THE PAPACY IN BORN FUNDAMENTALIST, BORN AGAIN CATHOLIC BY DAVID M CURRIE

FOREWORD

I have many concerns about the Roman Catholic Church. I fear that fanaticism starts off with bizarre teachings such as that the bread of communion can be equal to a human being for it is a human being who is also God, Jesus Christ. When you can get people to believe that you could have got them to believe in sacrificing homosexuals to God just as easily for one seems as hard to believe as the other. The purpose of this page is to make people decide for themselves whether or not sending their children to the Catholic Church for religious instruction is a good thing.

We are leaving out his statements about bread and wine being changed by priests into the body and blood of Jesus as Mass as it is enough to show the Catholic clergy has no authority but has misappropriated it to show that its claims about the Mass are suspect and possibly downright false.

CURRIE SAYS, when the apostles chose a replacement for Judas Iscariot in Acts 1 that shows they had the power to pass on their office. The bishops have inherited their authority from the apostles. The Bible never says that any Christian at all can administer the Eucharist or the sacrament of absolving sins. Only properly ordained men can do it. The doctrine that the Church is the body of Christ means that when the Christian acts in the name of Christ it is really Christ who is doing the good work so in this context priest forgiving sins makes perfect sense.

THE TRUTH: They did it because they thought the scriptures told them to do it and predicted the event. Acts quotes a scripture that runs, let another his office take. They did not claim to make this man an apostle - they thought God had already chosen him as one and they were only acknowledging that. Also, it is stated in the Bible that Matthias, the replacement, was an eyewitness, being an eyewitness was essential for being an apostle. The Matthias episode has nothing in common with Roman Catholicism picking clergy who are not predicted in the Bible, who have never met Jesus and who do not claim to be apostles but the mere inferior stand-ins for the apostles.
 
In Catholicism, you feel a call from God. The Church will then ordain you. This is not recognising you as an apostle but making you one. It is entirely different.
 
To say that it is really Christ who does the good work is to deny human agency. If priests forgiving sins like they were Jesus makes sense because they are parts of the body of Jesus then they are Jesus and so their claiming to be God would make perfect sense. The distortion and obfuscation in this book is horrendous.
 
CURRIE SAYS, The priest is just the assistant of the bishop and has no right or authority to teach anything that does not fit the teaching of the bishop (page 69). When Jesus said call nobody teacher he did not mean this literally for even Evangelicals talk about Sunday-School Teachers.

THE TRUTH: These teachers do not see themselves as teachers but as vehicles through which Christ teaches so that Christ is the only teacher. So they are not literally teachers.
 
CURRIE SAYS, Since Jesus called Simon rock or Peter that was showing that Peter had a new role as the rock (page 75). Evangelicals argue that Peter's faith was the rock not Peter to avoid saying Peter was the first pope. But theirs is a strange interpretation.

THE TRUTH: Peter could be the rock without having a role. We must remember that Peter was chosen as the rock because of his faith meaning that the faith was the real rock so the Evangelical interpretation is not strange. Even Catholics hold that a pope without faith isn't much of a rock and that only a man of faith should be elected to the papacy. They agree with the Evangelical interpretation. The other ten or so Evangelical interpretations are conveniently omitted.
 
CURRIE SAYS, No group taught that the rock was anything other than Peter in the first few centuries (page 76).

THE TRUTH: Some fathers taught that the rock was Peter's faith or Christ himself.
 
Why is the fact that even the pope cannot be the rock without rocklike faith not mentioned? Because it shows that being the rock is conditional on faith. If Peter lost his faith he would be the rock no more. This would mean that Jesus could not have a papacy in mind for you can't appoint a new pope every time you think the pope has betrayed the faith or showed lack of faith.
 
CURRIE SAYS, Isaiah 22 speaks of the key representing the power to rule and pass on that power in reference to the Prime Minister Eliakim. This was the meaning Jesus had when he said he gave Peter the key of the kingdom of Heaven (page 80). It shows that Jesus meant for Peter to have a successor.

THE TRUTH: There is no evidence that Jesus was thinking of Isaiah 22 at all. Peter and the popes could not rule the kingdom of Heaven. They just had the key to open it up by their teaching.
 
CURRIE SAYS, Clement of Rome, a pope, wrote to the Church of Corinth and gave it commands (page 89). This would have been interfering had he not being the head of the Church.

THE TRUTH: The book assumes that because there is no record of Corinth being offended by these commands from Rome that it was accepted that Rome had authority over it. Silence in this case is no help for most ancient records have been lost. We only have a few documents from Clement’s day that have to do with the Christian religion so this argument is totally worthless. When we don't know if the Corinthians were offended clearly the author has no right to dare to say that this silence means they did approve.
 
Maybe Clement was asked to write to that Church. Many leaders in the early Church considered themselves as a invested with the right to rule the church as a unit so leaders/bishops could lecture Churches that were on the other side of Europe. Bishops did have to step in if the bishop of an area was not carrying out his duties properly.
 
In the letter Clement gave out about schism in Corinth. He uses the scriptures of the Christian religion and the traditions to justify what he says to them so he does not claim any authority of his own. He is only telling them what scripture commands. He is not acting like a pope. To act like a pope would involve claiming that God has put him in a position of authority so he should be obeyed. Clement doesn’t tell them that if they go into schism they are breaking away from him and he is the head of the Church. The letter has nothing to do with defending the papacy at all.
 
Clement uses we and not I like a pope would. He is speaking on his own behalf and on behalf of the other bishops as a whole. He is only spokesperson. When the other bishops like Clement could preach at other cities why couldn't Clement do it without being pope? I mean if you are pope you are head of the Church, the one that does the commanding. Bishops were also missionaries in those days and the diocese system wasn’t set up. They could preach and write to whatever city they wished even if there were bishops already in that city.  
 
And when Clement wrote that the apostles had all their doubts laid to rest when Jesus rose from the dead it shows that he had no links with the apostles though he claimed to have traced his succession from them. He would not count as a true pope because there is no way if the gospels are true that Jesus raised people from the dead and did incredible miracles before the resurrection that anybody could possibly wait until the resurrection to have their doubts cast aside.
 
CURRIE SAYS, The evil Vigilius stole the papacy to teach heresy and yet when he became pope he did the reverse and taught the correct doctrine (page 95-6). This indicates that God protects the pope from error.

THE TRUTH: There is no evidence that Vigilius did this because of virtue or because he let God be his guide.
 
What about the fact that many Catholics say they are unsure if Vigilius was a real pope? Some rock for the Church to be built on when nobody knows for sure if all the listed popes were real popes! Yet Catholics give this rock of theirs the right to advocate hatred against homosexuals and contracepting couples and divorcees!
 
What if the Great Western Schism when there were two and then three claimants to be the true pope had never been healed? There was no proof that any of them was a fake. The schism was started by cardinals who claimed they had rigged the election of the Roman Pontiff. You would have three men giving out allegedly infallible statements so what use is the papacy as a tool for uniting the Church and ruling it and keeping its faith pure? What use is infallibility when nobody knows which one is infallible? The fact that another schism like that could happen is proof enough that the papacy is a conscious deception. Men of outstanding craftiness and malevolence, Pius XII, John XXIII and John Paul II, have been popes.
 
Roman Catholics tell us about heresy against the Catholic faith being avoided by the popes. But what about their heresies against humanity? Catholicism is a cult. It tells you that instead of worrying about what the neighbours think, you should worry about God for God is all that matters - that is dangerous for affection for God is volatile and it is the fear of what others think that often keeps us civil. It makes it impossible to care if anybody dies young and tragically because the person is better off being away to meet God. It means that you can only be a Catholic who helps people the less you believe in your faith though nobody dares admit it! Putting God first just means you are willing to put a concept first no matter how much you feel you have met God in life. It is an intrinsically fascist idea and calls the world to hatred. That is what hatred is, putting an idea before a person and wanting the person hurt for the idea.
 
The Catholic Church excommunicates any Catholic who rejects the notion of Mary being assumed into Heaven. If the same Catholic is a terrorist and maims and kills women and children in explosions he will not be excommunicated. That is warped. Of course he will be excommunicated if he kills a bishop!