The Roman papacy claims that only the Church can interpret the Bible. There is irony in this claim. The overall structure and message of the Bible is, in reality, very clear. The Bible is loaded with vivid stories that children can understand. Much of the Bible is poetic, and the writers use common figures of speech from everyday life to express beautiful pictures of God.
“The LORD is my Shepherd” is not hard to comprehend, and neither is “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
In the Gospels, the picture of Jesus jumps off the page so powerfully that few individuals with a knowledge of Jesus have a negative view of His life, even atheists. He was completely selfless, full of love and compassion, patient and kind, going to his cruel death without resistance or complaint in order to offer man eternal life today.
Paul, as Peter noted, said things sometimes hard to understand (2 Peter 3:16), but Paul also said things that are absolutely, undeniably impossible to misunderstand. For instance, if we want to know what Paul thought of the law, we simply read Rom. 3:31, “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”
Many many statements of Paul are exactly like this. And with more study by the individual Christian, the more difficult concepts of Paul become just as clear.
Catholicism, for some reason, thinks that the average person is unable to understand even the clearest ideas of the Bible without the aid of the Church. The reason for this seems apparent. It’s all so inconvenient, for the Church! The Bible makes statements that contradict Church dogma. As the Church sees it, the Bible is not too hard, the Bible is too clear! That clarity must be muddied, else the Roman system would be superfluous.
We might think that if the Bible is so difficult to understand properly, that the Church would help its people study the Bible through the teaching ministry of priests. This is not the case! Catholicism does not teach her people how to study the Bible. In the place of the plainest biblical language, the Church has substituted the language of bureaucracy and canon law. The Church turns the simple into the complex, making the people dependent on Church Tradition, which itself must be explained with precision so sublime that only Saints, the Pope, and priests with doctoral degrees are able to make sense of it. And when nobody understands it, the musings of some mystic suffice.
A good example of the added complexity and confusion in Catholicism is the doctrine of salvation. What the Bible makes clear, the Church obscures. Salvation has been sliced and diced a thousand ways. Take the Church’s teaching on Purgatory. For the Church, salvation has been turned into endless steps and requirements (including monetary) that rival a nation’s criminal code.
According to the Church, no petty little sinner can make it directly to heaven without some additional repairs. The merits of Jesus alone are insufficient. Most Catholics do not go directly to heaven upon their death. Only saintly people, like popes, get to heaven on the express route. Everyone else must be purified more thoroughly in a nasty place called Purgatory, where the otherwise saved person is sent first. For the average Catholic, a funeral has more than one reason for the shedding of tears. A loved one is gone, and a loved is now suffering in a very bad place! The beloved dead may have perished with bone cancer, but is now suffering far more!
Purgatory is rightfully viewed as a sort of hell, without the eternal part. Suffering must take place, and some good discipline administered. However, there is good news! This suffering can be shortened with certain prescribed rituals that benefit the Church. A special mass, with an accompanying financial donation, can help. Or the Church may herself apply the merits of Jesus to clean up the saved sinner. So generous to allow Jesus to do His work!
Then there are the required prayers by the average Catholic–not simple prayers, but complex prayers that need to be explained, such as the Rosary or the Divine Mercy Chaplet. Another option is the indulgence, either partial or plenary. I like the sound of a plenary indulgence, but there are conditions: in one instance, I must completely separate myself from all sin, both mortal sins and the little venial ones. Sin is the fundamental human problem! But the Church refuses to address it as God does in the Scriptures.
There are other means of gaining salvation through the Church, as well. I could do a work of charity or an act of penance, or give some money. Or I could appeal to the Saints or the Virgin Mary. In the case of Mary, there’s a really worthwhile thing I can do: wear the Brown Scapular on Saturdays.
Any other methods? As a matter of fact, there are. I can willingly embrace suffering or penance in this life, which will save me from suffering later in Purgatory.
A last chance? On my death bed, I can receive an Apostolic Pardon, which eliminates all punishment for my sins. Not everyone gets a nice death-bed scene, so an Apostolic Pardon is not available to everyone.
We have to ask, if the Church has the power to get someone into heaven on its own authority, why doesn’t it ease up just a bit? Why does the Church simply stand by and watch as millions suffer a temporary hell? Well, Tradition won’t allow it. The Church is infallible. It is not possible that Purgatory is perhaps the result of a really bad dream by some Catholic hermit in the 12th Century.
Pope Leo XIV seems like a nice man. He seems to care about people. He seems loving and compassionate, but when we examine the system he oversees, and enforces with an iron fist, we have to ask, Why doesn’t he simply offer a plenary indulgence to everyone who wants one? Unfortunately, the system the pope rules does not allow it. The Bible allows it, but not the Roman Church.
Our true “pope,” Jesus Christ, intercedes for humanity in the heavenly sanctuary at this very moment, offering his perfect obedience in place of each sinner.
The destruction of Babylon is coming soon. No wonder Christ calls out to His people in the Roman Church, “Come out of her, my people.”