XXXVI - 7(03) Excerpt
“Watchman,
what of the night?”
"The hour has come, the hour is striking and striking at you,
the hour and the end!"
Eze. 7:6 (Moffatt)
THREE GREAT WORDS
WWN 7(03) Excerpt)
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As we have noted in the above study, the Papacy in 1854 promulgated
the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. In his book,
Faith of Our Fathers,
James Cardinal Gibbons quotes that Dogma as proclaimed:
We define that the Blessed Virgin Mary in the first moment of her
conception, by the singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in
virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race,
was preserved free from every stain of the original sin. (p. 171)
Since we have already noted its conclusion in contrast to the
Biblical "Seed" of the woman, we pass to the next dogma which
validated such papal promulgations as infallible. In 1870, Vatican
Council I formulated a new article of faith in these words:
We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed, that the
Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra - that is, when, in discharge of the office of pastor
and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic
authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be
held by the universal church, . . . is possessed of that
infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his Church
should be endowed for defining doctrine regarding faith and morals.
(The New Schaff-Herzog
Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. V, p. 489)
Cardinal Gibbons declares this decree of Vatican Council I to be
"the keystone in the arch of Catholic faith," (op.
cit., p. 125), yet seems to modify its thrust by first stating
what the dogma is not establishing, and then asking and answering
the question, "What, then, is the real doctrine of Infallibility?"
In answer, he wrote:
The Pope, therefore, be it known, is not the maker of Divine law; he
is only its expounder. He is not the author of revelation, but only
its interpreter. (ibid.,
pp. 123-124).
While we may have some reservations to these limitations placed by
Gibbons because of the attempted change of the Sabbath from the seventh
to the first day of the week which alters "Divine law;" however, there
can be no question, this dogma empowers the Pope to infallibly interpret
the Scriptures. This was a direct challenge to true Protestantism which
had declared "the Bible and the Bible only" as its religion. If the
"Everlasting Gospel" is God's design to "consume and destroy" the
"dominion" of the little horn "unto the end,"
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then care needs to be exercised so that we do not establish a
"magisterium" of our own to interpret the Bible.
In 1950, the reigning pope, Pius XII, proclaimed a "holy year," and
being a devotee of the Virgin Mary, defined the church's teaching on her
bodily assumption into Heaven. The year was closed in Fatima, Portugal,
at one of the great Marian shrines of the Catholic world. This Dogma
opened the door to manifestations of Spiritism under the guise of
apparitions of the Virgin Mary. In the book,
Thunder of Justice, this summary statement is made:
As the number of Marian apparitions throughout the world have increased
at an alarming rate, especially in the past ten years, we are reminded
of the writings of Saint Louis de Montfort (1673-1716), in which he
shared his conviction "that a Reign of the Blessed Virgin would precede
a Reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Mary preceded the first coming
of Jesus on earth, so too the Trinity has ordained that she would
precede Christ's Second Coming." Never before in history have we
experienced the number of apparitions and supernatural phenomena as we
have in this century, particularly
the latter half. On December 8, 1990, Mary stated to Father Gobbi:
"I was driven by the Most Holy Trinity to become the Mother of the
Second Advent, and thus my motherly task of preparing the Church and all
humanity to receive Jesus, who is returning to you in glory. (p. 20;
emphasis supplied)
It is not difficult to see how this dogma of the bodily assumption of
Mary into heaven, opens the door for these spiritistic manifestations.
The current Pope, also a strong devotee of the Virgin Mary, would like
to promulgate the Dogma that Mary is the co-mediatrix with Jesus Christ.
Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Propagation of the Faith, authorized the
writing and release of information about this intended dogma. It was
published May 27, 1993. It is being put on hold because of the negative
reaction it might have on current ecumenical dialogues. |