FELLOW PROTESTANTS…
YOUR LOCAL ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST
HAS SOMETHING TO TELL YOU!
"My Protestant friends! In our little ecumenical get togethers, I forgot to tell you that we priests are very powerful people indeed.
Did you know that I claim to be Jesus Christ Himself? The Council of Trent Catechism affirms that "Christ and the priests are one priest…that as the victim is Jesus Christ, the priest also is the same Christ our Lord" and that we are so exalted that we "are called not only angels but God's, holding as they do the place and power of God on earth."
Alphonsus de Ligouri, whose works were declared by Pope Pius VII (1803) and Pope Leo XII (1825) to be without error, wrote: "It
is an article of faith that when they [we priests] pronounce the words
of consecration [in the mass] the Incarnate Word has obliged Himself to
obey and come into their hands under the sacramental species." (Selva,
p26) and again: "The priest
has the power of delivering sinners from hell, of making them worthy of
paradise, and of changing them from the slaves of Satan into the
children of God…What God can do by His omnipotence, the priest
can do by saying Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis." (Selva, pp27,35)
Indeed even if I live in what my church calls "mortal sin" I can "still exercise the same function of forgiving sins as ministers of Christ." (Council of Trent Catechism) In all this I am protected by the notorious anathema's of the Council of Trent.
Is it little wonder that the chaplain of one of the Kings of France used to say: "With my God in my pocket [mass wafer] and my king at my knee [Confessional] Who can greater be?"
Protestant friends! Don't take refuge in Vatican II or in the more
recent Catechisms. There is nothing there which contradicts what is
written above. Indeed Vatican II promised to "follow on in the footsteps of the Council of Trent" (P111) and "further the work begun" by that famous Council (pp 456- 457)
We just don't talk about it any more the way we used to…but that
doesn't mean it's not there. The 1994 Catechism reassures us that "The
infallibility promised to the Church is also present in the body of
bishops, when together with Peter's successor, they exercise the
supreme Magisterium, above all in an Ecumenical Council." (p207) which includes Trent.
No wonder your Reformers denounced us as Christ's enemies and
antichrists! We just find it a little amusing and encouraging that many
of you have ceased warning your flocks against us and actually welcome
us into your pulpits."
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And Jesus answered and said unto
them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my
name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. (Matthew 24:4-5)
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The following words come from the pen of John Calvin. In our day and
age, we might consider his words to be somewhat "over the top" but we
must bear two things in mind before we pass judgement.
1) Calvin himself was a converted Roman Catholic. He had been a victim
of these men and their false teaching and here we see the anger of
Calvin coming through when he doubtless remembered his own experience
of them and the ongoing experience of many of his fellow country men.
2) The moral standards of the priest in the days of the Reformation
were not hard to succeed. History relates to us that even the higher
positions of the Roman Church were morally filthy and Calvin is simply
passing on what was probably common knowledge in those days.
"Wherein we see how our Lord Jesus
Christ is bereft of his priestly dignity which was given him of God his
father, even with solemn oath that he should never have any successor:
but yet for all that the Papists make him a thousand thousand
successors. And what manner of men I pray you? Surely if they were
Angels of heaven, yet ought they to be taken for devils. But their
choice is of all the vermin of the world, of all the rascals, and of
all naughtipacks [wicked, dissolute men]: and shall we say that such a
rabble are the successors of our Lord Jesus Christ." John Calvin
(Sermon on Galatians 4:1-4)
THE END
Cork Free Presbyterian Church, 10 Briarscourt
(Annex) Shanakiel, Cork, Ireland