Roman Catholics (questions asked by them)
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8. John Paul II has asked your pardon for the persecutions of the
Catholics against your predecessors; what do you think of what he has done? |
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We simply say that what he has done is absurd. Why? Because you can’t ask
someone’s pardon for sins that you have not committed against that person whose
pardon you ask. In other words, you can’t ask someone’s pardon for sins
committed not by you against him but by some other people against other people
(from whom you are excluded). |
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I will give you an illustration to explain to you the absurdity of
what John Paul II has done. Let us suppose that one of my neighbours has a
grandfather who is already dead, and that my grand-grandfather while was
still alive had punched him, and one day I go to my neighbour to ask his
pardon for the punch my grand-grandfather had given to his grandfather; don’t
you think that my behaviour would be absurd? Don’t you think that it was my
grand-grandfather who should have asked the grandfather of my neighbour to
forgive him? But let us invert the positions in the above mentioned illustration:
if a man comes to me and says to me that he asks my pardon for a punch that
his grand-grandfather gave to my grandfather, how should I behave toward him?
Should I forgive him? But how could I accept ‘the excuses’ for a sin which
was not committed against me from a person who has not committed it? Don’t’
you think that if I forgave that man I would do something that is absurd? |
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Therefore, how can John Paul II ask the Protestants’ (who are living
today) pardon on behalf of those who persecuted, tortured and put to death
the Protestants who lived in the sixteenth century or in another century of
the past? We could accept his act if he had asked the Protestants’ pardon,
who are still alive, for a sin he had committed personally against them, but
we can’t accept what he did asking our pardon for the sins of his
predecessors. |
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Of course, by saying that John Paul II has acted absurdly, we want to
affirm implicitly that what he has done is not confirmed at all by the Bible.
There are no passages in the Bible which confirm such a behaviour. Even the
Papal Curia recognizes that the Bible does not confirm such a behaviour, for
in the document titled Memory and
Reconciliation, after some examples of confessions of sins made to God
under the Old Testament, it is written: ‘The question arises as to why the
biblical writers did not feel the need to address requests for forgiveness to
present interlocutors for the sins committed by their fathers, given their
strong sense of solidarity in good and evil among the generations …(Memory
and Reconciliation, 2:1). Obviously, various hypotheses are proposed in
response to this question, however the fact is that in the Old Testament
there are no examples that confirm such a behaviour. And the same thing must
be said with regard to the New Testament, for there is not a single example,
I say it again, not a single example, of a Christian who asked his
neighbour’s pardon for a sin committed by one of his forefathers against one
of the forefathers of his neighbour. And also in this case, the Papal Curia
is compelled to recognize this, for they affirm: ‘There is, however, no
explicit call addressed to the first Christians to confess the faults of the
past … ‘ (Ibid., 2:2). Therefore, since such a behaviour, which consists in
asking pardon for sins committed by our forefathers in the past, has no
biblical basis, how can we accept the act of John Paul II? The answer is only
one: we can’t accept it. |
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Nevertheless, we can see once more, but without being surprised to see
such a thing, that the Roman Curia, although there are no biblical basis it
manages to pass off such an absurd and wrong behaviour of John Paul II as
right and biblical. We are not surprised to see this for there are many other
absurd and wrong things which the Roman Curia manages to pass off as right
and biblical, such as the prayers for the dead, the prayers of the dead for
the living, purgatory (one of the biggest religious fraud committed against mankind),
the primacy of the pope, the repetition of the sacrifice of Christ in the
mass, just to mention some of the falsehood passed off as true things.
Therefore, things being as they are, we conclude once again that the pope and
the roman curia don’t respect the Word of God. |
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What does the Word of God say about this topic? The answer to this
question is found in these words of Jesus: “Take heed to yourselves: If thy
brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And
if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day
turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him” (Luke 17:3-4).
Therefore who is wronged must first of all rebuke the one who wronged him,
and then if the one who is guilty acknowledges his sin and repents of it, and
asks pardon for his sin, then the person who was wronged must forgive the one
who wronged him. Even if our brother sins against us seven times in a day,
and he repents, we must forgive him. Things are very clear, it is the person
who has sinned that must repent of his sins (and not another person on his
behalf after he dies) and must ask pardon for his sins, but he must make this
request to the one he wronged and not to one of his relatives. |
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We must say another thing with regard to this ‘mea culpa’ formulated
by John Paul II. In the end the Roman Catholic Church comes out always immaculate,
holy and blameless, for according to this ‘mea culpa’ the persecution against
the Protestants (and also the persecution against the Jews) is not at all
imputed to the Roman Catholic Church, in that the blame falls on ‘some disobedient
children’ of the Roman Catholic Church and not on the Church. In other words,
the mother has never made mistakes, while some of her children have indeed made
mistakes. Here are some meaningful passages taken from Memory and Reconciliation: ‘The Church is holy because,
sanctified by Christ who has acquired her by giving himself up to death for
her, she is maintained in holiness by the Holy Spirit who pervades her
unceasingly (….) The Church therefore, “although she is holy because of her
incorporation into Christ, … does not tire of doing penance: Before God and
man, she always acknowledges as her own her sinful sons and daughters” of
both yesterday and today. (…) For this reason, the holy Church recognizes the
duty “to express profound regret for the weaknesses of so many of her sons
and daughters who sullied her face, preventing her from fully mirroring the
image of her crucified Lord, the supreme witness of patient love and humble
meekness.” (Ibid., 3:2,3,4). Therefore the act of John Paul II is not only
absurd but it is also covered with falsehood, doubleness and hypocrisy,
because history, which is not an opinion, shows very clearly that it was the leaders
of the Roman Catholic Church, that is, the popes, the cardinals and the bishops,
who persecuted intensely the Protestants, and all the sheep followed them
blindly. In other words, it was the mother and her children who persecuted
the Protestants. It was that prostitute together with her children, fruit of
her endless prostitutions, which assailed with fury those who decided to part
from her for the truth’s sake. Obviously, the reason why John Paul II cannot
and does not want to acknowledge that it was the whole Roman Catholic Church
which committed those sins is that in this way he would discredit all the
Roman Catholic Church in the eyes of all the world. The Church would be no
longer Holy, for she also committed some sins!! Therefore the Roman Catholic
Church comes out quite well from this ‘mea culpa’. I would say that unfortunately
she comes out with a better image in the eyes of many people who know neither
the Word of God nor history, for by this act of ‘humility’ she has gained
more credibility!!! We can deduce this from these words written in Memory and Reconciliation: ‘The steps
taken by John Paul II to ask pardon for faults of the past have been
understood in many circles as signs of the Church’s vitality and
authenticity, such that they strengthen her credibility’ (Ibid. 1:4). |
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Therefore, the attitude of John Paul II, studied and prepared in every
detail into the secret rooms of the |
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And I say also that even if one day a pope will acknowledge that it
was the mother who sinned and persecuted the Protestants and not just some of
her children, I say it again, even if that day came, and in the name of the
Roman Catholic Church he will ask pardon for those sins, his act would remain
absurd and unbiblical. And the Protestants should not accept the request for
pardon and thus they should not grant any pardon, because biblically they
cannot grant forgiveness on behalf of someone who died centuries ago. If the
Protestants did such a thing, they also would do an absurd act because they
would forgive a sin that those who ask their pardon have never committed
against them. |
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In conclusion I want to say this: we distrust the Roman Catholic
Church even when she opens her mouth and smiles; actually she does not open
her mouth to smile but to swallow us as a crocodile is ready to swallow its
victim after it has opened its big mouth. The Wisdom says: “Burning lips and
a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross. He that hateth
dissembleth with his lips, and layeth up deceit within him; When he speaketh
fair, believe him not: for there are seven abominations in his heart. Whose
hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be shewed before the whole
congregation” (Proverbs 26:23-26). He who has ears to hear, let him hear. |