Five, Rome regards Mary as co-redemptrix with Christ, calling her “Mediatrix,” applying to her titles which scripture reserves to Christ and the Holy Spirit (“Advocate, Helper” catechism 969),  and speaking of her as “Queen over all things” (966), whose “saving office . . . continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation” (969). Rome turns Christ’s exclusive mediation – “there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” 1 Tim. 2:5 – into an inclusive one, saying “Mary’s function as mother of men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ….

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.  A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. (Matt. 7:15-20, ESV)

A recent controversy has brought talk of the communion of Rome back into the fore here in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Without addressing the immediate controversy, in which an elder in Washington, D.C. announced his departure for Rome, it is prescient to bring forward some considerations about the current state of Rome and what someone is joining if he departs from our midst to join her. Before proceeding, two remarks are in order.

One, it is difficult to provide a fair representation of Rome’s doctrine and practice, owing to the wide variety within her midst. Many of her members are nominal in their practice, and many of them are actually at odds with her official teaching on important points. For example, it is a mortal sin to intentionally miss Mass, and yet a large number of professing Romanists routinely do so: some 60% of American members attend mass “a few times a year or less,” according to Pew Research surveys, much to the chagrin of their more pious peers. In other words, a majority of her American adherents are, according to her own teaching, in serious danger of losing grace and being eternally damned. I have heard it said that Rome has had a hard time getting even many of her clergy to take her catechism seriously, and an article by one of her priests describing its reception as “chilly” and as having “ranged from serious caveats to shrill alarms” can be seen here.[1] In short, someone who goes to Rome goes to a scene of much internal tension; her vaunted unity is formal, in many respects, and lies over this practical variety. Nonetheless, as her catechism was put forth to give her official teaching, it will be used here, wide dissent from it within her own midst notwithstanding.

Two, in accordance with a common Protestant position, we do not regard someone as necessarily damned because of membership in Rome. As the Puritan William Perkins puts it in his A Reformed Catholike (ca. 1598), “the true Church of God is and has been in the present Roman church, as corn in the heap of chaff.”[2] That is, it is our belief and charitable desire that many who are yet caught up within Rome’s communion are a part of God’s people in spite of the errors to which they are exposed. As God kept 7,000 men to himself in Ahab’s wayward Israel, when Elijah thought he alone was left (1 Kgs. 19:14-18), so also do we hope that Christ retains a remnant in Rome’s midst.

That said, Rome has serious issues, a few of which we will consider here. One, according to The Catholic Project of the Catholic University of America, 38 of Rome’s 195 American dioceses[3] have gone bankrupt or are in proceedings due to payments to victims of priestly depravity. Reconsider the epigram above. Is one-fifth of her dioceses going bankrupt a healthy fruit or a rotten one? Does it proceed from a healthy tree or a diseased one?  Indeed, even those dioceses that remain solvent have seen such depravity: the archdiocese of Los Angeles has paid out $1.5 billion to over 1,850 victims, an amount well higher than the entire PCA’s giving in any year.[4] The still-solvent archdiocese of Washington, which the former PCA teaching elder will presumably join, has had at least 36 priests (inc. an archbishop) credibly accused of offenses, and had another archbishop resign over alleged mishandling of such cases elsewhere. By such rotten fruits, Rome has shown herself a den of false prophets.

Two, such horrors may be expected when Rome denies its clergy marriage, thus despising God’s means for preventing immorality – “because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife,” 1 Cor. 7:2 – and propagating what the Holy Spirit says is a teaching of demons:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. (1 Tim. 4:1-3)

We are not “to be participants with demons” (1 Cor. 10:20) and their teachings; but it is to such things that men fall when they imagine their own wisdom is greater than that of God, and substitute “self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body” which “are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:23) for what God ordained in creation (Gen. 2:24).

Three, Rome is guilty of idolatry. She believes that worship passes through an image to whom it purports to represent (Catechism 2132), and that “by becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new ‘economy’ of images” (2131), which means they are permissible now. (Comp. Christ’s own words: “until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished,” Matt. 5:18). Worse, the Sistine Chapel, where the cardinals elect popes, purports to image God the Father on its ceiling. Even Rome seems to admit that is a violation of the commandment that “you shall not make for yourself a graven image,” saying that “divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man” (Catechism 2129). (See my article “Against the Communion of Rome on the Worship of Images” here for an elaboration on this point.)

Four, when Christ had perished in our stead he said “It is finished” (Jn. 19:30), and Hebrews says repeatedly that his sacrifice was “once for all” (Heb. 10:10; comp. vv. 12, 14; 7:27; 9:12, 26). But Rome says his sacrifice is “re-presented” every time the Mass is performed (Catechism 1366-7), and that such action is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (1324) and necessary to salvation (1129). Where Christ said “Drink of it, all of you” (Matt. 26:27), Rome withholds the cup from the laity, and by regarding Christ as physically present in the elements, encourages them to be worshipped (“the Catholic Church has always offered and still offers to the sacrament of the Eucharist the cult of adoration,” Catechism 1378; and note that adoration is the worship due to God alone, i.e., they worship bread and wine as they would God himself).

Five, Rome regards Mary as co-redemptrix with Christ, calling her “Mediatrix,” applying to her titles which scripture reserves to Christ and the Holy Spirit (“Advocate, Helper” catechism 969),[5] and speaking of her as “Queen over all things” (966), whose “saving office . . . continues to bring us the gifts of eternal salvation” (969). Rome turns Christ’s exclusive mediation – “there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” 1 Tim. 2:5 – into an inclusive one, saying “Mary’s function as mother of men in no way obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its power” and “the unique mediation of the Redeemer does not exclude but rather gives rise to a manifold cooperation which is but a sharing in this one source” (Catechism 970).

Six, Rome retains the abuses against which our forefathers reacted: e.g., in the Jubilee of Aquinas (Jan. 28^th, 2023 to Jan. 28^th, 2025), homebound persons could receive a plenary indulgence by participation in the Jubilee by praying in front of an image of Aquinas. One could also get the indulgence for “the faithful departed still in purgatory” by a “pilgrimage to a holy place connected with the Order of Friars Preachers” (of which Aquinas was a part), and devoting there “a suitable time to pious recollection, concluding with the Lord’s Prayer, the symbol of faith and invocations of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Saint Thomas Aquinas.” They also paraded a relic purported to be his skull through the town of Priverno as part of the celebrations.

Seven, Rome is the scene of much theological modernism (or liberalism/progressivism). Some idea of the attitude which many Roman scholars maintain toward scripture can be inferred from the statement below. Discussing the reception of Rome’s catechism, then Cardinal Ratzinger said:

Particularly strong attacks were directed against the use of Scripture in the Catechism: as previously noted, (it was said) that this work did not take into account a whole century of exegetical work; for example, how could it be so naive as to use passages from the Gospel of John to speak of the historical figure of Jesus; it would be shaped by a literalistic faith which could be called fundamentalist, etc. With regard to the specific task of the Catechism, accurate reflection has to take place on the way in which this book should make use of historical-critical exegesis. (emphases mine)

John says of his gospel that “these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31). Yet prominent Roman scholars criticized their own catechism as “naive” for using John’s gospel to “speak of the historical figure of Jesus.” Given the Holy Spirit inspired John to write his gospel, this is a direct attack on the trustworthiness and authority of God’s word, and an act of grievous impiety and infidelity. Hence also that bit about how the catechism should have used “historical-critical exegesis,” and its fear of “a literalistic faith which could be called fundamentalist.” Christ said “Scripture cannot be broken” (Jn. 10:35) and that “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it” (Lk. 18:17), and yet many Roman scholars disdain such simple faith, and believe rather the speculations of scripture’s critics than trust God’s word itself. That may not be the teaching of Rome as such, but that it is common with people who remain within prominent positions in her midst is to her discredit.

Eight, Rome disdains to obey even straightforward commands and examples. Christ said “call no man your father on earth” (Matt. 23:9), meaning the disciples were not to be characterized by notions of superiority (“you are all brothers,” v. 8; comp. 11-12; Mk. 10:35-45). Rome has responded by making “father” the official title and form of address of all her clergy, but especially of the pope, pope coming ultimately from “papa.” Where scripture knows nothing of different classes of believers and says “Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11), Rome glories in making a hierarchy within the church, and in distinguishing different groups among God’s people (clergy/laity), even regarding as a sacrament that which distinguishes one from the common people (holy orders). Where God says “whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment” (Prov. 18:1), Rome still praises hermithood (Catechism 920-21).

Time would fail to tell of the many other ways in which Rome departs from what God has revealed. I have foregone many of the largest issues – notably, the papacy, the proper rule of faith, grace, merit, and justification – not because they have dimmed in importance, but because they are so large and important, and require so much care in examination, that I have not felt myself competent to handle them here. I have aimed for low-hanging fruit, as it were, those points on which Rome’s error is so obvious it bears no great elaboration to someone who is familiar with scripture’s statements. Let the reader ponder these things prayerfully.

Tom Hervey is a member of Friendship Presbyterian Church in Laurens County, SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, and helped modernize Volume I of James Hervey’s classic dialogue on evangelical faith, Theron and Aspasio, available now at Monergism.

[1] See also Cardinal Ratzinger [later Pope Benedict XVI], speaking of the catechism’s “current doctrinal relevance” on its 10^th anniversary here.

[2] Spelling modernized. This appears around page 331. Available for free through Google Books here.

[3] The US Conference of Catholic Bishops lists 194 dioceses, plus the archdiocese for the armed forces. Whether the special “Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter” (the jurisdiction for former Anglicans, and retaining Anglican forms) is strictly a diocese or not isn’t exactly clear, so it has been omitted.

[4] The 1,353 victims in the latest payout mentioned at the link were preceded by 508 victims in a $660 million 2007 settlement.

[5] The Greek paraklétos, meaning “helper” or “advocate,” is only ever applied to the Holy Spirit and Christ in scripture (Jn. 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7; 1 Jn. 2:1).