Please . . . Don’t Call Protestants . . . Christians . . . They Are Heretics
Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.
https://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/m013rpProtestantsChristians.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPC0N0U0aco It is very common today to hear Catholics call a Protestant “a Christian,” or even, “a good Christian.”
In the United States, it was already a practice before Vatican II because of the tendency of American Catholics to accommodate Protestantism, whose tonus dominated the social and business spheres.
Then, there was the question of adaptation as prominent Protestants joined the Catholic faith, or Catholics entered into marriages with Protestants.
It was just easier to call everyone “Christian.” Supposedly it underplayed differences.
It was meant to create the impression that Catholics and Protestants were cousins in one big, happy family.
Pope Leo XIII condemned this tolerance toward Protestantism under the name of Americanism, the heresy of Americanism, to be more precise.
After Vatican II, needless to say, the practice of calling Protestants Christias has snowballed, with the official conciliar documents assuming this same impropriety.
Hence, the Holy See, Prelates and priests have made its use as widespread as possible.
Accommodation to Protestantism in our days has reached such a point that some Catholics, to distinguish between Catholics and their Protestant “separated brethren,” call themselves Catholic Christians.
A redundancy if I've ever heard one.
Only Catholics can be true Christians.
No one who dissents from the Roman Catholic Church can be a Christian.
The terms are synonymous.
Every time I hear the term Christian used for Protestants, I cringe. Its usage clearly nourishes a trend toward a dangerous religious indifferentism.
Which denies the duty of man to worship God by believing and practicing the one true Catholic Religion.
It is an implicit admission that those who deny the one Faith can nonetheless be Christians, that is, be in the Church of Christ.
Inherently it leads to the progressivist notion that men can be saved in any religion that accepts Christ as Savior.
A “good Lutheran,” a “good Anglican,” a “good Presbyterian –
What does it matter so long as they are good people and sincerely love Christ?
Regardless of who is applying this usage today, I want to stress that it is at variance with the entire tradition of the Catholic Church until the Council.
To consider heretics as Christians is not the teaching of the Church.
Before Vatican II, the Magisterium was always very clear:
It is not a matter of an individual’s character or traits.
No one can be in the Church of Christ without professing the ensemble of the truths of Catholic Faith, being in unity with the Chair of Peter and receiving the same Seven Sacraments.
The only Christian is one who accepts Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Church he established.
Who can have God for Father and not accept the Church for Mother? (Pope Pius IX, Singulari quidem of March 17, 1856)
Who can accept the spouse Christ, and not his mystical bride the Church?
Who can separate the Head, the only begotten Son of God, from the body, which is His Church?
(Pope Leo XIII, Satis cognitum of June 29, 1896). It is not possible.
In short, only those who profess the one Catholic Faith and are united with the Mystical Body of Christ are members of the Church of Christ.
And only those members can legitimately bear the title of honor of Christian.
The Protestant sect started as a revolt, protesting the Church of Christ and, pretending to accept Christ without Peter, the authority He established on earth.
With this split, they left the Church and became heretics.
This used to be clearly said and understood, without sentimental fear of offending one’s neighbors or relatives:
A Protestant is a heretic because he severed himself from the Body of the Church.
He is not a Christian, and certainly not a “good Christian.”
Scriptures confirm this truth
My friend Jan thought I was being too severe on this topic.
“You’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” She said.
“Don’t Scriptures teach us to love our neighbor and not be judgmental?”
It is the same old post Vatican II story, claiming that it is “judgmental” to correct bad practices and false teachings and arguing with disputable interpretations of Scriptures.
Well, despite these subjective interpretations, the inspired words of Scriptures provide an unambiguous defense that the custody of the vineyard has been committed by Christ to the Catholic Church alone.
Let me quote just a few verses:
“He who hears you (Peter) hears me, and he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me.
(Lk 10:16).”
It could not be clearer:
The Protestant who rejects the head, rejects Christ himself, and should not be granted the name Christian.
Christ establishes one Church with a single head:
"And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
(Matt 16:19).
St. Paul is severe in his condemnation of false teachers, e.g. Protestants:
“If any man preaches any other Gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”
(Gal 1: 9).
In another passage he instructs Catholics to remove themselves from the bad society of non-Catholics:
“And we charge you, brethren, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly and not according to the Tradition which they have received of us.”
(2 Thess 3:6).
The Apostle St. John forbade any intercourse with heretics: “If any man come to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house or welcome him.”
(2 Jo 1:10)”
Holy Scriptures are clear on the point that only those who belong to the one Church founded by Christ, the Catholic Church, can rightfully be considered Christians.
Popes reiterate this teaching
The traditional Papal Magisterium was also clear on this topic. Let me offer a few texts by way of exemplification.
Pius XII stated unequivocally:
“To be Christian one must be Roman.
One must recognize the oneness of Christ’s Church that is governed by one successor of the Prince of the Apostles who is the Bishop of Rome, Christ’s Vicar on earth”
(Allocution to the Irish pilgrims of October 8, 1957).
How is it possible to be clearer than this about those who can be called Christian?
Leo XIII makes it plain that separated members cannot belong to the same body: “So long as the member was on the body, it lived; separated, it lost its life.
Thus the man, so long as he lives on the body of the [Catholic] Church, he is a Christian; separated from her, he becomes a heretic”
(Encyclical Satis cognitum of June 29, 1896).
Emphasizing the fate of those who break away from the one Faith, he says:
“Whoever leaves her [the Catholic Church] departs from the will and command of Our Lord Jesus Christ; leaving the path of salvation, he enters that of perdition.
Whoever is separated from the Church is united to an adulteress.”
(ibid.).
Certainly, they do not share with us the same title of Christian.
Pope Pius IX stated:
“He who abandons the Chair of Peter on which the Church is founded, is falsely persuaded that he is in the Church of Christ.”
(Quartus supra of January 6 1873, n. 8).
In the Syllabus of Modern Errors,
The proposition that Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion was specifically condemned.
(Pius IX, n. 18)(1).
Therefore, there is only one Christian Church, the Catholic Church, and only those who belong to it should rightfully be called Christians.
How to fight Americanism?
Many persons ask me:
What can I do to fight Progressivism?
Others have requested:
Give me some specific examples of how I can combat Americanism.
Let me offer one concrete way to fight in yourself the tendency toward accommodation with Protestantism.
When you catch yourself calling a Protestant a “Christian,”
Stop and correct yourself.
Call him a Protestant.
It is a way to affirm that you do not accept the Protestant errors and that you acknowledge it for the terrible thing it is:
Protestants denied many Catholic dogmas and for this reason caused that first major crack in the unity of the Catholic Church that caused untold damage to Christendom and the perdition of those souls adhering to it.
It is a small thing, but by such small customs we as a people have been walking steadily toward religious indifferentism.
It is time to set some roadblocks on that path. We should not veil in ambiguous terms our love for the ensemble of the Catholic Faith.
The only true union possible for Catholics with Protestants is by their return to the one true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church.
Only with such a return can they rightfully call themselves Christians.
Numerous traditional Catholic teachings on the this topic can be found in Atila S. Guimarães, Aniums Delendi II, Los Angeles: TIA, 2002, pp. 205-217.
See also "Christian Ecuemnism" in Simon Galloway, No Crisis in the Church? New Olive Press, 2006, pp. 1-51.
Posted on February 6, 2007
Related Topics of Interest
The Lutheran and Calvinist Mentalities
https://www.traditioninaction.org/Cultural/D015cpProtestantMentalities.htmjack sequim wa wrote:
NOTE TO READERS :
THIS is how Doc110 post Satan twisting God's word.
THE SATANIC ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH!!!!
http://www.jesuswordsonly.com/topicindex/249-eucharist-emblem-of-paganism.htmlPartial text below, use link for full text.
Eucharist: Is This An Emblem of Baal, the Sun-God of Paganism?
Original Remembrance Was Ordinary Unleavened Bread
Originally, the Ebionites -- the repositors of the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew -- insisted that the remembrance service about Jesus at Passover (what later became the weekly communion in Catholicism) must use unleavened bread. (See references below.)
However, the Roman Catholics did away with this notion in the 4th century, using only leavened bread, i.e., cakes, apparently round, in such services. However, as proven below, in the 10th Century the Roman church revived the use of unleavened bread, but in the shape of the round modern host which thereby kept the roundness of the cakes of the 4th century form. Why that is important will be evident later.
Here is a summary of what the Ebionites instituted which lasted in the church at large until the 4th Century:
It is related that during the first ages of the church none but unleavened bread was used in the eucharist, till the Ebionites arose, who held that all observances prescribed by Moses were still in force. Upon which both the eastern and western churches took up the use of leavened bread; and after the extinction of that heresy, the western church returned to the azymous [i.e., unleavened bread] the eastern absolutely adhering to the former usage. ("Azymous," A New, complete and universal dictionary (1764) (ed. John Marchant, Daniel Bellamy.)
Pagan Competing Practice of Round Cakes of Leavened Bread
In the pagan religion of Rome, in the Sol Invictus aka Baal religion imported from Syria in the 200s (taken from Phoenicia), a transubstantiatian ritual was performed on Sun-day with a round cake and wine which the faithful were told had become the flesh and blood of their god. This was particularly important on Easter Sun-day i.e., the celebration of the goddess Eostre / Ishtar / Ashtoreth day, the 'Mother of God' aka Baal.
Origin of Roman Church Eucharistic Practices
The famous early reformer and translator, Wycliffe, was the first to resurrect in 1381 AD knowledge that the Eucharistic practice of Roman Catholicism copied Baal practices. As Bridgett summarizes:
"And--to confine ourselves to the matter of the Holy Eucharist--Wycliffe, as we have just been told, spoke of those who held the doctrine of transubstantiation as 'priests of Baal.' Wycliffe considered that this belief brought upon its holders the anger of God." (Thomas Edward Bridgett, History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain: Anglo-Normans, later English and Scotch (C. Keegan Paul, 1881) at 298.)
Wycliffe was also concerned about the deification of the host in the ceremony. According to Lechler's summary:
"[Wycliffe] affirms that so-called Christians who take to be their God that 'accident' which they see in the hands of the priest at Mass, sin worse than heathen who in their fetish worship give divine honors throughout the day to whatever object they chance first to see in the early morning.' 'The indignation of Wycliffe against the idolatry committed in the worshipping of the Host,' says the same writer, 'is all the stronger that he cannot avoid the conviction that the authors of this deification of a creature are perfectly well aware of what their God really is. Such priests accordingly he does not scruple to call plainly Baal-priests.'" (Bridgett, id., at 295-96, quoting Professor Lechler Vol. 2 at 182.)
In Roman Catholic practice, as of 1200 AD, the only mandatory day of the year one had to take the host was the Sunday of "Pasqua" (Passover called Easter in British territories which followed Constantinian-era law on how to name these periods). (Bridgett, id., at 261.)
In Roman Catholic practice since the 4th century, the round Eucharist was a leavened cake; it was not made of unleavened bread until the 10th century. "Indeed Sirmondus maintains that the use of unleavened bread in the holy Eucharist was unknown in the Latin Church before the tenth century...." (John McClintock, James Strong, Cyclopaedia of Biblical, theological, and ecclesiastical literature (Harper: 1869) Vol. 1 at 578.)
Thus, it started out more as a round cake than the host we think of today.jp2-sun_monstrance
Roman Catholicism presents today as the host at Mass conducted by the pope the round Eucharist in a sun-burst monstrance. It is called the Ostensorium. The church boasts this imagery is to convey the image of the Sun:
"During the baroque period, it took on a rayed form of a sun-monstrance with a circular window surrounded by a silver or gold frame with rays."
Rev. Jovian P. Lang, OFM,The Dictionary of the Liturgy (N.Y.: Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1989) at 436.
Ishtar aka Eostre and Baal-Sol-Invictus
Ishtar was the Mother goddess of ancient Babylon. There is a reference to her in Jeremiah 44:19. Because Ishtar was known as the Queen of Heaven, the
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