The Vatican resides on the former temple site of the Roman Sun god, Mithras. The ancient Obelisk phallic symbol in St. Peter's Square was brought to Rome from Heliopolis (Greek for Bethshemesh) by a Roman Emperor, many centuries before Jesus Christ lived, and before Christianity.
The cruel Christian murdering Emperor, Caligula in 37-41 A.D., when the ancient mystery religions of Babylon and Egypt were popular as official state religions in Rome, had the red granite obelisk brought to his circus on Vatican Hill. In 1586 A.D., Pope Sixtus V., instead of destroying this abomination, had the pagan emblem moved, at great expense, the short distance to St. Peter's Square and erected this phallis symbol from pagan fertility worship directly in front of St. Peter's, which claims to be the Holy Mother Church of Jesus Christ!
One can only wonder why one who claimed to act with the authority of God on earth would want this reprehensible symbol of evil, which with it's foundation is 132 feet tall, and weighs 320 tons, placed in front of a "house of worship to the Living God."
The Vatican City is situated entirely within the city of Rome, sprawling over a hill west of the River Tiber, and separated from the rest of the city by a wall. Vatican City comprises St Peter's Church, St Peter's Square, the Vatican and the Vatican Gardens. The Vatican City is best known to tourists and students of architecture for St Peter's Basilica. Leading up to it is the 17th-century St Peter's Square. On either side are semi-circular colonnades, and in the centre of the square is the Egyptian obelisk
The Vatican Gardens can be visited only by those on guided tours or bus tours. Tickets are available from the Tourist Information Office in St Peter's Square; it is advisable to apply two days in advance. To the right of St Peter's stands the Vatican Palace, the Pope's residence. Among the principal features of the Palace are the Stanze, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Collections, containing major works of art and valuable pictures. There is a restaurant in the museum and a bar and cafeteria on the roof of St Peter's.The square and colonnade form entryway to what is commonly considered the greatest church of Christendom by the secular world, dominated by the Dome of Michelangelo, although it is very difficult to imagine Jesus Christ in such a setting. The construction of this basilica, plagued by numerous obstacles and problems,was carried out by Michelangelo, Giacomo della Porta and Domenico Fontana. The basilica rises over the foundations of a paleochristian Church, which, claimed to have been built over the tomb of the Martyred Apostle Peter.
Renaissance archaeologists loved Roman culture, but they were also fascinated by Rome's great, mysterious relics of ancient Egypt: the obelisks, some of them inscribed with mysterious hieroglyphs, that Roman emperors had brought across the Mediterranean. One of these relics, at once threatening and magnificent, was still standing by the Vatican; others were discovered underground. Scholars tried to understand their messages and functions. The imperious pope Sixtus V had five of them raised -- a job so hard that Michelangelo had refused to undertake it.
The pope believed ownership and display of these ancient pagan symbols showed Christianitys worldly supremacy over Rome and Egypt alike in its pomp, power and glory, although Jesus himself had said "My kingdom is not of this world."
Cesare Baronio, in Annales ecclesiastici (Annals of the Church) a Latin Autograph Parchment ca. 1600 engaged in Historical Revisionism. This work is a classic of Counter-Reformation scholarship -- an effort to show that the true church had always been Roman Catholic, although it had not.. The manuscript shows that Carlo Baronio inserted his reference to the forged works of the Egyptian prophet Hermes Trismegistus -- a glaring error for which he was chastised by the Protestant Isaac Casaubon - -into the text of his church history only after he had composed it in draft. The manuscript, with its many corrections and additions, gives a good sense of the scale of Baronio's enterprise as well as of the occasional dishonesty of his research and criticism of sources.
Francesco Colonna, Venice 1499, used a romantic, pseudo-Egyptian image which was widely reused in the sixteenth century. The book it came from, the Hypnerotomachia, was a fanciful, romantic text, in a strange mixture of Italian, Latin, scrambled Hebrew, and imaginary hieroglyphs. Its illustrations, drawn in a skillful, austere style that seemed authentically classical to many readers, incorporated genuine Roman ruins and reliefs. The book did much to spread a taste for Egyptian relics and to heighten "Christian" scholars' and artists' interest in the decipherment of hieroglyphs and other esoteric aspects of the ancient Mystery religions.
Lorenzo Valla, Declamatio on the Donation of Constantine Fifteenth century This document is one of the monuments of historical criticism. Lorenzo Valla here attacks the Donation of Constantine, an eighth-century forgery which supported the papacy's claim to supreme political authority in Europe. Valla shows that the text could not have been written in the fourth century, the age of Constantine the Great, by revealing many anachronisms in form and content.
Roman Catholicism claims to be the original one true church of Jesus Christ, but it is not. Roman Catholicism dates from the early 4th century, 313 A.D., when Constantine, Emperor of the Roman Empire declared Christianity an official state religion - one of many.
The Oath of the Jesuits The Warrior Priests of Roman Catholicism
The Reformation began in 1517 when a Catholic priest named Martin Luther, nailed his 95-points of righteous protest against Roman abuse and biblical errors to the door of the church in Wittenburg, Germany. The Reformation resulted from centuries of political, financial and spiritual bondage to Rome by citizens of the countries of Europe who were hunted down, tortured and executed unless they bowed to Rome's authority.
The order of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) was created in 1534 by Catholic priest, Ignatius Loyola to suppress and try to destroy the Protestant Reformation. Today, they are the eyes and ears of Roman Catholicism and have actively intervened in societies, and in governments - during World War II in the Balkans, by slaughtering thousands of the Serbs who belong to Eastern or Orthodox Christianity, on behalf of the Nazis, and by fighting to impose "Marxist Liberation Theology" in countries of South and Central America, in the last two decades. Each of the Jesuits has sworn a pagan oath to the Pope in their own blood.
The Ceremony of Induction and Extreme Oath of the Jesuits - from the Library of Congress, Washington D.C. Catalog Card 66-43354:
A Jesuit to be elevated to command, is brought in front of an altar with a Superior in front, and a monk on either side. One holds a Papal banner of yellow and white, and the other a black banner bearing a dagger, and red cross over a skull and crossbones with the words: INRI IUSTUM NECAR REGES IMPIOS meaning It is just to exterminate or annihiliate impious or heretical Kings, Governments or Rulers. Kneeling on a red cross on the floor, the Superior hands him a small black crucifix, which in his left hand, he presses to his heart, and a dagger, grasped by the blade, he holds against his heart, with the Superior holding the hilt, who now addresses him as follows:
"My son, heretofore you have been taught to act the dissembler: among Roman Catholics to be a Roman Catholic, and to be a spy even among your own brethren; to believe no man, to trust no man. Among the Reformers to be a Reformer, - among the Calvinists, to be a Calvinist; among the Protestants, generally to be a Protestant; and obtaining their confidence to seek even to preach from their pulpits, and to denouce with all the vehemence in your nature our Holy Religion and the Pope; and even to descend so low as to become a Jew among the Jews, that you might be enabled to gather together all information for the benefit of your Order as a faithful soldier of the Pope.
"You have been taught to insidiously plant the seeds of jealously and hatred between communities, provinces and states that were at peace, ad incite them to deeds of blood, involving them in war with each other, and to create revolutions and civil wars in countries that were independent and properous, cultivating the arts and the sciences and enjoying the blessings of peace.. To take sides with the combatants and to act secretly in concert with your brother Jesuit, who might be engaged on the other side, but openly opposed to that with which you might be connected; only that the (Roman) Church might be the gainer in the end, in the conditions fixed in the treaties for peace and that the end justifies the means
"You have been taught your duty as a spy, to gather all statistics, facts and information in your power from every source; to ingratiate yourself into the confidence of the family circle of Protestants and heretics of every class and character, as well as that of the merchant, the banker, the lawyer, among the schools and universities, in parliaments and legislatures, and in the judiciaries and councils of state, and to "be all things to all men," for the Pope's sake, whose servants we are unto death.
"You have received all your instructions heretofore as a novice, a neophyte, and have served as a coadjutor, confessor and priest, but you have not yet been invested with all that is necessary to command in the Army of Loyola in the service of the Pope. You must serve the proper time as the instrument and executioner as directed by your superiors; for none can command here who has not consecrated his labors with the blood of the hereticfor "without the shedding of blood no man can be saved.; Therefore, to fit yourself for your work and make your own salvation sure, you will, in addition to your former oath of obedience to your Order and allegiance to the Pope, repeat after me.
"I, Name of Jesuit, Now in the presence of Almighty God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Blessed Michael the Archangel, the blessed St. John the Baptist, the holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and all the saints and sacred hosts of heaven, and to you , my ghostly father, the Superior General of the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius Loyola, in the Pontificate of Paul the Third, and continued to the present, do by the womb of the Virgin, the matrix of God, and the rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear, that his holiness the Pope is Christ's Vicegerent and is the true and only Head of the Catholic or Universal church throughout the earth; and that by virtue of the keys of binding and losing, given to his Holiness by my Saviour, Jesus Christ, he hath power to depose heretical kings, princes, states, commonwealths and governments, all being illegal without his sacred confirmation and that they may safely be destroyed.
" Therefore, to the utmost of my power, I shall and will defend this doctrine and His Holiness' right and custom against all usurpers of the heretical or Protestant authority whatever, especially the Lutheran Church of Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and the now pretended authority and churches of England and Scotland, and branches of the same now established in Ireland and on the Continent of America and elsewhere; and all adherents in regard that they be usurped and heretical, opposing the sacred Mother Church of Rome, I do now renounce and disown any allegiance as due to any heretical king, prince or state named Protestants or Liberals or obedience to any of their laws, magistrates or officers.
"I do further declare that the doctrines of the churches of England and Scotland, of the Calvinists, Huguenots and others of the name Protestants or Liberals to be damnable, and they themselves damned and to be damned who will not forsake the same.
"I do further promise and declare, that I will have no opinion or will of my own, or any mental reservation whatever, even as a corpse or cadaver, but will unhesitatingly obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors in the Militia of the Pope and of Jesus Christ.
"I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity presents, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth; and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants' heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race. That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poinard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private, as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus.
"In confirmation of which, I hereby dedicate my life, my soul and all my coporeal powers, and with this dagger which I now receive, I will subscribe my name written in my own blood, in testimony thereof; and should I prove false or weaken in my determination, may my brethren and fellow soldiers of the Militia of the Pope cut off my hands and my feet, and my throat from ear to ear, my belly opened and sulphur burned therein, with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me on earth and my soul be tortured by demons in an eternal hell forever!
"All of which, I Name of Jesuit, do swear by the blessed Trinity and blessed Sacrament (wafer), which I am now to receive, to perform and on my part to keep inviolably; and do call all the heavenly and glorious host of heaven to witness these my real intentions to keep this my oath.
"In testimony hereof I take this most holy and blessed Sacrament (wafer) of the Eucharist, and witness the same further, with my name written with the point of this dagger dipped in my own blood and sealed in the face of this holy convent."
The Jesuit then receives the wafer of the Mass (Communion) from the Superior and writes his name in his own blood which he has taken from over his heart, with the point of his dagger.
True Biblical Christians dared to study the Scriptures, in defiance of the death penalty the Pope of Roman Catholicism had decreed for that offence. Some were willing to defy Rome i.e., by refusing to baptize infants into the church until they had reached the age of reason, for which there was also a death penalty. These groups were called anabaptists - ana meaning rebaptize or 2nd baptism - Independent church groups of believers requested baptism into the body of Christ only upon personally believing in Christ's atonement for them on the cross, and only after repenting for their sins. These are biblical requirements that babies cannot fulfill! Entire families were mercilessly slaughtered by the Roman Catholic Church for these beliefs, for although they were pleasing to God, they threatened the absolute "temporal" power and control of the worldly "Holy Mother Church!"
"From 328 A.D., when Constantine removed the capital from Rome to Byzantium (now Constantinople), the history of the (Christian) Church, like that of the Empire, was divided into Eastern and Western, and its Jewish roots, festivals and feast days, which the Apostles and early believers had observed, were deliberately suppressed. They were replaced by pagan observances, relabeled to appear Christian. Pagan statues of gods and goddesses were given Christian names and called saints, and were prayed to, as they had been when called gods and goddesses. The visible church lost much of its spiritual life and hence also of its missionary vision.
It fell into a deep sleep from which it was not aroused for many centuries. Alas, that the Western church employed worldly tactics and sought to attract pagans by the glitter of religious paraphernalia and elaborate ceremony rather than by the power of the gospel."
"As a protest and reaction against this state of affairs many devout men withdrew into solitude, thus laying the foundations of "Christian" monasticism, however, the concept of monks and monasteries had existed within Buddhism for hundreds of years before "Roman Catholicisms perversion of Christianity ever took place.
A few, more discerning of God's call to fulfill the "Great Commission, Christianity's real need, and of the only way to meet it, heroically gave themselves up to the task of penetrating distant wilds with the "good news" of the cross. The missionary work of the several centuries which follow, however, stands out in contrast to that of the early Church because it was the effort of only a few individuals and not of the Church as a whole."
To justify their invalid claim of original Apostolic Succession through Peter, Rome misinterprets the verbal exchange between Jesus and His disciple, Peter, in Matthew 16:13-19, which God has recorded in His Holy Word, as follows:
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
And they said, "Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets."
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"
Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, [Greek for Messiah] the Son of the living God."
And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
"I also say to you that you are Peter [Greek is Petros, a stone; pebble], and upon this rock [Greek is petra, large rock; bed-rock] I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind (forbid) on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose (permit) on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."
It is obvious that "petros," which means Peter, and is a small stone or pebble and "petra," a large boulder or bedrock indicating the foundation on which Christ will build His church, clearly reveals a play on two different words, and that the bedrock or foundation of the Church is not Peter, but Christ is made quite clear; it was his confession of faith alone, that "Jesus is the Christ" that gave to Peter, and gives to a believer; any believer, the keys to the kingdom of heaven.
Two chapters later in Matthew 18:18-20, Jesus speaks to all of His disciples, telling them, as He had Peter that whatever they permitted or forbid in His body of believers, would be honored in Heaven, just as it would for Peter.
Matthew 18:18-20: "Truly I say to you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. "Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, there I am in their midst."
Only four verses later in the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, after having called Peter "blessed" for believing in Him as Christ, Jesus found it necessary to severely rebuke Him for speaking against God's plan, against Jesus' revelation - that He must be put to death, and resurrected on the 3rd day: Matthew 16:21-24:
From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things
from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.
Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You."
But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God's interests, but man's."
Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me."
This verbal exchange between Jesus and Peter makes it evident that Peter had free will, as do all men, and that He could receive and believe what God the Father revealed to him one day, and a few days later be influenced by Satan, whom Christ called a Liar, and the father of liars, a Deceiver, and our Adversary. Never was Peter acknowledged as the head of the Church of Jesus Christ. No man on earth has Biblical authority to head the entire church. Only Jesus is the head of His Church.
But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them.
It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave;
just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many"
Contrast these qualities Jesus said His church should exhibit, with the greed of the false church leaders who teach heresies to solicit funds from poor parisheners in order to "pray their deceased loved ones out of "purgatory," a term and procedure unknown to God, for His Holy Word knows nothing of purgatory, as we know from 2nd Corinthians 6-8:
"Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."
Through their exerted control over their followers, through false teachings, false practices, and greed, the Roman Catholic Church has become one of the wealthiest institutions on earth, and, as documented in The Vatican Empire by Nino Lo Bello, is reported to have untold billions in Swiss bank accounts. As God forewarned us of false religious leaders, in His word, in 2nd Peter 2:3, they have "made merchandise" of those who fall victim to their teachings. These teachings are refuted and condemned by Almighty God, in His Holy Word, the Bible.
The same characteristics of monetary greed that prompt the false teachings of "purgatory" were found in the religious leaders Jesus condemned in Matthew 21:12-13:
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves.
And He said to them, "It is written, "MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER'; but you are making it a ROBBERS' DEN."
Jesus critized those who delighted in display and recognition, and commanded His church leaders not to seek titles, but to be humble and to maintain equality with all other believers: Matthew 23:6-12:
"They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues,
and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi (Teacher) by men.
But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.
Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.
Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.
But the greatest among you shall be your servant.
Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted."
"Many successors of the apostles, who reared the edifice of the church on the foundations which they had laid (of the body of Christ), continued the work of preaching the gospel, and scattering abundantly over the whole earth the wholesome seed of the heavenly kingdom", as related in the historical writings of Eusebius, one of the most prolific authors of the early church leaders (266-340 A.D.).
"A very large number of disciples, carried away by fervent love of the truth, which the divine Word (of God) had revealed to them, fulfilled the command of the Saviour to divide their goods among the poor. Then, taking leave of their country, they filled the office of evangelists, coveting eagerly to preach Christ and to carry the glad tidings of God to those who had not heard the word of faith.
And after laying the foundations of the faith in some remote and barbarous countries, establishing pastors among them and confiding to them the care of those young settlements, without stopping longer they hastened on to other nations, attended by the grace and virtues of God."
"In 240 A.D., when Gregory Thaumaturgus went as a Bishop to Neo-Caesarea, chief town of Pontus, he found there only seventeen Christians, and when he left in 265 A.D. he left only seventeen pagan non-Christians," according to Rev. Robert Hall Glover, author of The Progress of World-Wide Missions. "About the same time Cornelius, Bishop of Rome, recorded the number of Christians in Rome as fifty thousand, or one-twentieth of the total population of one million."
"There were ten distinct periods of Roman persections ranging from A.D. 64, under Nero, to A.D. 303, under Diocletian. In the catacombs of St. Sebastian in Rome rest the bodies of 174,000 martyrs, nor were these by any means all who loved their Master even unto death.
Needless to say, all such efforts to quench the vital spark of divine truth, far from suceeding, only fanned it into a flame and scattered it the more widely. The blood of the martyrs proved then, as it has proved ever since, to be the seed of the Church. Among the earliest and most noted of the martyrs in Rome, were Paul, Ignatius, Polycarp and Justin Martyr."
"By the beginning of the fourth century, Christian Missions had so covered the then known world, that when Constantine came to the throne (of the Roman Empire), he found Christianity if not numerically, at least intellectually and morally, so potent a factor that it must be considered and deferred to. It could not be ignored."
"Constantine's professed conversion on the eve of his becoming Emperor of Rome was the beginning of a mighty change in the outward standing of the Christian Church , but (alas) also in its inward character. The story is well known of his seeing a wonderful cross in the sky with the words "In hoc signo vince!" (By this sign conquer!).
At once adopting the cross as his standard, he led his armies on to victory. Then, in his famous Edict of 313 A.D., he proclaimed Christianity a State religion, although he personally did not accept Jesus Christ as his Savior and officially convert to Christianity for many many years, until on his death bed."
"Viewed from without the 313 A.D. Edict seemed a glorious triumph for the faith, and it is true that it meant new safety of profession and liberty to preach - freedom from persecution. But in reality it spiritually wrought grievous injury to the true cause of Christ through the infusion into the Church of a great mass of idolatrous heathenism."
"The foes who had previously threated the Church from without now began to attack it, as a Trojan horse, from within. Purity of faith and simplicity of worship gradually were lost and spiritual declension set in. Missionary zeal and activity at once began to wane. The Church leaders were compelled to divert their energies from propagating the gospel to defending the faith.
"From a purely missionary point of view, it began the system of compromise with error - of nationalism instead of individualism in conversion. In the East their policies made the church an easy prey to Islam, and in the West produced Jesuit Missions. The goal of "nationalism" is still fostered by the Jesuits even today. With it, they have created "Liberation Theology" throughout South and Central America, substituting political power and monetary affluence for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Their secret oath, upon entering the Jesuits, as revealed in it's entirety above, is an abomination to Jesus Christ and a blood curdling threat to all other peoples, to all those who refuse to bend and kiss the ring of their Pope.
Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." John 6:35-40
The erroneous pagan doctrine of Transubstantiation, taught as official dogma to justify the pagan Mass of Rome, has created great persecution of the Jewish people and of bible believing Christians who have, through out the centuries, refused to accept it.
Because of the horrendous false teaching of "blood libel" of the "Host" during past centuries, the persecution and murder of untold numbers of the Jewish people has resulted, by those who professed to be followers of Jesus Christ.
The idea that the 'literal body of Christ' is contained within a wafer or cookie, and that the way we "receive Christ" spiritually is to consume "the host" in worship during the Mass, is derived from ancient paganism, as the word cannibal is from Kanna Bel, and in ancient Babylon the priest (Kanni) was required to consume portions of anything sacrified to Baal or Bel, and human sacrifice was required; thus Kanni Bel became cannibal.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of "transubstantiation" is not a Biblical premise and could never be substantiated from the Holy Scriptures, but is from ancient paganism, for Jesus, at His "Last Supper," which, was the Jewish Passover (Pascha) Seder (meal), told his disciples that, in the future, when partaking of the bread and wine, to do so "in remembrance of His body and blood, which was to be shed for them."
Practitioners of modern Roman Catholicism, although among the most genuinely devout and "religous" peoples on earth, in the sincerity of their worship, as they have been taught worship, in their devotion to their religious observances, and in their wholehearted generosity to charitable works, have been left spiritually in the dark for centuries.
Unbiblical and ungodly leaders have contradicted the Bible's clear command to all men that they should study God's word, and have taught them that only the Pope, the Bishops, and the Priests of Rome can correctly interpret scriptures, knowing that whenever people read the Bible they can see that it does not teach any of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholics are left with no incentive to read and study God's word. Roman Catholic doctrines, teachings, and forms of worship, as developed and handed down, over the centuries, by the Vatican hierarchy, are unbiblical, and completely contaminated by the inclusion of nonChristian and/or preChristian forms of worship, i.e., paganistic beliefs, and the vain imaginings of unholy, power hungry leaders, who, in their satin robes, jewels, Palaces, and vast estates, are a legacy of the Roman Empire.
Roman Catholic practitioners have been deprived by their church, of the assurance of salvation that God's word promises them, and are prey to the greedy doctrines of the purchase of prayers for their loved ones, after death, to remove them from "purgatory," and of indulgences to reduce their time in purgatory by days, or weeks... to release their loved ones souls to heaven. God has said in Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast."
All of the following unbiblical Roman Catholic teachings and practices initially compiled and edited by Keith Green, in his Catholic Chronicles, are to be found detailed and endorsed in either, or sometimes both of the Roman Catholic publications: The Catholic Encyclopedia, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Included are the dates by which they had been officially adopted by church councils and/or proclaimed "dogmas of faith" by the Pope.
None of these practises were ever commanded by God as they are not even mentioned in His Holy Word. They are men's traditions, and have all been traced back to pre-Christian pagan religions; thus, they are formed from man's religious rebellions against God, in combination with a false interpretation of God's revelation in His Holy Word, all assimilated into Catholicism, creating the unholy "mixture," or "strange fire upon the altar" in worship, that God says He abhors.
Refuting these extraordinary claims of the Roman Catholic church about Mary, are Jesus' own words in the following verses of scripture:
Luke 8:20-21 "And someone said to Him (Jesus), Your mother and your brothers are outside desiring to see you. But he said to them in answer, My mother and my brothers are those who have knowledge of the word of God and do it."
Luke 11:27-28 "And it came about while He (Jesus) said these things, one of the women in the crowd raised her voice, and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts at which You nursed." But He said, "On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God, and observe it."
Throughout God's word, the Holy Canon of Scripture, adding anything to, or taking anything away from what God has said is absolutely condemned:
Deuteronomy 4:2 "You shall not add to the word which I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you."
Deuteronomy 12:32 "Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it."
Proverbs 30:6 "Do not add to His words Lest He reprove you, and you be proved a liar."
Isaiah 66:4 "So I will choose their punishments, And I will bring on them what they dread. Because I called, but no one answered; I spoke, but they did not listen. And they did evil in My sight, And chose that in which I did not delight."
Matthew 15:8-9 "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men."
Revelation 22:16,18-19: "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."
"I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book."(Source: http://www.bloomington.in.us/~lgthscac/romancatholicism.htm)
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