Church of God News

Deigo Maradona (Neogeolegend)

COGwriter

A former Argentinian soccer star had some strong words for Pope Francis:

ROME (Reuters) – Soccer great Diego Maradona has urged fellow Argentine Pope Francis to move ahead with reforms and transform the Vatican from “a lie” into an institution that gives more to the people.

“He has to change a state like the Vatican so that it gets closer to the people,” Maradona told the Naples-area television station Piuenne in a programme scheduled to air on Thursday night.

“The Vatican, for me, is a lie because instead of giving to people it takes away. All popes have done this and I don’t want him to do it,” Maradona said, according to partial footage of the interview made available by the broadcaster…

“Little Francis, I say to you, I want to meet you and talk to you and I want to say many things to you and tell you the things you have to do for the world. This way we will have a pope”.

Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, has said he wants the Church to be closer to the poor.  http://www.ecumenicalnews.com/article/maradona-wants-pope-francis-to-change-the-vatican-24793

Last week, Pope Francis pushed the United Nations to encourage wealth distribution (see Pope tells United Nations to push wealth redistribution–a sign of Revelation 13 & 17?).  Later that night on the evening news, I noticed that one Catholic commentator indicated that Pope Francis seemed to be a bit hypocritical about this as the Vatican has great wealth and if the Pope was serious, he would start to distribute that wealth to the poor.

This seems to be consistent with the point that Diego Maradona is making.  Based upon public statements that Pope Francis made, I started to speculate a year or so ago that the Vatican would likely give away some of its wealth as that would endear it to various parts of the world as well as with the media and certain political leaders (cf. Revelation 17:1-5).  I believe that prophecy shows that there will be more cooperation between Europe (where the Vatican is based), South America (where the current pope came from), and other parts of the world.  Money, signs, traditions, lying wonder, violence, and political factors will be involved in this “unity” (cf. Revelation 13 & 17).

It should be noted the Vatican’s double-standards on wealth distribution (which it may well change) is not its biggest lie.  Its biggest lie is its claim that it is the head of true Christendom and that it has been faithfully so since its alleged formation in the first century A.D.

To verify the second point, notice what Catholic priests and scholars have published about the beginning of the Church of Rome:

ALTHOUGH CATHOLIC TRADITION, BEGINNING IN the late second and early third centuries, regards St. Peter as the first bishop of Rome and, therefore, as the first pope, there is no evidence that Peter was involved in the initial establishment of the Christian community in Rome (indeed, what evidence there is would seem to point in the opposite direction) or that he served as Rome’s first bishop. Not until the pontificate of St. Pius I in the middle of the second century (ca. 142-ca. 155) did the Roman Church have a monoepiscopal structure of government (one bishop as pastoral leader of a diocese). Those who Catholic tradition lists as Peter’s immediate successors (Linus, Anacletus, Clement, et al.) did not function as the one bishop of Rome (McBrien, Richard P. Lives of the Popes: The Pontiffs from St. Peter to Benedict XVI. Harper, San Francisco, 2005 updated ed., p.25).

To begin with, indeed, there was no ‘pope’, no bishop as such, for the church in Rome was slow to develop the office of chief presbyter or bishop…Clement made no claim to write as bishop…There is no sure way to settle on a date by which the office of ruling bishop had emerged in Rome…but the process was certainly complete by the time of Anicetus in the mid-150s (Duffy, Eamon. Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes, 2nd ed. Yale University Press, London, 2001, pp. 9, 10,13).

In March, 2006…I argued unity, unanimity and koinonia (communion) are fundamental concepts in the New Testament and in the early Church. I argued: “From the beginning the episcopal office was “koinonially” or collegially embedded in the communion of all bishops; it was never perceived as an office to be understood or practised individually” (Kasper, Cardinal Walter. Cardinal Kasper to Anglican Communion “The Aim of Our Dialogue Has Receded Further”. CANTERBURY, England, JULY 31, 2008 (Zenit.org)).

…we have good reason to conclude that by the time of Anicetus (155-66), the church of Rome was being led by a bishop whose role resembled Ignatius or Polycarp (Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah (NJ), 2001, p. 143).

We must conclude that the New Testament provides no basis for the notion that before the apostles died, they ordained one man for each of the churches they founded…”Was there a Bishop of Rome in the First Century?”…the available evidence indicates that the church in Rome was led by a college of presbyters, rather than by a single bishop, for at least several decades of the second century (Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah (NJ), 2001, p. 80,221-222).

Admittedly the Catholic position, that bishops are the successors of the apostles by divine institution, remains far from easy to establish…The first problem has to do with the notion that Christ ordained apostles as bishops…The apostles were missionaries and founders of churches; there is no evidence, nor is it at all likely, that any one of them ever took up permanent residence in a particular church as its bishop…The letter of the Romans to the Corinthians, known as I Clement, which dates to about the year 96, provides good evidence that about 30 years after the death of St. Paul the church of Corinth was being led by a group of presbyters, with no indication of a bishop with authority over the whole local church…Most scholars are of the opinion that the church of Rome would most probably have also been led at that time by a group of presbyters…There exists a broad consensus among scholars, including most Catholic ones, that such churches as Alexandria, Philippi, Corinth and Rome most probably continued to be led for some time by a college of presbyters, and that only in the second century did the threefold structure of become generally the rule, with a bishop, assisted by presbyters, presiding over each local church (Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah (NJ), 2001, pp. 13,14,15).

And that is certainly correct concerning Rome. There were no “bishops of Rome” in the first century and certain Roman Catholic scholars understand this, hence the idea that there is an unbroken line of bishops in apostolic succession from Rome is false (more information can be found in the article Apostolic Succession).

Thus, even many Catholic scholars realize some of the truth about early church history and that Rome certainly was not the head of Christendom with a succession of pontiffs from the beginning.  Actually, the term Pontifex Maximus was a pagan title that means “bridge builder.”  No Bishop of Rome took the title Pontifex Maximus until the late 4th century.  So, the claim that there were early pontiffs in Rome is also in error.  While there may well have been faithful ministers and elders in early Rome (prior to 120 A.D.), they did not reign over all Christendom nor did they hold to many of the doctrines that the Church of Rome now holds to.

Those who are interested in knowing what the early church taught and changes that the Vatican later adopted should check out the article Which Is Faithful: The Roman Catholic Church or the Continuing Church of God?

Those interested in a synopsis of the history of the true church, should check out the free booklet Continuing History of the Church of God.

Tweet

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2014 at 7:10 am and is filed under Church History, Religious News.

• Francis wants Vatican’s constitution ripped up and re-written: a prelude to make way for ecumenism?
• Pope Francis tightens controls at Vatican Bank: A prelude to Revelation 13:16-18?
• ICG’s Mark Armstrong on Pope Francis
• Vatican City, St. Peter’s, and Satan’s Throne?
• Vatican City, Peter, Satan’s Throne, and Rome
• Time is running out on FREE book: The Last Pope
• Announcing FREE Book: The Last Pope: Do Biblical and Catholic Prophecies Point to Francis I?
• Pope Asked to Resign
• BibleNewsProphecy: What does the Bible teach about the Antichrist?
• BibleNewsProphecy: Could Pope Francis I be the Last Pope and Antichrist?