(Jordan Standridge – The Cripplegate) “The pope’s false teaching would have been bad enough had he just whispered it in the child’s ear. But then, with the child’s permission he decided to relay to the crowd the false teaching as well. He didn’t have to do that. He could have just lied to the child, and one could have said he buckled under pressure. But the moment the pope went out of his way to teach the crowd, was the moment that he went from being a coward to a tool of the devil.”
Pope Francis has made several controversial statements throughout the years, but perhaps none quite as controversial as the one in this video. You can watch it here.
Before I continue to write this article, I want you to know something.
Videos like these make me cry. I’m not talking symbolically here. I actually cried thinking about this poor boy and this poor crowd who were taught this demonic lesson. I don’t say that to make you feel sorry for me, but I say that to help you understand that there is no hate here (maybe a little for the Pope). I hate false religion and I despise false teachers. I can’t stand the thought of these people going to hell, and I’m thankful for the Gospel in my life, and that I have the ability to share it with the world.
Now that I got that out of the way, I do want to answer a question a friend asked me: is what the pope said actually demonic?
Sure, it is false teaching, but can you actually call it demonic?
Well, as I’ve thought about that question over the past few days, it has led me to re-watch the video a few times and really dissect the words of the pope, and I hope that what I write will be helpful to you. I would define demonic as any false teaching that distorts the Gospel (Gal. 1:6-9) in a way that would lead people to hell (Eph. 2:1-3). Any preacher on any given Sunday may say things that are wrong, but that doesn’t make it demonic. When a preacher’s words cause the people who listen to trust in some other gospel, that is when it becomes demonic (Luke 17:1-2).
As I watched the video, I have found five different, serious errors that the Pope espoused that prove that he not only was teaching error, but that he was doing so in order to lead the people who were present away from the true Gospel and into hell.
The Pope is concerned about popularity not with truth
The Pope is in a hard position here. He has a young boy standing before him. The young boy is sobbing uncontrollably. He barely has the strength or courage to approach the pope and to talk in his ear. He has a simple question: is my atheist dad in Heaven? He was a good man and had me and my siblings baptized. Is he in Heaven?
Now, I get that the Pope doesn’t understand the Gospel at all. He rejects faith alone (Eph. 2:8) as the means by which we are saved. So no one could expect him to answer this question correctly, but at the very least one could expect him to answer the question in a catholic way. Every catholic knows that only saints go straight to Heaven when they die, and even then they have to manufacture a couple of miracles to get them there. Pope John Paul II had a tough time getting to heaven himself. Here, in a couple minutes, the tears of a young child led the pope to ignore 500 years of Roman Catholic historical doctrine for a man who was an atheist, and who simply had his children baptized, something every Italian does automatically (some estimates say 96% of Italians). Simply said, the pope isn’t concerned about truth, he’s concerned about popularity (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
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