Confusion & Compassion

The lofty nave of the ornate Spanish cathedral was crowded with worshipers and curious tourists. I stood in a large side chapel featuring a giant crucifix and watched intently as people from all walks of life entered, tarried for a few moments, then left. Most of them approached the crucifix reverently, kissed the nail-pierced feet of the figure hanging upon it, then rubbed across face or forehead the hand that had touched the sacred object as though to absorb some blessing emanating from it. I remembered similar scenes before Hindu idols in India.

With heads bowed and lips moving in earnest prayer, the supplicants would cross themselves, back away a few paces, bow and then turn to leave. Some stood discreetly at a distance for long periods just inside the chapel, eyes fixed mournfully upon the thorn-crowned figure, their lips moving soundlessly, sorrow and pain written on taut features. Burdened by some deep need or desire, the petitioners obviously hoped to arouse sympathy and to receive help from this particular image of a dead "Christ."

As elsewhere, however, the major prayer effort for these devout Catholics was directed to "Mary, the dispenser of every grace God grants to sinners." While Christ is admittedly the way to the Father, Mary is the conduit by which alone one reaches Christ and grace is granted. Nor are Catholic prayers offered to some vague Mary in heaven, but to "Our Lady of Fatima," or "Our Lady of Lourdes," or to some other apparition of one's preference.

In this cathedral in Zaragoza, Spain, prayers are invariably directed to "Mary of the Pillar." Her image, displayed there, is the major focus of attention and honor; for this basilica was built around a pillar where "Mary" allegedly appeared to the Apostle James. To gain Mary's favor, so many people have kissed the marble pillar where this "miracle" occurred that a deep indentation has been worn into it. Beside the pillar is a picture of Pope John Paul II kissing the "holy place" during a recent visit.

We moved to the center of the nave to observe one of the day's numerous masses. It began with prayers to "Mary of the Pillar." The officiating priest had gotten well into the ritual before he made any mention of Jesus. We watched as hundreds of paper-thin wafers and two golden cups of wine were supposedly transformed into Christ's literal body and blood. Though the appearance of wafers and wine was unchanged, worshipers crossed themselves and murmured in awe at this great "miracle." Holding aloft first a wafer, then a cup, the priest knelt and worshiped "Christ" now present, then offered His flesh and blood as a sacrifice for participants' sins. Anyone denying that each Mass is itself a true, propitiatory sacrifice is anathematized (eternally damned) by Rome.

Silently presiding over the ritual from her perch just to the right of the high altar was "Mary of the Pillar." This small idol, about two feet tall, is daily dressed in a different flaring skirt twice as tall as she. About 400 of these priceless costumes, embroidered with precious stones and adorned with diamonds and pearls, compose the "Virgin's" regalia. Maria Pilar is, understandably, the most popular name given to girls born in this region of Spain.

The open paganism and idolatry involved in Roman Catholicism is a shock to American visitors to Spain, Italy, Central and South America. In the United States, Catholicism hides behind a Christian mask and even claims to be evangelical. There is no such pretense in Catholic countries, where Rome long persecuted and killed evangelicals and still vigorously opposes them.

In such countries there is no attempt to hide the obvious occultism, idolatry and worship of Mary. In order to make converts, Rome has absorbed the paganism peculiar to each culture and dressed it in Christian terminology. For example, in Brazil, Roman Catholicism is mixed with spiritism; in India, with Hinduism; in Haiti, with voodoo; etc. Haiti is said to be 85 percent Roman Catholic and 110 percent Voodoun. Every voodoo ceremony begins with prayers to Catholic saints.

As in South America, everywhere we traveled during my recent speaking tour of Spain, Christians exclaimed, "How can evangelicals in America even dream of joining Roman Catholics in evangelism?! Bring them over here and we'll show them the truth! Evangelicals by the thousands were tortured and martyred in Europe not so long ago. We've been disowned by our families for becoming Christians, and persecuted and jailed for our faith. The priests oppose the gospel continually. They'd have the Inquisition again today if they could!"

I wish every TBC reader could visit Catholic countries to see for themselves the varying degrees of spiritism, witchcraft and idolatry being practiced by nearly all Catholics, with the blessing of their Church. I would especially like to bring the "evangelical Catholics" I've debated to Catholic countries where their own Church actively opposes evangelicals. There the very phrase "evangelical Catholic" would be a joke in bad taste. Both Catholics and evangelicals would be outraged!

Yet in America, the lie persists and one despairs of evangelicals ever waking to the necessity of bringing Catholics the gospel. Let me cite the most recent Christian Research Institute (CRI) Journal as an astonishing example. It contains an excellent article by contributor Mitchell Pacwa exposing Matthew Fox, a Dominican priest. In 1977 Fox founded the Institute for Culture and Creation Spirituality. The ICCS has been located at Holy Names College in Oakland, CA, since 1983. Fox's faculty has long included Starhawk the witch; Buck Ghost Horse, a North American shaman; Luish Teish, a voodoo priestess; and Robert Frager, a Sufi mystic.

Fox is a pantheist whose "Cosmic Christ" is everyone and everything. Pacwa critiques Fox's extensive writings and rightly calls him a New Ager and heretic who "ignores or rejects the central scriptural themes of the need for redemption and the centrality of Christ's death." Obviously Fox is not a Christian. Though the Vatican has rejected his teaching and silenced him for one year ending December 15, 1989, Fox remains a Roman Catholic priest. Pacwa admits that Fox "continues to have tremendous influence" in the Roman Catholic Church. Many nuns, priests and lay Catholics have embraced Fox's anti-Christian heresies, yet they, too, have not been excommunicated, and remain in the Roman Catholic Church.

Riddled with pagan beliefs and practices, Roman Catholicism is also rife with New Age neopaganism. Yet Pacwa, who admits at least the latter, remains a Jesuit priest. In spite of its abominable errors, he defends the Roman Catholic Church as the guardian of truth and the means of salvation. Though Pacwa opposes New Age doctrines, he defends Rome's heresies to the hilt. Why would a major ministry which is dedicated to exposing error, and one which TBC regards very highly, legitimize a Jesuit?

The response to that question is disturbing: "While Catholics and Protestants disagree on many important doctrinal points, they nonetheless agree on such core doctrines as the nature of God and the person and work of Christ." Tragically, this erroneous statement furthers the delusion that Roman Catholics know and believe the gospel, thus preventing the evangelization which Catholics so desperately need!

Ironically, CRI's founder, Walter Martin, once debated this same Mitchell Pacwa on the John Ankerberg Show. Martin proved that Catholics do indeed have a different view of the work of Christ, and Pacwa admitted it. For a Catholic, Christ's work of redemption on the cross was not sufficient to save us, but our own good works are required in addition.

On the Ankerberg show Pacwa vigorously defended the view that good works are essential to salvation and declared, "Until we meet Christ, we can't be positive that we're saved...." Martin summarized the difference between the Catholic and evangelical view of Christ's work on the cross: "Catholicism, carried to its logical conclusion, is a denial of justification by faith in the context of Romans 3, 4, 5 and 8, because it involves works as a means of merit...whereas biblical theology says, 'It's by grace...the gift of God, not by works, lest anyone should boast.'"

The issue is more than a theological debate. The eternal destiny of souls is at stake! Please consider the practical results of Roman Catholicism's false gospel in hundreds of millions of lives! Missionary friends in Spain told me that in 15 years of personal evangelism they have yet to meet one Catholic who has any idea of God's way of salvation or who has any assurance of going to heaven. Their hope is in the Church, its sacraments, Mary, indulgences, etc.

Talking with believers in Spain, I asked them what life had been like as a Catholic, what they had really believed, and how they became Christians. The stories would make one weep! They lit their candles, went to Mass, prayed to the images, cried out to Mary, crossed themselves and hoped that somehow the Church would get them to heaven—but they had no assurance of salvation.

One man heard the gospel in a cemetery, where Catholics went on holy days to pray to the saints and ancestors. Knowing this pagan custom, a small group of despised evangelicals had come there to preach and give out literature. Another young man learned the gospel from a tract which a friend had been handed by an evangelical. The friend, after skimming the tract, tore it up in anger. So starved was this young man for truth that he laboriously put the pieces back together, read it and was saved.

A missionary friend who has taken an extensive door-to-door survey in Spain told me sadly, "I have yet to talk to a single Catholic over here who can explain what the gospel is, or just what it takes to be saved. They are incredulous when I explain that I am assured of going to heaven after I die because the Scriptures say so and God doesn't lie. None of them would say that it is sufficient only to believe in Jesus to be saved, or that the blood of Jesus alone is, in itself, a sufficient price paid to redeem them from the curse of sin. The more involved they are in Roman Catholicism, the more firmly it seems that they hold to the necessity of works added to their 'faith.'"

One random survey of 2,000 homes in the region of Barcelona revealed the following: 86 percent were Roman Catholic, 14 percent were raised Catholic but inactive; 38 percent had no idea how one gets to heaven; 38 percent said heaven is attained by "loving your neighbor and good deeds"; 10 percent said it was by keeping the Ten Commandments; 2 percent denied the existence of heaven; the remaining 12 percent offered a variety of suggestions from "whatever the church says" to "nobody knows, it's too complicated to know." Of the 2,000 surveyed, two said, "By accepting Christ as Savior." They were Protestants.

The question, "What will happen to you after you die?" yielded the following results: 53 percent didn't have the faintest idea; 14 percent rejected belief in anything beyond death; 12 percent said they would get to heaven or a better life, but had no idea how; and the remaining 21 percent offered suggestions ranging from "judgment according to how I lived" to "reincarnation" and "purgatory." How tragic!

Even if true, which it isn't, to what purpose does one claim that Roman Catholic theologians express in the fine print a biblical view of "the person and work of Christ"? Going out into the streets or door-to-door in Catholic countries, one searches in vain for a Roman Catholic who even knows, much less believes, the gospel! Let us have compassion for these lost souls! Let us love them enough to bring them the biblical truth they so desperately need.

The vast majority in Catholic countries, where upwards of 98 percent are raised Roman Catholic, have serious doubts about their religion. Most have been turned off by priests who openly say they don't believe in God or the Bible, yet still say Mass; by alcoholic and pedophilic priests; by Rome's dogmatic control of minds and lives. Yet most still want Extreme Unction when they die and thereafter Masses and prayers said for them "just in case." Rather than opening them to the truth, disillusionment with Roman Catholicism has turned them against all religion, making it almost impossible to evangelize them. They are left with a spiritual void which they attempt to fill with Satan's pseudoreligions of self-improvement and occultic powers. These cults abound in Spain.

Very quietly and seductively the same merger with paganism which has so long characterized Roman Catholicism is taking place even within evangelical circles. It comes insidiously through psychology and ecumenism and the idea that we must not offend but be tolerant of all beliefs in order to "win" others to Christ. We have documented the occult techniques in psychotherapy (whether "Christian" or not), in the inner healing movement, in the entire recovery movement and the newer 12-step programs now in the church.

Everywhere I travel overseas I find the same errors accelerating within the church as here in the United States and Canada. We receive hundreds of letters and phone calls from people who have been saved out of Roman Catholicism and the occult, New Age, drugs and psychotherapies of all kinds, only to find the same errors from which they were delivered now proliferating inside the evangelical church. They appeal to us to recommend a good, biblically sound Christian fellowship in their area.

We face some trying days ahead if the Lord tarries. Last week I watched a John Bradshaw seminar series that went five days on Public Broadcasting TV. While talking about faith in God (he had his own unbiblical definitions for both), he denounced those who claim to be saved and thereby "destroy the self-image of others who don't believe exactly as they do." It was all extremely clever and persuasive. The audience was obviously convinced. One could easily see the day coming when such arguments would be used to stifle or muzzle evangelicals as a menace to society.

If the Lord tarries much longer, it will become increasingly difficult to be a Berean and to earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The pressure to be "positive" and not to disagree with others will become almost unbearable. We dare not compromise the truth, not because we delight in pointing out error, but because those who reject the gospel of Christ are lost eternally. To bring them the truth, we will risk wrath and ridicule and even our lives if we love the lost with the love of our Lord Jesus Christ who died to save them! He is coming soon. There is no time to waste.  TBC