Catholicism In A Nutshell

Some major errors and false teachings of Catholicism:

 
1. Praying to Mary – she can’t hear your prayers, only God can because He alone is Omnipresent (able to be everywhere at once).
 
2. Praying to dead saints – they can’t hear you and some of them may not even be in heaven. For all you know they could have died lost and ended up in hell.
 
3. Purgatory does not exist. It cannot exist. There is no reason for it. Jesus paid the complete penalty of everyone He came to save so there’s no need for anyone to burn off sins in an imaginary place called Purgatory.
 
4. Owning and bowing down to statues – this is a violation of the 2nd commandment which forbids making and bowing down to graven images (statues).
 
5. The Catholic church teaches its members a different set of commandments than they have in their own bible. They threw out the 2nd commandment (thou shalt not bow down to graven images) and then split the tenth commandment into two (thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife & thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods).
 
6. Calling Mary the mother of God – God has no mother. He created Mary, not the other way around. Mary just was used by God to allow God to come into the world as the god-man Christ Jesus.
 
7. The priesthood – The priesthood of Judaism was abolished at the cross, which is why the Bible mentions that the veil in the temple in Jerusalem was supernaturally split in two the moment that Christ died.
 
8. Celibate (unmarried) priests – the bible says that a requirement for church leadership is that they are supposed to be married and have children that are under control. Forcing men to not marry prevents them from gaining the knowledge and experience needed to lead and counsel others regarding some of the most important issues in life. Forced celibacy also becomes a breeding ground for gross sexual immorality including homosexuality and the raping of nuns, altar boys and others.
 
9. Confession to a priest – only God can forgive sins, not a man. And reciting prayers as payment for sins is a complete waste of time – besides being an enormous insult to God who sent His Son to die for the forgiveness of sins. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can take away any sins. You owe Him a debt that you can never repay no matter how many Our Father’s, Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s you recite, even if you recite them continuously for all eternity.
 
10. Lastly, and worst of all, Catholicism has a false gospel, a false plan of salvation. They have a works gospel that says you can merit your way into heaven through your own good deeds and through the merits of dead saints and by burning off sins in Purgatory. If that was true then I guess Jesus died on the cross for nothing and I guess John the Baptist lied when he said: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” [John 1:29] and so the apostle John must have lied when he wrote: “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” [1John 1:7]
 

To keep people staying in this false version of Christianity the Catholic leadership tells their people things like:

 
1. “We have the pope, the leader of the true Christian church and Peter was the first pope.” Well the bible says that Jesus alone is the head of the Church. And if Peter was the first pope, shouldn’t he have been infallible when speaking on matters pertaining to doctrine and morals? If he was indeed infallible in that regard, as all popes say THEY are, then why in the world would the apostle Paul have had to publicly rebuke Peter regarding doctrine as recorded in Galatians 2:11?
 
2. “We have preserved the bible from the beginning of the Church age.” Actually, it was God who preserved the Bible. He ensured that Greek and Hebrew manuscripts for the Bible would not get lost. It was the Catholic Church that HID the bible from the people for hundreds of years. The Catholic church forbid people from translating the Bible into their own language so they could read it for themselves. They burned people at the stake who dared to print Bibles for the “common man” to read. They also burned any of the bibles printed by these people. Would God’s true church do that?
 
3. “We have been the true church since the very beginning.” Not true. The Catholic church is a result of emperor Constantine in the 4th century declaring “Christianity” the state religion. As a result of this declaration and to accommodate all the pagans in his realm, this false brand of Christianity became a conglomeration of many pagan rituals and beliefs blended into Christianity. Catholic saints are nothing more that renamed pagan Gods. The Rosary is nothing more than a copycat version of pagan prayer beads. The priesthood is a blend of the Jewish Levitical priesthood and ancient pagan priesthoods and practices.
 
4. “If you are a Catholic and you leave the Catholic church you will have no hope of salvation.” False. In fact, if you become a true Christian you will want to leave the catholic church out of obedience to God who says: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” [2 Corinthians 6:17]