The multilingual master of historical and textual analysis, Metatron, saw fit to tackle Il Papa’s recent remarks about how all religions lead to God, in a detailed video in which he translated “the Pope’s” comments precisely and word-for-word from the original Italian:
As Metatron pointed out, the exact and specific translation of Bergoglio’s comments is accurate.
This means the extremely negative reactions by Christians around the world – the ones who actually understand the implications of what the Pope said, anyway – are entirely justified.
This is precisely why so many Christians outside the Catholic Church regard the Pope in general, and this particular “Pope”, specifically, as anathema. While I do not seek to attack my Catholic readers or their faith, the fact is that a considerable quantity of what the Catholic Church teaches, stands directly contrary to Scripture – and nowhere is this more clear than in Bergoglio’s statement.
All one has to do to realise how mistaken the “Pope’s” comments are, is to compare the various world religions to figure out what they say.
As Metatron points out, His Hugeness was EXTREMELY specific in the Gospels when He said that “no one comes to the Father except through me”. Which means that anyone who rejects the divinity, authority, and oneness of Christ Jesus with the Father – ALL of which the Big C claimed for Himself during His time on Earth – therefore rejects the Father Himself.
Izzlam rejects the divinity of Christ, and calls Him merely a prophet. Of course, Izzlam also contradicts itself repeatedly on the subject of Jesus’s powers, because according to their own books, their “Isa” had powers that only a creator-god could possibly have. They reject the Holy Spirit (yet they claim, with no evidence from their books, that Gabriel is the Holy Spirit), thereby performing the one unforgivable blasphemy.
So how can they possibly get to God, if their entire concept of God is mistaken?
Hinduism is a more complex case, because Hindus have a very pick-and-choose aspect to their faith – which is to say, they make themselves into their own gods, and that is absolutely the way to perdition and sin. They really do have a salad-bar approach to morality – that which is justified for one man, is sin to another. To them, syncretism is the name of the game – they are free to take whatever they want, from whichever Vedas or Upanishads or Gitas they want, and they are happy to listen to whichever sages they find the most compatible with their own personal belief systems. If you ask three Hindus what they believe, you will get five answers – and at least one of them will likely claim that Jesus was a Hindu.
In other words, they take the wide door that leads to destruction, NOT the narrow door that leads to salvation.
You can go down the list, through all the various pagan faiths, whose doctrines and teachings stand in stark contrast to the Christian ethic. Logically, it is simply not possible to reconcile those contradictions – you CANNOT on the one hand argue that pagan idolatry leads to God, and on the other hand argue that God rejects idols and sacrifices and seeks to give mercy for faith in Him. The two are not logically compatible. X cannot equal not-X.
The “Pope” further blasphemes when he claims that “God is a god for everyone”. Oh, really? Is that so? Because that is NOT what the Bible actually says – and that goes all the way back to Deuteronomy 32, in which God divided the nations of the world according to the number of the Sons of God, and kept Israel as His own portion.
In fact, the Bible makes VERY clear that there are many gods – small g – but precisely ONE God – big G. And those small-g gods are in many cases in open rebellion against His Hugeness. They do not want to obey Divine authority, because they want to remake their own nations according to their own image.
The Bible makes clear that to become a son or daughter of God, you have to accept the Holy Spirit into yourself, by stating that Jesus Christ has coexisted with the Father in Heaven eternally, was born of a virgin, came down to Earth to redeem Mankind, died on the Cross, and rose again on the third day. But this is absolutely anathema to most world religions – especially to Izzlam, and ABSOLUTELY to Talmudic Judaism. Both religions flatly reject the Christian doctrines of salvation – Jews don’t believe in Heaven, and Muzzlims believe in a very different kind of God than we do.
Further, is God a father to all Mankind? Not according to Izzlam. The highest relationship you can have in Izzlam with their fake moon-god, is that of a slave to his master. And, note, this is NOT in the sense of the Pauline Epistles, which state that we were once bondeservants (doulos, often translated as “slave”) to sin, and are now bondservants to God. This is NOT the same thing. According to the Izzlamick scriptures, Allah apportioned to every human being the amount of sin he or she would commit before he or she was ever born, and if humans refused to commit sin, then Allah would have made them sin anyway, because he wants slaves to glorify him.
That is NOT the Christian doctrine.
I could keep going in this vein for a very long time – and I am not even particularly well versed in the Bible. But I will close with one simple point:
The Fake Pope’s statement has done enormous damage to the Catholic Church’s credibility.
Christianity is NOT a universalist religion, in the sense that everyone goes to Heaven. That is NOT what the Bible teaches – in fact, it teaches that most people will burn in everlasting fire. Only those who truly believe in what Jesus said, and who do their utmost to live according to Christian principles – which, I repeat, are anathema and blasphemy to other religions – will go to join the Heavenly family at the end of days.
Churches and denominations that try to be “nice” and “accepting” to everyone, always and invariably die out. This has been the story of any number of Protestant denominations – particularly the Anglicans and the Episcopalians, for instance. The Fake Pope’s failure to hew to the actual teachings of the Bible, simply reaffirms in the minds of many Christians the old polemics made by hardcore Protestant rebels against the Catholic Church – and rightly so.
While I do not necessarily agree with those firebrands on many points – I still retain a certain respect for the Catholic Church, despite my strong differences of opinion with it – I do agree that the Fake Pope needs to go away, for the good of the church. His views are directly in contradiction to the Bible – to the words of sacred Scripture – and no amount of appealing to “tradition” is going to change that fact.
6 Comments
Contrary to popular belief, the Pope is not infallible. Papal infallibility is a very specific doctrine and cannot be universally applied. So yes, he is wrong here. It’s also why the Church has said from the beginning that authority comes from the Church itself and not one man in particular, as men are fallible but the Church is not. Francis has done far more damage to Christendom than good, but thankfully we are not beholden to his every word. You are allowed to ignore the Pope if he’s giving an opinion, or if he’s doctrinally in error.
That is all true – but note I never wrote one word about Papal infallibility in my article, so it is not particularly relevant to the argument. Bergoglio is wrong on the merits of his own “arguments” – whether papal infallibility gets involved, is besides the point.
Since I am not a Catholic, I care neither for the doctrine, nor for the Magisterium’s extra-Biblical teachings. I care about what the Bible actually says – and when “tradition” stands opposed to it, then either tradition must give way, or we must admit that those who follow tradition over the Law, are in error. There are no alternatives. Jesus Himself was perfectly clear about this when He told off the Pharisees, in the strongest terms possible.
Note also that this universalist doctrine is not new, nor unique to Bergoglio. The universalist tendency within the Church goes back well past Pope John Paul II – though most Popes were generally careful to avoid being quite so explicit about it as Bergoglio is.
This is just the latest in a long line of problem popes for the Catholic Church, whether or not you think old school Catholicism is Christian it is without doubt that every pope since Vatican 2 (including the pope who presided over Vatican 2) is a Catholic heretic. Even an agnostic like me can see that.
I think a lot of people do not understand papal infallibility. It only applies to questions of doctrine. For example, an argument whether or not gays can be married. More often than not, it’s about some sort of arcane minutia.
Far as everything else, well, popes are allowed to be morons and have dumb opinions. We’ve had heretic popes, we’ve had stupid popes. This too shall pass. I’ve not met one priest that agrees with what this moron says or mis-states. After his last fiasco with the blessing of the homos, usually the pastor came out (happened to me in two churches) and flat out said, whatever you thought he said they’d do, they weren’t. The problem isn’t the idiot pope. It’s the old, corrupt, and gay cardinals that put him there. Won’t be fixed until they all die off.
I saw a youtubes where an orthodox priest explained the schism between them and the roman catholics. Made sense to me, a cradle catholic. You can’t just up and change prayers that were said for over a thousand years, then declare you alone are the authority on such matters. (Previously, they decided those in councils).
So even though I’m devout, I take a lot of the pedantic nonsense that Roman Catholicism created at trent and later with a good dose of salt.
Here’s a noodle bender for you;
God is love. We are all children of God. Would God send one to hell simply because he didn’t know or hear about Christian dogma?
Think of a average Chinese mook, going about his daily bidness. Has no exposure to any religion really, let alone Christianity. Toss him into the fire?
How about Kaleb on Clarkson’s farm? There was an episode where Clarkson was telling him about the bebejeezis. First he’d heard of it. Told Clarkson, ‘no way’, that’s impossible. How about him? Does that count as being told?
I think the answer to that first question is manifestly no. God does not create his children for the express purpose of chucking them into the eternal fire.
That is not in the least bit difficult to answer – see Romans 1:18-32. It is all right there.
God loves us and wants us to be saved – certainly. But He ALSO respects our free will – which includes the freedom to choose sin. And He will never violate the sanctity of that free will by forcing us into His presence, if we do not wish to be in it.
And, indeed, that means most of humanity is destined to burn. Whether you or I like it or not.
I will give you a very personal example. My grandfather was basically an atheist all his life, though he never really said so out loud. When his youngest son was near death as a young child, he broke down and begged God to spare his son’s life – a God he neither particularly cared for nor believed in. His youngest son’s life was spared. That son became a dissolute and wretched example of everything wrong with humanity – a drunkard, a layabout, a womaniser, a cheat, a thief, and so on – yet he was also a devout practitioner of his people’s pagan religion, going to the temple and celebrating religious festivities with a zeal that no one else in our family ever had.
My grandfather rejected Jesus and the Father. My uncle rejected the gift he was given, and wilfully rejected God’s Law. The penalty for both is clear. It is my firm conviction that both my grandfather and my uncle are in Hell. I will never see them again. And I take absolutely no joy in that fact, because I was very close to both when they were alive and I was much younger.
This argument has a false premise. See above about free will and what God wants us to do with it. God creates His children to freely love and accept Him – and if they choose not to, well, that is what Hell is for. NOWHERE in the Scriptures does it say all, or even most, humans are bound for Heaven – nor can they be.