Pope and His Priests - Still Telling God What to Do

“In honor of the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of St Paul, Pope Benedict XVI has designated June 2008 through June 2009 as the Pauline Year.” This was reported in the Aug 22 Catholic Universe Bulletin, the newspaper of the Diocese of Cleveland, Ohio, in an article titled, “Pilgrims Celebrate Pauline Year Close to Home.”

The pope likes to demonstrate how he can boss God around. One way is how the pope gives priests power to command Christ to turn Himself into wafers and wine – a truly awesome spectacle!

Another example of this power is the indulgence – whereby the pope relieves Catholics the temporal punishment of their sins by instructing them to do certain rituals or visit certain places.

To celebrate the birth of Paul, His Holiness had “A decree published by the Apostolic Penitentiary (that) offers a plenary indulgence to pilgrims honoring St Paul. Ideally, the pilgrim would visit St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, where St Paul is entombed.”

However, in these times of a slow economy and weak dollar, Cleveland bishop Richard Lennon has recognized that many Catholics can’t get to Rome this year. Therefore “Lennon has applied the decree to churches in the Diocese dedicated to St Paul.”

So……all a Catholic has to do to get this indulgence is to make a short pilgrimage to one of the churches named St Paul in northeast Ohio. That’s a lot cheaper than going all the way to Rome!

Comment – At least Bishop Lennon is allowing Catholics a full indulgence if they confine their “pilgrimage” to northeast Ohio. Earlier this year when the pope went to World Youth Day in Australia, he granted full indulgences to those who made trip down under, but only partial indulgences for those who stayed home and only prayed for the event.

This is the heart of the Roman priesthood – that sinful man commands and God jumps. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (para 882) says the pope has: “Full, supreme, and universal power over the whole church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered.” This is wickedness! How dare a mere man claim such power!

Question - what is the “god” of Rome like? Answer – in 2008-2009 “god” will give special privileges to those who visit a parish named St Paul, but not a parish named anything else! This is absurd. Please pray that the God of the bible would free people from such a foolish and false religious system.

Bone Chips or the Bible?

A “silver box containing a small piece of bone believed to be a 2,000-year-old fragment of the remains of St Andrew” was stolen Aug 4 from the Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church in Lowell, Massachusetts. This was reported in the Aug 9 Boston Globe article “Church Says Relic of Saint Stolen.”

The priest said, “What was beautiful for us here is what was inside the box.” The bone inside was about the size of the tip of a left pinkie finger.

The priest also said, “The relic of St Andrew is a beacon for prayer, symbolizing the purity of life.”

This priest is crazy! A bit of bone calls people to “prayer” and “purity??”

Comment – It’s the bible that points us to purity, not bone chips from who knows where! Psalm 119:9 says:

“Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed therefore to Thy word.”

The unregenerate mind, be it Catholic or its close cousin, the eastern so-called “Orthodox,” has this bizarre idea that dead body parts somehow help people draw closer to God – and this is straight out of paganism:

1. In ancient Greece, the shoulder blade of Pelops supposedly delivered the Eleans from pestilence.

2. The bones of Hector were brought to Thebes and reverenced because Zeus was impressed by this.

What can this priest do? He could easily solve his problem by putting a chicken bone in a box, and no one at his church would know the difference!

I’ll take the bible over bone chips any day of the week! Please pray daily for conversions from these eastern so-called “Orthodox” churches, as well as conversions from Romanism.

Roman Cardinal: Illegal Immigration "A Call to the Kingdom of God"

The Catholic Church unveiled its newest “reason” for promoting illegal immigration into the USA. This was seen in a speech given to the US Catholic “National Migration Conference” by Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the “Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers,” and reported on in a July 28 Zenit News Agency article titled, “Cardinal Looks at Role of Providence in Migration.”

This new theme can be summed up as: ‘Illegal immigration is how God is building unity in His church (read – Catholicism) and making it “visible.”’

Here are a few samples of what His Eminence said:

“The phenomenon of migration contributes to making the true face of the universal Church visible.”

“The passage from monocultural to multicultural societies can be a sign of the living presence of God in history…for it offers a providential opportunity for the fulfillment of God’s plan for a universal communion.”

“Migrants, too, can be the hidden providential builders of such a universal fraternity…”

“Today’s migrations may be considered a call, albeit a mysterious one, to the Kingdom of God…”

“The migration phenomenon…contributes to making the true face of the Church visible and brings out the value of migrations from the point of view of ecumenism…”

Comment - According to Martino, illegals crossing our borders are “providential builders” calling us “to the Kingdom of God.” Only a Catholic cardinal could be so brazen as to tell such a LIE!

Yes……I would agree that Catholicism is being made more “visible” through illegal immigration. But then, Catholicism is not God’s church! Catholicism is Satan’s counterfeit church.

God’s real church – those who have been born again and are trusting in Christ ALONE for salvation – is made “visible” by the preaching of the word of God! Acts 4:4 says:

“Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of men was about five thousand.”

Please keep praying that God stops illegal immigration. (Don’t count on Bush, McCain, or Obama to do anything about it.) Rome is hoping that the USA can be turned into another Latin American country – with all the poverty, disease, squalor, superstition, and corruption that Catholic Latin America has been always famous for.