HAVE PRIESTS
INHERITED
MAGIC POWERS
FROM
APOSTLES?
Index
APOSTOLIC
SUCCESSION
GOD’S WORD
REFUTES THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION
We read in the earliest traditions that the community must choose men to make them bishops and deacons (Didache 15:1). We read in Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, that he couldn't do what he wanted without the consent of the community even though he was a bishop (page 155, Papal Sin, Structures of Deceit, Garry Wills, Darton Longman and Todd, London, 2000). From surveying the early Church records, Father Raymond Brown concluded that when the congregation chose a man to be their priest that choice was suffice for considering them ordained (page 155, Papal Sin). See also Priest and Bishop: Biblical Reflections, Paulist Press, 1970. He also observed that in the New Testament, there is nothing in the New Testament about the Catholic doctrine that only bishops validly descended from the apostles can lay hands on people to make them priests (page 156, Papal Sin). Acts 6:6 seems to say differently. There the people choose deacons who go to the apostles and hands are laid on them. But if you read it carefully it doesn't make it clear who lays hands on them. It could be the apostles only, or it could be the apostles and the congregation or the congregation only. Acts cannot be used to defend the Catholic doctrine because the deacons were merely humanitarian workers not ministers.
A bishop, Ignatius from the second century said he couldn't command the people to respect their bishop as forcefully like an apostle might (Trallians 3). He said he couldn't give commands like Peter the apostle or Paul the apostle could for they were apostles while he was a condemned criminal (Romans 4). He said this while asking his followers not to save him from martyrdom. He denied the Roman Catholic notion that the bishops have the same authority as the apostles to command. Romanism says that the bishops have special powers and these powers give them special authority and they must be obeyed. What emphasises this even more is how Ignatius refused to command things that the apostles commanded already. It was not as if he was afraid of commanding what they forbid. Rome and her bishops are not afraid to command stuff that cannot be traced back to the apostles AT ALL!
Hebrews 7:23 says that the number of priests had to
be big in the times of the Old Covenant before Jesus brought in the New
Covenant because they were dying and ceasing to be priests and Christ holds his
priesthood forever for he doesn’t die again then we see something
interesting. It shows that there are no
real priests but Christ. And a man being
is in danger of death or if death is possible indicates that he cannot be a
true priest. It refutes the Roman Catholic
doctrine that Christ lets men share in his priesthood so that they can offer
his sacrifice, the sacrifice he made of his life on the cross, with him in the
This dogma of the apostolic succession is very
important to Catholicism. It justifies
having a clerical caste with occult powers that must be obeyed and feared.
The sacerdotal or priestly system is a part of
There is not a trace of the apostolic succession
doctrine in the Bible.
The Bible says that Paul appointed ministers in the
Churches with the laying on of hands but that does not mean that nobody could
be a minister or bishop without an apostle doing that. Perhaps good laymen could create a minister
or a bishop depending on the circumstances.
When the Bible says that the Church is founded on the apostles it does
not mean that the apostles had to be replaced by bishops or even that the
apostles were ordained. It only says
they were to be replaced as administrators and teachers of apostolic doctrine
and never as equals or anything else.
The doctrine of magical power being passed down a
chain of laying on of hands is suspicious when you look at scripture. Scripture never even says that Jesus laid
hands when he allegedly ordained the apostles or even that he ordained
them. He told them to eat bread and
drink wine in his memory and to forgive sins according to the Catholic
Church. But if the Bible says he did
this and does not say that he passed the power on to them by putting his hands
on them then it shows that laying on hands, the essential rite of ordination
according to Catholicism, was not a sacrament.
Jesus doesn’t say that it is only a certain caste that will have the
power to perform sacraments. Maybe
laypeople can celebrate the communion too.
The Bible would not teach half of a doctrine and
then leave out the essential. It would
not say that ordination happens and fail to lay it down that laying on of hands
is necessary. So, the Catholic Church is
wrong to assume that laying on hands is ordination.
Some would say that Jesus left it to the Church to
decide the essential rite of the sacrament.
But a sacrament is an outward sign of a grace that God gives you in your
heart. It is a symbol that does what it
symbolises. If the Church has to make
the rite then the sacrament was not instituted by Christ. For Christ to be the origin would require
that Christ lay down the rite.
Christ didn’t say we must use the words, “I baptise you
in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
Christ didn’t say we must say bread and wine is his
body and blood. He only said we are to
share them in his memory.
He didn’t give a formula for priests forgiving sins.
He didn’t give formula for marriage. In his day, only the man made the vow for the
woman was his possession.
All the sacraments are inventions of the Church.
It follows that when the sacrament of ordination by
the laying on of hands is an invention of the Church that most bishops at the
time this was invented couldn’t have been properly ordained. This error means that there could be real
bishops and priests.
Apostolic succession in the Catholic sense is not in
early tradition. Ignatius regarded the
bishop as representing the apostles and therefore to be obeyed. But he did not say that he could only become
a bishop if the person who ordained him could trace his authority back to the
apostles through the laying on of hands.
When Ignatius was so desperate to get people never to go against the
bishop he would have brought the doctrine of apostolic succession to the fore
if it existed and was practiced. What he
said was that the bishop gets his authority not from men but the Lord. Cyprian and the rest said that the laying on
of hands was needed but never attributed any sacramental efficacy to it.
Even in the third century, there were some sections
of the Church, notably at
The apostolical succession
doctrine was too foundational to be unmentioned or not stressed so it wasn’t
known. The early Christians were in
hiding. Because of their trouble a few
main dogmas would have been all the “Christian truth” they had. There would have been a lot of
misunderstanding, ignorance and confusion about Christianity among them. Many things they heard wouldn’t have been
worthy of trust. Clergy were not trained
very well. Many were barely trained. Few could rely on the tradition that only
bishops could ordain if there was one.
Logically, consecrations and ordinations which are invalid by Roman
standards today must have taken place.
The laying on of hands is the essential rite for ordaining. This isn’t in the Bible or early tradition
either. There must have been lots of
invalid ordinations. If the traditions
existed then people had the right to reject them for they were not infallibly
defined which more than anything else backs this up.
The Roman Catholic Church holds that even an
unbeliever can be ordained a bishop validly as long as he is consecrated by a
valid bishop. Second century top
theologian, St Irenaeus said that heretical bishops
or even orthodox ones who were only after money and honours were not part of
the apostolical succession and so not ordained which
totally contradicts Roman doctrine. For
the early Church orthodoxy and decency were the most important requirements and
the chain of ordinations going back to the apostles, the physical apostolic
link regarding the authority, was secondary (page 26, The Catholicity of
Protestantism). The rite of laying
hands was not enough which shows that there were many invalid orders in the
Church so Irenaeus could not agree with the Catholic
doctrine and would have to believe that if a bishop was consecrated by a fake
bishop that ordination would work if the candidate was orthodox and godly.
So there could be a lot of fake ordinations.
WHO CAN ORDAIN ?
In CATHOLICISM (Richard P McBrien, HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1994) the Catholic doctrine that the power to ordain was passed on by the apostles only to their successors the bishops and so on down to the present day is shown to be bereft of evidence and also no declaration was given until 1208 during the reign of Pope Innocent III that only priests could celebrate Mass (page 867).
Roman Catholicism teaches that only validly ordained
bishops can ordain priests or bishops.
The bishop is believed to have the full sacrament of holy orders. The priest receives all of the sacrament
barring the power to ordain. The Church
teaches that if a priest was invalidly ordained and a ceremony takes place to
make him a bishop the ceremony won’t work.
Only a priest can be validly ordained a bishop. The Eastern Orthodox Church believes the same
as the Catholic Church.
Pope Benedict IX who is considered to be a true pope
by the Church was only eleven when he became pope in 1032 AD. This youngster was infamous for his
irreligious ways and his promiscuity. He
didn’t know what he was doing not just because of his age but also because of
his spiritual immaturity when he became priest, bishop and pope. He cannot be considered to be a real
bishop. Yet the Church says he was. If he was then there is only one conclusion
that can be drawn. It is that the boy
pope though incapable of having any legal validity and incapable of being
validly ordained still had the powers a pope should have which are to maintain
the Church by sacraments and that a pope becomes bishop by virtue of being
elected even if his consecration as bishop was invalid.
The council of Chalcedon decreed that priests must be ordained only for particular Churches and be called by the people as a priest (page 869, Catholicism). It was believed that priests who were not called were not validly ordained and received no pay for his priestly work from the Emperor (page 869). Despite this rule, the Church later ignored it meaning that it produced invalid priests and bishops. Bishops today who have inherited their powers from such bishops are not bishops at all.
Interestingly there were priests ordained under
papal permission in the past who were not ordained by bishops but by
priests. The Catholic Church has never
made it infallible dogma that only bishops have the power to ordain priests. The ecumenical therefore infallible Council of Florence decreed
not that the bishop alone had this power but only that the bishop was the
ordinary minister of ordination or holy orders (page 1136, 1138, Encyclopedia of Theology, A Concise Sacramentum
Mundi, Edited by Fr Karl Rahner,
Burns & Oates, London, 1975). This
is interesting because saying somebody is an ordinary minister implies that
there can be an extraordinary minister.
And this is what the Church teaches.
For example, the ordinary minister of baptism is a priest but a
layperson can baptise when there is no priest in an emergency. So saying the priest is ordinary minister
implies there can be extraordinary or un ordinary ministers. The bishop is the ordinary minister of confirmation
but this does not mean the priest cannot confirm. Priests occasionally perform
confirmations.
Tertullian decades after the Church began was the first to say the bishop had the full priesthood (page 1129). This came more than a bit late. The biblical evidence as the Presbyterian Church can tell you is that originally bishops and presbyters (known as priests in the Catholic system who are sometimes called presbyters) were one and the same which is why all ministers have the same rank in Presbyterianism. One minister might belong to a higher assembly or level but all ministers are equal as ministers. John Wesley used evidence like this to argue that he had the right and authority as an Anglican priest to ordain bishops for Methodism. The most authoritative source of tradition and doctrine the Bible supports the idea that priests can ordain bishops and priests assuming it supposes that it matters who ordains.
“The bishop has remained the ordinary minister of
confirmation (in the West), and also of orders.
But there are traces in history of exceptions to this rule, which was
accepted in principle by the theologians and canonists of the Middle Ages since
Huguccio, with no reserves except for papal
permission” (page 1136).
“We have already mentioned the customs of the
The book “Fundamentals of
Catholic Dogma” by Dr. Ludwig Ott was translated from
German. It has an imprimatur date of
7th October 1954 and the following comes
from pages 458-459. The book says: “In regard to the sacramental Order
grades of diaconate and presbyterate, most
theologians, with
The National Catholic
Reporter, February 25th, 2000 reported that Czech priests who were ordained by
priests in secret under special permission by Pius XII were ordered by the
The current Roman Catholic doctrine that only
bishops can ordain priests for priests don’t have the power from God to ordain
means that many of its current bishops cannot be true bishops for somewhere
along the line it was priests that did the ordination of their predecessors as
priests or bishops. To be in communion
with a false bishop is to be in schism so this is very serious and shows that
Catholic unity isn’t real, it just looks real.
Also to reject bishops or priests ordained by priests is to cause schism
for it is unfair. Schism can be the
attitude that some part of the Church is not part of your Church even if this
isn’t made public by you. You are
divided from them in your heart even if you pretend to be in communion with
them and it appears to the world that you are all one. Understandably Protestants deny that the true
Church is visible – they say it is an invisible communion made by God. It’s not an organisation but a spiritual
closeness. The Roman Church has
rejected many bishops ordained outside Roman Catholicism as having doubtful or
non-existent holy orders though the bishops were ordained properly to all
appearances. If priests can ordain
bishops then we can be very sure they are really ordained and that the Church
shouldn’t be giving the rejects the cold shoulder
HOLY ORDERS
Roman Catholicism teaches that there are three
levels in the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Like
the Trinity, there are three roles given by one sacrament!
The Deacon is a male who when he receives the laying
on of hands by a bishop gets the authority to perform baptisms and marriages
and preach. It is impossible to see how
this office can be a sacrament because any layperson can do what the deacon
does. The sacrament of Holy Orders is
about giving priestly powers. However,
the deacon has no such powers.
Yet the Church is forced to be stupid and say the
diaconate is a sacrament.
The Catholic Encyclopedia
(www.newadvent.org) says,
“Although
certain theologians such as Cajetan and Durandus, have ventured to doubt whether the Sacrament of
Order is received by deacons, it may be said that the decrees of the Council of
Trent are now generally held to have decided the point against them. The
council not only lays down that order is truly and properly a sacrament but it
forbids under anathema (Sess. XXIII, can. ii) that
anyone should deny "that there are in the Church other orders both greater
and minor as which as by certain steps advance is made to the priesthood",
and it insists that the ordaining bishop does not vainly say "receive ye
the Holy Ghost", but by that a character is imprinted by the rite of
ordination.”
All Catholic theologians have no doubt that the
priesthood is certainly a sacrament for therein are given the powers to say
mass and absolve sins and give all sacraments apart from the sacrament of Holy
Orders.
Some have doubted that the consecration of a priest
as a bishop is a sacrament. They would
see the ceremony as a non-sacrament but which confers no graces or powers on a
priest but just sets him apart to lead the priests. So the bishop is just a priest with a higher
rank. The Catholic Encyclopedia
says,
“With regard to the
episcopate the Council of Trent defines that bishops belong to the divinely
instituted hierarchy, that they are superior to priests,
and that they have the power of confirming and ordaining which is proper to
them (Sess. XXIII, c. iv, can. 6, 7). The superiority
of bishops
is abundantly attested in Tradition,
and we have seen above that the distinction between priests
and bishops
is of Apostolic origin. Most of the older scholastics
were of opinion that the episcopate is not a sacrament;
this opinion finds able defenders even now (e.g., Billot,
"De sacramentis", II), though the majority
of theologians
hold it is certain that a bishop's
ordination is a sacrament.”
According to the view that Episcopal ordination is
not a sacrament, only the bishop has the right to give ordination or
confirmation. But this is not saying
priests don’t have these powers – only that they have no right to use them.
Holy orders or ordination to the priesthood or as a
bishop or deacon is a sacrament in Catholic theology.
Catholic sacramentalism
says that God is so unloving that he created the law that only priests can
absolve sins and laypeople can only forgive sins by baptising if they are
already Christians. God prefers to
encourage people to sin and keep them in sin by this law for it causes delay in
getting pardon and full protection from sin so that some men may have the
honour of removing them regardless of the harm done by this awkward
arrangement. The priests are better than
God when he does that for them. They are
more moral than God for they forgive sin with his power which he would not use
without their consent. But he lets
people stay in sin though he is well able to absolve them himself.
The sacramental system gives power to the
priests.
The Bible does not say that priests forgive sins.
There
are no real priests in the Catholic Church.
The clergy are called priests because during Mass, Jesus’ sacrifice is
made present and is offered to God by them on behalf of the living and the
dead.
A priest has to kill the victim of sacrifice and offer it. Catholic priests claim to believe that they do not kill Jesus on the altar. So they are not real priests. The word for priest in the New Testament is hiereus which means sacrificer or priest (page 110, Papal Sin, Structures of Deceit, Garry Wills, Darton Longman and Todd, London, 2000). In other words, it means ritual and religious killer.
The Church says that Anglican Orders are
bogus in accordance with the decree of Leo XIII given in 1897 for there was no
intention to make the clergy capable of causing the sacrifice of Christ on the
altar or for changing bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Jesus. The Catholic Church is right about this but
fails to see that its own clergy are invalid too for the same reason for they
traced their orders through men of long ago who were ordained without the rites
that the Roman Church says are an essential part of giving the sacrament of
order. This was pointed out in the Responsio of the Archbishops of England of 1897 which was
an answer to the pope’s prejudiced decree (read it on pages 322-325, Documents
of the Christian Church). It argued
from the ancient records of tradition that there was disagreement about how to
give confirmation whether it be by the individual laying on of hands or
chrism. It was pointed out that
The
priest only turns the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. As for the sacrifice, he offers it but with
the people who are priests too. The
priest making the sacrifice of Christ present has nothing to do with the
offering of it. He can make it present
without offering. The offering is as
much the job of the priest and the people.
So the priest title applies no more to Roman Catholic clergy than
anybody else even if they have the unique powers they claim. Leo XIII rejected the validity of Anglican
orders all because the word priest in the Anglican ordinals didn’t specify that
the priest was being made to offer
Can we offer God the sacrifice of his Son? We can either ask Jesus to offer himself for
us or we can offer Jesus directly to God.
The first is the godly
approach for it is approaching God through Jesus. It is saying, “I am not worthy so offer
yourself for me for I am too sinful to offer you.”
The second says, “I am a great
person now God for I am offering you your own son. I am a great person for it would be better to
ask him to offer himself for that is leaving it up to himself if he wants to be
offered and is more humble for me. But I
am too good to do that. It would be
beneath me.”
Would Jesus give himself to
me to offer him? No. It’s his sacrifice so he has to do the
offering. If he offers himself there is
no need for me to do it.
The second approach is just
using Jesus because we want to be near to God.
If you were really humble and concerned about God you would let Jesus do
the offering for Christianity is about letting the superior being do his own
will. Jesus is not yours to offer for he
is a person and not a lump of meat. The
Christian doctrine of the cross denies that Jesus degraded himself for you
because he was affirming his own dignity by doing good for you.
Suppose you can offer
Jesus. He will not want you offering him
by prayer. He would want you to live
your daily life and sacrifice yourself every day for others as an expression of
your desire to offer him to God. In
other words, when Jesus did so much for you it would be insulting to offer him
in an easy way and by sacrifice you are making your sacrifice of yourself a
prayer that offers Jesus to God. It is
like a mimed prayer.
The Mass is too easy. It cannot be a sacrifice then. It is blasphemy.
Never does the Bible tell
us to offer Christ and never does it say that we are priests except in the sense that
we offer our prayers and works to God.
When Jesus offered himself what is the point of us offering him? It makes more sense to approve of him
offering himself for us and accept what he did for us.
The priests call themselves Father because they
think they become the fathers of the grace in our souls when they baptise
us. God claims to be the father of
graces so he can’t be impressed about that.
If they are fathers then the person who puts John’s sperm into John’s
wife to help her get pregnant is the father of any child that results. We are the children and they are the parents
who can tell us what to do for calling them Father is telling them that they
are wiser than us and have authority over us.
Why claim to be an adult’s father when you are not unless you are going
to try and control him or her? Paul was
not speaking symbolically when he said that he became the Father of his
converts when he led them into belief.
He had only a superficial resemblance to being their father.
Jesus said that we are to call nobody on earth our
father. Catholics state that if this is
literal then we need to get a new name for male parents. But he means that we are not to have
spiritual fathers for only God has that role.
He meant it when he said that Jewish ministers should not be called Rabbi
(Matthew 23:8). Therefore the context
requires us to take him literally when he bans his devoted people calling
themselves fathers, masters, teachers or Rabbis for they are all equal brothers
and he is the master, teacher and rabbi.
This means that if there is a New Testament priesthood then we are all
priests and should be celebrating the Eucharist.
It may be objected that Jesus did believe in us
having leaders as long as the leaders acted like our slaves. But these leaders only act like leaders but
are not. They do not boss us about or
tell us what to do but they advise us and show by example what we are to
do. This eliminates Catholic
authoritarianism and infallibilism. The Church might say that all people are
equal in themselves but the priesthood is an office that contradicts this
equality. The whole reason we hate
people saying they are better than others or are some kind of superior human
being is because it provokes discrimination.
Catholics say terrible things about their priests and that must be the
reason they hate them so. Jesus might
see the priests as trying to be like some kind of Nazi master race. If he is right then the priesthood was not a
good example for Hitler.
The Roman Catholic priest believes he is better than
your own father. Your own father gave
you life but the priest gave you life with God through the sacraments he
offers. The priest is shepherd and
father and his flock are his children and his sheep. He then can exercise the authority of a
parent or shepherd even over adults without being accused of being a Lord. Parents are not Lords of their children
though they control them. The
control is necessary for the child needs
guidance and it is not about
We are not to put religious leaders before God. Putting leaders before God is exactly what
the Catholic Church does for there is no evidence for its dogmas being
true. When a priest calls himself Father
he is saying that he is going to tell you how to approach God instead of
directing you to find out what clicks with you in the God thing or what
doesn’t. If he were really godly he
would call himself way-shower or guide but not the pretentious father.
Jesus said he was the way the truth and the life and
no man could get to God but by him. The
apostles taught that Jesus was the only name under Heaven by which a man could
be saved. Jesus said that anybody who
got into the kingdom any other way than him was a robber. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the only way
to God.
Why is Jesus the only way to God?
Is it so that we can get easy and fast access to God
through him?
It must be for no other reason would justify it. It makes God friendly and welcoming.
How is Jesus the only way to God?
Theologians say he is because he has paid for our
sins to God.
Is Jesus the only way to God because he is the only
person who can atone for our sin?
The Catholic Church says he is and so that his role doesn’t
mean he cannot have people who are the only way to him such as priests.
Jesus said, “I am the way”. He didn’t say, “I will be the way”, meaning
that he would become the way when he is crucified for sins. He was the way when he spoke. He told people who didn’t know of his plan to
atone for sin that he was the way for them and the way they must use NOW. For them, he could be the way only if he was
treated as the only spokesman for God and the man who had to put you right with
God and the direct line to God. Priests
who claim to mediate between Jesus and the people are committing a heresy so
great that they are NOT true Christians.
Jesus atoning for sins would not necessarily mean he
was the way. He would be merely taking
away the sins or the barrier between man and God. The bulldozer that takes down a wall that
stops you getting to the Hotel is not the way to the hotel. Jesus being the way means more than him just breaking
down a wall but showing you the way and leading you personally. He does it alone. He doesn’t use intermediaries.
If you need priests to let you near Jesus then the
priests are in effect the only way to God if only that they are the only way to
the only way to God. Jesus promised
delivery from oppression and the danger of oppression including religious
oppression. That was why in God’s plan
he had to be the only way to God. The
priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church denies this. If the priesthood are needed for salvation
then clearly what objection could there be to the idea that you need some man’s
permission to go to Jesus? The Catholic
priesthood gives you permission to become baptised and be a Catholic, it gives
you permission to go to Heaven after forgiving your sins in confession and need
I go on? What objection could there be
that you need to go to
The Catholic Church teaches that all are priests but that the ministry of ordained priests is different. It states that the difference is one of essence and not only one in degree (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, nn 11, 30, 31). See Catholicism by Richard P McBrien on page 872. It wouldn't be so bad if if the Church taught that ordained priests were lay priests taken up to a new level. But to make them a different essence is to make them in effect a superior species. Lay priests can offer Mass but they need the ordained priest to celebrate mass for them. The most important thing, the authority to offer resides in both. The difference in essence is hard to see unless the ordained priest is being arbitrarily declared to be a super man, a person with the right to be a snob.
GOD’S WORD REFUTES THE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
The
function of a priest is to offer sacrifice.
So accordingly, the reason why the Catholic Church calls its ministers
priests is that they are thought to have the power to offer Jesus’ sacrifice by
saying
The
truth is that the context is about animal sacrifices. The Jews as a whole offered one sacrifice to
God.
Hebrews
10:11 says that the sacrifices of the old priesthood could not remove sins
simply because they were repeated all the time. The sacrifices would have been
stopped by God had there been enough of them (Hebrews 10:2). The Church says
these sacrifices represented the sacrifice of Christ and through that sacrifice
forgiveness was granted for making these sacrifices but in themselves the
offerings could not pardon sin. So it was the future sacrifice of Christ that
the power of forgiveness came from not the sacrifices. The sacrifice of
Hebrews
10 says that Christ offered one sacrifice for sins and then SAT DOWN at the
right hand of God. The sitting down is an expression to clarify that Christ was
doing no more offering. Notice how it
says that he offered one sacrifice and doesn’t say he sacrificed the once
instead. It is not the sacrifice that it
is saying is finished but the offering of the sacrifice a different thing. Therefore Christ though a priest in office
doesn’t offer any more. The priests of
Hebrews
13:10 says that Christians have an altar of sacrifice from which those who
serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. This is symbolism for the book uses
the symbols of tabernacles and other Old Testament items to illustrate Christian
themes.
Catholics
allege that the words Jesus said at the Last Supper imply that his sacrifice
was present then and that to celebrate the ritual is to offer it to God.
Neither are true. The words are symbolic. The words imply that he offered himself
to God for others and he asks for the rite to be celebrated in his memory but
does not say, “Say these words in memory of me”.
Hebrews
4:16 and Hebrews 10:17 taken together say that Christians can now march boldly
to the throne of God which is in the holiest place in heaven WHENEVER THEY
WISH. The Catholic would have to say
this only happens at Mass for the Mass is supposedly the closest you get to God
and the holiest place on earth. The
whole point of the salvation won by Christ is that so you can go to him
whenever you need to or wish instead of having to look for a human priest.
The
New Testament never says that there are sacrificing priests in the Christian
Church. The word translated priest in fraudulent Catholic Bibles is presbyter which
simply means elder.
The claims of certain men in the Catholic Church to be priests makes no sense. Their claim is just a heresy. They are not priests. They do not have special powers.
BOOKS CONSULTED
A GREAT LEGACY, Rev RJ Coates,
A ROMAN CATECHISM
WITH A REPLY THERETO, John Wesley Protestant Truth Society,
A WOMAN RIDES THE BEAST, Dave Hunt, Harvest House,
ALL ONE BODY – WHY DON’T WE AGREE?
Erwin W Lutzer,
AN
ACCOUNT OF ARCHBISHOP JAMES USHER 1581-1656, ND
Emerson MA PhD,
APOSTOLICAL SUCCESSION, James Heron,
Outlook Press,
BIBLICAL
EXEGESIS AND CHURCH DOCTRINE, Raymond E Brown, Paulist
Press,
BUT THE
BIBLE DOES NOT SAY SO, Rev Roberto Nisbet, Church
Book Room Press,
CATECHISM OF THE
CATHOLICISM, Richard P McBrien, HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1994
CATHOLICISM
AND CHRISTIANITY, Cecil John Cadoux, George Allen
& Unwin Ltd, 1928
CATHOLICISM
AND FUNDAMENTALISM, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press,
CHRISTIANS
GUIDE TO ROMAN CATHOLICISM, Bill Jackson, Colonial Baptist Press,
CITY OF
DAWN OR TWILIGHT? HM Carson, IVP,
Leicester, 1976
DEAR CATHOLIC FRIEND, John R Rice, Sword of the
Lord,
DIFFICULTIES, Mgr Ronald Knox and Sir Arnold Lunn, Eyre & Spottiswoode,
DOCUMENTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, edited by Henry Bettenson, Oxford University Press,
ENCHIRIDION SYMBOLORUM ET DEFINITIONUM, Heinrich Joseph Denzinger,
Edited by A Schonmetzer,
EVANGELICAL CATHOLICS A NEW PHENOMENON,
HOW SURE ARE THE FOUNDATIONS? Colin Badger, Wayside
HOW TO
CHOOSE YOUR VOCATION IN LIFE, Thomas Artz C.SS.R, Liguori Publications,
INFALLIBILITY IN THE CHURCH, Patrick Crowley, CTS,
IS THE
IS THERE SALVATION OUTSIDE THE
LETTERS TO A ROMAN CATHOLIC PRIEST, H A Ironside, Loizeaux Brothers,
LION CONCISE BOOK OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT,
LIVING IN CHRIST, A Dreze SJ, Geoffrey Chapman, London-Melbourne 1969
LOOK!
THE DOUAY BIBLE AGAINST
MORAL PHILOSOPHY, Joseph Rickaby
SJ, Stonyhurst Philosophy
Series, Longmans, Green and Co,
NEW CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA,
The Catholic University of America and the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.,
Washington, District of Columbia, 1967
OUGHT I TO SEND MY CHILD TO A CONVENT SCHOOL?
Rev Walter H Denbow, Protestant Truth Society, London, 1969
PAPAL SIN, STRUCTURES OF DECEIT, Garry Wills, Darton Longman and Todd, London, 2000
ROMAN
CATHOLIC CLAIMS, Charles Gore MA, Longmans, London, 1894
ROMAN CATHOLIC OBJECTIONS ANSWERED, Rev H O Lindsay,
John T Drought Ltd,
ROMAN
CATHOLIC TEACHING CONTRASTED WITH BIBLE TEACHING, Bernard Burt, The Bible
Student Press,
ROMAN CATHOLICISM TESTED BY THE SCRIPTURES, John A
Coleman, New Litho Pty. Ltd,
ROMAN CATHOLICISM WHAT IS FINAL AUTHORITY? Harold J Berry, Back to the Bible,
ROMAN CATHOLICISM,
ROMANISM AT VARIANCE WITH THE BIBLE, Rev James
Gardner, Protestant Truth Society,
SALVATION, THE BIBLE AND ROMAN CATHOLICISM, William
Webster, Banner of Truth,
SECRETS
OF ROMANISM, Joseph Zacchello, Loizeaux
Brothers,
THE ADVANCE OF ROMANISM, S M Houghton, Cotswold
Bible Witness, 1964
THE
BIBLE OR THE CHURCH? Ken Camplin, Printland
Publishers,
THE
BIBLE REFUTES ROMANISM Philip H Rand Protestant Truth Society,
THE
THE CHURCH AND INFALLIBILITY, BC
THE CHURCH OF ROME AND THE WORD OF GOD, Rev Eric C
Last, Protestant Truth Society,
THE
DEVELOPMENTS OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM, John A Bain MA, Oliphant Anderson &
Ferrier,
THE EARLY CHURCH, Henry Chadwick, Pelican,
Middlesex, 1987
THE GREAT MEANS OF SALVATION AND OF PERFECTION, St Alphonsus De Ligouri, Redemptorist Fathers,
THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, Lion, Herts, 1977
THE MOTHER OF GOD AND OUR INTERIOR LIFE, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP, TAN,
THE
PRIMITIVE FAITH AND ROMAN CATHOLIC DEVELOPMENTS, Rev John A F Gregg BD, APCK,
THE
RICHES OF
THE
STUDENT’S CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, Rev Charles Hart BA, Burns & Oates,
THE
THE VATICAN
PAPERS, Nino Lo
TRADITIONAL
DOCTRINES OF THE
TREASURES FROM GOD’S STOREHOUSE, Dr Bill Jackson,
Colonial Baptist Press,
VICARS OF CHRIST, Peter De Rosa, Corgi Books,
WHAT HAPPENED!
Francisco Lacueva, Evangelical Protestant
Society,
WHY BE A
CATHOLIC? Fr David Jones OP, Catholic
Truth Society,
WHY I AM NOT A ROMAN CATHOLIC, Rev Canon McCormick
DD, Protestant Truth Society,
YOU CAN
LEAD ROMAN CATHOLICS TO CHRIST, Wilson Ewin, New
England
www.catholic.com/library/The_Anti_Catholic_Bible.asp
Christians versus the Lies of Catholicism
19-July 08