Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 10/14/17

• Pope Francis: As Revolutionary As Henry VIII
• Francis takes aim at Jonah for rigidity—and misses again.

In the ongoing dispute over communion for remarried divorcees, conservative Catholics are now really slinging mud by comparing the doctrine-defying pragmatism of pope Francis to that of Henry VIII.

• Christianity Is Not the Only Way to Heaven, Prominent Presbyterian Pastor Says

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) went the way of liberal apostasy around 90 years ago. See this article from Ligonier Ministries on J. Gresham Machen, the faithful theologian, who broke away from mainline Presbyterianism in the 1920s because of the ripe apostasy within the denomination.

• Legal dispute over Fulton Sheen’s body continues in court next week

This story deserves a separate post. In anticipation of Fulton J. Sheen’s certain canonization, the archdiocese of New York City (where Sheen was auxiliary bishop) and the diocese of Peoria, Illinois (where Sheen was raised) have fought in the U.S. court system for years over custody of his remains. Peoria won the first round, but NYC has appealed. This is the craziest thing but exemplifies Catholicism’s obsession with the material rather than the spiritual. See my post from a year ago here.

• Why are Catholic horror films so popular?

When the Hollywood guys are making a horror flick and need a clergy character, they usually use a Catholic priest. The notorious turnaround collar quickly identifies the character for movie audiences. But as I wrote recently, the priests with their false gospel are too be feared more than the stereotypical ghouls.

• Catholics mark 100 years since Our Lady of Fatima warned about Russia and war

In the same month that Christians celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Catholics celebrated the 100th anniversary of the last of the alleged six Marian apparitions at Fatima, Portugal on October 13, 1917. Fatima is considered by many Catholics to be the most important of the Marian apparitions. Following the last supposed appearance of Mary to the three children, it’s alleged that the 70,000 people who had gathered witnessed the miracle of the “dancing of the sun.” Was it a miracle, crowd hysteria, or demonic activity? Defenders of the Catholic version of the event predictably don’t acknowledge that eyewitness accounts are contradictory. See here.

• Legionaries of Christ’s Head of Rome Seminary Leaves Priesthood After Fathering 2 Children

Abuse in the Legionaries of Christ has a long history. It was well known throughout the church that founder, Marcial Maciel, was a serial sexual predator, but he was allowed to continue as head of the organization even though the Vatican had reams of evidence documenting his abusive behavior. For the ABC Nightline 9-minute investigative segment on Maciel, which indicts popes “saint” John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) and Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), see here.

• The evangelical divide
• What is Making Young Evangelical Christians Leave?

In the 1980s and 90s, many evangelicals followed the lead of Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, James Kennedy, Pat Robertson, et al., in mixing faith with conservative national patriotism, as if America was in a covenant relationship with God in the same way as was ancient Israel. Many American evangelicals still tend to think in terms of winning the culture battles in this country rather than spreading the Gospel. Perhaps nothing else has done more to turn young people off to the Gospel than this conflation of faith and conservative patriotism.

• Calvinist Health Insurance Company Declares All Conditions Pre-Existing (satire)

The Babylon Bee is always good for a chuckle.

Enjoy your weekend!

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Twofer Tuesday – Christopher Columbus and Harvey Weinstein?

I usually only have one topic to post about per day, but today is a twofer Tuesday!

Yesterday was Columbus Day, a federal holiday, which meant I was unable to take two books to the post office to be shipped to customers* and I couldn’t go to the bank to deposit a check. Grrr! As you’re all aware, there’s a big controversy brewing about celebrating Columbus Day.

Italian-Americans across the country commemorate their fellow countryman, Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus), who hailed from Genoa and accidentally discovered the Americas in 1492. Italian-Americans use this day to celebrate their ethnic heritage in general.

But critics of Columbus Day say the explorer was a brutal tyrant who persecuted the indigenous West Indie natives – enslaving or killing them – and who forced “White man’s religion” down their throats. Supporters say Columbus was a product of his times and should be recognized and honored for his accomplishments, not for his failings according to our 21st-century standards.

What do I think? I’m not inclined to honor any person with statues and national holidays. We’re all sinners in need of the Savior. During the time of Columbus’ four voyages to the New World, the pope of Rome was the notorious Alexander VI – Rodrigo de Borgia – who historians consider to be most corrupt in a long line of corrupt popes. Columbus exported Borgia’s brutal brand of Roman Catholicism to the New World. The priests who accompanied Columbus baptized some of the natives, but only a select few. The church taught that a Catholic could not enslave a fellow (c)hristian and Columbus needed many slaves for his gold mines. The few natives who were initiated into the church via ritual sacramentalization did not know Christ as Savior. Rome did not preach the Good News! of salvation by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone in 1492 and it doesn’t preach it today. A report written in 1502 and discovered in 2006 reveals that Columbus and his three brothers ruled Hispania with iron fists, using torture and mutilation to keep the natives in line.

Politically-conservative American Christians are apt to howl anytime a traditional icon is threatened, but believers should think twice before they lift up anyone for veneration, especially someone who helped propagate a false gospel of spiritual chains.

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My second of today’s twofers is thankfully very short.

What’s this? Hollywood mogul, Harvey Weinstein, was recently fired from the film production company he founded amidst multiple accusations of sexual harassment? I thought Hollywood and its quasi-religious humanism were all about respect, inclusion, dignity, and the elevation of people and animals? You mean to tell me one of Hollywood’s best and brightest was a sexual predator and abuser? Oh, the shock of it! All these Hollywood moguls and glamorous Botox-injected stars are lost sheep who need Jesus Christ. Movie audiences crave the fantasies from the Hollywood assembly line like junkies crave heroine because they’re desperately trying to fill the spiritual vacuum in their souls. But it’s all a mirage.

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*A couple of years ago, I started selling my gently-read books via Amazon’s 3rd party seller program. I’ve sold about 180 books to date, which I’m pretty happy about. If you have a lot of books, especially narrow audience books, Amazon may be a good option for you. It’s actually pretty easy. Loading all of the books into Amazon’s system takes a little doing, but after that it’s just a matter of waiting for orders, packing up the books in padded envelopes, and taking them to the post office. If your collection is mostly mass market-type books, don’t bother. The big 3rd party sellers are able to severely undercut a small seller’s profit-point pricing.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 10/7/17

• Kriya Yoga Conference to blend Catholic, Eastern spirituality

Catholic belief runs the entire gamut, from hyper-traditionalists who still rail against Martin Luther the “heretic,” to Catholic-Hindu syncretists. Pope Francis definitely leans more toward the syncretists than the Catholic fundamentalists.

• I Hope the Pope Will Provide Some Much-Needed Clarity
• Bishop urges Catholics not to fall prey to anti-Francis conspiracy theories
• Catholics can never ‘assent’ to Communion for habitual adulterers: Filial Correction signer

The bitter fight between Catholic conservatives and liberals over pope Francis’ guileful lifting of the ban on communion for remarried divorcees continues to heat up. In the first article, Dave Armstrong, one Catholicism’s most condescending apologists, who has often boasted that a pope could never lead his beloved church into error, pleads with Francis not to make him a liar.

• Is Rome changing course on Medjugorje?

This is an excellent article on the ecclesiastical politics and arm-twisting that takes place behind the scenes at Medjugorje and at other “miraculous” manifestations. It’s all a sham.

• How fundamentalist and evangelical Christians differ

An interesting commentary on the differences in “evangelicalism” from the viewpoint of a United Methodist, mainline unbeliever.

• Protestantism’s biggest problem: on whose authority do we interpret the scriptures?
• The Bible’s not enough

“The faithful Catholic who never picks up his Bible outside the Mass is still a more biblical Christian than his Evangelical friends who know the text inside out.” – from “The Bible’s Not Enough.”

The believing church has done amazingly well without a central authoritarian body like the Vatican, which has formulated many doctrines contrary to the Word of God over the centuries.  All credit and honor to the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit! The Catholic church has always boasted of its magisterium, which was supposedly incapable of leading the church into error, yet the current pope is doing precisely that according to most church conservatives.

• Catholics and Protestants: We’ve come a long way, baby

Liberal and progressive Catholics, like this writer, celebrate the growing ecumenicity between Catholics and Protestants. There are many Protestants…and even evangelicals…who share this attitude. Doctrine? Specifically HOW a person receives salvation? Ach! Minor details meant only for theologians. “Just love Jesus and do your best,” they say.

• Will the Catholic church move forward with female deacons?

Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Francis will move forward on female deacons after the dust from “Amoris Laetitia” settles.

Religious zealousness no substitute for correct Biblical doctrine

A couple of weeks ago, there were multiple headlines focusing on U.S. Senator, Dianne Feinstein’s grilling of President Trump’s nominee to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Notre Dame professor, Amy Coney Barrett, regarding her religious beliefs. The news reports said Barrett is an active member of the Catholic Charismatic Movement and Feinstein was worried that the nominee’s religious views precluded her from supporting any portion of the Democratic National Party’s platform. That’s a very fair assumption on Senator Feinstein’s part, but religious tests are supposedly verboten in the public sector and most of the private sector.

I didn’t pay too much attention to the story initially, but yesterday I decided to do a little research on Professor Barrett’s beliefs. I found that not only is she a charismatic Catholic, she’s also a member of a tightly-controlled charismatic community called “People of Praise.” This group was founded in 1971 and is described as an “independent Christian interdenominational charismatic “covenant community” with no ecclesial affiliation,” although approximately 90% of the 3000 members are Roman Catholic. One of the main purposes of the group is to promote ecumenism between the Catholic church and the Protestant “faith communities” (see articles below).

Catholic charismatics reach out in fellowship to Pentecostals and evangelical charismatics based on their shared experiences involving the gifts of the spirit, including prophecy, glossolalia or speaking in tongues, and healing (full disclosure: I personally believe the apostolic sign gifts ended with the apostles). But what do Catholic charismatics like Barrett believe that distinguishes them from evangelicals? If Barrett is a faithful Catholic, as she claims to be, she must believe the following:

• Baptism washes away original sin.
• Priests turn bread wafers and wine into the literal body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ and (h)e is offered as a sacrifice for sins hundreds of thousands of times daily at Catholic masses.
• Priests forgive sins in the confessional in persona Christi.
• Mary is the sinner’s advocate and mediatrix and all of God’s grace’s flow through her. Thousands of other dead “saints” canonized by the church can also be prayed to as spiritual intercessors.
• Purgatory is a spiritual way station where the stain of minor sins and any remaining temporal punishment for mortal sins forgiven in the confessional are cleansed away. Time in purgatory can be lessened via church-prescribed indulgences.
• The pope is infallible in guiding the church in all matters of faith and morals.
• Most importantly, Catholicism teaches salvation is attained by receiving grace from the church’s sacraments so that the supplicant may avoid sin so as to remain in a “state of grace” and merit Heaven at the moment of death. That is definitely NOT the Gospel.

Aside from the irreconcilable doctrinal differences between Rome and Scripture, I’m also very leery of any and all “covenant communities,” which try to replicate the circumstances in Acts 2:42-47. The potential for abuse is extreme.

Catholic charismatics like Barrett praise the Lord with gusto and refer often to “grace,” “faith,” and Jesus their “Savior,” but behind the veneer is their devotion to the Catholic church’s complicated works religious system, which is dependent on participating in the sacraments and “cooperating with grace” by obeying the Ten Commandments (impossible!). The gospel that Barrett and other Catholic charismatics adhere to is NOT the Gospel of salvation by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Pope Francis has lavished great praise on Catholic charismatics for building a bridge of experientialism between Catholics and evangelicals. See here. Professor Barrett and People of Praise have devoted themselves to the cause of uniting all (c)hristians under Rome’s banner.

It’s unfortunate Ms. Barrett was scrutinized by Senators Feinstein, Al Franken, and Dick Durbin for her religious beliefs, but she needs to forsake her religion and accept Jesus Christ as her Savior by faith alone.

“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” – Romans 10:1-3

People of Praise – Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_of_Praise

People of Praise official website:
https://peopleofpraise.org/

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Below, an interesting snippet from Barrett’s nomination hearing:

Senator Dick Durbin: There are many people who might characterize themselves (as) orthodox Catholics who now question whether pope Francis is an orthodox Catholic. I happen to think he’s a pretty good Catholic.

Barrett: I agree with you.

SDD: Good. That’s good common ground for us to start with.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 9/30/17

• Six relics of Padre Pio on display at Catholic church

The relics of Italian “saint,” Padre Pio (aka Francesco Forgione, d. 1968), are currently touring the U.S. Thousands of the Catholic faithful will venerate these relics (a glove, crusts of his stigmata (!), cotton gauze with his bloodstains, a lock of hair, his mantle, and a handkerchief soaked with sweat in the hours before he died) and seek the intercession of this popular saint. The nuns at my Catholic grammar school were quite enthralled with this priest and “mystic” who was allegedly marked by the “stigmata” or Christ’s crucifixion wounds and who also claimed to be able to bi-locate and levitate. Award-winning historian, Sergio Luzzatto, researched the Vatican’s archives on Pio and concluded the priest was a complete fraud in his book, “Padre Pio: Miracles and Politics in a Secular Age.” See here.

• ‘Apocalyptic’: Filial Correction organizer warns of schism if errors aren’t corrected
• Bishop Schneider: priests must resist pressure on Communion for remarried
• Is the Vatican Slouching toward Wickedness?

For the first time since this “Amoris Laetitia” contoversy began, conservative Catholics are discussing “schism” as a possible option to pope Francis’ lifting of the ban on communion for remarried divorcees.

• EWTN Brings ‘Catholics Come Home’ to Your Home

Conservative Catholic media conglomerate, EWTN, bids Protestants and lapsed Catholics to “come home” to the church, but which church? Should they return to the church run by heretic Francis or should they wait until the EWTN-types break away and create their own wildcat organization? The genuine Gospel of salvation by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone is not preached at either end of the Catholic spectrum.

• I am out of excuses for skipping Mass. Most millennials are not.

The Catholic mass has to be one of the most boring hours a person ever had to sit through and there’s little that church-growth marketing consultants like Judas evangelical, Rick Warren, can do to change that. Catholics are obligated to attend mass every Sunday under pain of eternal damnation but only 22% of the membership comply. Who can blame them when pope Francis says even atheists can merit Heaven if they “follow their conscience,” whatever that means.

• Mass opens Diocese of Rochester’s sesquicentennial celebration

I see that the Catholic diocese of Rochester where I live recently celebrated its 150th anniversary. That’s 150 years of Rochesterians being taught a false gospel. When I was a boy, the bishop lived ostentatiously like a king on East Avenue, the preferred neighborhood of the city’s industrial barons. See here. Rochester was part of the Buffalo diocese prior to 1868.

• Pittsburgh plan would consolidate 188 parishes into 48 groups

Catholic dioceses throughout the Northeast Rust Belt are closing or consolidating churches because of the shortage of priests and bodies in the pews.

• Mark Wahlberg coming to Chicago to encourage young Catholics to find faith

Marky Mark is one of those rare Catholic celebrities who wears his religion on his shirt sleeve, when he’s not acting in R-rated movies. Stephen Colbert and Patricia Heaton are two other proud Catholic celebrities who come to mind. For these folks, like all Catholics, the church institution and its labyrinthine religious system are preeminent, with Jesus Christ buried somewhere under all the rituals, ceremonies, and traditions.

• Catholic sexual abuse partly caused by secrecy and mandatory celibacy, report finds

I could have told them that. Catholic seminaries were both magnets and incubators of perversion.

• ‘If You Obey God, You Will Never Be Broke,’ TD Jakes Says

Quite often, I will end the weekend roundup with a satirical piece from the Babylon Bee, but this article on prosperity gospel purveyor and anti-trinitarian, T.D. Jakes, serves just as well.

Oy vey! Another doomsday prediction gone sour!

For the past couple of months, I’ve caught bits and pieces on religious talk radio of some strange prediction about the end of the world happening this past Saturday, September 23rd. Well, it’s September 25th and we’re all still here. Evidently, “Christian numerologist and researcher,” David Meade (pictured), had posted a You Tube video predicting the end of the world on September 23rd, but he’s now pushed the date back to October 15th, along with all kinds of lame excuses. It’s Edgar C. Whisenant all over again (see below). I agree that circumstances in the world are getting increasingly dicey, but no man knows the day of the Lord’s return.

“But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” – Matthew 24:26

excatholic4christ

After we accepted the Lord in 1983, my wife and I attended an independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) church for eight years. We were firmly grounded in God’s Word at that church, but the pastor also took the congregation down some strange rabbit holes. I can laugh about it now.

In the early part of 1988, a small booklet was creating quite a stir at our church as well as at thousands of other evangelical and fundamentalist churches. Former NASA engineer, Edgar C. Whisenant, had written “88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988.” Based on information from the Bible and using his own mathematical calculations, Whisenant had determined the Rapture of the church would occur sometime between September 11th and September 13th of 1988. 4.5 million copies of the booklet ended up being distributed.

Like most IFB preachers, our pastor often taught the Rapture – the taking up of Christians bodily into…

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Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 9/23/17

• Who were the “Know-nothings”? What was “Know-Nothingism”?

American Catholic writers love to kibbitz about anti-Catholic persecution in this country. I certainly agree that the persecution of any group is wrong, but they somehow fail to mention that much of the ill-will, fear, and paranoia could be traced to the bloody oppression of non-Catholics in Catholic-controlled countries that was encouraged by papal encyclicals condemning freedom of religion and democratic forms of government. Schoolyard bullies mustn’t be surprised when someone strikes back.

• ‘Official persecution’ of faithful Catholics under Pope Francis has begun: scholar
• Did the Pope just answer the dubia by abolishing the John Paul II Institute?
• Müller criticises Francis papacy for lacking theological rigour, and hints at comeback

The battle between pope Francis and his allies and the conservatives/traditionalists within the Catholic church continues. The rancor between the two groups is reaching fever pitch. You won’t find a more entertaining soap opera on television.

• San Diego Bishop Calls Faithful Catholics a ‘Cancer’ in the Church

Liberal priest, James Martin’s new book, “Building a Bridge,” which encourages rapprochement with the LGBTQ “community,” has conservative/traditionalist Catholics in an uproar, resulting in push-back by the liberals. Catholic headlines are currently dominated by this controversy.

• The saint maker

I’m currently reading a book by a liberal Catholic, which criticizes some of the hallowed traditions of the church including saint manufacturing. In this relevant article from 2002, we see how the church exploits the popularity of certain religious celebrities (e.g., Edith Stein, Padre Pio, mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the two Fatima children) by canonizing them expeditiou$ly, while less popular candidates must wait in queue for centuries. It’s all PR politics and $$$. For more on the anti-Biblical nature of Catholicism’s saint-making machine, see here.

• ‘Here I stand’: A reformation for every generation

This is a short article on the Reformation by Michael Reeves for those who don’t have time to read a book, likes Reeves’ excellent “The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation” (see here).

• Pope admits Catholic Church waited too long to respond to clergy abuse crisis

Francis, ya’ think??? Actually, even after thirty years of damning headlines, the Roman Catholic church still doesn’t have a comprehensive plan in place to deal with priest pedophiles and hierarchical cover-up.

• What’s the secret to 70 years of religious life? The Virgin Mary, this nun says

Evangelicals have no idea just how much of Catholic worship revolves around Mary. I listen to Catholic talk radio regularly and the references and appeals to “Our Lady” are mind boggling.

• New Prayer App Delivers Electric Shock Every Time User Says ‘Just’ (satire)

Funny stuff! If you go to church, you’re going to hear A LOT of prayers that include “Lord, we just…” or “Lord, I just…” I’ll admit, I’ve succumbed to getting sucked in and using “just” myself at times, but I just consciously try to just avoid it. 😄

How a “church” became a dark stain on the Gospel witness in my city

Today, I am reminded that 1) our sin will find us out [Numbers 32:23] and 2) we must trust in the Lord and not in any man [Psalm 118:8-9].

This is a very disturbing story and some may be offended that I’m posting about it, but these types of toxic situations exist precisely because Christians would rather bury their heads in the sand than shine a light on sin. I’m going to give a short introduction to this post and I apologize to those who are already familiar with that part of the story.

Shortly after my wife and I accepted Christ in 1983, we began attending an independent Bible Baptist church in the area. I was looking for a Gospel-preaching church that was close to us and I picked that particular one based on an advertisement in the Yellow Pages (remember those?). We stayed at that church for eight years and became heavily involved. The pastor of the church, Joe B., was a karate black-belt tough guy and preached in an “in your face” style, which was quite a novelty and initially very appealing. I was used to limp-wristed priests when I was a Catholic and this was a refreshing change. But after awhile, the pastor’s very heavy-handed, macho-man style began to grate on me. It got to a point where just about every sermon made my skin scrawl. We finally left the church and I was so disgusted with churchianity that I walked away from the Lord for a very long period. Not smart. I had been trusting in man rather than the Lord. If I had been walking closely with the Lord, I would have just asked Him to lead us to a good church right away. But even as messed up as I was, I still felt sorry for those who remained behind at that church and voluntarily submitted to the spiritual and emotional bullying.

I’ve kept an eye on our old church from a distance over the years and it’s had its share of problems, most of them self-induced. One of the pastor’s sons, Paul B., followed in his father’s footsteps and attended his dad’s Bible college alma mater, but got involved in some sinful behaviors and activities that became known to the church’s membership back home. After he returned to Rochester, his father hired him as youth pastor, prompting some members to transfer to a Baptist church on the other side of town. In 2011, after his father had a temporarily debilitating stroke, Paul was promoted to pastor.

Paul not only continued his father’s “in your face” style of preaching and pastoring but he took it even further. He quickly established mixed martial arts (MMA) training and competition fighting as one of the church’s main “ministries.” Illustrations of mythological warriors with bulging muscles and menacing swords, evidently meant to symbolize aggressive, militant Christianity, saturated the church’s web site and social media. Paul swaggered around town with sleeveless t-shirts, exposing his bulked-up musculature, while his equally hard-training wife competed in Mrs. New York State competitions and regularly posted revealing modeling photos of herself in skimpy bikinis on her Twitter and Facebook accounts. This unconventional pastor couple were obviously very proud of their hard-earned, chiseled physiques and wanted everyone to know it. But in 2014, the county police department interviewed three individuals who claimed Paul had either sexually abused them or had attempted to. Some of the accusations described situations involving both the pastor and his wife. These allegations were splashed across the internet. The police concluded their investigation saying there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute. Pastor emeritus, Joe, now fully recovered from his stroke, lobbied the church “leadership” and membership on behalf of his beleaguered son. The executive pastor and deacon board of the church fully supported Paul.

Earlier this summer, one of the Paul’s previous victims had posted on her blog that he had been “fired” (news reports say he resigned) from the church because of new allegations of abuse. I checked the church’s website and, sure enough, any and all signs of him had been erased and Joe, now age 68, had resumed pastoring duties. A week ago, the local television news and newspaper ran stories saying Paul had been arrested after two new individuals had contacted the police with claims that he had sexually abused them. Two days later, a third person also pressed charges. Paul is scheduled to appear in court today for his arraignment. The signed testimonies of the victims were released this morning and they all tell a similar story; Paul had used the MMA and workout “ministries” to connect with the women and lure them into his home where the abuse took place.

Last week, after an update on the scandal had aired on the local television news, my wife turned to me and asked, “Why did you get us involved in that church in the first place?” Boy, did that hurt. I was a baby Christian when we began attending that church, with little discernment and no basis of comparison.

I hesitated in writing this post for several obvious reasons, but the Lord kept bringing it to the forefront. There are some men who are not genuinely called to pastor churches, but do so anyway. They do more harm to the Gospel than good. This particular church has become the laughingstock/snakepit of the Greater Rochester area, with the very heavy media coverage of this scandal. All of it reflects very poorly on the entire Gospel witness in this area, not to mention the people, adults and children, who have been abused at this church over the years, both physically and emotionally. No church is perfect, but this church was on a downward spiral from Day #1. If your pastor is a megalomaniac and there is little or no pastoral oversight, you should leave immediately and ask the Lord to lead you to a God-honoring fellowship.

Former pastor accused of using hot tub to target women
http://13wham.com/news/local/former-pastor-accused-of-using-hot-tub-to-target-women

See my posts from last year regarding the abuse at this church here and here.

Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 9/16/17

• Is Pope Francis right about traditionalists who love the Latin Mass?
• Latin Mass fans celebrate 10-year anniversary, without pope
• Cardinal Sarah urges Church to embrace young traditionalists

Imagine yourself sitting through an hour-long religious liturgical ritual every week that was conducted in a foreign language that you did not understand. Many Catholics are still strongly attracted to the Latin mass because the unknown language seems to convey to them a heightened sense of mystery and “reverence” that’s missing at a mass said in the “vulgar” tongue. The mass itself is thoroughly anti-Biblical, but insisting on sitting through a religious ritual every week conducted in a language that’s not understood would strike many observers, including the current pope, as pathological.

• Bodies of 402 children discovered in mass grave near orphanage run by nuns
• Worst of Catholic sexual abuse scandal still to come in developing world

We’ve all become a bit blasé about these stories of the abuse of children within the Catholic system, but every victim is a soul. While I was never personally abused (outside of some corporal punishment occasionally administered by the sweet sisters), I witnessed the repeated advances of two predatory clerics during my Catholic high school years. Charges were filed against one of them in 1993, although the case was dismissed because so much time had elapsed from the time the abuse took place.

• Bones Of Saint Peter, Popes, And Martyrs Found In Tiny Church In Rome

Sigh. Catholicism and its infatuation with relics, many of them obviously bogus. John Calvin once said that if they collected all the fragments of the “true cross” from Catholic churches across Europe, it would take 300 men to carry them all in a procession.

• Cardinal Burke: ‘Discernment does not decide what is right or wrong’

This article is a good update on the ongoing chess match between Francis and the conservative prelates headed by cardinal Burke.

• Help! My Evangelical family won’t respect my Catholicism!

Catholics offhandedly attribute any negative criticism of their church from evangelicals to ignorance of what their church actually teaches, but the reality is the VAST majority of Catholics do not know their own church’s complicated faith-works theology. I definitely do know what the Catholic church teaches and it’s not the Gospel of salvation by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

• Dramatic increase in Catholic acceptance of abortion, finds new survey

There are many Catholics who participate in the right-to-life movement, but overall acceptance of abortion is growing within the worldwide church. Thanks to Maria at Pilgrim’s Progress revisited – Christiana on the narrow way for pointing out this dramatically growing trend.

• Pope Francis Shifts Power From Rome With ‘Hugely Important’ Liturgical Reform

The liturgical form of the Catholic mass is constantly scrutinized and agonized over. Few non-Catholics understand how much of the Roman Catholic church’s energies are devoted to the mass ritual. As part of his efforts to reform the church, Francis has granted national bishops greater freedom in translating Rome’s liturgical scripts into contemporary regional idioms. But conservatives want worldwide uniformity, not diversity. Francis has thrown them yet another curve ball.

• Joel Osteen Assures Church He Will Continue To Preach False Gospel In Spite Of Critics (satire)

Joel Osteen received plenty of bad press from the Hurricane Harvey disaster, but thankfully the Babylon Bee sets the record straight.

First Harvey, now Irma

At this moment, the full force of Hurricane Irma is battering the Florida Keys and will soon be approaching the mainland, all of this destruction coming on the heels of Hurricane Harvey in Texas.

Two of my sisters live together down in Naples, Florida. They evacuated to Alabama several days ago. News reports say much of Naples and other areas on the west coast of Florida could be submerged by several feet of water from storm surge.

This world holds great beauty but also great dangers and death. I pray for all those impacted by Irma. I pray they turn to Jesus Christ and trust in Him as Savior. In the end, that is all that matters.

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” – Romans 8:22