Papal Rome Part I
The nature and characteristics of Roman Catholicism through the ages and up to the present time
This is written for the following reasons
To engage Roman Catholics in a dialogue concerning both their Church history and their doctrines.
To expose Rome’s unchanging ambitions, particularly through the working of the Papacy.
To warn against the seductive nature of an organisation, so vast, so influential, so politically active and so little understood.
I would at the outset want to draw a large distinction between the Roman Catholic people and its hierarchy. I was born into a Roman Catholic family. I remain close to all the members of my family despite the fact that I shocked and upset many of them when I left the Church in 1984. I can truthfully say that they were at the time of my leaving the Church, and have been since, nothing but loving, kind and gracious concerning that decision. The same is true of my Catholic friends, many of whom I still count as friends. I am sorry that as a result of this website, some of those who happen across it may find it amazing that after so much time I have decided to go this far in publicizing my beliefs regarding the Roman Church.
The truth is that this whole matter has never left me for long. At various stages I have written at length about what I regard as the gross errors of Rome. At this present time it does not seem right to hold what I believe to be true concerning Roman Catholicism to myself. My belief in God and in the Scriptures prompts me on, towards what end I do not know.
Rome is becoming more and more attractive to leaders within the evangelical congregations worldwide. Roman Catholicism is held in high regard, a fact dramatically demonstrated following the death of Pope John Paul II. The wall to wall worldwide funeral coverage and the same following the subsequent election of his successor Benedict XVI was extraordinary. The positive nature of all this media coverage seemed to influence all people, including members of my own small Baptist Church. The feeling was that Rome was basically O.K. maybe a little strange in some ways, but nevertheless a sister Church. It was then that the alarm bells began ringing, this was not something that could be watched without protest and the issuing of a warning. Because at both root and branch Rome is not just strange, it is more than that, and this website is designed to show just how deeply strange and off centre it is.
As the great evangelical biblical scholar Martin Lloyd Jones stated on one of the few times he addressed the subject: Roman Catholicism is ‘Satan’s Masterpiece.’
My problem is entirely with the institution itself, the development of its huge doctrinal base and its government, most particularly those that work in and around Rome and the Vatican. The popes, their sacred congregations, the curia, (clerical bureaucratic officialdom) the dogmas, the teaching authority and sacred tradition. I feel passionately about this subject and as a consequence I may sometimes express myself too strongly. For this I apologise. I was a Roman Catholic for forty years and for most of that period I was a devoted and convinced member of what I believed to be the One, True, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Now I see things very differently. Extricating myself from this organisation was long and painful, involving much heartache and study. The following is part of and a very condensed version of thirty years of investigation.
The story of the Roman Church, such is its history, arouses very different feelings in those that approach it; it can disgust and shock on the one hand and yet still be seen as an account of soaring, unrivalled spiritual achievement on the other. Few Catholics know what lies at the heart of Rome, the accounts they are likely to read are expunged of the worst excesses, whereas the virtues of those considered virtuous are hugely exaggerated. As regards the papacy, which concerns this article most particularly, then it needs to be seen that the crimes, the sins, the depravity, the sheer worldliness of many of those who have styled themselves the successors of St. Peter, simply beggars belief. If the bulk of what follows is judged to be true and accurate, then it may undermine the vaunted claims made by the bishops of Rome for the Papacy and the Roman Church.
A very brief definition of terms may be useful before going further.
The word pope means father, a word Jesus forbade to be used in the context of spiritual authority. ( Matt. 23 v 9 )
The words papal and papacy refer to the system of church government in which the pope is recognised as supreme head.
The word pontiff, often used as a title for the pope, relates back to the Roman emperors who as heads of state were also heads, or high priests of the pagan religions. In this sense it means a bridge, a connection between this life and the one to come, a mediator between the gods and man. The emperors took the title Pontifex Maximus which expressed the emperors role as head of the state religion. In 607 A.D. Pope Boniface III assumed this pagan title and made it his own, it had been declined by his predecessor, Pope Gregory the Great in the strongest possible terms.
It had however been donated long before this by the Emperor Gratian (367-383) who gave up the honour. It is matter of debate as to whether Damasus, a canonised saint, made use of this title. His pontificate is worth looking at in some detail since it was pivotal in so far as pagan Rome was concerned. It demonstrated the character of some of those men who became bishops of Rome, although there were many very much worse. As to the title Pontifex Maximus (Universal Pontiff / Priest) Catholic apologists say that as regards Damasus this was just a legal title with none of the connotations placed on it by Protestant critics. Nevertheless this was among the first of many misappropriations from pagan Rome by the papacy. As a title it seemed to lay semi-dormant for a while; like a jewel waiting for someone bold enough to put it in a crown and place it on his own head. It was obviously a serious bone of contention by the 6th century, as you will see.
Damasus became pope as a result of a street fight between his mob of supporters and that of his rival Ursinus. This battle royal went on for a few days, ending in a murderous assault in a Christian basilica that left a hundred and thirty-seven of his rival’s supporters dead. The emperor had to intervene to stop the rioting and thus Damasus became pope. It is unlikely he was not in some way implicated in the actions of his supporters. It was scarcely done in secret. The prolonged assault involved destroying part of the roof of the church and hurling masonry and tiles onto the heads of the men locked in below them. A fairly public event by any standards, the news of which would have quickly reverberated around Rome.
Damasus has been described as arrogant, a womaniser and a man who abandoned his family in order to pursue his church ambitions. The great and enduring enmity of Ursinus and his followers may account for some of the odium that besmirched his character. That is of course the line taken by Roman apologists. What credence can be attached to this argument? I leave the reader to decide. It is said that a Roman aristocrat call Praetextatus having observed Damasus in power said:“ Make me pope and I will become a Christian.” He had a slightly raunchy nickname: “ The ladies’ ear tickler.”
It seems unlikely, given the preponderance of the evidence that this man would be trusted by many churches in the role of leadership, nor would most fathers be happy to see him in the company of one of their daughters.
By the time Damasus became pope in 366 A.D. the Roman empire had been largely Christianised, I do not say evangelised. It was Christian by imperial decree. Paganism was not yet banned, this was not done until Emperor Theodosius the Greats’ edict in 391. Only then was the ancient religion finally and officially banned rather than merely discouraged. Prior to the official ban, at least in Rome, the old ways persisted and pagans went about their worship largely unhindered. Jerome, a contemporary of Damasus described Rome at that time as “ the sink of all superstitions”. There were in Rome at that time over four hundred temples and chapels used for pagan devotions.
It is from around this period that something truly extraordinary happens, and it helped define the strange mix of Christianity and paganism that characterises Roman Catholicism globally.
The world renowned historian Edward Gibbons who wrote the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire states that:
“ The ruin of paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation (extermination) of any ancient and popular superstition; and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular event in the history of the human mind.”
This all happened unbelievably quickly, according to Gibbon between A.D. 378 to A.D. 395. (Damasus died in 384). So what did happen to explain the inexplicable? What happened to the Babylonian mystery religions that had found their way into the Roman Empire and were now under threat of extinction? The answer is simple enough, although Roman Catholic apologists will avoid the conclusions of Edward Gibbon. Paganism officially disappeared almost like magic from imperial Rome but re-appeared full- blown and as if by magic within the Church. The pagans still had something like a high priest through the bishop of Rome, something close, if not yet identical to their Pontifex Maximus, and virtually everything else as well. For it was just the names that changed, much else remained the same. For the Roman populous all the colour and ritual remained, as did many of the same temples, and the dates upon which their feast days and seasonal festivals had for centuries been settled. Hence the days and dates upon which we go to church, and celebrate Easter and Christmas. They are not located as and when they are by accident.
In Gibbon’s account of the Roman Church headed: “ Introduction of Pagan Ceremonies” he says the following.
“ As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were introduced that seemed most powerfully to effect the senses of the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, he would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown open , they must have been offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused at noonday a gaudy superfluous, and in their opinion, sacrilegious light.”
Beyond all this the pagans could see in Damasus, a high priest who may have been thought to carry the title Pontifex Maximus, upon which for so many ages so much affection and so many hopes depended. Gibbon speaks of the shock these changes would have wrought on the minds of famous Christians like Tertullian and Lactantius, I cannot help wondering what Peter, the first pope would have made of it all. According to some Roman Catholic thinkers he would be expected to take particular pleasure in these bizarre “apostolic” developments.
Pontifex Maximus is a title that adorns the papacy no longer. It has been replaced by the title Summus Pontifex which means Supreme pontiff. Its symbolism has lost none of its meaning to those who seek the expansion of papal influence once more into the sphere of global politics.
The bishops of Rome learned from Rome and aped its character. At first during the post apostolic age the Church was persecuted, seen as an aberrant religion teaching strange and alien doctrines. Once accepted and incorporated into the imperial state the Church had little option but to lean on the empire and its emperors for support, sustenance, and ultimately expansion. The emperors granted the Church great favours from the time of the conversion of the Emperor Constantine. In 324 A.D. at the Council of Nicea he made Christianity the official religion of the empire. A year later he had his son killed, a year after that his wife was condemned to death, most versions suggest she was strangled in a bath of boiling water. One or two other deaths in his family are attributed to him as well. Not surprisingly this sun worshipping Christian Emperor left it late in life, very late, just before his death to be baptised. Centuries later, the Empire weakened by waves of barbarian attacks that swept across western Europe, became ruled from its eastern capital Constantinople (built by Constantine in modern Turkey).
From this point on the popes began to enjoy more autonomy. The emperors were in Constantinople, far from Rome. They still claimed oversight and authority but they could neither impose control themselves or easily prevent the popes from developing their own power base. Consequently the popes became the authority figures in the ravaged and occupied western part of the empire, caused by the constant incursions of the barbarian tribes from the north. The most notable example of their power was demonstrated by Pope Leo I in the fifth century A.D. He famously came to accommodations with both Attila the Hun and a few years later Gaiseric the Vandal that saved Rome from utter devastation. In general it seemed that the barbarians were simply awestruck by the wonders of Rome and its reputation and largely accepted the role taken by the bishops of Rome. The popes therefore gradually filled the void left by the departed emperors and their defeated armies. Many of the tribesmen became converts to Christianity just as previously many had become respected subjects of Imperial Rome. Some settled, most notably the Lombards who took on the role of sometime protectors at other times oppressors of the incumbent popes.
The popes became sneakier and more under-hand as the centuries passes. In 753 Pope Stephen III slipped over the Alps in order to persuade the Frankish ruler Pepin to deal with the Lombards. This he did, the land conquered being donated to the papacy, making them for the first time temporal lords.
This removal of land from its rightful claimants, the emperors who ruled from Constantinople (Byzantium), was probably in part due to an infamous forgery called the Donation of Constantine. This purported to grant a huge area of central Italy to the papacy by imperial decree of the emperor Constantine. The story of this imaginary donation of imperial lands by Constantine was used over the next six hundred years by many of the popes to further their territorial claims and authority. The forgery and its history is a story of its own and deserves more space than I can give it. But it should be said that forged documents were in no small measure the reason behind papal expansion and claims of Roman dominance and primacy.
These events in 756 contributed to the emergence of the papal states, an area that appeared on maps like a wide ragged belt that divided northern Italy from its southern extremities. These remained the dominion of the papacy until Italian nationalists wrenched it away from ecclesiastical rule in 1870.
Charlemagne finally and conclusively dealt with the Lombard threat; and with his coronation by Pope Leo III in 800 A.D. we can see the beginnings of the Holy Roman Empire. That is church and state fused into an interdependent entity, the leadership of which both popes and emperors would vie for centuries to come.
Rome left its massive awe inspiring mark on all who beheld its ancient glories. The departure of the entire apparatus of imperial rule left the Western Church in a unique position, and it took full advantage. The popes and priests acted like asset strippers. Through the course of centuries they appropriated to themselves whatever the empire had to offer by way of land, architecture, religious practices, its methods of administration, legal procedures, its titles, its modes of clerical dress, its aspirations to world leadership and its prerogatives of sovereignty. This process first began to manifest itself during the papacy of Pope Damasus.
Its development is still ongoing, its ultimate fulfilment can be deduced from scriptural prophecy.