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| Continuation.... The Bulwark Of Democracy I realize that I have dwelt at considerable length on this matter of the separation of church and state but I consider it most vital and I am persuaded that the great principle involved is, in this great nation of ours, being subjected to constant and insidious attack. As for our public schools, I salute them as the bulwark of democracy. The Catholic Church charges that our public schools are Godless and inept. I answer, by their fruits you shall know them. Contrast the United States, the land of freedom and great achievement, with her public school system and high literacy standard with those countries burdened with Catholic education: benighted Spain and Portugal, backward Ireland, prostrate Italy, debauched France and the groping countries of South America. There you have sufficient answer! If we would maintain democracy as we know it, let us maintain our public school system as it is! Catholic Holy Water Now let us proceed with our consideration of Romanist doctrine and thus continue to establish the disregard for God’s Word as reflected therein, and thereby further set forth why I left the Catholic Church. The introduction of "Holy Water" could easily have been the first departure from simple New Testament teaching. Where, pray tell me, do you read in the gospel of Christ of Holy Water? Peter tells us that God has given to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness (II Peter 1:3), but God has not given to us anything that pertains to Holy Water. There-fore Holy Water is no part of life or Godliness. Furthermore, let it be constantly borne in mind that, as already established, the revelation of God as it concerns our duty to Him is fixed, final and complete. As Jude would say, it has been "once delivered unto the saints." Hence, beloved, to teach or practice something not authorized therein is to fall under the indictment pronounced by John in these words: "Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God" (II John 9). So a little Holy Water becomes a violation of a great principle. The Latin Mass And then there is the Latin Mass. Wherever you go upon the earth in this country, Canada, England, France, Germany, the countries of South America or Africa or Asia the mass is said in Latin, a dead language. Yet the apostle Paul declared, "For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding. Otherwise, if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the uninformed say ‘Amen’ at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you say? For you indeed give thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all; yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue" (I Corinthians 14:14-19). Let the Roman Catholic Church contend that the world-wide Latin mass is a mark of her universality and a sign of her cohesion; the truth remains that it is a flat violation of the teaching of the apostle Paul which has just been given. Thus, again, the Catholic Church disregards the Word of God. The Sacrament Of Penance Let us now take a look at the Sacrament of Penance. According to this point of Catholic doctrine, which is everywhere embraced, acknowledged and studied by Catholics, when men sin they incur the wrath of God and when they repent and receive the Sacrament of Absolution, they are forgiven but not altogether! The Council of Trent sets forth: "If any man shall say that the whole penalty is always remitted by God, together with the guilt, and that the only satisfaction of penitents is faith whereby they embrace that Christ has made satisfaction for them: let him be accursed." Thus the Catholic Church teaches that there are two punishments for sin, the eternal and the temporal. Now, by the Sacrament of Penance, the eternal punishment is remitted, but the temporal punishment remains due. Man must do something to appease the wrath of God regarding the temporal punishment. The priest determines what is sufficient to satisfy God in this matter. In Peter Dens’ Theology, a long list of suggested works of satisfaction practiced in the Romanist Church are given: fasting, rising earlier, enduring cold, praying, reciting litanies, reading the penitential psalms, hearing masses, visiting churches, wearing sackcloth, making gift of food, clothes, money and so on. Let us see the gross offense to God’s Word in this. First, it makes God’s forgiveness incomplete. But hear the Lord in the matter: "Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18). Second, it makes Christ only a partial Savior the ministry of the priest is altogether essential; he must determine what more is necessary in order to satisfy God. But we read of Christ: "Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make inter-cession for them" (Hebrews 7:25). Get it, my friends! Christ is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by Him! Finally, as already stated, it makes the priest an absolutely necessary mediator and in this we see the design of the Catholic Church to bind the people to herself through her system of priests and sacraments which they alone can administer. But hear the apostle Paul in this matter: "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 2:5). There is one mediator; that mediator is Jesus Christ and that eliminates the Catholic priest from God’s order. Catholic Doctrine Of Purgatory Let us now have a look at the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. The first council that mentions the subject of purgatory is the Council of Florence in A.D. 1438. It decreed, "If any true penitents shall depart this life in the love of God, before they have made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for faults of commission and omission, their souls are purified after death, by the pains of purgatory." In the Douay Catechism, we read: "Whither go such as die in venial sin, or not having fully satisfied the punishment due to their mortal sin? The answer: To purgatory, till they have made full satisfaction for them, and then to heaven. What is purgatory? The answer: A place of punish-ment in the other life where souls suffer for a time, before they can go to heaven." As to the nature of the punishment, Peter Dens states that it is two-fold: one of loss and one of sense. The punishment of loss is merely a delay of the beatific confession and the punishment of sense in purgatory is caused by material fire. Bellarmine maintains that the punishments of purgatory are more severe, grievous and bitter than the greatest punishments of this world. Damien, along with others, teaches the inhabitants of purgatory pass rapidly and painfully in baths ranging from cool to tepid, from torrid to frigid, from freezing to boiling. Thurcal tells us that, among other things, the sufferers have to pass over a bridge studded with sharp nails with points upturned; the souls have to walk barefoot on this rough road and many ease their feet by using their hands; others roll with the whole body on the perforating nails until, at last, bloodily pierced, they complete their way over the painful course. Thus, in due course, they escape to heaven. Such are some of the visions of purgatory depicted by some of the Romanist theological writers. Such tales are as silly as pagan mythology. In fact, Plato, Homer and Virgil taught the same doctrine. Protestants of today have so exposed these absurd notions that Roman Catholics are sometimes hesi-tant to acknowledge such a portrayal of purgatory. Yet the time was when the pope, the cardinals and their coworkers upheld such rigidly and to deny it was a mark of heresy. Their modern writers still maintain the punishment is extremely severe and is caused by material fire. Where Is Purgatory? As to where purgatory is, Catholic authors cannot decide. Gregory the Great thought it to be in the earth’s center and he considered the eruptions of Vesuvius and Aetna as flames arising from it. Bellarmine thought purgatory between heaven and earth with the demons of the air. Damien with others concluded it might be in some flaming cavern or icy stream. The truth is, of course, that there is no such place. It is but the figment of Catholicism and is used to fatten her purse and bind the people to the ministry of her priests as we shall see in our consideration of indulgences, invented to release the sufferers from the imagined purgatory and transport them to paradise. Beloved, the Word of God very plainly teaches that our eternal destiny is sealed at the time of our physical death. Paul declares, "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad" (II Corinthians 5:10). We shall be judged by what we do in the body and James sets forth that "the body without the spirit is dead" (James 2:26). Hence, when we die in the body our eternal judgment and destiny are sealed! This, of course, is absolutely fatal to the theory of purgatory, a supposed place of further cleansing. A Great Gulf Fixed Listen to Jesus, whose native home is the other world, as He gives us the account of the rich man and Lazarus. "So it was that the beggar [Lazarus] died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abra-ham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.’ " Now take notice: " ‘And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us’ " (Luke 16:22-26). After death, there is a great gulf fixed between them which cannot be crossed, and mark it! that is before the final judgment, for later the rich man pleads that Lazarus might be sent to his father’s house in order to testify to his five brethren. Remember, too, the account reads, ". . . The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes. . . ." That is the sequence. So, we see that after death there is a great gulf fixed that cannot be crossed. What purpose, then, can purgatory serve? It is not strange that Catholicism rejects the Bible; to accept the Bible would be to destroy Catholicism. Indulgences The Key To Purgatory As soon as the Catholic Church had invented purgatory, she devised means of affording a fictitious key, namely indulgences, to unlock the door of that fictitious prison called purgatory. The Catholic Church tells us that "an indulgence is a remission of the temporal punishment of our sins, which the Church grants us outside the sacrament of penance. Can indulgences be made use of to the souls in purgatory? Yes, all indulgences which the Pope has indicated for that purpose." Pope Leo X stated, "We have thought proper to signify to you that the Bishop of Rome is able to grant to the faithful in Christ, indulgence either in this life or in purgatory out of the superabundant merits of Christ and his saints." The bishop may grant indulgences in his diocese and the archbishop throughout the whole province, but the pope is the supreme dispenser of indulgences. An indulgence may be received by a man before he enters purgatory and so be happy. Or, an individual might operate retroactively in regard to certain works of alms, prayers and the like performed by someone for another. For example, a Catholic with sympathy for his relatives in purgatory might obtain an indulgence in the form of commutation of their sentence in that fiery region, securing in such a case an indulgence of a certain number of days or years. According to a Catholic book of devotion, this brief petition, "Sweet heart of Mary, save me!" gives three hundred days indulgence every time it is repeated. From the infallibly authorized Book of the Scapular, we take note that: To those who wear the scapular during life, Mary makes this promise; "I, their glorious mother, on the Saturday after death, will descend to purgatory and deliver those whom I shall find there, and take them up to the holy mountain of eternal life." To visit a Carmelite church on Saturday procures eighty-seven years of indulgence and the remission of two-sevenths of all sins; to wear a blue scapular gives full indulgence, cancels all sins and gives a free ticket to paradise. America Spends Ten Million In Indulgences Indulgences have been used to prompt crusaders to rise up against those who have opposed Catholicism; they have been used to purchase the remission of sins and to deliver souls from purgatory. Mr. Chiniquy, in chapter twenty-five of his book Fifty Years in Rome, states that more than ten million dollars are expended annually in North America to help souls out of purgatory. At the time of writing, he stated that masses were said in Canada at twenty-five cents each and in many parts of United States at one dollar each, and that it was, therefore, a common practice for the bishops in the United States to have masses said in Canada for the departed souls and thereby make seventy-five cents on each mass. For many years it was a common practice for the bishops of Canada to send to Paris to have masses said at five cents each by the poorer priests there, thus saving twenty cents on each mass they were paid to celebrate. Luther Arises Against Indulgences When Martin Luther was serving as a priest in Whittenberg, Germany, Johan Tetzel, a Dominican priest, came through that region selling indulgences and telling the people that if they would buy those indulgences and couple with them severe penance, they would have the remission of their sins. That seems to be the incident that prompted Luther to put his ninety-five objections to the Catholic Church on the door of the church building and then defy the whole Catholic hierarchy, pope included, to debate the merit of his objections. I might add that the money thus obtained by Tetzel was going to complete the building of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. There was no scruple about this business of selling indulgences. Tetzel went so far as to proclaim that he had saved more souls from hell by his indulgences than the apostle Peter had converted to Christianity by his preaching. If that is not making merchandise of religion, pray tell me, what is it? Coming to a knowledge of the truth and being honest with myself, I could not stay in the Catholic Church. That is why I left. The Doctrine Of Extreme Unction The Catholic Church practices what she terms "extreme unction." She describes it thus; "Extreme unction is a sacrament in which by the anointing with holy oil and by the prayers of the priest, the sick receive the grace of God for the good of their souls, and often also their bodies. . . . It [extreme unction] in-creases sanctifying grace; it remits venial sins, and those mortal sins which a sick person repents of; it strengthens the soul in its sufferings and temptations; it often relieves the pains of sick persons, and sometimes restores him to health. . . . We should receive extreme unction when we are in danger of death from sickness." This is a shining example of Catholic arrogance and presumption. Not only is there no mention whatever of such a practice in God’s Word, but for the first eleven hundred years of this Christian era there is no record of its ever being practiced among the people of earth. In the Converted Catholic Magazine of several months ago, there was an article, if I mistake not, having to do with the grave misgivings on the one hand or the fears on the other of Catholic youth engaged in World War II, who on the eve of actual combat reflected on the impossibility of Catholic chaplains being everywhere present to administer extreme unction. Protestant youth understand that there is one mediator, Jesus Christ, and that He is truly omnipresent and, hence, they are not concerned about the feigned mediation of one who, like themselves, has feet of clay. Catholicism Only Authority For Instrumental Music The Roman Catholic Church practices and thus teaches, the use of mechanical instruments of music in the worship. Everyone who is a member of a religious body using mechanical instruments of music in its worship has no higher authority for the use of the same than the Romanist Church. The New Testament teaches us to make melody in our hearts (Ephesians 5:19) with the fruit of our lips (Hebrews 13:15). It further teaches us that this melody, our singing, is to be with the spirit and the under-standing (I Corinthians 14:15). Can an insensate, mechanical instrument of music qualify? You may read your New Testament very, very carefully and you will not find the remotest hint of authority for the use of them. What does that mean? It means that whoever practices it in the worship goes beyond the authority of Christ and John states that he "does not have God" (II John 9). Of course, instrumental music is not wrong in itself; if that were true, it would be wrong anywhere at anytime. But remember this one thing, it is wrong to introduce it into what is professed to be Christian worship when God has not commanded us to do so. We cannot infringe on the silence of the scriptures. When Pope Vitalian II introduced instrumental music into the worship in A.D. 666, it created such a furor that it had to be removed for about a hundred years. The matter of objection thereto, and division as a result thereof, has always followed in its wake. Indeed so! Confessing Sins To Priests Let me speak briefly of auricular confession and the arrogant contention that the priest can forgive sin. There is a curtained recess or box which is called the confessional in every Catholic Church. The penitent Catholic on bended knee there meets the seated Catholic priest and, as the priest questions, the penitent recites his various misdeeds since they last met. This is called "auricular" because it is made into the auris, or ear, of the priest. It is but one of not a few abominable practices introduced during the medieval period. In fact, learned Romanists do not deny that auricular confession became a practice of the Catholic Church at the council of Lateran, A.D. 1215. Pope Innocent III, of the merciless Inquisition, was its founder. Catholics, generally, do not know that. Here is one reason why they do not: the Council of Trent declared, "Whoever shall say that the mode of secretly confessing to a priest alone, which the Catholic Church has always observed from the beginning and still observes, is foreign to the institution and command of Christ, and is a human invention; let him be accursed. . . ." My friends, here is God’s way: first, for the alien sinner when in Acts 2, the believing Jews cried out, ". . . ‘what shall we do?’ Then Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit’ " (Acts 2:37, 38). No command here to confess to any priest or any other man for the purpose of obtaining absolution. Now concerning God’s way for those in the church: when Simon, after his baptism as recorded in Acts 8, had committed a grievous sin, Peter directed him as follows: ". . . Repent there-fore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you . . ." (Acts 8:21-23). Peter did not direct him to confess his sins to a priest in order to obtain absolution. James, in giving instructions to those in the church, said, "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray one another, that you may be healed" (James 5:16). My friends, that states, "Confess your faults one to another." It does not say to a priest. Corrupting Influences Of The Auricular Confession Concerning another aspect of such a practice, Mr. Chiniquy, an ex-priest of good authority, says: "I have heard the confession of more than two hundred priests, and to say the truth, as God knows it, I must declare that only twenty-one had not to weep over the secret sins committed through the irresistibly corrupting influences of auricular confession. I am now more than seventy-seven years old, and in a short time I shall be in my grave. I shall have to give an account of what I now say. Well, it is in the presence of my Great Judge, with my tomb before my eyes, that I declare to the world that very few yes, very few priests escape from falling into the pit of the most horrible moral depravity the world has ever known, through the confession of females." Do Catholics Teach That Priests Can Forgive Sins? Let us look, just for a moment, at this question, "Does the Catholic Church really teach that the priests can forgive sin?" In Deharbe’s Catechism, page 150, we read, "Question: Does the priest really forgive sins, or does he only declare them forgiven? Answer: The priest really and truly forgives sins through the power given him by Christ." How is the little child, or ignorant adult, or the one educated in a Catholic school going to recognize how much the Scriptures are perverted in that statement? To forgive sins is God’s prerogative and He has never delegated it to any priest! "He as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God." Such blasphemy! "Call No Man Father" While speaking of the usurpation of that which belongs to God, let us consider the fact that the priest is called "Father." Jesus said, "But you, do not be called ‘Rabbi’; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven" (Matthew 23:8, 9). The usual Catholic quibble is, "You call your paternal parent ‘father’." Yes, and Jesus speaks of the earthly parent in that manner, but here it plainly has a religious designation as the context shows. Lord’s Supper Becomes Literal Body And Blood Of Jesus Now let us briefly consider the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. The Council of Trent declared, "Whosoever shall deny that in the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist are contained, truly, really and substantially, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore, the entire Christ; but shall say that he is in it only as in a sign, or figure of virtue: let him be accursed." From one of the Catholic Mission Books comes this: "Question: How and when are the bread and wine changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ? Answer: This change is wrought by virtue of the words of consecration pronounced by the Priest during the Holy Mass." Thus the Catholic Church teaches that the priest has the power to change the bread and wine into the very body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ; and then, permit us to add, the priest proceeds, along with his fellow-communicants, to eat the very Lord whom he professes to have thus brought into being. This absurd doctrine and practice was no doubt what prompted Crotus, the Jew, to say, "Christians eat their God." The cannibal never eats the object of his superstition, but the Roman Catholic eats the object of his adoration. Mr. Chiniquy, the ex-priest, declares, "The world in its darkest age of paganism has never witnessed such a system of idolatry, so debasing, impious, ridiculous and diabolical in its consequences as the Church of Rome teaches in the dogma of transubstantiation. . . . It seems impossible that man can consent to worship a God whom the rats can eat. . . ." In instituting the Lord’s Supper, Jesus took bread and said of it, "This is My body." When our Lord made that statement, He was very much in the flesh of His body and the blood was coursing through His veins. Yet He used the present tense of the verb in declaring, "This is My body." Now this question: if the bread thus became the very body of Christ, what became of the One whose hand held that bread? Remember, He has but one body. Jesus also said, "I am the door and I am the true vine," yet none of us have any difficulty understanding that Christ is not a literal door or vine. Why then should anyone have difficulty in under-standing that Christ, in the body, said of a piece of bread, "This is my body"; that He did not literally become that piece of bread? Paul tells us, ". . . that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me’ " (I Corinthians 11:23, 24). Notice, "Do this in remembrance of Me [Christ]." Now can the bread be, at the one and the same time, the memorial and the thing memorialized? Paul tells us that the Lord’s Supper is a memorial of the death of Christ until He shall come (I Corinthians 11:26). Usually the Catholic will strive to justify his position by turning to the sixth chapter of John and reading, "Then Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you . . . For my flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed’ " (John 6:53, 55). Where is the Lord’s Supper mentioned in that chapter? That was spoken before He instituted the Supper. To take a text from the context becomes a pretext. Continue to read the chapter and Jesus gives this meaning: "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life" (verse 63). In Deharbe’s Large Catechism, we read: "Have we to drink of the chalice, to receive the blood of Christ? No, for under the appearance of bread, we receive also the Blood of Christ, since we receive His living body." Let the very words of Jesus refute that Catholic teaching, "Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you’ " (Mat-thew 26:27). And then we read in Mark 14:23, "Then he took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it." Doctrine Of Celibacy Let us view for a short while the Catholic doctrine of celibacy. The Council of Trent decreed: "Whoever shall say that the clergy constituted in sacred order, or regulars, who have solemnly professed chastity, may contract marriage and that the contract is valid: let him be accursed. . . . Whoever shall say that the marri-age state is to be preferred to the state of virginity, or celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to retain virginity, or celibacy, than to be joined in marriage: let him be accursed." The Catholic Church imposes celibacy on the pope, the cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops, the priests and the nuns. Yet God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him" (Genesis 2:18). We read in Hebrews 13:4, "Marriage is honorable among all. . . ." In the summer of 1946, a young lady who was a Catholic and who was preparing to become a nun attended the last service of a meeting in which I was preaching in Stratford, Oklahoma. Afterwards, she asked to talk with me. During our conversation, I pointed out that, if she became a nun as she planned, she was going to pervert the course that God would have her follow, and then I quoted this statement made by the apostle Paul, "There-fore I desire that the younger widows marry, bear children, manage the house, give no opportunity to the adversary to speak reproachfully" (I Timothy 5:14). I am happy to say that, after some two hours of our considering the Bible versus Catholicism, I had the very great pleasure of baptizing that young lady into Christ. Concubinage In Catholicism In the Moral Theology of Ligori, Volume 8, page 444, we read: "A bishop, however poor he may be, cannot appropriate to pecuniary fines, without license of the Apostolical See. But he ought to apply them to pious uses. Much less can he apply those fines to anything else but pious uses, which the Council of Trent has laid upon non-resident clergymen, or upon those clergymen who keep concubines." Think of it! If a clergyman of the Catholic Church marries, he is excommunicated, but if he keeps a concubine, he merely is subject to a fine. Indeed it is a strong delusion that can ensnare people in a religion that teaches such! It is no wonder that the St. Louis Republican of June 20th, 1887, printed a letter from Bishop Hogan of the Catholic Diocese of St. Joseph in which he gives a list of twenty-two priests received into his diocese the fifteen years prior to 1876 whom he was compelled to dismiss on account of immoralities. About the middle of the past century, Bishop Vandeveld, of Chicago, said of the conduct of priests in his diocese: ". . . they are all either notorious drunkards, or given to public or secret concubinage." Finally, concerning this matter of forbidding to marry, listen to this language from the Bible: "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth" (I Timothy 4:1-3). If ever God in His Word points the finger of inspiration at a religious body and brands it an apostasy, He does in this instance. Which body? That one which forbids to marry and commands to abstain from meats. But with Catholicism, the Bible is a dead letter. No wonder! Pope Becomes Infallible In 1870 The Roman Catholic Church had considerable difficulty deciding that her pope is infallible, and the matter required much time. In fact, it was not until the Vatican Council in 1870 that the infallibility of the pope was adopted. Here is the result of that council’s vote on the matter: For 451, against 88, 62 would accept if modified, and 70 did not vote at all! On the basis of that, a fallible cardinal becomes infallible in the administration of his office when appointed pope. Who can believe such? And remember, this was adopted more than eighteen hundred years after Christ had given to the world His fixed, final and complete revelation of what constitutes acceptable service to Almighty God. Images In The Catholic Church The use of relics and images by the Roman Catholic Church is common knowledge. Suffice it to spend but a few moments on the matter. About 601, Gregory the Great condemned the use of images in the strongest terms. He very highly commended the Bishop of Marseilles for breaking the images to pieces. Yet at the Council of Trent, A.D. 1545, a decree was pronounced, and is authoritative today, to the effect that "images were to be retained and due honor and veneration to be given them as representing those whose likenesses those images bear." Thomas Aquinas said, "The same reverence is to be paid to the image of Christ, as to Christ himself." Did you ever see a Catholic statue supposed to be a likeness of the adult Christ in which his hair was not shown as long dropping, perhaps, to the shoulders? The apostle Paul declares that even nature teaches that it is a shame for a man to have long hair (I Corinthians 11:14). Do you think that Jesus would violate that declaration which He moved Paul to record? Did you ever see a statue of Jesus in which He was not portrayed as being beautiful in body? Yet Isaiah said of Him, ". . . when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him" (Isaiah 53:2). I have said the foregoing in order to point up this statement: no one knows how Jesus looked in the flesh and I submit to you that here is sufficient grounds for withholding such from man, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God am a jealous God . . ." (Exodus 20:4, 5). It is no strange thing that the Catholic Church has entirely eliminated the wording of this second commandment of the Decalogue from its versions of the Catholic Baltimore Catechism, taught in all its parochial schools. The Bible becomes a dead letter to that religion which it condemns. Life magazine, reporting the ceremonies in Ottawa, Canada, in June, 1947, at the Marian Congress, pointed out that a great procession of devout people knelt and kissed the foot of the giant statue of Mary "Until the paint wore off its toes." Pictures in L’Europeo, an Italian newspaper, of April 5, 1947, shows that devout Catholics in Naples continue to crawl at full length on their stomachs before the images of their Madonnas and lick the ground with their tongues on their way to the statues. Some years ago, the New York Department of Health was compelled to put a stop to this practice among the Italian people in the Bronx, because it resulted in so many cases of tetanus. Such idolatry! The Worship Of Mary The Goddess Of Heaven Catholics pray to Mary, to their saints and here is a prayer, found in the Breviary for the 14th of September, addressed to the cross as if it were living: "O cross, more splendid than the stars, illustrious throughout the World, much beloved by men, more holy than all things, who alone was worthy to bear the treasure of the world, bearing sweet wood, sweet nails, a sweet burden, save this present multitude assembled this day in thy praise." As for prayers to Mary, in a book published by the Excelsior Publishing House, New York, 1891, and which book is entitled Glories of Mary and which was approved by the Archbishop of New York, on page 84 we read, "Sinners receive pardon only through the intercession of Mary." In the rosary, Catholics call on our Father some fourteen times and upon Mary some fifty-three times. The Bible teaches that ". . . whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:17). Nowhere in God’s Word are we taught to pray unto anyone other than God, and nowhere in His Word are we taught to pray through anyone other than Christ, who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). Mother Of God Catholics exalt Mary thus: "Thou art called the Mediatrix of all grace, the Refuge of afflicted hearts, the Advocate of desperate causes, the unfailing succor of all in need. It is through Thy maternal Heart that all benefits come to us. Filled with confidence in Thy Immaculate Heart which we venerate and love, we come to Thee with our pressing needs and many supplications. . . . " The Catholic Church addresses Mary as the "Mother of God" even though the first four words in the Bible declare that it is not so. On occasion, Catholics pray "five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys"; and, at such a time, they pray the same prayers through five times in undelayed succession. But listen to Jesus, "When you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words" (Matthew 6:7). According to a recent issue of the Time magazine, next year on the occasion of the present pope’s fiftieth anniversary of entry into the priesthood, the Catholic Church is going to proclaim the ascension of Mary as a tenet of Catholicism! (This sermon was in November, 1948.) And Catholics will accept it! Thus Catholicism, like paganism, has her high priestess! Now listen to the Bible: "And it happened, as He [Jesus] spoke these things, that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which nursed You!’ But He [Jesus] said, ‘More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it’ " (Luke 11:27, 28). How The Catholic Church Gains Adherents The Catholic Church gains her adherents through three principal channels: (1) immigration those who come to our shores are largely Catholic; (2) the offspring of Catholics usually educated in parochial schools; (3) the offspring born to a Catholic and non-Catholic union the Catholic Church requires that children born to such a union be reared as Catholics. How can a man or woman find such attraction in one of the opposite sex as to be willing to consign their unborn children to such an apostasy? Thus I have set forth why I left the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church disregards the Word of God and is not the church of the New Testament. I believe that I have established that in the light of truth. I thank God that I am a member of the church of Christ, which takes its stand upon the Bible. Beloved, Jezebel with her idolatry is at work in the land. We see bowed forms before her in the press and on the screen. This is no time for weak-kneed Protestantism; this is a time for courageous, concerted action in behalf of truth. Cast out that evil influence, as was Jezebel of old! How? Exalt and spread the Bible’s influence. No one can embrace Catholicism without rejecting the Bible. The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. Click Here Back To Why I Left The Catholic Church Part Two |