Is Roman Catholicism truly Christian?

If you change the Christian gospel, it’s no longer Christian

When a pope passes away, Roman Catholicism finds itself in the spotlight, as the world watches the spectacle of selecting a new leader for the more-than-a-billion adherents to that religion. I think it’s a good opportunity to explain why that religion is antithetical to – stay with me here – antithetical to Christianity.

The Christian faith centers around the biblical gospel, that Jesus, as God, came to earth to teach and model truth, of course, but primarily to atone for the sins of anyone who believes in who He is. He accomplished this atonement via His death, burial and resurrection, which (like His countless miracles) further proved His deity.

Anyone who embraces this truth is a Christian, and that certainly does include people who are Catholic. But they came to the faith despite Catholicism, not because of it – because Rome’s gospel is not the real gospel.

Catholicism teaches a false gospel

Catholicism explicitly denies that salvation/justification come by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, which is the simple, unvarnished scriptural truth that the Reformation sought to restore after centuries of increasing corruption in the organization purporting to be Christ’s church. But to those scriptural requirements, Rome still adds and adds and adds, as Tim Challies points out:

To the work of Christ it adds the work of Mary. To the intercession of the Savior it adds the intercession of the saints. To the authority of the Bible it adds the authority of tradition. To the free gift of salvation it adds the necessity of human effort. In place of the finished work of Christ on the cross it demands the ongoing sacrifice of the mass. In place of the permanent imputation of Christ’s righteousness it substitutes the temporary infusion of works righteousness. In so many different ways it explicitly and unapologetically denies truth and promotes error. The Roman Catholic gospel is a false gospel.

Catholicism claims this false gospel is authorized by its unbroken lineage back to the Apostle Peter, but that claim is both unprovable and unconvincing, in light of Rome’s gross distortions from biblical first century Christianity – again distortions the Reformation sought to correct. Things we know the early church did not have or do:

• Pope

• Cardinals

• Priests

• Infant baptism

• Apostolic succession

• Veneration of Mary

• Prayer to Mary or saints (as if God is too busy to hear from us!)

• Their own city (Vatican City)

For the Catholic church to claim “we were here first” means nothing if what developed bore no resemblance to the rich descriptions of the New Testament church. And it bore no resemblance.

How a false religion is made

There is irony that the simple faith Jesus proclaimed and demonstrated was twisted out of recognition the exact same way the Jews of Jesus’ time twisted Judaism. Jesus spent a great deal of His time debunking those distortions of His Law that were made for the same reason – man trying to improve on God’s ideas by adding his own (an act of arrogance). This is how we get every religion, except actual truth.

Jesus often targeted the religious leaders responsible for this corruption. They were not particularly interested in teaching the scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), but were very interested in their own power and position as they enforced an endless list of man-made rules and regulations.

Read Matthew 23 for just one example of the Lord’s scathing displeasure with how the religious leaders had turned away from “the Law and the Prophets” (i.e., the Old Testament) to push their man-made religion.

As He himself stated during the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17), “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.” He came because God’s chosen people, the Jews, had repeatedly broken their covenant with Him and done evil – so He came to once-for-all pay for man’s sins so that man could again be reconciled to his Creator.

And in His fulfilling of the Law, He did away with all the religious trappings. No more animal sacrifices – He sacrificed Himself. No more need for priests to intervene on behalf of the people – by His death and resurrection He opened the door for any man or woman to engage in a personal relationship with Him.

In fact, He condensed all of God’s Law into a succinct outline easily understandable by anyone, after a Pharisee asked Him which was God’s foremost commandment:

And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the great and foremost commandment. And the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets. – Matthew 22:37-40

Repent, believe, love God, love others. That’s was the essence of Old Testament Law (that the religious leaders were missing), and it is also the essence of Christianity. In no way does it require a massive hierarchy of priests and bishops and popes – who may individually have noble motives – jockeying for position, or accumulating vast amounts of wealth for the “Church.”

Nor does it require submission to, or veneration of, a fallible man pretending to be an infallible spokesman for Jesus Christ (which, by the way, makes him a false teacher).

In fact, as just demonstrated by Christ’s own words, the whole hierarchy thing is an anathema to true Christian faith. In His denunciation of the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus quite explicitly says, “But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven… And whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.” (Matthew 23:8-9, 12)

The Bible is very clear on this. The entire monolithic structure of the Roman Catholic church is at odds with Jesus’ own words.

The “humble pope”

In relation to that last verse quoted above, on the topic of humility… it bears noting that some called the late Francis the humble pope, and he may well have been “more humble” somehow than previous pontiffs.

However, like them he answered to titles like “Your Holiness” or “Holy Father,” allowed people to kiss his ring, and upheld the claim that as Christ’s representative on earth, he was an infallible guide on matters of faith and morals. As James White notes:

It is impossible not to point out the simple fact that in this doctrine (of infallibility) one finds the final step in a process that began with the first addition of a human tradition to the Scriptures: the process of replacing the Holy Spirit of God with a structure of man’s making.

In other words – anyone claiming to be infallible, instead of pointing people to God himself, is not exhibiting humility.

Falsehoods must be tackled head on

There was good reason for the Reformation, not the least of which is that those who questioned Catholicism’s distortions were persecuted mercilessly. The Catholic church of the Reformation era wielded a great deal of power and many dissenters were tortured and killed.

Just like the Jewish religious leaders tortured and killed Someone who called out their distortions.

SIDE NOTE: Here’s a pro tip for avoiding a false religion: If it kills people who disagree, give it a wide berth. (Warning to self-proclaimed Christian Nationalists who advocate taking over whole governments in the name of God. You’re on dangerous ground.)

Of course, the Catholic church today isn’t killing people who disagree. But Catholicism is just ironic to me. The Bible – the theoretical foundation for Catholicism – clearly depicts the dangers of twisting God’s word and adding man’s ideas. Jesus Himself de-religioned faith (again, see Matthew 23) – and yet men who claim to follow Him just couldn’t wait to add rituals and requirements and authorities and hierarchies that de-Christ their “Christianity.”

The Catholic church today wields tremendous power and great sums of money, and is abundantly able to cover misdeeds and scandals (at least some of the time). It’s a bloated bureaucracy teaching falsehoods.

A couple big ones I’ve seen countless times on social media in the past days since Francis’ passing:

“MARY WAS SINLESS”

In 1854 Pope Pius IX formally defined the current Catholic opinion that Mary was born without original sin. Although there is nothing in Scripture to support this heresy, Catholics routinely defend it by claiming that God could not have lived for 9 months inside a sinner.

But we know that’s not true! Why?

Because the Bible clearly teaches that He comes to live within each Christian believer, as Jesus stated in John 14:17 and as the Apostle Paul affirmed in 1 Corinthians 6:19. And guess what? Not a one of us is sinless, not until we die. And yet there He is, within us. Our bodies are His temple.

Mary was exactly the same as us. A sinner in need of a Savior. The Bible makes clear that she knew and understood the scriptures, and was remarkable in her submission to whatever God wanted of her. She is a supreme example of how a sinful person can live for God.

(She also had more children, after Jesus, as the Bible clearly teaches, so she did not remain a virgin as Catholics believe.)

“WE GAVE THE WORLD THE BIBLE”

Roman Catholicism claims it decided what books belong in the Bible. The irony is if that were true, Catholics provided the world with a book that refutes their own theology. But it’s not true, as S. Michael Houdmann explains:

God gave us the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Yes, God used the early church to canonize the Bible, but God was completely sovereign over the entire process. Yes, the early church councils that canonized the Bible may have been quasi-Catholic in some areas, but they absolutely were not Roman Catholic in the modern sense.

That alleged unbroken line back to the Apostle Peter in fact has many breaks – offshoots that went far afield from the early church – and modern Roman Catholicism is probably the biggest such offshoot. The Scripture absolutely teaches salvation by grace, in faith, through Christ - sola scriptura and all the rest of the solas that were the heartcry of the Reformation.

And Scripture is where we must stand firm.

Of course, Catholics maintain that Scripture and “tradition” have equal weight, but that statement is itself inherently unscriptural. Obviously, if someone is going to insist that anything other than Scripture is equivalent to Scripture, then we are not going to find much common ground. (And yes, the same can be said for every other unbiblical doctrine, including those that come out of Protestantism or elsewhere.)

A note for my Christian Catholic friends and family

So what of those precious souls who come to genuine faith in Christ in spite of Catholic teaching? I would respectfully ask them to consider the words of Leonardo De Chirico, pastor of a Reformed congregation in Rome (Church Brecca di Roma):

The grace of God is at work in men and women who, though considering themselves Catholics, entrust themselves exclusively to the Lord, cultivate a personal relationship with Him, read the Bible and live as Christians. These people, however, must be encouraged to reflect on whether their faith is compatible or not with belonging to the Catholic Church. Moreover, they must be helped to critically think over what remains of their Catholic background in the light of biblical teaching.

I leave you with a few more thoughts of Bible-believing Christians in Rome, most of whom are intimately familiar with Roman Catholicism because that’s where they started. Their perspective on what Jesus might say to Pope Francis is thoughtful, kind, and worth considering.