HAS THE LEOPARD CHANGED ITS SPOTS?

Efforts to convince Seventh-day Adventists that the Roman Catholic Church no longer warrants the doctrinal opposition inherent in our classic teachings and those of the Protestant Reformation, have been festering in certain denominational circles for several decades.  Though mainstream Adventism has moved little or not at all on this point, those trying to push the church in that direction are raising their voices more and more.

A recent book review on a liberal Adventist website offers a pointed example of this revisionism.  The book being reviewed, written by a prominent (though retired) and decidedly liberal theologian in the church [1], seeks to prove—among other things—that the Roman Catholic Church has significantly changed in modern times, to the point where classic Protestant and Adventist warnings against its teachings and threat to liberty no longer hold relevance.  The book review here cited enthusiastically agrees with the book’s assumption [2].

Catholic “Maturation” and Adventist “Adolescence”

First, a candid acknowledgement: I have not read the book.  It is inordinately expensive for most readers to purchase—ninety-nine dollars and ninety-five cents ($99.95) [3]—and at present it is unavailable either at the James White Memorial Library at Andrews University (in whose community I presently reside) or the Center for Adventist Research (CAR) there located.  The response that follows is thus based on the reviewer’s observations and the present writer’s comparison of those with the consistency of Roman Catholic beliefs during the past several decades with the beliefs against which orthodox Protestants (including Adventists) throughout the past several centuries have raised such vigorous objection.

The book review in question assumes from the outset how “unimaginable” it supposedly is for “anyone in tune with present-day society, having read even a touch of western religious history,” to maintain that the Catholic Church hasn’t changed [4], presumably to the extent of rendering obsolete classic Adventist warnings against its doctrinal and ecclesiastical agenda.  However, the principal proofs offered by the reviewer in question are not in the least substantive—positive relationships, professional and otherwise, between Catholic and Adventist individuals [5], consideration for the common good and the needs of the poor [6], Pope Francis writing a thirty-page treatise on the love of Christ referencing Scripture almost 200 times [7], and similar anecdotes—none of which come close to addressing those features of Roman Catholicism against which the Protestant Reformers and classic Adventism have protested across the centuries.

Twice this reviewer uses the word “adolescence” to describe Seventh-day Adventist beliefs regarding Roman Catholicism [8], insisting that the papacy has matured beyond its dark past, thus making the Protestant Reformers’ message presumably unnecessary.  The reviewer at one point declares passionately: “Catholics are not our enemies.  There is no devil behind the red garments” [9].

The Little Horn Still Speaks Great Things

To my knowledge, no one has ever claimed that individual Roman Catholics are enemies of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.  It is the unchanged heresies still upheld by the Roman papacy against which faithful Seventh-day Adventists—nearly alone now among conservative Protestants—continue to offer resistance.

As both a lifelong historian and an active evangelist for years, I admit to having been embarrassed at times by the predominant use in evangelistic settings of Roman Catholic statements more than a century old.  While the teachings in question haven’t changed, it is truly imperative that public representatives of the church use, as often as possible, current or recent pronouncements from Catholic sources when seeking to establish the continuance of Biblically unfaithful Catholic beliefs.

 What follows, therefore, are Roman Catholic statements uttered no earlier than the past four decades, which plainly reaffirm modern Catholicism’s allegiance to the unscriptural heresies which both historic Protestantism and classic Adventism believe necessitate the application of the Antichrist label to the theology of the Roman Catholic Church.

Regular readers of this site are likely familiar with a number of these statements, as we have referred to some of them quite often in previous articles.  But as in commerce and politics, repetition is necessary in order for information to register with most people. 

In December of 1984, the Los Angeles Times carried the headline, “No Forgiveness ‘Directly from God,’ Pope Says” [10].  The article reported:

Rebutting a belief widely shared by Protestants and a growing number of Roman Catholics, Pope John Paul II on Tuesday dismissed the 'widespread idea that one can obtain forgiveness directly from God,' and exhorted Catholics to confess more often to their priests [11].

Pope Francis agrees, in a recent statement giving priests (in addition to bishops) the right to determine contriteness—never telling how—on the part of women who have had abortions, and thus granting them pardon:

The pontiff said he will allow priests ‘discretion to absolve of the sin of abortion those who have procured it and who, with contrite heart, seek forgiveness for it’ during the special year, beginning December 8 [2015] [12].

The Bible declares of God, “Thou, even Thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men” (I Kings 8:39), thus underscoring why He alone is able to forgive sins, as only He knows when sin has not only been confessed (I John 1:9), but forsaken as well (II Chron. 7:14; Prov. 28:13; Isa. 55:7).  It is for this reason that the Bible declares: “There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus” (I Tim. 2:5). 

The word “antichrist” comes across to many as harsh and condemnatory, implying that those regarding whom this label is used are not in fact Christians.  But it helps to keep in mind that the word “anti” in New Testament Greek refers as much to “instead of” or “in place” of as it does to “against” or “opposite to” [13].  In light of the above verses, which establish clearly that God alone is able to ascertain a repentant spirit on the part of sinners and thus their eligibility for the pardon He offers, any person or power presuming to know what only God can know and to thus dispense what only God can dispense, can legitimately be described as usurping the place of God.  Which, at the bottom line, is what the Antichrist label means.

Moreover, the late Pope John Paul II openly claimed to disagree with Christ Himself, in the following statement:

Have no fear when people call me the Vicar of Christ, when they say to me 'Holy Father' or "Your Holiness,' or use terms similar to these, which seem even inimical to the gospel.  Christ Himself declared, 'Call no one on earth your father; you have but one father in heaven.  Do not be called Master; you have but one Master the Messiah' (Matt. 23:9-10).  These expressions, nevertheless, have evolved out of a long tradition, becoming part of common usage.  One must not be afraid of these words either [14].

The words of Christ quickly come to mind: “Thus have ye made the commandments of God of none effect by your tradition. . .  But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:6,9).  Before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger warned in 1997 that the use of Scripture to evaluate Church teaching “was one of the most dangerous currents to flow out of Vatican II” [15].  Without question, on the basis of the above statements and more, the Roman papacy persists in its claim to supersede Scripture when it so desires.

On Sunday sacredness, and the Church’s alleged right to transfer the solemnity from the original Sabbath to another day, very recent Catholic statements—such as the following—confirm the continuance of this unscriptural claim:

For the Christian, the observance of the Sabbath is transferred to Sunday, the day that Jesus rose from the dead.  God, through the Church, obliges us to make Sunday holy by participating in the Eucharist and by our being prayerfully reflective as far as possible.  Sunday observance fulfills the interior law inscribed in the human heart to render to God visible and public worship as a sign of radical dependence upon God and as gratitude for all the blessings we have received [16].

Notice how this obligation comes “through the Church,” not the Bible.  Again the words of Jesus come to mind: “In vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:9).  Notice also how Sunday observance is identified above as a “sign.”  The Bible, by contrast, speaks of the seventh-day Sabbath as a sign of loyalty and sanctification:

Moreover also I gave them My sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctify them (Eze. 20:12).

Like his two predecessors [17], Pope Francis has promoted the sale of indulgences—the very practice against which the Reformers lodged so strong a protest five hundred years ago.  In 2013 Time magazine reported:

Tech-savvy Catholics will spend less time in purgatory—or so says Pope Francis.  The Pontiff has decreed that people who follow the events of World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro via the Vatican’s Twitter feed can get indulgences, which Catholics believe reduce time spent atoning for sins in the afterlife [18]           

In August 2018 Francis again offered indulgences, this time to those attending the World Meeting of Families in Ireland [19].  In typical medieval fashion, the pope offered indulgences for such acts as climbing “holy” mountains, visiting basilicas and other ecclesiastical shrines, attending papal events, and praying for the dead [20].

Regarding the Virgin Mary, the following statement by Pope John Paul II was issued in April 1997:

Having created man 'male and female,' the Lord also wants to place the New Eve beside the New Adam in the redemption. . . . Mary, the New Eve, thus becomes the perfect icon of the Church. . . . We can therefore turn to the Blessed Virgin, trustfully imploring her aid in the awareness of the role entrusted to her by God, the role of co-operator in the redemption [21].

Even the religion editor of Newsweek was constrained to comment on the above statement as follows:

This is what theologians call high Mariology, and it seems to contradict the basic New Testament belief that 'there is one God and one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus' (I Timothy 2:5).  In place of the Holy Trinity, it would appear, there would be a kind of Holy Quartet, with Mary playing the multiple roles of daughter of the Father, mother of the Son and spouse of the Holy Spirit [22]

A more recent Catholic statement affirms the same blasphemous heresy:

All humans are children of “the woman” Eve; now, in Christ, all humans are called to be adopted children of Mary in her Son.  The point is that Mary is the “woman” of the new covenant; she is the new Eve who participates intimately in the work of redemption that her Son, the new Adam, accomplishes by his cross in fulfillment of the promise of Genesis 3:15 [23].

The words of Scripture again come to mind, regarding this power: "And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven” (Rev. 13:6). 

Indeed, it wasn’t too long ago that the following headline appeared on the front page of the Los Angeles Times:

            Vatican Declares Catholicism Sole Path to Salvation [24].

The article went on to say:

The Vatican ordered bishops to avoid references to 'sister churches' and instead remember that 'the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is not sister but mother of all the particular Christian churches [25].

We don’t mean to sound harsh or sarcastic, but the Bible declares in most unflattering terms the nature of this religious community and that of her spiritual offspring (Rev. 17:1-5).  A “mother” the papal church most assuredly is—“THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH” (verse 5). 

No doubt about it: the little horn—symbolized by the composite beast of Revelation 13—still speaks great things against the Most High (Dan. 7:8,25; Rev. 13:6).  No critic of classic Seventh-day Adventist prophetic interpretation has yet to offer a compelling reason as to how and why our church’s repeated warning against the above heresies have ceased to be relevant. 

Modern Catholicism and Religious Freedom

A more recent article on the same liberal Adventist website seeks to support the notion that the Catholic Church today now supports religious freedom both within itself and for other religious communities, at one point quoting Cardinal Ratzinger (the future Benedict XVI) as saying:

Likewise, we should uphold religious freedom for all. Religious freedom is the cornerstone of all freedom. Preventing others from freely professing their religion ultimately amounts to endangering our own [26].

But one is therefore led to wonder how statements like the above comport with the following statement that very same year (1994) by the official Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error [27].

And who, according to Catholicism, is authorized to define error?  To my knowledge, the papacy has never relinquished its right—indeed, its obligation—to do this.  The late Catholic author and Vatican apologist Malachi Martin, in his bestselling book The Keys of This Blood, wrote as follows regarding the support of Adventists and others for religious freedom in contrast with the papal agenda:

Every person (according to Adventists and others) must literally be assured the right to choose Hell over Heaven.  That obligation carried to that extreme not only sets the Minimalists (Adventists, etc.) apart from John Paul; it sets them against him, as well.

            It sets them apart from the Holy Father, because democratic principles cannot take precedence over divine revelation. . . . It is axiomatic for John Paul that no one has the right—democratic or otherwise—to a moral wrong [28].

If this doesn’t sound like something straight out of The Great Controversy, it’s hard to think of something that does!

Some may recall the threat of excommunication leveled during the 1980s at the late New York Governor Mario Cuomo by Cardinal John O’Connor, then serving as archbishop of New York [29], and the issuing of similar threats against then-U.S. Senator (later Secretary of State) John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign [30].  It’s important to understand what the issue was in these and similar settings, and what it was not.  Both of these men (Cuomo and Kerry) supported their church’s teaching regarding abortion.  Where they differed from their church is on whether Catholic dogma should be enforced on society through civil law:

The issue led to comparisons between Kerry’s presidential campaign and that of John F. Kennedy in 1960.  While Kennedy had to demonstrate his independence from the Roman Catholic Church due to the public fear that a Catholic president would make decisions based on the Holy See’s agenda, it seemed that Kerry, in contrast, had to show obedience to Catholic authorities in order to win votes.  According to Margaret Ross Sammons, Kerry’s campaign was sufficiently damaged by the threat to withhold communion that it may have cost him the election.  Sammons argues that President George W. Bush was able to win 53% of the Catholic vote because he appealed to “traditional” Catholics [31].

Little wonder that the late Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory wrote in 1984 that “it is the conventional wisdom that no politician wins in a fight with the Catholic Church” [32].  One would have a hard time making the case that times have changed on this point.

Following the encyclical “Dies Domini” by Pope John Paul II, which exalted Sunday sacredness and the desirability of civil enforcement of the same [33], it was reported in the Detroit News that according to the pope, one who violates the sanctity of Sunday should be “punished as a heretic” [34].

Generic pronouncements notwithstanding, the above incidents demonstrate that in matters pertaining to church dogma, religious freedom is not endorsed by the modern papacy.  Ellen White’s words come powerfully to mind:

Let the restraints now imposed by secular governments be removed and Rome be reinstated in her former power, and there would speedily be a revival of her tyranny and persecution [35].

Conclusion: Has the Leopard Changed Its Spots?

In a word, No.  Despite millions of genuine Christian members who will no doubt vastly outnumber Seventh-day Adventists in the heavenly courts, the Roman Catholic Church has neither altered nor abandoned the doctrines against which the original Reformers and classic Adventism have raised their voices. The theological indifference and moral vacillation afflicting so much of contemporary Adventism and the Christian world in general may recoil against such protest, but the Bible is still clear that doctrinal integrity matters and that obedience thereto is unmistakably salvational (Hosea 4:6; Matt. 4:4; John 8:31; Gal. 1:8; II Thess. 2:13; I Tim. 4:16). 

It is sad, though at times perhaps amusing, the way visceral resentment on the part of theologically liberal Adventists against our classic eschatology in general and Ellen White in particular has led to unbelievable ignorance of both contemporary and historical reality so far as Catholic teachings are concerned.  Whatever the opinions of non-conservative Adventists may be regarding their church’s perspectives on Bible prophecy and end-time events, the doctrinal and ecclesiastical positions of the Roman Catholic Church against which the original Protestants and classic Adventism have so vigorously protested, remain the same.

 

REFERENCES

1.  Reinder Bruinsma, Adventists and Catholics: The History of a Turbulent Relationship (Lausanne, Switzerland: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, 2024) https://www.amazon.com/Adventists-Catholics-History-Turbulent-Relationship/dp/1636676219

2.  Mark F. Carr, “How Reinder Bruinsma Challenges Adventism’s Fundamental Premise on Catholicism,” Spectrum, Nov. 12, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/culture/books-film/how-reinder-bruinsma-challenges-adventisms-fundamental-premise-on-catholicism/

3.  https://www.amazon.com/s?k=reinder+bruinsma+adventists+and+catholics&crid=2KHPSQQC6Q8UI&sprefix=Reinder+Bru%2Caps%2C521&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_3_11

4.  Carr, “How Reinder Bruinsma Challenges Adventism’s Fundamental Premise on Catholicism,” Spectrum, Nov. 12, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/culture/books-film/how-reinder-bruinsma-challenges-adventisms-fundamental-premise-on-catholicism/

5.  Ibid.

6.  Ibid.

7.  Ibid.

8.  Ibid.

9.  Ibid.

10.  Don Schanche, “No Forgiveness ‘Directly from God,’ Pope Says,” Los Angeles Times, Dec. 12, 1984, p. A12.

11.  Ibid.

12.  Alastair Jamieson and Claudio Lavanga, “Pope Francis: Priests Can Forgive Abortion If Women Are Contrite,” NBC News online, Sept. 1, 2015 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/religion/pope-francis-priests-can-forgive-abortion-if-women-are-contrite-n419321

13.  https://www.google.com/search?q=The+word+anti+in+New+Testament+Greek&oq=The+word+anti+in+New+Testament+Greek&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRigATIHCAUQIRigATIHCAYQIRiPAtIBCDY2MjNqMGo3qAIIsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

14.  Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), p. 6.

15.  Quoted by Jay Tolson, “Defender of the Faith,” U.S. News & World Report, May 2, 2005, p. 38.

16.  United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (Washington, D.C: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2007), p. 364.

17.  Alessandra Stanley, “Pope invites Catholics in 2000 to earn indulgences,” San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 28, 1998, pp. Al,A12; Francis D’Emilio, “Vatican releases new manual on how to gain indulgences,” Associated Press, Sept. 17, 1999; Paul Vitello, “For Catholics, a Door to Absolution is Reopened,” New York Times, Feb. 10, 2009.

18.  “Trending @ Pontifex,” Time, Aug. 5, 2013, p. 48.

19.  https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2018-05/pope-francis-indulgence-world-meeting-families-dublin.html

20.  Mark McCleary, “Pope Francis grants indulgences for Dublin participants,” BBC News, June 3, 2018 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44294906

21.  Newsweek, Aug. 25, 1997, p. 51.

22.  Ibid, p. 49.

23.  Matthew Levering (with a response by Kevin J. Vanhoozer), Was the Reformation a Mistake? Why Catholic Doctrine is Not Unbiblical (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), p. 70.

24.  “Vatican Declares Catholicism Sole Path to Salvation,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 6, 2000, p. A1.

25.  Ibid, p. A8.

26.  Thomas Domanyi, “Is Bruinsma Right About Change? A Study of Religious Freedom in Modern Catholicism,” Spectrum, Nov. 14, 2024 https://spectrummagazine.org/views/is-bruinsma-right-about-change-a-study-of-religious-freedom-in-modern-catholicism/

27.  Catechism of the Catholic Church (Librerio Eiditorice Vaticano, Citta del Vaticano, 1994), p. 511.

28.  Malachi Martin, The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion Between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), p. 287.

29.  “Eucharist denial to Catholic politicians over abortion,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharist_denial_to_Catholic_politicians_over_abortion#:~:text=In%202004%2C%20then%2DArchbishop%20Burke,of%20his%20position%20on%20abortion.

30.  Ibid.

31.  Ibid.

32.  Stephen D. Mumford, American Democracy and the Vatican: Population Growth and National Security (Amherst, NY: Humanist Press, 1984), p. 170.

33.  Pope John Paul II, “Dies Domini: Apostolic Letter of the Holy Father John Paul II to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Catholic Church on Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy,” May 31, 1998, Part 18 https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1998/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_05071998_dies-domini.html

34.  Detroit News, July 6, 1998, p. A1.

35. White, The Great Controversy, p. 564.

 

Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan