Say what you want about Protestants being helter-skelter, disjointed, and factious. An often-used diatribe against Popeless Christianity is that schism is as common as crack in government housing, with the figure of “45 thousand different sects” being used (and abused) to explain the superiority of the Catholic faith. Whether that’s only partly true or entirely true (the figure is nowhere near correct), one thing is for sure.
At least the head of our religion isn’t a gay Communist.
Ok, we jest. There is no evidence that Pope Francis is gay, just that he largely approves of gayness and pronounces homosexuals saved from hell-fire by nothing but the surety of his post-modern scepter. The current Pope passes out pronouncements of salvation like Oprah once gave away cars to her studio audience; and you get salvation, and you get salvation, and you all get salvation! Similar to Oprah’s giveaway, in which there was the small catch of 7k dollars in tax they had to pay to take the car home, the Pope’s salvific giveaways probably have the small-print of a few hundred years in purgatory or some hefty indulgences.
Still, it must sting the #TradCath just a bit that no matter how much they paint Protestants as a little bit crazy and a whole lot of schismatic, the current Pope is hardly Catholic. There was once a time when if someone asks, “Is the Pope Catholic?” it was meant as an obvious yes, just as did the question “Does a bear poop in the woods?” Today, questioning the Pope’s Catholicism could be met with serious conversations and solemn questions about who they claim is Peter’s replacement, the Vicar of Christ, and the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church.
Still, there are many Romanists who hold to traditional papist values, like that of the Sanctity of Life dealing more with not killing babies and less about giving Obama phones to welfare recipients. There are many Romanists who reject non-Christian idols who must go crazy to see the Pope allow Pachamama worship on the Vatican lawn. There are many traditional Catholics who view the Crusades as a more Biblical way to deal with the Muslim invasion of Europe than giving them first-class plane tickets to Paris and free burkas made from French flags. We can only hope that sooner or later, these Catholics will find a reason to free themselves from the burden of the Papacy and start to protest the usurper of Christ (we can think of at least 95 reasons).
However, if traditional Catholics really want a reason to leave Rome’s apostasy for good, we’ve found the 96th reason.
On his way back from a 12-day trip visiting Indonesia, Pope Francis told reporters over the weekend, “Sending migrants away, not giving migrants [the] ability to work, not giving migrants [a] welcome is a sin, it’s serious.”
In other words, the Pope wants you to know that not giving up your stuff to help the super-special, uber-protected, endangered species worthy of all praise and honor, “migrants” is a serious sin. Francis did not clarify if this was a mortal or venial sin, but it’s serious.
How serious is the sin of not giving free stuff to people who want your property, jobs, and homes? It’s so serious that it’s indistinguishable in severity from ripping babies from their mothers wombs and carving them up like a Christmas goose. And that’s pretty serious.
Francis went on, “both the one who throws out migrants and the one who kills babies. Both are against life.”
Ah, yes. We suppose by “throwing out migrants” Francis refers to Americans like Trump who generally want immigration laws to be enforced lest the United States becomes like the nations the Pope just visited for 12 days. But Francis continued…
“In political morality, it is generally said that not voting is bad, not good: one must vote. And one has to choose the lesser evil. Who is the lesser evil, that lady or that gentleman? I don’t know, everyone in conscience thinks and does this.”
Many people on the pro-human side of the aisle, largely called “conservatives,” are genuinely seeking for the origins of their own worldview beliefs. From Shia LeBeouf to Steve Bannon to Russell Brand, many celebrities and influencers are seeking out a supernatural answer for why everyone with common sense seems to believe the same way on sociopolitical issues (hint: it’s the skeletal remnants of a Christian worldview that forged our civilization), and the first stop along their journey of discovery is the Roman Catholic Church. That road, of course, will not lead them to Christ. It will only lead them close enough for them to find a few weird icons carved of his mother.
Roman Catholic dogma teaches that the Pope quite literally is the head of the Christian church. There are no shortage of Popes for Protestants to use as cases-in-point for why that’s as sad as it is fantastical. There were gay popes, transvestite popes, murderous popes, thieving popes, and several times, more popes than one who all claimed to be the ultimate earthly authority over the church. However, we live in a beautiful time when all we have to do is point to the current pope and ask them with a straight face, “Are you serious? This is the guy who’s in charge of the church?”
When a man can’t differentiate between the awfulness of baby-murder and the appropriateness of immigration law, does he really speak for Jesus Christ?
In our experience, when evangelizing Catholics with the authentic gospel of Christ, they appeal to the unity of the Romanist cult. We would only ask them to please confirm their unity with Pope Francis on the most important issues facing the world today. Seldom will they make the attempt, knowing that they have little in common with the Marxist currently in charge of their religion. What they will begin to express is their own independence of faith, separate from whoever the current Pope might be, unwavering in their attempted relationship with Christ outside and irrespective of the explicit or implicit authority of the Papacy.
And that, dear friend, is the first step to becoming Protestant. Join the party.
