Is the Catholic Church Christian or Cult?

The Roman Catholic Church is considered to be one of the oldest institutions in the world, and has well over one billion members.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how long the Catholic Church as we know it has been in existence. For that reason and due to space/time constraints, I will not address that issue here.

It is irrelevant to my point, so it will suffice to say that the Catholic Church has been in existence since somewhere between 100-350 AD or so.

My focus in this post is that the teachings of the Catholic Church are simply NOT Biblical. Catholics claim to be Christians, but their customs and traditions paint a conflicting picture.

There are so many things wrong with Catholic doctrine and tradition. The showy rituals and sacraments are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible, and its beliefs and practices are nothing short of blasphemy.

Let’s briefly address just a few of the major problems here.

And I’m a former Catholic who spent years in a Catholic school, so please do not tell me that I don’t have an understanding of Catholic teachings.

1.  The Crucifix – The problem with the crucifix is two-fold. First, it portrays Christ as dead, which He isn’t. Jesus was raised from the dead and is alive.

Second, it is idolatry to worship an image or statue, yet the Catholics bow down before statues of Christ hanging on a cross.

Blatant idol worship, which the Bible clearly warns us about (see #4).

2.  Priests and nuns are forbidden from marrying. – The Bible does not forbid people from marrying.  On the contrary, 1 Corinthians 7:8-9 states:

But I say to the unmarried and to the widows: It is good for them if they remain even as I am; but if they cannot exercise self-control, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

Additional Bible verses say that a Bishop must be the husband of one wife.  It doesn’t say that ANYONE is required to remain celibate.

A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach (1 Timothy 3:2)

Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well. (1 Timothy 3:12)

Now the Bible does say that if a person is able to remain unmarried, then it is better, because they can devote themselves more fully to God (Matthew 19:10-12, 1 Corinthians 7:32-38).

However, that is a CHOICE that is left up to the discretion of the individual.

So why does the Catholic Church require their priests and nuns to remain celibate?  Forced celibacy is not Biblical!

3.  Purgatory – This is a real good one. According to Catholic teaching, purgatory is a place where people go after death and before they get to heaven. In a nut shell, it is a place of punishment where people are temporarily sent to be cleansed of their sins in the fires of purgatory.

They believe that you can both pray to hasten a loved one’s purification so that they can get to heaven faster, and that you can pray to your loved ones who are in purgatory so that they can intercede for you (we’ll get to this one in a minute).

There is absolutely NO mention of such a place in the Christian Bible!

The Catholics, however, take this information from II Maccabees, which is found in the Apocrypha. And the Apocrypha is only found in the Catholic Bible.

Yes, purgatory is a fictitious place that the Catholic Church made up.  Period.

4.  Blatant idolatry – The Bible clearly warns against idolatry, yet the Catholic church practices it openly. If you walk into any Catholic church, you find statues of Jesus on the cross, Mary, Joseph, and even images of saints.

As if that isn’t bad enough, they also idolize the Pope.  If bowing down to a man isn’t idolatry, then I don’t know what is.

‘You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your land, to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 26:1)

‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me (Exodus 20:4-5)

5.  Praying to dead people….yes, Mary is DEAD.  The Roman Catholic Church teaches that people should pray to Mary and the saints.

Well, the Church will state that it’s stance is that they aren’t supposed to actually pray to the saints, but that they’re supposed to pray and ask the deceased saints to pray for them.

Ridiculous!

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6)

Mary and the saints cannot intercede for you!  Your deceased relatives cannot intercede for you!

The ONLY way to God is through Jesus.

The Bible tells us that we are ONLY to pray to God and that Jesus is the only One that can intercede for us.

For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus… (1 Timothy 2:5)

6.  Mary did NOT ascend to heaven!  That brings us to the things the Catholic Church teaches about Mary the mother of Jesus.

They lead people astray in teaching that Mary was without sin, that she is the mother of God, and that she ascended to heaven.

NOWHERE does the Bible say any of these things.

Mary was human, therefore she was not without sin.

Mary was not the mother of God. She was the mother of Jesus.

Mary did not ascend into heaven.

These teachings are FALSE.

Praying the rosary is against the Bible. No one should be praying to Mary (see #5), nor should they be reciting repetitive prayers.

The Bible warns us about this in Matthew 6:7:

And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Bowing to statues of Mary is idolatry (see #4).

Mary was HUMAN and she died, the way the rest of us who aren’t around for the rapture will die.

6.  The sacrament of confession.  The Roman Catholic Church teaches that you must go to confession to be forgiven of your sins.

By confession, they mean going to a priest, kneeling in a confessional and telling him every way you’ve sinned since your last confession. The priest then assigns you “penance”, which is usually reciting prayers to atone for those sins.

Hog wash!

Again, this is completely Unbiblical.

No human has the power to forgive all your sins.  Only God can do that!

Sure, you can forgive someone who has wronged you, but that is still something that must be confessed to God. And that person has no authority to forgive the rest of your sins, all the while leaving God out of the picture.

But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:7-9)

“He” meaning God, not priests. How can a human, who has no power to forgive his own sins, forgive yours?

He can’t.  This “sacrament” is downright blasphemous.

7.  Salvation by works.  First and foremost, the Catholic Church denies that it teaches salvation by works.

Although it claims salvation by faith, the Roman Catholic Church actually believes in salvation by faith, baptism (infant baptism, which is also Unbiblical), and then continuation of the sacraments it has created.

The church is steeped in ritualistic tradition, including long, sometimes elaborate masses, as well as sacraments that members are expected to participate in.

There is no mention of any such thing as sacraments in the Bible, but yet the Catholic Church is huge on these and claims that your soul is lost if you don’t take part in them.

“THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS ARE THE NECESSARY MEANS ESTABLISHED BY CHRIST THROUGH WHICH HIS REDEEMING, LIFE-GIVING, SANCTIFYING GRACE IS IMPARTED TO INDIVIDUALS’ SOULS. You must centre your life upon the sacraments established by Christ if you want to save your soul. means of salvation. … The sacraments are the source of your real life, the divine life that will unite you with God in this world and in eternity. Let nothing make you think that you can get along without the sacraments. Without them your soul must die. … IF YOU DON’T RECEIVE THE SACRAMENTS AT ALL, YOU DON’T RECEIVE GRACE. If you don’t receive them properly, that is, if you receive them seldom and with little devotion, you receive less grace” (L.G. Lovasik, The Eucharist in Catholic Life, pp. 14,15).

There are a whole bunch of Bible verses that make it clear that salvation is a gift of God and by His grace, not by our works. I’ll include just one.

 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:8-10)

8.  The Pope or “Holy See”.  This is one of the greatest atrocities of the Catholic Church, from the elaborate and showy coronation ceremony, to the fancy robes and head piece, to the claim that he is God on earth.

The Catholic Church is concerned with appearances and works, not with salvation by faith and the state of peoples’ hearts.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matthew 23:27-28)

The Vatican claims that the Pope is infallible (in regards to faith and the Bible) and that he takes the place of God on earth.

Those are quite serious claims, considering that the Bible teaches that NO ONE except Jesus is infallible. It also teaches that we are to be humble.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God  (Romans 3:23)

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:3-7)

Can you even imagine one of the early disciplines getting all dressed up in fancy clothes, parading around claiming to be God on earth, and expecting people to bow to him?

No, you can’t, because that is not how the Bible instructs us to behave.

Even Jesus came to serve, so what makes the Pope believe he should be treated as if he’s God?

It’s blasphemy, plain and simple.

Are the Beliefs of the Catholic Church Satanic?

There is a tremendous amount of evidence tying Catholicism in with the occult.  And many believe, myself included, that the anti-Christ will rise out of the Vatican.

If you still aren’t convinced that the Roman Catholic Church is leading people to hell like sheep to a slaughter, I encourage you to watch this video.

It gives a very in-depth look at the occultic elements within the Catholic Church.  If you still aren’t convinced that Catholicism is not Biblical by the time you’ve watched some of this, then you’re intentionally choosing to ignore the truths that are right in front of your face.

Satanic Vatican – Full Length:

Written By Melissa S. | Friend Melissa S. on Facebook

The Unbiblical Teachings of the Catholic Church