After the death of Constantine in 337 ad, the church clergy, headed by the pope, turned to acquiring earthly riches, power and prestige like pagan lords, and belied their claims of faith and piety, and their vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.§ Pope Damasus I (366-384) hired a gang of thugs to storm the Julian Basilica and massacre the supporters of the newly elected Pope Ursinus. Then he had himself consecrated as the new pope. His reign was marked by corruption, sexual debauchery, drunkenness and drug abuse. Orgies were organized inside churches. St. Jerome wrote that during his papacy, the only virtuous women seen in the streets of Rome were pagans. (Dark Side of Catholicism, pp. 283, 284)
§ Pope Leo I (440-461) had the Roman emperor, Valentinian III (419-455), issue an edict making the papacy supreme over all provincial churches and for the military commander in Gaul to enforce the edict. The pope encouraged the emperor in his excessive sexual escapades so he could have a free hand in running the government and the papacy. (Ibid)
§ Pope Symmachus (498-514) was charged before the Roman emperor, Theodoric the Great (454-526), with adultery, misuse of church property, and celebrating Easter on the wrong day. The pope fabricated fake documents to support his defense and claimed that a human court—even the emperor--could not judge the pope. (Ibid)
§ Pope Vigilius (537-555) forcefully deposed the incumbent pope, Pope Silverius (536-537), exiled him and allowed him to starve to death. (Ibid, p. 285)
§ Pope Gregory I (590-604) promulgated canon laws, practices and doctrines that were clearly unbiblical. He introduced the Pardon of St. Peter, the precursor of indulgence, a church teaching that forgiveness of sin could be bought. He passed an edict to enforce celibacy on priests. Those found guilty were removed from office. Many children sired by the clergy were disowned; others killed. (Ibid, p. 283) In his zeal to convert pagans, he wrote letters to the bishops urging conversion through persuasion, bodily torments and fear of death. (p. 286) When an obscure centurion, Phocas, usurped the throne in Constantinople and had all the family members of Emperor Maurice (539-602) killed in some of the most heinous ways, the pope wrote the usurper a congratulatory letter. His letter ended with “Glory be to God on high… let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad.” (p. 287)
§ Pope Sabinia (604-606) put the food supply under his tight control as Rome was constantly under siege by the Lombards. When famine developed, he sold the food at a profit instead of giving it away. § Pope Stephen III (768-772) acquired the title King-Pope. In 754 ad, he asked King Pepin the Short (714-768) of the Franks for help against the Lombards. In the process he presented a document called Donation of Constantine granting to the papacy the Lateran Palace in Rome, imperial dignities and insignia and spiritual powers over faith and morals, temporal dominion over the entire Western Roman Empire, and spiritual supremacy over the Eastern patriarchates. The grant was allegedly given to Pope Sylvester I (314-335) by Constantine the Great for miraculously curing him of leprosy. Fortunately for the pope, the king honored the document. The king promised to give him all the lands in Italy that could be recovered from the Lombards. (Ibid, p. 115) In 1443 the document was declared spurious. It was found out that Constantine granted to Sylvester only the Lateran Palace, Lateran Basilica and St. Peter’s Basilica. But thanks to the ruse, Stephen had become the first temporal sovereign of the newly founded Papal States. And by siding with the Franks, the papacy’s independence from the imperial regime in Constantinople was secured. (p. 122)
§ Pope Hadrian I (772-795) received in 774 ad two-thirds of the Italian peninsula from Emperor Charlemagne (742-814), the son and successor of King Pepin. The deed was called Donation of Pepin. Charlemange justified it on the ground of an earlier grant made by Constantine the Great. On the basis of Charlemange’s action and under his imperial patronage, the spurious Donation of Constantine gained legitimacy and acceptance in the Western Roman Empire. The church used it to launch its unprecedented quest for the “mammon” of this world, that is, from 774 to 1848. Not even the combined quests of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Tamerlane, Kublai Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler could equal it. The papacy became the virtual owner of all the lands in Europe and later the whole world. Papal pronouncements were made into laws, imperative even for other heads of state to obey. A military arm was created to wage war against those who opposed the pope. The earthly kings became his vassals. (Come Out of Her My People, Book One)
§ Pope Nicholas I (858-867) claimed that “Jesus Christ” had appointed the popes as absolute judges of all men. Emperors and kings must submit to their authority. They were not to interfere in church matters. They were under obligation to obey papal decisions—such as to invade another state, burn cities and massacre people—and to give the popes support and protection. (Dark Side of Catholicism, p. 289)
§ Pope Stephen VI (896-897) put on trial his predecessor, Pope Formosus (891-896), for treason. Formosus’ corpse was exhumed from the grave, dressed in papal attire and subjected to interrogation. Formosus was posthumously found guilty, for which reason he was stripped of his election as pope, all his acts were quashed, his corpse was dragged through the streets of Rome and dumped into the Tiber River. (Ibid)
§ Pope Sergius III (904-911) became pope after ordering the assassination of Pope Leo V (903) and Cardinal Christopher who for his part had Pope Leo V deposed and imprisoned. The reign of Sergius and his successors were known for their corruption and immorality so that their reign was called the “pornocracy” of the papacy. His open sex life with the prostitute Marozia brought him a number of children, one of them the future Pope John XI. Marozia became the grandmother of Pope John XII, the great-grandmother of Pope Benedict VIII and Pope John XIX, and the great-great grandmother of Pope Benedict IX. (Ibid, p. 289)
§ Pope John XII (955-964) was accused of operating a brothel inside St. Peter’s Basilica. He had sex with some of the nobles of both sexes, even giving his lovers gold chalices belonging to the church. One of his mistresses used to be his father’s (Duke Alberic II of Spoleto’s) concubine. The pope was so much in love with one of his mistresses that he made her governor of several cities and gave her the golden crosses and the cups of St. Peter himself. He had female pilgrims abducted to satisfy his insatiable lust. His actions deterred pilgrims from visiting Rome. He was a heavy gambler, using the pilgrims’ offerings and the papal treasury to pay off his gambling debts. While playing dice, he would invoke the devil’s name to help him win. He had a stable of two thousand horses which were fed with almonds and figs steeped in wine. He ordained a 10-year-old boy as a bishop after receiving some bribes. He consecrated a bishop in a stable. When a cardinal complained about it, he was castrated and died soon after. (Ibid, p. 291)
§ Pope Benedict V (964) stole the papal treasury after dishonoring a young girl, and fled to Constantinople. He returned after spending all the money. A jealous husband stabbed him repeatedly for adultery and his body was dragged through the streets before being tossed into a cesspit. (Ibid, p. 292)
§ Pope Benedict VI (973-974) was responsible for seducing and raping many foreign ladies who went to Rome. (Ibid)
§ Pope Gregory V (991-999) maltreated a rival who tried to grab his post. He had his eyes gouged out, his nose and ears cut off, and left him to die in a dark prison with no windows. (Ibid)
§ Pope Sylvester II (999-1003) wrote about the wickedness of some of his predecessors but he was no better than any of them. He was an atheist who was proficient in magic and astrology. He learned black magic with the help of a Moor’s daughter with whom he had an affair. Some claim that he sold his soul to the devil to gain the papacy. (Ibid, p. 293) Under his reign, in 999 ad, the idea was floated that the world was coming to an end at the turn of the millennium. This created mass hysteria in Europe. Since no one could bring his material wealth to the next life, the church suggested that it would be good for everyone to donate their earthly possessions to the church. Panicky believers lined up outside monasteries, convents and rectories to donate their money, houses, lands and other valuables to the church. The following year, when the world did not come to an end, the believers sought to get back their donations. The church did not return them. (Come Out of Her My People, Book One)
§ Pope Benedict VIII (1012-1024) started the taxation of clergy. Clerical marriages and concubinages were added to the collection fee. Later, he prohibited clerical marriages due to his concern of loss of church properties to the wives and children of such marriages. The children were reduced to serfs. (Dark Side of Catholicism, p. 294) His reign saw the expansion in territory of the Papal States. He took up arms to restore papal authority in Campagna and the Tuscany by force. In 1016 ad, he personally led a naval force against the invading Saracens in northern Italy and in the process liberated Sardinia. (p. 293)
§ Pope John XIX (1024-1032) bribed his way to win the papacy. He started off as a layman and became an ordained clergyman and pope all in one day. Pope Benedict VIII was his brother.
§ Pope Benedict IX (1032-1045) put up a brothel beside St. Peter's Basilica. Orgies and rapes of young women pilgrims by the pope and some young cardinals took place there. He was an insatiable bisexual known for sodomizing animals. He often invoked evil spirits and practiced necromancy to arouse lust in women. He dabbled in witchcraft and Satanism, and ordered his enemies murdered. A man of violence and debauchery, even the Romans—who were used to the violence and intrigue of the popes—found it hard to stomach him. (Ibid)
§ Pope Gregory VI (1045-1046) bought the papacy from Benedict IX for “1,400 weight in gold.” This started the malpractice of the papal throne being sold to the highest bidder. The death of a pope was an opportunity for big money to exchange hands and pledges of lucrative positions to be transacted. (Come Out of Her My People, Book One)
§ Pope Gregory VII (1073-1087) compelled the kings of the earth to pay taxes to the pope. He banned Bible-reading. In 1074, he had all married priests deposed while he was seated beside his mistress, Countess Mathilda. He was said to have poisoned six bishops and his predecessor to gain the papacy. (Dark Side of Catholicism, p. 297)
§ Pope Urban II (1088-1099) urged the faithful in 1095 ad to pick up swords in the service of God. Some 275,000 answered the call and the First Crusade set off. The pope promised plenary indulgence to those who participated. He was quoted, saying, “Undertake this journey eagerly for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the reward of imperishable glory in the Kingdom of Heaven.” (Secrets of the Vatican, p. 133) The crusaders were licensed to kill without remorse or penance those whom the church considered enemies. Eight major crusades and numerous smaller crusades were made to Jerusalem and other places. Jews, Muslims and Apostolic Christians were forced to be baptized and to accept the church’s form of worship. Those who refused were exterminated, mutilated and looted without compassion. In the villages near Nicaea, the men of Peter the Hermit slaughtered non-Catholic Christians in large number and boiled them in cooking pots and roasted their babies in spits for food. In a letter to the pope by Radulph of Caen, the excuse was that they were hungry. (Dark Side of Catholicism, 85) < After the Fourth Crusade, Pope Innocent III granted indulgences to everyone who equipped a crusader or hired one to fight. >§ Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) declared he was the "temporal sovereign of the whole Universe.” In effect, he was saying the world was not enough. (Come Out of Her My People, Book One)
§ Pope Gregory IX (1227-1241) founded the Inquisition, an ecclesiastical court organized to get rid of the church enemies. He was influenced by the Roman emperor, Frederick II (1182-1250), who upon his coronation decreed the burning of heretics. (Dark Side of Catholicism, p. 53) With the impotence of far-flung crusades exposed, the church turned its wrath on “heretics” closer to home. (Secrets of the Vatican, p. 138)
<Heretics: a general reference to teachers and followers of teachings opposed to that of Catholicism. The Inquisition expanded its coverage to include church critics; blasphemers; laypeople who read the Bible, the Talmud or the Koran; those who practiced sorcery, witchcraft, alchemy, sodomy, polygamy and usury; Jews and Muslims; and later, Knight Templars, Protestants and others with the slightest hint of unorthodox leaning. Anticlerical expressions, disrespect for church images, and eating meat on days of abstinence were taken as signs of heresy.>
Inquisitors, who acted as both prosecutor and judge, were appointed and drawn from the Dominican Order and later the Franciscan Order. (Dark Side of Catholicism, p. 53) Their operations were made independent of the bishops and priests, and answerable only to the pope. Heretics willing to confess early on were let off with more lenient punishments (fines, for example, or religious pilgrimages), while those who relapsed or refused to recant in the first place were given the harshest penalties, including the confiscation of property by the church and burning at stake—the latter seen as a theologically justifiable form of execution in that it didn’t draw blood. The same was true of the Inquisition’s favored forms of torture (flogging and water torture, as was roasting the feet over burning coals). Torture is now believed to have been used to extract confessions in a third of all trials held by the Inquisition. (Secrets of the Vatican, p. 138)
Imprisonment and torture were done without due process in the name of the loving God… In 1244, the Council of Narbonne ordered that the parents, spouse and children of a heretic were not to be spared in the sentencing of the heretic. There was no mitigation for sickness or old age. (Dark Side of Catholicism, p. 56) Time and time again, Pope Innocent IV (1243-1254) intervened to protect the inquisitors of their fanaticism. Under canon law, torture could only be done once to a suspect, but the inquisitors avoided the rule by calling the interval between tortures as suspension period; the next torture was a continuation of the first. Death by torture became common but the inquisitors and their assistants were absolved quietly explaining that the victims died because the devil broke their necks.
Torture chambers were set up and the degree of torture was gradually increased. The thumbscrew was one form of torture. Fingers were placed between clamps and the screw slowly tightened until the victim confessed to what the inquisitors wanted to hear or until they bled or their bones were crushed. Sometimes the victim was placed on an iron chair with protruding nails. If the defendant still refused to recant, the chair was heated from below. Another common method used a pulley whereby the prisoner was hanged from the wrist and raised to the ceiling with heavy weights attached to his feet. The accused would then be suddenly dropped with a jerk that could easily break a bone or two. Another similar method of torture involved tying the victim’s four limbs on a rack or wheel and stretching them until they were dislocated. Sometimes the body would be suspended with limbs attached by ropes to the posts and heavy stones gradually placed on the body. In the water torture method, the accused would be forced to lie down and a toca or linen would be gagged on his mouth to allow water to flow down the throat. The severity of the torture depended on the number of jars of water used. Other common tortures included breaking fingers and toes, pulling teeth, squeezing flesh with pinchers, inserting hook into fleshly parts and pulling out the hooks through the flesh, inserting pins under the fingernails and toenails, and beating with rod and club. One of the most gruesome tortures involved a placing a large dish full of mice on top of the victim’s naked stomach. A fire would be lit on top of the dish forcing the mice to panic and burrow into the stomach. Men and women—young and old—were subjected to these tortures; sometimes all forms were used. (pp. 54-56)
Pope Sixtus IV created the Spanish Inquisition by a papal bull issued in 1478. After forcing Jews and Muslims to be converted to Christianity, the suspicion was that they converted to enjoy equal rights and go into all occupations, businesses and social positions that once were closed to them. The authorities prosecuted them for heresy. The condemned had their properties and possessions confiscated, and shared among the inquisitors, the Spanish crown and his accusers. The rich paid their way to escape prosecution. Many inquisitors enriched themselves by receiving bribes from them; the more greedy ones resorted to trumping false charges and received their part of the booty. Other Jews fled the country. (pp. 60-61)
When the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) invaded Spain, they found the instruments of torture in the dungeon of the tribunal. One instrument was used to break all the joints in the hands, arms and body until the victim died. Another instrument was a large, beautiful doll, richly dressed with her arms extended ready to embrace her victim. Hidden inside it were a thousand knives to cut the victim into many pieces. (p. 55)
Execution was similarly gruesome, with the condemned given one last chance to recant at the stake: if they did so, they were garroted before the fires were lit; if not, they were burned alive—sometimes, if they vocally stuck to their guns, slow burning “green wood” was used to make the process longer and more painful. (Secrets of the Vatican, p. 145)
The last victim of the Spanish Inquisition was a schoolmaster who was hanged in 1826. His crime was substituting the phrase “Praise be to God” in lieu of “Ave Maria” in school prayers. (Dark Side of Catholicism, p. 64)
Bonaparte disbanded the Inquisition but it was resurrected by Pope Pius IX. King Victor Emmanuel II (1820-1878) also disbanded the Inquisition. Both Bonaparte and the king were branded antichrists. (p. 58)
The church asked forgiveness from the world for the Inquisition during the Jubilee year 2000. It was said to have killed “forty million enemies” of the church from 1231 to 1834, the year the Spanish Inquisition was officially disbanded. A long line of eighty popes did not bother to look into its theological basis and the brutality, cruelty and unusual punishment it brought. (p. 53)
§ Pope Boniface VIII (1294-1303) had his predecessor, Pope Celestine V (1294), imprisoned to get himself elected pope. In 1296, he issued a bull entitled Clericis Laicus which forbade kings, under penalty of excommunication, to tax the clergy without his consent. In 1302, he issued another bull entitled Unam Sanctam declaring that “submission to the Roman Pontiff is absolutely necessary for salvation.” One of his declarations was that the sins of the flesh were not sins at all. He had a mother-and-daughter team as his mistresses. He even had an affair with the husband, Giacomo de Pisis, and his son Giacanello. He did not believe in life after death, saying that heaven was here and now. For him the Eucharist was just “flour and water.” His lifelong career was to amass wealth for his family and relatives, and to destroy his family’s traditional rival, the Colonna family. Using his power over the church, he offered spiritual privileges to anyone who would take up arms against the Colonnas. The pope was responsible for many tortures and deaths. He had the whole town of Palestrina leveled, except for the cathedral. Everyone including the animals were killed. Afterward he had the whole surrounding areas sown with salt. (pp. 307-308)
§ Pope Eugenius IV (1431-1447) issued in 1442 a bull entitled Cantate Domino declaring that there is no remission of sin, and in effect no salvation, outside of the Roman Catholic Church. He had Joan of Arc burned alive as a heretic and witch. < She was declared a saint five hundred years later by Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922). > In 1439 he asserted papal supremacy over the Council of Basle (1431-1439). It demanded that the papacy be bound by its decisions. The council (and before it the Council of Constance) was established to check the extravagance and low morality of the popes.
§ Pope Paul II (1464-1471) often filled the papal court with his obsession: young, beautiful women and handsome youths. His other obsession was jewelry.
§ Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) channeled the wealth of the church gathered during the Jubilee Year 1475 to his relatives. Two of his unworthy nephews were made cardinals.
§ Pope Innocent VIII (1484-1492) was an insatiable womanizer who begot more than 100 illegitimate children. He was a glutton and became so fat that, in the end, he could no longer take in any more food except milk from a young woman's breasts.
§ Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) leased in 1493 all the islands of the oceans—discovered and undiscovered—to the kings of Spain and Portugal. The Philippines was officially leased to Spain after it was “discovered” by Magellan in 1521.
As a cardinal, then as pope, Alexander sold premium ecclesiastical positions to the highest bidders and plenary indulgences at a discount. It was hard to believe that a man who reputedly committed his first murder at the age of 12 could end up as head of the Holy See, but he won the papal election with the same moral vacuity that characterized his reign, sending four mules loaded with silver to his closest competitor, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, to help swing the vote in his favor. From that point on, things only got worse. Alexander had sired no fewer than 10 illegitimate children with various mistresses, and as pope, he engaged in a campaign of ruthless nepotism, elevating many to positions of power (his son Cesare was made Archbishop of Valencia at the age of 17), and setting up his mistresses in smart houses across Rome—one, Guilia Farnese, was even used as a model for the Virgin Mary in a recently rediscovered fresco for the papal apartments.
As his power grew, so did his greed. Before long, wealthy cardinals were being imprisoned and executed on trumped-up charges, simply so he could get his hands on their property. Rome was plunged into a period of unprecedented darkness, its streets crawling with prostitutes and murders going unpunished, while the pope occupied himself with alcohol-fueled banquets that invariably turned into orgies. (Secrets of the Vatican, pp. 90-91)
Enough! It would be redundant to list some more of the papal corruptions. For brevity we are cutting the list short. Sufficient to say, of the 266 popes, about 39 were considered antipopes and at least 50 were considered atheists, infidels and murderers Some had been condemned and deposed as heretics by church councils. About 40 were killed by other popes. ((Dark Side of Catholicism, pp. 115, 134)
Obviously the roots of Catholicism were not from Y’shua. The first 1,500 years of its leadership displayed gross ignorance of His teaching. Purity of the soul and 100% obedience were not its hallmark; misdirection and confusion were. No co-operative redemptive work was done with the apostolic communities; instead, it brought discrimination, persecution and death upon the God-appointed Gospel-bearers. God’s instructions were suppressed and muddled with false teachings. Scripture-reading was banned to the laypeople notwithstanding the encouragement of Y’shua for everyone to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” The papacy and its lackeys made themselves living examples of immorality, debauchery, corruption and hypocrisy. They kept busy with subjugating communities not to save souls but for plunder. They became authoritarian lords of civil government, faking divine appointment and achieving a social rank never sought by Y’shua Himself (see John 18:36).
Why would God establish the Church and only a short while later allow a counterfeit to rival it?
9 The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Lucifer displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, 10 and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. 11 For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness. 2 THESSALONIANS 2
The Philippine Experience
The Philippines was not spared of the church corruption. The Spaniards came in 1521 and declared every square inch of the country church property. History attests to the fact that the people were systematically exploited, abused and robbed for 333 years. Part of the loot was sent abroad. The king of Spain took 20% and Rome, 80%. In return the church friars were allowed to live like gods. No one was sent to check on their behavior and to contest their authority in their respective doctrinas. Their word was the law; their whim, a command. A report to the Spanish king in 1842 criticized the lifestyle of the friars for its passions: (a) unabashed concubinage; (b) rapacious accumulation of wealth; (c) arrogant pride; and (d) runaway cruelty towards the natives. To this day the Philippines has remained a Roman Catholic Church colony and one of the biggest contributors to its coffer. (Come Out of Her My People, Book One)
The Modern-Day Papacy
Fast-forward to some revealing developments involving the papacy in modern times:
§ In 1939 as Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was consolidating his stranglehold over Europe, an elderly Pope Pius XI (1922-1939) set to work preparing a bluntly worded speech denouncing fascism both at home and abroad. Alas, 24 hours before he was due to deliver it, he was found dead. The text of his bold speech had miraculously disappeared, and has never been found. Not long after, rumors of foul play began circulating. These were based on a sensational claim of a respected French cardinal named Eugene Tisserant, who noted that Pius had been given an injection on the day of his death by one Dr. Francesco Petacci, the Vatican’s chief medical practitioner and the father of none other than the mistress of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945). While the conspiracy theory that Pius was murdered on orders of Mussolini is not widely accepted, his sudden death has understandably raised a number of eyebrows—especially in the light of his successor’s perceived support of the Third Reich. There’s little doubt that the Vatican was under the sway of pro-fascist forces at the start of World War II; the question is, whether or not they murdered one of their own. (Secrets of the Vatican, pp. 96-97)
§ One of the first acts of the new pope, Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), was to meet with the German authorities and affirm his support for the Nazi Party. The pope did little to stem the increasing aggression of the Nazis. He failed to speak out against the Holocaust. He allowed SS Guards to round up Roman Jews under his nose ((Ibid, pp. 154, 157, 189). In Poland, three million Jews as well as another three million Poles were killed. The pope never raised a voice to the atrocities. At the end of the war he and Monsignor Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) participated actively in the Ratline, a secret organization that smuggled wanted Nazi criminals out of Europe and into safe havens in other countries. ((Dark Side of Catholicism, pp. 359, 365) <Apparently the papacy flip-flopped again on matters of faith and morals to suit the wishes of the earthly kings in power.>
The pope’s relationship with a nun named Mother Pasqualina has been the cause of much cynicism and more than a few sordid rumors. (Ibid, p. 189) She became a permanent presence in the Vatican as the papal housekeeper, ruling over a small palace of her own and accumulating such influence over Pius that she was believed to have been able to get even cardinals ordained. (Secrets of the Vatican, p. 86)
In his pre-Christmas message of 1950 the pope announced that the tomb of Apostle Peter had been discovered beneath the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica. But when the bones in the tomb were sent to a secular specialist, it was found that the “apostolic remains” were in fact bones belonging not to one man but to two separate men (one young, one much older), a woman, a pig, a chicken and a horse.(Ibid, 31) <That’s food for thought on papal infallibility.>
§ Pope John XXIII (1958-1963) was a Freemason. One issue raised against him was the 69-page Latin document bearing his seal and sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outlined a policy of “strictest” secrecy dealing with allegations of sexual abuses and threatening those who speak out with excommunication. Guilty clergymen and their superiors were encouraged indirectly to neither confess wrongdoing nor make restitution for it; also, to resort to bribery to silence the wrongdoing, or worse, to drag the victim through the mud of an ugly trial. (Dark Side of Catholicism, p. 367)
§ Pope Paul VI (1963-1978) was the first pope to wear the sinister symbol of the broken cross, allegedly a representation of the “Mark of the Beast” by the satanists in the sixth century. The bent or broken cross displayed a repulsive and distorted figure of Christ. Black magicians and sorcerers in the Middle Ages had used it for occult purposes. (Ibid) § Pope John Paul I (1978) died just 33 days after his election as pope. Jean-Marie Cardinal Villot insisted that he’d accidentally overdosed on his coronary medication, Effortil. This was hard to verify, however, as the bottle of Effortil disappeared from the scene of death, as did the pope’s glasses and slippers. In his book In God’s Name, David Yallop suggested that these were removed because they would have shown traces of vomiting—a symptom of digitalis poisoning, which would also have accounted for the expression of twisted agony on the face of a man once known as the “Smiling Pope.” But why would anyone want the new pope dead? Simply put, he was threatening to shake up the Vatican in an unprecedented fashion. (Secrets of the Vatican, p. 98)
During his coronation, he refused to be ferried on the papal sedan; he walked. He refused to be applauded if possible. He refused to wear the papal crown, the traditional three-tiered tiara; he wore the mitre. He refused to use the papal chair; he sat on a simple wooden chair. Also, he refused to follow the scripts prepared for him by the Roman Curia during his audiences and press conferences. He preferred the Vatican to engage purely on spiritual matters, not to interfere with the political affairs of governments and nations. He intended to bring changes to the Roman Curia and to replace doctrines.
Sept. 28 was the fateful day. The pope met with Sebastiano Cardinal Baggio about his reassignment. The pope wanted to move him to Venice despite his violent objection and anger. Late that afternoon, the pope told Cardinal Villot of his decision to remove Archbishop Paul Marcinkus as head of the scandal-racked Vatican Bank the following day. The pope also voiced his plan to cut all links with the Banco Ambrosiano Group of Mafioso Michele Sindona and Roberto Calvi. Also taken up was the replacement of Cardinal Villot by Giovanni Cardinal Benelli as the pope’s Secretary of State. On the evening, the pope discussed with Cardinal Villot the issue of reversing the teaching of Pope Paul VI regarding the Humane Vitae. The pope also confided about accepting an invitation to meet a delegation from the U.S. government to discuss the issue of population control.
Baggio, Villot, Marcinkus, Sindona and Calvi were all members of the Freemasonry Lodge known as Propaganda Due or P2, according to Mino Pecorelli, an investigative journalist and P2 member who exposed the P2 Group in 1978. Pecorelli was shot to death in 1979. (Dark Side of Catholicism, pp. 385, 394)
§ Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) once signed three criticisms of the same work by Jacques Dupuis, a Belgian Catholic theologian. Each document consists of different expressions of important changes. < That’s another bull on papal infallibility. >
While his predecessor Pope John Paul I announced that the papacy would be shared by the bishops throughout the world, and that the Roman Curia should only carry out their combined decision, John Paul II in his 1994 Manual for the Clergy considered democratic ideas as a falsehood that would corrode the church constitution. (Ibid, pp. 133, 120)
On a September afternoon in 2000, the hushed reverence that usually accompanies papal appearances in St. Peter’s Square was shattered by a terrible scream. A 19-year-old girl from the Italian city of Monza had begun hurling obscenities at the pope in what onlookers described as a “cavernous voice.” When security guards attempted to restrain her, she reportedly shook them off with superhuman strength. The pope asked that the girl be brought to her—and convinced that she was possessed by demonic forces—performed an impromptu exorcism. His improvised efforts were unsuccessful. The Vatican’s senior exorcist, Father Gabrielle Amorth, later reported that the demon mockingly cackled: “Not even the leader of your church can send me away!” (Secrets of the Vatican, p. 153)
Papal Infallibility
In 1848 the papacy was stripped of all its temporal domain and authority. The Italian people deposed Pope Pius IX (1846-1878) as king of the papal empire. Italy was made into a republic. The lands that the church stole from the European nations were returned to their owners. The pope was left with a 109-acre (44-hectare) territory, the Vatican.
It’s amazing, though, how the false teachings were left intact. The pope declared himself infallible in 1870, and millions and millions of people have believed and supported it.
Papal infallibility means any and all pronouncements made by the pope regarding faith and morals are authoritative; it is impossible for him to err. He has no need to call a council to help him resolve any issue of doctrine since he has the sole authority to decide the issue. The dogma has retroactive effects. All future popes may not correct mistakes in his pronouncements; conversely, he may not correct mistakes in the pronouncements of his predecessors. False teachings that carry the papal imprimatur may not be held wrong. The cardinals and their subordinates are required to defend the papal pronouncements even against their conscience. Pope Pius XII said that once the pope has spoken on a matter, the clergy and the laity are no longer free to discuss or debate on it. Any critical inquiry of the false teachings may be disallowed, ignored, summarily dismissed, and thrown into the sewer.
The Pontifex Maximus (Supreme Pontiff, Pope) has arrogated to himself an attribute that solely belongs to God.
The First Vatican Council promulgated the dogma of papal infallibility on July 18, 1870. On that day, there was an ominous sign in the sky. Thomas Mozley, a reporter for The Times described the day “as stormy with burst of utmost violence. Thunder pealed above and lightning slashed every window up and down the dome… The storm was at its height when the result of the voting was taken up to the pope. Darkness was so thick that a huge taper was brought and placed at his side. As he was reading the confirmation, lightning flickered around the hall, and the thunder pealed.”
It was reported that a visionary named John Bosco received a message from an apparition of the Blessed Mother that she “wanted” the promulgation. Pope Pius IX went for it. He was the same pope who pronounced the doctrine of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in 1854.
But how infallible can the pope be? Pope Leo XII (1878-1903) made Philomena a church saint. Roman scholars were later compelled to admit that no such person ever existed. (Dark Side of Catholicism, p. 142) Some popes, like Hadrian IV (1522-1523), did not believe in papal infallibility saying a pope could err on matters of faith as many judgments and decretals issued in the past by popes had been found to be heretic. But Lucifer was unyielding. Instead of doing away with papal infallibility, the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) had it extended so that the ordinary magisterium of the bishops throughout the world might wield it too. (p. 133)
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