Lux Lucet

 

 

 

“The Romanists have very cleverly built three wall around themselves,” observed Martin Luther in his treatise To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation. “Hitherto,” he continues, “they have protected themselves by these walls in such a way that no one has been able to reform them. As a result, the whole of Christendom has fallen abominably.

In the first place, when pressed by the temporal powers they have made decrees and declared that the temporal power had no jurisdiction over them, but that on the contrary, the spiritual power is above the temporal. In the second place, when the attempt is made to reprove them with the Scriptures, they raise the objection that only the pope may interpret the Scriptures. In the third place, if threatened with a council, their story is that no one may summon a council but the pope.”

In this way they have cunningly stolen our three rods from us, that they may go unpunished. They have ensconced themselves within the safe stronghold of these three walls so that they can practice all the knavery and wickedness which we see today.” Thus Luther.

Antichrist Versus The Donald

Semper eadem, always the same, ranks among the many claims of the Roman Catholic Church-State. And at least when it comes to the art of skullduggery, this is no idle boast. I was reminded of the Luther quote this past week while watching events unfold on the U.S.-Mexico border. As was reported on this blog in December, Pope Francis I made his way to Juarez, Mexico, just over the border from El Paso, Texas, where he held an open air, mass, prayed for those who have died while crossing the U.S.- Mexico border, and to boot managed to inject himself into American presidential politics. All in all, the border visit, though short, was a rather eventful occasion for the current occupant of the office of Antichrist.

For the purposes of this essay, of particular interest are the remarks the pope made about the proposed border wall advocated by some of the Republican presidential candidates, most notably Donald J. Trump. The papal quote that got things stirred up was reported by the Associated Press as follows,

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,” he [Pope Francis] said. While Francis said he would “give the benefit of the doubt” because he had not heard Trump’s border plans independently, he added, “I say only that this man is not a Christian if he has said things like that.”

To which Trump responded by calling the pope’s comments “disgraceful.” And from there, it was on like Donkey Kong.

So how does this relate to the quote from Luther. It seems to me in this way. Just as Rome framed the debate in Luther’s day so that the reformers could never win and the Church could never lose, so it is today with the immigration debate. This time around, Rome has three new walls by which it suppresses debate on the subject and advances its own agenda. Premise one, immigration, in particular Roman Catholic immigration from Central and South America to the US, is an unalienable right of the peoples of those nations. Premise two, the costs of funding that right are to be borne by American taxpayers. And premise three, Americans have no basis whatsoever to object to any of this. When Rome says jump, Americans are duty bound to joyfully ask how high, and pay any price and bear any burden in obedience to the Church’s immigration pronouncements.

That this is the case can be seen from the fact whenever Rome takes it upon itself to lecture Americans about immigration, it is almost always the rights of immigrants that are held up as paramount. What is good for the actual American people is almost never in view.

 

Take, for example, the issue of the border wall. The pope doesn’t like it. Fine. But what about deportation? What if it is discovered that, having violated US immigration laws, someone is in the country illegally? Is it not reasonable for the US to have the option of deporting said person back to his homeland? Nope, says Rome. No can do. According to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, “In light of recent enforcement actions conducted by the Department of Homeland Security for the purpose of deporting 121 individuals, primarily mothers with children, the bishops who chair the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Migration and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network called for an end to such practices.”

Okay, okay, okay. I get it. No wall. No deportations. But surely there must be something Americans can do to curb the abuses of the current immigration system. How about this? What if instead of building the Great Wall of the Rio Grande or tossing people en mass out of the country, Americans took a different tack altogether. What if the US moved to eliminate birthright citizenship? As it is now, with a few exceptions, if a foreign woman gives birth in to child in US territory, that child is considered an American citizen. If the mother is indigent, the medical costs are born by the taxpayers as is required by federal government mandate. But the potential costs don’t stop there Although foreigner are not allowed to apply for welfare benefits, they are allowed to file for them on behalf of their American born children. So the US taxpayer is once again on the hook.

With the obvious abuses available via the birthright citizenship law, surely the Church wouldn’t object to a reform in this area, would it? Oh, how naive of you! Of course it would. You see, according to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Church believes that a repeal of birthright citizenship would create a permanent underclass in U.S. society, contravening U.S. democratic tradition, undermining the human dignity of innocent children who would be punished though they did nothing wrong, and ultimately weakening the family.”

So, let’s see. No wall. No deportations. No recourse to changing citizenship laws. What options do Americans have to ensure that their interests are protected? As Rome sees it, none at all. It’s check, and it’s mate. In the eyes of the Roman Antichrist, it is the moral duty of Americans to fork over the cash to support unlimited, government subsidized immigration and just shut up about it already.

The Hypocrisy of Rome

Speaking of the arrogant and hypocritical rulers of his day, Jesus told his listeners, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works; for they say, and do not do. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers” (Matthew 23:2-4).

And as it was with the scribes and Pharisees of yesterday, so it is with Antichrist today. He presumes to lecture the nations about their immigration policies and the need for politicians to be generous with other people’s money, but he himself won’t lift so much as a finger to help.

Last fall, when Francis was in the US haranguing Congress about US immigration policy, Texas Republican Michael Burgess had this to say, “The thing that always strikes me when we get into these discussion is the United states takes in more people every year legally than the rest of the world combined. You start from that premise – it was 1.7 million last year, you want to add another 400,000 to 600,000 that came in without the benefit of doing it the right way. What is the right number? If over 2 million is not enough, would someone please tell me what that right number is, and would other countries act accordingly.”

I cannot presume to speak for what all other nations would do, but the Vatican’s stance on immigration is fairly easy to state. Except in a few cases, immigration to the Vatican is simply not permitted. As the Washington Times
puts it,

The Vatican, for its part, welcomes millions of visitor a year – but allows only a very select few, who meet strict criteria, to be admitted as residents or citizens…The strict policy has left the Vatican open to criticism in the past, including from right-wing political leaders in Italy who want tighter immigration controls in their country and have rebuffed the papacy’s calls for leniency by asking how many refugees live in the enclave.

But not to fear, the Vatican does in fact, from time to time, permit actual refugees to settle within its confines. The Washington Times article goes on to report, “Last week the Vatican government announced it had accepted a mother, father and two children who are Melkite Greek Catholics, and who have asked for asylum in Italy.” Let’s see, a father and mother and two children. Holy smoke! The Vatican’s gone all Emma Lazarus on us! Who knew? I mean, I’m reduced to chastened silence at the sheer magnitude of Antichrist’s charitable impulses. Four whole people. Wow. For all that, I think American’s should take up a collection to build a replica of the Statue of Liberty in Saint Peter’s Square. We could even put a plaque on it that reads, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses single four person family yearning to breathe free.” Okay, I know that Rome has huddled masses in a manner of speaking. But that’s another issue.

According to the Washington Times article, “A Vatican spokesman did not return an email seeking comment on its policy.”

 

The Great Wall of the Vatican

As a result of Francis’ comments about the proposed border wall, Rome has faced scrutiny about its own wall. Dan Scavino, Donald Trump’s Director of Social Media, pointed Rome’s hypocrisy on this matter in a tweet, saying that, “Amazing comments from the Pope – considering Vatican City is 100% surrounded by massive walls.” As funny as that was, even funnier has been the lame defense of the wall offered by papal apologists. As this CNN story reports,

Yes, the Vatican does have walls, and some are quite large. But anyone can stroll through the Pope’s front yard — St. Peter’s Square — at nearly any time. Only metal detectors stand between the iconic landmark and the millions of tourists who come to see the historic headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.

In other words, Vatican City may have walls, but the front door is always open, said the Rev. James Martin, a [Jesuit] Catholic priest and editor at large at America magazine.

Alright, so the Jesuits have spoken. Who can possibly counter their brilliant argument? Actually, anyone who takes a few seconds to think about it. You see, the discussion of the walls along the border between the US and Mexico relates to the issue of immigration, but the good Reverend would have you think that because the Vatican lets in millions of tourists – from which it likely makes millions of dollars – it follows that the US should let in millions of poor, unskilled immigrants which will likely cost the nation billions of dollars in welfare payouts. Tourists vs. immigrants. They’re not the same thing. It would appear that the Rev’s logic is rather lacking. Or, what is more likely the case, he’s simply trying to put unsuspecting people off the scent by dragging the red herring of tourism across a discussion about immigration. To no one’s surprise, the New York Times took up Martin’s argument, but that simply underscores lameness of the mainstream media.

Even when Rome appears to put its money where its mouth is, there’s a catch. Catholic Charities is well known in the US for various philanthropic activities. Less well known is the fact that most of its funding comes from American taxpayers. As the Washington Times reports,

Not to be lost in the pomp and circumstance of Pope Francis’ first visit to Washington is the reality that the Catholic Church he oversees has become one of the largest recipients of federal largesse in America.

The Church and related Catholic charities and schools have collected more than $1.6 billion since 2012 in U.S contracts and rants in a far-reaching relationship that spans from school lunches for grammar school students to contracts across the globe to care for the poor and needy at the expense of Uncle Same, a Washington Times review of federal spending records shows.

Note to ACLU, instead of harassing municipalities for the grievous crime of displaying a poster of the Ten Commandments in the local courthouse, why don’t you go after a real breach of separation of church and state and challenge the premise that Roman Catholic religious charities have the right to gorge themselves at the public trough. Who knows, you might end up actually doing something useful for a change.

 

Pawn or Chess Master?

In responding to criticism from pope Francis, Donald Trump commented that, “They [the Mexican government] are using the Pope as a pawn and t hey should be ashamed of themselves for doing so.” This strikes me as more than a bit wide of the mark. A Jesuit pope the pawn of the government of Mexico? Hardly. If anything, it is the pope playing the part of the chess Grand Master while the pawns in this story are the migrants risking their lives to cross the desert. Doubtless, the Mexican government is more than happy to offload some of its social problems on the US taxpayer, but the principle orchestrator of mass migration to the US is Rome itself.

In his article Romanizing America through Illegal Immigration, Pastor Ralph Ovadal commented,

Over the past few years, I have spent time pointing out that the Roman Catholic Church is aiding and abetting the criminal invasion of America from Mexico because the illegals are almost all Roman Catholics

The leadership of the Roman Catholic Church has a stake in Reconquista [Reconquista was a popular term from about ten years back; it described a movement by certain radical Mexican groups to reclaim large portions of the American Southwest for Mexico]. The pope and his henchmen are looking to turn America, founded and still a Protestant country, into a Roman Catholic country…

As might be expected, the priests tend to be even blunter than their bishops with regard to the Catholic church’s “human rights” work on behalf of illegal Mexican immigrants. For instance, consider this from Priest Paul Marx, as quoted in the well-respected Catholic paper, the Wanderer, May, 1987: “America is a dying nation. I tell the Mexicans when I am down in Mexico to keep on having children, and then to take back what we took from them: California, Texas, Arizona, and then to take the rest of the country as well.

Viewed from Rome’s perspective, large, strong, historically Protestant republics such as the US are a major impediment to its longstanding goal of world hegemony. If Rome is to rule the world, the Protestant West must be taken out of the way.

The Blasphemies of Rome

It never ceases to amaze me how freely the popes of Rome spew forth blasphemy. Take, for example, Francis’ brief stay in Mexico. During that time he, 1) prayed for the dead, 2) sought spiritual guidance from a demonic apparition of Mary, 3) invoked the Gospel in connection with comments supporting and open border between the US-Mexico, and 4) performed a mass.

It is never proper to pray for the dead. Doing so is a form of necromancy, and such occult activity is prohibited by Scripture. This is why, citing 2 Samuel 12:21-23, Luke 16:25-26, and Revelation 14:13, the Westminster Confession states, “Prayer is to be made for things lawful; for all sorts of men living, or that shall live hereafter; but not for the dead, nor for those of whom it may known that they have sinned the sin unto death.”

 

As to the apparitions of Mary, a book by Timothy F. Kauffman called Quite Contrary: A Biblical Reconsideration of the Apparitions of Mary is instructive. Writes Kauffman,

Which means that in lavishing its affection on the apparitions of Mary, in bestowing riches on the shrines and statues of Mary, by emphasizing the ritual wearing of the Scapular and praying of the Rosary, both of which were instituted by apparitions; the papacy, whether knowing it or not, has made itself a co-conspirator in a worldwide effort to deceive people into trusting that a false Jesus, or Mary, can save them. And in cooperating with the apparition to confer the messianic attributes of Jesus Christ on Mary, the papacy, whether inadvertently or otherwise, has joined its hands with a spirit which preaches that a false Jesus can take away people’s sins through repeated, daily sacrifices – a concept with which the Holy Spirit disagrees categorically, and a ritual which was done away with completely at the institution of the New Covenant.

And if the apparitions of Mary, of Jesus and of St. Michael are guilty of deception and teaching a false gospel to the masses, then the papacy, in propagating the messages, rituals and doctrines of the apparitions, has made itself guilty as well.

By association (156).

While in Juarez, the pope said, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges is not Christian….This is not in the Gospel. ” The natural rejoinder to which is to point out that the pope has no idea what the Gospel is. There is no Gospel, no good news, in Roman Catholicism. In Rome, Jesus makes salvation possible, but you must secure it with your good works. If you don’t do enough of them in life, you must suffer in purgatory after death.

The Gospel of justification by belief alone is the only Gospel of Jesus Christ. But according to Rome, anyone who believes it is accursed. Canon 24 of the Council of Trent reads,

If anyone says that the justice received is not preserved and also not increased before God through good works, but that those works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase, let him be anathema.

If we had nothing else to go on, this utterance by itself would be sufficient to prove that Rome is not a Christian organization. I can think of no more serious sin than that of damning the only Gospel by which men are saved.

As to the mass, it is blasphemy for a man to claim for himself the power of calling the Son of God from heaven and of imprisoning him in a cracker. Every mass conducted by every priest of Rome everywhere in the world is an insult to the once for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross. And those who participate in this fiction eat and drink judgment to themselves.

In sum, all the pope’s activities while in Mexico and on the border represent, not acts of Christian faith, but the activities of Antichrist, who sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

And this is man has the gall to call another’s faith into question?

A Biblical View of the Immigration Question

So, what does the Bible teach about immigration. Lord willing, I’ll address this in more detail at a later date. For now, a summary will have to do.

A Scripturalist stance on immigration has not yet been fully developed. As far as I am aware, Gordon Clark did not write on immigration and John Robbins said little on the subject. To my knowledge, Robbins made only one reference to immigration in his books, essays and lectures. This reference can be found in the question and answer session of Robbins’ lecture The Educational Establishment Versus Civilization. At about the 25:30 mark, Robbins takes an audience question from a man who believes in immigration restriction. To which Robbins responds, “I would [argue for free immigration], because it is not a legitimate function of government to decide where people will live, if I can put it that way.”

Although his comment is brief, Robbins does give us the basic outline for understanding how to approach the immigration question. As a Scripturalist, Robbins referred all questions of politics back to the Bible. Since the Bible gives only two legitimate functions of government – the punishment evildoers and praise of the good – and the Bible does empower governments to prohibit people from moving from one country to another, there is no Biblical basis for governments to erect the complex systems of immigration restriction that are common today. Among other things, this rule out a border wall.

But before one supposes that this puts John Robbins in agreement with the pope, it needs to be understood that there is more to the immigration question than walls Take the matter of citizenship. The current interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment held by the courts and by Vatican spokesmen is that any person, with some exceptions, born within the borders of the US is a citizen of the US. But this is not the Bible’s view of citizenship.

Sometimes the US is referred to as a proposition nation. This is good language. It means that those not born Americans citizens can become Americans, not by belonging to some particular ethnic group, but be swearing loyalty to the Constitution. Interestingly, this was the way citizenship worked in ancient Israel as well. “And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the LORD, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land” (Exodus 12:48). A stranger could become as a native of the land by agreeing to take the sign of the covenant, which was showing his agreement with the constitution of Israel, the Law of Moses.

Ruth provides a specific example of a foreigner becoming a citizen of by oath. She told her mother in law Naomi, “Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God” (Ruth 1:16). Ruth became a citizen of Israel by agreeing to abide by the terms of the Law of Moses.

Paul told the Philippians, “For our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). And how do we get to be citizens of heaven? By agreeing to a proposition, namely, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Kingdom of Heaven is a proposition nation.

From this it follows that the proper basis for determining citizenship should be based on what the Bible teaches us about church membership. The historic position of the Presbyterian church is that there are two ways a person becomes a member of the church. One, by having at least one believing parent. And two, by profession of faith. Translating this into the political realm, national citizenship should be conferred in one of two ways. A person becomes a citizen of the US (or any other nation) by having at least one American citizen for a parent. The other option would be for that person himself to take an oath of citizenship. This process is simple and Biblical, and has the added advantage of removing the taxpayer abuse that occurs under the present system. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is in the wrong when they denounce those who advocate the removal of birthright citizenship.

Another consideration is the welfare state. The mass immigration of today is to a large extent government subsidized immigration. As mentioned above, someone who is not a naturalized citizen cannot apply for welfare in the US. But that doesn’t meant such persons do not receive government assistance. The anchor baby provision allows non-citizens to request welfare on behalf of their American born children. Catholic Charities is heavily involved in providing assistance to immigrant families, but Catholic Charities has 60 percent of its budget covered by Uncle Sam, so it really is another form of the public dole. That is, governments tax their citizens to bring in immigrants. This increases job competition in certain areas of the economy, driving wages in those sectors below where the market price would be without the immigration subsidy. This puts employers in a position of earning a greater profits than they would in the absence of the subsidy. It is another example of privatizing profits while socializing costs. This is obviously unfair to those who either lose their jobs or have their wages reduced as a result of subsidized immigration. Further, it is unfair to those whose taxes are used to provide the immigration subsidy. A Christian immigration policy requires the elimination of the welfare state. But don’t wait for Rome to hop on board that bandwagon. After all, Rome’s obedient minions are one of the main reasons we have the welfare state in the US in the first place.

Conclusion

Immigration has long been a hot button issue in the US, but all too often, the discussion has been based on hot-tempered ignorance rather than level headed reason. Rome has exploited confusion on the immigration issue to its advantage, seeing it as an opportunity to increase its numbers and power in the US, while at the same time offloading the costs of this effort on the hard pressed American taxpayers. And if anyone objects to its activities – even if the objection at times is itself confused – the Antichrist Roman Catholic Church-State attempts to uses its perceived moral authority to shame the dissenter into silence.

The Bible provides God’s blueprint for a moral immigration policy. One that both welcomes the stranger and respects the persons and property of American citizens, the one group whose interests are almost never considered in any discussion on the topic of immigration.