The Vatican's troubles are spiritual
By Jackie Alnor
The
article below is by Jackie Alnor of Apostasy Alert. Her articles on Christianity
appear in the San Francisco Examiner Newspaper under SF Christianity & the
Media Examiner. Her straightforward examination of Roman Catholicism is
not done in a vacuum – Jackie is a former Roman Catholic and has an
understanding of the Papacy and the persistent and public imperfections which
plague the flock. We are reminded of these Scriptures concerning the Church in
Thyatira:
“These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet like fine brass: ‘I know your works, love, service, faith, and your patience, and as for your works, the last are more than the first. Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent. Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds. I will kill her children with death, and all the churches shall know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts. And I will give to each one of your according to your works. Now to you I say, and to the rest in Thyatira, as many as do not have this doctrine, who have not known the depths of Satan, as they say, I will put on you no other burden. But hold fast what you have till I come. And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with a rod of iron; they shall be dashed to pieces like the potter’s vessels’ as I also have received from My Father; and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 2:18-29)
April
3, 2:09 PM
SF Christianity
& the Media ExaminerJackie Alnor
Pope Benedict XVI's golden throne has
turned into a hot seat in the aftermath of the pedophile priest scandal heating
up in America and Ireland. Some have demanded his impeachment in the wake of
the New York Times report that the pope may have been complacent in the
case of Fr. Lawrence Murphy, a Milwaukee priest who victimized some 200
deaf children back in the 1970s.
Our Sunday Visitor, a popular Catholic newspaper in America, responded
to the question, "Should
the pope resign?",
on March 31st in an editorial blaming the American press for sensationalism:
"The journalistic herd has now jumped on the resignation
bandwagon...interest groups who oppose Church teachings on a variety of topics;
journalists treating the Church like any other corporation and wanting to
topple the guy at the top... At the end of the day, this crisis has always
been profoundly spiritual. The New York Times may never understand
that fact, but Pope Benedict most certainly does."
It
most certainly is spiritual. There is a horde of dark forces behind the evil
deeds done by these men in secret. And those evil spirits can be traced all the
way to the Vatican.
Long time Vatican exorcist, Fr.
Gabriele Amorth,
in his memoirs published in February, revealed that there are "Satanic
sects" in the Vatican. He was asked if the pope knew about this and
responded, "Of course, he was informed. But he does what he can. It's a
horrifying thing."
He couldn't have been a very effective exorcist, however, since the dark forces
remain.
The pope brought up spiritual matters in a recent pastoral letter to the
Catholics in Ireland where the pedophile priest scandal has hurt church
attendance, encouraging them to increase their devotion to the sacraments of
the church.
"I encourage you to discover anew the sacrament of Reconciliation,"
he wrote in the March 20, 2010 letter, "and to avail yourselves more
frequently of the transforming power of its grace."
In another papal letter published March 24, 2010, the pope responded to the New
York Times article in the Murphy case, expressing sympathy to the deaf
victims.
"The Congregation [for the Doctrine of the Faith] was informed of the
matter because it involved solicitation in the confessional."
And that hits the nail on the spiritual head. As the pope urges the Irish back
into the confessional, he openly admits that the confessional is the tool
utilized by pedophile priests to solicit their victims. As the penitent
confesses his weaknesses for sexual temptation, the pedophile zeros in on them
for victimization.
The secret closet of the confessional
has also been utilized by sexually deprived priests who screen female
confessors to target for a sexual liaison by what the women confess in the
confines of the dark closet. And according to Canon Law, the priest
cannot be forced to reveal anything spoken in the confessional. What a set-up
for sin!
The priestly vow of celibacy, the teaching that priests are closer to God than
other Christians, and the Confessional are three spiritually dark ingredients
in this deadly potion.
There
needs to be a new reformation in the Roman Catholic Church that abolishes these
three unbiblical dogmas. Catholics should protest against the root cause of the
scandals instead of just hand-wringing over the symptoms. They should demand
that the church return to the teachings of St. Paul who listed the requirement
of church eldership in a letter to Timothy as:
"The husband of one wife,
vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach; One that
ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;
For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the
church of God?" - 1 Tim. 3:2, 3-4
If the Roman Catholic Church would get back to the Bible and require a married
clergy, abolish the hierarchy, and urge Catholics to confess their sins
directly to God, this scandal would soon come to an end. No longer would
priests get to hide behind the confessional as a cover-up for their sins or a
tool for recruiting others.
Pope Benedict XVI admits these things contribute to the ongoing pedophile
priest scandal, but will he read the writing on the wall and initiate the
needed changes? Will his pontificate go down in history as a time of reform or
as a time that evil rules from Rome? He certainly has big slippers to fill following
the late Pope John Paul II, who was so loved in the Catholic Church, that he is
on the fast-track to canonization.
Self-flagellation, as practiced by his predecessor, will not help the current pope; he needs to stop the scandal at its root.