SEDUCING SPIRITS

Could anyone dream up a headline more apt to give Christians, Christ, and God a bad name? This article from February 28, 2004 is no illusion or fabrication. The contents beneath it certainly contain no exaggeration. Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is quoted further down. He admits, “This is a terrible history, but it is history.”

Catholic priests are notorious for their evil deeds. They are infamous for casting a bad reflection on everything and everyone they say they represent. Upon reading about such a bulk of wicked exploits committed by perverted priests, we can jump to the conclusion that there must be no God and that all churches are evil. Or we can do what Scripture commands us to do when evil is done by ministers. “Try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4.1.) And so, ‘test the spirits of these priests to see whether they are of God.’ How do we do that? Is there a passage of Scripture, maybe, warning of these dirty priests? And since we already know by their sick deeds that they pass no spiritual test, why should we bother to look? Because we might discover, that not only are the priests not of God, but that their church is false. Then by seeing that God condemns this church of theirs, there is no just cause to quit God and blame all churches for the deeds of an unholy, lecherous priesthood that God never did ordain nor approve.

The apostle Paul warned long ago, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats” (1 Timothy 4.1-3.) What church has disallowed meats for certain days? What church has forbidden her priests to marry? What church has so many priests whose seared consciences allow them to molest and rape tiny defenseless kids? The church is that one which rules from Rome, the Roman Catholic Church.

Not all priests are molesters. Not all Catholics are unchristian. But they all serve in a false church. Once a Catholic gets saved, his enlivened conscience ought to drive him out of that guilty Cathedral of sin with a healthy sigh of relief and disgust. God says, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Revelation 18.4.) It makes no difference whether or not Rome is the Babylon of this verse. Rome is a Babylon: she is a type of tyranny: severe, cruel, and abusive.