♪♪
♪♪ The historic Ecumenical Council, Vatican II, comes to a close amid colorful
pomp and pageantry.
Considered one of the most important councils in Catholic Church history,
Vatican II produced 16 documents designed to modernize the role of the Church in
world affairs.
The final blessing is for the assembled throng and for the world.
Ite and Pace, go in peace.
With those words, Pope Paul VI closed the Second Vatican Council.
Little did anyone realize what lay ahead.
The decades since Vatican II have been turbulent.
Its history spans centuries, but its future is uncertain.
The Roman Catholic Church is a church in crisis.
Evidence of the present crisis is widespread.
Catholics are dissatisfied.
Attendance at Mass has plummeted.
The confessional has suffered an even greater decline.
Finances are critical.
Deficit spending has become a way of life.
Church closures are commonplace.
Priests are in short supply.
1,000 U.S.
parishes are without a priest.
A 40% decline is projected by the turn of the century.
And the Mass, which cannot be performed without a priest, is threatened.
Internal disputes are shaking the Church.
Theologians, priests, and even bishops are becoming increasingly outspoken.
A full-page ad recently ran in the New York Times calling for reform in the
Catholic Church.
It was signed and paid for by 4,500 Catholic clergy and laity.
The Pope has risen to the challenge, serving notice.
Either stop public dissension or face disciplinary measures.
One in seven Americans born Catholic has left the Church.
100,000 Hispanics alone are leaving the Church every year.
Many to join more personal churches.
What is the cause of the present crisis?
Some feel that the Second Vatican Council went too far and destabilized the Church.
Others blame Rome for resisting modernization and trying to live in the
past.
Yet another cause often cited is Humanae Vitae, the most controversial papal
document of modern times, which forbids the use of any artificial means of birth
control.
Widely ignored, Humanae Vitae weakened the Church's credibility and has led Catholics
to begin questioning other teachings.
Certainly these concerns are valid.
But is it possible that the real problem lies deeply embedded in the doctrines of
the Roman Catholic faith itself?
This is St. Ignatius Church.
It is adjacent to the University of San Francisco.
I studied here during my years of seminary training.
My name is Bob Bush.
I was ordained here in 1966.
21 years later, I submitted my letter of resignation.
I'm Mary Krause.
After 22 years as a Franciscan sister, I had, to some extent, the same experience
as our founder, Francis of Assisi.
I found myself out of step with my own order.
But God showed me that my path should be only the gospel of Jesus Christ.
My name is Sister Wilma Marie.
At least, that's what I was called as the Sister of Mercy.
My faith crisis began at Communion.
The priest held the host in front of me and said, The Body of Christ.
Before I could say the expected response of Amen, a thought went through my mind
for the first time.
Is it really?
This began a series of events which led to my personal relationship with the Lord
Jesus Christ.
My name is Frank Eberhard.
And I studied here at the St. Joseph's Seminary in Kingston, New Jersey,
preparing for the priesthood.
While I was here and making preparation, a parishioner came and asked me a
question.
How many masses needed to be set for her husband that he could enter into heaven?
Well, this began for me an investigation into the doctrine of purgatory.
Upon that investigation, I found it didn't match the Scripture, and so I had to delve
more deeply into Scripture, and I found the doctrine of eternal security.
How did a person supposed to know they have eternal life when they die?
Well, I completed four years of study here, and upon that graduation,
I decided not to pursue ordination into the Order of St. Vincent de Paul.
These and thousands more like them are re-examining their Roman Catholic faith.
The Mass, the commandments, the role of Mary, even the way to heaven.
How do the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church compare with the teachings of
sacred Scriptures?
The Mass is the center of Catholic experience, and all Catholics are required
to attend each week.
Jesus Christ instructed His followers to take bread and wine as a remembrance of
Him.
But unlike most Christian denominations, the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the
bread and wine are more than symbolic.
The priest actually transforms the bread into the body of Christ.
A miraculous change is about to take place.
He gave it to the disciples and said, take this, all of you Catholics.
This is my body, which will be given up for you.
Catholic doctrine teaches that the wafer is no longer bread, but is now the actual
body of Jesus Christ and is to be worshipped and adored as divine.
I always kind of wondered about that, because as a priest, you lean over the
bread and you say, this is my body.
And you're trained to believe that that became the body of Jesus.
And you lift it up for people to adore, and you do that with the chalice,
too.
But in my mind, I always thought, I can't see any change, and do I really
have the power to do this?
It smells like bread, it looks like bread, it tastes like bread, but the substance is
really the body of Jesus.
How can the Church maintain a change takes place despite all external evidence to the
contrary?
It uses a theory called transubstantiation.
Catholic theologian, Father John Boyle of the Jesuit School of Theology.
Transubstantiation simply means that what before was bread and wine, down deep now
is the body and blood of Christ.
And we take that physically because we're physical, and it's the physicality of
life.
The Church bases transubstantiation upon the teachings of Aristotle.
His 3rd century BC concept of matter viewed everything as consisting of two
parts, accidents and substance.
Accidents are described as the outward appearance of matter.
Substance is the inner essence.
Even though this idea has long since been discarded by modern science, the Catholic
Church not only clings to it, but takes it one step further, claiming the inner
essence can change while the outward appearance remains the same.
Transubstantiation is the foundation upon which the mass rests.
Catholics are taught that the priest must change the bread so that Christ can be
offered as a real sacrifice, an offering for the sins of the living and the dead.
It is the actual sacrifice of the mass, that the body and blood of Christ is
actually being sacrificed right there on the altar rather than just a reenactment
of something that happened many thousands of years ago.
It says the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, after those who are
called to this table.
Glory to God in the highest.
Is the Eucharist a real sacrifice?
A Catholic would say that the Eucharist is a real sacrifice in that the Eucharist is
the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary.
That this is not a different sacrifice from the one Jesus made on Calvary.
It is the same sacrifice.
Now that goes directly against Scripture because in Hebrews 10.18 it says that with
the forgiveness of these there is no longer any offering for sin.
There is no more offering.
Catholic priest Father Richard Chilson is the author of eight books on the Catholic
faith, including Catholic Christianity and an introduction to the faith of Catholics.
We asked him why the Catholic Church seeks to continue the sacrifice of Jesus at the
mass.
The Eucharist for a Catholic is ultimately a mystical understanding.
That there is what we call real time and then there is what John calls the hour.
And the hour is present in every moment if we can open our eyes to that reality.
And so the Eucharist, by making present that sacrifice throughout history,
helps us to open our eyes to what is really going on continually.
That God is continually, through Jesus Christ, reconciling the universe to
himself.
It allows us to personally come into that moment and be reconciled with God again
and again and again.
For a Catholic, it continues before the sacrifice of Calvary.
The sacrifice of Calvary does not begin at that point.
It begins really at the foundation of the world.
It goes forward in history and it goes backward in history as well.
Other Christian denominations celebrate that the sacrifice is finished.
We asked Father Chilson why the Catholic Church chooses to focus on its continuing.
Why not leave it finished?
I don't know if I can answer that.
I'm sorry.
I know that's a real issue between Protestants and Catholics, but I don't
know if I can answer it in any better way than I've already kind of stumbled on.
The Catholic priest cannot really explain how that the finished work of Christ on
the cross is continued today in the Mass.
The phrasing is that it is a mystical act of transubstantiation that takes place in
which Christ voluntarily comes from heaven at the beck and call of the priest.
When he raises the wafer above his head, then he voluntarily again becomes a
sacrifice.
There's nothing in Scripture that says Christ would ever dream of doing this.
Scripture says that Christ has perfected by one offering them that are sanctified,
and it only took one offering to save us from sin.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice,
which means that it appeases the wrath of God, that indeed it does take away sin.
However, the Scripture is very clear about the fact that there's only one
propitiatory sacrifice, namely what our Savior did on the cross.
That's why in John 19.30 Christ said, it is finished.
And when something is finished, it's finished.
When something is done, it is done.
A unique aspect of Catholic devotion is the veneration of saints and the use of
sacred objects, such as statues.
Former sister of Christian charity, Doreen D'Antonio.
In the convent, we had a whole list of saints that we used for various
situations.
If we lost something, we would pray to St. Anthony.
If we had a hopeless case in our family, maybe a relative that was drunk or
something, we would pray to St. Jude, that being a hopeless case.
We would pray to St. Gerald if there was a pregnant woman in our family that needed
assistance.
St. Blaise, if we had a sore throat, we would pray to.
St. Christopher, that they don't use anymore for traveling, of course,
we remember that one.
And elevators.
In the convent, we had an elevator for the older nuns.
And in that elevator was this humongous medal of St. Christopher.
It was amazing.
We would have little statues of Mary and Joseph.
St. Joseph for foster fathers.
We'd have the little statue sitting right on the windowsill, hoping and praying that
that statue would prevent it from raining on a particular day.
You shall not make for yourself an idol or a statue or a picture in the form of
anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
Victor Afonso served as a Jesuit priest for 21 years.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them.
It's the same word.
Though part of the Ten Commandments in the Catholic Bible, the Catholic Church
regularly omits this command from catechisms.
Yet it still comes up with ten.
And how come they still got ten?
They took the last one, which is, thou shalt not covet your neighbor's wife.
You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his manservant
or maidservant, his ox or donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
They divided this into two.
Nine, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.
And ten, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods.
So they had the Ten Commandments.
Now this is crookery.
This is trickery.
You've changed the commandment.
But why did you drop the second commandment?
Because there's a lot of business in making statues.
Though the Scriptures were clear, the traditions of the Church were
followed.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed...
The hundred years preceding the Second Vatican Council have been called the
Marian Century.
During this period, the Catholic Church developed many new doctrines concerning
Mary.
Never in Catholic history has anything been seen like it.
Most significant was Pope Pius IX's proclamation of the Immaculate Conception
issued in 1854.
Many Catholics do not understand the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Even fewer realize that it contradicts Scripture.
Well, that's the doctrine that says basically that the Blessed Virgin Mary
became with child, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Ghost.
The fact that God impregnated Mary to have Jesus, that's the doctrine, without having
carnal sex, carnal intercourse.
Most people, even Catholics, do not understand this doctrine.
It has nothing to do with the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.
Catholics believe, all Christians believe that it was a virgin birth, Jesus' father
was not a man.
But the Immaculate Conception is that Mary, when she was young, when she was
conceived in her mother's womb, did not have the stain of original sin.
That means she was saved already before she was at the point of her conception.
So she never had sin.
She was sinless.
That's not what Scripture says.
Only Jesus was without sin.
And everyone has sinned and come short of the glory of God.
Mary was a sinner.
Mary herself said she was a sinner.
In Luke, the first chapter, in her Magnificat, where she stated, My soul
magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.
Mary herself said she needed a Savior.
All have sinned and all have fallen short of the glory of God.
All have fallen.
Yet the Catholic Church defined that Mary was conceived without sin.
The Pope's proclamation that Mary never sinned raised other questions.
If, as the Bible says, the wages of sin is death, and Mary never sinned, did she ever
die?
If she died, did her body decay in the grave?
Everyone wanted to know, but both the Scriptures and Catholic tradition were
silent.
400 bishops and 80,000 priests and members of religious orders sent Rome requests for
an answer.
Eight million lay Catholics also signed petitions.
Finally, in 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed that God took Mary bodily into heaven.
This doctrine is known as the Assumption of Mary.
Bart Brewer was a Carmelite priest, an order devoted to Mary.
The perpetual virginity of Mary, the Immaculate Conception of Mary,
the Assumption of Mary, and so on and so forth, these are mandatory teachings.
These are said to be of divine law.
And Catholic people may not reject those teachings.
If they do, there's what they call an anathema.
There's a curse for any Roman Catholic who would reject an official dogma regarding
Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ.
Catholic priests will be honest in telling us that, indeed, this teaching has no
foundation in Scripture.
And what is the source of the Doctrine of Mary's Assumption?
You don't find anything definitive in Scripture on that.
You find a kind of basis.
But I would say that the Doctrine of the Assumption has its origin in the piety of
the people down through the centuries.
When the religious practices of the people become the source of doctrine,
popular sentiment is elevated to divine revelation.
Distortion of truth now becomes inevitable.
The biblical accounts of Mary present her as a humble, faithful servant of God.
But Catholic tradition has confused her position with that of Christ himself.
Mary has allegedly appeared to many in the uncharacteristic role of promoting
herself.
In 1917, she appeared at Fatima.
There she announced, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my
Immaculate Heart.
My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and the way to lead you to God.
This shrine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary recently was erected in Santa Clara,
California to promote devotion to Mary's Immaculate Heart.
I feel whenever I have a problem and I'm praying, I feel that if I talk to Mary,
she would have more sympathy with me.
And she can understand my motives if I feel I've done something wrong better than
Jesus could or God.
You know, she's kind of like the mediator for me.
This ad is from the Catholic Standard and Times.
Quote, he hasn't said no to her in 2,000 years.
What would you have her ask him?
Now if you will allow me to get a little personal here, I believe one of the
problems, as I've spoken, one of the problems of the Western, of world culture
is the problem of patriarchy.
Christianity and Judaism are heavily patriarchal religions.
One of the beauties of Catholicism is in her wisdom.
She has allowed the figure of Mary to balance the male hierarchy of God the
Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit, which has also been made male in the
Christian tradition.
And I believe that in some mysterious way, the figure of Mary, who comes out of the
New Testament, who comes out of the Old Testament wisdom literature, which is part
of the Catholic Scriptures but not necessarily part of the Protestant Bible,
balances and gives a feminine dimension to God that is missing in a purely biblical
Christianity.
The Catholic Church declares that Mary is the mediator of all grace.
This is the Baltimore Catechism, a basic teaching unit in the Catholic
Church, one that I learned from and we taught from in seminary.
The picture shows Christ still on the cross as head of the church, and from his
side is flowing blood.
This blood is flowing to the primary sacrament called the Eucharist.
And from the Eucharist is dispensed forgiveness of sin, the reception of Jesus
Christ personally into the lives of Roman Catholic people and such.
And then from that sacrament, the blood is continuing to the flow through the hands
of Mary.
Mary is a dispenser, the final dispenser of all grace in Roman Catholicism.
And we have seven sacraments depicted.
These each themselves are said to dispense grace to the people.
This picture really grieves me.
That people would have to go through the church and through Mary to receive the
grace that Christ earned on Calvary is so contrary to biblical doctrine.
And it's just wrong.
The church here is making the grace of Christ less accessible, not more
accessible to people.
Christ is the one mediator between God and man.
So here we have an example of someone in Scripture, Mary, who is a very beautiful
person and a model of Christian life as you know in her faith walk with the Lord.
And it gets distorted off into a tradition, a definition, a dogmatic
definition that contradicts Scripture.
According to the Catholic Church, God created Adam and Eve with a divine
life in their souls called grace.
This grace was lost when they disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden and the gates of
heaven slammed shut.
Christ restored this grace by dying on the cross.
Once again the gates of heaven swung open.
Christ had done his part.
Now man must cooperate by doing his.
What is man's part?
Central to his many responsibilities in achieving salvation are the seven
sacraments.
Each sacrament provides a different blessing.
Baptism is the first sacrament received.
It cleanses all sin, brings rebirth into the life of grace, and makes the infant a
member of the Roman Catholic Church.
Parents are responsible to see that their newborn infant is baptized as soon as
possible.
Peter, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.
Amen.
Confirmation grants special strength from the Holy Spirit to avoid temptation and to
defend the Catholic faith.
The Sacrament of Matrimony provides help for the couple for married life.
The Catholic remains in the life of grace unless he commits a mortal sin,
such as immorality, drunkenness, or failing to attend Mass each Sunday.
These mortal sins are punishable by eternal separation from God.
Mortal sins must be confessed to a priest.
In the Sacrament of Reconciliation, the priest grants absolution as he recites
the formula...
Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace.
And I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
The priest receives the power to absolve sins and celebrate the Mass through the
Sacrament of Holy Orders.
The last sacraments prepare the soul for passage through death.
The family calls the priest to administer confession, anointing of the sick,
and Holy Communion.
Through this holy anointing...
The condition of the soul at the moment of death will determine the eternal destiny
of the Catholic.
Amen.
Those who die out of grace will spend eternity in hell.
While those who die in a state of grace will go to heaven, most must first suffer
in purgatory.
There the person pays for past confessed sins, as well as unrepented venial sins,
like minor lying or anger, which the Church considers less serious.
This burden is carried by the entire family, as they realize they can shorten
the time of their deceased loved one in purgatory by offering up their own good
works and sufferings.
The Mass is a particularly effective offering.
And that's why Catholics, that's why they have Masses set for people.
They would come into a parish and they'll give some money and they'll have a Mass
set for their deceased relatives.
But when you search through the Scriptures, you go all the way through,
you know, through Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, all the way down to the book of
Revelation, going all the way through, and you will find there's no purgatory in
there.
Though a mandatory belief, many Catholics are confused about the doctrine of
purgatory.
I never think of purgatory.
I think of it as an outdated idea.
I don't know what it means.
I have very mixed feelings on it.
I'm not awfully sure.
I have deceased members of my family.
I just hope that they have actually gone on to heaven immediately rather than
waiting for the time that they earn their way into heaven or someone prays them into
heaven like we've been taught when we were little kids.
Can someone else really pray them in?
Or a person earn his way into heaven?
The problem with that, of course, is that the Scripture nowhere says that we
can pay for our own sins.
We cannot work for them.
In fact, in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, we're told, For by grace
are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.
So we could never pay for our own sins.
We're given that gift of full payment by Jesus Christ.
Another problem with purgatory is that it implies Christ was not able to pay the
full penalty for our sins.
And yet the Scripture says that in the one time death of Christ, he not only made us
Christians, but he paid the full ransom for our sin.
But have Catholics been taught this simple truth?
New York City.
Gathering point for people from around the world.
We asked Catholics what they thought they must do to get to heaven.
How is it that you hope to get into heaven?
By trying to live a clean and decent life, I guess.
Well, just by being a good Catholic and being nice to one another and doing my
best.
Hopefully that will get me there.
You obey the Ten Commandments, I think, and you've got a pretty good
chance.
You can't go wrong with the Ten Commandments.
By following my conscience and believing in God and doing well and good.
By treating people properly and being fair to everyone.
Going through Christ is going through Mary.
So, as a woman, you have to follow Mary's ways to go through Christ.
I don't know, just behave myself.
Go to confession, go to church, and treat your neighbors as good as you
can.
I go to the sacraments every Sunday.
Catholic priest William J.
Cogan provides a good summary of the Catholic way to heaven in his book A
Catechism for Adults.
Question.
What is necessary to be saved?
The answer provided in the Catechism lists eight requirements.
Faith, baptism, church membership, obedience to the commandments,
the sacraments, prayer, good works, and remaining in grace until death.
The scripture never speaks of anything like this.
In fact, the Philippian jailer, who, in fear for his life, asking Paul,
what must I do to be saved?
Paul's reply was very simple.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
The Catholic gospel, the Roman Catholic gospel, absolutely is a gospel of works.
If salvation is by works, how much work do you have to do?
Does the average Catholic think he will make it to heaven?
Well, let's hope that God will take into consideration that you've done more good
than bad, and therefore you are worthy of getting into heaven.
Well, I got a lot of work to do.
Myself.
I don't think so.
Not right now.
I'm not sure that whatever I've done in the past could ever be reconciled.
But I mean, it's nothing horrible either.
I'm not a murderer or something like that.
But I think that hopefully with more good that I've done than the few bad can weigh
it out.
I don't know.
But I hope.
I will try.
I'm trying all the life to go there when I die.
But I'm not sure if my life has been.
Art Brewer recalls his attempts as a Carmelite monk to try to merit salvation.
We would whip ourselves or flagellate ourselves to mortify the body.
And then we had to get special permission to wear this belt.
Now this is St. Elmo's belt.
And this would go around my waist or my thigh or my leg.
And the purpose of these mortifications, whether it was to sleep on a bed of
plywood or take the vows or whatever, the purpose was basically to expiate sin,
to atone for sin.
I entered the convent with a sincere desire to serve God and man.
I came to realize that it's not sincerity that's going to get us to heaven.
It's not our good works.
It's not by righteousness which we can do.
What saves you is your faith in Christ Jesus.
And it's the gift of God.
Someone has once mentioned that God has done 99% and we have 1% left to finish.
That is so totally false.
The Lord did it all.
Whatever we do doesn't amount to anything.
I must first acknowledge that I really cannot save myself.
That no matter what I do, I'm going to fall far short of the perfection that God
would expect.
But Christ was perfect and so I need to trust in Him and lean entirely on Him.
And Him alone, He earned my salvation on the cross.
I was taught to go to Jesus through the sacraments, to go to Jesus through the
saints, to go to Jesus through the priests.
What I'm saying that is different now is that as a Christian I can personally go to
Christ.
I have asked Him to be my Savior and forgive my sins, to pay the penalty that I
could never pay.
Our dear Catholic people don't understand the true person and work of Jesus Christ.
He is not a personal Lord and Savior.
So, as a result, there is a vacuum and I think that the Catholic Church tries to
tell its people that this vacuum can be satisfied by participating in the seven
sacraments.
So, instead of a dynamic personal walk and talk with the Lord Jesus Christ,
it's ritual and ceremony which create the impression that indeed Catholic people
know Christ as Savior.
However, they don't, by the very nature of Roman Catholicism.
Despite the teachings of the Church, some Catholics have learned that salvation
is by faith alone.
I feel like as long as you believe in Jesus and that's all He asks you to do,
then you'll be going to heaven.
What do you have to believe in about Him?
That He died for you, that He forgives your sins if you believe in Him,
and that's all He asks.
This woman was the only one of two dozen Catholics we interviewed at St. Patrick's
Cathedral who seemed to understand God's simple plan of salvation.
Is it only the laity who have been misled?
While still a Jesuit priest, Victor Afonso was troubled that the Catholic Church was
not teaching the true Gospel.
He discussed the matter with a prominent Catholic scholar, only to realize the
priest himself did not understand.
Finally, Victor asked the priest what he thought the Gospel was.
The priest's reply?
To love one another.
I said, that's the fruit, that we love one another.
What is the good news, Father?
He never knew the good news.
He wouldn't say, the good news is that we're all heading for hell, and that when
Jesus came and died on the cross by the precious blood, when we believe in Him,
we are saved, we have eternal life.
They won't say it.
Why?
Not because it's against Jesus.
He does not know it.
And he's a scripture scholar.
The scriptures are clear, but the errors persist.
The sacrifice of the Mass continues despite Christ's last words on the cross.
It is finished.
Statues are treated as sacred, though the Ten Commandments forbid both
making and bowing down to them.
Mary is proclaimed mediator of all grace, despite the New Testament's teaching that
there is one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus.
And the people are taught that they must work for salvation, though the scriptures
clearly state that salvation is by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God.
Many modern Catholics have chosen to ignore certain doctrines of the Church,
which they consider to be out of date.
A common misconception is that the Second Vatican Council changed many of these
dogmas.
Vatican II made no doctrinal changes.
In other words, there was a change of image, but no change of substance.
There's a principle Rome promotes, semper aedem, means always the same.
In other words, her basic dogmatic teachings can never change.
There has been a change, there's been redefinition and restructuring of Catholic
theology, but there has been no substantive, no radical change of Catholic
dogma, because that would destroy Roman Catholicism.
While no doctrinal changes were made, the Second Vatican Council did change the
position of the Church in relationship to non-Christian religions.
It affirmed that people of all religions form one community, and that the Church
respects the spiritual, moral, and cultural values of Hinduism,
Buddhism, and Islam.
Dialogue and collaboration were encouraged.
I myself am engaged in a Ph.D.
in Mahayana Buddhism.
My specialty in that is Tibetan Buddhism.
I chose Buddhism because it seemed to be as contrary to Christianity as it was
possible to be.
Buddhists do not believe in God, Buddhists do not believe in a soul.
What I have discovered, instead, through my studies of Buddhism,
is that in spite of the doctrines, the myths, that seem to contradict one
another, the reality behind those doctrines and myths seems to be the same.
Catholic publishers seem to agree, and have produced numerous books designed
to enrich Catholic spirituality with Eastern religion.
A Taste of Water, Christianity Through Taoist-Buddhist Eyes, was co-authored by a
priest and a nun.
Love Meets Wisdom, a Christian Experience of Buddhism, written by a Jesuit priest.
And Buddhist Emptiness and Christian Trinity, which shows how
Buddhist-Christian dialogue has gone beyond mutual understanding to mutual
transformation.
Pope John Paul II personally took the initiative to unite the leaders of the
world's religions for a prayer summit at Assisi, Italy, in 1986.
They came from around the world, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox,
and Jews.
Muslims from nine nations sang from the Koran.
American medicine men called in the Great Spirit.
Buddhism's Dalai Lama, traditionally regarded as a living deity, chanted
rhythmically.
Animists from Africa, Hindus, Zoroastrians.
We will stand side by side asking God to give us peace.
With that papal invitation, 160 leaders from the religions of the world gathered
to petition God.
While toleration for the cultures of others is commendable, this summit treated
all religions as equally valid.
An endorsement without precedent in the history of Christianity.
But what do the scriptures say?
There's only one person who took our sins away, my sins and your sins.
There's only one person who did that, and that's Jesus.
Buddha didn't do it.
The Hindu religion didn't do it, it was Shiva.
Confucius didn't do it.
No one did it.
The Muslim religion doesn't do it.
They don't have a savior who takes away the sins of the world.
They don't have that.
That's why scripture says there's only one way.
Why has Catholicism departed from biblical Christianity?
Because it has elevated tradition, the teaching of the church, to the
position of scripture and even above it.
The New Testament describes Christianity as the faith which was delivered once and
for all through Christ and the apostles.
But Catholicism has continued to add new doctrines to the Catholic faith from the
traditions of men.
The belief that the nature of the bread changed at the Mass was not added to
official doctrine until the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
This was the first time the church sanctioned the theory of
transubstantiation.
Purgatory was declared doctrine in 1274.
The Immaculate Conception in 1854.
Papal Infallibility, 1870.
The Assumption of Mary, 1950.
And the Declaration on Non-Christian Religions, October 28th, 1965.
The Second Vatican Council made it clear that the Catholic Church will continue to
rely on tradition.
It is not from sacred scripture alone that the church draws her certainty about
everything which has been revealed.
Both sacred tradition and sacred scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the
same sense of loyalty and reverence.
I had a problem with this, especially when I began to read the scripture for myself.
I could see the scripture saying one thing and tradition saying another.
And this again caused for me problems, a crisis you might call it.
To where I had a hard time accepting what the church would say when I could clearly
see Christ and scripture saying something different.
The Catholic Church claims that there is no conflict, there is no problem.
But there are lots of conflicts and there are lots of problems.
There are many, many examples of this, of infallibly defined doctrines and dogmas
that actually contradict what is already in scripture.
This conflict between scripture and tradition was at the heart of the
Reformation during the Middle Ages.
Dr. Luther.
Yes, sir.
Yesterday you admitted these writings were yours.
Will you tell us now, do you persist in what you have written here?
Or are you prepared to retract these writings and the beliefs they contain?
I ask pardon if I lack the manners that befit this court.
I was not brought up in king's palaces, but in the seclusion of a cloister.
I am asked to retract these writings.
Protestant critics?
Not exactly.
The leaders of the Reformation were all Catholic priests and theologians.
Catholic theologian John Wycliffe was one of the first.
His troubles started when he began to teach that the Bible is the only source of
truth.
Rome silenced him.
44 years after his death, they exhumed his bones and burned them because of his
departure from Roman authority.
In 1415, Catholic priest and theologian of the University of Prague, John Hus,
was burned at the stake.
His crime?
He also had made the Holy Scriptures his only rule in matters of religion and
faith.
After 16 years as a priest, Swiss reformer Huldrych Zwingli broke with the Catholic
Church when he could no longer put tradition on the same level as the Holy
Scriptures.
John Calvin was studying for the priesthood when he experienced a spiritual
conversion.
He left the church shortly thereafter.
Martin Luther was an Augustinian priest and professor of theology at the Catholic
University of Wittenberg.
He objected to representatives of the Pope selling pardons from purgatory in order to
finance the building of St. Peter's Basilica.
Luther made a list of 95 reasons why this was wrong and nailed it to the church door
at Wittenberg.
Luther's writings helped form the three guiding principles of the 16th century
call for reform.
Number one, the Bible is the only source of authoritative truth for salvation.
Number two, man is saved by God through faith alone.
And number three, every believer has direct access to God through Jesus Christ
alone.
When ordered to recant, Luther responded, My conscience is captive to the word of
God.
He narrowly escaped with his life.
These men were all loyal Catholics whose attempts to reform their church and return
it to biblical Christianity were met with vigorous opposition from their superiors.
The problem is an old one.
While walking through a grain field on the Sabbath, the Lord Jesus also clashed with
the religious leaders of his day over tradition.
The apostles were picking heads of grain and eating them.
Additionally, when they ate their bread, they did not ceremonially wash their hands
as prescribed by the rabbis.
In the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Mark, we read that the Pharisees and the
scribes questioned Jesus, Why do your disciples not walk according to the
tradition of the elders?
Jesus was not intimidated.
He rebuked the religious leaders for elevating the teaching of the rabbis to
the same level of authority as God's holy scriptures.
He accused them of teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.
He could not obey the traditions of the elders without disobeying the written word
of God.
He chose to obey God rather than men.
Many Catholics today are making that same choice.
I had the decision to make who I was going to follow.
Was it going to be a man who could make mistakes, or was it going to be God who
could not lie to me?
But I had to leave for one purpose, and that is, I found that the Catholic
Church and its doctrines, and infallible doctrines, what they call the dogmas,
had perverted and changed the world.
I left the Roman Catholic Church and forsaked the Roman Catholic priesthood by
God's grace strictly for theological reasons, for doctrinal reasons.
I came to realize that the Catholic Church did not have the correct doctrine.
They did not have what I needed in my life.
Many, many thousands, maybe millions of Catholic people leave because of theology.
They started to re-examine Roman Catholic premises or teachings in light of God's
holy word.
I love them.
I love the people.
But I'm sorry that the doctrines that they so cling to are not according to what God
has said is necessary to get to heaven.
Because of the teaching of tradition, Christ has become de-emphasized.
You have Mary in a prominent place.
She's held up as ever-virgin and sinless, even as Jesus Christ himself is.
You have saints who are much holier than we are, who are in heaven and can pray for
us.
You have other symbols in Catholicism that take the place of Jesus Christ,
or at least de-emphasize the work of Jesus Christ for Catholic people.
I think a reason why Catholicism isn't working today, and it is in crisis,
is because there is a lack of belief in the gospel itself.
Many of you will say, well, we have been a long time in the Catholic Church and we
have had enough of Jesus.
And all the kneeling down and going for Sunday Mass and receiving Jesus in
communion and all.
Brothers and sisters, that is not Jesus.
It is not Jesus, and it is not the message inspired by the Holy Spirit as recorded in
the Scriptures.
The Catholic way of salvation is a false hope, for it is not the gospel of Jesus
Christ found in the New Testament.
God warns us of those who would come and preach another Jesus, a different spirit,
and a different gospel.
Disenchanted with Catholic teaching, many have finally turned to the Bible for
help.
These Catholics were surprised by what they discovered.
Grace was something that you could not earn, and that surprised me because I
always thought in the Catholic Church you would earn grace by going to church and
going to confession.
All the time I thought I was in church or going to Mass or doing penance or just
being good.
But I didn't realize that it is accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior and through
His blood that you are saved.
That He was the one that came to take all the sins, even mine, which I thought I
never was good for anything.
He died for me.
He came because I needed a Savior and that there was no other way I could get to
heaven.
And that when He was on the cross, He had me personally in mind.
And I'll always remember being completely overwhelmed with that thought,
that He had my name in His mind.
John and Jane Delisi received eternal life while studying the first epistle of John.
Jane was a teacher in the Catholic parochial school system.
There was a verse there that says that you can know that you can have eternal life.
And I was very, very confused and puzzled because I couldn't understand how I could
really know that I could have eternal life.
We found out that the work of Jesus Christ alone was sufficient for me to get to
heaven.
And it was nothing that I did, but it was all that He did and it was
trusting in Him and His finished work on the cross.
Each of these individuals has since left the Catholic Church.
It's not what we're leaving, it's what we're getting into.
It's not what's behind us.
I mean, it's like when the pioneers came to the West, it's not what they're leaving
behind, it's what they're coming to.
And we're coming to a new life in Jesus.
We're coming into everlasting life.
When Jesus died and He saved me, and I receive that, that gives everlasting
glory to God forever and all eternity.
I will praise God for all eternity for having saved me.
The Lord Jesus Christ is my all.
That's it.
How can I... He's everything.
My salvation.
And when I think of Him, I can just visually see myself dropping at His feet,
but also being torn and wanting to run to Him.
As if you've been separated from a long time friend and you want to be with Him,
but that awe is so awe-inspiring.
And just the sense of never wanting to leave His presence.
Wherever He goes, I want to be there.
I can't.
I can't live without Him.
Beautiful flower that fades, so the traditions of men.
But the word of the Lord, it stands for always.
For He is the guardian.
Trust only in the sacrifice of God's perfect Lamb.
Believe and receive in this true hour.
Come into Emmanuel's land.
Come out of her, my beloved.
Come and follow me.
Outside the camp, up to the hill.
The place of my victory.