Pope Benedict XVI, Martin Luther, And Ecumenism

 March 2008

Benedict XVI To Rehabilitate Luther?

Pope Benedict XVI is to rehabilitate Martin Luther, arguing that he did not intend to split Christianity but only to purge the Church of corrupt practices (Owen, Richard. “That Martin Luther? He Wasn’t So Bad, Says Pope.”  TimesOnline. March 6, 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk).      

Whether Luther intended to split Christianity or not, it happened and for the better, and Benedict is in no “heavenly” position to restore Luther to Catholicism. Why should Benedict be so willing to restore Luther to Catholicism whom Catholics labeled a heretic for more reasons than the mere posting of the 95 theses? (Benedict is to issue his findings on Martin Luther in September 2008.)  There is more to this act of kindness than meets the eye.
 

Cardinal [Walter] Kasper said: ‘We have much to learn from Luther, beginning with the importance he attached to the word of God.’ It was time for a ‘more positive’ view of Luther, whose reforms had aroused papal ire at the time but could now be seen as having ‘anticipated aspects of reform which the Church has adopted over time’ (Ibid.).

The Church has adopted reforms over time? Maybe, but not the kind of reforms Luther had in mind. Luther’s diatribe was about more than wanting to see change concerning the Catholic Church’s corrupt indulgence system.  His eyes were opened regarding a whole host of dogmas. So for Benedict to want to restore Luther while ignoring the fact that Luther was profoundly against Catholicism, Brothers and Sisters, something just isn’t right with that goodwill gesture.      
    

It’s a truth that initially Luther was much troubled about people buying plenary indulgences to secure eternal life, for the remission of their sins, and for their love ones in purgatory. It went much further than that with Luther as he became a man hell-bent on bringing down papal authority.  His views had changed on a lot of the Catholic Church’s teachings. Luther believed faith alone secured salvation, and he denied free will.  He wanted the Catholic priesthood changed since he believed the priesthood to be made up of each believer who needs only Jesus Christ as mediator between them and God. He also believed the whole Catholic pecking order of bishops and the priesthood was unnecessary.  Luther believed the Bible alone was what the people needed and not the counsels, tradition, and the infallible pope.  He even saw the pope as the antichrist.  He disavowed the transubstantiation dogma and believed  the seven sacraments didn’t cause grace. (Seven Sacraments: baptism, confirmation, holy Eucharist, penance, extreme unction, holy orders, and matrimony.) Luther wanted the papacy stripped of its wealth, power, and pageantry. He even wanted to see priests and nuns permitted to marry. So, why through restoration, give a ‘more positive’ view of a man who hated practically everything the Roman Catholic Church stands for?  There is an ulterior motive, Brothers and Sisters.  There is an ulterior motive!   
 

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the move would help to promote ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Protestants. It is also designed to counteract the impact of July's [2007] papal statement describing the Protestant and Orthodox faiths as defective and “not proper Churches”  (Ibid.).

Cardinal Kasper said it all. Almost all, anyway.  Benedict wanting to rehabilitate Luther is to (1) help promote ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Protestants; (2) soften the pain of the “verbal-Vatican-stones” thrown at Protestants that the world is witness to; and (3) influence Protestants to follow after the “really nice” Pope Benedict XVI since he would be the one to remove the heretic label from the founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther. So by removing the heretic label from Luther, it softens the verbal attacks against Protestants primarily coming from Benedict XVI.
 

If the Catholic Church is to continue trapping Evangelical Protestants in their ecumenical web, they have to do as they’re doing: (1) first hit them with heavy blows by throwing verbal-Vatican-stones in the form of lies such as “Protestants are not the true church of Jesus Christ” and “Protestants are defective because they are not of the Catholic Church”; and (2) then follow the blows with sugar-coated meaningless words to sooth the Protestants’ heart-felt pains from the insults to bring them to believe that Catholics didn’t really mean what was said about them, when in truth they really did.  That’s to regain your trust – get you back to the table of dialogue. They defame and humiliate you before the whole world and then woo you with sweet words that could never pass for truth nor an apology. Wise up, dear Protestant Brothers and Sisters! The proposed rehabilitation of Martin Luther comes with a price tag.

The Verbal-Vatican-Stones Thrown At Protestants

Benedict XVI is pushing to unify all Christians under his wings and he’s luring you in by wanting to restore reformist Martin Luther after almost 500 years of having been excommunicated from the Catholic Church as a heretic.  Imagine that! You must keep in mind though that Benedict XVI is a man whose reputation precedes him. He is the same man, who from 1981 to 2005, as Cardinal Ratzinger, was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of  the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office (of the inquisition) that was set up chiefly to combat heresy the likes of Protestantism. (Nothing was holy about the inquisitors labeling Protestants as heretics to justify murdering them.)  It was in that office that he threw a verbal-Vatican-stone titled “Note On The Expression ‘Sister Churches’” that officially ordered Catholic bishops not to refer to Protestant churches as sister churches. (Cry me a river!) With the late Pope John Paul II’s approval, it was in August 2000, that Razinger published the declaration known as “Dominus Iesus.” 

Stone 1: In then Cardinal Ratzinger’s declaration, it states that non-Catholic Christians, whom Catholics refer to as “ecclesial communities” (Evangelical Protestants), are not churches in the proper sense and they suffer from defects. In other words, dear Protestant compatriots, your not being in full union with Catholicism, means you’re not really in union with Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ until you come under the pope and the Catholic Church. You’re not in full union with them because you are defective Christians who have not “…preserved the valid Episcopate [governance by Catholic bishops] and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery [transubstantiation]” (Catholic Church. Declaration Dominus Iesus On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church. Vatican City: Congregation For The Doctrine Of The Faith, August 6, 2000. www.vatican.va).            

Brothers and Sisters, YOU ARE THE CHURCH!  You are not some ecclesial community that the Catholic Church declares you to be.  You are once again reminded by Catholics in that same declaration, that the Catholic Church is the single church of Christ and is the mother of all churches, which is a lie. Cast behind you the Catholic forgeries and fraudulent writings from so-called early church fathers and take a look at Acts 23:11 where the Lord Jesus spoke to Paul that he would bear witness of Him in Rome.  When Paul was taken from Jerusalem to Rome as a prisoner, while dwelling alone, he called in the chief Jews who apparently knew very little, if anything, about Christianity.  They told Paul, “We neither received letters out of Judea concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came showed or spake any harm of thee. But we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest [teach]: for as concerning this sect [Christianity], we know that every where it is spoken against” (Acts 28:21-22). It’s clear from those two verses of Scripture that there were no Christians in Rome until Paul got there around 61 A.D. and preached to the Jews about Jesus from his prison house. Because some of the Jews believed and some didn’t (Acts 28:24), it was then Paul said, “Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it” (Acts 28:28). Based on that one, of many, irrefutable evidences in the Bible, the Church of Jesus Christ did not begin in Rome hence disagreeing with the claim of the Roman Catholic Church being the one true church. True Christianity began in Jerusalem, not Rome; and will close out in Jerusalem when Christ returns, not in Rome.

There were no Christians in Rome until after Paul and the disciples that came out of his ministry began to minister about Jesus. The point being, Jesus did not start His church in Rome! Peter did not start the church of Jesus Christ in Rome!  Brothers and Sisters, two-plus-two equals four.” Do the math! So much for the Catholic Church being the single church of Christ; the “mother of all churches”; and the one true church. Catholicism hijacked True Christianity by perverting it with paganism and lies while in cahoots with Satan and his attempt to prevail against the True Church of Jesus Christ.  Be wise as serpents! You are the Church! You are the True Church.

Stone 2:  When Benedict XVI became pope, he appointed Cardinal William Levada to his old position of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.  In June 2007, Levada, with Benedict’s blessing, published the declaration “Responses To Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church” that consisted of five questions supposedly for church clarity on the Second Vatican Council and ecumenism.  It was the same old stuff Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) had brought out in his 2000 declaration, Dominus Iesus, about Evangelical Protestants not being the church of Jesus Christ but ecclesial communities suffering from defects. There is no hiding their uncompromising beliefs about Evangelical Protestants.  That’s what identifies Catholicism’s intolerance of the right of others to practice their faith as they will.

Lavada’s declaration was softened by Benedict through Cardinal Walter Kasper just as Benedict’s (then Ratzinger) declaration had been softened by John Paul himself. It’s a game! Once again, after throwing those verbal-Vatican-stones at Protestants containing their heart’s truth spoken about Protestants, then followed were softened words so that Protestants would not jump off the ecumenical bandwagon before surrendering to the pope.  It happened at the Third European Ecumenical Assembly in September 2007 when Cardinal Kasper was present and spoke to reporters about the declaration referencing other churches not being proper: “…we did not mean that these others were somehow false churches.  We meant that the EKD (Evangelical Church in Germany) or the Church of England, for example, have a different understanding of what the church is” (Mackay, Maria and Eric Young. “Vatican Representative Tones Down ‘One True Church’ Statement.” Christian Post, September 6, 2007. www.christianpost.com). Yeah, sure. And you have it right straight from Jesus’ mouth, right? Lies and more lies.

It is clear the Vatican is playing a game and it is not a very funny one.  As long as there are schisms in Christianity, the Catholic Church’s full universality cannot come to fruition until Protestants surrender to her and her pope.  That’s the reason for the Catholic game of them boldly and loudly declaring to you and the world that you are not the church.  That shows her strength while at the same time discharging scorn upon you.  Then she comes a little later to take the edge off the blows so that you are kept right where she has you until you finally bow and kiss the ring of the pope as your Vicar of Christ and put the little pagan wafer on your tongue. Dear Brothers and Sisters, the devil is slick but not slick enough if you will allow yourselves to see right through the ruse. If you will just see Catholics for what they really are, then they will go absolutely nowhere with there Protestant conversion trick unless you are willing to give up all your beliefs and conform to Catholicism. Consider this, they will never ever conform to your truths nor compromise their false teachings because there can be no change to Catholic dogma.  To change Catholic dogma would be to deny that the Catholic Church is the one true church as she claims, which is a lie as well.

All The More Reason To Be Wise As Serpents
 

The move to re-evaluate Luther is part of a drive to soften Pope Benedict's image as an arch conservative hardliner as he approaches the third anniversary of his election next month (Owen, Richard. “That Martin Luther? He Wasn’t So Bad, Says Pope.”  TimesOnline. March 6, 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk).           

It’s unlikely rehabilitating Luther is part of the drive to soften Benedict’s image as a hardliner, and unlikely is it to soften Benedict’s image anyway because “…the German pontiff comes across as cold…” (Reuters. “Film-maker Zeffirelli Vows To help Pope With Image.” December 15, 2007. http://www.reuters.com/ ). Yes, the man is cold. You can see it in his face. He doesn’t have that unnatural “animal-like stare” in his eyes and that unnatural frozen smile on his face because he has the Holy Ghost.  Those type eyes and that frozen smile are signs of one who is an agent of the devil. Benedict XVI’s rehabilitation or restoration of Martin Luther is for a far more apocalyptic reason than meets the eye because as pope, he shouldn’t care about how he comes across since he is the so-called “Vicar of Christ.”         

The Pope’s heart is set on bringing Protestants into the Catholic fold after 500 years of disunity.  During the 2008 annual “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” with the theme being “Pray Without Ceasing,” Benedict spoke about Christian unity from the window of his study to a crowd of about 200,000 people telling them they "have the duty to pray and to act in order to overcome the divisions between Christians, and to respond to Christ's express wish 'Ut unum sint' [may they be one]. Prayer, conversion of hearts and the strengthening of spiritual bonds of communion represent the essence of this spiritual movement [ecumenism] which we hope may soon lead Christ's disciples [Protestants] to the joint celebration of the Eucharist, the expression of their full unity" (Vatican Information Service. “Pope: Evangelizing Mission of Church Follows Path of Ecumenism.” Catholic Online, January 22, 2008. http://www.catholic.org). He means that, the day Protestants receive the Catholic “holy Eucharist” or communion wafer, which supposedly is the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ (transubstantiation), that is the day you will be in full union with Catholics and under the leadership of the pope and the Roman Catholic Church.

In the meantime though, Benedict sees your separation representing “an obstacle to [Protestants] their acceptance of the Gospel…" (Ibid.).  Benedict is saying that you really haven’t accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ because you’re not in unity with the Catholic Church. The pope is saying to you that if you had truly accepted the Gospel as you claim, then you would be in “his” fold as Jesus expressed.  Benedict wants to make certain that you know that it was never hidden that Catholics do not see you as Christians, and will not until you (1) accept the pope as Vicar of Christ; (2) accept apostolic succession; (3) accept the priesthood, and (4) accept the Eucharistic mystery (transubstantiation – communion wafer) along with many of the other pagan practices. Dear Brothers and Sisters, once that Catholic wafer hits your tongue, you will be in full union with the Catholics. You must never let that happen.

Restoring Luther to good graces isn’t going to soften anything about Benedict XVI’s looks and behavior for it is intended to soften the hearts and minds of Evangelical Protestants toward Catholicism and one day, soon, accept the pope as their teacher. (Pope: Latin is papa meaning tutor – your instructor; Greek: is papas/pappas meaning father – your vicar).  Oh, how clever! Brothers and Sisters, remember, be wise as serpents because that’s the only way you’re going to outmaneuver Satan and his Catholic wiles.
 

It Can Happen Again, And Will

Do not think for one moment that the Catholic inquisition won’t happen again because it is about to, and at the hands of those representing the Roman Catholic Church (false prophet of Revelation’s Babylonish whorish system). After receiving orders from the pope, taking the lead will be the “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” It is going to happen again – to modern-day Protestants for refusing unity with the Catholic Church hence barring her pope from having absolute primacy over all Christians. 

Benedict XVI is not the Vicar of Christ; he heads an earthly kingdom called the Vatican State, and Christ concretely said his kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36) and said nothing about leaving a kingdom behind. The pope is a fleshly worldly king and that’s not King Jesus. He has the earmarks of a fleshly worldly king:
 

• He is the ruler of the smallest self-governed state in the world
• He lives in the Apostolic Palace
• World ambassadors are appointed to the Vatican
• He has an army
• People going before him or have an audience with him must bow before him and kiss his ring
• People going before him must wear black or dark clothing given that he wears white so that he stands out as his holiness.  

Brothers and Sisters, this is so diametrically opposed to Jesus Christ and His Gospel that you should have no difficulty in breaking those ecumenical ties with the Roman Catholic Church.  God is not in that.  If you can’t see from all of that that Catholicism is not true Christianity, you are spiritually blind.  If you can see it, then stop trying to become one with them through dialogue. If you can see it, don’t fall for the pope’s act of courtesy toward Martin Luther the accused heretic.    

In Closing
 

Churchgoing people, your ecumenical philandering in actuality is with Satan through his Roman Catholic Church.  The distinguished Catholic Cardinal Newman once said, “…either the Church of Rome is the house of God or the house of Satan; there is no middle ground between them” (Newman, John Henry. Essays, Critical and Historical [Vol II]. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1919, p 116). Comparing Catholic dogmas and behavior to the Word of God, it is the latter – “the house of Satan.” It is not the house of God. Protestant ecumenists, when are you ever going to grasp that truth and cease the dialoguing with the whore who sits “a queen, and am no widow, and will see no sorrow” (Revelation 18:7)? 

Please don’t drop your guard for one moment and give in to the hand extended to you by Pope Benedict.  What price for one-world communion!  Agent Benedict has insulted Evangelical Protestants about not being Christians and all for no other reason than he is working on something evil to bring you down a peg or two before you are completely hypnotized and reeled in under his authority. He’ll first bring you down a peg or two with insults and then soften you with worthless olive branch gestures such as restoring Martin Luther to good graces. Benedict is a pompous man and is letting you know that his excrement doesn’t stink, and he is above all of you and you w-i-l-l bow before him, the Vicar of Christ.  Brothers and Sisters in The Lord, this you want to be in union with? There is more to Christian unity than “what unites us.” It’s about a perfect-fitting belief in all of the same teachings originating from the Gospel of Jesus Christ that brings about unity.  Otherwise, remain divided for your salvation sake.      

Brothers and Sisters, the pope figures that if he tells you loud enough and long enough that you are defective and not real Christians, then you will begin to believe your salvation really is in the Catholic Church and make the “journey home” so to speak. Nobody but the devil could come up with such a tactic to spiritually and mentally beat you into Catholic submission.  Look at the fingerprints! But bless God, it will not happen as Benedict XVI and his church has planned if you’ll just stop pushing toward unity with them based on the few commonalities that you share. You’re not brothers and sisters in the Lord with Catholics anymore than you are with Muslims.  Would your brothers and sisters be out to dominate you and bring you into compliance with teachings that are unscriptural? Cardinal Walter Kasper even said, “ecumenism is not an option but an obligation” (Associated Press. “Cardinals Discuss Pentecostal Threats.” Google on the web, November 23, 2007). As has been with past popes, Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church are committed to bringing all professing Christians under the pope. It’s an obligation! Since it’s an obligation, that’s why the disingenuous act of kindness toward Martin Luther and Protestants. Be wise as serpents!