POPE ALERT: In my last Pope alert I wrote that the pope had said atheists can go to heaven even if they don’t believe in God! Many Catholics attacked me for posting that. They said I had misread it and that I was wrongly interpreting his words. They said the media had mis-characterized what the Pope meant, although they had quoted him word-for-word.
Well, now he has clarified it. Now he says as long as everyone goes with their own idea of good and evil – we’ll all be fine.
Here’s the Pope: “Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is good. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place.”Not only is it not enough to make the world a better place, it’s certainly not enough to save anyone from their own personal eternal punishment. And it is in direct opposition to what the Bible teaches on the subject of good and evil. According to the Bible, people are not lost because they aren’t doing what they know is good. They’re lost because they are disobedient to a perfect God. They’re lost because their lives are full of sin. They’re lost because they justify their evil sinful acts as acts of good and noble purposes.
If the Pope’s concern is making this world a better place, then he should have told people to forget their corrupt consciences and to live in obedience to the Word of God. If his concern is their eternal salvation, then he should have told us that we are sinners in deep need of a savior and that Jesus Christ is that savior. And he should have told us that only recognition and repentance of our sins and following Christ as the master of our lives can save us.
The Pope has on several occasions now, told us that we can be saved by living what in our own opinion is a good life. A few weeks ago he said that even atheists can be saved as long as they “obey their conscience” – regardless of what they believe about God! But the Bible tells us that the human heart is wicked and that it can justify even the worst of deeds.
The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately wicked: who can understand it?
But I, the LORD, search all hearts
and examine secret motives.
I give all people their due rewards,
according to what their actions deserve.”
Jeremiah 17:9-10
Most people today easily justify even the vilest of acts and call them good. Our western cultures today not only accept, but they embrace and celebrate the sin of homosexuality. They don’t bat an eye at the sin of adultery. And they encourage and applaud the sin of fornication. But the Pope says that’s okay, as long as people think what they’re doing is good.
This past week the Pope called the founder of the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, to invite him over for a chat. According to the Washington Post, “The interview was wide-ranging”, and the conversation included, “a few movie recommendations as well as a mystical experience he had the night he was picked to be pope.”
The Pope said of the night he was selected, “My head was completely empty and I was seized by a great anxiety. To make it go away and relax I closed my eyes and made every thought disappear, even the thought of refusing to accept the position, as the liturgical procedure allows,” he said. “I closed my eyes and I no longer had any anxiety or emotion. At a certain point I was filled with a great light.”
The Catholic church has long taught mystical practices such as emptying your mind so that you can go into a light hypnotic state, that they sometimes call the silence and other times they call it meditation. Often when in this state people will have experiences of a great light and a feeling of oneness with the universe.
You see, what the pope is really teaching is universalism. He’s teaching that all people will go to heaven no matter what they believe. And although the pope says people must be “good”, he is in fact teaching that it doesn’t matter how they act. Because when you tell people to follow their consciences – you’re telling them to do what they think is right. And we all know how to justify even our most evil acts to the point that we will will talk ourselves and others into believing that they are not only right and good acts but even noble ones.
You may be asking, why does all this matter? Isn’t every religion free to believe and teach what it wants? Yes, of course they are. But the reason it matters with Catholicism in particular is that Catholics believe they are Christians. And they believe the Bible is the basis for their religion. But their church teaches doctrines that are in direct opposition to Biblical teachings.
For instance, the Catechism of the Catholic church says this about salvation:
1821 ...In every circumstance, each one of us should hope, with the grace of God, to persevere “to the end” and to obtain the joy of heaven, as God’s eternal reward for the good works accomplished with the grace of Christ.
You see what it says there? It says heaven is God’s eternal reward for “the good works accomplished” by us. Maybe Christ gives us enough grace to accomplish the good works, but the Catholic church is and always has been very clear on the fact that people achieve heaven by their own good works.
This is why the Pope could come out in recent weeks and say all men are saved “if they obey their conscience”, regardless of what they believe.
But the Bible counters this wrong teaching very clearly in Hebrews 11:6:
“And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.”
In other words, it matters very much what you believe about God, according to the Bible. And Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.” John 14:6. Jesus made it very clear that it does matter what you believe.
So why do Catholic people still believe the fiction that the Catholic church teaches that the Bible is the Word of God? When will their eyes be opened and they will begin to see that you can’t believe the Bible is the Word of God and then promote teachings that are very subtly in direct opposition to it?
Catholics have a serious choice to make. Are they going to believe the teachings of the Bible? Or, the teachings of the Pope? They can’t believe both – because they are in contradiction to each other.
Francis is the false prophet of the Bible, the second beast in Revelation chapter 13. That is why he spouting such heresies.
You don't know what you are talking about. You are misconstruing the Pope's meaning. The Church has NEVER taught that we are saved by our works. We are saved by Faith. BUT…"faith without works is dead" (James 2:14) May the peace of Christ be with you.
Barbara, if that’s what the church taught – that would be completely Biblical and nobody would have a problem with it. But they in fact teach that you must commit a series of good works during your life to maintain your salvation – not to prove it. And if you don’t commit a lifetime of good works you’ll end up in purgatory – yet another very unbiblical concept.