Catholic Bible 101

The Holy Catholic Church has taken a lot of hits from its enemies this past decade. As Nixon once said about the press - "I gave 'em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish."  The sins of the priests with young altar boys over a 50 year period (1952 - 2002) amounted to only 4% of priests being accused of this crime, but if you listened to the news media, you would think that 96% of Catholic priests were guilty of this, instead of being totally innocent.

Some protestants, in addition to the media, piled on as well. "SEE", they say, THIS PROVES THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS EVIL."  Of course, they were saying this after David Koresh, PROTESTANT MINISTER, molested all of those young girls in Waco, after Jimmy Swaggart, PROTESTANT MINISTER, had been down to Bourbon Street on numerous occasions to see his girl friends, after Jim Bakker, PROTESTANT MINISTER, had had his fling with his girl friend, after Jim Jones, PROTESTANT MINISTER, had poisoned all of those kids and adults down in Jonestown, and after the Puritans, PROTESTANTS, had murdered all of those "witches" up there in Salem.  And more recently, Tony Alamo, PROTESTANT MINISTER, was arrested in Arkansas for molesting young girls.  And who can forget Warren Jeff's MORMON compound in West Texas, where young girls were forced to marry "elders" in the MORMON Church?

So how should we respond to these accusations that the Church is evil, a charge leveled by the media, some protestants, and Freemasons?   To the media, I would say that lying and slandering conservative candidates for office is also a big sin.  And they do that every day. And who can forget NBC news intentionally rigging a pickup truck to blow up, to prove how unsafe it was on impact?  Who can forget ABC News employees putting tainted meat out at Food Lion Grocery stores, and then showing footage of that on the news, so as to prove that Food Lion cared more about profits than consumer safety?  And who can forget CBS News lying about George W. Bush not serving in the Air National Guard in Houston, and providing forged documents to "prove it"?   No, the media has no right to cast the first stone.

As regards protestants who calumniate the Church, just mention Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Jones, David Koresh, the Salem witch trials, Tony Alamo, Jim Bakker, Jesse Jackson and his illegitamate baby, Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley, etc.  No, the Protestants have as many sins as anyone, especially now that so many of them subscribe to the "Health and Wealth" gospel of Joel Osteen and Company. And then there is John Hagee, who makes up so much of the end of the world stuff and passes it all off as fact.

The Freemasons?  They are a bit trickier, because they are very secretive about who they are and what they do behind their windowless lodges, shrines, and temples with locked doors.  But if you've ever had a childhood friend who was clueless about school and now is well off, and who kind of shuns you and puts down the Catholic Church in e-mails and in person, the odds are pretty good that he is a freemason.  They have no right to throw rocks at us either, because they participate in secret religious rites before someone in a tux and top hat called their "Worshipful Master". They have their own bible, and they are assured passage into the great celestial lodge in the sky if they are good masons and do a lot of great works on earth, and all without any mention of Jesus. Oh, and did I say they have an initiation rite with a resurrection of a dead Egyptian named Hiram Abif, which is clearly mocking the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  So when they attack the Church, make them declare that they are Freemasons, and then throw it all back at them, including the fact that they take a secret frivoulous oath on a bible to be disemboweled if they reveal the masonic secrets, which they don't even know yet. This clearly violates James 5:12.  And be sure and ask them when they pray in their lodge, if they pray to Jesus Christ, or rather to something called the "Great Architect of the Universe", a term that is nowhere to be found in the Bible.

In short, the sins of 4% of Catholic priests over a 50 year period  (.08% a year !) do not negate Catholic teaching on ANYTHING, any more than the betrayal of Judas, an apostle of Jesus hand picked by Jesus himself who represents 1/12 = 8.33 % of the apostles, negates Christianity!