Catholic Friends

COME OUT OF HER, MY PEOPLE (REV 18:4)

Catholic Friend

Hello, my dear friends. I’m speaking, of course, to our Catholic friends, and I mean friends. I have many Catholic friends and, on my mother’s side of the family, Catholic relatives, including my mother. My mother is of Irish-Catholic background. In her family there are members of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland and in America and in Canada. I've always had a love of the Catholic people, and I spent 11 years of my youth in Catholic schools through my mother's insistence. But like many other young people at that time I began to question the established religious values of the time and began to do my own seeking and my own searching.

Now I should tell you my own family is a mixture of Roman Catholic and Jewish, and partially for that reason I'm able to speak and read the Hebrew language, and I've also learned Greek. I looked at other faiths – Judaism, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism – most of all I studied the Scriptures with an emphasis on studying them in the original languages. I don't say I'm the greatest scholar or theologian in the world, but I do know what I believe and why I believe it.

I have a book here, Rome Has Spoken, written by two academic Roman Catholic nuns Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben – they’re the editors. They are both Ph.D.'s, both Roman Catholic nuns, both quite scholarly women. The book is published by Crossroad Publishing Company and it’s a very, very interesting book, a compilation of Vatican- and papal-issued statements from different times in history.

I’d like to ask you some questions as a Roman Catholic, questions of the sort I once asked myself, questions that other people like me have asked. But before I do that I’d like to read you some quotes from Roman Catholic documents – official Vatican documents – that are imprimatur and nihil obstat, official Roman Catholic documents.

In the year 420, Boniface I, Bishop of Rome: “Instead of what is lawful for what has been decided by the apostolic see to be reconsidered, the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, the current pope vigilist was found guilty of heresy and formally excommunicated from the body of the faithful. And at the Third Council of Constantinople in 681, Pope Honorius had confirmed the impious opinions of the heretic Sergius and anathematized the pope from the church.” According to Roman Catholic history, Roman Catholic documents, popes have been kicked out of office and excommunicated by councils of the church. It was not the belief, according to the Roman Catholic Church, that the pope at that time was somehow infallible in what he was proclaiming.

Of course now they claim, since 1870, when he speaks ex-cathedra he is, but I've never heard in modern history of a Pope being fired – sacked by the church. But things began to change by the medieval church, and again I'm only reading from Roman Catholic history that the creedom of 1140, where matters of faith are concerned, a General Counsel – a kind of magisterium – is greater than a pope. For though the Roman pope has sometimes erred, this does not mean that the Roman Church has. In other words, popes can say things that are erroneous and the church doesn’t have to support them.

By 1200 A.D. Pope Innocent III: “Every cleric must obey the pope, even if he commands what is evil; for no one may judge the pope.” In the year 1200 the papacy decreed you have to obey the pope even if he tells you to do something which is evil and that no one may judge it, although the earlier councils of the church fired popes. A religion that came to teach you have to follow a man even when he's telling you to do something evil.

In the year 1302, Pope Boniface VIII, “Unam Sanctam”: “We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff.” In the year 1302 it was decreed by Pope Boniface VIII that to have salvation – that is escape hell and go to heaven – you have to be subject to the pope.

Let’s move to the modern era.

1854, Pope Pius IX, “Ineffablis Deus”: “If anyone shall dare to think otherwise the most Blessed Virgin was from the first moment of her conception preserved immune from all stain of original sin. if anyone dares to think otherwise that has been defined here by us, let him know that he certainly has abandoned the divine and Catholic church.” The church is proclaimed as divine and if you don't believe that Mary was sinless you’ve abandoned it. That was in 1854. Why was it not taught earlier? The term “theoticos” – “mother of God” is not in the Bible or in the Greek text anywhere, it’s not in the Vulgate. Pius IX was the same pope who issued a papal encyclical in which democracy was condemned – “Quanta Cura”.

In the first Vatican Council in the year 1870, “Pastor Aeternus”: “We teach and define that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in the exercise of his offices pastor and teacher of all Christians, he defines by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority a doctrine of faith and morals which is to be held by the whole Church. It is by reason of the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer wished His church to be endowed in defining doctrines of faith and morals.” Since 1870 there’s been an official doctrine that the pope, when he speaks ex cathedra from the chair of Peter he cannot make a mistake; a human being who cannot make a mistake even though earlier church councils said that popes can make mistakes even in matters of doctrine and some were excommunicated for it.

Quite a book. A book not containing Protestant documents, a book compiled by Roman Catholics containing Roman Catholic documents.

Again, Boniface VIII, “Unum Sanctum”, 1302: “We declare, affirm, and define as a truth necessary for salvation that every human being is subject to the Roman Pontiff.” If you’re not a Catholic you can’t go to heaven they said.

There was a Pope Leo XIII, “Satis Cognitum”, 1896: “Let such as these take counsel with themselves and realize that they can in no wise be counted among the children of God unless they take Christ Jesus as their brother and at the same time the church, that is the church of Rome, as their mother.” Jesus as your brother and the Roman Catholic Church as your mother. And if that is not the case, you’re not a child of God. John 1 says to all who believed Him, who believed in His name, to all who received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God. (Jn. 1:12)

1948. the Holy Office, “Cum Comperum” reminded Catholics of canonical prohibitions against unauthorized prohibition and so-called ecumenical meetings with non-Catholic Christians and in shared worship. They were warned against it in 1948, now all of the sudden it’s to be pursued in order to get people to become Catholic. That tells me something. At one time they were afraid of Catholics being lured away from the church by associating with other Christians; now they think the time is ripe to lure other Christians into the Roman Church.

The Second Vatican Council in 1964, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church: “Those who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart and moved by grace tray in their actions to do His will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience, these too may attain eternal salvation.” Which directly, of course, contradicts the earlier pronouncement Unum Sanctum.

Contradiction upon contradiction; things have devolved and changed. Yet the constitutional motto of the Roman Church is “Semper Idem” – “always the same”. Well, it’s not; it’s changed, changed, and changed. What the Roman Catholic Church is today it became at the Council of Trent, basically, in the aftermath of the Reformation. We can document it from their own documents. Some Catholic scholars admit it. Yet in a way it is Semper Idem. Once they make another doctrine they can’t change it. There are two kinds of doctrines in the Roman Church:proxima fide and de fide You can change a proxima fide doctrine like making the mass from Latin into English, but a de fide doctrine – transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgence – they couldn't change that stuff.

And so looking at these contradictions, coming from a Catholic background on my mother’s side of the family, I have to ask some questions of my Catholic friends – sincere questions. Again, I’m not attacking you, it would be attacking my own family, indeed my own mother. I'm not attacking you, I'm simply trying to arrive at the truth. I'm only asking you questions that I once asked myself.

Let us begin, please, with my first question.

In the first epistle of St. John 1:7 we read that the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin. The blood of Christ “cleanses” – Greek “katharizo” – takes away all our sins. All sin. We are told in the New Testament we are saved by grace through faith. (Rom. 5:2; Eph. 2:8)

The Greek word for “repentance” is “metanoeo” which came in the Middle Ages to be understood as “to do penance”, but the Greek word means “to repent”. The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin when we repent and accept Him. That is what the New Testament teaches. My first question to my Catholic friends is this: If the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, can you explain why the Roman Catholic catechism imparted by the Roman Church – nihilo obstat from the Vatican – why it says you can atone in purgatory for you own? Indeed, you must. And why the temporal consequence of sin can in part be negated by indulgences?

That, we all know – the indulgences– were the way the construction of St. Peter’s, the Vatican, was financed. The Dominicans said when a coin into the box rings, a soul in purgatory springs. You can have sex with Mary, the mother of Christ and be forgiven if you have the right price. That's what they said. Catholic scholars have admitted this. (The Dominicans, of course, the perpetrators of the Inquisition.) Again, I’m not attacking, I’m only stating facts that Catholic historians admit.

If the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, why is it that you have to atone in purgatory for your own? The New Testament says perfect love casts out all fear. (1 Jn. 4:18) All fear. Why should someone die in fear of going to purgatory? In fact the Roman Catholic Church says in the catechism that if you say you're going to heaven and you know you're going you’ve committed the sin of presumption. Now the New Testament says we can have a confidence we’re going to heaven (1 Jn. 4:17) if His blood has cleansed you from all sin, if you’ve truly repented and accepted Him. Please tell me, my dear friend, and again I'm only asking the question of you I once asked of myself, if His blood cleanses from all sin, why do you have to atone for your own in purgatory? And why can you go out and do something or buy something or get something that will give you an indulgence to reduce your sentence? Where is any such thing found or taught in the New Testament? Where did Jesus or the apostles teach it?

In the Middle Ages the Roman Catholic Church added the Apocrypha, the intratestamental literature to the canon of Scripture because there is one verse in the book of Macabees that says it's good to pray for the dead, which they took to mean getting people out of purgatory. However, the Early Church never held the Apocrypha to be part of the canon of Scripture – even the Roman Church didn't. Secondly, it was a Jewish book written in the Greek language to Jewish people. We’re told the Old Testament saints were in the bosom of Abraham waiting for the Messiah to come. In the context in which it was written that plainly meant praying that the Messiah would come so the Old Testament saints could go to heaven. It doesn’t mention purgatory. The term “purgatory” is found no place, even in the Apocrypha or in the church fathers as such. Not the Early Church fathers and not in the New Testament at all.

His blood cleanses from all sin. Boldly we can approach the eternal throne the Scripture says. (Heb. 4:16) If we can boldly come before the throne of grace, how is that the sin of presumption? Is the New Testament wrong? If His blood cleanses from all sin, why should I believe in a religion, as I once did, that says I have to atone for my own?

St. Paul points out in his epistle to the Galatians if an angel of God comes with another gospel, don't believe it. (Gal. 1:8) If even an angel like Gabriel or Michael, an archangel, came and appeared to you and told you there was another gospel, another way of salvation, another good news of salvation by some other means other than Jesus paying the price for your sin on the cross, don't believe it. His blood cleanses from all sin. But I'm expected to believe it if I were Roman Catholic.

That is my question. If His blood cleanses from all sin, why should I be part of a religion that says I have to atone for my own in purgatory, when according to the New Testament there’s no such place. It’s never mentioned or named.

The second question I would like to ask is this one:

I was always told in Catholic schools and by my mother that Peter was “the rock”. “Upon this rock I will build my church” from Matthew 16. (Mt. 16:18)

I was told that in English and, when I was a little boy, I was taught to read Latin. The Bible was the Vulgate, the only one read ritually; it was not studied. However, having learned to read the original Greek and Hebrew languages, I looked at the original meaning in the original languages. I would not call myself a Protestant, but remember Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer and every one of the reformers, every one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation was from the intelligentsia of the Roman Catholic priesthood. Everyone had been a Roman Catholic priest who went back and read the Scriptures in the original languages. I’m not defending Protestantism, I don't identify with it; I’m a Christian, but I’m just asking the question, “Is Peter the rock?”

I lived in Israel for many years and at the base of Mt. Herman there’s a place called “Banyas”. In the Bible it was called “Caesarea Philippi” and it is there where Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build My church”. And I was told that He gave the keys and power to Peter. “Whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”. (Mt. 16:19)

I'd like to read directly from the Greek language what it says in the New Testament. Jesus spoke Aramaic, but when Matthew wrote it down on the testimony of the apostles who’d been eyewitnesses he wrote it in Greek. Or if it was written in another language it was quickly translated into Greek. We have one historical reference that Matthew might have been in Hebrew or the Hebrew dialect of Aramaic according to Haggis Sippus, but there’s no manuscript ever found. We have the Greek. And it is the translation of the Greek which the Roman Catholic church bases its doctrine that Peter is “the rock”. Is that what it says?

Verse 18, and I’ll translate it word by word:

“Kago de” – “Also I” or “And also I”...
...”soi lego” – “to thee” or “to you say”...
...”hoti sy ei Petros” – “thou art Peter” or “you are Peter”...
...”kai” – “and”...
...”epi” – “around” or “on, but in the context it would mean “on”, with that I agree...
...”taute te petra” – “on this rock”...
...”oikodomeso... (from where we get the word “oikos” – “house”) ...mou” – “I will build of Me”... ...”ten ekklesian” – “the church”.

It would be built on Christ, not of Peter.

At Banyas – Caesarea Philippi, there’s a cascade with millions and millions of flat chips of stone washed out of the cascade. The Greek word “petros” – “Peter”, “little Peters”. There is a big boulder on which the temple of the Greek god Pan that had been there at one time had been built and the temple to Caesar Augustus, the deified emperor, had been built that Jesus was referring to where the house would be built. That is called a “petra”. “You are one of these little chips of stone; upon this boulder I will build my church of Me.”

When asked to explain this, Roman Catholic scholars say, “But Jesus was speaking Aramaic, or a language related to Hebrew. and because Peter was a male He had the use the masculine form 'petros', which is the word for 'a little rock' instead of 'petra' which is the word for 'a boulder’”. I went to a pretty good university and a pretty good bible college and I'm told by people who are from Greece that my Greek is not bad so far as my understanding of its meaning. But I know people who are really, really fluent in Greek, they grew up speaking it and they’re experts in reading the Old Testament, the church fathers, and so forth, they are from Greece. I know people like this in Australia particularly, and they confirm what I say is right. And so if there’s any academic or a person with a degree in Greek saying what I say is right, what I say is what I was taught. Gender in Greek does not have to do with sex in any primary sense; it has to do with the way a word is used in the context of the sentence. It is not male and female as in sex, it’s male and female as in the way the word is used in the context.

Let us look 1 Corinthians 10:4...

and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.

In Greek it says, “de he petra en ho Christos”. “Petra”. Christ Himself who was a male is referred to in the feminine. The idea that they changed the gender because Peter was a male is ridiculous. That is not how Greek grammar works. I don't believe St. Paul made a mistake, nor did the Holy Spirit when He inspired St. Paul to write Corinthians. “The rock” is Christ and it’s called “petra”. What does it say in Matthew 16? “You are ‘petros’ and upon the ‘petra’ I will build My church.” You cannot use a little chip of stone the size of your thumb as the foundation for a building; you cannot use a “petros” as the foundation for a building; you can only use a “petra”. If you’ve been to Caesarea Philippi you would see it makes no logical sense. If you know Greek you would see it makes no logical sense.

But there's more. In 1 Corinthians 3:11 we read something else.

For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

If anyone – if anyone – builds on the foundation of something else – gold, silver, precious stones, etc., it’ll be manifested on the day of the Lord; it will be revealed with fire; it won't stand. The only foundation we can build on is Christ, not Peter. Was St. Paul wrong? For that matter, were the early Roman Catholic popes and councils wrong? Or were the later ones wrong who said that Peter is “the rock” instead of Christ even though the New Testament says the opposite, and even though their early popes said the opposite?

The Roman Catholic Church claims that its doctrines are not only “apostolic”, but “patristic” – they come from the church fathers. I do not believe in the doctrinal authority of the church fathers. I do not believe the “apostolic” necessarily equals the “patristic”. However, even if I did, of the church fathers the Roman Catholic church looks to as a way to define what the apostles believed, most of the church fathers said that “the rock” was Christ, not Peter. A minority of them said “the rock” was the faith of Peter. Most say “the rock” was Christ, a few said “the rock” was Peter’s faith. None – not even one of their own church fathers – not only one of your church fathers has ever said that “the rock” was Peter.

Given the fact that you cannot use a chip of stone the size of your thumb – a flat chip of stone the size of your thumb – as the foundation for a building, given the fact that the original language says “You are the ‘chip of stone’ and upon ‘the boulder’ I will build My church”, given the fact as St. Paul says we can build on no foundation other than Christ Himself, and given the fact of the New Testament says that Christis “the rock” – “petra”, “the boulder”, and given the fact that none of your own church fathers of the Roman Church believed that “the rock” was Peter, why do you? Why do you believe something which is practically, historically, biblically, patristically unfounded? And in fact, having been to Caesarea Philippi so many times, I have to say asbsurd. Why, in the early centuries, did no one believe it? Popes were fired – sacked by church councils. That is the question.

My mother has the view that many people would have – Irish, Catholic, British, Protestant. I just got back from Ireland a few days ago and I‘ve studied Irish history at some length. I was astounded to discover that most of the founders of Irish Republicanism, originally called “The Home Rule Movement” – Isaac Butt, Theobold, Napper Tandy, Charles Parnell, Wolfe-Tone – every one of them was a Protestant. “The Irish patriots like Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, was a Protestant. It was only later identified with Catholicism in the times of Daniel O'Connor and so forth. But I was more astounded to learn how the “English”, quote/unquote, first got involved in Ireland. There was a non-English king, an ethnic Norman. He was not Anglo-Saxon, he was a French Viking. Henry II was threatened with excommunication by Pope Adrian IV if he would not invade Ireland and put an end to the local Celtic church in Ireland, and force them to acquiesce to Rome and the papacy. How did the English first become involved in invading and occupying Ireland? The pope sent them.

The term is “revisionism”. I’m no admirer of Voltaire’s values, but he was a talented writer. And he was right about one thing: “History is the lie everybody agrees on”. When you read what really happened you get a different picture. But the problem I have in speaking to my very Catholic mother is her Catholic identity is part and parcel of her Irish identity and can't see beyond it. There is a historical prejudice that's emotionally charged. It would be family disloyalty. Jesus said, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me”. (Mt. 10:37) Do I love my mother? Yes, but I love God first and I want them to know the truth.

When I looked for the truth I found that “the rock” was and is Christ, not Peter, not only according to the New Testament but according to Roman Catholic history itself, That's my second question: Why do you believe Peter is “the rock” when the New Testament and your own church fathers and just the practical circumstances of trying to build a house on a chip of stone all dictate he could not possibly be?

Popes have been warlords. They ordered nations to go to war with each other. They’ve been homosexuals, they’ve had illegitimate children. The banking families of Europe would vie to get their man into the papacy – the Borgia popes, the Medici family. Sometimes there would be two or three people claiming to be pope and the one that had the biggest military backing, usually from France, would declare the others to be antipopes. Well, I'll leave that to others to sort out. The only question I'm asking you is how can Peter be “the rock”?

And even if he was “the rock”, where does it say that Peter was empowered to pass that position on to others? If Peter was the first pope, why is it in the book of Acts 15 at the first council of the church that James presided, not Peter? James says, “Brethren, listen to Peter”? No, “Listen to me”. (Acts 15:13) And he does not rule by decree. He says, “It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us”. (Acts 15:28) It was a collective decision by all the apostles, it was not the pope speaking autocratically ex cathedra. Why was James presiding and doing all the talking if Peter was the pope? It’s a fair question.

Why did St. Paul rebuke Peter in the presence of all in the book of Galatians? (Gal. 2:11-14) When is the last time you saw a bishop or a cardinal or a priest standing up in public and face-to-face challenging the pope and telling him off for being a hypocrite or behaving hypocritically? I've seen them kneel down and kiss his ring, but I've never seen any of them tell him off. You don't talk that way to the pope. If Peter was the pope, why did Paul talk to him that way? Fair question? Why did James preside if Peter was the pope?

Even in its earlier centuries the Roman Church didn’t believe that. Now of course I would argue that the Roman Catholic Church did not exist as such until the 4th Century, but we’ll put that aside. The question I'm asking is in light of the evidence – biblical, patristic, and historical and practical, how can you possibly believe Peter is “the rock” when the Bible says “the rock” is Christ and we can build on no other foundation?

But I would like to ask a third question of my Catholic friends.

Without doubt Mary – her real name was “Miryam” – Mary the mother of Jesus was the greatest woman who ever lived.

The angel Gabriel. the archangel “Gabriy’el”, “the mighty one of God” appeared to her and told her that God Himself would become incarnate inside of her, she would be the mother of the Messiah, the Savior, who would save His people from their sin. This is the greatest woman who ever lived. And the greatest woman who ever lived, who has ever lived, was told she’s going to be the mother of the Savior who would save His people from their sin in the Magnificat in St. Luke’s Gospel. (Lk. 1:46-55) The only thing that the greatest woman who ever lived could say when she was told she was the greatest woman who ever lived – “Blessed are you among women” (Lk. 1:42) – and she was told she’s going to be the mother of the Savior who would save His people from their sin is, “My spirit rejoices in God my Savior”. (Lk. 1:47)

If the greatest woman who ever lived tells me that she needs to be saved from sin, that she needs a Savior when she's told she's going to be the mother of the Savior who would save people from sin, who am I to argue with the greatest woman who ever lived? Who am I to argue with St. Luke? When God says, “All have sinned, all fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), “None is righteous, no not one”, (Rom. 3:10) Well who am I to argue with God? I believe Mary, but we have Ineffablilis Deus, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

If all have sinned and all full short of the glory of God, and if Mary said she needs to be saved from sin, who do I believe: Mary or the Vatican? Personally, I believe Mary. I'm convinced Mary was right; I'm convinced that Mary told the truth; I'm convinced all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God.

The Roman church speculated and then deduced that if that was the case, Jesus would have been born from a sinful vessel. But if Mary had no sin, by the same token that would have to mean that Mary's mother had no sin, and that Mary's grandmother had no sin, and that Mary’s great-grandmother had no sin all the way back to Eve. But we know Eve had sin and we know Mary had sin.

Again, this doctrine was not proclaimed until modern times, until the 20th Century. Do you believe Mary was wrong?

We are told in the New Testament there is one intercessor between God and man, Jesus the righteous. (1 Tim. 2:5) One intercessor, onlyone, Jesus. Man can’t reach God so God had to reach man by becoming one of us. If there is one intercessor, how can I be expected to believe that Mary “co-redeemed” us, “co- saved” us, and she is the “co-mediatrix” if there’s only one Savior? The Hebrew prophets said all along, “Yahweh – God is our Savior; there is no Savior but Me”. (Is. 43:11; Hos. 13:4) Only one Savior, only one intercessor.

Either we believe Mary or we believe the Vatican. I believe Mary. My question to you, my dear Catholic friends, is who do you believe?

But I have yet another question.

In the Gospel of St. John 6 I've heard it quoted, quoted, quoted, and re-quoted as applying to the Eucharist. We read the following, I’m beginning in verse 47...

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.

Notice St. John, quoting Jesus, says that Jesus said if you believe in Jesus you have eternal life. “He who believes in the Son has eternal life, he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.” – the Gospel of St. John 3:36 in the Roman Catholic Bible. Jesus said, “If a man believes in Me though he die yet shall He live for he’s passed from death to life” – the Gospel of St. John 5:24 according to the Roman Catholic Bible. Belief is the key to eternal life.

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

Jesus is saying that the manna that fell in the wilderness in the book of Exodus is a symbol of Him. It is the type, He is the antitype.

Now I am told that this refers to communion, the Lord's Supper at the Eucharist. The Lord’s Supper – the Eucharist, comes of the Jewish Passover. The Last Supper was a Jewish Passover meal called a “seder”. But Jews had to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem at Passover time; this was not at Passover and it was not in Jerusalem. Whatever applies to the Lord’s Supper does not apply in the direct sense because it's not the Last Supper. It's the wrong time of year, it’s the wrong place. It is, first of all, talking about how the Exodus was a symbol of Jesus – the manna.

“I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

He would give His flesh for the life of the world.

Then the Jews...

...that means the Judeans, not all Jews but the religious establishment,,,
...began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”

Those influenced by the Pharisees would have had this argument.

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”

Unless you eat His flesh and drink His blood you cannot live.

I'm told this is the Eucharist and it is the key to eternal life. That's what I was taught in Catholic school. The context, however, going all the way back to verse 32 is the Exodus. No fewer than three places Jesus says in the same passage that the key – the key – to eternal life is belief. But I am told the bread and wine was transubstantiated, turned into His literal body and blood and then eaten. How do I account for this? Well, the first problem I had as a Catholic looking at this was this: Just reading on...

These things...
...in verse 59...
...He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum”...
...not at the Last Supper in Jerusalem when the Lord’s Supper communion was instituted.

Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing...

How can eating His flesh be the key to eternal life if “the flesh profits nothing”? “Eating the flesh” meant believing His words. I will prove it.

We have to read this as a literary unit, as a “gospel”. In John 1 of this same gospel St. John writes that “the Word became flesh” (Jn. 1:14) – the Greek word “sarx”. “Logos” became “sarx”. Jesus is the Word of God incarnate.

Look at the New Testament, first of all in the book of Revelation 10:10. This Same St. John, the same apostle who wrote this in the Apocalypse, says...

I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it...

Belief equals eating the Word of God; you make it part of yourself. He was the Word incarnate, it becomes incarnate within us, it becomes part of us. He ate the Word.

Let’s look at the book of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel 3...

Then He said to me, “Son of man...
...just as Jesus is called “Son of Man”...
...eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll.

So he ate the Word of God.

The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah said the following in 15:16...

Your words were found and I ate them...

The Word becomes flesh. You “eat” the Word by believing it. “He who believes has eternal life”. Jesus says in John 6, the flesh profits nothing. How could it possibly be the key to eternal life? You have three problems; that's what I discovered as a Catholic.

The first problem was on one hand I was being told that the sacrament of the Eucharist was the key to eternal life, but the catechism told me salvation comes by the sacraments of baptism and penance – that’s how sin is taken away. It contradicts itself. Which sacrament saves? Now in fact by reading the Bible I came to realize no sacrament saves – Jesus saves. It's not an ex opere operato ritual called a “sacrament”. The sacraments are emblems; it’s believing in Him through faith and repentance. That is the first problem. How can the Eucharist be the key to eternal life if your own catechism says it’s other sacraments?

The second problem: Once more, in the first church council of the book of Acts of the Apostles chapter 15, the apostles, including Peter, outlawed the consumption of blood as a pagan demonic practice. Cannibalism was outlawed as pagan and demonic. Christians were told not to do it. If it is literal blood, you can’t drink it. The apostles were told by the Holy Spirit to forbid its consumption. “The flesh profits nothing”. That’s the second problem.

The third problem is, again, Jesus was a Jew. This had to be celebrated at Passover in Jerusalem. What He would have said, the Hebrew prayer, would have been, “Za guphe sha ani ashbar b’ad’chem zot asu l’zichroni; ha’cos ha’zot he ha’brit ha’had asch zot asu l’zichroni.” “This is my body I’ve broken for you, this cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood poured out for you, do it in remembrance of Me.” (Lk. 22:17-20) The apostles and Jesus were Jewish; they understood it would have been a memorial if they understood what it meant at all. Obviously the Sanhedrin and the people they influenced did not. It’s a memorial. “Do this in remembrance of Me”. Consumption of blood was a pagan practice, not a Jewish one.

That is my question. If your own catechism says salvation comes by baptism and penance, how can it come by the Eucharist? If the flesh profits nothing, how can it be talking about literal flesh, given the fact that the apostles condemned its literal consumption? The doctrine of transubstantiation was formulated in its present form in the Middle Ages by Thomas Aquinas based on Aristotle’s “philosophy of accidents” which was debunked by modern science, chemistry, and physics. I won't go into that now, but that is my question. If the flesh profits nothing, if Jesus said the key is belief – eating His flesh is believing the Word, if the consumption of blood was outlawed, how can it be what I was told as a Catholic and what you were told? It can't possibly be if you’re not allowed to consume blood and the flesh profits nothing. Please answer my question. I've yet to find a priest who can, maybe you can.

But I’d like to ask you yet another question.

All over the world we are seeing scandals: Australia, New Zealand. Latin America. the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Europe. One month ago the largest Roman Catholic seminary in Austria, a Catholic country, was closed down.

The largest collection of child pornography, most of it of a homosexual nature, ever uncovered anywhere in the history of the world was uncovered in the Roman Catholic seminary near Vienna. 40,000 photos of priests and so forth having sex with little boys and little girls. 40,000, plus the videos of older priests having sex with younger seminarians.

The largest collection of Internet child pornography: St. Joseph's Parish in Newcastle, England. 8,000 hours of child pornography placed on the Internet by Roman Catholic priests, presently in prison.

The cardinal of Sydney, Australia, the cardinal of Boston, Massachusetts, the cardinal of Los Angeles, the cardinal of London, England, and the cardinal of Ireland – to name but a few – and now the cardinal in Austria, all implicated in conspiracy to obstruct justice and protect pedophile priests and nuns at the expense of not protecting the children whose lives they destroy.

Over 4,000 cases in America. In Cincinnati, Ohio the archbishop pleads guilty – nolo contendere; diocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico bankrupt; archdiocese of Portland, Oregon bankrupt; in Texas and Houston, $120 million paid out to altar boys who’d been violated by priests.

What's happened in Ireland is unbelievable; it gets worse and worse.

Thirteen Roman Catholic nuns in Massachusetts raping deaf little girls with foreign objects. Where does it end? How can it be?

There are those who would have liked us to believe, and you to believe, that this is not purely a Roman Catholic phenomena. It is largely a Roman Catholic and Anglo-Catholic phenomena, the Anglo-Catholics being similar to the Roman Catholics ritually and so forth. There is far less of this among Protestants, far less among Jews, far less among Eastern Greek Orthodox, and in the Eastern rite of the Roman church, your own church – the “Latin rite” is the West, the “Greek rite” is the East – far less in your own Eastern rite.

Now why does the Latin rite have so much of this but your Eastern rite has so little? Why does the Eastern rite of the Roman church have no more than the Protestants or the Jews? Well the Latin rite has more than everybody, much more than all the rest put together. And why, with the disclosure of the Criminale Solicitacciones document from the Vatican archives going back to John XXIII, reiterated by Cardinal Ratzinger on behalf of John Paul II? Two years ago they were instructing bishops to protect these criminals, even transferring them internationally so they couldn’t be prosecuted, on the Vatican’s instruction. It’s remarkable.

You’ve perhaps heard of the “rat route”, how the Roman Catholic Church protected Nazi war criminals like Eichmann and helped them escape to South America. One was arrested in France only a few years ago; he was hidden for more than 40 years. They used to help Nazis escape justice, now they help priests escape justice.

Now again, I’m only stating a fact. Why is there so much of this in the Roman church and so less in other churches? Why is there so much of it in the Latin rite but so little in your Eastern rite? I'm reading from the epistle of St. Paul to Timothy. In 1 Timothy 4:1...

But the Spirit...
...that is, the Holy Ghost...

But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons...

...doctrines of devils.

by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage...

Why? In the New Testament, why if St. Paul, specifically instructed by the Holy Spirit, say requiring celibacy is a doctrine of devils, does your church practice it? When you outlaw what is natural, people will do things which are unnatural. When God created sex He said it was good in the book of Genesis. That is why even in your own church you find it only in the Latin rite, not in the Greek. That is why you don't find it among rabbis or Protestant ministers in anything like the same proportion. It’s a doctrine of devils.

St. Peter was married, his wife’s name was Deborah. Most of the apostles were married. To forbid it would be a doctrine of devils. What can be more demonic, more Satanic, more evil, than having sex with little children and doing so in the name of Jesus Christ? How can something be so Satanic? Because it comes from a doctrine of demons. How can you as a Roman Catholic believe in a religion that practices what is plainly and clearly called a doctrine of devils, and you see the fruit of it in the newspapers every single day of the year? How can you defend it? How can you defend a doctrine of devils and the devastation it causes to little children?

Jesus said, “Suffer the children unto Me for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. (Mt. 19:14; Mk. 10:14) He said it would be better if a millstone were tied around your neck and cast into the sea than hurt one of these little ones. (Mt. 18:6; Mk. 9:42; Lk. 17:2) He didn’t say rape them as your clergy does. Not all of your clergy, no, but your hierarchy protects and covers up for it, and other clergy have admitted on the witness stand they knew what was going on for years and kept their mouth shut to protect their colleagues who did it, instead of the children who suffered it, It is a doctrine of devils.

Why do you believe in something so wicked, something so antagonistic to the nostrils of Christ, something that’s unthinkable in the dimension of evil and occupies? Why do you believe in a church that teaches a doctrine of devils? That's my question: Do you really believe such people are the guardians of your soul?

But I have one final question for my Roman Catholic friends.

And I assure you I have many friends, I am not speaking antagonistically or with hostility to any Catholic people. I'm only asking you these questions which I’d like you to answer, I invite you to answer. Engage with me, there’s one more I’d like to ask you.

I am told that the doctrine of the mass says Jesus must die and again and again and again sacramentally. The same sacrifice that took place on Calvary happens in the mass: He dies sacramentally. He has to die again, again, and again. Remembering that the Lord’s Supper – communion, the Eucharist as Catholics would define it – comes from the Jewish Passover which is a memorial, you remember something already happened, the Roman Church rather says, “No, it continues to happen sacramentally.”

I'm reading from the epistle to the Hebrews 7:27, Christ...

who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.

Why is there daily mass when it says we don't need a daily Mass? The Old Testament sacrifices that took place daily with the priests in the temple were symbols of what the Messiah would do. Given the fact that He came and did it, we don't need it anymore according to the epistle to the Hebrews.

The epistle to the Hebrews 9:12...

and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He... ...that is, Christ...
...entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

If it’s “eternal” it means it’s forever and ever without end, without beginning as such – it’s eternal. He did it once and for all for all eternity. Why is there a mass?

Chapter 10 of Hebrews, verse 12...

but He...
...that is, Christ...
... having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, One sacrifice for sins for all time.

Verse 14...
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

If something is perfection, by definition it cannot be improved upon. How can you improve upon perfection?

Catholic Friend

Come out of her, My people