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Thomas wrote:

Hi, guys —

On April 27, 2014 the Pope addressed the world. At some point during the event, one guy was singing a song in Latin. It referred to Lucifer several times. I have seen videos online that claim the lyrics were exalting satan as god, the creator. I would like to find the name of that song and the specific lyrics so that I might be able to discern for myself what was actually said.

  • Can you direct me to that material or someone who might be able to?

Thank you,

Thomas

  { Can you direct me to the source of a Latin song sung during a Papal address, referring to Lucifer? }

Bob replied:

Thomas,

I'm sorry but I can't help you; I have no idea about that.

This is the first I have heard of it and I wouldn't believe it. It sounds like some fundamentalist twist to show the Pope is the anti-Christ or something of the sort.

You are right to be skeptical.

Peace,

Bob Kirby

Eric replied:

Thomas,

Lucifer means light bearer or morning star in Latin. It doesn't necessarily refer to Satan. In fact, it's the term for one of the acolytes in the liturgy, because he holds the candle. In a certain sense Jesus is lucifer because He is the Light of the World. This is alluded to in 2 Peter 1:19:

et habemus firmiorem propheticum sermonem cui bene facitis adtendentes quasi lucernae lucenti in caliginoso loco donec dies inlucescat et lucifer oriatur in cordibus vestris [4]

which reads in English:

And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, (2 Peter 1:19, ESV)

The idea that Satan is Lucifer is not directly found in the Bible but is a gloss from a reference to the King of Babylon in Isaiah 14:12, KJV:

“How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”

Here is some more information on what was being sung at the Pope's liturgy.

Eric

Thomas replied:

Thanks Eric,

I had heard that all before. It is obviously up for interpretation. It's not for me to say, but I wonder, with such ambiguity with that word, perhaps the Church might do better to not push that. Since you were kind enough to reply, I do have another question for you all.

  • What are your thoughts on the accusation against this Pope that he is far too liberal and taking the Church in the wrong direction?

For example, recently the Pope declared that salvation is not possible, except through the Church, meaning of course the Catholic Church.

  • Doesn't that bother you guys at all?

He also declares that people who put their personal relationship with Jesus ahead of the Church are not saved and that people who put the Bible ahead of the Church are not saved and are violent. You can hear him say these things in his own words.

  • [YouTube video blocked out.]
  • [YouTube video blocked out.]

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words and I find these videos to be even more illuminating. I pray that all Catholics make a decision, who is going to bring salvation to them and is therefore more worthy of their affections, Jesus or the Pope. It seems to me more and more that the Pope wants us to put himself above Christ.

Tom

Eric replied:

Hi Thomas,

You said:
Thanks Eric,

I had heard that all before. It is obviously up for interpretation. It's not for me to say, but I wonder, with such ambiguity with that word, perhaps the Church might do better to not push that.

Not sure what you mean up for interpretation. It's pretty clear-cut for anyone who takes the time to look into it. The problem is fundamentalists will use any cudgel they can find the beat up the Church and it doesn't matter what it is.

The Church is not going to change a 1,500 year-old text just because a few ignorant and malicious fundamentalists are squealing who won't even translate Latin and (who, ironically, rely on an interpretation that the Catholic Church came up with).

For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible; for those who do believe, no explanation is necessary.

I would like to get to your other question but I'm afraid I don't have the time at the moment. I may have time later or one of my colleagues may wish to chime in.

You said:
For example, recently the Pope declared that salvation is not possible, except through the Church, meaning of course the Catholic Church.

  • Doesn't that bother you guys at all?

By the way you called this a liberal position but it is actually a very conservative position and, no, I'm not bothered by it. This position is entirely consistent with 2,000 years of Catholic teaching.

I invite you to search our database for keywords such as no salvation outside Church or something similar. I will note that it does not mean that one has to be a card-carrying member of the Catholic Church, or identify as Catholic, in order to go to Heaven.

I have a question for you now:

Eric

Thomas replied:

Hi Eric,

To answer your question, here are Scriptures that mention the Body of Christ directly.

  • Do these Scriptures apply to the Pope as well, or, has he supplanted Christ as the head of the Church?
  • Meaning, in the last Scripture, who is it exactly that is being referred to?
    • A man? or
    • God as Jesus?
  • Would you consider a Protestant part of the Church?

Thomas

Eric replied:

Hi, Thomas —

You said:

  • Do these scriptures apply to the Pope as well, or, has he supplanted Christ as the head of the church?

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I've been pretty busy.

The Pope is part of the Body of Christ like the rest of it.  He is the visible head and, of course, does not supplant Christ.  The concept comes from several places; compare Luke 12:42 and Matthew 24:45 with John 21:15-17.  He is merely the servant the Master has put in charge of feeding His sheep until He returns. 

  • That said, I'm curious where you got this idea that the Pope has supplanted Christ as the head of the Church from what Pope Francis has said?

You said:

  • Meaning, in the last scripture, who is it exactly that is being referred to?

Jesus, naturally.

You said:

  • Would you consider a Protestant part of 'the Church'?

It is possible but only God can know whether someone, Catholic or Protestant, is in or out of the Church.

Put more succinctly, the Church is the Body of Christ (Colossians 1:18). Consequently, there is no opposition between Christ and His Body. They are not separated, and one who is saved through one, is saved through the other. Neither can you be saved apart from the Body of Christ. For to be apart from the Body of Christ, is to be apart from Christ. And so to be apart from the Church is to be apart from Christ.

A reply of St. Joan of Arc to her judges sums up the faith of the holy doctors and the good sense of the believer:

"About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing, and we shouldn't complicate the matter."

One cannot be a Christian without being part of the Body of Christ, the Church. You can't be a lone-ranger Christian and this was the point of the Pope. Being a Christian means belonging to the Church.

The Church:

  • is not the Pope
  • it is not the Vatican
  • it is not the clergy.

It encompasses every holy person on earth, in Heaven, and in transition to Heaven united to Jesus Christ, Her Head.

I note that in the first video you cited, the teaser was that the Pope says that

having a personal relationship with Christ is very dangerous.

But that is not what the Pope said, according to the article. He said, if you read the article that he displayed, that

There are those who believe they can maintain a personal, direct and immediate relationship with Jesus Christ outside the communion and the mediation of the Church. These are dangerous and harmful temptations.

Replace Church with Body of Christ and you see the issue. I think: He is not against a personal relationship with Christ, per se, but against a personal relationship that excludes His Body.

Of course, the phrase personal relationship with Christ does not appear in the Scriptures, either, though that is not to say that certain elements of it are not true but it doesn't mean we should all be lone-ranger Christians. That is not biblical.

The Pope said,

"There is no do-it-yourself in the Church, no freelancers."

  • Would you disagree with that?
  • Do we not need one another?
  • Is the church not a community of persons in communion with one another?
  • Can the eye say to the foot "I have no need of you"? (1 Corinthians 12:7-30)

There is no individualism in Christianity. Yes, as Pope Benedict said,

We are a we Church.

  • What is so unbiblical about that?

I note that this narrator who is opposing Pope Francis is not quoting any Scripture in support of his point.

He claims that Pope Francis is trying to get rid of Jesus Christ. This is patently absurd. He wouldn't talk so much about Jesus Christ if he wanted to get rid of him. If the Church is the Body of Christ, then one cannot know the Church and get rid of Jesus Christ, because the two are intimately connected. He is the Vine, we are the branches. We are connected to one another. We cannot join the Vine without joining the other branches.

He also claims that the Pope wants to focus only on the church. On the contrary, he is merely saying that one cannot focus only on Jesus Christ. He is not excluding Jesus Christ, he is excluding those who exclude the Church and rebuking those who oppose the Church, the Body of Christ.

A major way to understand the Catholic Church is the concept of [both/and]. Very often the questions, as Protestants present them, are asked with an [either/or] requirement for an answer, but the Catholic Church responds with [both/and]. It is not either Jesus or the Church. It is both Jesus and the Church, both Head and Body, not some decapitated abomination. You cannot set up an opposition, as this man attempts to do, between the Body of Christ and Her Head.

An explanation of No Salvation Outside of the Catholic Church can be found in the Catechism, the official statement of doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church:

'Outside the Church there is no salvation.'

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? (cf. Cyprian, Ep. 73.21:PL 3,1169; De unit.:PL 4,509-536.)

Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

(Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 14; cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5)

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

(Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 16; cf. DS 3866-3872)

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."

(Vatican II, Ad Gentes 7; cf. Hebrews 11:6; 1 Corinthians 9:16)

As for the second video, we teach that the Bible is inspired and inerrant.

See A Catholic Understanding of Biblical Inerrancy.

We don't believe that the Bible is always literally true, anymore than we believe that Jesus literally was a door or literally was a lamb, because the sacred authors used various literary forms to communicate their message. Nevertheless, every word was authored by the Holy Spirit through the human writers and communicates truth to us.

By the way, Fundamentalist is not the same as bible-believers. There are many bible-believers who are not fundamentalists, even among Protestants.

I find it ironic that he complains about the Pope identifying fundamentalists as violent, all the while himself, using violent imagery to demonize the Catholic Church. That is the exact form of violence the Pope is talking about so he proves Francis's point.

I have a question for you:

  • Are you a Seventh-Day Adventist?

Because these videos are propaganda for the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

I love it when he talks about National Sunday Law. The hilarious gymnastics they go through to try to convince you that this is right around the corner . . . What planet is he living on? . . . just amazes me.

Do me a favor when you respond and use Reply All so the whole team can be involved.

1 Corinthians 12:27
Now you are the body of Christ, and each of you is a member of it.

Romans 12:5
So in Christ we who are many are one body, and each member belongs to one another.

1 Corinthians 1:2
To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours:

1 Corinthians 6:15
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

1 Corinthians 10:17
Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one loaf.

1 Corinthians 12:12
The body is a unit, though it is comprised of many parts. And although its parts are many, they all form one body. So it is with Christ.

1 Corinthians 12:26
If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Ephesians 1:23
which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

Ephesians 4:12
to equip the saints for works of ministry, to build up the body of Christ,

Ephesians 5:30
For we are members of His body.

Colossians 1:18
And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and firstborn from among the dead, so that in all things He may have preeminence.

Eric

Thomas replied:

Hi Eric and friends. Here's some additional thoughts.

  1. No, I am not Seventh Day

  2. I find Catholic's foundation for papal infallibility to be extremely weak. There are only a few Scriptures in all of the Bible that are used to present the Pope and bishops as infallible and, yes, I understand that doesn't mean they don't sin because its abundantly clear that they do.

    I see nowhere in Scripture that indicates to me that I am to defer my responsibility to seek God and to discern His Word to another person no matter who they are. That is not to say that I don't get input from many people. Of course I do, that is scriptural but I do not believe that having a supreme leader here on earth as the official voice for or interpreter for God is biblical.

  3. Even if Jesus did intend to bestow special authority to Peter or the Apostles in general, which I do not believe He did, where did He give them the authority to pass on that authority to others?

  4. Even if there were such a thing as a supreme church leader other than Jesus, the people living in the Vatican are certainly not the ones. Here's some proof.

    This Pope has criticized the Church for its obsession with topics like abortion and same-sex marriage.

    • [Article from the New York Times blocked out.]
    • [Article from the New York Times blocked out.]

This Pope declared that all religions, even atheism, could receive salvation.

"The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ, all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! . . . even the atheists!"

This goes beyond one of the most common errors in Catholicism of telling people you must do good to be saved. In this comment he said that even if a person does not believe in Jesus Christ and the Cross, that he can be in Heaven as long as he does good works.

  • Fellas, can you bring forth even one weak verse from the Bible that supports that claim?
  • Doesn't that statement go against several places where salvation is defined as belief and not works?

About homosexuality, this Pope says,

"Who am I to judge."

Of course I know that this statement was taken out of context. However, nowhere in this article with the Pope, nor anywhere else in his public comments have I seen him take a stand to say that homosexuality is a sin. He likes to skip that part and just go to how God loves everyone. We all know that God loves everyone yet people will hear his words and use them to justify their sinful actions.

  • If there's no need for repentance, why do it?
  • and, if they do not repent, how can a sinner truly be forgiven?

But here's my primary question to you guys:

  • Do you believe the Bible is accurate, cover to cover and is God's word true?

If yes, take a look at Matthew 24:11, 7:15; Mark 13:22; 2 Peter 2:1 and many more . . . and ask yourself:

  • Do you believe that anyone, including the Pope, is above reproach?
  • Meaning, is there any way in your mind that the Pope could be a false teacher similar to satan who wove truth in with lie?
  • Could the Pope also do the same?, and If not, why not?

Here's the thing, while taking a bathroom break a few minutes ago after typing all of the above a thought entered my mind,

  • Why am I so insistent on bashing the Pope?

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is of the guy who was forgiven a great debt then 20 minutes later is condemning a guy who owed him a little. I am that man more often than I want to admit. In my own family there are several homosexuals, fornicators, and sinners of various kinds. People who I am supposed to love. I really do try to not judge them. I always try to point out that among us I am certainly the chief sinner. I try to point out that sin is sin and there's no difference between heterosexual sin and homosexual sin however, I do try to point out that certain things are in fact sin.

I am grateful that I go to a church where I hear that message regularly. To me, it appears that your Church is now, even more than before, saying many things to tickle the ear. Compassion, love, and mercy are all true but I think it is deceitful not to let people know what is a sin because then they have no need to repent. No need to change.

So I don't think that my heart is to bash the Pope necessarily or certainly not you guys. I have no agenda other than to perhaps bring some light to your hearts and mine. In my reading about the Pope, I found he has many good things to say. He is a good man in many ways but again, I don't trust him because of the few subtle lies and deceit that I feel from him.

Anyhow, I'm sure I will not be changing any of you guys over to being a Baptist or whatever and you are certainly not going to get me to go back to being a Catholic. I respect what you do in the sense that I believe you guys truly do have heart for the Lord, as do I.

We disagree on doctrine in many ways. We do not disagree that we are sinners in need of redemption because our sin separated us from God and that God sent Jesus here to die as the only acceptable sacrifice for our sins and that through His blood we are redeemed. Feel free to respond but I feel complete in our conversation and probably don't have any more to add.

Blessings to you all!

Thank you all for your answer and comments.

Blessed Pentecost to all.

God Bless.

Thomas

Mike replied:

Dear Thomas,

You said:
I find Catholic's foundation for papal infallibility to be extremely weak. There are only a few Scriptures in all of the Bible that are used to present the Pope and bishops as infallible and, yes, I understand that doesn't mean they don't sin because its abundantly clear that they do.

I see no where in Scripture that indicates to me that I am to defer my responsibility to seek God and to discern His Word to another person no matter who they are. That is not to say that I don't get input from many people. Of course I do, that is scriptural. But having a supreme leader here on earth as the official voice for or interpreter for God I do not believe is biblical.

. . . and you used articles from the New York Times to address your view?

Please take a few minutes or however long you need to see the Biblical support for Catholic teachings below (My Scripture Passages page)

We do not believe the Bible is the pillar of truth because the Bible itself, says the Church (Catholic) is the pillar and foundation of truth. (1 Timothy 3:15)

You said:

  • Do you believe that anyone, including the Pope, is above reproach?
  • Meaning, is there any way in your mind that the Pope could be a false teacher similar to satan who wove truth in with lie?
  • Could the Pope also do the same?, and If not, why not?

Catholic Christians truly believe Jesus [was/is] both True God and True Man at the same time. All our beliefs stem from this basic Christianity teaching taught among all Christendom. Since Jesus is Truly God and we know that God can neither deceive nor be deceived, when He speaks in the Scriptures to the Apostles and says:

17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of [Hades/Hell] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

(Matthew 16:17-19)

The Pope does not create new teachings or invent new doctrines. His purpose is to safeguard and protect the teachings Jesus entrusted to the first St. Peter and his successors..

  • Can he teach falsely or behave badly?, informally, Yes
  • Can he teach falsely, when formally teaching on issues of faith or morals?, No!

You have to separate the human weakness of the Pope as a human when he is not teaching in his official capacity from when he is teaching officially on issues of faith and morals.

When teaching on issues of faith and morals, he is not the one ensure that he will not teach error. No, [Jesus, who is one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit] is protecting him from teaching error as Jesus (who is God) promised in Matthew 16:13-20.

You said:
But here's my primary question to you guys:

  • Do you believe the Bible is accurate, cover to cover and is God's word true?

Yes!

You said:
Anyhow, I'm sure I will not be changing any of you guys over to being a Baptist or whatever and you are certainly not going to get me to go back to being a Catholic. I respect what you do in the sense that I believe you guys truly do have heart for the Lord, as do I.

We disagree on doctrine in many ways. We do not disagree that we are sinners in need of redemption because our sin separated us from God and that God sent Jesus here to die as the only acceptable sacrifice for our sins and that through His blood we are redeemed. Feel free to respond but I feel complete in our conversation and probably don't have any more to add.

Contrary to what some think, we do not do this work to convert people.
That's not our job but the job of the Holy Spirit in each person's life.

Our job is just to clarify misperceptions about Catholic Teachings and the only Church Jesus founded on St. Peter, the Catholic Church.

That's it Thomas!

Mike — From St. Pacian of Barcelona

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