact remains, however, that in Catholic countries; especially in the Latin countries of Europe and America, the Bible has been always withheld from the people. At best the Catholic Bible was spoken of as a dangerous book, even an evil book. The Protestant Bible was always condemned as a tissue of lies.

In democratic countries like the United States, the competition of Protestantism has forced the Catholic church to adopt a different policy toward the Bible. Here it does not forbid Catholics to read it. In fact at times it superficially urges them to do so, knowing that they have been so conditioned that they will not read it anyway. All this was explained at length in a four-page article in the May 1942 issue of The Converted Catholic Magazine.

In Catholic countries, opposition to the Bible and especially to Bible Societies is as vehement and intolerant as ever. Four years ago, Cardinal Villeneuve of Quebec lashed out at Protestant Bibles in a pastoral letter read in all the churches of Quebec. From a copy of it printed in La Presse of Montreal on April 2, 1942, the following quotations are taken:

“On several occasions we have already denounced the heretical propaganda carried on among Catholics by an agency known as ‘The Bible and Tract Depot’ or more commonly known as the ‘Bureau of Life and Freedom’… The priests are therefore requested to put the faithful on their guard with the greatest insistence each time that a campaign of this nature Is brought to their attention.

“Priests will insist particularly on the danger, to which those who glance through this heretical literature expose the precious treasure of their faith. They will recall that this sort of literature can neither be read, kept, nor given to others in good conscience, and the best thing to do if we are insulted by having these writings sent to us is to throw them into the fire.”

What Cardinal Villeneuve prescribed in Canada is infallible Catholic doctrine taught down through the ages by pope and council from the time of the Reformation, when Bibles first began to be widely spread among the people. The Council of Trent in its fourth article denounced reading of the Bible as hurtful and decreed penalties against whoever dares to read or possess a Bible without written permission. The usual condemnation then and in later times was of “the Bible in the vernacular,” since if it were not in the vernacular it could not be read by the people. The Latin Bibles were not a source of worry to the Catholic church, for they were comparatively scarce and could be read by only a few of the more learned of the clergy under the direct supervision of the church.

Typical of official Catholic condemnations of Bible societies is that of Pope Gregory XVI issued as an encyclical under the name of Inter Praecipuas on May 8, 1844. From it we quote the opening paragraphs and other excerpts referring by name to the Christian Alliance:

“Among the chief machinations by which in our times non-Catholics of various denominations try to ensnare Catholic believers and turn their minds away from the holiness of their Faith, a prominent place is held by the Bible Societies. These societies, first instituted in England and since extended far and wide, we now behold in battle array, conspiring to translate the books of divine Scripture into all the popular languages, to issue immense numbers of copies, to spread them indiscriminately among Christians and heathen, and to entice every individual to read them without any guidance.

“To those societies, however, it matters, little or nothing into what errors the persons who read the vernacular Bible may fall, provided they are gradually accustomed to claim for themselves free judgment of the sense of Scripture…”

“From information and documents received, we learned that several persons of different denominations met last year in New York City in America and on the 12th of June formed a new society called The Christian Alliance… whose common purpose shall be to bring religious liberty — that and pursuit of religious indifference — to the Romans and other Italians, not realizing that for several centuries… there has been no great achievement in the world that did not begin in the Holy City.”

“Having, therefore, taken into consultation several cardinals of the Holy Roman Church… we again condemn with our Apostolic authority all Bible Societies censored by our predecessors, and by the same authority of our Supreme Apostolate we reprobate by name and condemn the above-mentioned Christian Alliance, founded last year in New York, and other societies of the same sort.”

“Be it known that all that lend their names or their help to such societies will be guilty of a grave crime before God and Church. Moreover, we confirm and by our Apostolic authority renew the commands already given against the publication, distribution, reading and keeping of Scripture translated into the vernacular… At the same time it will be your duty to snatch out of the hands of the faithful, not only Bibles translated into the people’s language, but also forbidden or injurious books of every sort, and thus provide that the faithful may learn from your warnings and authority what sort of pasture they should consider good for themselves and what sort is harmful and deadly.”

The Pope then continued:

“For it is clear and proved by repeated experience of past ages, that there is no easier way to withdraw people from their adherence and obedience to their royal princes than by that religious indifference which is spread under the name of religious liberty. Nor is this unknown to the new society called ”Christian Alliance;” though it professes itself opposed to civil revolution, it admits that from the right interpretation of the Scriptures (claimed by them for even the lowest classes) and from the complete freedom of conscience which they would spread among Italians, the political liberty of Italy would naturally follow.”

This frantic appeal against the Bible and the freedom to which it gives rise is the same thing that other pontiffs have proclaimed. Pope Pius VII denounced circulation of the Bible as “a crafty device,” and “a pestilence,” as well as “a nefarious scheme threatening everlasting ruin.” Pope Leo XII condemned Bible societies as “strutting with effrontery through the world.” Pope Pius IX in one of his encyclicals spoke of the Holy Scriptures in the people’s tongue as “an old device of heretics.”

These fulminations of the Popes against the Bible have not stopped its circulation. April 4, 1945, the American Bible Society announced that in 1944 — exactly 100 years after Pope Gregory XVI’s condemnation of Protestant Bible societies — 12,403,541 copies of the Scriptures were circulated.

The Vatican As A Fomenter Of War

AMERICANS are being fed with false propaganda that the Pope is an ardent advocate of peace. They are even being led to believe that he is a staunch defender of democracy — at least that he has been at long last converted to the defense of democratic ideals. The irony of the matter is that, while gullible American Protestants are swallowing this propaganda, hook, line and sinker, the people in Catholic countries of Europe, free now for the first time in a decade to express their true minds, are not mincing words in their bitter accusations against the Vatican and its hierarchy for their reactionary and pro-Axis activities. Only Catholics who have suffered in countries dominated by the Catholic church are truly anti-Clerical and understand its policy.

In order to cover up its disastrous alliance with the Axis dictators in the heyday of their triumphs, the Vatican is now trying to convince Americans that its true policy involves no preference for any particular form of government, that, in the words of the late Pope Pius XI, it would ally itself “with the devil himself,” if it serves the welfare of the Catholic church. Replying to the syndicated columnist Edgar Ansel Mowrer’s charges that the Vatican has favored Fascism and failed to support democracy, the Jesuit Father Charles T. Conroy, of Westbaden College, Indiana, declared (N. Y. Post, January 30, 1945):

“The truth is that the Vatican is not primarily interested in forms of government as such… It is possible for a government to be a benevolent monarchy, even, perhaps, a benevolent dictatorship… The Vatican is not so much interested in the form in which the government holds its power, but it is tremendously interested in the way that power is exercised.”

This is the true, and shamefully unethical teaching of the Roman Catholic church — a subtle restatement of the old Jesuit principle that the end justifies the means. The Catholic church will bless and ally itself with any kind of powerful government, as long as it uses its power to support the political aims of the Catholic church. For this reason, it entered into solemn agreements with the ruthless regimes of Mussolini, Hitler and Hirohito. And these agreements still remain in force on this first day of April, 1945, when the three big bloody dictatorships are going down in utter defeat, condemned and repudiated by all the decent-minded nations of the world. If the Papacy now begins to show favor to democratic countries, it will be merely because it hopes to use the growing power of these countries in its favor.

POPES TODAY, although they are sovereigns in their own right with a token army at their disposal, do not lead soldiers in battle as they did of old. Yet the Pope’s diplomats and representatives are mixed up in all the intrigues of war among the nations. In some countries, such as Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Pope’s nuncio is the “dean,” — the leader and highest ranking member — of the entire diplomatic corps. Any good European history will prove how much these Papal statesmen have had to do with the fomenting of wars in the past. Count Carlo Sforza, formerly Foreign Minister of Italy, gives authoritative information concerning the Vatican’s part in bringing on World War I, in his book, Contemporary Italy.

It is difficult to get Americans to believe that a so-called Christian church would actually foment war and its terrible consequences as part of its policy. That is because Protestantism has taken religion out of politics and developed exclusively its purely spiritual aspect. To the church of Rome, the slaughter and even torture of individuals by war and Inquisition may be a necessary and laudable act — if necessary to safeguard the Catholic people from contact with “heretics,” or to preserve and enhance the power of the church as a whole. This was re-stated, for instance, in the Jesuit magazine The Catholic Mind of last January in a defense of the Catholic church’s cruel laws against the Jews, and holds good also of its attitude toward Protestants. It declared:

“Full freedom to non-believers must be restricted when their activities interfere with Catholic worship or tend in some degree to contaminate Catholic truth.”

War with its suffering is a small matter in the eyes of the Catholic church compared to the danger of losing its undisputed control over the Christian world. It fanatically believes in its mission from God to be the sole religious teacher and guide of all men. It professes to regard all worldly happenings “sub specie aeternitatis,” (“under the aspect of eternity”) and the death of one or a million “heretics” who would imperil its eternal mission is not only excusable but a necessary and worthy part of its duties on earth. But having a mere token force of soldiers at the Vatican, the Catholic church must use the armies of governments in alliance with it to do the killing. Pope Leo XIII insisted with the late German Kaiser that “Germany must become the sword of the Catholic church.” The Kaiser failed in this, but Hitler twenty-five years after him very nearly succeeded. It was the Vatican that made possible the militarization of Germany toward the end of the last century. And it was the Vatican, as Count Sforza tells us, who gave its blessing to the first World War that was touched off at Sarajevo.

Americans should remember these things when the Pope of Rome is glamorized in their controlled press as the personification of peace and democracy.

War As An Instrument Of Papal Policy By J. J. Murphy

HIGH-PRESSURE PROPAGANDA has been selling the Pope to the American people as the great champion of world peace — as the spiritual Father of Christendom who stands apart from politics and devotes himself solely to the maintenance of moral principles. European authors and statesmen, such as Count Carlo Sforza, who have had access to the secret archives of their countries, know this to he false. Nor has the refusal of the Vatican to open to the world its historical archives been able to hide what the New York Times openly and rightly called “the profound immorality of the temporal policy of the Church of Rome.” This war-making policy of the Vatican has involved the nations in endless intrigues by playing off one nation against another like pawns on a chessboard, as the following article clearly shows.

CLAIMING the exclusive right to be considered the living and infallible representative of Christ on earth, the Roman Catholic church wishes to be looked upon as an essentially spiritual organization solely devoted to safeguarding the moral principles of Christianity. It proclaims to the world its abhorrence of evil and undying adherence to changeless principles as opposed to expediency. It shudders in theory at the slightest defection from absolute right and dramatizes its purity by repeated quotation of Newman’s words:

“The Catholic Church holds it is better for the sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in extreme agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth, or should steal one poor farthing without excuse.”

It is on these grounds of divine incorruptibility that the Catholic church demands the right to be an arbiter of world peace at the coming conferences of the United Nations and condemns beforehand all decisions that it does not help shape. But since even the worst perpetrators of evil have shouted from the housetops the holiness of their intentions and purposes, no one can quarrel with the public’s right to examine the claims of the Roman Catholic church in the light of historical facts. The saying of Christ, “by their fruits you shall know them,” still holds good of moral theories and pretenses.

Religion Of The Sword

Unfortunately for the Catholic church, its historical record does violence to its proud claims. It even lends credence to the accusation that these bold pretenses of virtue are but a mask for its political ambitions and intrigues. For on examination, we find that the most immoral practices of the Catholic church are not mere accidents of history but the logical conclusion of its fundamental dogmas. From its basic belief that it is the one and only true church of Christ to whom Christ gave “all power in heaven and on earth,” it logically lays claim to supreme authority in things spiritual and material and condemns all dissenters as enemies of Christ and destroyers of souls. In accordance with this, the cardinal who crowns a new Pope with the tiara pronounces during the ritual these words:¹

“Receive the tiara adorned with three crowns and know that thou art Father of princes and kings, Ruler of the world, Vicar of our Savior, Jesus Christ.”

The Catholic church’s right not only to participate in politics but to render final decisions was openly taught by Pope Boniface VIII in an official papal bull, Unam Sanciam, which proclaimed the church to be a perfect political society, as superior to the state as the sun is to the moon which merely reflects its light. Speaking of this bull, the Catholic book, The Vatican as a World Power, translated from the German by Dr. George Shuster, says (page 197):

“The meaning of the bull [‘Unam Sanctam’] is contained in these sentences: the spiritual power [the Catholic church] has the authority to establish the worldly power, and to judge it when it is not good; and it is necessary to salvation to believe that all human creatures are subject to the Pope…

’Whoever admits the doctrine that the Catholic church is “the continuation of Jesus Christ” and the infallible teacher of his divine doctrines, must logically admit that anyone who dissents from its teachings perverts the truth and sins against the welfare of society. Nor can he quarrel with the statement of Catholic Encyclopedia (VIII, 36) that disbelief in the church’s teachings is a crime worse than treason that must be stamped out by physical punishment. This is what the Jesuit Cardinal Billot teaches in his seminary textbook on dogmatic theology: “God not only permits the Church to use force, but definitely prescribes it to her. There is no efficacious remedy against heresies but medieval laws.” ²

It follows from this that the medieval Inquisition, established and implemented by the Papacy, is the logical result of Catholic claims to be the “one church outside of which there is no salvation.” Of this same forceful defense of Catholic dogma through the Inquisition, Lecky in his book, The Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe (vol. I, p. 326), says that it “exhibits an amount of cold, passionless, studied and deliberate barbarity unrivaled in the history of mankind.”

The right of the Catholic church to punish heretics was not an accidental distortion of its teachings in medieval times. It is still taught in the Latin textbooks on dogmatic theology used today in American Catholic seminaries. The Holy Office of the Inquisition is still the most powerful bureaucracy in the Roman Curia. It did not stop inflicting corporal punishment in the Middle Ages, but continued to do so, wherever it could, right into the last century, namely in Spain, Mexico, the Philippines and the Papal States. Heresy was declared a political crime. The Cambridge Modern History (XI, 706) notes that in 1850 there were 8,800 “political prisoners” of this kind in the small Papal States alone.

Throughout the 19th century, one Papal encyclical after another was issued to condemn in scathing terms both liberalism and democracy in Belgium, France, Bavaria, Austria, Spain and Italy. This fight of the Vatican against civil liberties extended right down to the present, as is admitted by Catholic statesman Count Carlo Sforza, Foreign Minister of pre-Fascist Italy, in his recent book, Contemporary Italy:³

“And the new Pope, Pins XI, like Pius X, was not only hostile to ideas of liberty… To those who warned him that dealing with faithless and lawless demagogues is always dangerous, he replied: ‘I know it, but at least they don’t believe in the villainous fetish of liberalism.’”

“A distrust shared in common, a common hatred, constitute stronger bonds than those of common sympathies, and the Catholicism of Pius XI shared one hatred in common with Fascist chiefs — the hatred of political liberty.

Repudiation Of Peace

The doctrine that the Catholic church has the right to use physical force to attain its ends holds as true in the realm of international politics as it does in the case of heretical individuals. In other words, the Catholic church approves of war as a means of securing for itself greater political power. In spite of wordy distinctions between a “just” and an “unjust” war, it has never forbidden a single war that might redound to its profit. On the contrary, it has frequently urged on the belligerents or cooperated with them by connivance, open or secret — by the intrigues of Vatican diplomacy or the approval of their Father Confessor. Count Sforza says (p. 56), “Naturally the Bourbons, like the Savoys, violated their constitutions… they had confessors to absolve them.”

Since the Treaty of Westphalia, which put a legal end to the open political power of the papacy in 1648, the objective of the Vatican has been to continue the counter-Reformation to the point where a reestablished Holy Roman Empire would wipe out the last vestige of liberal, Protestant Europe. The Popes realistically faced the fact that this could be done only by warfare. In our own times they did their best to undermine the League of Nations and sneered at plans for peace. Sforza (p. 205) remarks of Pope Benedict XV in the First World War:

“He long resisted the pressures of those who recommended putting to the service of peace the ‘high moral authority of the Holy See.’ With his habitual tone of sarcasm he used to reply, ‘Authority? Strange that they should talk so much of it…’”

As late as May 23, 1920, when he issued his encyclical, Pacem Dei, Benedict XV completely avoided mention of the League of Nations as if it did not even exist. In later years his successors used their influence over DeValera and numerous small Catholic nations of Latin America to vote against every League proposal that would have strengthened its authority, such as the boycott of Fascist Italy during the rape of Ethiopia.

Not to mention two World Wars, to which we shall refer later, the horrible Thirty Years’ War that devastated Europe is a terrifying instance how the Jesuits instigated continuous warfare for a whole generation to attain their purpose. It is with such uses of war in mind that one must read Rome’s reprobation of pacifism. Father Walter Farrell, in his work on the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, A Companion to the Summa (III, 123), lays down the law for Catholics:

“That war, under some circumstances, is justified is not a mere philosophical opinion; a Catholic is not free to embrace or reject it. It is a solemn doctrine of the Church; in fact, time and again through the ages, the Church through Her councils and Supreme Pontiffs, has urged men to wage war.”

Unethical Self-interest

The Catholic church’s claim that it adheres at all times to the same moral principles is ludicrous in the light of history. It practices today in its parish banks the very principles of money lending that it anathematized in the Middle Ages, to give only a single instance. In politics it followed a similar pattern. It never failed to reject a moral principle in matters of politics, if it stood to gain by the deal. Its conservative principles against revolutions, that it championed in Europe throughout the last century in defense of outworn monarchies, were thrown to the winds when it saw’ in the Franco revolution a chance to overthrow the duly elected regime of a liberal, Republican government in Catholic Spain.

The Vatican has switched back and forth with every wind, according to its own selfish interests and without the slightest regard for principle. In 1874 the papacy forbade Catholics in Italy to participate in democratic government by holding office or even by voting in the elections. Four years later it confirmed this order by the famous Non Expedit decree. In 1918 it revoked this decree and cooperated with Father Luigi Sturzo, a life-long priest politician, in establishing a democratic political party, the Partito Populare. Less than 10 years later it cooperated with Mussolini in the establishment of a dictatorship with a church-state union and disowned Father Sturzo by letting Mussolini force him into exile. Now that Fascism has been overthrown, the Vatican is preparing to use Father Sturzo again to reestablish the Partito Populare in one form or another.

In the same expedient way the Vatican first established the Center Party in Germany, then double-crossed it under Bismarck. It cooperated with it again, only to sell it out to Hitler in the early 1930’s. Of this latter betrayal, Edgar Ansel Mowrer, former Deputy Director of the Office of War Information, in the New York Post, of January 30, 1945, tells the following facts:

“In Berlin in 1932 and 1933 I watched with fascinated horror the democratic Catholic Center Party slowly abate its resistance to the Nazis, with Msgr. Kaas, its titular head, slowly yielding to arguments from Rome until the final capitulation to Hitler which opened the door to Ger- many’s attack on the human race.”

The way the Vatican sought its selfish ends by double-crossing its own coworkers and its own Catholic political parties is similar to the way it broke its word to nations. As we shall see below, it begged Protestant Germany to be the ‘temporal arm’ of the Catholic church; when a little while later it felt that it had more to gain by uniting with France and Russia against Germany, it broke its pledge without a scruple. Later, when Germany grew stronger, it reversed itself once more and allied itself with German militarists first by an unwritten agreement, later by a written ‘secret agreement’ in the Concordat with Hitler.⁴

In the Roman church’s immoral policy of expediency there are no real principles, except that ‘whatever benefits the church is right.’ Michael Williams, ardent Catholic apologist and ranking member of Catholic Action in this country, has repeatedly justified the Vatican’s alliance with Mussolini and Hitler by quoting the words of the late Pope Pius XI, that he “would negotiate with the devil himself if the good of souls demanded such action.”⁵

That is about the size of it. The papacy will make a deal with evil men and the most Godless nation, if it thinks it can increase its power by doing so.

This immoral, opportunist principle is the compass of the policy of the Jesuits, whose General, known as the ‘black Pope,’ controls the Vatican court and bureaucracies. If any one, Pope or cardinal, stands in the way of the Jesuits, he either yields as did Pius IX who changed from a liberal to a die-hard reactionary, or it is just too bad for him. As they drew toward the end of their lives several Popes seemed to regret that they had followed the dictates of the Jesuits, but before they got a chance to mend their ways they passed away, often very unexpectedly. After the death of Leo XIII, his Secretary of State, Cardinal Rompolla, was practically imprisoned in the Convent of Santa Maria. Sforza (201) tells that only one of the Vatican diplomats dared to visit Rompolla where he “lived in solitude and abandonment.” Pope Benedict XV began to veer from support of German militarism when he first took office. With this in mind he appointed a trustworthy friend to the Secretariat of State. What happened to change his policy is clearly implied by Humphrey Johnson in his book, Vatican Diplomacy (p. 13):

“Pope Benedict XV chose his old friend, Cardinal Ferrata, to fill the post of Secretary of State, a step that created a favorable impression in France. A month later, Ferrata succumbed sud- denly to a painful internal malady, which set in circulation… the time-honored rumors of foul play.”

Count Sforza (343) tells how the late Pope Pius XI had a change of heart shortly before he reached his end, and how intent he was on warning the faith- ful against the Nazi-Fascists into whose clutches he had delivered them. “The last two days of his life were devoted to writing a speech… intended to tell them that the dangers were equally serious from both sides.” But he was never given a chance to publish it. Sforza relates that on his deathbed his last words were, “Let me have another day; I have such an important duty to fulfill.” Pius XI never got “another day” to publish an encyclical that might have ruined the carefully laid plans of the Jesuits. That was the last that was ever heard of the proposed encyclical.

Eugene Pacelli, the present Pope Pius XII, did not share his predecessor’s last-minute change of conviction. “He has always been known for his strong German leanings” Kees van Hoek, his official Catholic biographer, is forced to admit. The wiliest Roman diplomat of a century, Pius XII is the apple of the Jesuits’ eye. After spending 12 years in Germany and knowing Hitler at first hand, he signed the Vatican-Hitler Concordat with enthusiasm. He has refused to declare it void, and has lived up to its ‘secret clause’ by striving ceaselessly to effect a ‘negotiated peace’ for the defeated Nazis and, when that proved hopeless, by pleading for their pardon. As the Patriarchs of the Orthodox church, recently meeting in general council, declared with unmistakable reference to him and his Vatican agents:

“There are the voices of those who call themselves Christians calling for forgiveness of infanticides and traitors. These people expose themselves to the same blame as the Fascists who are drowning in the blood of their victims.” (New York Post, Feb. 6, 1945)

The Sell-Out Of Catholic Nations

The following brief review of salient points in the history of the last century will show how the Jesuits and their papal figureheads ruthlessly played politics for their own selfish interests, even to the point of selling out Catholic nations. Never was political conduct less inhibited by thoughts of morality.

The history of Poland is a good example of a Catholic nation held in subjugation for centuries, much to the satisfaction of the Vatican. The Pope’s only interest was to use his power over the illiterate Poles as a pawn in his political bargaining with the emperors of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. In the historical excerpt that follows in illustration of this point, Pope Leo XIII was secretly double-crossing Germany, with which he had an oral alliance, because it was upholding the independence of Italy, while the Freemasons ruling France had promised him a restoration of the Papal States. The well-known historian Rene Fulop-Miller narrates the facts in his book, Leo XIII and Our Times (pp. 116-17):

“During the 1880’s the danger of a clash between Russia and Germany became an increasingly important factor in determining the course of the foreign policy of various cabinets, and with rare skill Pope Leo XIII at once contributed to use this situation for his own purposes.

“The coming war would have to be fought on the soil of the old Polish kingdom partitioned between Prussia and Russia, and it might be a matter of decisive military importance whether the Poles rose against Russia… This depended in very considerable measure on the influence of the Catholic clergy on the Polish people. Pope Leo XIII now gave the Russian Foreign Minister Giers to understand that he might he prepared to use his influence with the Poles in a direction favorable to the Czarist government, and again, as with France, the ‘papal card’ won the game…

“Although the Polish party at the Vatican did everything in its power to prevent the Pontiff from throwing his influence on the side of the Czarist regime, the Pope sent instructions to the Polish bishops [in Russian Poland] that they were to ‘impress upon the faithful the duty of obe- dience to the secular power and of docility toward the ruling authorities,’ and to see that no Catholic in Russia entered ‘any societies which are working for revolution in the State or for the disturbance of peace and security’… At the same time, the ‘Curia’ did its utmost to cement the rapprochement between Russia and France and to dissipate the mistrust of that democratic Republic which still existed in conservative St. Petersburg.”

It was at this time that Leo XIII wrote his encyclical, Sapientiae Christianae, to ingratiate the Vatican with democratic France — the same France that one Pope after another had denounced in the most violent language ever since the French Revolution of 1789. At this same time Leo XIII was vilifying Italian democracy, after forbidding Catholics to even vote in the elections. This policy of the Pope to condemn democracy in one country while praising it in another was as typical of the unprincipled papacy as was his plotting with French heretics and Russian schismatics for the destruction of Catholic Italy, that had at last attained nationhood and recognition by the Triple Alliance. Leo XIII betrayed his native Italy for the sake of gaining political power for the church. Count Sforza tells how “he dreamed of the destruction of Italian unity which, he thought, should be dissolved into a federation of little Italian ‘republics’ under the presidency of the Pope. He dreamed of a departure from Rome followed by a triumphal return after a victorious war waged by Austria-Hungary against Italy — an idea that Francis Joseph had the good sense to reject.” “The entire political activity of his pontificate was but a long series of efforts which created difficulties for Italian foreign policy, first in Vienna, then, with more apparent success, at Paris.”6

After having maintained the cruel dictatorship of the Habsburg emperors for generations over the enslaved Catholic peoples of Croatia, Slovenia, Bohemia and other Slav nations, the Vatican’s pretended dismay over the present-day fate of Poland and Lithuania is sheer hypocrisy. How carefully the Vatican cooperated in the enslavement of these peoples is clearly shown from the following passage of a Roman Catholic catechism in use in Austria under the Habsburgs. It is quoted from Catholic Count Sforza’s above-mentioned book, page 64:

“Q. — How should subjects behave toward their sovereigns?

“A. — Subjects should behave toward their sovereigns exactly as slaves toward their masters.

Q. — Why should they behave like slaves?

“A. — Because the sovereign is their master and his power extends over their property as over their persons.”

Tie-Up With German Militarists

The loud and shallow praise of democracy now on the lips of the Roman hierarchy looks pathetic in the light of the ‘infallible’ papal declarations of the last century, which the Catholic church has never retracted. They are summarized by Charles Guignebert, distinguished historian of the University of Paris. In his book, Christianity, Past and Present, (p. 452) he says of Pope Pius VII, who reestablished the Inquisition in Spain at that late date in modern history, and of Pope Gregory XVI who died a quarter of a century later:

“He seized upon the slightest pretexts to show his hostility to all liberal principles and all ideas deemed ‘revolutionary.’ He entered special protest against the political institutions of France, which by their guarantee of religious toleration to all, dared to place ‘the Holy and Immaculate bride of Christ, the Church outside of which there is no salvation, upon a level with heretical sects and even with Jewish perfidy.’

“Pope Gregory XVI in a document that gives us a foretaste of the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX, the Mirari Vos encyclical, declared war (1) upon modern forms of society founded upon liberty of conscience… and (2) upon liberty of the press, ‘which cannot be sufficiently execrated and condemned,’ for by its means all evil doctrines are propagated, and (3) upon liberty of scientific research.”

A penetrating analysis of the reactionary principles of Catholicism is found in the symposium published in 1941 by a group of well-known American liberals under the title of The City of Man:

“In more recent years its Syllabus of Errors, the start of a second counter-Reformation challenging the liberal world that has risen from the Reformation and the Renaissance, played into the hands of political and social obscurantism. Its spiritual totalitarianism was exploited as a tool… of political and social enslavement.”

The great reactionary and militarist power of Europe in the last Century was Germany. Pope Leo XIII was determined to forge a union with it. Kaiser Wilhelm II in his autobiography, The Kaiser’s Memoirs, (p. 211), says of Leo XIII: “It was of interest to me that the Pope said to me on this occasion that Germany must become the sword of the Catholic Church.”

For a while Leo XIII vied with Bismarck in a struggle for power and attempted to double-cross him, as narrated above. Eventually the reactionary principles and love of power they shared in common brought them together. Leo XIII overruled the Catholic Center Party in Germany and forced it to endorse Bismarck’s program for the militarization of Germany, known as the Septennate Bill. The flagrant immorality of this deal that has spelled war and disaster for three generations cannot be more aptly expressed than in an editorial of the New York Times of February 8, 1887, that stated in part as follows:

“All is grist that comes to the mills of Rome. The collision between the spirit of military absolutism and the spirit of Parliamentary liberty in Germany, a contest watched with the deepest interest all over the world, and whose issue will be potent in molding the history of Europe for years to come, is viewed by the Pope merely as a welcome opportunity to improve the condition of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany.”

“One sentence of [Catholic] Dr. Windthorst’s address reveals with pitiless and perhaps unintentional frankness the profound immorality of the temporal policy of the Church of Rome. ‘The Pope’s advocacy of the Septennate Bill,’ said Dr. Windthorst, ‘was independent of the merits of the measure, and arose from reasons of expediency and from political considerations.’

“It would be difficult to frame a more accurate analysis of the Papal motives, while at the same time indicating a more sweeping denunciation of the Papal policy. Liberal principles, the right of popular government, the German constitution and its guarantee of Parliamentary institutions, says the Pope, may go to the dogs, if we can secure some further modification of the laws which relate to the Church, and so improve the condition of the Papacy in Germany.”

The agreement between the Vatican and Germany for a counter-Reformation of liberal Europe almost brought about war in 1904. It came a decade later. Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, ally of Germany and “the most Catholic of all sovereigns,” started the world conflict. The satisfaction that the Vatican felt at the declaration of World War I is best expressed by Count Sforza, a Catholic who knows the inner secrets of European politics. On page 186 of his book, mentioned above, he says:

“A legend more tenacious than history was formed, in 1914 and afterward, regarding Pope Pius X’s attitude toward the Habsburg aggression toward Serbia. This legend shows Pius X praying and fighting against the outbreak of the war, horrified to see Christianity divided into two enemy camps, and dying of grief at the invasion of Belgium and all the horrors of war unchained. The truth is quite otherwise…

“As soon as the danger of war became evident, Count Palffy, Austrian Charge d’Affaires at the Vatican, several times informed Pius X’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Merry del Val, of the intentions and the ‘duties’ of the Dual Monarchy. The Cardinal’s replies were deposited in the diplomatic correspondence of the Austro-Hungarian Embassy, correspondence that I have seen.

“In these conversations the Secretary of State spoke expressly in the name of the Pope who, he declared to the Austrian representative, deplored that Austria had not earlier inflicted on the Serbs the chastisement they deserved.”

Elsewhere (p. 105) Count Sforza relates:

“It is not strange that the Protestant armies of Germany seemed to Pius X the instrument chosen by God to punish France. When death surprised him on August 20, 1914, he was absolutely certain that nothing in the world could prevent the complete defeat of the French; and in his naivete he said: ‘Thus they will understand that they must become obedient sons of the Church.’”

Pope Pius X was succeeded by Benedict XV, a hunch-back cardinal who was elected Pope by one vote… which he would not have received if he himself had voted for the principal rival candidate. Space does not permit the retelling of how this Pope worked with Matthias Erzberger, German propaganda chief and diplomat, through Msgr. Pacelli (now Pope Pius XII), to carry out German directions to effect a ‘negotiated peace.’ These details and the treaty drafted by Germany that would have reestablished an independent Vatican State are given in an article on the pro-Germanism of Pope Pius XII in the April, 1943, issue of The Converted Catholic Magazine. The intervention of Benedict XV in favor of Germany is abundantly confirmed in the second volume of the papers of Robert Lansing, secretary to President Woodrow Wilson.

Conclusion

In the field of international politics the record of Vatican diplomacy is criminal and blood-stained. This is more particularly true since the rise of Fascism and Nazism. For this reason, on February 10, 1945, 1,600 Protestant clergymen of national reputation went officially on record in a statement addressed to the ‘Big Three’ leaders at the Crimean Conference in Yalta opposing involvement of the democracies in any deal with the Vatican or other church group. They indicted the Vatican’s warmongering with the Axis dictators as follows:

“Supporting Mussolini in Italy, Dollfuss and Schusehnigg in Austria, Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain, and Detain in France, the papacy has thrown its weight into the scales of the present human struggle on the side of the enemies of democracy.”

For the past five years, The Converted Catholic Magazine has recorded and fully documented the facts of the Vatican’s tie-up with Fascism, though at first there were few who believed us. Now that the truth is becoming known, it is not enough merely to stand aghast at the shamelessness of the Vatican’s warmongering in the past. All must resist its demand to shape the future of the postwar world, and put an end at long last to the Vatican’s activities as a disturber of international peace.

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1. Quoted from the official National Catholic Almanac for 1942, page 171.↩
2. Quoted from G. G. Coulton, The Death Penalty for Heresy from 1184 to 1921, page 88 .↩
3. Pages 338-9. Other page references to Count Sforza are in this same book, published in 1944 by E. P. Dutton &, Co., New York. See our list of ‘Recommended Books.’↩
4. Catholic Wm. Teeling, an intimate of the men who signed the Vatican- Hitler Concordat admits the existence of the “secret clause,” in his book, Crisis for Christianity, page 128. Its existence is also confirmed by H. W. Blood-Ryan in his hook, Franz von Papen, page 223.↩
5. This quotation is from the N. Y. Times of last February 22. Mr. Williams quoted these words of Pope Pius XI also in the Brooklyn (N. Y.) Eagle of February 21, 1943.↩
6. Contemporary Italy, p. 34 and p. 100.↩

Last night I listened to what Christian J. Pinto on his Noise of Thunder broadcast had to say about transgenderism. This subject is extremely politically charged these days by Bible hating liberal leftists who are vocal in attacking anybody who opposes it. We must not let them push their transgender agenda on the children. It’s child abuse.

The transgender woman who killed six people — including three children in Nashville Tennessee on March 28, 2023, did it out of hatred toward Bible believing Christians who teach that transgenerism is a mental illness. I am posting this out of love for my fellow man to warn them of accepting transgenism as an alternative lifestyle. I believe it is destroying society! Even the infamous athetist, Richard Darkins, considers transgenerism biological nonsense, and is concerned that this false ideology is spreading from America to Britain and elsewhere around the world.

I didn’t intend to write my own opinion about this subject, but I just did. I think, however, that Walt Heyer’s testimony is much more powerful than anything I can say about it. He lived years as a woman and transitioned back to a man because of his experience coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ! Now, he is determined to help others who regret becoming trans.

“I Became Transgender. Here’s Why I Regret It.”

Transcript

(Note: I purposely skipped dialog from other sources in the video and transcribed only Walt Heyer’s testimony. )

I lived eight years as Laura Jensen until I woke up and realized that it was totally insane to live this out.

The first time that it happened in the 50s was Christine Jorgensen. (Note: Christine Jorgensen (May 30, 1926 – May 3, 1989) was an American trans woman who was the first person to become widely known in the United States for having sex reassignment surgery.) But Jenner (William Bruce Jenner who publicly came out as a trans woman in 2015 and changed his name to Caitlyn Marie Jenner) took it to the next level. And then in 2015 it began to explode.

We’re ruining an entire generation of children. I find even hearing about it and reading about it so repugnant and so destructive to children. And it’s time that this stuff needs to end. We need men and women to step up and say stop this nonsense.

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. My upbringing was pretty much a typical California upbringing in Los Angeles in the early 40s. It wasn’t really anything remarkable, at least not until my dad began to take me over and drop me off at my grandma’s house. Grandma was a seamstress and made dresses. And I became very curious about her work, and my curiosity led to her making me a purple chiffon dress that she made just to fit my perfect little four-year-old body.

At first it felt really exciting to have somebody telling me how wonderful and cute I was, but what I didn’t realize what was happening is the second grandma began to tell me how cute I looked in that purple dress, what she was really saying was that there was something radically wrong with the little boy that I really was. And so that begins this sort of creepy kind of psychological and emotional destruction that starts with inside a young boy four years old who doesn’t know what the consequences are going to be about putting on a dress at four years old.

And keeping it a secret from my parents for nearly two years until I became so accustomed to wearing that purple dress that I decided to take the dress home so that I could put it on when my parents weren’t watching or when I was alone. And I could sort of listen and hear those affirmations. I became sort of addicted to the affirmations and hearing her say how cute I was.

So I had the purple dress at home, but my mom found it found it in my bottom dresser drawer. And she said, “Well, where did you get this dress?” And I said, “Grandma made it.” And that just blew the house up! My dad was upset. My mom was upset. It was supposed to be a secret. I broke the secret. And as a result of that I could not go back to grandma’s house without my mom or dad being with me.

Dad didn’t know what to do. His mother-in-law had just been cross-dressing his young boy. He was so angry at my grandmother that he took his anger out in his discipline on me and he started hitting me with a hardwood floor plank when I would do something wrong. Sometimes he was just being way too critical, but it was that what was built up in him because of what happened to me. He did not know what to do. If you can imagine, in 1946 47 there’s no information about kids wearing dresses.

But the next part of the equation was his adopted brother, uncle Fred, heard about me wearing the purple dress. And uncle Fred decided that I was fair game to be sexually abused. Uncle Fred was not playing with a full deck of cards, and he’d get drinking a little bit and he would come looking for me, and he would molest me.

The emotional and psychological issues that I had from grandma affirming me I didn’t really realize the consequence of those for many years. The hardwood floor plank obviously was very devastating, and then the sexual abuse was sort of the cherry on top of the cake. I was a broken child before i was 10 years old.

I decided that maybe I should have been a girl not realizing that that what I was trying to do was escape the abuse not actually change who I was. But it resulted in me going through this process for many years of cross-dressing and going out in public as a female. And so I went through this with even in my first marriage. I had two children. I was an executive for American Honda Motor Company. I worked on the Apollo space missions as an associate design engineer. but that purple dress, the hardwood floor plank, and the sexual abuse was about to take everything away.

Then the next critical step was struggling with my identity. I went to a gender specialist in San Francisco who promptly identified me with gender dysphoria or gender identity disorder and promptly told me that I needed hormones and surgery. That was the treatment that he was prescribing to help me end the cycle of the stress I was having about my gender because of what happened to me as a young child.

The doctor I went to, his name is Dr. Paul Walker. Dr. Paul Walker was a homosexual transgender activist. He felt his job was to do like they’re doing today, is to introduce people to hormones and surgery as a process of treatment. Now keep in mind, Dr. Paul Walker was not just your average therapist. Dr. Paul Walker was the author, the primary chairperson and author of the Harry Benjamin International Standards of Care, the very same standards of care that’s being used today that’s called Wpath standards of care. His agenda was pushing transgenderism, pushing surgery, and pushing hormones recklessly, and really damaging someone’s life like mine.

I had kind of a devastating run of events when I was struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction. I went into a treatment facility as Laura Jensen (the name he called himself), and came out the other side. And I went through a two and a half or three-hour therapy session with my psychologist. And during that day, I went through all of the things that had happened, the sexual abuse the emotional abuse, the wrong idea about going through this procedure, all the things I’d done wrong, the destruction I did to my children and my ex-wife. And I wrote everything down after speaking about these issues. And he put a match to those yellow line papers in the parking lot, and those papers began to burn, and the wind gently picked up the flame and the papers were burned up. And it was sort of that cathartic moment where you realized okay all of that stuff now is lifted off of my shoulders.

And he said, “Let’s go back into my office and let’s pray.” Well, I’ll be honest with you, this guy prays a lot, and he prays for a long time, and I did not want to go back in and pray with this guy because I figured I’d be there for like an hour praying. And as he prayed I kept hearing him and I kept thinking is he going to end? And then there was a point in time when I couldn’t hear him praying anymore, and miraculously, what I saw at that moment that I couldn’t hear his voice was I saw the Lord Jesus Christ actually descending toward me with His arms stretched out. And I looked in front of me and I saw that He was reaching toward a little baby. And I looked at the baby. And I go, “That baby is me! The Lord is coming to claim me. And He turned to me and said, “Your life will be safe with me forever.” And the Lord disappeared.

I realized at that very moment the Lord came to redeem and restore my life so that I will serve him every day after that date. I wanted to restore my life bring myself back to reality. So faith played the pivotal role in me being here today, 35 years sober, married 24 years and I detransitioned over 30 years ago.

Thank the Lord I’ve been very successful in providing help to many people. I haven’t been able to help everybody, but I’ve been able to help a lot of people. And I’m very grateful for that. And I’m going to continue to speak out, I’m going to continue to work, I’m going to continue to try to help people who have no other place to turn.

And so I started a website called sexchangeregret.com. And I work every single day with either a parent, a father, a transgender, who has regret like I did. I work with psychologists, I work with college professors, I work with doctors, I work with lawyers. I am working to prevent people from going through this totally unnecessary insane surgical procedure. And that’s why I’m so passionate about trying to raise my voice and give people the opportunity to go, “Wait a minute. Maybe this isn’t right for me.” And I’m going to continue doing it until the Lord comes and takes me home. And that’s my mission: It’s to stop people from unnecessary surgery, and stop the advocates from lying to people about them being able to change their gender.

This is from chapter III of Alexander Hislop’s book, “The Two Babylons”.

<p class="Then look at Easter. What means the term Easter itself? It is not a Christian name. It bears its Chaldean origin on its very forehead. Easter is nothing else than Astarte, one of the titles of Beltis, the queen of heaven, whose name, as pronounced by the people Nineveh, was evidently identical with that now in common use in this country. That name, aas found by Layard on the Assyrian monuments, is Ishtar. The worship of Bel and Astarte was very early introduced into Britain, along with the Druids, "the priests of the groves." Some have imagined that the Druidical worship was first introduced by the Phoenicians, who, centuries before the Christian era, traded to the tin-mines of Cornwall. But the unequivocal traces of that worship are found in regions of the British islands where the Phoenicians never penetrated, and it has everywhere left indelible marks of the strong hold which it must have had on the early British mind.

From Bel, the 1st of May is still called Beltane in the Almanac; and we have customs still lingering at this day among us, which prove how exactly the worship of Bel or Moloch (for both titles belonged to the same god) had been observed even in the northern parts of this island. “The late Lady Baird, of Fern Tower, in Perthshire,” says a writer in “Notes and Queries,” thoroughly versed in British antiquities, “told me, that every year, at Beltane (or the 1st of May), a number of men and women assemble at an ancient Druidical circle of stones on her property near Crieff. They light a fire in the centre, each person puts a bit of oat-cake in a shepherd’s bonnet; they all sit down, and draw blindfold a piece from the bonnet. One piece has been previously blackened, and whoever gets that piece has to jump through the fire in the centre of the circle, and pay a forfeit. This is, in fact, a part of the ancient worship of Baal, and the person on whom the lot fell was previously burnt as a sacrifice.

Now, the passing through the fire represents that, and the payment of the forfeit redeems the victim.” If Baal was thus worshipped in Britain, it will not be difficult to believe that his consort Astarte was also adored by our ancestors, and that from Astarte, whose name in Nineveh was Ishtar, the religious solemnities of April, as now practised, are called by the name of Easter–that month, among our Pagan ancestors, having been called Eastermonath. The festival, of which we read in Church history, under the name of Easter, in the third or fourth centuries, was quite a different festival from that now observed in the Romish Church, and at that time was not known by any such name as Easter. It was called Pasch, or the Passover, and though not of Apostolic institution, * was very early observed by many professing Christians, in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Christ.

* Socrates, the ancient ecclesiastical historian, after a lengthened account of the different ways in which Easter was observed in different countries in his time–i.e., the fifth century– sums up in these words: “Thus much already laid down may seem a sufficient treatise to prove that the celebration of the feast of Easter began everywhere more of custom than by any commandment either of Christ or any Apostle.” (Hist. Ecclesiast.) Every one knows that the name “Easter,” used in our translation of Acts 12:4, refers not to any Christian festival, but to the Jewish Passover. This is one of the few places in our version where the translators show an undue bias.

That festival agreed originally with the time of the Jewish Passover, when Christ was crucified, a period which, in the days of Tertullian, at the end of the second century, was believed to have been the 23rd of March. That festival was not idolatrous, and it was preceded by no Lent. “It ought to be known,” said Cassianus, the monk of Marseilles, writing in the fifth century, and contrasting the primitive Church with the Church in his day, “that the observance of the forty days had no existence, so long as the perfection of that primitive Church remained inviolate.” Whence, then, came this observance? The forty days’ abstinence of Lent was directly borrowed from the worshippers of the Babylonian goddess. Such a Lent of forty days, “in the spring of the year,” is still observed by the Yezidis or Pagan Devilworshippers of Koordistan, who have inherited it from their early masters, the Babylonians.

Such a Lent of forty days was held in spring by the Pagan Mexicans, for thus we read in Humboldt, where he gives account of Mexican observances: “Three days after the vernal equinox…began a solemn fast of forty days in honour of the sun.” Such a Lent of forty days was observed in Egypt, as may be seen on consulting Wilkinson’s Egyptians. This Egyptian Lent of forty days, we are informed by Landseer, in his Sabean Researches, was held expressly in commemoration of Adonis or Osiris, the great mediatorial god. At the same time, the rape of Proserpine seems to have been commemorated, and in a similar manner; for Julius Firmicus informs us that, for “forty nights” the “wailing for Proserpine” continued; and from Arnobius we learn that the fast which the Pagans observed, called “Castus” or the “sacred” fast, was, by the Christians in his time, believed to have been primarily in imitation of the long fast of Ceres, when for many days she determinedly refused to eat on account of her “excess of sorrow,” that is, on account of the loss of her daughter Proserpine, when carried away by Pluto, the god of hell.

As the stories of Bacchus, or Adonis and Proserpine, though originally distinct, were made to join on and fit in to one another, so that Bacchus was called Liber, and his wife Ariadne, Libera (which was one of the names of Proserpine), it is highly probable that the forty days’ fast of Lent was made in later times to have reference to both. Among the Pagans this Lent seems to have been an indispensable preliminary to the great annual festival in commemoration of the death and resurrection of Tammuz, which was celebrated by alternate weeping and rejoicing, and which, in many countries, was considerably later than the Christian festival, being observed in Palestine and Assyria in June, therefore called the “month of Tammuz”; in Egypt, about the middle of May, and in Britain, some time in April. To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated, and, by a complicated but skilful adjustment of the calendar, it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity–now far sunk in idolatry–in this as in so many other things, to shake hands.

The instrument in accomplishing this amalgamation was the abbot Dionysius the Little, to whom also we owe it, as modern chronologers have demonstrated, that the date of the Christian era, or of the birth of Christ Himself, was moved FOUR YEARS from the true time. Whether this was done through ignorance or design may be matter of question; but there seems to be no doubt of the fact, that the birth of the Lord Jesus was made full four years later than the truth. This change of the calendar in regard to Easter was attended with momentous consequences. It brought into the Church the grossest corruption and the rankest superstition in connection with the abstinence of Lent. Let any one only read the atrocities that were commemorated during the “sacred fast” or Pagan Lent, as described by Arnobius and Clemens Alexandrinus, and surely he must blush for the Christianity of those who, with the full knowledge of all these abominations, “went down to Egypt for help” to stir up the languid devotion of the degenerate Church, and who could find no more excellent way to “revive” it, than by borrowing from so polluted a source; the absurdities and abominations connected with which the early Christian writers had held up to scorn.

That Christians should ever think of introducing the Pagan abstinence of Lent was a sign of evil; it showed how low they had sunk, and it was also a cause of evil; it inevitably led to deeper degradation. Originally, even in Rome, Lent, with the preceding revelries of the Carnival, was entirely unknown; and even when fasting before the Christian Pasch was held to be necessary, it was by slow steps that, in this respect, it came to conform with the ritual of Paganism. What may have been the period of fasting in the Roman Church before sitting of the Nicene Council does not very clearly appear, but for a considerable period after that Council, we have distinct evidence that it did not exceed three weeks. *

* GIESELER, speaking of the Eastern Church in the second century, in regard to Paschal observances, says: “In it [the Paschal festival in commemoration of the death of Christ] they [the Eastern Christians] eat unleavened bread, probably like the Jews, eight days throughout…There is no trace of a yearly festival of a resurrection among them, for this was kept every Sunday” (Catholic Church). In regard to the Western Church, at a somewhat later period–the age of Constantine–fifteen days seems to have been observed to religious exercises in connection with the Christian Paschal feast, as appears from the following extracts from Bingham, kindly furnished to me by a friend, although the period of fasting is not stated. Bingham (Origin) says: “The solemnities of Pasch [are] the week before and the week after Easter Sunday–one week of the Cross, the other of the resurrection. The ancients speak of the Passion and Resurrection Pasch as a fifteen days’ solemnity. Fifteen days was enforced by law by the Empire, and commanded to the universal Church…Scaliger mentions a law of Constantine, ordering two weeks for Easter, and a vacation of all legal processes.”

The words of Socrates, writing on this very subject, about AD 450, are these: “Those who inhabit the princely city of Rome fast together before Easter three weeks, excepting the Saturday and Lord’s-day.” But at last, when the worship of Astarte was rising into the ascendant, steps were taken to get the whole Chaldean Lent of six weeks, or forty days, made imperative on all within the Roman empire of the West. The way was prepared for this by a Council held at Aurelia in the time of Hormisdas, Bishop of Rome, about the year 519, which decreed that Lent should be solemnly kept before Easter. It was with the view, no doubt, of carrying out this decree that the calendar was, a few days after, readjusted by Dionysius. This decree could not be carried out all at once.

About the end of the sixth century, the first decisive attempt was made to enforce the observance of the new calendar. It was in Britain that the first attempt was made in this way; and here the attempt met with vigorous resistance. The difference, in point of time, betwixt the Christian Pasch, as observed in Britain by the native Christians, and the Pagan Easter enforced by Rome, at the time of its enforcement, was a whole month; * and it was only by violence and bloodshed, at last, that the Festival of the Anglo-Saxon or Chaldean goddess came to supersede that which had been held in honour of Christ.

CUMMIANUS, quoted by Archbishop USSHER, Sylloge Those who have been brought up in the observance of Christmas and Easter, and who yet abhor from their hearts all Papal and Pagan idolatry alike, may perhaps feel as if there were something “untoward” in the revelations given above in regard to the origin of these festivals. But a moment’s reflection will suffice entirely to banish such a feeling. They will see, that if the account I have given be true, it is of no use to ignore it. A few of the facts stated in these pages are already known to Infidel and Socinian writers of no mean mark, both in this country and on the Continent, and these are using them in such a way as to undermine the faith of the young and uninformed in regard to the very vitals of the Christian faith.

Surely, then, it must be of the last consequence, that the truth should be set forth in its own native light, even though it may somewhat run counter to preconceived opinions, especially when that truth, justly considered, tends so much at once to strengthen the rising youth against the seductions of Popery, and to confirm them in the faith once delivered to the Saints. If a heathen could say, “Socrates I love, and Plato I love, but I love truth more,” surely a truly Christian mind will not display less magnanimity. Is there not much, even in the aspect of the times, that ought to prompt the earnest inquiry, if the occasion has not arisen, when efforts, and strenuous efforts, should be made to purge out of the National Establishment in the south those observances, and everything else that has flowed in upon it from Babylon’s golden cup? There are men of noble minds in the Church of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, who have felt the power of His blood, and known the comfort of His Spirit. Let them, in their closets, and on their knees, ask the question, at their God and at their own consciences, if they ought not to bestir themselves in right earnest, and labour with all their might till such a consummation be effected. Then, indeed, would England’s Church be the grand bulwark of the Reformation–then would her sons speak with her enemies in the gate–then would she appear in the face of all Christendom, “clear as the sun, fair as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners.” If, however, nothing effectual shall be done to stay the plague that is spreading in her, the result must be disastrous, not only to herself, but to the whole empire.

Such is the history of Easter. The popular observances that still attend the period of its celebration amply confirm the testimony of history as to its Babylonian character. The hot cross buns of Good Friday, and the dyed eggs of Pasch or Easter Sunday, figured in the Chaldean rites just as they do now. The “buns,” known too by that identical name, were used in the worship of the queen of heaven, the goddess Easter, as early as the days of Cecrops, the founder of Athens–that is, 1500 years before the Christian era. “One species of sacred bread,” says Bryant, “which used to be offered to the gods, was of great antiquity, and called Boun.” Diogenes Laertius, speaking of this offering being made by Empedocles, describes the chief ingredients of which it was composed, saying, “He offered one of the sacred cakes called Boun, which was made of fine flour and honey.” The prophet Jeremiah takes notice of this kind of offering when he says, “The children gather wood, the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven.” *

* Jeremiah 7:18. It is from the very word here used by the prophet that the word “bun” seems to be derived. The Hebrew word, with the points, was pronounced Khavan, which in Greek became sometimes Kapan-os (PHOTIUS, Lexicon Syttoge); and, at other times, Khabon (NEANDER, in KITTO’S Biblical Cyclopoedia). The first shows how Khvan, pronounced as one syllable, would pass into the Latin panis, “bread,” and the second how, in like manner, Khvon would become Bon or Bun. It is not to be overlooked that our common English word Loa has passed through a similar process of formation. In Anglo-Saxon it was Hlaf.

The hot cross buns are not now offered, but eaten, on the festival of Astarte; but this leaves no doubt as to whence they have been derived. The origin of the Pasch eggs is just as clear. The ancient Druids bore an egg, as the sacred emblem of their order. In the Dionysiaca, or mysteries of Bacchus, as celebrated in Athens, one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. The Hindoo fables celebrate their mundane egg as of a golden colour. The people of Japan make their sacred egg to have been brazen. In China, at this hour, dyed or painted eggs are used on sacred festivals, even as in this country. In ancient times eggs were used in the religious rites of the Egyptians and the Greeks, and were hung up for mystic purposes in their temples. From Egypt these sacred eggs can be distinctly traced to the banks of the Euphrates.

The classic poets are full of the fable of the mystic egg of the Babylonians; and thus its tale is told by Hyginus, the Egyptian, the learned keeper of the Palatine library at Rome, in the time of Augustus, who was skilled in all the wisdom of his native country: “An egg of wondrous size is said to have fallen from heaven into the river Euphrates. The fishes rolled it to the bank, where the doves having settled upon it, and hatched it, out came Venus, who afterwards was called the Syrian Goddess”–that is, Astarte. Hence the egg became one of the symbols of Astarte or Easter; and accordingly, in Cyprus, one of the chosen seats of the worship of Venus, or Astarte, the egg of wondrous size was represented on a grand scale.

The occult meaning of this mystic egg of Astarte, in one of its aspects (for it had a twofold significance), had reference to the ark during the time of the flood, in which the whole human race were shut up, as the chick is enclosed in the egg before it is hatched. If any be inclined to ask, how could it ever enter the minds of men to employ such an extraordinary symbol for such a purpose, the answer is, first, The sacred egg of Paganism, as already indicated, is well known as the “mundane egg,” that is, the egg in which the world was shut up. Now the world has two distinct meanings–it means either the material earth, or the inhabitants of the earth. The latter meaning of the term is seen in Genesis 11:1, “The whole earth was of one language and of one speech,” where the meaning is that the whole people of the world were so. If then the world is seen shut up in an egg, and floating on the waters, it may not be difficult to believe, however the idea of the egg may have come, that the egg thus floating on the wide universal sea might be Noah’s family that contained the whole world in its bosom. Then the application of the word egg to the ark comes thus: The Hebrew name for an egg is Baitz, or in the feminine (for there are both genders), Baitza. This, in Chaldee and Phoenician, becomes Baith or Baitha, which in these languages is also the usual way in which the name of a house is pronounced. *

* The common word “Beth,” “house,” in the Bible without the points, is “Baith,” as may be seen in the name of Bethel, as given in Genesis 35:1, of the Greek Septuagint, where it is “Baith-el.”

The egg floating on the waters that contained the world, was the house floating on the waters of the deluge, with the elements of the new world in its bosom. The coming of the egg from heaven evidently refers to the preparation of the ark by express appointment of God; and the same thing seems clearly implied in the Egyptian story of the mundane egg which was said to have come out of the mouth of the great god. The doves resting on the egg need no explanation. This, then, was the meaning of the mystic egg in one aspect. As, however, everything that was good or beneficial to mankind was represented in the Chaldean mysteries, as in some way connected with the Babylonian goddess, so the greatest blessing to the human race, which the ark contained in its bosom, was held to be Astarte, who was the great civiliser and benefactor of the world.

Though the deified queen, whom Astarte represented, had no actual existence till some centuries after the flood, yet through the doctrine of metempsychosis, which was firmly established in Babylon, it was easy for her worshippers to be made to believe that, in a previous incarnation, she had lived in the Antediluvian world, and passed in safety through the waters of the flood. Now the Romish Church adopted this mystic egg of Astarte, and consecrated it as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection. A form of prayer was even appointed to be used in connection with it, Pope Paul V teaching his superstitious votaries thus to pray at Easter: “Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance unto thy servants, eating it in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c” (Scottish Guardian, April, 1844). Besides the mystic egg, there was also another emblem of Easter, the goddess queen of Babylon, and that was the Rimmon or “pomegranate.” With the Rimmon or “pomegranate” in her hand, she is frequently represented in ancient medals, and the house of Rimmon, in which the King of Damascus, the Master of Naaman, the Syrian, worshipped, was in all likelihood a temple of Astarte, where that goddess with the Rimmon was publicly adored. The pomegranate is a fruit that is full of seeds; and on that account it has been supposed that it was employed as an emblem of that vessel in which the germs of the new creation were preserved, wherewith the world was to be sown anew with man and with beast, when the desolation of the deluge had passed away.

But upon more searching inquiry, it turns out that the Rimmon or “pomegranate” had reference to an entirely different thing. Astarte, or Cybele, was called also Idaia Mater, and the sacred mount in Phrygia, most famed for the celebration of her mysteries, was named Mount Ida–that is, in Chaldee, the sacred language of these mysteries, the Mount of Knowledge. “Idaia Mater,” then, signifies “the Mother of Knowledge”–in other words, our Mother Eve, who first coveted the “knowledge of good and evil,” and actually purchased it at so dire a price to herself and to all her children. Astarte, as can be abundantly shown, was worshipped not only as an incarnation of the Spirit of God, but also of the mother of mankind. (see note below) When, therefore, the mother of the gods, and the mother of knowledge, was represented with the fruit of the pomegranate in her extended hand, inviting those who ascended the sacred mount to initiation in her mysteries, can there be a doubt what that fruit was intended to signify? Evidently, it must accord with her assumed character; it must be the fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge”–the fruit of that very

“Tree, whose mortal taste.
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”

The knowledge to which the votaries of the Idaean goddess were admitted, was precisely of the same kind as that which Eve derived from the eating of the forbidden fruit, the practical knowledge of all that was morally evil and base. Yet to Astarte, in this character, men were taught to look at their grand benefactress, as gaining for them knowledge, and blessings connected with that knowledge, which otherwise they might in vain have sought from Him, who is the Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift. Popery inspires the same feeling in regard to the Romish queen of heaven, and leads its devotees to view the sin of Eve in much the same light as that in which Paganism regarded it. In the Canon of the Mass, the most solemn service in the Romish Missal, the following expression occurs, where the sin of our first parent is apostrophised: “Oh blessed fault, which didst procure such a Redeemer!” The idea contained in these words is purely Pagan. They just amount to this: “Thanks be to Eve, to whose sin we are indebted for the glorious Saviour.” It is true the idea contained in them is found in the same words in the writings of Augustine; but it is an idea utterly opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, which only makes sin the more exceeding sinful, from the consideration that it needed such a ransom to deliver from its awful curse. Augustine had imbibed many Pagan sentiments, and never got entirely delivered from them.

As Rome cherishes the same feelings as Paganism did, so it has adopted also the very same symbols, so far as it has the opportunity. In this country, and most of the countries of Europe, no pomegranates grow; and yet, even here, the superstition of the Rimmon must, as far as possible, be kept up. Instead of the pomegranate, therefore, the orange is employed; and so the Papists of Scotland join oranges with their eggs at Easter; and so also, when Bishop Gillis of Edinburgh went through the vain-glorious ceremony of washing the feet of twelve ragged Irishmen a few years ago at Easter, he concluded by presenting each of them with two eggs and an orange.

Now, this use of the orange as the representative of the fruit of Eden’s “dread probationary tree,” be it observed, is no modern invention; it goes back to the distant times of classic antiquity. The gardens of the Hesperides in the West, are admitted by all who have studied the subject, just to have been the counterpart of the paradise of Eden in the East. The description of the sacred gardens, as situated in the Isles of the Atlantic, over against the coast of Africa, shows that their legendary site exactly agrees with the Cape Verd or Canary Isles, or some of that group; and, of course, that the “golden fruit” on the sacred tree, so jealously guarded, was none other than the orange. Now, let the reader mark well: According to the classic Pagan story, there was no serpent in that garden of delight in the “islands of the blest,” to TEMPT mankind to violate their duty to their great benefactor, by eating of the sacred tree which he had reserved as the test of their allegiance.

No; on the contrary, it was the Serpent, the symbol of the Devil, the Principle of evil, the Enemy of man, that prohibited them from eating the precious fruit–that strictly watched it– that would not allow it to be touched. Hercules, one form of the Pagan Messiah–not the primitive, but the Grecian Hercules–pitying man’s unhappy state, slew or subdued the serpent, the envious being that grudged mankind the use of that which was so necessary to make them at once perfectly happy and wise, and bestowed upon them what otherwise would have been hopelessly beyond their reach. Here, then, God and the devil are exactly made to change places. Jehovah, who prohibited man from eating of the tree of knowledge, is symbolised by the serpent, and held up as an ungenerous and malignant being, while he who emancipated man from Jehovah’s yoke, and gave him of the fruit of the forbidden tree–in other words, Satan under the name of Hercules–is celebrated as the good and gracious Deliverer of the human race. What a mystery of iniquity is here! Now all this is wrapped up in the sacred orange of Easter.