Jesus is the Good Shepherd who gave His life for His sheep.
“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.” (John 10:I0-14)
Roman Catholicism would have us believe that the pope is the “good shepherd” here in Christ’s stead, thus the title: “Vicar of Christ” and “Shepherd of the Universal Church”. I would like to look at just what kind of shepherd Rome has been, and if indeed she can make such a claim that she represents Christ. While it is true that Pope John Paul II has apologized for the “silence” of Pope Pius XII during the holocaust, he has also defended Pius XII as a "great pope" and there was talk of beatification of Pius XII until Israel's ambassador to the Vatican urged the Pontiff to wait 50 years before moving ahead with any plan to beatify this man. As always, Rome is two-faced and cannot be trusted. She will do or say whatever she must to accomplish her desired mission.
The Israeli people got a good show for their money! Pope John Paul II, in a touching scene in Jerusalem, stood before the ashes of death camp victims at the Israeli’s Holocaust memorial, and said he is “deeply saddened” by “Christian’s persecution” of Jews. I have to wonder if he is so saddened by the atrocities committed by his own Roman Catholic religion that he would be willing to make recompense as well. In November of 1999, survivors of Serb, Jewish, and Ukrainian background and their relatives, as well as organizations representing over 300,000 Holocaust victims, filed for restitution of the Nazi Croatian Treasury that, according to the US State Department, was “illicitly transferred to the Vatican and other banks after the end of the war.” The name defendants include the Vatican Bank, Franciscan Order, and the Croatian Liberation Movement. These defendants combined to conceal assets looted by the Croatian Nazis from concentration camp victims, Serbs, Jews, Roma and others between 1941-1945. Sincere repentance would include retribution, that is, if the pope is truly sincere!!! For more information go to:
http://www.vaticanbankclaims.com/press4.html
The most explicit witness against Rome’s illegal activities is the book Unholy Trinity by Mark Aarons and John Loftus. I highly recommend this historically, well documented book for anyone interested in how Pope Pius XII and his advisor, Giovanni Montini (Pope Paul VI) directed, through the Vatican Ratlines, the greatest travesty of justice, by helping such men as Adolf Eichmann, Franz Strangl (the commandant of Treblinka, Walter Rauff (inventor of the mobile gas chambers), Klaus Barbie (the “Butcher of Lyons”) escape judgment.
John Paul II, a strong Mary worshipper, who accredits “the lady of Fatima” with saving his life (rather than giving Jesus the glory), is apologizing for the actions of another pope who admired and worshipped “Mary” more than any pope before or after. The papal declarations of Pope Pius XII concerning Mary are more numerous that any one article could expound upon, and it was this same pope, speaking “ex-cathedra”, who declared the doctrine of the “Assumption” (the taking of Mary’s body and soul into heaven to set her as “queen of heaven”) in 1950, mandatory to be believed by all Catholics. The significance of Pope John Paul II’s apology is most crucial, since he is asking for forgiveness for a man who was led by “Mary” to do the things he did. Let’s look at Pope Pius XII and see exactly what it is that Pope John Paul II must apologize for!
Pope Pius XII occupied the papal throne from 1939-1958. It was during his reign that the world would come to see one of the world’s most infamous dictators of all time, Adolph Hitler. It was also during his reign that 6 million Jews would be slaughtered while he would sit idly by in silence. The question that haunts many is why? How could the leader of the richest church in the world, a man who claims to represent God on earth, turn his back on the cries of millions? Was his actions any different than those of the popes that preceeded him? Roman Catholicism has a history of hate which she has poured out on the world for those who differed in religion or opinion. The Inquisition is probably the most famous, but Rome has persecuted the Jews from the moment she took power. Catholic author, Peter De Rosa, in his book, Vicars of Christ: the Dark Side of the Papacy, states:
“No doctrine was taught more universally, with less qualification – in Catholic terms, more infallibly than that ‘Jews are cursed for killing God’, a charge still not officially withdrawn…In the Third and Fourth Councils of the Lateran (1179 and 1215), the church codified all previous enactments against Jews. They had to wear a badge of shame. In England it was saffron, in the presumed shape of the tablets of Moses. In France and Germany it was yellow and round. In Italy, the badge was red hat, until a short-sighted Roman prelate mistook a Jew for a cardinal and the colour was changed to yellow. Jews were forbidden all contact with Christians, barred from administration, deprived of lands, forbidden to own shops, herded into ghettos which were bolted at night. No system of apartheid was more rigorously enforced. For refusing to deny their ancestral faith and convert to Christianity, Jews were hounded from one land to another. One pope gave them a month to quit their homes in Italy, leaving them only two places of refuge. During the Crusades, they were slaughtered in their thousands, out of devotion to Christ. A Jew who showed his nose on Good Friday was virtually committing suicide…disastrous theology had prepared the way for Hitler and his ‘final solution’...In spite of Christian cruelty, which to some degree prepared for the Holocaust, some Catholics still say their church has never erred.” (p.5-6)
When I read of all the hate Rome has against the Jews for “killing Jesus”, I have to wonder if at any time they had read scriptures. Didn’t they know that Jesus laid down His life willingly and that no man took it from Him? John 10:18 clearly says, “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” How could the words of Paul, so dear to Christians, have eluded the popes?
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, THAT THROUGH YOUR MERCY THEY ALSO MAY OBTAIN MERCY.” (Rom.11:25-31)
How then did Rome obey the word of God and show “mercy”? When an urgent plea was dispatched to the Vatican by an American delegation, acting on behalf of the War Refugee Board, requesting Papal intervention to save the helpless victims (800,000 Jews in Hungary) there was complete silence. By the time the number of Jews decreased to 300,000 (most shipped off to Auschwitz and murdered), another plea was made to the Vatican. Rumors that the Pope might actually help this time and make a radio appeal on behalf of the Jews were quickly abandoned when the Pope said he could not “because if he did so he would in fairness to all have to criticize the Russians” (This too was a complete lie, since Roman Catholicism only funded Nazism and Fascism in order to defeat Bolshevism in an attempt to avenge herself of another concordant gone wrong with Lenin and the loss of 666 million dollars in gold). The failure of Pope Pius XII to speak out against these atrocities cannot be underestimated. The point has been summarized by Guenter Lewy:
“A public denunciation of the mass murders by Pius XII, broadcast widely over the Vatican radio and read from the pulpits by the bishops, would have revealed to Jews and Christians alike what deportation to the East entailed. The Pope would have been believed, whereas the broadcasts of the Allies were often shrugged off as war propaganda” (Hitler’s Pope, 286)
The Jews in Hungary would just have to become a casualty of war, and never see the “mercy” that the word of God said Christians would have towards them. How deceitful that popes claim to represent true Christianity.
Jesus, the Good Shepherd that laid down His life for His sheep out of love, was rejected by Israel. Zechariah prophesied of the kind of shepherd Israel would accept after rejecting the true Shepherd.
“And the LORD said unto me, Take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces. Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.” (Zec.11:15-17)
Israel cried out and said, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts”. (Eze.37:11) Pope Pius XII, a self-proclaimed “universal shepherd”, refused to visit those that were “cut off” (the Jew), exactly as Zechariah had prophesied. He is, without a doubt, the “idol shepherd that leaveth the flock”.
Not only did Pope Pius XII turn a deaf ear to the cries of millions, but it was Roman Catholicism that funded Nazism and Facism. The underlying motive for her actions was the love of money and power, and her desire to preserve herself. Rome was watching out for her own interests.
“One of the benefits of the [1933] concordat [with Hitler] was the hundreds of millions of dollars that would flow to the Roman Catholic church through the kirchensteuer (church tax) throughout the entire war. In return, Pius XII would never excommunicate Hitler from the Catholic church nor would he raise his voice to protest the slaughter of 6 million Jews” (A Woman Rides the Beast, Hunt, 220-221).
Rightly does the word of God speak of the love of money:
“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (1Tim.6:10)
Of course, Rome claims her silence was her wisdom, for in so doing, she was able to at least protect the Catholic people from suffering the same fate as the Jew, and after all, she was responsible for saving thousands of Jews who were married to Catholics. I find it interesting and hypocritical how a system that claims the gates of hell will never prevail against them would go in league with the satanic Nazi government in order to preserve herself. It’s obvious she did not really believe the scripture she wrested to her own destruction. Why be a coward if you really believe that Jesus will not let the gates of the enemy prevail against you? Rome would have faired better to claim it was greed and revenge that motivated her actions, for this kind of sin is prevalent where money and power exists. But to claim that she had to turn a deaf ear to the outpouring of hearts begging for aid and mercy in order to protect her own existence (and by the way, conceal her interaction with those very groups that were responsible for the Jewish bloodbath), just goes to show what a shallow, Godless money-making machine she really is. Isaiah well describes these corrupt Catholic shepherds:
“His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.” (Isa.56:10-11)
She had no faith that Jesus would indeed save her while she remained faithful to preach truth. But since Rome is void of the truth, she had no alternative but to resort to her own devices, as she has done for centuries. It would be fair to say that Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), was only following the same racist anti-Semitism that Roman Catholicism had always harbored toward the Jews, the same kind of hatred that paved the way for the Nazi's final solution. What kind of a man would follow that kind of historical bigotry? A man who loved and worshipped Mary. Pacelli, from his earliest childhood, was led by his mother and father in the worship of Mary.
“Virginia Pacelli led her children several times a day to pray before a shrine to the Virgin in their apartment, and the whole family said the Rosary each evening before supper...On his [Eugenio] way home from school he regularly visited the picture of the Virgin, known as Madonna della Strada, close to the tomb of Ignatius Loyola in the Gesu chruch. Here sometimes twice daily, he poured out his heart to the Madonna, ‘telling her everything’” (Hitler’s Pope, John Cornwell, 17-18).
Yet for all this worship, did “Mary” produce a peace and joy in this youth, the same peace that the Lord promises those who follow Him? The answer is “no”. Pacelli, writing an essay in the third person at age fifteen, described himself as “blind with vain and erroneous ideas and doubts”. He went on to ask, “who will give him wings” to “rise from this miserable earth to the highest sphere and tear apart this evil veil that surrounds him always and everywhere?” In concluding his self portrait, he describes himself as “tearing at his hair” and wishing he had “never been born” (Ibid. 19) This “evil veil” that surrounded Pacelli and “blinded” him, was none other than the demonic spirit of “Mary” that he worshipped all his days. 2 Corinthians 4:4 describes this spirit:
“In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.”
At the age of 18 years old, Pacelli was introduced into the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola. These “exercises” were designed by Loyola as a textbook for all Jesuits. In the book, Secret History of the Jesuits, by Edmund Paris, we get a better understanding of just what type of influence these "exercises" have:
“Ignatius understood more clearly than any other leader of men who preceded him that the best way to raise a man to a certain ideal is to become master of his imagination. We ‘imbue into him spiritual forces which he would find very difficult to eliminate later’. Forces more lasting than all the best principles and doctrines; these forces can come up again to the surface, sometimes after years of not even mentioning them, and become imperative that the will finds itself unable to oppose any obstacle, and has to follow their irresistible impulse” (21).
What “spiritual forces” are they speaking of? The Holy Spirit? Would you ever find occasion to “eliminate” Him? What force is more lasting than God’s doctrines if God is the word (Jn.1:1)? After lying dormant for years (does God lay dormant in a true Christian?) this force can eventually break down the individual’s will and coerce him to do something he wouldn’t not otherwise do. THIS IS NOT THE HOLY SPIRIT!!!!
Ignatius Loyola was so confident in these “Exercises”, that he boasted he only needed thirty days to “subdue” a soul:
“Imposing on his disciples actions which, to him, were spontaneous, he needed just thirty days to break, with this method, the will and reasoning, in the manner in which a rider breaks his horse. He only needed thirty days ‘triginta dies’, to subdue a soul. Note that Jesuitism expanded together with the modern inquisition: while the inquisition dislocated the body, the spiritual Exercises broke up the thoughts under Loyola’s machine” (Ibid. 22).
What were these “Exercises” that Loyola used to control his young disciples and where did he get them?
“At the front—it is characteristic of this Order—we find the Virgin Mary. ‘Loyola had made the Virgin the most important thing in his life. The Worship of Mary was the base of his religious devotions and was handed down by him to his Order. This worship developed so much that it was often said, and with good reason, that it was the Jesuits’ real religion’...Loyola himself was convinced that he Virgin had inspired him when he had drawn up his ‘Exercises’” (Secret History of the Jesuits, 599-60).
Just a short study of the men who partook in these “Exercises” proves that indeed, the spirit they call “the Virgin” had inspired them. The visions and teachings of those indoctrinated into these spiritual exercises degenerated into licentious and sensual manifestations. Pacelli was guided through the “Spiritual Exercises” on more than one occasion, and it was after taking part in the Jesuits training that Pacelli told his parents that he wanted to become a priest. At age 23, he was ordained and he said his first Mass at the “altar of the Virgin in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore”. His obsessive worship of Mary became the focal point of his pontificate.
“Central to Pacelli’s personal everyday spirituality was his devotion to the Virgin Mary. With the advent of war, he turned in particular to the cult of the Our Lady of Fatima, the credence given to a series of Marian apparitions to three children in Portugal during the First World War, along with associated Marian messages and secrets. A central feature of the messages focused on the requirement that the faithful should pray to Mary in order to avoid world conflict, the spread of Communism, and ultimately the destruction of the world in a holocaust of divine punishment. Pius XI had endorsed the visions of Fatima, and the dictators of Portugal and Spain, Salazar and Franco, had celebrated the cult as a rally-rousing emblem of Fascistic solidarity. Pacelli not only gave it credence (as would John Paul II) but also saw a personal, a mystical link in the circumstance that he had been raised to the episcopate on May 13, 1917, the date of the first apparition, and subsequently the cult’s feast day” (H itler’s Pope, 272).
As we can see, Mary was the leading spirit behind Pope Pius XII. John Cornwell, in his book Hitler’s Pope, made an interesting point:
“The significance of the Fatima cult in Pacelli's thinking is its flavor of gnosticism--the notion of dual realms of darkness and light beyond the mere "veil of appearances," where reside the Godhead, the Virgin Mary, Michael, and all the angels and the saints, opposed by the powers of the Prince of Darkness and his fallen angels, "who wander through the world for the ruin of souls," as Pope Leo XIII had put it in a prayer to be said at the end of every Mass. What happens in this world of ours, according to such a perspective, depends on Mary's intercession with her Son to so curb the power of Satan that war and discord will be vanquished. The conditions of this virtual appeasement operate on the basis of Marian revelations sanctioned as authentic by the Pope, whose power is thus parallel to Mary's. Ever since Pius IX defined, without mention of episcopal approbation, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in I854, there had been a close link in the minds of modern Popes between Mary and papal authority. In short, the unfolding of human history depends not on communitarian and societal action and responsibility but upon miraculous interventions mediated by Mary and endorsed by the papacy” (273).
Pope Pius XII waited on the intervention of Mary while he sat back in silence at the destruction of 6 million Jews. His teachings during his pontificate reflect the hope that he clung to, which was Mary. In a letter to Cardinal Maglione, April 20, 1939, (the first year of Pacelli’s pontifical reign) we read:
“May fathers and mothers, with pious custom, accompany their children, even to the tiniest ones, every day to their shrines of the Blessed Virgin, presenting them to her along with flowers from their gardens and fields and together with their prayers and those of their children. [Pacelli was taken everyday by his mother to the shrine] An how could our heavenly Mother fail to heed so many suppliant voices imploring peace for citizens, for peoples, for nations? How could she fail to heed them if with the prayers of the angels of heaven there should be added those of children whom one may call angels of this earth? Certainly the Virgin Mother of God, moved by such prayers will offer her aid and her intercession in this moment of universal trepidation, and by inviting the favor of her divine Son, offended by so many sins, will obtain from Him liberation from present anxieties, the peace of hearts and fraternal concord among peoples” (Papal Teachings: Our Lady, Selected and Arranged by The Benedictine Monks of Solesmes, 235).
When Pope Pius consecrated the world to the “Immaculate Heart of Mary” on the 25th anniversary of Fatima, Oct. 31, 1942, he prayed this prayer, showing in whom he placed his faith:
“...Queen of the most holy Rosary, Help of Christians, Refuge of Mankind, triumph in all battles for God! We, your suppliants, prostrate ourselves at your throne, confident that we shall obtain mercy and receive grace, the needed assistance and protection, during the calamities of these days, not indeed by our own merits, of which we presume nothing, but solely through the immense goodness of your maternal heart” (Papal Teachings:Our Lady, Selected and Arranged by The Benedictine Monks of Solesmes, 250).
It is evident that Pope Pius XII is mocking Hebrews 4:15-16 which clearly shows us who’s throne we are to approach in the hour of our need:
“For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”
The hope of Pope Pius XII was not Jesus, but rather Mary. He looked to her for peace and safety. He pleaded with her to intercede in world events. My friend, Mary is not omnipresent, omnipotent nor omniscient. She is not the mediatrix of all graces, for we only have one Mediator...and that is Jesus Christ as 1Tim.2:5 says, “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (Compare Heb.8:6; 9:15; 12:24), and by “one Spirit” we have “access” to this grace.
“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Rom.5:1-2)
“For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” (Eph.2:18)
“In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.” (Eph.3:12)
If you are Catholic and have been trusting in Mary and the pope, I invite you to come to the true Shepherd who
“...did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth...Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” (1 Pet.2:22-25
“And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away.” (1 Pet.5:4)
( Rebecca A. Sexton)
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