The Claims of Rome
W. Carl Ketcherside
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The Roman church proposes an easy answer. In its claim of universality it contends that it alone can stem the tide, and the only hope of world survival lies in the union of the strength of all believers under the pontiff in the Vatican. To many, beset by fear and tormented by doubt, this claim appears legitimate, and they surrender to it as the only alternative in a distressed world. But the contention of Rome should be critically scrutinized in the light of history, on the same basis as Communism. It is the application of a theory to human eventualities which reveals its real nature. Communism purports to free men from intolerable conditions, but if its history reveals a story of torture, banishment, blood purges, concentration camps, and slave labor, the facts belie the claims. Romanism should be tested by the past.
It is our thesis, herein, that Roman Catholicism offers not an alternative to Communism, but merely the substitution of one authoritarian system for another, and that both of these employ, or have employed, identical methods for exercising tyranny over the minds of men. In the development of my presentation, I shall have no accusation to make against members of the Roman Catholic Church. Many of them are sincere, conscientious and upright in life. They exemplify a religious pattern in which they have been reared. I do not question their integrity, impugn their motives, nor doubt the fidelity of their citizenship. They are answerable to God, not to me, for their religious convictions and practices. My investigation is not in the field of individual conduct of priest or parishioner, but of Romanism as a system, purporting to be the true church, and thus commending itself as the only lawful defender of Christianity.
The Roman Catholic Church offers as the credentials to prove that she is the true church, what she calls her four marks. Of these it is said, "The marks of the Church are external, objective signs by which the Catholic Church can be certainly known as the authentic Church of Christ." These marks are unity, catholicity, holiness and apostolicity. In our brief examination of these, we shall not enter into debate on the doctrines of the Roman Church. Our concern is whether
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We live in a world filled with conflict, tensions and disagreements. The soul of man desires unity and harmony. There is an ever present danger that men will grasp at a straw without investigation of its support. The Roman Church claims to have united men in faith, worship and government. This is her first credential. Is it valid?
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The claim for catholicity is generally based upon universality of classes in constituency, numerical strength, and geographical spread. It is argued that the Roman Church is catholic because rich and poor, strong and weak, learned and unlearned are found in its membership, and because it is larger than all Protestant sects combined, and has spread to every region accessible to its missionaries. We believe there is a fallacy in this reasoning, and while it may appeal to the pride of the hierarchy, it does not prove the catholicity of the Roman Church.
The church of God is a spiritual institution and its catholicity must he determined within the realm assigned to it by God. But all of the proofs submitted by Rome are physical and tangible. It is not a question of whether representatives of all secular trades, professions, and degrees of intellectual attainment are in the organization. Nor is it a question of contrast in size with another organization, or a combination of organizations. The church of God was catholic on the day of Pentecost when it made its advent into the world. It did not develop this characteristic by admitting other nationalities. It was catholic as a part of its divine nature. The church of God is catholic because it embraces every child of God on this earth. Every saved person in the world is a member of it, added to it by God himself. To admit that there are saved persons outside of the church to which one is attached is to deny the catholicity thereof to that extent, and to affirm it is a sect, that is, a segment containing only a portion of the saved.
The church of God was catholic from its very inception. On the occasion of the first presentation of the Good News, all who gladly received the word were baptized, and all who were thus baptized were added to the body. It contained all the saved on earth that day, although there were only Jews in its number. It was universal in the spiritual realm, and has never been otherwise in any generation.
The Roman Catholic Church lays no claim to special holiness of individuals within it. It offers the holiness of its doctrines as a mark of identity. One modern apologist has written of opposers, "Perhaps they may point to a few bad popes. But they have never discovered any evil doctrines. And the very fact that the Church's teaching has ever remained pure and sublime, despite some bad popes and bishops, is even a greater miracle than if all its rulers were saints." Many are restrained from investigating doctrinal errors in these days of softness and compromise. But Rome bases her contention
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Alphonsus Liguori was canonized May 26, 1839, by Gregory XVI. Before this event his writings were subjected to twenty rigorous examinations by the rules of Urban VIII and Benedict XIV. They were approved with "not one word worthy of censure." In his Moral Theology, Liguori says, "Although it is not lawful to lie, or to feign what is not, however it is lawful to dissemble what is, or to cover the truth with words or other ambiguous and doubtful signs for a just cause" (Vol. 1, page 364). Again he says, "It is lawful to induce a man to commit a less evil, if he has already determined to perpetrate a greater" (Vol. 1, page 420). Once more he writes, "To swear with equivocation (when there is a just cause, and equivocation itself is lawful) is not evil" (Vol.2, page 118). To teach that it is lawful to do evil that good may come is the basis of immorality, and contravenes the law of God.
The claim to apostolicity centers around origin and doctrine. Neither is correct. The Roman Catholic Church did not originate with Christ or the apostles. There was a church of God in Rome in apostolic days, but it was not the Roman Catholic Church. This latter is a sect, and the mother of all sects. It is a defection from, not a continuation of, the primitive church. It is a combination of Judaism, paganism and Christianity, blended together in an authoritarian system, without scriptural sanction, and anti-scriptural in doctrine and practice.
The argument for "apostolicity of doctrine" in the face of the recognition of tradition as equally binding with the written word, is calculated to mislead only the careless and unconcerned. The doctrine of the mass, transubstantiation, infant sprinkling, papal infallibility, celibacy of the clergy, extreme unction, penance, indulgences, priestly absolution, auricular confession, holy incense, holy water, purgatory, worship of saints, genuflection before images--all of these and many more, are not apostolic. Rome attempts to make them so by wresting, twisting, and juggling the holy scriptures, but the absurd attempt only makes apparent the dearth of apostolic sanction.
We conclude that the criteria which Rome offers, when fairly measured, destroy her claim to be the true church of God, and reveal that she is rather a great religio-politico creation, spawned by a lust for power, pride and wealth. We turn now to a consideration of the reasons why the Roman Catholic Church can never be the answer to the problem of the world in its search for strength of leadership in the great conflict with atheistic Communism.
The Roman Catholic Church is not the kingdom of heaven, but a replica of the Roman Empire with Christian emphasis. It is a revival of Caesarism with headquarters in the same city where it formerly flourished. The Caesars were conquerors of universal ambition. Under their sway the whole earth became tributary to Rome, the Mistress of the Tiber. Not only the temporal, but also the spiritual dominance of the earth became theirs under the prevailing cult of emperor worship. Their rule was broken and Rome shaken by the assaults of the
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Upon the ruins of pagan Rome, the "Holy Roman Empire" was built to recapture the glory that surrounded the previous empire. The splendor and pageantry which once surrounded the Caesarean court were borrowed by the papal representative; and he became the new pontifex maximus, adopting the very title once worn by the emperor. Thus, emperor worship was revived, and a royal scepter again wielded in the hand of one who claimed temporal and spiritual sovereignty over the whole earth. The pagan world was subjugated, and appeased by adoption of their own superstitious rites, amulets, and charms, and the integration of their festal days as occasions of religious significance with a Christian bearing.
But the empire of popedom was also shattered by forces from the very same region as those which attacked the previous empire. In Germany, Switzerland, and Bohemia, there arose men who stormed the spiritual and temporal bastions of papal power, as did the Huns, Goths, and Visigoths, the empire of the Caesars. Their work was enhanced by the growing sense of democracy and human rights, which sought to free men from tyranny of mind and slavery of body. Every gain in the realm of individual conscience was a loss to Roman dominance. In the revolt against tyranny and the inauguration of an "Age of Reason" men went to the other extreme as masses always seem to do when in the process of gaining freedom, but gradually reason prevailed in the Western world and an era of unparallelled progress was ushered in.
But the seeds of Caesarism are hardy. There is reason to believe that the papacy has continued to nourish them, although buried from sight. The dream of world conquest with Rome as the center or hub of the universe has not completely faded. It is for this reason succeeding popes are Italian. Theoretically, it is believed the choice of a pontiff is directed by the Holy Spirit, but if this is true, the Spirit is prejudiced in favor of Italians. No doubt it was this reason which lay behind the endorsement of Benito Mussolini by Pius XI, who alluded to him as "the man sent by Providence," and furnished motivation for Cardinal O'Connell of Boston to refer to the fascist dictator as "A genius in the field of government given to Italy by God." But Mussolini did not prove to be the new Constantine, as he was designated by the Archbishop of Milan.
The Catholic Church poses as a champion of anti-Communism. Its propaganda is intended to create the impression that there is no other effective medium of opposition--it must be either Catholicism or Communism. This projected role coincides with the fears projected in America, and the hierarchy sensing the timeliness of the claim, works overtime to bolster the contention. It is made to appear that those who challenge these claims are Communist sympathizers, or fellow-travelers. At the risk of being branded, I deny the Catholic propaganda. Here are some of my reasons for doing so.
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Dominick, called "Saint" by the Roman Church, founder of the order of the Dominicans, is generally credited with being the kindling spirit of the Inquisition. It was intended to ferret out and exterminate "heretics," as Rome designated those who dared to think for themselves. This court of cruelty was presided over by a general inquisitor, called Il Padre Reverissimo, the Reverend Father, and associated with him was the ordinary, or local bishop as conjudex, or co-judge. Human depravity has reached no deeper state than it did in the hearts of those who devised the rack, the pulley, and the pendulum, to torture and wring confessions from the bleeding, broken specimens whose only crime was that of protesting against a despotic religion.
"Saint" Liguori in his Moral Theology, Vol.4, page 239, deals with the Inquisition, and how to make it an effective agency for extirpation of heresy. He affirms that heresy is a crime of the deepest dye, and urges the necessity of the child denouncing his own father, and the father denouncing the child, to the Inquisition, in case of heresy. This may be where the Kremlin learned how to handle effectively those who disagree with current political philosophy as enunciated by the ruling cult.
Rome makes a lame attempt to wash her hands of guilt by claiming that the Inquisition was the work of secular government. But those who are students of history know that "the secular arm" was an arm of the church in the countries where this diabolic engine flourished. And Rome cannot expunge the authorizations of her own popes.
Alexander IV issued a bull in A.D. 1254, in which he lamented the rise of heresy in Italy, and established the office of the Inquisition to eliminate the heretics, urging all to aid in this work. Urban IV, in 1262, issued a bull, "That the office of the Inquisition might be more efficaciously fulfilled...and the vine of the Lord--the heretics being exterminated might bear the fruit of Catholic purity." Clement V, in the Council of Vienna, A. D. 1311, issued the decree, regarding treatment of heretics, "But to deliver them into hard bondage, or close confinement which pertains rather to punishment than to close custody--or to expose them to tortures, or to proceed to sentence against them, the bishop shall not be able to do without the inquisitor, or the inquisitor without the bishop or his official."
It was in Spain that the Inquisition reached its true depth of infamy. Here, Roman priestcraft had forcibly subjected Jews, under threat of punishment and death, to what was termed "Christian baptism." Their infants were snatched from their arms and taken to the cathedrals, where they were sprinkled. Many of the Jews outwardly submitted to "baptism" but secretly kept alive their rites of Judaism. To hunt these down "the hounds of heresy" were given the power of the Inquisition. Torquemada, whose name lives in infamy, was appointed In-
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As late as February 20, 1751, Benedict XIV, published a bull relating to heresy, in which he said, "If the crime of heresy is treated of; since, by our predecessor, John XXI, who is called XXII, in his constitution beginning 'Ex parte vestra' in the Roman Bullarium, Vol. 1, it has already been decreed, 'that heretics, or those suspected of heresy-- also Jews, who, when they have been converted to the Catholic faith, thence fell into apostacy--if they fly to a Church, ought to be immediately dragged out from thence by the inquisitor...."
The Roman Catholic religio-politico system offers no adequate defence against Communism. Both are totalitarian, both have employed the same means and taken the same measures to tyrannize human thought. The freedom of mankind will be endangered by one as much as the other. Although the threat against liberty comes from different angles, and with divergent emphases, the ultimate goal will be the same. The alternative then for the lover of truth, is not Communism or Romanism, but opposition to both of these, and for the same basic reasons.
If this article falls into the hands of those who are members of the Roman Catholic communion, and if they should dare to read it, we beg all such to remember that our opposition is not to them as individuals. We love and respect those who are sincere in their honest convictions. We entertain no personal feeling of hatred or animosity toward any of them. Our controversy is with the great system of error to which they have pledged allegiance, but while we are committed to an unrelenting conflict with all forms of error and tyranny, we maintain a deep love for those in error. We represent no anti-Catholic party, steeped in bigotry and dealing in innuendo and spite. Our opposition is not based upon the fact that certain ones are Catholic, but that Catholicism is systematized error, containing a threat to what we hold dear. We oppose it, not because it is Catholicism, but because it is error. The writer is a member of the holy, catholic, and apostolic church of the new covenant scriptures, and of nothing else religiously. The Roman Catholic Church is a deviate from that church, and we earnestly pray that all of our friends who are members of it will study, investigate, and resolve to become Christians-- and Christians only! One may do that and be neither Roman Catholic or Protestant!