One Political Plaza - Home of politics
Home Active Topics Newest Pictures Search Login Register
Faith, Religion, Spirituality
New book clarifies beliefs and corrects Protestant misunderstandings about the papacy
Dec 6, 2018 09:45:31   #
Doc110 Loc: York PA
 
12/04/2018 New book clarifies beliefs and corrects misunderstandings about the papacy. (Part 1)

Stephen K. Ray
a. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/12/04/new-book-clarifies-beliefs-and-corrects-misunderstandings-about-the-papacy/
b. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/author/cwr-staff/

“Very few know the biblical foundation for the office of pope,” says Stephen K. Ray, co-author of The Papacy:

What the Pope Does and Why It Matters, “or the manner in which a pope is elected.

What is his job?

Can he ever be challenged or corrected?”




The entrance portal of St. Peter's Parish Church in Radovljica.

Stephen K. Ray is author of Several Books.
https://www.ignatius.com/cw_contributorinfo.aspx?ContribID=44&Name=Stephen+K.+Ray

Including:
Crossing the Tiber,
https://www.ignatius.com/Crossing-the-Tiber-P516.aspx

Upon This Rock, and
https://www.ignatius.com/Upon-This-Rock-P2535.aspx

St. John’s Gospel: A Bible Study and Commentary.
https://www.ignatius.com/St-Johns-Gospel-P181.aspx

He is also the host of the popular, award-winning film series on salvation history, The Footprints of God.
https://www.ignatius.com/Search.aspx?k=footprints+god


Raised in a devout Protestant family, Steve was once a deacon and Bible teacher in the Baptist denomination. 

An in-depth study of the writings of the Church Fathers played a key role in Steve and his wife Janet eventually entering the Catholic Church.


His new book, co-authored with Rev Dennis K. Walters, is The Papacy: What the Pope Does and Why It Matters (Ignatius, 2018),
https://www.ignatius.com/The-Papacy-P3050.aspx
Which both describes the Pope’s unique role as leader and teacher and addresses common misconceptions and objections to the papacy.

It also explains how the papacy developed, how the Pope is elected, and other important aspects of an often misunderstood and misrepresented office.

Ray recently corresponded with CWR about the book.


CWR: When you were a Baptist and looking at the Catholic Church from the outside, what did you think about the papacy?

Stephen K. Ray: A year before I was born my parents became Baptists; they prayed for kids and I was born a year later.

My father was taught to be very anti-Catholic.

He loved books and I still have many of his old books from the 1950s in my library.

I recall one even from my days of tussling with my brothers on the living room carpet. It loomed large on the shelf. I

t was entitled The Two Babylons and Papal Worship was in the subtitle [The Papal Worship Proved to Be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Babylons

That particular book is still on my office shelves today.

My father’s passionate Baptist views of Bible and Christianity had a huge impact on my early years, as I loved my father dearly.

If he said the Pope was the anti-christ and that Catholics worshipped the Pope instead of Christ, who was I to argue with him?

After all, I didn’t know any better and I didn’t know any Catholics.

As I grew older and experienced more of the wide world and other Christian groups.

I continued to view Catholicism as a “man-made institution” invented by clever men who twisted Scripture to manipulate gullible people who had never read the Bible for themselves.

I wondered:

Why would freedom-loving people in America want to let some old man in Rome tell them what to believe and what to do?

Hadn’t we overthrown kings and emperors?

Why subject ourselves again to a foreign leader named “the Pope”, who intended to encroach in every area of our lives?

We had the Bible and the “Bible alone” and that was enough for us.



CWR: What were some key arguments or facts that changed your views? And how do they inform this particular book?

Ray: Having no interest in the Catholic Church, other than to convert naive Catholics to real, biblical Christianity, several things converged on us at the same time.

First, we began to question our basic Protestant beliefs.

Our journey to understand the papacy and the fuller Catholic belief began, not with seeing anything positive about Catholicism;

Rather, it began with our disillusionment with our Evangelical Protestantism.

The whole issue of authority was one of those problems.


Second, we had a “good Evangelical” friend suddenly convert to Catholicism—and it shocked us.

In response I started reading the Fathers of the Church in an effort to prove to him that he had made a big mistake;

The early Christians were Protestants in their belief, right?

Well, did we ever get a shock!

The early Christians held to the same doctrines and authority structure that is practiced by the Catholic Church today.

Using the simple analogy of a tree, it was in a sapling phase that would eventually become the full blown tree, but organically it was the same thing taught in the Catechism today.

Multiple denominations with no common bond or authority also disillusioned us. God could not have meant his “church” to be divided and bickering among thousands of competing theologies and denominations.

Wouldn’t he have provided some kind of shepherd, captain, head, president, or something similar to keep unity and focus?

After looking at the Bible with new eyes I began to understand typology and the continuity between the two testaments, not only in the salvation story but also the way God organized and structured his covenant people.

The papacy was emerging not only as a good way to do so, and one that reflected God’s dealing with the Old Testament community, but also the structure that emerged in the New Testament and through the growth of the Church.



CWR: Do you find that some Catholics have flawed understandings of the nature of the papacy?

If so, what are some of those?

Ray: Unhappily, quite a few Catholics seem to have as many misconceptions as Protestants—but of a different sort.

Ask your average Catholic what “infallibility” means and you will get as many suggestions as you do facial expressions.

These range from a confident, though ignorant, answer to a puzzled face and garbled speech.

A few Catholics will provide a lucid and correct answer, but that is a rare phenomenon.


Very few know the biblical foundation for the office of pope, or the manner in which a pope is elected.

What is his job?

Can he ever be challenged or corrected?

The questions keep coming.

We thought it a good idea to provide a comprehensive “job description” of the pope.


The book is intended as a “one stop, one shop” place to get the basic A to Z of the papacy.

I think we succeeded.



CWR: So, is this book meant to inform Catholics for the most part, or is it written with non-Catholics in mind?

Ray: Confusion and ignorance of the papacy is not relegated to the Protestant and secular worlds alone.

Other major religions and ideologies also suffer a serious lack of understanding.

It is written with them in mind.

But most of our readers will be Catholics, and the book was primarily written for them.

Ignorance is a brutal task master and such lack of truth and understanding rapidly perpetuates itself in a web of confusion and spreading cloud of ignorance.

Truth and history, clarity and evidence help blow away the confusing cloud and liberates minds that are enslaved to error and ignorance.



My wife and I currently have fifteen grandchildren, with our sixteenth due in February. If nothing else, I want my own family to have a clear understanding of the biblical basis, the historical development and essential nature of the Church and its authoritative structure.

I want them to be Catholic into the next generations.

Faith and truth is not easy to pass on to the coming generations, but clear thinking and good books are certainly positive steps and important guides.

That is a key reason we wrote this book.



CWR: Did you write this book to address concerns about the current pontificate?

Ray: It seems clear to everyone—whether they are cheerleaders for Pope Francis or those of us who are watching and praying with some serious concerns—

That things are not as we’d like them to be.

There are divisions, conflicts, confusions, and uncertainty.

Popes are to be a uniting and clarifying force in the Church but what we sometimes see today tends to be quite the opposite.

This book, however, does not address Pope Francis or any pope in particular.

It is more to provide a “job description” by which any pope current, past or future can be judged as to the success of their pontificate.

When we have a clear outline of what the pope should do and why it matters, then we can ascertain a particular papacy on more than just emotion.

We can be much more objective in our evaluation. 



(End Part 1)

Reply
Dec 6, 2018 09:46:27   #
Doc110 Loc: York PA
 
12/04/2018 New book clarifies beliefs and corrects misunderstandings about the papacy. (Part 2)

Stephen K. Ray
a. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/12/04/new-book-clarifies-beliefs-and-corrects-misunderstandings-about-the-papacy/
b. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/author/cwr-staff/

“Very few know the biblical foundation for the office of pope,” says Stephen K. Ray, co-author of The Papacy:

What the Pope Does and Why It Matters, “or the manner in which a pope is elected.

What is his job?

Can he ever be challenged or corrected?”


It also assists us in our prayers and actions.

So, this book is not specifically to address current problems with the Vatican and Pope Francis.

No pope is perfect but this book gives the explanation of the job description and then each person can evaluate how well any particular pope lives up to that.



CWR: Can Catholics offer criticism of a pope? If so, how so?

Ray: It is a misconception that if someone disagrees with a pope they are a heretic or schismatic.

It is also a failure to understand the correct conception of infallibility, as though the pope cannot say anything wrong and we are obligated to believe and obey everything he says or writes.

Before we discuss the issue of criticizing or disagreeing with pope, we need to remember that the office of Peter, the office of the pope, is an institution established by Jesus Christ himself.

In Matthew 16 Jesus says to Peter, whom he is appointing as the Royal Steward of his Kingdom, that Peter is the rock on which the Church will be built—

Meaning not only the appointment of a man, but also the establishment of an office.

Every king in Israel had a royal steward who carried the keys of the kingdom to administer the kingdom as a delegated representative of the king himself.

Understood with a clear knowledge of the Old Testament we see Jesus as the king delegating his keys to his royal steward.

As such, we are to hold the papacy in the highest regard, with loyalty and deference. We are to have an attitude of deference and obedience.

But such a loyalty to the office of the pope does not mean that we abandon our intelligence and knowledge of the truth.

If we see a pope contradict the clear teaching of the Church, or to lead pastorally in the wrong direction, it does not mean we follow along blindly as with a Pied Piper.

We are to always give deference to his words and actions, with an effort to see and understand them in a positive way, but if that becomes impossible then respectably disagreeing is not a sin.

This book we address this issue by referencing Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, and history.

In the book of Galatians, for instance, we see St. Paul confront Pope Peter.

Even though he respects Peter’s office and refers to Peter several times as Cephas (“the Rock”), he still does not consider it improper to criticize Peter.

Paul writes, “But when Cephas came to Antioch I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.”

St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas pick up on this passage and reaffirm that under certain circumstances it not only acceptable but necessary to speak out. St. Catherine of Sienna, for example, confronted the pope.

As I stated in Upon This Rock: St. Peter and the Primacy of Rome in Scripture and the Early Church, my earlier book on the papacy:
a. https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/12/04/new-book-clarifies-beliefs-and-corrects-misunderstandings-about-the-papacy/
b. "https://www.ignatius.com/Upon-This-Rock-P2535.aspx


A classic example of this occurred when Catherine of Siena (c. 1347–1380) severely reproved Pope Gregory XI and ultimately persuaded him to return the Papacy from Avignon to Rome.

“Catherine arrived at Avignon on June 18, 1376, and soon had a conference with Pope Gregory, to whom she had already written six times, ‘in an intolerably dictatorial tone, a little sweetened with expressions of her perfect Christian deference’ ”
(Alban Butler, Butler’s Lives of the Saints, rev. Herbert Thurston and Donald Attwater [Allen, Tex.: Christian Classics, 1995], 2:195–96).

Can anyone imagine a fourteenth-century woman reproving the Pope, especially with an “intolerably dictatorial tone”?

And imagine, she was not only canonized a saint, but she was declared a Doctor of the Church!

So much for the Pope’s insulation from reproof and criticism.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI also commented on the acceptability of the faithful to critique the pope in certain instances.

One thing that should be remembered is that the Church also has bishops and it would certainly be correct for bishops to act with an attitude of collegiality toward the pope and to honestly discuss matters of difficulty with him without fear of reprisal and with respect for all.

Lay people can also disagree but it should be done with the utmost respect and bathed in prayer.

In short, no, the pope is not beyond criticism—and because of that fact and the confusion surrounding that issue.

I felt it was essential to add a section on this exact topic considering the situation we find ourselves in today.


CWR: What do you hope readers will gain most from this book?

Ray: My hope is the people will love the Church Jesus started and continues to build.

Jesus is the head of the Church, the pope is simply the successor of Peter the Royal Steward.

There have been good popes and bad popes, saintly examples and scandalous, those who serve well and those who have served poorly.

But they come and go and the Church marches on with Jesus as head.

Ignorance of history and truth is a dangerous thing.

Clarity of truth and knowledge of the the facts is liberating.

May all who read this book come away with a deep love for Jesus.

Deep love for His Church and the office of the papacy which has served us so well for two thousand year.

May it give us hope and confidence for our future.

(End Part 2)

Reply
Dec 8, 2018 01:11:21   #
jack sequim wa Loc: Blanchard, Idaho
 
SATANIC POPES


Pope Alexander VI. He wasn't the first, nor the last, of a string of simply sinful popes. In fact if he had a trading card the back might read something like this:

"Achievements: Successfully started the world's first recorded crime family, sired at least four bastard children, hosted orgies within the walls of the Vatican, and shunned the poor in favor of flamboyant decadence.

Good Qualities: Severe loyalty to kith and kin (even to the point of almost plunging Italy into all out war just so his bastard children could have the life he wanted for them. Awe.)

Scandals: Still being accused of breaking up his daughter's marriage in favor if an incestuous relationship with himself, whispered to be involved in a few choice assassinations, and oh yes, there was that whole mistress and string of wild Vatican orgy parties...

God's Judgment: Death by slow intestinal bleeding."

Charming guy that pope Alexander VI. Rumor has it his entire bastard clan were murderous and drunk on power. And so the love spread, long after his death. Just the fact he wasn't stabbed or poisoned is a small miracle in itself. I'm just using him to illustrate a point. The papacy is full of scandals, rife for the pages of Catholic Inquirer.

More Papal Oopsies
Pope Stephen VI was probably the perpetrator of the most bizarre event in papal history. After being elected to be pope he had his predecessor exhumed from his grave, brought into court, and tried for various crimes. The corpse was unsurprisingly found guilty as sin and his three blessing fingers were hacked off as punishment. He was then reburied before he was dug up once again in order to be thrown into the Tiber. Forgiveness anyone?
Pope John XII didn't even have a good start. He was said to have been born to a fourteen year old mother, sired by a man who was both his father and grandfather. Never one to shun tradition he continued this Oedipal cycle of dysfunction and also took his mother on as a lover. He was only eighteen when he became pope and only twenty-seven when he left it, by way of death. Rumor has it he was murdered during a jealous rage when the husband of one of his mistresses walked in on them in bed. This would indeed be a fitting end to a pope who was such a womanizer he was have said to have violated virgins and widows alike and had so many women filing in and out of the Vatican that everyone said it had been turned into a brothel. Sex wasn't his only downfall though; he was rumored to have murdered several people and was fond of hacking off his enemies limbs. Far from being a saint I think this pope was trying to reach a new record of depravity.
Pope Benedict IX: Depending on what sources you believe Pope Benedict IX was given the papacy anywhere between eleven and twenty years of age. St. Peter Damian accused him of routinely screwing other men and his four legged friends amongst other crimes. Apparently that wasn't even scratching the surface when it came to grievances thrust into his direction. Bishop Benno of Piacenza accused him of committing, "many vile adulteries and murders." He was also accused of rape and murder by his eventual successor before he decided to be the first and only pope to bring the free market to the papacy, selling his position to his Godfather John Gratian.
Pope Boniface VIII decided to take the free market a bit further and was accused of simony (that's accepting cash for appointing religious positions) in Dante's infamous Divine Comedy. Though he was alive at the time he showed an uncharacteristic apathy and didn't order Dante tortured, maimed, or killed. Lucky Dante!
Pope Urban II cowed France into attacking the Muslim world, throwing the region into five hundred years of religious warfare, which as you can see by the current day turned out remarkably well...
Pope Urban VI is best remembered for his gratuitously violent nature. Like any true psychopath he was said to have complained when his enemies didn't "scream loud enough" under torture. God apparently likes screaming more then He likes hymns.
Pope John XXII was the first to persecute "witches." Although he was the richest man in the entire world at the time he was still not happy with his lot in life. He deemed that all the "witches" and "heretics" could be accused after death and that all their land should be seized.
Pope Sixtus IV authorized the Spanish Inquisition and all it's various forms of torture to gently convince the Jews, Moors, and Heretics that Catholic love and compassion were the way to God. While all this was going on it's rumored that Pope Sixtus IV was busy fathering children with his eldest sister and carrying on several bisexual relationships. Not surprisingly he was also said to have suffered from syphilis. God's wrath? Maybe for him.

Pope Gregory XII burned John Huss of Bohemia at the stake after declaring his safety from such a fate. His crime? He spoke out against papal corruption. The pope's response? "When dealing with heretics, one is not obligated to keep his word."
Pope John XXIII reigned for five years (1410-1415) before he pissed off so many other Catholics that he was striped of his title and declared anti-pope. So what was so bad about this mobsteresque pope? For one he decided to terrorize the students at the University of Bologna by demanding they pay a price to be protected from violent thugs who just happened to be under his order. That's not what earned him his anti-pope title though, that had to be credited to the accusations of murder, rape, sodomy, incest, and piracy.
Pope Urban XIII struck up a friendship with a young Galileo which is probably what spared his life later on when the pope tried him for heresy. Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment which was later changed into house arrest. He died nine years later still under house arrest for claiming that a spherical earth revolved around the sun. This decree of heresy was not lifted until 350 years later.
Pius XII reputation comes from his lack of action rather then from anything he did personally. He was the pope during Hitler's reign of terror and didn't so much as speak one direct harsh word about the man who was slaughtering millions. Hitler was Catholic after all and never antagonized the papacy (which is apparently the one way to get excommunicated.) His continuing refusal to say anything against the Nazi party lasted throughout the war with lame excuses being put forth behind the reasoning as to why this was. He claimed he would not decry any individual atrocities publicly and when faced with the Holocaust he merely claimed there wasn't enough evidence it was actually happening. Perhaps he was afraid of pissing off a people who could easily kill him. But then again, for someone who is supposed to be the closest man to God his moral senses should have outweighed any thought of self-preservation. After all Jesus didn't seem particularly keen on pussyfooting around the corrupt people of his era. Catholicism and Christianity love martyrs!
Pope John Paul II Publicly condemned all forms of birth control and gay marriage, his only reaction to the pedophile priest scandals was merely to issue a feeble apology for 2000 years worth of pedophile church swapping, record burying, and secret payoffs to families for not denouncing the church publicly. He never condemned the behavior and only started defrocking priests when the masses started to put intense pressure on him to do so. Even so not that many priests were let go compared to what are likely out there. Apparently pedophilia is a more forgivable sin then birth control.
Pope Benedict XVI - Our current pope was in all the papers when the media realized he was part of the Hitler Youth. Now I get comments like, "That wasn't a voluntary position" but that just doesn't cut it when you're talking about the man who is supposed to be closest to God. If he were really that holy he would have been a martyr, not a pope.

Reply
 
 
Dec 8, 2018 01:15:24   #
jack sequim wa Loc: Blanchard, Idaho
 
CRIMES OF THE POPE'S

http://www.ftarchives.net/foote/crimes/c7.htm

ST. DAMASUS (366-84). He was the first to assume the title of Pontiff. His election was opposed by Ursicinus, whose partisans accused Damasus of adultery. [122:1] Riddle says:

"After some deadly conflicts between the followers of the two rivals, Ursicinus was banished from the city; and a similar sentence was about to be carried into effect against seven presbyters of his party, when the people interfered, and lodged them for safety in one of the churches. But even here they found no shelter from the fury of their opponents. Armed with fire and sword, Damasus, with some of his adherents, both of the clergy and of the laity, proceeded to the place of refuge, and left no less than a hundred and sixty of their adversaries dead within the sacred precincts." [122:2]
That this was a massacre and not a faction fight is shown by the fact that on the side of Damasus not a single person was killed. [123:3] Ammianus Marcellinus, the contemporary historian of the event, says of the contention between Damasus and Ursicinus:

"I do not deny, when I consider the ostentation that reigns at Rome, that those who desire such rank and power may be justified in laboring with all possible exertions and vehemence to obtain their wishes; since after they have succeeded, they will be secure for the future, being enriched by offerings from matrons, riding in carriages, dressing splendidly, and feasting luxuriously, so that their entertainment surpassed even royal banquets. [123:4]
Damasus gained the title of Auriscalpius Matronarum, ladies' ear-scratcher. [123:5] He died of fever, and the Romish Church still invokes the aid of this saintly vicar of God in fever cases. [123:6]

SIXTUS III (432-40). This pope, according to both Baronius and Platina, was accused of debauching a virgin, but was acquitted by a Council under the Emperor Valentina, who is said to have referred the pronouncing of the sentence to the Pope himself, "because the judge of all ought to be judged by none." It was without doubt to establish this maxim that the "acts" of the Council were forged. [123:7]

ST. LEO THE GREAT (440-61). Jortin calls him "the insolent and persecuting Pope Leo, who applauded the massacre of the Priscillianists, and grossly misrepresented them." [123:8]

SYMMACHUS (498-514). His election was violently opposed by the antipope Laurentius, and three Councils were held to decide the schism. Accusations of the most heinous crimes were laid against Symmachus. Bower says:

"This gave occasion to the rekindling of the war between the two parties in Rome; and several priests, many clerks, and a great number of citizens, fell daily in the battles that were fought in the different parts of the city. No regard was shown by either party to rank or dignity; and not even the sacred virgins were spared by the enraged multitude in their fury." [123:9]
Eunodius declared that the Pope was "judge in the place of the most high, pure from all sin, and exempt from all punishment. All who fell fighting in his cause he declared enrolled on the register of heaven." [124:1]

ST. HORMISDAS (514-23). He was a married man, and had a son, who was raised to the popedom. He was full of ambition, and insolent in his demands to the emperor, whom he exhorted to the persecution of heretics.

BONIFACE II (530-32). His election was disputed by the antipope Dioscorus. Each accused the other of simony, but Dioscorus opportunely died. Boniface "began his pontificate with wreaking his vengeance on the memory of his deceased competitor, whom he solemnly excommunicated, as guilty of simony, when he could not clear himself from the charge, nor retort it on him, as perhaps he otherwise might." [124:2] This sentence was removed by Pope Agapetus.

SILVERIUS (536-38). He was accused of betraying the city of Rome to the Goths, and was in consequence expelled from his see.

VIGILUS (537-55). He was a deacon elected by bribery. He engaged himself to obey the Empress Theodora, who gave him money to gain the suffrages of the clergy. Anastasius tells us that he killed his own secretary in a transport of passion, and caused his own sister's son to be whipped to death. He is considered to have been accessory to the banishment and death of Silverius. When banished himself by the emperor, he speedily repented, in order to save his seat.

PELAGIUS (555-60). He was accused of poisoning his predecessor. This is uncertain; but it is certain that, like most of his predecessors and successors, he incited the civil powers to the persecution of heretics.

ST. GREGORY THE GREAT (590-604). According to Gibbon, this pontiff was "a singular mixture of simplicity and cunning, of pride and humility, of sense and superstition." [124:3] Jortin's picture is still less flattering:

"Pope Gregory the Great was remarkable for many things -- for exalting his own authority; for running down human learning [125:4] and polite literature; for burning classic authors; for patronising ignorance and stupidity; for persecuting heretics; for flattering the most execrable princes; and for relating a multitude of absurd, monstrous and ridiculous lies, called miracles. He was an ambitious, insolent prelate, under the mask of humility." [125:5]
Draper says that Gregory not only forbade the study of the classics, mutilated statues, and destroyed temples but also "burned the Palatine library, founded by Augustus Caesar." Gibbon, however, throws doubt on this destruction, while admitting that it was generally believed. [125:6]

Gregory does not appear to have been fond of women and wine, like so many other popes; but he possessed the darker vices of bigotry and ambition. His congratulations on the usurpation of the cruel, drunken and lascivious Phocas, after a wholesale massacre of the emperor's family, simply because the successful villain favored the pretensions of Rome (p. 109), are a sufficient proof that Gregory would scruple at nothing to advance the glory of his see.

SABINIAN (604-6). Bower says he rendered himself so odious to the Roman people by his avarice and cruelty to the poor, that they could not forbear abusing him whenever he appeared. In a dreadful famine he raised the price of corn to exorbitant rates. He accused St. Gregory of simony; but according to Baronius, that departed saint having vainly reproved him in three different apparitions for his covetousness, gave him in a fourth apparition so dreadful a blow on the head, that he died soon after. [125:7]

BONIFACE III (607). By flattering Phocas as Gregory had done, he induced him to take the title of universal bishop from the bishop of Constantinople, and confer it upon himself and his successors.

THEODORUS (642-49). He commenced the custom of dipping his pen in consecrated wine when signing the condemnation of heretics, [126:8] thus sanctifying murder with the blood of Christ. Of Adeodatus, Donus I, Agatho, and Leo II, we only know that they carried on fierce contests with the archbishop of Ravenna for refusing to acknowledge their supremacy. Leo II anathematised his predecessor, Pope Honorius, for heresy. [126:9] Neither Benedict II, John V, nor Conon, lived a whole year after assuming the tiara.

ST. SERGIUS I (687-701). He had to purchase his seat from the exarch of Ravenna by pawning the ornaments of the tomb of St. Peter. He was accused of adultery, but his innocence was strikingly proved; for, upon the child of whose parentage he was accused being baptised when but eight days old, he cried out, "The pontiff Sergius is not my father." Bruys, the French historian of the Papacy, says, "What I find most marvellous in this story is, not that so young a child should speak, but that it should affirm with so much confidence that the pope was not its father." [126:1]

CONSTANTINE (708-15). He is said to have excommunicated the Emperor, Philip Bardanes, for being of the same heresy as Pope Honorius. To oblige Constantine, Justinian II cut out the tongue and blinded the eyes of the Archbishop of Ravenna, who refused to pay the obedience due to the apostolic see. [126:2]

ST. GREGORY II (715-31). He was chiefly noted for his endowing monasteries with the goods of the poor, and for his opposition to the Emperor Leo's edict against image worship. [126:3] Rather than obey the edict, he raised civil war both in Italy and elsewhere. He prayed that Christ might set the Devil on the emperor, and approved the barbarous murder of the imperial officer. [126:4] Yet the priests place in the list of saints a pontiff who, to establish the Christian idolatry of image worship, filled Italy with carnage.

STEPHEN III (768-72). When elected he found on the pontifical throne a lay pope, one Constantine, who, after a violent struggle, was dislodged and punished with the loss of his eyes, [127:5] many of his friends sharing the same fate. [127:6]

ADRIAN I (772-95). He made a league with Irene, the murderess of her son, to restore image worship, and presented to Charlemagne the pretended donation of Constantine. [127:7] Avarice was the vice of this able pontiff. He left large sums to his successors.

ST. PASCAL I (817-24). At the Diet of Compeigne this pope was charged with being accessory to the mutilation and murder of two Roman priests. The Pope denied the charge, but refused to deliver up the perpetrators of the crimes, alleging that they belonged "to the family of St. Peter." [127:8]

EUGENIUS II (824-27). He had the honor of inventing the barbarous practice of ordeal by cold water.

NICHOLAS (858-67). He excommunicated Photius, the Greek patriarch, and the emperor Michael as his abettor, and threatened King Lothaire with the ecclesiastical sword if he suffered any bishop to be chosen without his consent. [127:9]

ADRIAN II (867-72). He was a married priest. He congratulated Bazilius, the murderer of the emperor Michael, and entered into alliance with him. [127:1]

JOHN VIII (872-82). The meek and holy nature of this worthy successor of St. Peter may be judged by his ordering the Bishop of Naples to bring him the chief men among the Saracens in that city, and cutting their throats in the presence of his legate. [127:2] A letter of John is extant, in which he justifies Athanasius, Bishop of Naples, for having plucked out the eyes of Sergius, Duke of Naples, who favored the Saracens in despite of the papal anathemas. He even cites the Gospel text as to plucking out offending eyes. Cardinal Baronius declares that this pontiff perjured himself, and that he rather deserved the name of a woman than that of a man. [128:3] The annals of the Abbey of Fulda relate that John VIII was poisoned by the relations of a lady whom he had seduced from her husband. [128:4]

FORMOSUS (891-96). He had been repeatedly excommunicated by John VIII. He invited Arnulf, the German emperor, to invade Italy, which he did, committing great atrocities. Formosus, however, had a great character for piety. He is said to have been well versed in scripture, and to have died a virgin in his eightieth year.

BONIFACE VI (896). Even according to Baronius, he was a man of most infamous character. He had been deposed for his scandalous life, first from the rank of sub-deacon, and afterward from the priesthood. [128:5]

STEPHEN VI. (896-7). He intruded into the see in the room of the intruder Boniface. Being of the opposite faction to Pope Formosus, he caused the body of that pontiff to be taken out of the tomb and to be placed, in the episcopal robes, on the pontifical chair. Stephen then addressed the dead body thus: "Why didst thou, being Bishop of Porto, prompted by thy ambition, usurp the universal see of Rome?" After this mock trial Stephen, with the approbation and consent of a Council of bishops, ordered the body to be stripped, three of the fingers (those used in blessing) to be cut off, and the remains to be cast into the Tiber. At the same Council all the ordinations of Formosus were declared invalid. [128:6]

Then followed what Riddle calls "a rapid succession of infamous popes," of whom we may mention that Leo V (903) was deposed and cast into prison by his chaplain, Christopher, who was in turn ejected and imprisoned by Sergius III (904-11). This pontiff also had been excommunicated by John VIII. He was, says Baronius, "the slave of every vice and the most wicked of men." [128:7] Riddle says:

"This Sergius III was a monster of profligacy, cruelty and vice in their most shameless and disgusting forms. But it was this very character which made him useful to his party, the duration of whose influence at Rome, could be insured only by a preponderance of physical power, and this again only by violence which should disdain all restraints of morality and religion. Sergius was the man for this purpose, who, while he lived in concubinage with Marozia, did not hesitate to yield all the treasures of the Roman Church as plunder to his party." [129:8] To him succeeded other paramours of Marozia and of her mother the prostitute Theodora. John X, for instance (914-28), received his chair because he was the lover of Theodora, while Leo VI and Stephen VIII (929-31) were creatures of Marozia. Adultery and assassination form the staple of the annals of their pontificates.

JOHN XI (931-36). He was the son of Pope Sergius III. by Marozia, and if possible he surpassed his parents in crime. Elected pope at the age of eighteen, Alberic, his half brother, expelled him from Rome and imprisoned their mother Marozia. Stephen VIII (939-942) made himself so obnoxious to the Romans that they mutilated him. [129:9]

JOHN XII (956-64), the son of Alberic, was the first to change his name, which was originally Octavian. He nominated himself pope at the age of seventeen. Wilks says: "His profaneness and debaucheries exceeded all bounds. He was publicly accused of concubinage, incest, and simony." This pope was so notorious for his licentiousness that female pilgrims dared not present themselves in Rome. [129:1] Bower says that he had changed the Lateran Palace, once the abode of saints, into a brothel, and there cohabited with his father's concubine; that women were afraid to come from other countries to visit the tombs of the apostles at Rome; that he spared none, and had within a few days forced married women, widows, and virgins to comply with his

Reply
Dec 8, 2018 03:42:52   #
Doc110 Loc: York PA
 
Jack,

The only rebuttal to your Protestant nonsense.

By the way this is a Straw-Man Fallacy, my God you are a simpleton are deranged and religiously ignorant . . .


Show the Dam Url link and web page address so I can respond and debunk your anti-Catholic compost horse-manure and to this satanic diatribe rhetoric, and Protestant Hypocritical Truth's . . .

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

jack sequim wa wrote:


SATANIC POPES


Pope Alexander VI. He wasn't the first, nor the last, of a string of simply sinful popes. In fact if he had a trading card the back might read something like this:

"Achievements: Successfully started the world's first recorded crime family, sired at least four bastard children, hosted orgies within the walls of the Vatican, and shunned the poor in favor of flamboyant decadence.

Good Qualities: Severe loyalty to kith and kin (even to the point of almost plunging Italy into all out war just so his bastard children could have the life he wanted for them. Awe.)

Scandals: Still being accused of breaking up his daughter's marriage in favor if an incestuous relationship with himself, whispered to be involved in a few choice assassinations, and oh yes, there was that whole mistress and string of wild Vatican orgy parties...

God's Judgment: Death by slow intestinal bleeding."

Charming guy that pope Alexander VI. Rumor has it his entire bastard clan were murderous and drunk on power. And so the love spread, long after his death. Just the fact he wasn't stabbed or poisoned is a small miracle in itself. I'm just using him to illustrate a point. The papacy is full of scandals, rife for the pages of Catholic Inquirer.

More Papal Oopsies
Pope Stephen VI was probably the perpetrator of the most bizarre event in papal history. After being elected to be pope he had his predecessor exhumed from his grave, brought into court, and tried for various crimes. The corpse was unsurprisingly found guilty as sin and his three blessing fingers were hacked off as punishment. He was then reburied before he was dug up once again in order to be thrown into the Tiber. Forgiveness anyone?
Pope John XII didn't even have a good start. He was said to have been born to a fourteen year old mother, sired by a man who was both his father and grandfather. Never one to shun tradition he continued this Oedipal cycle of dysfunction and also took his mother on as a lover. He was only eighteen when he became pope and only twenty-seven when he left it, by way of death. Rumor has it he was murdered during a jealous rage when the husband of one of his mistresses walked in on them in bed. This would indeed be a fitting end to a pope who was such a womanizer he was have said to have violated virgins and widows alike and had so many women filing in and out of the Vatican that everyone said it had been turned into a brothel. Sex wasn't his only downfall though; he was rumored to have murdered several people and was fond of hacking off his enemies limbs. Far from being a saint I think this pope was trying to reach a new record of depravity.
Pope Benedict IX: Depending on what sources you believe Pope Benedict IX was given the papacy anywhere between eleven and twenty years of age. St. Peter Damian accused him of routinely screwing other men and his four legged friends amongst other crimes. Apparently that wasn't even scratching the surface when it came to grievances thrust into his direction. Bishop Benno of Piacenza accused him of committing, "many vile adulteries and murders." He was also accused of rape and murder by his eventual successor before he decided to be the first and only pope to bring the free market to the papacy, selling his position to his Godfather John Gratian.
Pope Boniface VIII decided to take the free market a bit further and was accused of simony (that's accepting cash for appointing religious positions) in Dante's infamous Divine Comedy. Though he was alive at the time he showed an uncharacteristic apathy and didn't order Dante tortured, maimed, or killed. Lucky Dante!
Pope Urban II cowed France into attacking the Muslim world, throwing the region into five hundred years of religious warfare, which as you can see by the current day turned out remarkably well...
Pope Urban VI is best remembered for his gratuitously violent nature. Like any true psychopath he was said to have complained when his enemies didn't "scream loud enough" under torture. God apparently likes screaming more then He likes hymns.
Pope John XXII was the first to persecute "witches." Although he was the richest man in the entire world at the time he was still not happy with his lot in life. He deemed that all the "witches" and "heretics" could be accused after death and that all their land should be seized.
Pope Sixtus IV authorized the Spanish Inquisition and all it's various forms of torture to gently convince the Jews, Moors, and Heretics that Catholic love and compassion were the way to God. While all this was going on it's rumored that Pope Sixtus IV was busy fathering children with his eldest sister and carrying on several bisexual relationships. Not surprisingly he was also said to have suffered from syphilis. God's wrath? Maybe for him.

Pope Gregory XII burned John Huss of Bohemia at the stake after declaring his safety from such a fate. His crime? He spoke out against papal corruption. The pope's response? "When dealing with heretics, one is not obligated to keep his word."
Pope John XXIII reigned for five years (1410-1415) before he pissed off so many other Catholics that he was striped of his title and declared anti-pope. So what was so bad about this mobsteresque pope? For one he decided to terrorize the students at the University of Bologna by demanding they pay a price to be protected from violent thugs who just happened to be under his order. That's not what earned him his anti-pope title though, that had to be credited to the accusations of murder, rape, sodomy, incest, and piracy.
Pope Urban XIII struck up a friendship with a young Galileo which is probably what spared his life later on when the pope tried him for heresy. Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment which was later changed into house arrest. He died nine years later still under house arrest for claiming that a spherical earth revolved around the sun. This decree of heresy was not lifted until 350 years later.
Pius XII reputation comes from his lack of action rather then from anything he did personally. He was the pope during Hitler's reign of terror and didn't so much as speak one direct harsh word about the man who was slaughtering millions. Hitler was Catholic after all and never antagonized the papacy (which is apparently the one way to get excommunicated.) His continuing refusal to say anything against the Nazi party lasted throughout the war with lame excuses being put forth behind the reasoning as to why this was. He claimed he would not decry any individual atrocities publicly and when faced with the Holocaust he merely claimed there wasn't enough evidence it was actually happening. Perhaps he was afraid of pissing off a people who could easily kill him. But then again, for someone who is supposed to be the closest man to God his moral senses should have outweighed any thought of self-preservation. After all Jesus didn't seem particularly keen on pussyfooting around the corrupt people of his era. Catholicism and Christianity love martyrs!
Pope John Paul II Publicly condemned all forms of birth control and gay marriage, his only reaction to the pedophile priest scandals was merely to issue a feeble apology for 2000 years worth of pedophile church swapping, record burying, and secret payoffs to families for not denouncing the church publicly. He never condemned the behavior and only started defrocking priests when the masses started to put intense pressure on him to do so. Even so not that many priests were let go compared to what are likely out there. Apparently pedophilia is a more forgivable sin then birth control.
Pope Benedict XVI - Our current pope was in all the papers when the media realized he was part of the Hitler Youth. Now I get comments like, "That wasn't a voluntary position" but that just doesn't cut it when you're talking about the man who is supposed to be closest to God. If he were really that holy he would have been a martyr, not a pope.
br br SATANIC POPES br br br Pope Alexander V... (show quote)

Reply
Dec 8, 2018 03:43:22   #
Doc110 Loc: York PA
 
Jack,

The only rebuttal to your Protestant nonsense.

By the way this is a Straw-Man Fallacy, my God you are a simpleton are deranged and religiously ignorant . . .


Show the Dam Url link and web page address so I can respond and debunk your anti-Catholic compost horse-manure and to this satanic diatribe rhetoric, and Protestant Hypocritical Truth's . . .

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Reply
Dec 8, 2018 04:18:40   #
jack sequim wa Loc: Blanchard, Idaho
 
Doc110 wrote:
Jack,

The only rebuttal to your Protestant nonsense.

By the way this is a Straw-Man Fallacy, my God you are a simpleton are deranged and religiously ignorant . . .


Show the Dam Url link and web page address so I can respond and debunk your anti-Catholic compost horse-manure and to this satanic diatribe rhetoric, and Protestant Hypocritical Truth's . . .

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address

Post the Url link and web page address
Jack, br br The only rebuttal to your Protestant ... (show quote)




So now your blind, unable to see a link at the top??
Are you incapable of doing your own research to prove historical facts posted?

You say strawman to historical facts? Really?
You are aware that typically those that refute using "strawman" as there only refute are of lower education and IQ.. Look it up.

Interesting that your focus was "url, strawman", calling me angry and not a peep about the demonic popes.
I posted historical facts for the readers of your post benefit not yours. After reading the facts and your feeble replies they will know to steer clear of the satanic Roman Catholic church.

Reply
If you want to reply, then register here. Registration is free and your account is created instantly, so you can post right away.
Faith, Religion, Spirituality
OnePoliticalPlaza.com - Forum
Copyright 2012-2024 IDF International Technologies, Inc.